Reunions and doilies...

We have been enjoying an unseasonably warm autumn for the last month of weeks now.  So thankful for it yesterday as we traveled a bit to help celebrate a friend's 80th birthday.  Loraine is the surviving spouse of Bill, a boss Greg had one summer when he was a college student at Purdue studying agronomy. 

But Bill and Loraine were so much more to Greg and several other men than a good boss and his hospitable wife.  The small group of people who worked under Bill H one summer developed friendships - one of which was Greg's best man in our wedding in 1980.  Many summers after that job ended, for at least three decades, these people would gather together to celebrate the camaraderie that was built in the summer 1976 (before I had even graduated from highschool and met Greg 😉).  The gathering was fondly called The Clinton County Reunion.

After we married in 1980, I began to enjoy getting to know these people and the group continued to gather for a picnic and an afternoon of volleyball and visiting - making note each summer how our children were growing up.  This continued until said children started to feel too old, or lost interest in joining the gathering, and soon thereafter health issues started to impede our ability to consistently get together.  We began to feel the beginning of the end of this happy group, but we tried valiantly for a while to continue gathering - sometimes separated by several years as we all got older.  When Bill died in July of 2023 it truly felt like the end of an era.  Greg had the privilege of speaking at Bill's funeral, but I couldn't attend because I was in the throes of my first chemo infusion's side effects.  While I wasn't feeling exactly great yesterday (I was having some issues from a minor medical procedure a few days prior), Loraine's 80th birthday celebration was a not-to-be-missed opportunity as far as I was concerned.

To see Bill and Loraine's legacy in that room, many of us not knowing most everyone else, but having the common bond of knowing and loving this godly couple, was a testament to their influence through more than half a century.  It was a very good day.

~~~~~

And now for the YOP portion of this post...

Another gifted doily:

Dawnglow is a small-medium sized doily (7-8 inches) that I have enjoyed making several times now.  An easy enough pattern that makes a pretty presentation, I think.

This time around I crocheted this pattern with Artiste size 10 cotton crochet thread in the color, Ice Blue.   This is fast becoming one of my favorite colors.  I need to make something from it for myself to keep while I still have some in my stash.

To see what other YOPpers are up to, visit our group on Ravelry by clicking the graphic below:

Card making...

Over the last three weeks, several friends from church have gotten together three times in my sunroom to make cards. 

Let me back up a month or so...

Our small group has a card ministry, where we send cards to people who might need a bit (or a lot) of encouragement. Sometimes congratulations are in order, or birthday wishes for a special birthday (like our friend Jack's 96th in May) are appropriate, and there are any number of random justifiable reasons we come up with to send a card to someone.

I think it was early September when Martha, who has been heading this card ministry, mentioned that we were running low on our supply of cards, and if anyone was inclined to buy some more and donate them, that would be great.

And I said, "Hold on!"  

I had been thinking of this for months, but the time just never seemed right for some reason.

I explained that I would love to make my paper supplies available and invite everyone to our house to make cards.  With autumn right around the corner, I knew our sunroom would work great for this.  I was given the go-ahead to take charge and plan it, and a few weeks later, it had finally cooled down enough that the sunroom was comfortable for this endeavor.

Not everyone was exactly excited - in fact one lady asked, "Can I just contribute postage?"   "Of course", I chuckled.  Honestly, I almost talked myself out of doing this when I wasn't sure if anyone wanted to join me, but my friend, Jean, became my encourager and sounding board.  Letting me borrow a table, showing up early, and bringing some of her supplies.

Now, I'm going to show pictures of all my paper crafting stuff (and a few things that were brought by Jean and some others), but please understand that this is the result of decades of accumulating most of these things.  I did buy some fresh glue sticks, and a few packages of embellishments, but largely we were using 20-30 year-old stuff.

Scrapbooking in the 1990s was my gateway to collecting paper supplies, and then card making came along, and I not only collected papers and various embellishments, but I also occasionally bought blank card sets whenever I found them on sale.  And all along the way, I found reasons to buy various colors of card stock.  

Keep in mind, too, that as a homeschooling family who was involved in three co-ops over twenty years, this kind of stuff is very easy to accumulate - for craft purposes, for making all kinds of signs and handouts, and finally making each son's graduation announcement cards.  

Did you not make your graduate's announcements?  While I can't speak for every homeschooler, we are (obviously) made of a fair amount of do-it-yourself stock, and I suspect most homeschool moms collect a lot of things that a mom whose kids are in a traditional school simply doesn't.

