uneven edges...

My Dark Oak Woman name just wasn't suiting me any longer. I love having an "Indian name" but it didn't describe me completely. I have a history with uneven edges so this new name is more fitting. One of my legs is longer than the other. When I was a kid this didn't bother me but as I get older it causes me pain now and then. So, I'm physically uneven and more aware of it. It would be impossible to find someone who isn't uneven.

Alas, I am also creatively uneven.

When I made my very first pieced quilt I didn't understand the quarter-inch seam concept AT ALL. It was a disaster. But, I managed to get all of it lined up on top. You shoulda seen the bottom. Several years later I made a bowtie quilt and didn't like the size of my blocks so I cut them down. This time I wasn't so lucky with the outcome. It does add to the "charm" of the quilt though, don't you think?



Then there was my first afghan...

I dove right in without understanding how to end a row, make a chain and begin the next row. Luckily I thought of a way to fix it by crocheting an edge around all 4 sides and today my mistakes are hardly visible(this is a "before" picture).



Now, thankfully, I have figured out the quarter-inch seam and how to end/begin a crocheted row.

Have you ever noticed how hard it is to trim your own bangs???....

thrifted afghan pictures...

I just LOVE this afghan!! My mom's mom had one and I have always wondered where it went. I'm sure some cousin has it but mom thinks it may have been donated. No telling, that was well over 20 years ago. Anyway, I've never seen one in a thrift store til now and this is a beauty! There are several squares in need of shoring up with some matching yarn but that can wait til we get back home, it won't unravel before then. Sorry for the poor quality of the pictures, it was late at night and I've got no editing software on this computer.










(Nan kicking Bert's butt on bags of our salvaged wool)

We're Here!!

We arrived yesterday afternoon(Sunday) at my parents home in North Carolina. Whew, what a drive! Today we went to a thrift shop for wool blazers and sweaters and I scored a gorgeous granny square afghan(pics tomorrow). I'm hoping for more treasure hunting in the coming days. We plan on meeting up with my sister-in-law at some point and a friend of my mom's with two daughters near Sarah's age. So we'll have plenty of things going on. My brother got us online with the girls' computer which helps. I can take pictures with their camera and share from here.

I'm working on another batwing shawl and I'm hoping to have a machine quilting lesson as well(I brought my fall turning twenty again quilt).

Can I get a rewind button?

The kind that lets you rewind anywhere from 1 to 10 minutes of your life but not the lesson you just learned. The kind that will keep you from knocking a bottle of lotion off the dresser onto your toe causing great(and I mean GREAT and longlasting) pain. Also the kind that will rewind to the part of your afghan you are about to mess up on so you can "not" make the mistake. Bigtime mess up, it has been frogged within an inch of its life. One that would also rewind to let you put the dogs in their kennel about an hour later than you did the first time so they can do their business and not bark all. night. long. because they have to "go". That's the kind of button I want.

I did finally drag myself to the neighborhood non-emergency walk-in clinic to spend 3 hours sitting. And redoing some rows on the aforementioned frogged afghan. It is good news because I might not/probably don't have an ear infection(it was too swollen to tell) but bad news because I have "significant" amounts of mucus in my sinuses that isn't draining very well. This is why it feels like there's a boiled egg shoved in my right ear. I also have "significant" chest congestion(that I haven't even noticed) and a raspy sound in my lungs. So, I'm on these horrible chewable suda-something tablets(holy cow they are NASTY, but the other option was a shot), and antibiotics because I might have a lung infection. That was $100 well spent. I do believe a nap is in my near future.

This means, of course, that I'm letting myself off the hook for any and all housework(can you say PARTAY!) except for cooking and folding some laundry. We're having pinto soup beans and "fried" cabbage(which is just cabbage cooked in a small amount of buttered water) and tuna salad sandwiches. The cabbage, believe it or not, was requested by Sarah. She's so smart!

