Sorry, Roy.

I promised Roy a pair of sleigh driver's shagged mittens for Christmas -- just the thing for snowblowing, he thought.

Well, that's a hyacinth pushing up in the background, and that's the first mitten in the foreground. It looks like these will be ready in time for NEXT winter.








Here's what the back of the mitten looks like, fully shagged. These will be really warm! But if I ever make a pair again, I won't make the base mitten black. It's really hard to see where to sew the shagging.

I've been following the weather in Ames, and I don't think there have been too many snowstorms. What else can I say, except, "Sorry, Roy."

We made a rug!

George and I wove a rag rug to put by the kitchen sink. Here it is draped over the bird tray -- it's just too dark in the kitchen to take a decent photo.

The rug is made of strips of blue jeans, sewn together. I got a couple of boxes of these strips when the Firehouse Art Center closed down their fiber program, so we got to try out the process without having to prepare the rags.

It was fun though a little stressful for both of us. George wanted to fool around with the loom and didn't care much about maintaining an even beat. And he didn't realize that it would only take a couple of hours to weave; he remembered the blanket we wove last winter that took months. So he was really disappointed when we were all done.

Next we are thinking about making dish towels.

Around the house

Charlotte loves to brush my hair, and I enjoy it too -- except when she whacks me with the brush. She tries to be gentle but sometimes she just doesn't manage it.


Sometimes it turns into a group event.



The kids like to help Dean with water changes -- usually followed by clothing changes.



The baby dolls often have dinner with us.


If she finds a pair of anything, Charlotte calls the little one "baby" and the big one "Mama" or "Daddy." Here she's showing me Mama and baby cat-shaped magnets. The other day she told me that the microwave was "baby" and the wall oven was "Daddy."