WHERE  DID   IT GO???

Summer, that is -

I still have two pairs of white pants with

the sales tags on them.  Just didn't get the time

to wear them. 

 

White shoes and purse put away

for the winter.

Heaven forbid! you should wear anything

white after Labor Day. (according to my mother).

Fortunately, it was nice on Labor day until late in the afternoon.

Richard and family had a wonderful

cookout with Beer Can Chicken the

featured menu item.

The Bent Willow Community also had its annual

Labor Day feast at the home of the

Paprocki's and a large crowd it was!

Guess I have the "I'm sorry it's over blues and

the "I love fall and winter" smiles.

I have started hooking in earnest again and am

really enjoying it.

Here's the latest update on the new project.

The Lion's face and mane are finally

finished.  I am very pleased with

the way he turned out.  When I started putting the

background (more on this) in, he became the

color of gold that I had anticipated.

It's amazing how the color changes when you

add background or any adjacent color.



Closeup of mane and face.  I used several different

cuts to get the face as I wanted it.

Most of the rug is being hooked with a #8 and 8-1/2 cut

but the face is done with a #6 cut and some

smaller accent pieces.

I love his tail.  It almost looks like a

dragon head.  I treated it the same as his mane

except I used smaller cuts here so that

I could get the detail in.

About the background.  It is the loveliest piece of

wool that I think I have ever had.  It was

dyed by Helen Connley Howe.  She is a New York

Teacher.  I first met her in 1974 at

a teacher's workshop.  I think that she

has been unwell lately and is no

longer teaching.  The wool is a Woolrich product

in what I call gray-blue (not sure what Woolrich calls it)

overdyed with Navy Blue and abrashed with bright green.

What makes the piece so rich and velvety looking

is the way it was abrashed.

Sorry, it's true beauty does not photograph

for it is really lovely.

It's another foggy day with rain this early am.

Guess we are supposed to have rain until

Saturday.  Sure makes for a dreary day!

However, it is  a good excuse to spend

the day in the hooking room.



Thought for the day -

Never go to a Doctor whose office plants have died.

Erma Bombeck

Doris







SHE'S A FICKLED WOMAN. . . . .

Mother Nature, of course!

On Friday evening I was so tired of hearing about

Irene on the radio and tv that I decided to walk

out onto the deck and see the sky for myself.

 What I saw was one of the most beautiful skys

I had ever seen at this time of year.

 Have you ever "painted a sky" on wool

to use in a pictorial?

Wou7ldn't it be wonderful to use this as

a color plan?

 So peaceful and serene.  It made me wonder

what mother nature was thinking.

 This is a lady of miracles.

She gives us great beauty to enjoy and

it's all free!

Saturday evening was another story!

She turned her back on us and gave us an

angry sky.

 Even tho the sky looks angry there is

still beauty in these clouds.

 The sky had gotten very dark and

the clouds were rolling, the wind was

blowing and the trees were swaying.

 It was raining steadily but not hard.

I love the clouds so I stood for quite some time watching them as they

rolled by forming picture after picture.

Actually, the storm did not hit this area to badly.
We lost power for about 4 hours and
it did rain heavily during the night.

Irene was an uninvited guest at my grand daughter's
wedding that was supposed to be today.  Due to the
location, it was cancelled and they were
married in a private ceremony yesterday.
We will hold a family celebration
several weeks from now.

So, onto "Plan B."  We have made reservations
at a seafood resturant in Hagerstown for
"all you can eat" crabs.  I can think of nothing better
on a rainy Sunday afternoon that all you can
eat crabs.
Hope everyone is safe and well and that
Irene leaves us in a hurry.
Doris

IT'S TIME TO HOOK!!!

It's finally happened!  I think the Mojo is back!  Yesterday for the first time I really enjoyed hooking.  I really cannot imagine me without my hooking frame set up with a large rug in progress.

I have been working on my large pictorial for some time now and I think it is about 85% finished.  I felt as tho I had hooked myself into a corner.

I am not going to show the whole rug here since I did that some time ago.

 When I finished hooking the man's face I knew that I had a problem.  I needed something for his shirt that would balance color with the rest of the

piece and that would show thru the bird cage properly.  I could not use green because of the grass that surrounds the wagon and the wagon itself.

My "rule of thumb" when encountering a hooking problem is

not to de-hook but take the piece off of the frame and

let it rest for a week.  At the end of that time I lay the piece on the

floor and take a good look.  Usually by then the piece will tell me

what it needs.

This piece told me it needed a soft blue.  Something in the "steel" gray family or like worn out jeans.  I took a trip to Grant Street Woolworks and found exactly

whaat I needed in Linda's "odds and ends" jar.  I only need

a very small piece and this was perfect.

Thank you Linda.

As I am sure you know, I cannot go a whole week without hooking

so when I took the pictorial off of the frame I had to put

something on it.  Since the pictorial is being done with a #3 cut,

I decided it was time to take a break.  Instead of getting out

one of the large pieces already in progress, I started a new piece.

