I've said this before...

But it bears repeating. I really need to keep up with this blog more regularly! No job, no kids-- you'd think I wouldn't have any excuse. I have to chalk it up to "good intentions," knowing that intentions really don't get anything accomplished. So here I am, three weeks after my last post, playing catch-up yet again.

We had some bad news about one of our pets recently. Buddy, our 13-year-old orange tabby, was diagnosed with mouth cancer about 3 weeks ago. There's not much to do, other than to keep him comfortable for as long as we can. He's doing quite well so far-- still eating, playing, and cuddling normally.

In the meantime, we had another tiny kitten appear in our yard early last week. The same thing happened last year, when little Sanford showed up in our back yard. This one was in much better shape than Sanford. For starters, he was already weaned. :) He had the usual ear mites, worms, runny eyes & cold that you'd expect, but otherwise seemed okay. Everything checked out okay at his first vet visit, so we'll be keeping him. We've named him Oliver Conrad and are hoping that he will make a nice playmate for Sanford.

In stitching news... I'm working on Drawn Thread's Prairie Garden. The colors don't show up very well in the photo. The fabric is actually Waterlily, though it doesn't look like it here. Most of the time I've been working on this, I've been crossing my fingers and hoping that I have enough fabric to finish it. There was a piece of fabric already in the chartpack-- placed there by me-- that I thought had been purchased for this pattern. Apparently not, since it is just big enough.

Fortunately, it looks like I'll have enough fabric to stitch and frame the sampler.

Soon I will start working on something for a Prairie Schooler exchange that Becky is hosting. I haven't been able to participate in any of Becky's exchanges in quite a while, so I'm really looking forward to this one. :) I think I have a design picked out, but I'm not sure how I will finish it. So many ideas!

I've also continued going to basket classes. "Class" is probably a bit of an overstatement-- it's more like a workshop. I love it!! They have one nearly every week, and everyone is working on something different. Needless to say, there is a LOT of enabling happening. LO

I've attended two basket classes since making the first one. In the second class, I made a bean pot basket... my first attempt at something round. It was a LOT of fun to make, and I love the way it turned out. My most recent basket is square, but it isn't finished. It's more advanced than the first two I made, and it took me a while to get going on it. I was also quite tired that evening and just couldn't work quickly enough to complete it in one evening. I'll finish it at next week's class.

     

Labor Day?

Is it really the end of summer already? It doesn't seem like it could be, but the calendar says otherwise. It looks as though our tomato plants did not get the memo this year. They've been very late and are just now starting to ripen. I tried some romas this year, so we're hoping for some homemade sauce soon.

An end-of-summer tradition where we live is the county fair. I always promise myself that I'll enter some of my stitching, but I never seem to do it. I've only entered once-- many years ago. I finally managed to get myself organized enough to do it again, and I put in three pieces this year.

My "large picture" entry was Angel of Love. I stitched this years ago for my mom. She had always wanted me to show this one, so that was my very first choice. It won 2nd place. :) Sorry for the lousy picture, but it was very difficult to photograph because of the glass. At the time I originally completed it, I didn't have a website, or a digital camera, so there are no photos of it prior to framing.



The other pieces that I entered were in the "holiday decoration" and "miscellaneous" sections. For the holiday category, I entered TrickORTreat Box (2nd place). In the miscellaneous section, I chose the biscornu that I completed not so long ago. No one seemed to be able to figure out what purpose the biscornu was supposed to serve, and I was quite surprised to find out that it also won a 3rd place ribbon. :)