If any of my readers recognize that song lyric (my sister Pam may not count) they get a bonus round question.

Today I found myself somewhat blissfully sans family. Mr. Mess’ siblings planned an extended family reunion of sorts for this weekend in Northern Michigan. I decided that I really needed to stay home and man the store. So he and the girls headed north this morning. I was left with two nights alone and no plans. I had sent off a few last minute emails to girlfriends I don’t see often enough, but it was too little to late.

So here I am at home alone with only two fingers of vodka and a Lean Cuisine to appease my needs. To add to my agony, someone erased most of my Deadliest Catch tivos, there were about a half dozen but they were from this season and I’ve already watched those. The season two episodes I was going to watch were gone.

So I was left to watch two episodes of Kathy Griffin’s Life on the D List. I have no snark for her tonight. Although I couldn’t help but think at times that if I had grown up anywhere but where I did with the people I did, I may just have ended up with her career. Marlette Michigan was just too damn nice and supportive!

After that I was left to cruise the channels. I happened upon Austin City Limits featuring James Blunt and James McMurtry. (Watch the interviews!) I immediately hit the “record” button on the tivo. My sister and her husband turned me on to James McMurtry back in the late 80s early 90s with his “Too Long in the Wasteland” album. He is a east Texas blues-rocker. The thing is that his father is the author of my favorite novel of all time. The reason I love Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove so much is because of the strong characterizations. There is so much ‘voice’ to all of the characters in this book. James has inherited his father’s gift of painting word pictures, in song lyrics rather than novels. I also love how he captures life in small towns and rural America so dead on.

Of course the majority of the show was James Blunt. His performance was really good. I’m not a fan, nor am I a hater. His voice is unique to say the least. Yes, it can be annoying at times. I can hear a bit of Cat Stevens in his voice and music. That isn’t a bad thing in my opinion. I was impressed with his passion and his song about his visit back to Kosovo almost made me cry. I just can’t help but hear an SNL skit every time I here him talk with his highly affected nasal Brit accent.

So here I sit at 9:45pm on a Friday night with the perfect excuse to go out and cat around and live up to my reputation. But instead I’m home on my comfy couch watching PBS and the Olympic opening ceremonies writing a blog post. I think I need to get my dork card laminated now.

Now I will share a YouTube video of James McMurtry. (For the record, even my very conservative Republican husband likes JM and this song!)

I know that we are all busy people and we don’t always have time for the large, involved and time consuming craft projects that we’d like to spend time on. I’ve been thinking up projects that can be completed in less than an hour, are relatively inexpensive, and the end product is worth making.

This has brought me to today’s Quickie Tutorial:
The Reversible Ribbon Belt

Materials:
1 1/2 yds. each of two coordinating 2″ woven ribbons. (You may need less if you need a shorter belt!)
One set of 2″ D-rings.
Coordinating All Purpose Thread

(All the pictures below can be made bigger by clicking on them.)
Place ribbons right sides together and sew across one short end.

Slide D-rings onto ribbons. Fold ribbons, wrong sides together with the D-rings at the seam.

Using a zipper foot on your machine, sew close to D-rings across ribbons.

Topstitch down long sides of ribbons, pivoting at the corners of short end.

You’re done!

I just updated the Classes Page!

I’ve added descriptions and materials lists for the new classes I’ll be offering this fall/winter. I’m still working on firming up times and days on the schedule so if you have any special requests, get them into me SOON!