Happy Spring

Today is the first day of Spring (and also my birthday)! When I was younger, I thought I must have something to do with Spring arriving, but alas, Mother Nature takes care of that. Hope you are all loving the beautiful weather most of the country seems to be enjoying. Here are two images of Spring to brighten your day.

This is waiting in my fridge for tomorrow night's dinner! I know when asparagus starts showing up, Spring is here.

My Books Are Organized!

I recently spent quite a bit of time reorganizing and weeding out my book collection. I admit to being addicted to books. Thank God, I have started buying some books for the Kindle! Anyway, I decided I needed to work on better organizing and displaying my books. I have book shelves all over the house, but felt the fiction needed to be consolidated and shelved in alphabetical order using author's last name. So, it took a while, but at last the books are in order and also listed on my Ipad. (I have a bad habit of buying books I already own!)

Here's where the fiction starts:

It then continues onto a full bookshelf.

Then up on top of a dresser.

From there we move down to the rec room where the rest of the fiction resides (along with some of the children's books.)

Some of the series children's books are here:

Next, in another bedroom are the decorating books, some history, and some crafts. Notice the hooked rug in front of the shelves. I hooked that years ago in a 3- and 4-cut.

All the hooking and knitting books are here.

Here are the local Saratoga history books:

And finally, the least used shelf of cookbooks.

I know, way too much! I'd like to say it's my only vice, but I could get started on yarn and wool.

Wool Sale

I sent my March sale flyer out yesterday to my customer list. If you would like to receive it as a .pdf email attachment, please send me your email address. Lots of lovely colors. Just a few examples below.

Raspberry Prim

Sunflower Prim

Iceberg Blue

Finished rug, new rug

My paisley pillow rug is finished; the hooking that is. Here is a picture of it;

Very pleased with it so far. Now onto the binding and turning it into a pillow.

In the meantime, I have to have something on my frame. For a long time, I've been wanting to do a rug with my husband's family store as its theme. Phillips Cigar Store, later a newsroom, and behind the scenes a horseroom, was opened in the late 1890s. It survived into the 1960s, and is now, as they say, the stuff of legends!

We have a fair amount of memorabilia from the shop including part of an old sign that said "Cigars." The sign hung on the outside of the Broadway building that housed the shop. It now hangs above our fireplace in our den.

To the right of the sign (looking at it) are some of the original cigar boxes that were used in the store.

I looked at some images of advertising signs from that era online, and had kept a photo of an old cigar sign in the shape of cigar that also helped with inspiration. Here is what I came up with (drawn in Adobe Illustrator to size). The colors are just a rough approximation.

This afternoon, I traced the pattern onto linen. I used a printout of the illustrator file using outlines only. I spent the good part of last evening choosing wool, and with the exception of the gold, I think I'm good to go.

I do love starting a new rug, although I'm bit leery about all the lettering. My plan is to work in mostly 8-cuts, and smaller where necessary. I've done rugs with letters in them, but never this many. The lower case letters could be a challenge. If you have worked with lettering on rugs and have any hints to offer, I'd love to hear them.

Secrets

I'm currently reading The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and am loving it. I was particularly struck by this passage:

"Secrets have power," Widget begins. "And that power diminishes when they are shared, so they are best kept and kept well. Sharing secrets, real secrets, important ones, with even one other person, will change them. Writing them down is worse, because who can tell how many eyes might see them inscribed on paper, no matter how careful you might be with it. So it's really best to keep your secrets when you have them, for their own good, as well as yours."

How true is that?