And in other news:


(my mom with one of three new kitties-this is the male baby)

Several weeks ago my mom's sweet Nancy cat decided to escape and, sadly, hasn't been seen since. Her sister Sissy was missing her badly so mom adopted two sibling babies from their local no-kill shelter. They arrived a few days ago but are too busy having fun to let anyone take many pictures. Yesterday their longtime neighbor moved to go live closer to her family in another state. She left mom with her 5 or 6 year-old kitty Priscilla, a fat, fluffy, calico. I am awaiting pics of the female baby and Priscilla. The new babies don't have names yet, Flossie and Freddy were what my mom had wanted at first but they didn't fit. I suggested Bert and Earnie(for Albert and Earnestine) and that went over a bit better. If you have any suggestions for the two babies(they look very much alike, one of each sex) please leave a comment!!! Mom reads the blog and would love to have help getting the perfect names for these two. She says they are very loving, very used to people and extremely playful. We here at the Sonier house are a wee bit jealous(well 4 of the 5 of us are-guess who isn't, lol).

A Silly Song Meme(and new ripple 'ghan pics)

Susan at Blackberry Creek tagged me for this one. I am always up for a silly meme!!

Tag Rules:

1. Post the link to the person who tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share 5 songs you are embarrassed to admit to others that you like and tell why.
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post.

Here are my 5 songs. They really show my wild, funkified, side and are a blast to listen to.

The Go go's, Vacation(um, no explanation needed, this is truly a horrid song)

Ram Jam's, Black Betty(this one is just fun to funk out to but extremely nerdy)

The Flight of the Concords, Ladies of the World(this one has a great beat but is actually a spoof)

AC/DC's, Thunderstruck(again, no explanation needed)

and last but not least,

Rufus and Chaka Khan's Tell Me Something Good(Mark just thinks this is hideous. I wish my mouth was half that size though, I could be "such" a singer!)

I'm tagging Anet at Purple Squirrel, Tricia at Tricia's Place of Peace, and Chickenbells at Fooleswoode. Anyone else can play along, just let me know in the comments!!

Now for the afghan pics! I'm making this for our living room because we don't really have an afghan big enough to cuddle with. Its using the Susan B's Easy Ripple Pattern(google it if you want).


The actual names of the colors are...

Dark Country Blue, Light Sage, Black, Toasted Almond, Sea Blue, Brown, and Light Gray. Such original names! This yarn is great, the weight is pretty heavy, more than Red Heart and much softer. Almost a cross between a heavier Red Heart and Caron's Simply Soft. Not as flimsy-floppy feeling as the SS but definitely not scratchy like the RH. Anyway, it feels like it will make a substantial blanket for us.



I'm hoping to post a wonderful surprise tomorrow but it will depend on if someone sends me pictures or not. They know who they are!

Another One!

I wish I knew how to make it bigger so yall could read it. I copied and pasted a handful of prayers from Interlude Retreat and it came out SO neat! ****edited to add that if you click it you'll get the bigger version.

In other news....

A report from Mark about his new job! They are doing online training and hands-on equipment stuff. He says it is REALLY low-key, so much so that I fear he'll get bored. But, knowing Mark, he'll advance quickly and not be bothered with the management portion for long. For those of you wondering what he is doing now, he is the operations manager of a medical equipment company that leases diagnostic and bariatric equipment to hospitals and other care facilities. This particular location is the top(most active?) in the region and I think they are located in 24 states.

Our A/C is still working just like it is supposed to. I now wonder if the filter was too icky. It hasn't been changed since June so it is definitely due. We haven't heard from the pool fixer guy yet(2:40pm) so I'll probably call him later this afternoon or in the morning. We can still operate the pump but the leak causes it to lose pressure after several hours.

I have started another ripple afghan. This time in "I Love This Yarn" from Hobby Lobby. My colors are azure, sea foam(a green-blue, lighter version of the azure), celery green, light gray(almost white), black, dark brown, and camel tan(now these are MY names for the colors, I don't have the yarn in front of me to tell you the real names). I'm doing 4 rows of each color except the black. It is too stark so I'm just doing 2 rows of it. The azure matches the color I painted our back door over the weekend. I mixed the dark blue from our hutches and the sky blue wall color from the girls' room and got a beautiful brighter blue. It is gorgeous and really does wonders in tying that side of the room together.(pictures later, hopefully after I get all the paint scraped from the glass inserts).

And lastly, my brother made the painful decision to have his kitty Fluffy Boy Jones put down today. He was very sick, has been for a long, long time. It was the kindest thing to do.

(Fluffy being his cute self- he really was a sweet kitty boy)