Happy Father's Day!

See where I got my good looks?!

Some shots from my trip to Chicago this week for a conference...

Think I Might Need a Bigger Basket...

Not having learned my lesson the first few times, I bid on a couple more e-bay auctions for loops...and won, so now I've got lots-o-loops. Some of them are kind of crappy, but I got some new colors (including black), and also three more looms, so now I can have potholders stretching and still work on new ones. Sweet! None of the local craft stores sell decent loops anymore (?!), so my only source is online, which kind of blows, because shipping usually costs more than the loops. (sigh) I may need to grow pot instead of tomatoes to support my art. I think I'll dye some more of the white ones next time we tie dye shirts.

Below are a few recent ones that weren't visible in the shot above. The orange and green one illustrates why it's important to use loops of approximately the same width. The orange loops were fat and woolly, while the green ones were more delicate; it resulted in kind of a lopsided Dali-esque potholder.

Fit to be Dyed

Almost forgot to post the results of our little tie dye project. They turned out pretty good for a first attempt. Hoops thought so too. Michael's had their dye on sale again, so I bought some for a second attempt, next time we get a rainy day. Lenore has already placed her order.

My What Big Teeth You Have...

I asked Lenore to find me a Shark's tooth while she was visiting family and celebrating birthdays w/mom and dad. She's been busy! (or someone has)

The Latvian potholder makes for a nice addition to the Latvian tribute on the Edisto Island refrigerator, don't you think?


Here's a very cute and funny video for your viewing pleasure. I had nothing to do with it, other than stumbling across it on YouTube.

Recovery Potholder

Lenore made me a potholder! This is her first one, and I think it's splendid. I left her the supplies in hopes that she'd behave herself while I was at work and not attempt to do something silly like carry laundry or re roof the house. She's been known to ignore doctor's orders in the past.

Here's Hoops disrespecting some of the potholders I made over the weekend (did I mention there was a lot of waiting around?!).


I'm almost out of the vintage loops, so I made myself this one, because I like the colors so much.


Here's one made with some of the vintage white loops that I had to bleach white again, then colored with some leftover dye from my tie dye kit. I like the way it turned out.


A potholder in it's raw state...


I was pleased with this "Blues" number too.


I might have to make Hoops her own potholder.


After the photo shoot, I put everything back in my basket. Hoops added her sparkly ball!

Too Hot for Potholders

FINALLY, I got a picture of Odie on his sweet new bike. I also got a sound demo of the engine via cell phone. I think it will be better in person though. He will need a new dental plan to get all the bugs out of his teeth. Hope the cicadas don't like orange!

Platelets, Ports and Potholders...Oh My!

Looks like Hoops mistook Lenore's pain killers for cat treats!

The weekend was spent propping up poor Lenore, whose vivacious platelets allowed for installation of her "soaker hose" port on Friday. The doctor said everything looked "clean and shiny as it should" and even had photos to prove it. Said photos were later left *unsupervised* within my very reach, but Lenore wouldn't let me steal one (it was a duplicate!) out of her chart for posting here. She such a stickler for protocol that Lenore! Anyway this 20-minute procedure, which was to have begun at noon (but that's hospital time, so it really didn't start 'til after 1:30 real-world time) got us home at around 8 p.m., after a swing through Walgreen's drive up for a Norco refill (or as Lenore calls it "NICOR"). Needless to say, I made more than a few potholders that day while waiting. Stay tuned for photos, plus documentation of our first attempt at tie dying.

In other news...wait, there's really no other news. It rained a lot, so we fired up the crock pot, made some bread pudding, sat around quite a bit and Lenore battled the post surgery adjustments one's organs seem to make after any type of medical invasion. We did still make a brief appearance at the Farmer's Market, and I took a couple of bike rides between storms (one attempt was poorly timed and I got soaked despite Lenore's up-to-the-minute monitoring of the weather radar -- she was able to call mid ride to tell me I would be getting rained on once I left Elgin).

Sorry no photos today; maybe later in the week after I get caught up at work.