Well, the purses were finished and delivered and well appreciated! The second one went SOOO much better than the first... I hope when I start knitting socks it goes that way too! hahaha

Nothing else new here. The apples, peaches and pear canning is done, though I may buy another box of apples for apple pie filling. I haven't really decided. I also found a great blog on canning, preserving and using produce. You can find it here.

Tomorrow I'll be finishing up my WA state swap blocks and I'm going to learn to post a picture here! woohoo, I'm entering the techy zone....

Well finally, some crafting content! I promised two of my classmates that I would make them a purse over summer break. I had made myself the Diva Essential Designer Bag last year and they both admired it and requested one. They bought all the supplies and even offered to pay me for my time, but of course I said "No!" "I'll be HAPPY to make you guys a purse!". Hmmph.... sometimes I am such a dummy.

School was out 8/18. I messed around for a week or so, then Grandma got sick and I didn't have time to do any crafting stuff at all. Realizing that school is starting again in 5 days, I thought I'd better get cracking on the purse construction.

Cutting the pieces out went very well. My cutting table is very low and my back tends to really get painful if I bend over it for long. Rick made me a riser to set on top of the table and wow, what a difference! I cut pieces for a couple of hours and no back pain. Yippee!!!

I start sewing. Everything is going great guns. I'm congratulating myself, thinking, "Wow, this really looks professional" (that should have been my first clue!). After dinner I do a bit more, get all the pockets sewn and the lining put together. After I sew the lining together I look at the purse with a bit of a gloating air. THEN I SEE IT.......................... every single fucking pocket was sewn in upside down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sheesh, what an idiot.

I spend an hour ripping out seams and removing 4 pockets from said lining. It's 11 pm but heck, I can stay up a couple of hours. I sew two pockets back in, right side up this time. Then it hits me... those pockets are supposed to be on the OTHER two lining pieces! Needless to say, I went to bed.

7:30 am. I'm ready. I rip the pockets out again and sew all 4 in properly. Whew, crisis averted! I go merrily on my way, fusing batting to pieces, etc. Then I realize that I fused the outer batting to the inner lining... but hey, it'll just be a puffy purse, right? (No more lining fabric so we just MAKE DO!)

Now things are going well. I get the zipper in place and sew it in. (side note: the pattern called for a separating zipper. We couldn't find one in the right color and I chose to get one that wasn't separating but would match the fabric). I'm so very proud and I ZIP the zipper.... and the zipper pull is in my left hand, totally unattached to said purse. 1 hour and MANY cuss words later I finally manage to get the zipper pull reattached and I ZIP the fucking thing off again!!!!

Yes, there are days when I question my own sanity. Heck, I question it every day!!!!!!!! Said purse is now looking good, barring a few extra needle holes in the lining (Ann, don't look at it toooo closely, ok?) and I'm almost finished with purse number 1. Anyone want to make bets on how purse #2 goes????????

Have a great weekend!

I pity anyone who actually reads my boring blog!!! No new knitting, spinning or sewing content today, sorry!

For the past week, I've been canning and doing a bit of freezer cooking. The canning is going well, thank god. I've done a box of peaches, a box of pears and am now plunging into 100 pounds of apples. The odd thing about the apples is that I'm sure they are reproducing at night! I take apples out, chop them up turn them into applesauce and the next day the box is still full! Whats up with that?

The freezer cooking wasn't planned, but when digging through my recipes I found one for twice baked potatoes. My family loved these (not sure why I quit making them) so I decided to make some up. Of course, I couldn't do them in a reasonable quantity. Hell no! I had to do 20 pounds...... but now they're done and I have ~50 twice baked potatoe halves in my freezer.

Back to canning, I'm trying something new to me this year. Since Rick was diagnosed as a diabetic last April, I'm canning with Splenda. I have to say that it's turning out wonderfully... to my surprise! No one can taste the difference and with my chubby family any decrease in calories has to be a good thing!

So, I'm off to chop more apples. Hope you're all having more fun today than me!

And yet another 3 weeks has gone by..... though this time wasn't uneventful.

My darling grandmother passed away on 9/5/06. She was 92 and she went quickly so that, at least, was a blessing. She raised me as my parents weren't able to, and she's been the one constant in my very dysfunctional life. I miss her more than I can say.

Needless to say, the vultures (oops, I mean relatives) have been swarming and that too is very upsetting to me, but I have my pictures and memories of Grandma and that is all I need.

On the crafting front, my HA order arrived! What lovely yarns. I couldn't be more pleased and have been busy winding skeins of Kona fingering in anticipation of much dyeing in the next week! I need to get some heavy duty plastic wrap this coming weekend, then watch out!

Still knitting away at the mystery stole. I completed side 1, including my very first knitted on edging, and have now done clue 1 on the second side. Obviously I knit very slowly, but I'm enjoying the process and that is what counts! No recent spinning or sewing, though I REALLY need to get my WA State Swap blocks done in the next week (they're due 9/25). I'm about 2/3 done with 40 blocks so it shouldn't be a problem to finish them up.

That's all for now folks. I'm going to make time to learn to post pics so I can show off my stash, my dyeing experiments and my blocks!!!