Someone else's contest & family stuff

A wonderful artist is running a contest on her blog. It's a tiered contest so I'm going to let you in on it, despite my own desparate desire to win. If she get 33 individual entries, then she offers up a $33 certificate to her etsy shop. She makes gorgious cuffs, collars, sleeve garters & earrings. See, take a look. If she gets 66 entries, the certificate goes up to $66.


Another day, another way to help Haiti

I had a nice time visiting my mom & her older sister this weekend. I pulled out my laptop to get family info. My mom & two of her sisters were brunettes, while the youngest was blonde. No one could remember what color my granddaddy's hair was before it went white, and Other Mother's hair was dark (yes, I called her Other Mother, because she was more like another mother than a grandparent; I was 5, I thought it was An Other).

I finished my Ren faire blouse. Mom and Aunt Shirley took one look and were aghast. It's kind of shapeless because, duh, I'll be wearing a bodice over it, which will provide any shaping. So yes, it hangs like a sack. I did run into one problem with using the old sheet; the machines hated it. I wasn't using industrial machines and the tight weave of the sheets did funny things to the stitch evenness. As they say, I won't be wearing it to meet the queen after all. Not a real one, anyway.

I also fixed a not-quite-antique beaded & embroidered sweater vest. (note: I need pictures of these 2 projects,don't I?). I had to replace one pearl, I let one bugle remain missing and I fixed some loose embroidery threads. It took about 10 minutes & the difference is remarkable. Mom & Aunt S were amazed. They'd been letting it sit for months, waiting for me to fix it. They didn't realize that it was so simple. Admittedly, it was simplified by Aunt S having a pearl on hand for me to use.

The weather, by the way, is remarkably warm. It started Sunday with temps in the 60's. And it was sunny. Same thing yesterday, and today. I wore a polo shirt today, atlhough there was frost on the ground this morning. My neighbor's poor pear tree though, it's put out blossoms. That won't last. We had a thunderstorm Sunday & that means that winter weather is likely in the next 11 days. It sounds like superstition but it has a scientific basis. If the conditions are right to have a thunderstorm in winter, then they're right to have 'wintery' weather (around here that's code for snow/sleet/freezing rain), too.