quiet weekend

Even though the weather was mostly lovely here, I was under it this weekend with a sore throat, headache and chills. Not horribly ill, but not raring to go, either. I felt it coming on during the week, I was tired and didn't pick up a needle all week. I did crochet a bit and finished this crochet shopping bag, here full of apples and bananas.
I did get a lot of business taken care of last week and a lot of work done, which felt good. And I took some time our for fun. Last week at this time I was sipping a berry smoothie having a pedicure.
Pedicures are among one of life's great pleasures, I think. My very frugal mom introduced the other females in the family to this after she discovered it when she was probably in her late 60s or early 70s.

When we were young such a thing would have been the ultimate of wasted time and money to her. But she mellowed with age, as we hopefully do. It was a real treat to watch her indulge herself a bit, finally, once she could. She loved to have her hair and nails done.

I was a little shocked when she introduced her granddaughters to this extravagance when they were, I think, 16! (When I was 16 I wouldn't have ever heard of a manicure, much less such things as pedicures.)

She introduced me to pedicures when I took her up to Minnesota to the Mayo Clinic for a problem she was having. I got shocking red for my toenails for my first pedicure! It was such fun and is one of my favorite memories of a stressful trip. I'm sure it was mom's last pedicure.

My second venture into this realm of girlyness was with my sister. It was so very much fun. Now I try to make a habit of it! (now you know my not-so-secret vice!)

Dolly hopped into the shopping bag, in the hope of going on another adventure...

silk screening?

I looked back through my posts and couldn't find a previous post about Camp Quality Illinois this year. So I hope this isn't reduntant--I was sure I'd mentioned this year's project.

Each year my EGA chapter teaches at this camp one morning--we design, kit and teach a project that can be done by children from 6 to 16, boys and girls both, with and without experience. It's kind of daunting but fun.

This year our day's theme is Hawai'ian Luau. Our chapter has on hand tins for our Indiana State Day event coming up and we decided to use them and develop a project that could be put into the cover. Since we have felt and I love working with felt, felt it is...

I used freezer paper stencils to create the positives of this hibiscus. The negatives were made by carefully ironing on the cut out bits--not too easy and the little pieces didn't stick well.I played around with some embroidery on the samples above. The top one is in the tin we'll use--it's just a bit large for the opening. We got a nice donation of perle cotton to use for the embroidery. My inclination is to give the children the stenciled fabric and some thread and let them do what they want--no set pattern or rules. I also plan to have extra felt on hand for the creative ones.

Below is a shot of the used stencils, set up for reuse. They should iron on a few times. I also decided to try my hand at silk screening the negative design. I read all I could find on it and checked out some silk screening supplies at J0-Ann's and then I bought some bridal chiffon, the finest I could find.

I tacked and taped it to stretcher bars and then traced my design with a Sharpie marker. I painted in the parts to remain white with Modge-Podge. I had read about someone else using this because it's more water resistant than some other media. (It was a while back that I read up on this and didn't keep any source material or printouts, just vague memories.)

I haven't tried it yet, but there's a long weekend coming up this weekend and I plan to give it a go and see what happens. Hopefully, the final silkscreened piece will look like the stenciled version on the bottom right and be easier to do in multiples. (Sadly, Camp Quality is always booked to the max with kids wanting to come---I generally estimate about 75 kits.)

I've also developed a tiki design for the less flowery stitchers. I think I'll wait and see how the silk screen does and, if it works, do that one as a silk screen. Any suggestions are welcome! Wish me luck!

I'm going on a computerless holiday from Thursday night through Monday! Mostly we'll be at home, hanging around, although one day we plan to visit with my family. (It's hard to find a day on a holiday weekend when both of our nurses are off work at the same time!)

June Giveaway Winners

Wow! I'm really blown away by the interest in this giveaway. Threads are always the most fun!

Random.org picked 18, 20 and 13 today for the winners of the threads. They are Elmsley Rose, Stef (Stef had several blogs, I just picked one but check them all out), and Jamee J. (She doesn't have a blog but that's her Hardanger here.) I'll be in touch so you can send me your addresses.

If you do something with this thread please let me know. I'd love to post photos on my blog or link to your blog images. Susan at SJ Designs and I would love to know what you think of this fiber and what you do with it.

Thanks so much to everyone who commented and entered this giveaway. I have more lined up for July and August.

Don't forget to enter June giveaway

It's almost over! Don't forget to leave a comment here to be entered in the June blog giveaway. The THREE winners will be selected next Monday (June 29).

A little progress

Last week was a busy one. I ran a conference at work and then collapsed (I slept most of Sunday to recuperate!). Dolly stayed home and kept an eye on things there. It's gone from cool and rainy here to very hot (50s to 90s!) since last week and the heat making me lazy.

I worked on crocheting a mesh shopping bag at the conference--which looks like a pile of thread so I didn't bother to take a picture of it. I'm using leftover cottons from Susan's washcloths (in this post). It's still in the works.

Thanks to Racaire and her Refilsaum handout, I'm sailing along with my Bayeaux Tapestry bit (see here for links). It may not look like much but this is hours of work done--smoothly and happily finally. I'm really enjoying this piece now. My stitching doesn't look as neat as Racaire's but I can see a definite improvement from my start (the upper left-hand bird) and even as I go along.

Dolly visits my sister

After checking out things around our house, Dolly took an excursion up to my sister's. It was an idyllic afternoon to sit on the porch. We sat int he shade but Dolly wanted to get some sun.

She sat in the boat for a bit but decided against venturing out onto the river. It was a very busy afternoon with a lot of traffic and activity.

Last, Dolly poses in my sister's garden. She really liked this cushiony plant.

Dolly and the Catalpa Tree

Dolly discovered how much fun it was to climb in the catalpa tree that takes up most of our back yard. She spent hours perched amongst the fragrant blossoms, playing hide-and-seek amongst the huge leaves.