 This is Edith O'Neal's Lion.  I have had this piece for sometime

and have been anxious to see what I could do with it.  I am using a number of cuts but mostly #8 and #8.5.  Quite a change off from a

#3!

 As yoou can see, I have not finished the face at this point.

The face is hooked with a #6 cut and some #3 around the eyes.

I know that Lion's have amber eyes but with the brown/amber of the

beard I thought green eyes looked best.

Close up of face.



Close up of beard.  The beard is a #8.5 cut and is done with a brown/amber tweed and accented with a red/brown/orange plaid. The Lion's body is being done with three different dye lots of Dottie Ebi's Spots #1.  These materials are quite interesting because they were dyed by two different hookers.  Two dye lots are over Woolrich's while wool and one dye lot is over Dorr's yellow.  It is interesting for me to see the difference in the wool from one dyeing concept to another.  It is also interesting to see the difference that dyeing over colored material makes.  I hope you all try this sometime in the near future.

In the meantime, we have had some wonderful weather.   Hope all of you are

out enjoying this weather bonus.  Eloise has been spending

her mornings on the deck where it is nice and cool.  Of course she

has to greet the neighbors and their dogs as they

walk past.

Hope everyone keeps hooking and enjoys the short time left

of our summer.  When school is back in session (today is the first day here)

you know summer is about over.

Next week our family has a wedding and a

crab feast.  More on this later.   Have a great week.

Doris





UP TO MY ELBOWS!

In tomatoes, that is!  This is about one forth of the harvest of red tomatoes from Saturday last week.

There are also yellow tomatoes.  I love the yellow ones.  They are so sweet and juicy.

 The tomatoes in the bowl on the left are cherry tomatoes.  We estimate that we had about 500 of those.  Very small but did they pack a flavor!  The best we have ever had and, of course, the label got thrown away so we don't know what variety they are so we can plant the same next season.

Some really nice eggplants.  Since I can only eat so many veggies I googled eggplants and found that I could freeze these.  It is very simple.  Peel the eggplant and cut into thick slices.  Blanch in lemon water for no more than 4 minutes, cool and freeze.  I am hoping to make some eggplant casseroles this winter and some eggplant fritters.

In this pot is tomato sauce.  I took many of the cherry tomatoes and put them in the food processor.  I did not puree them but left some small chuncks since I wanted the  sauce to have some texture.  I added chopped onion and green pepper.  I spiced the sauce with bay leaf, oregano, and fresh basil.  I let it simmer for about half an hour.  I ended up with 4 containers of sauce.  I froze three of them and kept the 1 out to try.

To this container of sauce I added, garlic and garlic oil, some more fresh basil and about a dozen shrimp.  I heated it just long enough for the shrimp to cook and I served it over spaghetti.  It was yummy!  It makes me know that I can add many things to this basic sauce and have many different meals.  One of the nicest things about the sauce is that by using the processor you can not even tell that the skins were left on the tomato, after all, that is where a lot of the flavor is.

Now I have time to go back to my hooking!!!!!  Have a wonderful week everyone.

Doris

. .FRUSTRATION AND A TRIP . . . . . . . . .

Frustration has been the word of the past few weeks.  During the time that I was not posting Mr. Blog decided to update how you blog.  Oh my goodness, all of these changes for an old lady make for smoke rolling out of the ears.  Richard finally figured out how to get the picture on and so I am now going to try to update.

I took a trip to Grant Street Woolworks several weeks ago.  I did not take pictures of rugs.  Kathy (woolfind) always does a good job of that.  Instead I chose to "Take the Road Less Traveled" to Chambersburg.  I wandered up Maryland Route 11 instead of taking interstate 81.  It is a lovely senic drive and probably only takes 10-15 minutes longer and no trailer-tractors to contend with.

This is one of the lovelist stone houses on the way.  In the spring and summer it is doubly beautiful because the occupants have planted the whole property in the English garden style with climbing roses all along the fence.

 This is the new building, just finished, at the Hagerstown Regional Airport.  It is a very large airport for the town size but occasionaly Air Force One land there.

I love old barna!  This is a really nice one.  This farmer raises goats and the pasture is full of them.  They are really interesting.

 This is one of the older homes on the route.  Very picturesque and so peaceful looking.

Crazy lopsided picture taken out of the side window.  It really is hard to take good pictures when driving.  Look at the "Gingerbread on the porch.

This is the airport again.  A mistake to have it on twice but I can't figure how to get rid of it!

A beautiful day with soft puffy clouds floating the the sky.  When I was a kid I loved to look at the faces, the animals, and the castles in the clouds.  These looked like big marshmellows and some looked like cotton candy.

There are lots more interesting barns and houses on this route but no place to pull off of the road to take pictures.  I do enjoy the ride.

In addition to that, I have been elbow deep in tomatoes.  More about that later.  Also I have started a new hooking project.  When I run into a problem while hooking my rule of thumb is to take the piece off of the stand and let it rest for a week.  Usually at the end of that time the piece tells me what it needs.  Of course, I cannot a week without hooking!  Sooooooo, instead of working on one of the many "already started" pieces, of course, I started on new design.  More on this in the next post.

