The dog days of summer continue. Whew, it's hot. Every day. Well, we've had a few below 90, but only a few. We escaped to the mountains a couple of times to cool off. At the family cabin it tends to be about 20 degrees cooler during the summer. Great sleeping and some really impressive storms. Last time we were there, the deck got pounded and covered with pea-sized hail. Meanwhile, to the west we could see the beautiful sunset and to the east was a rainbow. Colorado weather. Go figure.
The weather has meant a lot of not moving much, and not getting to spend much time upstairs in the craft loft. So, more cross-stitching!
Yeah, working on more than one at once -- breaking one of my rules!! But it keeps me from getting bored, that's for sure.
I finally got some jingle bells, so I can finish all the knitted bells that are filling my yarn basket and get them hung on one of my trees upstairs. I also have some light repair to do on one of the trees. Only one of the strands of lights is lighting right now. Probably a dead bulb somewhere. Fortunately, I have a few more strands lying around to replace if I have to.
And I've started playing with colored pencils. Saw a great exercise on the internet, so, of course, I had to try it. I've done it with both Christmas and non-Christmas colors. It's fun, and very Dr. Seuss-like. While I've been doing these, my husband has taken to calling me "Mrs. Seuss." Here's the Christmas-looking one.
Kind of weird, I think, but fun and a great exercise in terms of colors and shading.
Last, but not least, some other coloring that might make another appearance on some wrapping paper. I know that I could do it with stamps, but I really like the effect of having it hand-drawn and colored.
I was excited to go to Hobby Lobby this week and find that the Christmas craft stuff has arrived!! All different shapes and sizes of glass ornaments to be decorated. All different colors, too. Garlands and wreaths and everything!! I restrained and only bought a couple of things, but I take this as a sign that cooler weather will come and soon I'll be baking and lamenting that there just isn't enough time before Christmas to get everything done.
Keep cool!!
-Jayne
I am so embarrassed. And sorry. It's been about 3 weeks since my last post. No excuse for that. Although, I do have several reasons. Unfortunately, none of them has anything to do with getting any kind of employment, so really, there is no good reason to not be able to find the time for a quick post along the way.
And I don't even have any super exciting news to share about some terribly new and exciting craft or project! It's been a lot of the "same-old, same-old" around here. Lots of cross-stitching, a little knitting, and one special Christmas project experience.
As to the first: cross-stitching. I guess this borderline obsession with it comes from not having done it for a while. It is somewhat all-encompassing right now!! I've done of ton of it, although now that I'm working on some more involved stuff, it moves a bit slowly. Before my next post, I'll go through everything that I've completed and be sure to post any photos that haven't already been posted. I continue to slowly work my way through the wonderful book of patterns that my friend Lady Caroline gave me. So much fun.
Not a lot of knitting, but some work on bells and pieces of the knitted chain that I've been working on.
There was one special project that, unfortunately, I don't have any photos of. I totally forgot to take any. I was in Minnetonka, MN for almost a week, visiting my sister and her family. My niece, Emelia, is almost 4. I brought several crafts for us to do together. One was to make button pictures. Since it was super hot, and even more humid, we decided to do something to cool us down. Using only white buttons, we pretended they were snow and made some "cool" Christmas pictures. One of a snowman and snow woman. And another of their snow castle. Fun and cute. And I think we both felt a bit cooler when we were done. :)
I have been doing more research, mostly in www.pinterest.com, finding lots of projects to do. I've found a few for when it's cooler and closer to Christmas, and I start my baking. I'm excited to try them.
For now, back to what I was doing. Waiting for my craft loft to cool off enough (maybe by September) to spend more time up there.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention -- I got another small artificial tree with lights on it and some old-fashioned Christmas lights at a garage sale. Going to decorate the tree. Going to make some glittery ornaments out of the lights.
Keep cool, my friends. It's the dog days of summer out there!!
-Jayne
