Christmas Stocking

My older daughter asked for a stocking for her boyfriend to coordinate with the one I made for her.
It's taken me awhile to get back into the groove,
since I haven't touched needle and thread in ages!
I had to go back to my handdyed project for seam treatment inspiration.

It feels good to be stitching again!

Taking Control of My Life, and Kicking Old Habits to the Curb

I haven't pick up a needle and thread, or a tatting shuttle in ages. I had family and friends visit from mid-May through mid-July, so my "stuff" was put away. I haven't yet gotten it back out. Now we're coming into serious hurricane season, so things will probably stay packed up, ready to be thrown onto beds prior to evacuating. Just another day in Paradise!

I don't usually bring my personal life into this blog, but this is too important not to share. In late July, I joined an online challenge to lose 50 pounds from August 1st through New Year's Day 2010. Those of us who came in at the beginning actually started early. I started on 7/20, and as of this morning I have lost 12 pounds.

It's pretty extreme, I have to lose 2.25 pounds a week to make my goal, and I'm ahead of plan. It has taken creating exercise plans, and menus to get the most nutrition in my allotted calories, and a lot of hard work. I am lighter physically , but more importantly, I am lighter in SPIRIT. Deep in my heart, I felt I was doomed to be FAT forever. Now, I have proven to myself that I CAN and WILL lose this extra weight.

If you are interested in joining us or learning more, please email me using the link in my profile.
Even now, people are still joining in!


Here is one of my visual motivation tools

Each faux pearl is one pound lost, each green crystal is 5 pounds and each green chunky bead is 10 pounds lost. I will have a pretty necklace when I am done. I will swap out the faux pearls for real ones when I reach my goal and string this permanently. The blue bead is just a stopper and the clear beads by the chunk are spacers to keep the pearls from snuggling into the bigger beadhole.

Tatting Tuesday – 25 Motif Challenge

#19 is the ‘Christmas Ball Cover” by Sandra Scales from Needle Tatting With Style Book 1

Photographic Phriday -- Flashback

During Rachel’s sophomore year in high school she would stop in one of the other science classrooms just to visit the gerbils.  There was one she was particularly fond of, whom she nicknamed  “Vlad, the impaler” because he would bite any hand coming near him.

What can I say?  She roots for the villain…

At the end of the school year, all the gerbils had gone to new homes, except for Vlad.  She went back and forth about taking him, since we had gone through gerbils and their short life span years before.  She wasn’t sure she wanted to go through that again and honestly, as the family mortician, I wasn’t sure I was up for it either.   But she was afraid he was going to end up being snake food, so on the last day of school, he became a member of our family.

So it turns out, away from the school and the other gerbils, Vlad is as sweet as can be.  You could put your hand in his cage and he would climb up on it.  He never bit any of us.

Sleepy Vlad…

 

 

EXACTLY one week after bringing him home, Rachel looks in Vlad’s cage and, yup, you guessed it, BABIES. 

Rachel had brought home a knocked-up gerbil. 

I have to hand it to Vlad because SHE kept her girlish figure, we never suspected anything.  5 baby gerbils.  3 boys and 2 girls

 

 

We ended up keeping them all, though we did separate the boys and girls. 

Tatting Tuesday – 25 Motif Challenge

#16 is a variation of ”Curved Edging” by Sandra Scales in Needle Tatting With Style Book 1. If I had done one more repeat, I would have had a motif. I’m not sure why it curved so much.

#17 is “Edging #2” from Elegant Tatting by Janet Carroll

#18 is "Edging 3006" from Tatting Doilies and Edgings edited by Rita Weiss (who sure gets/got around LOL). It is also found in The Tatter’s Treasure Chest Edited by Mary Caroline Waldrep as “Empress”

All are done in my Hand Dyed Thread

Photographic Phriday

Lordy, I just crack myself up

 

04/04/09  Kayaking Sunset

 

01/22/09 Sailboat Regatta

 

02/13/09 Foggy Morning

 

Valentine’s Day ‘09 Bahia Honda State Park

Changes are coming!

I just wanted to give my followers advance notice that I have created another blog to aid in my de-stashing efforts. Some things will be for sale, some will be postage only offers, some will be giveaways. There will be craft books, fabrics, threads...whatever I have too much of or no longer want/need. Crafts include crazy quilting, tatting, sewing, jewelry making, quilting

Unfortunately, I created this after setting up a program to limit my time on the computer. I'm not sure how these two efforts will work together!

Please sign up as a follower on the destasher blog if you are interested. I won't be cross posting.

More to come, I'm still working out the details