Next

Since my crocheted blanket is almost finished, I am planning my next project. It is going to be a felt quilt, along the lines of this one, from the Purl Bee (but not so damn ugly!):



I am also going to use felt blocks, but I am going to sew it more invisibly and use better colors.

In fact, I am going to use old sweaters!

I found my first one the other day, in a bag of clothes on the sidewalk. It was a men's medium, but I threw it in the washer with hot water then in the dryer; now I doubt if a five year old could get his arm into it:



See, it turns into felt when you do that. You can cut it now, without it unraveling:



Cool, huh?

So if you have any old sweaters that are mostly wool or cashmere, please send them my way! Seriously!

Bismarck

You have already seen this mirror, but look at what lives on top of it:



That is a photograph of our family cat, Bismarck, taken fifteen or so years ago. He is lying on my sister Mona's bed in our house on Cleveland Crescent in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. I am not sure where the carved wooden frame came from, but at one time it had something else in it. One of my sisters tore out the other picture, trimmed this photograph to fit, and pasted it in.



Bismarck died in the late 1990s. A few years before, he had moved from Nova Scotia to an apartment in Toronto, where he wasn't allowed outside and there weren't too many people around. When he died I felt really sad, and I wished that his last years had been better.



But then I had a dream about him. I dreamed he was lying on Mona's bed, on that very same pink comforter, and purring and purring! It made me feel a lot better—I knew he was in a good place.

He was a good cat, as my grandfather might have said. I wish I could pet him right now!

Now THIS is crocheting

Click for more info. Thanks Peachy.

Found!

Tassels:



Piping:



In a "free" box. You need?

Sunrise on the farm

The rooster wakes me up every morning.

UPDATE: I agree with Greg that this looks more like "Aliens visit the farm."