In the meantime, Joan, Richard and I visited our favorite Mexican Resturant last Saturday and after Richard is finished mowing today we will venture out for another luncheon in one of our favorite places.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.  The weather today is perfect!

Doris

A MAGICAL DAY . . . . . . .

I am very late in posting this blog. Hope you will all forgive me. This weather has made a slug of me! Just don't want to do anything. The "magical day" was last Friday. The weather was glorious. Beautiful blue sky with white puffy clouds floating on a slight breeze and no humidity! So unusual for July. It was also the day of the release of the new Harry Potter movie.
Yes, this is my ticket. So glad we ordered them on line. No standing in line at the theater. We went to see this film on Friday afternoon - the 4 o'clock showing. In attendance were my daughter Joan, her son Richard and his wife Sheri, their daughter Danyel and her special friend. Ages 21 to 80 something!

As I sat there watching the previews of coming movies I had the following thoughts:
(1) I would not pay good money to see anything they were touting!
(2) I could not believe how few children were in the seats and how many over 50 were seated. You would think with school out and an afternoon showing that the seats would all be filled with the young.
(3) As I looked at my family all sitting together I suddenly realized that we had four generations ready to watch Harry Potter. I wondered how many other families could say they had four generations watching Harry?
(4) I thought about my father whose name was Harry and remembered an old song that my mother used to sing - "I'm just wild about Harry and Harry's wild about me."

As we came out of the show my thoughts were that the Disney studio did a fantastic job on the special effects in this film. The film did not go as deeply into the story as previous films did but it was wonderful in its own way. It was fun to see Harry, Ron and Hermoine all grown up. I really enjoyed it and am glad that I had the opportunity to go.

And now I guess it's time to grow up!

The other magical thing of the day was my daylilly garden. When I went out to get in the car this is what I saw -

This garden is about 35 or 40 feet long and all of the lillies were in full bloom. It was a sight to behold. This bed is along the edge of the property and faces the street. Several cars just stopped cold in the street to look. It was really beautiful.

Perhaps this will give you an idea of the size.

A little closer look.

This lilly is called Chicago Apache. It is my favorite. A very beautiful red with some orange. Really hot looking!

A lovely yellow and beige ruffled lilly.

The sun setting thru the trees on the West side of the front yard. The end of a truly magical day.

I hope that everyone is keeping as cool as possible. Please take care of yourself in the terrible heat. I want everyone to stay well. Have a wonderful weekend.

Doris

THRU MY EYES - - - - -

Hello all of my blog friends. It's me again. I'm talking about last Thursday. My mom left me all day! Can you imagine that? When she decided to take the summer off, that is not teach or go to many hook-ins, I was one happy pup. She has been home with me most of the time and that means lots of attention and extra belly rubs! Geesh! on Thursday she left home just after 9 in the morning and went to the doctors. I understand that so I didn't mind that she was only gone about 2 hours. However, I knew that something was up when she didn't take her shoes off when she came in. She never wears shoes in the house.

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The next thing I knew she was going again. Seems as tho a lady blogger that she talks with was coming to the Grant Street Woolworks all of the way from OHIO. Yes, Lauren of Rugs and Pugs came for a 1 day visit. Her friend Mary was with her. Mary is not interested in hooking but is an avid antique collector. I heard mom on the phone telling someone that she wished she had spent more time talking to Mary since mom is a collector of antiques also. Mom was so pleased to meet Lauren. She and I have been interested in Lauren's work with the Pug Rescue Group. We both fell in love with Eema when she fostered her.

Lauren also came bearing gifts. What a lovely surprise.

A wonderful smelling candle in a lovely ceramic container, a "spoon" pendant with the words, rug hooker and PUPPY COOKIES. Boy, Miss Lauren sure knows how to win a girls heart.

Did you ever see such cute cookies? Not only cute, but taste awfully good and have a lovely enticing smell. I heard mom tell somebody that these cookies were "eye candy" for pet owners. Thank you Miss Lauren, for your thoughtfulness. I really love them. I have hidden one under the chair in the living room. Shhhhh, mom does'nt know,

Left to right - Joanne and Lauren. Don't know who that is also snapping a picture.

Joanne and Linda watching some antics that were going on in the shop.

Mary, Lauren and Kathy color planning Lauren's new project.

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As I started out telling you, she left me all day - didn't get home until after 6pm. Mom knows that I always eat about 5.

I showed her just how unhappy I was by turning my back on her. I just ignored everything she said.

No, I don't want to come in. I'll eat when I get ready and not before!!!!! Maybe I won't eat at all.

When mom went into the hooking room to put her things away I did make a gold star on my place. Even I couldn't resist macaroni and cheese with broiled chicken breast.

Well, Thursday was a very interesting day. I do hope that Miss Lauren and her friend Mary can come back again before to long. I'm happy to report that mom has stayed home the last 3 days so I am a happy camper again. As you can see this is a very long blog so I am tired and have to rest now.

Mom and I hope that all of you have a wonderful 4th of July. Do be careful with the fire works.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA

Eloise