Busy, but Nothing Exciting....

I can't believe a whole week had gone by since I last posted.
I've been working on things, but nothing exciting enough to merit a photograph.

I finished my design for the Forest Secrets challenge on Rug Hooking Daily, but that has to be kept under wraps until the end of July.  Darn!  I hope to start hooking this week.  I need to start a take-along project for hook-ins.  Tomorrow I will be going to the Blue and Gray meeting and will have to take some 'finishing' to work on for lack of anything else.

Now that I'm sitting here attempting to write about my week, maybe I wasn't as productive as I thought!  LOL!  No wonder I don't have anything to show.  So let's go on to Zip's week....

He worked in the garden!

After lounging around on the grass in the sun, he did finish planting all the corn, beans, beets, chard, and the tomatoes and herbs we got at the greenhouse.

He caught fish!

Zip is a strictly 'catch and release' fly-fisherman.  The hooks are 'barbless' so they come out easily without permanent injury to the fish.  All the fish he catches go directly back into the stream.  He only held this one long enough for his friend Greg to take the picture.

 He had lunch with Deiter.

The strange thing- Deiter does not like 'people food', he isn't begging, he just likes to be close to Zip when he's eating, playing the guitar, working around the house or whatever.

And here's Deiter, playing in water.

He's so big that he can't get his head positioned to drink directly from the stream of water, so he licks it as it runs down his paw.  Of course we have to be ready at all times to turn the faucet on and off!

Saturday evening, along with our friends Chuck and Willa, we went to the Old Country Auction House for an evening of bluegrass music and a demonstration of clogging.  The dancing looks like so much fun.  I wish I were younger and not so darn fat!!!  It certainly would be good exercise.

Today for Mother's Day, Brad and Kami invited us for a barbeque rib feast.  They are both excellent cooks!  Food always seems soooo much better when someone else does the cooking!  LOL!!!

We had a nice relaxing time after the meal listening to old records on the Victrola that they recently found at a yard sale.  Brad has the best luck when it comes to great yard sale finds.  All I ever seem to find is baby clothes!!!!

They gave me a cute card they made themselves and Kami croched this lovely handbag for me.

She's becoming an excellent seamstress and craftsperson.  It's such a gift to have a daughter-in-law who is a woman after my own heart!

Deiter was trying to sit on the handbag while I was taking the picture.  Check out the tail at the top.

Now, after a week of good weather, the seeds in the garden have sprouted and the little plants have emerged.  And what happens?!?!  It gets cold!!!  So now there is the possibility (likelyhood!) of FROST tonight.  Every bucket, crate, and big flowerpot we own is out there covering plants!

My fingers are crossed and I'm praying....

Reunited

We made the trip back to Hanover to collect my abandoned handbag today.  My camera and I are back together at last!  We enjoyed an afternoon of conversation with my Aunt Kathleen whom I hadn't seen in many years.  This dear lady is 91!  She is on the go constantly, visiting friends and family.  Her positive attitude and sense of humor just amaze me.  I wish I had gotten together with her sooner!

She's my father's sister and looks very much like he did.  She gave me an envelope of pictures of my ancestors that I will be copying and adding to my collection.  I may show them in a future post.  I am hoping to make regular visits now that we have been reunited.

Last weekend I finished hooking my little chicken mat.  It's not an exciting project, but it filled the empty space before the Norma Batastini class this past week.  I plan to bind it (and the two star mats) with dark brown yarn.

I was saving my Moon and Stars Watermelon rug for the class.  I had color planning ideas, but thought some expert advice would be helpful since there's a lot of red and green there.  I don't want it to look like Christmas!!!  I wanted the background to be brown like the watermelon was on the ground from which it grew.

I finished the melon in the three day class, using four shades of green and two of red.  On the way home from the class I asked Zip to stop at Lowes so I could get paint samples so I could start planning the background.  I wanted a dark background, but did not rule out a lighter one if it looked better.

After trying quite a few ideas that didn't really work well:  sage, too much green--- gold, looked good but been there and done that several times!--- antique black, not bad but only as a last resort--- navy, dramatic but too contemporary--- cool browns, too drab.  I finally decided that warm browns would be good, but that an outline of navy would give it that extra spark.

Early Sunday morning I got out the dyepot.  I have been hooking for so long that my stash now contains lots of smaller pieces of every color under the sun.  There are no significantly large pieces that can be used for background.  I now collect my small pieces in the same color families and overdye them.  Since I wanted a warm brown, I started out with warm light colored pieces.

Here's my color reference card.

I'm trying to be more scientific in my dyeing.  And keeping records and samples in case I run out and need more.

Here's how the browns look in the rug.  I'm really liking the effect.

The border is going to be maroon I'm thinking.  It's all dyed and ready to go, but I can still change my mind if necessary.

I had several people in class ask me why there are stars on the watermelon.  In the garden seed catalogs there really is a watermelon called 'moon and stars'  It is a large dark green melon with a few large yellow spots on it and lots of little yellow speckles, like a sky with a yellow moon and a sprinkling of stars.  I just made the idea a little corny.

I'm hooking it in a #7 cut with details in a 5. 

Hope all of you are enjoying the wonderful Spring weather.  Nothing better than hooking out on the porch in the fresh air!

Happy Hooking!!!

Remembering....

We don't do a lot of planting flowers.  Too much garden, fruit tree and lawn care already.  But we do have flowers that come up each year on their own.  Clumps of daffodills, bluebells, and violets both white and blue.

I love violets!  They remind me of my childhood in Hanover, PA.  We lived in a duplex on York Street.  Next door there was a vacant lawn and then an old gray two storey house, unpainted and grown up with bushes around it.  Two very old (to me as a child) men lived there.  My Mother thought the place was deplorable, an eyesore.  I loved it!  It was old and mysterious and no one ever got inside.  (I bet they had lots of interesting antiques!!!)

Anyhow, each spring, in the high grass and shade the most beautiful long stemmed violets came popping up.  I always had to sneak over, and hope the old men didn,t catch me and pick a nice bouquet.

Today Zip wanted to get some new nusic books for his quitar playing.  They have a large music store in Hanover.  He did;n't know I had an extra stop I wanted to make.  After purchasing his books, I asked him if we could ride past my old home and take a picture.  They have tarted the place up from a modest brick home with white trim to a place with fake stone and modern railings.  And the old gray house has been done in siding.  There are no longer any bushes and violets.  Things sure change in 40 years.

But my aunt (my father's sister) still lives across the street even after all this time.  And she happened to be home.  She didn't recognize me at first- it's been 20 years!  She was so happy that we stopped to visit! 

She had plans for the evening, so we didn't get to stay and talk as long as we both would have liked.  We hugged goodbye and I promised to come back soon and she said she'd get out pictures and family history information.  I had to cry a little bit as we drove off.

We were on the Lincoln Highway coming back toward home when I discovered I had left my purse there.  With the emotional excitement, I had forgotten it!  No driver's license, no credit or debit cards, NO CAMERA!!!  And a three-day class starting tomorrow!

I guess I'll be making a return visit sooner than expected!