I was also in charge of organizing some homeschool events for the larger homeschooling community several times and pretty colored papers and card stock were often employed.  When looked at through decades-long lenses, it makes complete sense that I had all this stuff.  People that have only known me for a few years (as most of these women do) are understandably confused and perhaps amused.

For a long time, I've kept this stuff thinking I'd be a fun grandma who made crafty things out of fun paper and colorful cardstock with her grandchildren.  While it's becoming absurd to continue to hang on to all these supplies, I can't deny that I really do love decorative papers, and at least the idea of making things with it all - even if reality is something different.  

Anyway...  the moment had arrived (or so I thought) to use up a bunch of this stuff.  I set up tables and arranged all the papers and embellishments, pens, markers, scissors, glue, paper cutter...   am I forgetting anything?  Oh yes, wet wipes (for gluey fingers), paper towels, stamps and stamp pads...  

I'm sure I'm forgetting something...

Before everyone arrived, the set up was fairly orderly and ready for us to get to work.

This was actually week two, but the room started out more or less in the same degree of order each week.

When my friends arrived they were amazed, perhaps a little dazed.  And I heard one gal say, "It's like a store!"

I didn't know whether to take that as awe or a good natured admonishment.  I decided it was well deserved either way.  

Near the end of the first afternoon of card making, Kim R. said, "When are we doing this again?"  

Being a bit exhausted from setting it all up, and helping people find what they needed that afternoon, I think I said, "Oh, I wasn't planning on doing this again."

But several commented at how much fun they were having, and I immediately reconsidered.  As they left, I was planning on a second card making day the following week.  I just needed to pick the day. 

I picked the following Wednesday and it was supposed to be a gloriously sunny 65 degree day - which would make the sunroom a comfortable low-70 degrees, and the windows could be open if it got a little warm. 

But Hurricane Isaias had other plans, and by the next week Indiana was hot and humid in the high 70's, and with rain I wouldn't have been able to open the windows for relief, so I rescheduled to Friday.   Friday was a little cool, but it was tolerable, and at the end of that day, it was suggested we do this yet again.

I was ready this time, and offered up the following Tuesday.  It ended up being perfect weather for our final card making afternoon.

Several still wanted to continue doing this, but I was feeling the need to reclaim the sunroom, and we had made enough cards to surely last us through the winter and into spring (if not for the entire next year!)

After the first week when seven of us made 20-some cards, and I knew we'd be getting together again (and I was kind of prepared for a third time) I set a goal of us making 100 cards.  I figured I'd make up the difference between whatever the group made, and that final goal.  We ended up being about seven cards shy of 100 when we finished the third card making workshop.

I just took stock, and see that I made around 30 cards in total (I don't think they all made into the picture below).

My favorite technique (which I came to late) became gluing down an assortment of scrap papers, tearing some of the edges, creating a fun texture.

All in all, card making was a successful endeavor, and while I'm not sure I'm up for doing it again very soon, I think I will consider it in the future - simply to use up more paper supplies.  

It is my plan to make family birthday cards for the next year, and make some for sending out as my own random "thinking of you" cards.  

I've even been giving some thought to maybe doing some scrapbooking again.  Nothing like what I did when the boys were little, but something.   Maybe.

A photo doesn't quite convey the textural effect of these scrappy stripy cards, but I'll end with my favorite:

Doily gifting...

It's hard to believe I've not been in here in a month's time (again), but it is a fact.  And it's not like there's not been anything to blog about.  But one of my favorite blogging topics is my Year of Project updates, and while I've been making things, most of what I'm working on are gifts, and until they are given I'm not posting about them.

That said, I've finally given two people doilies I've had finished for a while, but was waiting until they had actually been gifted.

Yesterday Greg and I enjoyed a beautiful day driving to Kentucky and visiting my sister and niece and her husband in Louisville.  We got lost in some very old parts of this city because we didn't trust GPS for some reason, and while that delayed our arrival by about an hour, we saw some gorgeous old neighborhoods of Louisville.  I became confused, though because in our drive through the city, we would find ourselves in yet another "downtown area" but clearly not in the heart of the downtown Louisville.  One of these small town-looking "downtowns", was strikingly similar to Fountain Square in Indianapolis.  If you know, you know.  

