Playing Around

I'm still not back in the studio like I was a few weeks ago. I'm not exactly sure why. Meanwhile, I am playing with lots of other things to occupy my time.

My good friend in Kentucky sent some sourdough starter to me. I don't know why I raised my cyber hand, asking for some, when she offered it to all her friends. I don't know how to use it and I barely understand how to feed it. (You're supposed to feed sourdough starter.?)

When the starter arrived, I fed it a bit to see if it had survived the trip. I added a bit of water and flour, following general guidelines from the web. I covered it with a paper coffee filter and let it sit on the counter.

 It looks messy right now and doesn't have much for bubbles. Bubbles are a good thing. This was after an hour on the counter.

 When I next checked it after two hours, it was nice and frothy and awake! There is still hope for me using this! I might even make something edible.

I saw this setup online where their iPad was next to their sewing machine. My son had gifted me with an older iPad a while back and I hadn't used it yet. I like this idea.

Soooooooo, I figured out how to set mine up too! Now I can watch Netflix while I am sewing. I also have ear buds so if The Mister is in the studio on his computer, my shows won't bother him.  Also, having ear buds makes it easier to hear over the sewing machine noise.

I am working on this quilt. It's taking a long time because there is no pattern. I am working on attaching those letters to it by hand using a buttonhole stitch.

I started the second sock. 

 After I got both socks to their full length, all I had left to do were the heels. I decided to try them on to see how they looked. I couldn't get them over my ankle!!!

Now what will I do? I did about the only thing I could, I un-crocheted them BOTH back down to the heel hole.

Oh my that was hard to do. This is thin yarn, a small hook, and a small single crochet stitch. 

I did some searching online and found out that this is a very common problem with crocheted socks. Knitted ones have more stretch in them. I know I could give up but gosh I really want to tackle this challenge and win. I will try to modify the pattern and we shall see if I'm successful.

We finished another puzzle. This had half the pieces the first puzzle had but took us twice as long to do. The Mister returned the two puzzles and brought home three more. It's been fun doing them.

We're having all kinds of adventures with the new lifestyle we have to keep these days. We have gone to pickup services with our local grocery store. I've tried three of them so far. The biggest store had the poorest service. Not only were the potato chips smashed, so was this box of drumsticks:

We all have to make sacrifices during these tough times though. A little squishing isn't going to kill us. Besides, I now know which store to go back to for the best service!

The dogs know how to spend all this time at home. They do what they always do, they chill out. Roxy loves having her bankie by my feet.

Speaking of dogs, it is the time of year for flea and tick collars to be put on. My crazy pups play-fight so hard that in the past, they've ripped each others collars off. These flea and tick collars are not cheap. Some can cost nearly $50 each. I knew there had to be a solution. Last year I used heavy duty waxed thread and attached the collars to nylon web collars. That way, they don't rip each others collars off!

I have to use a steel thimble and a pair of pliers to push and pull the thread through, but it really isn't as hard as that sounds. I bury the ends of the threads into the collars. This method held together quite well last year. I hope it does this year too.

This tree is waving bye bye y'all! Till next time, happy sewing!