UFO Sightings....

Well, I finished the gift socks, they are wrapped in tissue and in a cute little birthday bag, just waiting to go to their recipient this weekend. I hope they fit, but I think they'll be well received. right now, I'm heading toward the toe on the last sock of my Socktober socks. If you remember, I managed to finish 1 1/2 pairs, and then got caught up by the holiday season. So, this will be the last (I think) orphan sock I have floating around.

However, on the UFO front, things are not so good. Not only do I have way too many unfinished projects (afghans, sweaters, etc) hanging around, but I found lots more in other crafts. When my oldest moved into the upstairs room that I had been using as a craft room, my husband cleaned out the room by dumping everything in boxes. Just dumped it. The boxes went into the room he used as an office. The official line was we would "share" the office. Never happened. My stuff stayed dumped, and five years ago, when he moved out, we cleaned out the office so another son could move in there (they were all sharing rooms up to this time), the boxes made it into my bedroom, where they have been living since.

I didn't have time to look through them, or do anything with them, because suddenly being able to support myself headed to the top of the Things I Need To Do list. So, after three years or so of working two jobs and going to school, which left no time for crafts of any sort, I found myself graduated, employed and able to more or less support myself and my family. And, lo and behold, it turns out with this job comes something known as a "vacation". Wow. I get to take time off from work and actually get paid for it. I haven't had a job like that in 20 years or so.

So, I'm taking next week off. And, I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to straighten out my bedroom and my projects. So far, Chris put a desk in my room, and put up shelves over the desk, and rewired two bedside lamps I was going to toss. I have started looking through the boxes of stuff in my room, located about five million sandals and flip flops that were living under my bed, got them organized or tossed, depending on their condition, and just started to work my way through the general clutter. The biggest box split at the seams, and stuff is spilling out, so I started with that box. For the next couple of posts, I'll be featuring some of my UFO's, along with any current projects I'm attempting to finish. The UFO on the left is a cross stitch project done with three strands of wool on 14 count needlepoint canvas. It's a floor pillow and it's about 23 inches across. I think I started this one in 1992 or so. I think it's beautiful and I will definitely be finishing this one!

Oh, and I need to mention this, too. Back in early January, I bought a pair of earrings off of ebay. I paid, and waited, and waited. About a week and a half ago, I remembered I still hadn't received the earrings, and made a note to email the seller. When I got home from work the next morning, there was a note in my mailbox from here apologizing for the delay, and telling me she had mailed them, plus a surprise. The surprise was a second set of very pretty earrings! Needless to say, I left her excellent feedback.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I was on the Blue Moon Fibers site and ordered two skeins of sock yarn. The next day, I ordered another skein, in Rhodonite - pictured in another post. Well, the second order arrived a few days later, but no sign of the first order. I waited a couple of more days, and then called, and left a message on their machine. Got a call back the next day, and a message on my machine saying they were sorry, there was a mix-up, and the two missing skeins would be mailed out, and a surprise would be enclosed. Okay. I was expecting something small like dpns, or stitch markers. What did I get? Another skein of yarn! That's a $19.00 surprise. And, surprised I was, and thrilled, too. So here are the two skeins I ordered, in Chapman Springs, and Love-in-Idleness, and the surprise skein in Peaseblossom. I'm a happy camper, and a very pleased customer with both of these vendors.

And, once again, in the "how do they know?" category, I bring you a picture of Gremlin, all curled up on yet another UFO, a wall quilt that I'll show in a later post. It's sitting on the desk in my bedroom. The desk has been there since around Christmas, and Grem has completely ignored it. Until today. I had the quilt of the desk, photographing it (it's 21 degrees outside, and I didn't feel like freezing my butt off to get pictures!), and he runs in the room, and takes a flying leap onto the desk. Settled right down on the quilt and went to sleep. How do they know when something is different? He wasn't in the room when I put the quilt on the desk, and until that moment, the desk had been bare, with the exception of books and lamps. So, here he is, snoozing on, and furring up, my wall quilt.