Thursday, August 13, 2009

Creative Distraction

How can I possibly be blogging???? I only have 48 hours to finish 60 hours of work yet (a conservative estimate based on how overwhelming 'the piles' before me look)before my friend's party decorations have to be placed and I hafta sleep, eat and make the house look halfway decent for Dearest Darlin', who's coming to be my 'date' for the party? But it's worse still...

I'm obsessed with a creative distraction too!

Hadn't been out of the house in nearly two weeks and another friend was going at noon yesterday to the town yarn shop for 'knitting class' and was willing to take me along. I have a credit in the shop and so I thought it would be a good thing for my soul to go see with Fall and Christmas speeding toward us if there be any good thing I could spend my credit on. Oh, LUSCIOUS! I very quickly realized I could have easily spent 5 times the credit I had coming to me! Good thing the shoes I wore weren't very comfy and I knew I was financially limited to only the credit I had coming or I could have gotten very self indulgent and totally whacked my financial future for a month or two. I disciplined myself, trying to make my $ credit go as far as possible, and only scanned the 'free with yarn purchase' patterns and finally grabbed three of those - all for felted projects not having ever felted anything, I thought I'd take advantage and learn something new.

I currently have UGLY throw pillows on my family room sofa, passed down from an old couch/love seat combo discarded years ago.


This free pattern got me thinking they might easily be transormed -


I hadn't ever worked with authentic/pure wool when knitting or crocheting and it's price was a shock to my frugal mindset but the synthetic stuff won't felt. So I explored the options and not being a pastel kind of gal (except for infant gifts) I chose this rich, earthy colored yarn -


Apologies for blurry yarn photos!

Who knew inside it would look like this -


And who would have predicted it would crochet up to this?


I'm a total convert to needling/hooking with genuine wool now and when my pal goes back to the yarn shop I think I'm going to ask her to get me one more ball of the variegated and some solid olive and/or cinnamon colored wool so I can make two pillows and make the backsides and the flaps in solid to contrast. Don'tcha just think that'd totally transform my couch???

3 comments:

Snap said...

I think the pillows will be wonderful. I like the pattern and pat yourself on the back for sticking to your credit/budget! Thanks for visiting. The doily is for me. I always keep the first of anything I make -- it has all the mistakes. The second, I give away. So, second Christmas doily will make a hostess gift (probably)! Thanks for stopping by!

Cynthia said...

wonderful -- I can't wait to see the finished results!

thank you for stopping by my blog a few weeks ago -- it helped.

Rosaria Williams said...

Sheila, thanks for finding me and following me. Now, where are you located exactly? I'm familiar with much of California as I spent most of my adult/working life there, vacationing everywhere in Josemite.