So much Yarn - How do I choose - What's on my needles?

Looking at my collection of yarn and what's on my needles. I have to plan ahead for nearly 3 weeks, as we'll be traveling. I know I'll have some knitting time this trip, so how do you plan creative time when you don't know what you'll feel like making in advance.

What's on my needles is a gift, so I can't talk about it.

I've pretty much decided which bag I'll be submitting to the bags 2 riches indy contest.

Back to packing, yarn, toiletries and clothes.

Butterflies, Port-a-showers, and Attitudes

I feel it coming on, my impatience is flaring, drying out the tent, wiping dew from everything, and trying to find a place to hang sleeping bags to get them dry, packing up camp is irritating, in that everything either gets packed wet, or has to come out as soon as we're home and get dried and at home - repacked in storage bags.

If I were in a hotel I could just grab a towel, take a real shower, pack my things and walk out the door, but camping includes set-up, cooking, tear-down and the elements. This is a challenge for me now, whereas it was going with the flow even 10 years ago. But at least I have access to showers for that sticky, sweaty I've had it feeling.

Now butterflies and I have a thing going. It seems like every time I get an "attitude" one shows up, whether it's living or a photograph or something on TV, butterflies always have a way of reminding me of "New Life." Shedding that old attitude.

Just before my mother-in-law died she had found a photograph of a butterfly we had given her years before. We took the pic at Macinaw Island in the Butterfly House, it was sitting on a beautiful flower, wings full-spread. She told me of her love for this picture and her love and fascination of butterflies. When she passed a few days later, our thank you cards were easy to select, she had made the selection for us in that conversation. Now I see butterflies. No I'm not superstitious, I do believe in the supernatural, and I have many things that remind me of situations.

Like today for example. All of the sudden my mind went right back to the first day in our new home in Southport Indiana when I was in junior high. What was weird about it was an odor reminded me of that day. I was a city girl until 13, then we moved to the suburbs. They blacktopped surfaces, streets and driveways in the suburbs. Streets in the city were cement. Today, I stepped out of the vehicle I was in right out onto a blacktop resurfaced parking lot. Instant memories of 13. WOW.

So why wouldn't seeing a butterfly remind me of FLO? Trouble with this is it's always timely. I mean about the time I start really missing her - usually when I have a new craft creation I want her to see and touch, I feel the emptiness of losing her companionship, then I'm lifted by some reference to a butterfly.

Back to camping. Disgusting port-a-showers. When it's high 80's outside, and someone leaves the doors open to the portable shower semi-truck, to enter you need to walk a long narrow shoulder width hall, turn into a stall with a dewy wet plastic shower curtain, undress - leaving everything you have on hanging from one hook, step into another stall to shower, step out into the 95 degree changing area, and attempt to dry off in 100 % humidity. The only difference between the hot sweaty stinky body going in is the hot sweaty smelling like soap body going out.

Only when I stepped out this time there was butterfly - on the wall of this rediculous apparatus called a portable shower, and this one was like no other. It had wings of lace, pink at that. I wanted to touch it because it didn't look real. But it was, and I didn't. I just had a moment thinking of FLO and wishing I could call her on the phone and tell her I was thinking of her and missed her.

Well so much for venting. Maybe sometime I'll talk about how I remember to pray for friends like Cathy when I see my Britta Pitcher, and Peggy when I'm ironing.

Here's a pic of my Woven Scarf - I love it!!

A KNIT FELT HAT

The Vogue Knitting Magazine had a Fedora Knit Felt hat last winter. My sis gave it a try and she's going to town on these.










Here's my first attempt - it isn't shaped or dried yet. I think it may turn out really nice.



Now it's shaped. Ok - I like making hats!!

More knit felt purses ... to be listed in August on Etsy

I'm hoping to take better pictures of my purses:










Here are a few taken in natural light - a few days ago.










Check out www.bags2richesindy.org they have a great contest ending next month.














These are my design, and I may be entering one into the contest Bags 2 Riches Indy.

me.

The purse is not a hat, but the hat may be a purse.

Over the last year I've made more than 30 purses out of the knit felt process. It has been so much fun to create, and wait for the end results, as the knit purse is huge and misshapen, yet when it is washed in hot water it becomes a fine piece of thick woolen fabric - like a tapestry taking on the pre-planned shape of a purse. Many of my "unfinished" pieces have been placed on heads, looking somewhat like misshapen hats.

Now, I make my first hat. It was also my first FLOP!! We've all laughed so hard at this piece, which is now in pieces, as I cut it up to use for embellishments in the future. But at first the hat I made almost looked more like a purse. Now I get it.

Learning to laugh at myself and my work.