T Stands for Tuesday Nursing a Sore Back and Crafts

                    Happy T for Tuesday everyone!

Please join us at Bluebeard and Elizabeth here

    This past week has gone slow for me, but then here we are another Tuesday has arrived.

   I am prone to lower back problems-it goes "out" on me when I overdo physical activity. This time I am definately out of alignment for sure from neck down to my lower back. It usually takes a month to work its way back to normal.  I have had much worse where I could barely sit stand or lie down. So thankful for that. 

  And we have had a very cold week with lows in the low teens. I covered up my two clematis plants that were loaded with buds, one doesn't look like it fared so well-time will tell if I saved some of the flowers.
   Then over the weekend-right back up to summer type temperatures. We still so need rain. Today (Monday) promises to be another 80 f degree plus day The guys grabbed the opportunity to go out fishing in the boat today for walleye. Wish them a very fun day with friends and good fishing.

  So what have I been doing since I am rather down? Definately not able to get back on the ladder and work in the bathroom-so I have dug out favorite movie cds, books, and my crafts.

  A little bit of hand sewing on the civil war hexies That cool felted bowl and the one inside were both made by my friend Barbara   Note: Barbara is an amazing artist and creates so many amazing pieces and in many different mediums. Her latest right now is her sculpted piece adorned with tea bags to finish.

 All photos will enlarge

  I dug out a bag of cheviot wool to spin on my drop spindle. I am getting much improved with my spindle now. Inside the bag is some skeins I spun last year of this wool  and natural dyed with my own collected tansy and goldenrod flowers.  Also a photo of a finished skein on the niddy noddy-that is now dry from being wetted down real well. Ready to make into a hank and label.
  I had purchased several white rovings from different sheep breeds to learn to spin with and lots to dye with-love that!

 Speaking of tags-end of last year I needed more tags-they are a nice way to label the hand spuns and I was running out of them Shopping on etsy I didn't care for the choices of the gift tags I usually buy-but I ran into a shop on etsy (she is on vacation now) that makes tea or coffee dyed tags-never thought of doing that lol So I ordered a big bag of those and also a stamp of a sheep.  I found this one etsy too-handcarved by a lady in France.  More fun! lol

                

  And over the weekend I have tackled the tunisian crochet. I knew this would be a challenge for me with my left hand being the one for tension and that one is my messed up hand. It took a bit to get the chain right-I know easy it seems; but the stitches kept being too tight for me to work with and the chain would flip over on me-so after several attempts I got a chain I liked better. 
    I did get in the mail the book of tunisian stitches however there was no photo how to's-so that book will be a good reference for later.
   I did find lots of information on the web with videos, tutorials, and lots of free patterns. I started a pinterest board and just started loading the information there. 
    I found a crochet blog that you will find in my blog list and also on the pinterest board, that just had excellent photos in her tutorials-every motion had a photo. So I ended up printing off the basic stitches so I could follow along better. (link for the crochet blog takes you to her first tutorial)
   This was what I did last night-of course there are tension issues but didn't want to worry about that right now-I will do a few more rows of this stitch and then on to a different stitch, the ones that look like knitted stitches.

   

 
I also bought a new book-I ran into this one-at Amazon's suggestion lol-sounded fascinating-woven shibori. The technique is weaving in threads to pull for the shibori dye technique-sounds fun!





For my drink today I am sharing a photo of my glass of dry red wine which has been really nice in the evenings.

Happy T Day!!