I awoke this morning, sandwiched between James and Jay, who occasionally squirms his way into our bed before it’s fully light outside. And it wasn’t the lack of space that woke me up–tho my pillow had been taken over by Jay… it was the voices. Jay was saying, “I want cupcakes!” and patting me on the head to make sure I wouldn’t miss the point. James, who occasionally dreams of ship driving was muttering, “I need to order a new anchor and chain.”
This non-conversation worked itself out when James finally awoke, (maybe due in part to a few gentle nudges from me since he had slept through his snooze button twice). He told me he had slept in to avoid the traffic caused by the Pope’s visit to DC. The guys went downstairs to forage for food. By the time I had showered and dressed, there was happy chatting going on in the dining room and a sizzling griddle. James and Jay had compromised and he was making pancakes for breakfast. On a school day! What a nice treat.
Last night we had a fabulous craftnite–Emily has a great blow-by-blow write-up, so please read her hilarious account. I just wanted to add that our crafts were inspired almost entirely by recent blog-reading. Marri over at the Subliminal Rabbit was the inspiration for the Shrinky Dinks. and Karrie at Girl on the Rocks sold me the original beautiful “decrease” argyle stitch markers that made me want to make my own symbol versions. (Hers are very professional-looking markers that you can buy on her Etsy shop. She also makes letter markers which are great if you’re knitting from Cat Bordhi’s new book, New Pathways for Sock Knitters.)
She’s also the inspiration for the crochet hook key chain–she made hers over a year ago. I’m not sure how she got the aluminum hook to bend, ours disintigrated almost immediately. We decided to try a steel hook I had in my collection (it’s stamped 15 cents, so I must have gotten it a a thrift store or yard sale), I cut it with the pliers, and James (man of steel, as Emily so aptly put it) helped bend it. A little filing down the rough edges and we were good to go! We modified Karrie’s design a little further by adding a key ring between the clasp and the crochet hook. (All the hardware other than the hook was from our local hardware store, Strosneiders).
I also made a pair of earrings (inspired by my cherry tablecloth, and a zipper pull for my crochet hook case. (The case is a Mead pencil case which I like because it stands up on it’s own and has a tiny pouch inside the bigger one to hold small notions). You can see the earrings in the background of this photo.
