My All-Time Favorite Peanuts Cartoon Ever

This is my all-time favorite Peanuts cartoon. Ever. Somehow it disappeared in a move 20+ years ago, and I thought I'd never see it again. I hope you enjoy it.

Birthday gift

I'm just stopping in to show you how I'm presenting a gift for my husband's birthday today. And yes, we have more than one Scrabble game. And no, this doesn't follow the rules. ;) Anyway, maybe this is something you might try?

Oh, I just had an idea. Maybe I'll send this photo to him by email; but that might be cruel—he reads his email on his teeny tiny iPod Touch. And he IS a year older now, and you know how our vision changes over time!

P.S. We live near Buffalo and Niagara Falls, so going to a Major League baseball game means a road trip. We'll see which city/team he wants to go to. 
P.P.S. You didn't think it was going to be something I sewed for him, did you?

Blessings and peace...

Easy No-Knit Yarn Cowl

I saw a tutorial for another cute cowl and thought I'd give it a whirl. This one is for a friend whose birthday we're celebrating tomorrow. It's five or six "braids" of yarn, each braid being made up of 3 sets of 8 strands of yarn, 40 inches long, then braided. Here's my end result:

The full tutorial is here. Please go take a quick look at her pretty blue cowl, then come right back, okay?

I ran into a bit of trouble with my first attempt, which resulted in this:

My wrapped section is about
three times what it should be.

Okay, I have more yarn. And my friend probably likes red better, anyway. I didn't see a way to end up with the desired result following the instructions, so I modified it a bit.

Instead of cutting 120 or 148 40-inch long strands of yarn, then combining them into groups of 8 strands, then each 8-strand each of which becomes one -- oh I can't do this math again.

Anyway, I decided to make one very long braid, then wind it around five times. Each strand started out about 15 feet long. Go ahead, laugh at me; think about braiding someone's hair that is so long that you are in different rooms for the last third. Oh and think about when you're braiding something really long, the "unbraided" sections are, in fact, braiding themselves. So you have to -- at the same time that you're pinching the braid, unbraid the lower portion. Ay-yi-yi.

Here are my 3 sets of 8 strands of yarn:

And a close up of one:

And because I knew that the instruction in the original tutorial, to tape the strands down to your work surface, would not hold for me, I knotted the ends of each strand and used binder clips:

And clipped them tightly:

And then I hung the binder clip on a pegboard clip:

I then started braiding. And braiding. And braiding. Then I wrapped it around five times, machine-stitched the braids together, used a bit of red duct tape to cover the ends, and wrapped yarn around the duct tape. The result:

I think she'll like it. I'm going to make one for myself, but it will be when I have a helper, someone who can unbraid the lower ever-getting-more-tangled part while I'm braiding away.

Is it worth your time to see someone's real-life experience following a tutorial? What do you like about it?

Oh, and is anyone interested in some dark orange (official color name Paprika) braids? And the rest of the ball of yarn, too. It's Paton's worsted weight wool. For a doll? Or a costume? I'll give them to the first person to request them in the Comments.

Blessings and peace...

My Funniest Moment in a Fabric Store

A man, after looking and looking and looking, said to anybody and everybody, "I can't find the invisible thread!"

I couldn't help myself; I burst out laughing. (Then I showed him where it was.)

Yours? Any fabric store funny moments?

Blessings and peace...