hand eye crafts

Head over to  Twinster's blog  and wish her a happy birthday!

Naturally, working the lion puzzle made me want to return to jigsaws.  This was my first stop: Sorry about the glare on the bottom left.  The art is by Charley Harper, and features winged creatures.  Birds, of course, but also a bat and a butterfly --- both, naturally  in that glare-y quadrant. Taking this apart to start on another, it struck me that puzzle-working has an interesting aspect to it.  We go all through the process of finishing the picture, then completely dismantle what we've just done. We tear it all up.  But then we save it, keep it for another time we feel like putting it together.  I mean, we don't finish a painting to destroy it, sure we'll come back later and paint it over again.  We don't finish a knitting project, rip it up and pack the yarn away just to return to make precisely the same thing again.  But puzzles allow us to make them, break them, and rebuild them at another time.  That's sort of what they're made f...

  She's been outfitted with a glucose monitor.  I read it with my phone, and the information goes to her vet. She's unfazed.

"Curious," "eccentric," "strange," "funky," "odd," "mysterious," "unnatural."  (My Desert Island Book is a thesaurus.  Seriously.) It has been a weird weekend.  There's been this simmering headache, first of all.  It's stayed low-key but will remind me it's there every now and again.  Ordinarily, my headaches just scream their entrances and never turn down the volume.  Who knew I was still capable of one like this?  🤷 Yesterday, I had the strong urge to call my mother.  Even though it's been over ten years since she died, there was just this "Call Mama" message going through my head.  Not it a sad or desperate way, just matter-of-fact.  We spoke every Saturday at least, so maybe it was something to do with that?  Nothing was or had been going on that I would have called her to talk about when she was alive, just that thought going through my head.  Maybe because Friday was Daddy's birth...

 

 The box of One Day We'll Be A Quilt, Save The Few That Might Be Made Into A Bolster That's Still Up In The Air: My poor abandoned poncho, with an anorak pattern behind it: A puzzle on The Verge: And the cross-stitch.  Can you figure it out yet? "I can name that design in x  stitches."

 Yes, it is true, I am returning to my cross-stitch roots. I never, though, had a keen needleminder like this time around.  It gets a little tricky with the metal spring part of the hoop.  I think everything's good to go and, whoop, the magnets and the metal do a little dance.   The full design can't be revealed, as this will be a gift.  But I'll let you in on it as the work goes along. Tap and I walked in a new place today, and found this bamboo grove. Bamboo in Georgia?  Odd, but true.

I've recently come across some phrases which I find rather delightful, and hope to put into use regularly. As one does. ". . . a native inhabitant of the female body. . ." "That's not part of my journey today." "Behind every man is the drawer a woman needs to get into and what are you even doing in the kitchen right now."  

I just got back from the library with a nice armful of books. I'm looking forward to diving in and casting on. It was a shock at how many titles there I have or have had over the years.  Many, many have been given away or donated.  There was a heavy load taken to the yarn shop here when I was still going in there.  Looking through all the books, I was reminded of why I let them go.  For most of them, it was because I'd made everything I was interested in.  And now I'll be adding to my pattern files. . .

In the past, I've mentioned how Tap's way of telling me he's in need is to sit flat on his rump.  Now, I still always have to figure out what he's asking for.  To go outside?  A treat?  A meal?  To play?  Sometimes I get it right, while other times I don't have any insight.  But my boy can get emphatic. The back legs trying to maintain balance tickle me.

I don't  know what it's like to have a sibling, but I  do know what it's like to have a twin.  You get surprise goodies in the mail!  In a purple envelope, even.  These are magnetic needle holders.  While I don't do as much stitching as Dear Twinster, these will come in very, very handy. Oh, and the minders were accompanied by a lovely Washi tape card. She has SO many talents. *No, not Kansas.  Sheesh.

If you've seen any of The Masters today (Hello, Kathy!), let me tell you that Athens' weather has been just as windy as Augusta's.    All  the sun, though, is there. To be truthful, the weather's been choppy here all week.  Windy, rainy, misty, chilly in every combination.  I had something to do/somewhere to go every day but this one, and I've got a tickly throat, runny nose and sneezing to bear witness.  (Bridget, we are sisters in drippiness.) I got caught up last night in an Eagles concert streaming on Amazon Prime.  They performed at MTSU when I was there, but I couldn't afford a ticket.  (Thank you, Lisa, for getting me a "Long Run" t-shirt, though.)  Their Hell Freezes Over tour stopped in Atlanta when Briton was in Kindergarten, and he and I went.  My kindergartener was a Glenn Frey fan. The people sitting around us thought he was super-cool.  He was.  And is.

I went searching through Briton's Instagram account last night, trying to find the picture he took of himself with Tap on the day Tap moved in: Look how itty Tap was! I also found more photos that Briton posted that I had forgotten about:   He continues to look like Sir Didymus.  If you aren't familiar with him, here he is riding his trusted companion Ambrosius:

I've been putting some of my pins on my bags lately, and landed on "Cute" the other day:  One horse in boots, one in RBG's dissent collar.

 Thanks to a mailer, I found out about a new used-book store in town, went, and found these: I'd like to make just about everything in the scarves book.  The haiku knits are interesting folds and shapes, like this: Many of the models are made with Habu yarns.  I think I've bought two small cones of Habu, both because Hannah wanted to knit with stainless steel. I'm still plugging away on squares made with plain ol' cotton.