WOOL ROOM

Since so many of you are spring cleaning, reorganizing, sprucing up your nest - I thought I would show you my *wool room* - Since my yarn stash takes up the majority of this room followed closely by my rug hooking stash - it is deemed "the wool room" - My organizing is on-going because I am STILL bringing stuff over from my old house. I am trying to come up with a plan for the large closet to house most of my yarn and I have a huge primitive cabinet that contains most of the rug hooking stuff. I have some photos of my "corner" which I am enjoying very much since deciding last week I would never get that big rug finished if I did not put it up on the frame and work on it. I'm trying the "strand a day" mantra and it is working - I am filling in a lot of spaces on the backround of this rug and I'm lovin' it! I end up doing more than a strand so my progress is amazing. I snapped a shot of the rug on the frame but I will show you a complete WIP photo one day soon.

I tried to get a WIP shot of Scarlet Letters "Where the Hart Lives" - it was crummy - I am all the way across the top - I mentioned somewhere that I was terribly afraid I was going to fall short on the right margin as I miscounted and started too far to the right on the left corner - EEECCCKKK - but I made it with only about 1 1/4 inches to spare but I'm rocking on otherwise this project would have hit the scrap pile and I really do like it and it will be perfect for my folks anniversary in 2010.
There is a LOT of solid stitching on this piece so I'm trying to get a jump on the deadline which is over a year away but I can't be dedicated to one project or even one needle art so I m being proactive with this deadline.

I'll try to do better with my photos - it's new to me - I just admire so much all the beautiful artfully presented photos so many of you share on your blogs - maybe I'll get there one day - for now this is it - Enjoy!

IS APRIL OVER YET???

I usually enjoy April - my birthday is in April - Easter is usually in April - the weather is usually still great in NE FL in April - My mom and I usually take a little trip to our ancestral home in GA in April - WELL - this April has been NOTHING like it usually is.

Tuesday was my birthday - we had plans for dinner and our owners always take each person out for their birthday so I was looking forward to Tuesday. There had been storms in the area on Monday and they predicted additional storms on Tues morning - they did NOT predict 60mph winds and tornadic conditions. I work in a historic home on the river near downtown Jacksonville - lovely location on a great day - scarey stuff in storms - Hurricane force winds hit our front door at 9:35am Tuesday morning with no warning at all - It looked like the perfect storm out on the river - waves crashing over the seawall and splashing into the street, wind howling thru the fireplace - it was almost as bad a being here in a hurricane which I have done before. Anyway - little did I know that one of the huge oaks in my back yard had come down on our back neighbors house - EGADS - fortunately it was braced by two large magnolias and they did not get the full force of the weight of that tree hitting their roof - once the tree guy got it out of there - it looked like they had very little damage to the roof. So thankful for that.

Next thing that happened this week is that I started getting a sore place on my upper inner thigh - got worse and worse and finally had to go to the dr today - abcess - EEEECCCKKKK - it was disgusting and hurt like hell - good thing I went as it was badly infected and I am on 2 antibotics - must be serious as I have to go back for follow up on monday.

The week was not totally a bummer - I had my mom staying with me this week while my dad went on a fishing trip - she is a big help around the house especially since I was not feeling well and was completely stressed out about the fallen tree. We had several nice meals and she drove me to the dr today - just what a girl needs is her mommy on a day like today.

I'm hosting our local ANG chapter for a luncheon/meeting/stitch in tomorrow - About the last thing I feel like doing right now is standing on my feet all day. I'm SOOO glad I had our favorite caterer do all the food for me - God must have been looking ahead as to the week I was going to have and said "hummm Mel I think you'd better order all the food" that's the little subliminal message I got last week.

Just needed to vent a little about my month so far - hope to show some photos next time. Until then - I hope your April is lovely and full of spring flowers and many happy stitches.

NO FOOLING !

Well it's April Fools Day and I have not played any tricks but I'm not fooling around when I say I actually have a photo to show that *I* took with my new Cyber Shot camera - it's not perfect mind you but it is a long awaited photo of my little miniature oriental rug that I finished in December. It is approximately 18" X 26" and for any hookers out there - it is in a 4cut with a little 3 for fine lines and veining.



I hope to start adding more photos as I become more proficient - it has only taken me about 2 hours to figure out how to unload the photo from the camera to the PC and then to my folders and webshots album. Too much like work I say!

My mom and I had a wonderful time at our rug hooking workshop downstate this past weekend. I got very little done on the rug I was working on which was a project I started 2 years ago at the same workshop with a different teacher. I thought it was a scroll rug but another teacher told me it was actually a rosemaling pattern that includes some scroll type motifs - the name of the rug is Telemark and she said that was a type of rosemaling - gees I need to do some research on rosemaling I guess - she said my colors were correct and my hooking to simulate brush strokes were correct - OK folks that was a total fluke because I wasn't trying to simulate anything but I just smiled proudly and said "oh thank you" ! So I got a whopping two motifs done in about 10 hours of hooking - a palm size bud and a fern frond thingy. WHOOPPEEE! I don't think this rug is going to be high on my priority list - I have WAY too many rugs that are calling my name. So this lovely telemark will be rolled back up and stuffed right back into the red rug hooking cupboard. * Make mental note to get photo of red rug hooking cupboard to show to friends*

On a more personal note - I got drug into a meeting at work on monday to be told that in an effort to keep our company from going bankrupt - we were all going to get a mandatory pay cut starting April 1st - no fooling on that one friends. I was not shocked as I see the financials every month - I know we are losing millions and can not keep up like this for long and so the bank reiterated to our owners last week - we have 3 mos to start showing a profit or they will pull our backing. I have been very depressed all week but trying to pull myself out of it and remind self how lucky I am - still more fortunate than those who are already out of a job. I just dread at my age being jobless and having to compete with thousands of younger people for what few jobs are out there - I have only had this job and one other job in over 30 years so to say I am out of practice is an understatement.

Well - enough of my depressing stuff - just need some prayers or good thoughts from those who can spare any to come our way. Our owners are lovely people and they don't deserve this bad hand they've been dealt. they are 3rd generation car people and are fair and honest and are wonderful to work for.

Hope you all have spring weather and wonderful plans for Easter and spring breaks and so forth.