Happy New Year!!

We haven't had snow save for a sprinkling Christmas eve, very unusual for northern Indiana. This week is making up for it!! It began snowing Jan. 25 and has snowed at least an inch, often more, each day since. I now have about 9 inches on the ground at my house, and it snowing as I write. The 7 day forecast predicts snow 6 of the seven. It's good for the ground water level and it's really pretty but, my gosh, shoveling is a workout. Thank God it's all light powder. The weather people may call it lake effect but it's not the big wet flakes we usually get.

I'm embarrassed to realize how long it has been since I posted. I wish I could claim to have been on holiday in the islands or something exotic. Alas, no. Christmas has come and gone and January is over! I spent my holiday knitting and doing the bare minimum of cleaning around the house. I completed 4 purses and 2 skull scarves, all tucked into zippered pillowcases waiting to be felted. I have 2 more purses on the needles. I did a little embroidery on the finished purses, but I wasn't really inspired. I plan to add some buttons and brooches after felting. Oh, and my den is within 3 hours of being useful again!! The piles of yarn and various projects are tucked into storage drawers and the loose papers are filed away.

The Walmart by me finally opened. I have been waiting since early last spring for this! It is built on the site of the business my Dad helped start. At various times all of my family has worked there, so it was sad to see the building go (the business closed it's doors about a year after 9-11). On the other hand just the rumor of Walmart coming to the south side caused a wonderful growth of restaurants, stores and services. I hope to see a lot more, the south side has been pretty run down.
Anyway, back to my story, I visited Walmart on my way home from work last week. It's great to have some businesses open on my schedule (being a night shift worker and all). Of course, I picked up some yarn and a pattern book called crochets afghans from A to Z. I'm starting with A. It's an American flag. I have made 2 flag afghans in the past, but this pattern is a little different, kind of based on granny squares. I chose a fairly dark blue and dark red and a winter white. This will be a birthday present for later this year. I haven't crocheted in quite some time and the muscles used are different than for knitting. It's good to keep my hands busy, the arthritis is kept at bay!


I spend a lot of time at the library. Our county library is 4th in the nation and it is a pip, let me tell you. I love it. Every branch has something special in the design and in the staff that makes each one a pleasure to visit. My branch is the Virginia Tutt. Mrs. Tutt was a educator back in the day. I have visited this branch once or twice a week all of my life. Just recently Kim, an old school chum and, now, librarian, asked if I would be interested in presenting a program for teens at the Tutt! How fun! We decided to do painting on rocks, something I have done for the past two years with the 4-H program my township as an introduction to painting. There are a series of wonderful books by Lin Wellford that are inspiring. The directions are clear and the photos are tremendously helpful. My program will be April 16 so I have plenty of time to make some samples (an excellent snowy day project by the way). What a great excuse to play with paint!! Just having the opportunity to teach something arty through the library is a great blessing for me. I would love to do a program each month if this works out, as I'm sure it will. I'd also like to develop a knitting class of maybe 4 weeks that could meet at the Tutt and cover beginning knitting and a simple project, possibly a felted purse. By the way, the web address for my library is www.sjcpl.org - visit and see if you don't fall in love with it!!