The Garden Beat Me Up

So I had plans to finish catching up around here.

Then I went out to weed my peonies. JUST. THE PEONIES.

...and hour and a half later...

I'd weeded the peonies (which was a task, let me tell you!) dug up all of my overgrown lilies (which was a task, let me tell you!) and then started turning over an area of grass between the two beds (which was...yeah, you're following me..)

So, since I'm pretty sure that sometime after midnight tonite, I'm going to lose all ability to move my extremities without wincing, I thought I'd do a quick post while I hoarf down my baked potato I made for dinner.

I found this on Vintage Pleasure, feel free to play along!

The concept:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.

b. Using only the first page, pick an image.

c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker.

The Questions:

1. What is your first name?

2. What is your favorite food?

3. What high school did you go to?

4. What is your favorite color?

5. Who is your celebrity crush?

6. Favorite drink?

7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?

9. What you want to be when you grow up?

10. What do you love most in life?

11. One Word to describe you.

12. Your flickr name.

i tried to post the linky thing they give you to link back to each individual photo, but its not working. hmm...

in case you're wondering, since some of these don't really make sense: 1. sarah 2. salad 3. rock island high school 4. blue 5. mike hererra (ok, 8 years ago, but its the first I thought of) 6. pepsi (coincidentally, had to pick between pepsi and coke, and then found that picture) 7. martha's vineyard 8. strawberry shortcake 9. crafty 10. family 11. domestic 12. i had to cheat on this one a little to get any images, I used the 'sarahtakestoomany' part of my flickr url.

Memorial Day Sonnet

I heard this Saturday night on a Prarie Home Companion, and managed to scribble the last line of it down to remind me to find the 'text' of it to share here. After a bit of searching...

We're here to honor those who went to war

Who did not wish to die, but did die, grievously,

In eighteen sixty-one and in two-thousand four

Though they were peaceable as you or me.

Young and innocent, they knew nothing of horror---

Singers and athletes, and all in all well-bred.

Their sergeants, mercifully, made them into warriors,

And at the end, they were moving straight ahead.

As we look at these headstones, row on row on row,

Let us see them as they were, laughing and joking,

On that bright irreverent morning long ago.

And once more, let our hearts be broken.

God have mercy on them for their heroic gift.

May we live the good lives they would have lived.

~Garrison Keillor May 29, 2004

Spinning Stuff

"How I Spent My Summer Vacation" ...or at least the better part of the last 3 weeks!

I got in touch with Amanda from LoneStarArts who I "know" through twopeasinabucket and ravelry. I wanted to see if she could dye some BFL for me, and lucky for me, she happened to have 8 oz hanging around ready to dye. (It was a sign, I swear...I HAD to buy it right?)

after looking through her colors, I chose 'Carnival'. She had it dyed and mailed to me within a week I think, it was fast and I was thrilled. ...and it was soft and squishy, and it smelled good. (Yup, I smelled it. Part habit, and part 'I've received some smoky things in the mail before'. This just smelled fresh and clean. Awesome)

I spun most of this on 'my' spindle. ('my' as in 'its in my possession at the moment', it is not MINE)

nothing like spun singles on toilet paper rolls *sigh*

that's a nickel buried in there, to give you some size reference. Isn't it purty?

---------------Right about here...is where I ordered my spinning wheel---------------

More of that later...

Quilt-A-Long - Week 2

What can I say, week 2 went much smoother. I'm not totally convinced I like the fabrics I chose, but decided its too late, I'm just going to go with them. Worst case scenario, it looks terrible, but its done, right?

"I can always do another" :)

Quilt-A-Long - Week 1

A couple of months ago, I came across amandajean's blog. For a while I just enjoyed reading, and looking at ALL the quilts she turns out. Then she mentioned a quilt-a-long, and I debated. For 45 seconds. And then I signed up.

See, I've made all of....3 quilts. Baby quilts. I know near nothing about quilting. So what do I do? I sign up to make a full sized quilt. I'm full of great ideas like that.

BUT...I figured it would be a good way to just jump in and learn, and there is some degree of accountability in doing it as a group...even if its a virtual group.

So stay tuned, as I stumble along, and try to keep up.

First, we started with week 1's block, allow me to show you -

ok, followed directions, cut pieces, lay out like so. hey! not a bad start!

sew center, sew 'points', ok, still good!

...sew rows together

...and join those to make the square. wooo! look at me! celebratory dance goes here.

all that's left, just trim that sucker to 12.5". alright, line up the ruler and...

wait...

CRAP!

too small. hard to trim to 12.5" when you're barely past 11.5" huh? mhmm...

No idea how I managed that, but...decided to do another, since some of my "points" got lost anyway. So, more fabric, try again -

hey now! not too shabby! Still came out too small (I think its just about 12") but enough that I can just adjust for it later. and my points are nice and pointy! second celebratory dance goes here.

It might be a long 15 weeks.

Life's Too Short For Generic Toothpaste

No, it has nothing to do with this blog post (I promise!) :) but I did learn a lesson. Generic toothpaste sucks. I wasted an entire 1/8th of a tube yesterday. Just tossed it and bought Crest, because I couldn't stand another week of gross toothpaste. Learn from my mistake kids, there a few things that are "name brand" must, ...toothpaste just made it to the top of my list.

Moving on. I realized its been quite a while since I've cracked the windows in the old blog, and it was starting to smell a bit stale. So here we go, its a gorgeous day, let's play catch up, shall we?

The last few weeks have been a flurry of projects. Apparently the warmer weather actually inspired me to finish (in some cases, start...) all those projects I didn't have the 'oomph' to do when it was 20 below zero and dark for 16 hours a day. (heck, I really only had the 'oomph' to turn up the heat, put on another sweater, and grumble about the stupid pioneers who decided to settle in the midwest in the firstplace. I'm sure it seemed like a good idea in May.)

So its been a mix of quilting, sewing, knitting, laundry, spinning, crocheting, painting, cutting....and I think I cleaned the house once. Maybe. Close anyway. Don't get greedy.

So, rather than try to cram the last month into one post, I'm going to break it up a bit so you don't get bored. (well...I take that back, so you don't get bored ALL AT ONCE.)

I will say, I did the softie swap as a part of Crafty Daisies swap. I can't post a picture yet, because my softie has not completed its trek. No cheating. But soon :)

And now, while my boy is up sleeping off a trip to farmer's market and the grocery store, BLOG POSTS A'COMIN'!