Ladies and gentlemen, may I present.....

Bakul!




This is what I've been wrapped up in for the last week or so. She was an entirely seat-of-the-pants affair, and I can hardly believe myself how much fun she was to assemble. It was all trial and error (or should that be smoke and mirrors?), and I am pretty darn pleased with the way she turned out.

I got to work on my embroidery skills a bit, and really got into the needle felting. I can see lots of possibilities for more fun in that arena!















There are a couple of other photos of her on my Flickr site, but I think these, taken late last night on my back patio, really show her off in the most flattering way. If the Hindi baby-name website I found is to be believed, her name means "sweet-smelling flower". Nice.
(Blogger's spell-check suggested I meant to name her "Bagel".)

Here is a "before" shot:

A lovely find at Goodwill, snagged at their "half-price-Saturdays" sales. I didn't really know what it was destined for, but when I pulled it out of the washer, I stuck my hand into one of the shoulders, and there she was. Larissa's "recycle-along" came at just the right time for me!





There is other news to tell, but methinks to leave you wanting more, so just know that next time, I'll tell you about flowers, chocolate, a birdie who's returned, and a new long-legged lady who has happily joined our family!

I hereby decree this weekend to be underway--go thou and enjoyest!

Ten Things with "R"

The delightful Ms. Martina meme'd this one a while ago, and she was kind enough to send me a letter with which to play. I received "R". Here then, are ten things of significance to or about me brought to you by the letter "R".

1. R is the first letter of my former-married name, a name I loved having, but gave back when requested to do so. I am very happy with my maiden name; so much so, in fact, that I kept it, even when I re-married. My dear husband assured me he did not mind. His last name also begins with "R"!

2. Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus: I tried out for their Clown College three times after high school. The said no, no, and no--their loss.

3. Reading: might as well write breathing.

4. Recycle: I am ridiculously proud of the fact that we recycle easily twice what we throw away, but I wish we could do more. And of course, I love recycling for craft goodies, too. My little solenoid robot came out of our electric lawnmower, and his hat is a champagne cork wire. (Photo to be inserted later as Blogger is being snippy as I haven't leapt aboard the beta bandwagon. Harrumph.)

5. R is also the first letter of my sister's name. She decided quite some time ago (for reasons never well-explained) that she did not want to be part of our family any longer. I miss her terribly.

6. Redheads: I've always wanted to be one, but at least I'm lucky enough to have married one and have two-brothers-in-law and the planet's finest mother-in-law who are.

7. Ripple: No, not the wine, the Grateful Dead tune. I'm a Deadhead, something I shared with my brother-in-law Tim, and still find joy in to this day.

8. Roam: Dad was in the military, and we traveled extensively. I'm happy to have a home with roots, but still love to travel anywhere and everywhere. Just wish I had more time to do so.

9. Rain: Something we get too little of and really revel in when we get it here in the desert. The monsoons are truly wonderful when we get them.

10. Raptors: The first birds I really fell for. They led me to others, and now I'm hooked. I love birding, from peering up at the light poles on the freeway as I drive to work to poking around far away places like ancient cities outside of Oaxaca, Mexico.

Thanks, Martina! If anyone wants a letter, let me know!

I'm in-between knitting projects, and I'm trying really hard to get a project done for Larissa's Recycle-Along. It's a something made from a felted sweater (or three), and joining the "-Along" is just the impetus I was hoping for.

My softball team lost last night. Now we have a break for two weeks, but it gives me time to strengthen my arm and hit the batting cages a few times before the next match. I'm still really having a blast playing, and I hope to keep improving!

Enough for now. Hope everyone's well.

Look Ma, I'm posting!

My mom gave me a great book for Christmas. It has a simple feather-and-fan pattern for a blanket for The Linus Project. I looked at that pattern and loved the fact that it only had 3 rows to repeat, and two of them were uber-simple(One was knit and the other purl).

"Aha!" thought I, "I bet I could pare that way down and make a nice scarf out of it!". My knitter's brain wrapped itself around the (fairly simple) concept of counting out the first row (which contained the knit-overs and knit-togethers)and thus determined the number of stitches to cast on. Knitting is improving my math (Hear that, Dad?).

That is how the scarf in the last post came to be. Prior to that, I was working on Branching Out with the same fabulous bamboo yarn, and I actually was warming to the pattern. So much so that I took a look at it and said, "Hmm. This is wonderful yarn and a gorgeous pattern, but it seems to me to be gilding the lily." Methinks that the yarn and pattern were striving against each other, elbowing each other, poking and screeching for attention like two 5-year-olds in the backseat on a long car trip ("Mom, she's on my side of the seat!" "Mom, he's TOUCHING me!", etc..), and so I frogged it. Here's where we were when the realization struck.













Here's another one for the Nose-gallery. (There really is one in my Flickr set, if you're interested.) (Crazy dawg.)


Not much else to report at this juncture. Have fun watching the big game, if you are so inclined. We'll be rooting for Da Bears, iffen you're interested.

Feast of St Brigid's

Poking around this evening, I found some interesting words to enjoy at Della's and thought I'd like to join in.

(Please note that this is quoted as written, but the photos are my additions)
















Polutours

They polute
they make the air
smell and look
like deth of mother
nature's wonderland
cars
they do all that,
you think
yes cars do

--by MER
2/1/07



With that in mind, here are a few options I came up with as alternative transportation.







































I love you MER. You have such clear vision, and I hope you hold on to that as you grow. XXXOOO

Febyouairy

Well, my little Sanyo Xacti came home from it's Panama Canal adventure brimming with shots of exotic locales and some pretty amazing gale-force seas! Will speak with the taker of said-photos about posting a few on here as vicarious virtual-adventure for all 6 of us who read the blog.

My dear redhead has been toiling away on tax-preparation and year-end business tidying and he was good enough to hit the grocery today. (We spoke on the phone at the peak of my afternoon hysteria at the workplace That Shall Not Be Named, and I think he knew he was not going to be dealing with a cheerful wife this evening) He brought home this darling little thing.....









Told you I have a thing for redheads!






I finished the scarf I was working on for my sweet 93-year old gal pal. Made the mistake of gifting it to her on a day when she got some not-so-great news about her eye, so I'm not sure if either:

A. She isn't wild about it, or
B. She realizes that I made it, or
C. She was just overwhelmed with the eye-situation.

Anyhow, it's the first lace I've made, and I liked the feather-and-fan pattern as it was an easy repeater. The bamboo yarn is really lovely, and I still have 2 skeins left for me! I think I should've blocked it a little more aggressively, but I didn't want it to be too wide. Next time I want a skinny scarf, I'd just do a single repeat and block it wider.

The photo's not so hot, but it shows the nice colors, and hey, it's knitting! Look, a knitting photo on my (supposed) knitting blog!





It's been cool and rainy here. Mmmmmmmmmm. That'll be gone too soon.



Softball season started up last weekend, and we won our first game 16-7. Feels good to be playing again. Hoping for a repeat of that 10-pound weight loss I had last season! My coach says I just sweated it off worrying that the ball was coming my way. Ok, works for me!

Looking forward to doing some yard work this weekend. There's a sage leaning over in the back yard, and I think there's actually a spot it'll be happier out front, so we'll arrange a transplant. Hope to get out and do a little birding, too, as a balm for my very-frazzled soul. Let's hope that the full moon tomorrow has already poured it's sum-total of crazy on us--I don't think I can take any more!

Happy weekend, all.