Day Before New Years Eve

It's Sunday Afternoon, we are both a bit bored. The DH is watching a martial Arts movie on youtube and I am just sitting here reading blogs and trying to get some crochet inspiration. I am still working on my afghan, I have estimated that it will take around 400 or more blocks to make it. I am not even worried about colors strictly yet. If it will work in my bedroom, it will be used. I bought some more pretty papers at Joanns fabrics, I love all the pretty papers they have for scrap booking, even though I don't do scrap booking. I use them for quilling and jewelry and other things. I like to make my own calendars and piece them together and am thinking of making a set of tarot cards from my own designs. I hate trying to read tarot from a standard deck, I can never remember the meanings of the cards. I have tried to memorize them, but no matter how I work at it, I still forget, so if I make up own deck, I should be able to remember them a lot better. I plan on collaging the cards together one by one. I may scan the deck then and print them off. We'll see.

I thought I'd show you some more flea market finds just one photo of them this time. I got a book or two the first one is a three volume George Carlin book. I loved Carlin and am sorry he's gone. The second book is the The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady. I'd wanted a copy after seeing the pictures on another blog, her drawings are really lovely, I used to do that sort of things when I was a kid, always drawing, then my first marriage sort of killed any aspirations to do art. (My first marriage was not a good one, art fell by the way side just trying to keep my sanity). The other little thing was a kitty tin. I just love tins with pictures of kitty on them and this one was shaped like a cat so it had to come home with me.

Since we are talking about cats, This is what passes for one of the christmas decorations round here.

 I have to put a light in it, I just love the little cats and their tree and fireplace. It is not quite finished, I need to add some glitter on the roof and put a hole in the back to add a light. I made the little house out of a cereal box. It wasn't to hard to do. I've been saving cereal boxes to make fans out of. I have an old Victorian fan that has a hole in it for a tassel, it doesn't fold but it works quite well and the shape is pretty, that's what I am making with some of the pretty papers. I have scaled down a small version to put on here as a free pattern one day. It is small but still makes a good fan for a hot day outside. I suppose that you could scale it up and make it larger, I wanted it to fit in a purse. I also wanted it small enough to be made out of one piece of card stock. I'll add more on this subject later. Right now the DH is hungry and I am too a bit, and he can't cook, though he is good with instant coffee. I can't make instant coffee properly to save my life, but I make the best mocha cappuccinos we've  had. I also make a mean vanilla latte, needless to say we rarely go out for coffee, though I am looking for a new espresso pot, since I like the manual pot better than a machine. The handle on mine is finally wearing out. I'll go for now and try to post again after new years.

A little note on progress on my afghan, I have said I will need over 400 blocks, I've only completed a little over 60, I've got a long ways to go!

After Yule or Christmas to some

A post after Christmas, We had a pretty good one, we don't really celebrate Christmas here, it's just not one of the important holidays for us. We are much more apt to celebrate each other's birthdays. I love a birthday present, just don't care much for the all out commercialization of Christmas. My hubby and I took some fresh made fudge over to his Mom's house and got out of there as soon as the smoke got to us, we don't smoke and they do, and it nearly kills us to breathe it, baths were all that saved us when we got home. We just couldn't stand the smell of cigarettes.

We had a nice dinner, just the three of us, including the cat and kicked back for the rest of the day, surfing the net and eating fudge and watching televison, I crocheted on my large afghan that will be for the bed this time. I saw these little squares on a french blog and decided to redo the larger ones I was working on.

The color is not really true, the purple ones are much deeper in color, it's my camera and the tan looking ones are really called pistachio. I am using burgundy, purple and greens and golds in it, with enough odd colors thrown in to add variety, The hubbs asked how many I will need, and it turns out I will probably need about 400 give or take, probably take another hundred. I want the afghan to be big enough and heavy enough to last for years.

I'm using an "E" hook with worsted weight simply soft, It will have a tight gauge. I really like the way that the squares look, I know it will be a pain to put them together, but I'm weaving the tails as I go so there won't be so many when It's done.

I've been to the flea market a few times, actually they call themselves antique malls here now, but they are still flea markets, to me anyway. I picked up some yarn at one stall, Six skeins of various shads of pink from knit picks lace weight yarns. It was $12 for six skeins, which is a really good price. It's enough to make at least two large shawls. I never thought of myself as a pink person, but I really like this yarn.

The small wound ball is mostly silk, it is so soft.
The others are mostly alpaca and merino.  I added it to what I already have in my stash, though I don't plan on it staying there.

Earlier in the  year we had a fiber fair out at Crowder college, I managed to cough up for two skeins of pure Alpaca in a finger weight yarn. One is a skein of brown painted and the other in purple of course.

I am not sure I can wear it next to my skin, so I got enough to make a couple of scarves or mini shawls to test it out, The brown is colored with all the shades of chocolate and the purple is a lot prettier than my monitor shows. I also managed to buy about 20 Crochet Today and Crochet with three Interweave Crochet magazines thrown in, for about $4. They were 25 cents a piece and I just couldn't pass it up. Two or three weeks later I got another 30 or so Magic Crochet on sale for about 20 cents a piece. I felt really lucky, some are getting given a way. They are in really good shape, almost new, and were in still in the mailing wrappers. I was going to add even more to this post but think I will break it up and do another one. Can you tell I love Yarn and Crochet magazines? When I get done with this post, I'll probably go back to work on the aforementioned afghan. Any way, back to work.

I don't know what to say

Sometimes I don't know what to say. I really don't have a plan or an idea of what to post, There are many things I could say about what happened in Sandyhook, but none would change anything. Most of the people in the US have already made up their minds and there is little to change them. Personally I think the young man who committed this atrocity was mad. Something set him off, though he may have been planning it for a long time. I suspect mental illness. No one gives the mentally ill much help anymore, we have thousands upon thousands living in the streets and no one cares. I know our government certainly doesn't, or the mental hospitals would still be operating at full strength.
When dear old President Reagan cut funding for mental institutions, he doomed many to lives of misery. He condemned not just the mentally ill to it, but also their victims. I believe that as the population grows in numbers we will see more and more of this type of thing. People who have no one to notice what is wrong will go berserk and kill or hurt more people. There are too many of us on this planet, it is too crowded.  There are too many weapons in circulation. Right now if they confiscated all weapons in circulation in the US today, it would do nothing. Honest people would let theirs be taken, but the criminal element would still have theirs and still get access to ammunition one way or another.
That will not bring back 20 dear little girls and boys or their teachers. It will not bring back a misguided mother who feared the end of the world. For her the end has already come. I've wondered if perhaps this young man had played too many video games and thought that each person would get a new life when he restarted the level. I dislike any but the most mild video games, I think of them as a form of brainwashing, after hundreds of hours of playing them, what is the impact? What I have written here is just my own rambling wonderings about these random massacres that we are experiencing here in America and around the world. I found it strange, that the same day this happened in the states that the same number of people were killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan.
There is no  courage or honor in taking a life, if only the misguided would see that. It does not take courage to kill, It is not honorable to kill those that disagree with your religion, opinion or way of life. It shows a lack of character and fortitude, as well as patience and love and tolerance. It takes courage to let people live their lives their way, and then go your own way, having left them in peace.