I haven’t been doing much if any crafting lately so the blog has been devoid of any useful content along those lines.

Today I came across another *old* scrapbook friend’s blog and she had the coolest tutorial. I just had to share it with you.

Tresa’s Paper Mache Party Lights. I seriously want to try these out but it is so damp and humid here right now that I fear they would never dry.

My friend Erin has a great blog: Damknit. Not only does it have one of the most creative and snarky names in craft blog-land but is also a fun read. Erin and I “met” online on a scrapbooking website eons ago. It was because of her that I rediscovered my knitting bug and started blogging and podcasting (briefly!)

She went from being a beginner knitter to spinning her own yarn in record time. She is pretty much self-taught in all her various craft forms. You should see her mad crochet skills! Recently she decided that she wanted to advance her spinning skills and applied for a scholarship to attend SOAR this fall in Oregon. She needed reference letters and I was more than happy to lend a good word or twenty to help her achieve this goal. I was not surprised in the least when she won one of the coveted spots. The thing is is that she lives in Arizona. As I mentioned, SOAR takes place in Oregon. Not exactly right next door.

You see Erin works really hard waiting tables to help support her family. She doesn’t make a lot of money so buying a round trip plane ticket is a real luxury. But in usual Erin style she looked at the problem and set a goal to solve it. She scored a load of decorator samples at a local thrift shop and set to designing an awesome needle holder for interchangeable needle sets. She has been working her fingers and sewing machine to the bone making these and listing them on her etsy shop. All proceeds from the sales will go toward purchasing her plane ticket.

I’m thinking I may just need to invest in a set of Addi Clicks just to have an excuse to buy one of these for myself. Looking at them I think they’d also work great for all those miscellaneous double point sets I have rolling around in the bottom of my knitting bag too. If you have a need for a small, compact, CUTE! needle case this would be the perfect solution. Go now. Buy one, or five!

 
I just returned from Huntley with our new pup. The name the rescue gave her is Sioux. We need to think of a better name for her. (I know too many Sue, Suzanne, Suzy and Susannahs.) They gave the entire litter native american names because Catahoulas are a native breed. Cool idea, but Sioux looks better in print than it does in actual usage.

She seems to be adjusting fine. She whimpered for a second as we drove away from her foster home. But I patted her head and she calmed right down. She has already tried to find a way to escape the backyard fence so we will have to be extra diligent about keeping an eye on her.
 
She seems more scared of the cats than they are of her so that is good. They are so used to having dogs in the house it shouldn’t be a problem. Her foster home had cats too.

Now she is tethered to my chair and sleeping on the floor next to me. I have three rules to new puppy ownership:
1) Never let them out of your sight.
2) Put them in their crate when rule #1 isn’t possible.
3) A tired puppy is a good puppy.