First post for 2011 "Catching Up"

Wow, can it already be the 23rd of February and I have not posted in 5 months. I bet some of you thought I fell off the face of the Earth, lol. I apologize for not posting anything sooner. The last 5 months have been busy, busy.

Lets see what projects I can share with you. In September I made this little brown doily using size 30 crochet cotton thread and tiny pearl seed beads.

In October I began work on two different twin sized afghans for the Central Ohio Binky Patrol charity. This charity provides binkies to many different agencies for the care of foster care children as well as several other important projects such as the Grace Haven House which is a recovery house for girls and young women who have been exploited in human trafficking.  While I was making these afghans an old sports injury decided to flare up and I now suffer on an on-going basis with bursitis in my right shoulder and upper right arm. It has really slowed down my productivity with spending weeks at a time with my right arm stuck in a sling. Not fun and very annoying. I now take my time on projects and choose to work on smaller stuff and hope to someday be able to get back to making afghans for charity.

Below are photos of the two I donated to COBP. Sadly, this charity has since been dissolved but at least I was able to help them for a little while.

This is my husband Joe an our little Pekingese Frodo on the left. My son Jared is hiding behind the afghan on the right.  I appreciate them for being willing to pose the afghans for me. :) They did sort of distort the black themed one a little bit in the way they were holding it but it went right back into shape after the photo.

When November hit I was still experiencing too much pain with the bursitis to do much of anything but I did somehow manage to put in a few more stitches into my Great-Grandparents 1899 wedding photo piece. I was able to heal up enough to cook a nice Thanksgiving feast for my guys. I really wanted to do this as last year I was still suffering the lingering effects from Swine Flu and we elected to eat out. Don't worry, I was NOT contagious at the time, lol.

Here is the latest view of the 1899 Wedding.

I also spent some time making another doily. I found this really nice vintage pattern somewhere online. I know I really need to save the locations so that I can share the links. I am sorry I keep forgetting to do that. Anyhow, after a bit of trial and error I managed to make this lovely "Vintage Roses" doily for a relative.

I enjoyed making the doily a lot and then it dawned on me that I should make one of yellow roses for my mother since that is her favorite flower so in December I did just that and added a touch of green to it as well. My mother also liked hers very much too!

I did not block the doilies because I knew that with them going through the mail it would really just unblock them again. I also worked in November and December to make Barbie doll sized clothing for my great-niece for Christmas. I managed to create a satchel like bag that I crocheted for the doll stuff to go in and also finished up an outfit for a stuffed bunny for her. I just wanted to make sure she had a good Christmas.

I really wish I had written down how I made that lavender satchel as I made it because now I have absolutely no idea how I did that. I guess I will have to sit down here one day soon and just play around and make notes and see if I can create another one like it.

After doing all of those projects, I was pretty worn out and the shoulder was being an issue again. New Years Eve brought Joe back into the hospital. He collapsed and turned blue at work. A person in the building gave him CPR after which as he recovered he either had convulsions or a seizure just as the EMT squad got there. His blood pressure was far too high. Thankfully this time he was only in the hospital for one night but the downside is that he has reached the point in his heart/kidney health that he can longer ever be alone. Someone has to be present with him at all times. I am trying hard not to become depressed about reaching this stage but it is VERY HARD not to. I try to spend as much time with him as I can while I can and doing what he loves. Mostly he just loves playing games at his computer. There is one game that we are able to play live together and team up and do things in. That is fun. Except when his character dies. He is not a good looser, lol. We don't play board games together anymore because he is such a poor looser. We played Monopoly ONE TIME in our first year of marriage. I won, he refuses to play me every since and he STILL calls me Leona Helmsly. Oh well, lol!

Okay so moving on, lol, in January I started getting back into beading again. So much fun! It is a lot less stress on my shoulder too. This little bracelet is the first seed bead piece I have made since 1985.

I had so much fun making this bracelet that I soon found myself looking around the net for free loom beading patterns. Okay kids, I actually have a link to share, lol. http://www.free-beading-patterns.com/ I found this website to be loaded with them. I was showing the website to my youngest son, Jared and he found a design that he really liked and before I knew exactly what was happening I was committed to making him a wrist band from one of the designs. He had a few color change requests but I think his choices made the wristband rather awesome. He wears it nearly every day. We did change the clasps though to some magnetic ones to make it easier for him to fasten himself.

I began work on a filet crochet rectangle doily. The design came from an antique pattern from France. I was working to fill a shape on my coffee table and discovered that one image would not be large enough so I then worked the pattern in reverse making the piece viewable from either side of the table.  It is a fairly large piece measuring 22 inches tall by 18 inches wide. I am now currently working on a similar design for the other end of this same coffee table. I finished this first piece just a few weeks ago which brings us into the month of February finally. :)

I also, believe it or not, got back into some knitting this month and knitted a new pair of socks. Dare I mention I have another pair on the needles already. :)

Both socks are the exact same size, I just have the cuff folded down on one. The new pair I am working on has beads incorporated into them. 

Well this pretty well gets my last 5 months all caught up. I don't think I have left much of anything out. Well actually there is one more thing I really want to share with you. I have mentioned before in prior posts about my youngest son Jared being high functioning autistic. He is always making so much progress. He recently took the ACT this last December and did very well. He actually scored in the 98th percentile on the science section with a score of 31. His English score was not as high as we would have hoped but he did great over all. He is always amazing me! We butt heads and lock horns often but that is just a part of it. I think at times he is just a little too much like me if I am to tell the truth, lol. While English is not a strong plus for him and where the greatest area of autistic deficit resides for him, the kid or I should say young man has a way with his writing. Jared wrote a sonnet and with his permission I am sharing it here. I am encouraging him to start his own blog. I think he will be doing that this coming weekend. In the meantime I close this update edition with Jared's sonnet. 

"My dear"

By Brian Jared Heslin

 Copyright 2011 Brian Jared Heslin

A simple gaze upon your eyes, without thought is enough to leave a man stumbling.

My dear, you leave much room for talk, but little room for strict codes, with friendship.

How might one get through these days, searching for your grace, living with hardship?

Is it possible you have affected his nature so that it is made that he is fumbling?

Or has his own nature affected your own, to where you have canceled his with your light.

Many have sought this light, but so few have reached its length, while one has it found.

Though he may have found it, surely you must have found the darkness in his sound.

So it is your light that guides him though tougher times, for with him, now comes a night.

Perhaps then, your nature is peace, while his was war. Or was it perhaps his own will?

Your will is one towards a pleasant time, a reflection on the good days, with a smile.

His will is one towards a darker time, when he is alone; his is to run for a hundredth mile.

So is it to be you care for him no matter what? Or does he care much about you still?

A long three year it would seem, for both light and dark to not clash, with hope.

Alas, it is more eternal than it appears, with both you and he to carry on this slope.