Odds and Ends

 My goodness, I have been away for so long. I have a fixed computer now. I withstood, the buying a new computer temptation. I have been gone so long that Google forgot me and I had to figure out how to sign in again, plus try to remember how to access my pictures since they are now living in the cloud. Here is something I learned. When people talk about things being in the "cloud." I thought that all of those satellites was where our data went and was stored. I know, but it says, cloud right? My youngest son is taking classes to be able to work on cloud storage. I thought of course, it was in the sky. Nope, there are these huge places full of computers, on the ground that is where all of our stuff is stored.  I felt very sheepish. 

We are in the midst of winter here. After that long hot summer from last year, I am very happy,

prolonging the inevitable. I have been hooking a bit. I finished Hearts by Cammie Bruce.

 I was canning beets one morning. As I peeled the beets, I thought, these are so purple I wonder what kind of color I would get? So I put the skins in water and boiled them for awhile until I thought I got enough color and then treated it like I would commercial dyes. So the pretty pink color is what came out. I just loved the color, and I couldn't wait to hook it. The red though is what I had in my wool box. 

I might try to do a little more natural dyes this year. I have always wanted to dye wool that way. Here is a picture of my current rug. We are planning our trip this year and taking our travel trailer to see our kids and grandkids. I wanted a long rug in the trailer. I had this from when I first started hooking. It is Polly Minick. Its one of the first rugs I ever drew out. Its taken me so long to do that those squares and yesterday I finally got started on the background.

Its a very long rug. It doesn't look that long in the picture, but it is. So its fun to do chickens again. Of all of the things I miss since we moved, its my chickens. 

I had to make of course, some little heart things for Valentines Day. There is just something nice about hand sewing and stuffing pin keeps. 

This is an old picture, but I did plant lilacs here, they are just not close to budding yet. We were in the book of Hosea at Bible Study. Long ago, when I wanted more than anything to be a rug hooker. There was no way I had the money to get set up. (We had 4 kids in college and a downturn in the economy.)

Rug hooking was not an option. One morning I was walking and in my mind I was thinking about all of the ways I could by hook or by crook get what I wanted. I happened to be listening to Hosea on headphone when this verse came up about Gomer. If you remember she was the prostitute married to Hosea. "She said, I will go after my lovers that give me my food and my water, and my wool and my flax..." I stopped in mid stride. I thought, no way does it say that! I ran it back and listened to it again.

Sure enough, it said that. I stopped right there went in to the house and looked it up in my Bible. Hosea 2:5. I realized how indeed how much I was like Gomer and wanting my wool and wool cutters that bad. I told this in my Bible Study one morning, I said, " I am a hooker...A rug hooker. They don't know me very well and I wish I had a camera to take a picture of all of the shocked faces. It was great! 

At that moment in time. I told the Lord, I won't be like Gomer, I will only be a rug hooker if you want me to be one. I shut that desire down in my mind and I just focused on counted cross stitch because at the time, embroidery thread was 23 cents a skein. A few months later, Jacque, from Doodles of my Mind came to the rescue. There is a whole lot more on this particular blog post. She sent me a box of everything and got me all set up. Now when I am at Bible Study, ladies walk by and whisper out of the corner of their mouths, " Hey there hooker, working on any rugs." I even have a lady who wants to come learn how. Its so weird that in California, people just don't know what it is, unless you find someone who's Mom or grandmother hooked rugs. 

So needless to say, every time I pick up my hook, use my wool cutter or start a new rug. I am so thankful that I get to do what I love. Nothing calms my heart and my spirit like hooking rugs. 

I hope that you have all been well and you have all been in my thoughts. Its so nice to have a working computer. I just can't write a blog on my phone. I do not want a laptop either. Though I am really having to jump through hoops now to find pictures. To get the pictures off my phone and from the cloud. I have been gone so long, I even had to jump through hoops to get back to my blog and not sign into your blogs as anonymous. 

Happy Febuary.

~Kim~

 

 “Probably more pests can be controlled in an armchair in front of a February fire with a garden notebook and a seed catalog that can ever be knocked out in hand-to-hand combat in the garden.”  ― Neely Turner