The confusion finally evaporated when my nephew-in-law explained that Louisville actually includes a lot of small towns.  Then it clicked.  Indianapolis is the same.  If you're from Louisville, and I get this wrong, correct me, but I understand from reading online, it is called Louisville Metro.  We live a little ways from the Indianapolis Metroplex - which we frequent often for doctors' appointments and shopping.  Understanding Louisville in this way, suddenly all the little downtowns made sense.  And all the important-looking signs designating a village or neighborhood were, I realized, very similar to the signs we see when we drive around, in and out of these little towns, as we make our way to various destinations within the Indianapolis Metroplex.

While we were feeling stressed to have gotten ourselves so far off the trail, I am glad to have seen such a variety of neighborhoods.  And later, when driving to our niece's home (on the far east side of Louisville), we enjoyed beautiful forested areas.  Louisville seems to have it all!  

After lunch doilies were finally gifted and the recipients appeared to be delighted with them.  To my relief, it was a success.  While I love crocheting, when making gifts (and even more so when I've been paid to make something), I find it stressful wondering if the recipient is actually going to like the thing I'm making.  There is so much second-guessing and some figurative hand-wringing...    I truly don't know how makers who rely on their various talents to earn a living cope with this stress.  

I'm going to take a number of posts to show the recent doilies I've made - just so I can keep some blog fodder in the file, which may help me not disappear for another month.

Today, I present a new-to-me doily pattern called Rosaline:

This is my second textured Grace Fearon doily.  I feel kind of good about the fact that she classifies this as an "Advanced" doily. I finished this a few weeks ago, so maybe I'm forgetting, but it didn't strike me as all that difficult.  The crisscross cables (I think one can all them) made me a little nervous when I started that round, but I just trusted the instructions, and my recollection is that it worked fine.  I think I would not mind making another one of these someday.

And that's all for this YOP post!  To see what other YOPpers are up to, visit our group on Ravelry by clicking the image below.  One will need a free Ravelry membership to visit our group page, just so you know.

My heart goes out to those who suffered damage and loss to Hurricane Isaias.  We've finally shed ourselves of its rainy remnants and are looking to have a couple of weeks in the 70's before the late fall chills chase us inside.  What a gift that feels like!

Experimenting with different size hooks...

Noticing that my crocheting with thread has become very tight lately, I decided to give a larger hook a try.  Normally, when I crochet size 10 thread, I use a 1.5 mm hook.  It's just what I've had available to me.  This time, I used a 2.5 mm hook (because I had it in my arsenal).  

Surprisingly, Doily #57 (from the book, 99 Little Doilies) was still  three quarters of an inch smaller than the pattern indicated it should turn out.  For what it's worth, the pattern called for a size 1.65 mm hook, and the pattern indicated the finished doily should be 7".   Mine measures at 6 1/8".  If I had crocheted this with my normal 1.5 mm hook, I have no idea how much smaller it would be.

As I was making the above doily, I wasn't liking how limp and "holey" the whole thing was feeling as I crocheted with a bit larger hook.  But once again, blocking with starch makes everything better.  The doily isn't stiff, but it has a bit more body than before blocking.

As pretty as the color in the photo is, it isn't true.  The thread used was Curio, size 10, in the color Sagebrush.  The real color is a pretty sage green.

And that's it on the crafty front.

One more 90+ degree day this upcoming week, and then I'm counting on a cool down.  This time of year is so odd - I feel dreary of summer, but, at the same time I can't believe it's nearly over.  Since most of my readers appear to be in the northern hemisphere, I hope you're enjoying these last days of summer!

Summer Splendor...

I suppose my YOPing buddies may be thinking about now that I've flown the coop!  Truth is, I'm working on crocheting some gifts, but I don't want to show them here before they are received.  

But taking a break recently from the gift-making, I decided to make something for myself - just so I could jump back into the YOP group with something to show for my absence.

I can't seem to get enough of the doily called Summer Splendor (by Denise Augostine Owens), as this is my fifth one!  

In case someone tries making this doily, I thought I'd mention I changed the final round on this.  On Round 26 was changed thusly:   sc, ch2, sc in each ch-2 space, and I replaced the chain-5 loop with a 3-chain picot in the middle of each scallop.

I'm chomping at the bit for autumn, so making this in the deep orange-y color, Papaya, seemed appropriate.

I've been thinking of taking stock of all my unfinished projects and maybe start giving some progress reports on them, but that seems like creating a job for myself.  And the last thing I want is to turn my hobby into a job...

I hope you're enjoying these last weeks of summer.  It's pretty nice and green here in central Indiana, as we were spared the worst of the rains that this part of the U.S. got almost two weeks ago, and had no flooding to speak of in this area. Prayers go out for those who are still cleaning up from those record floods.