23 August 2009

Busy, we have been

Since Russ is not going to make much of an appearance in this post, I would like to start it by saying that he told me I'm handsome the other day. I don't think he quite understands the concepts of masculine and feminine adjectives, so I was rather flattered, especially since it was at about 7am.
But yes, his parents have been busy this week. I think I only sat down to Minesweeper once this week. I played 3 games rather than 50. Yay! G has been happy with tools lately. He says he is learning to enjoy making things. I am so happy. His grandfather was a carpenter and I say it's about time he took a real interest in such handiwork. I decided a while ago that the best solution to the bookcase problem we were having--not being able to find the anchors to keep the bookcases from crushing my child(ren) and the fact that we couldn't store anything on the bottom halves of any of the 4 3'x6' bookcases we had in our house--was to build shelves all the way around the living room. G did not agree, and indeed our friend Mr B agreed with him which gave him more reason not to disagree with me. Well, the need was finally strong enough that we compromised and went to Homes Depot and spend a lot money and built some red oak shelves around our space. We are all impressed.


Excuse the mess and limited view, but this is what I have now. Maybe I will update it later, once we get everything arranged better. He has enjoyed it so much he wanted to build the toy drawers/shelves I had in mind for Russ' books and toys. I said something about needing space out here for my sewing stuff as well and he was like "I CAN MAKE IT!" I like this side of my husband, though all the new tools he is "needing" might make it a little tight in our checkbook this month. But I am okay with it. Tools are nice to have around.

As far as my busyness, oh joy! I have been having fun with yarns and using fabric scraps as yarn and big crochet hooks and paint and pictures... Oh my! First of all, I've been trying to hard to get that room cleaned out but you know how I am: so many treasures I can't go for long before needing to stop to make/finish/tediously destroy something. I started with the closet and am getting rid of a bunch of old clothes but there were some sweaters in there that I thought would make some nice yarn so I Googled how to harvest yarn
and did. Thus far I have done 2 sweaters and it was quite different than what I expected. They were both chenille yarn so when I was finished with them I put their fibred together and made a mesh market bag. Thus far. There was so much in just the pink one... I think I am going to double strand it and make a net to hang in the corner of Alice's room for stuffed animals. We had one of those in our room when we were little, but it wasn't pink and shiny and chenille and homemade. Ooh, I am so excited!


I also found my pile of projects I have started that are not quite finished yet. I have been meaning to get around to them for a while now but there are reasons why I haven't finished them yet. Like the one I DID finish last night: it was a rug I was making from sewing fabric scraps into long strips, braiding, and sewing in rounds. The hand sewing in rounds part sucked! So while G and B were playing killing each other one the XBox, I ripped it all apart, made the strips into one long string (instead of 3) and began a crochet rug instead. I learned many things from this experience. 1: I don't like to crochet with denim strips. But altogether, it went much faster than sewing it did, it's not quite as lumpy, and it's finished! I can finally take it off the list! WOOHOO! I had to make more strips from--this time from a few pair of jama pants--but it is still not very big. I edged it in purple and I think I am going to use it in Alice's room. What do you think? Do I rock or what?

My next yarn experiment is to be "plarn." Aren't you excited to hear about that?

Oh, and I have finally just about finished my Mother-In-Law's birthday present, who's birthday was in June I might add. It is a pink table with pictures of her family all over it. Like, pictures of her mom and grandma and her when she was 7 and stuff. This was a fun project. I even printed/cut out yellow roses and put them all over it, since she loves roses and Bill loves yellow and it is for both of them, kind of. It is pretty nifty. I might have to photograph it for my personal "look what I made" catalog. All we have left to do is pour the epoxy on it and call it haul it over there. G is excited too because it is getting this table out of the garage and it has been taking up LOTS of space. But it's almost done! Hurrah!

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