Several Evenings Project

A very kind lady, when her husband passed on, gave us several pairs of handmade socks she'd made for him. She wanted them to go to the clothing bank and they did and were snapped up very quickly. However, there were a few socks w/o mates and I wondered what to do with those. I decided to use them to make sock monkeys, which are a favorite thing of mine to make. The first one is close to being done--I'll post a picture when he's done. He needs earsl. I may have to knit those. I knit some to make his arms long enough, too, from yarn I unraveled. I love a challenge, and I love to recycle and reuse,; I like the phrase "reprised materials," too.

The Sewing Machine I Won by Accident

Oh, boy! I did it again!! I mean, I WANTED it, but I thought when I offered the seller half of what he asked, I'd get a note that he OK'd it BEFORE I actually bought it. Nope! That's not the way it works; if you offer them less and they accept the offer, it's YOURS.

I'm not SORRY! It's a lovely little Spartan, not much bigger than a Featherweight, but weighs about twice as much!! I have a "thing" with old sewing machines, can you tell?!

Screamer's Cute Baby Has Shoes

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Screamer's Cute Baby (sounds like the name of a dog with a fancy pedigree, or a race horse!!!) now has feet and a pair of shoes. Not just ANY shoes, mind you, but VINTAGE baby shoes--the kind I wore when I was in three cornered pants. I watch garage, rummage, and estate sales for these shoes, mainly for my vintage dolls, but also for the dolls I make. My friends make pretty art dolls but I make funky weird dolls that make people laugh. And I laugh right along with them!

The reason he is called Screamer's Cute Baby is that his face is made in a manner similar to Screamer's, but Screamer's head is a bottle gourd and Baby's face is a hollow plastic ball. But you can see a slight similarity between the two. Soon he will have hands, and then I will call him done.

Well, back to cleaning off the kitchen table; I'd take a picture of it BEFORE but I'd be too embarrassed. I DO have some pride, ya know!?!

Planting Sweet Potatoes

You can buy the slips, but why buy what you can make yourself? You take a sweet potato and put four toothpicks, equally spaced, around its "waist." Then put it in a jar of water, so that only half of it is in the water--the toothpicks will keep the top part of it OUT of the water. I painted my jar black, but you could just wrap it in aluminum foil--roots don't like light.
Soon, the potato will start to have little green sprouts. When they are about two inches long, take the potato out of the water, and carefully cut the potato to separate the spouts, but don't separate the sprouts from the little hunk of potato that it's growing from. Plant each "slip" in a pot of soil and let it grow until it's time to plant it outside--after all danger of frost is over.
I'll post a pic of mine when it spouts--stay tuned.