March 16, 2009

Rescue Kitty - update

Thank all of you for your concerns and helpful information for the abandoned cat. The Tombstone Animal Shelter is a no-kill volunteer shelter and is listed on the petfinder website. I tried contacting previous owners and basically got told, don't bother them with such things they had more important problems. I may be wrong, but I'm involved as the cat has literally moved in here.

March 14, 2009

Bead Crochet for Men

... and by Men ....
Ken, my programmer friend, has delved into the world of 15/0 bead crochet and made a couple of ropes to slip over the fringe on his motorcycle jacket. Effective and not too long of a project.

He's also crocheted a couple more that he's used as a zipper pull and embellishment on his computer memory stick. Sorry, his photos are a bit fuzzy, but I think you get the idea.

This is a rather nice, simple, but effective pattern. It's 2A, 2B, 1C.
A & B being the red and green and C being a larger bead. In the top photo it's about a 5mm round bead.

Besides key chains, these are a few more ideas for masculine bead crochet projects.

March 13, 2009

Sample Shopping & Cats

I was in Lowe's today and noticed these great free samples. The window covering samples looked like they might be great for scrap booking or as a beaded back ground. I was thinking about counter topping when I picked up the granite-looking laminate samples. However, if I was going to do another Bead Journal project they might also make beautiful backing for a series of bead embroidered pieces. Has anyone else noticed the craft value in the many samples that can be found in home improvement stores?



Isn't she a beautiful cat? Unfortunately her owners didn't think so. After the fire next door the family found somewhere else to live. They didn't bother to come collect their cat and nobody has been back to feed her either. She decided that my back porch was a safe place to sleep. I finally went and bought some cat food. After a couple of days of being very wary and not letting me get too close she decided I was alright and climbed up in my lap tonight, purring away. Now I need to find a home for her as I can't manage a cat with my travels across the country every 6 months. As a last resort, I'll take her to the Tombstone Animal shelter. Tombstone already has too many feral cats and I can't bear to leave another one to fend for itself. People who are not responsible for pets are one of my biggest pet peeves.

March 4, 2009

Too much excitement

The east side of my house is only an alley's width from the house next door. On Saturday night we heard screaming and went out to see dense smoke coming out of their windows. We later found out that a halogen torchiere lamp had caught the curtains on fire. By the time the fire department arrived, the eastern end of the house was engulfed. Thank heavens no one was injured. I'm still waking up at night, notice the night light and then really wake up, thinking, "fire"!




View from my back yard when I was checking for sparks in the dried grass that is so prevalent here at this time of the year.




Meanwhile I've been busy catching up with personal & business bookkeeping so I can file my IRS return - I hate this time of year and every year tell myself that I won't procrastinate so much next year. Ha - Hasn't happened yet!



The small addition is looking good. I like the orangish color I used on the window. I did the same color against dark olive green for the back door. The building and painting has been about my only creative outlet recently.