Hawks nest state park, wv

Summersville Dam, WV

Second largest earthen dam east of the Mississippi.

Pennsylvania

Chilly this morning. Getting ready to leave pa behind. Met Rachael yesterday at Hershey park. Went on five rollercoasters in fast succession. The last one put us both over the edge. Thankfully it was both of us. I'd feel bad if it was just me and that she still had energy for more. The first coaster was omg the scariest, craziest.

Halloween rocks

Gas stations

I guess it's against the law to automatically fill your gas at the pump in Massachusetts. I know it's against the law in New York because there are signs posted on all the pumps about it. They are very serious about it in New York. Almost threatening in fact. In Massachusetts they merely remove the lever thing that allows you to automatically fill your tank, making it impossible. You must stand there and squeeze the pump handle the whole time. Why is that? What's the problem with having it automatically fill?

Great Falls Discovery Center

Says here that Mute Swans are an invasive species!

Route 100 Vermont

South of Killington

Fall colors

An observation..... Seems like Massachusetts's folks don't pay much attention to the school speed limit. Maybe they don't see the school zone signs announcing the reduced speed limit of 20 mph when school is in session. But they don't even slow down when the yellow lights are flashing! How do they miss that sign? I guess they just don't care.  I'm used to cops pulling you over for going 22 mph through a school zone. Here, cops will apparently pull you over for not stopping for a pedestrian in a crosswalk, but not for speeding through a school zone. Odd.

Quincy Bog,Rumney NH

Hesky Park, Meredith NH

Coopers cave

Last of the Mohicans

Adirondack Balloon Festival

North Star Underground Railroad Museum

Lake Champlain, Port Kent, NY

Killington

Ski resort just bought by Vail

Ponemah bog near Amherst NH

Westville lake recreation area

West Thompson Dam

Paddleboarding queen

Long pond

A peaceful morning at the watershed

Out with the boys

Little cutie

Moore State Park

Jaspers tongue matches the flowers! So cute!

Thar she blows!

International Pillow Fight Day!!

Door organizer

I love you a watt!

My take on a card I saw for sale on pinterest. Next time I would attach the vellum differently, but it's still cute!

Bucket hat, second attempt

Still too damn big. Drat.

Improved clutch

My too big bucket hat

Ironing board cover

A proper start of this post would have been to include the "before" pic of my ironing board cover.  Both the cover and foam below were so worn that you could actually see the metal grid.  But I just kept ironing, despite the lovely grid impression that was transferred to the fabric. Yet when I found this tutorial on how to redo the cover using the old one, I knew the time had come......the time to make a new cover.  I got a bit lazy when it came to pinning, so the new cover doesn't lay quite as smooth as it should.....but I"m sure it'll be a definite improvement over the old!

Clutch

Owl hot bag

Not much to say about this guy.  I essentially followed this tutorial, but turned him into a rice bag instead of a bean bag.  The rice is contained inside another bag inside the owl, and is removable so that the outer owl can be washed.  This is important to me, as everything seems to get dirty in our house-- not to mentioned covered with dog hair.  I'd really like to make some small hand warmers, but the smaller size wouldn't be machine washable.....I mean, can you throw rice in the wash?  

Wonky rag rug

I'm working on a T-shirt quilt and after cutting the images/logos off, I have lots of fabric left.  Sure, I was saving it for rags and other potential projects, but honestly, I have waaaaaaaay too much fabric right now.  IE, I wasn't thrilled about having to save boring T-shirt fabric and how many rags do I really need?  And then I discovered rag rugs.  Easy Peasy, right?  Hardly.  I cut the fabric into strips too wide so my "yarn" was a bit wonky to start.  I like the idea of crocheting the rug versus braiding, because I just couldn't see sewing the braids together.  But first I needed a giant crochet hook, so off to the thrift stores I went.  Oddly enough, the three thrift stores I visited had multitudes of knitting needles by absolutely no crochet hooks.  Perhaps I should clarify.  Goodwill and the local humane society thrift store had plenty of knitting needles.  Value Village had neither needles or hooks. Very Odd.  So I broke down and went to Micheals, armed with a coupon of course.  Success.

Success with the purchase, not with the crocheting.  I'm not an avid crocheter (or knitter for that matter) and I certainly haven't crocheted in the round much.  I was having issues grasping the concept of the "magic circle" so I reverted to just the non-magic-circle way of starting.  That looked like crap but I continued on.  Once I got on a roll, the crochet looked better, but still looked dastardly and I decided I just couldn't live with it.  I took it apart.  Not an easy feat with wonky t-shirt yarn.  I reverted to the braiding method and braided a very long rope.  That was easy!  But then came time to sew it together into a rug form.  Ugh.  It didn't fit under my sewing machine so I attempted it by hand.  I quickly lost patience for that.  Into the trash it went.  Yes, I tossed it, consoling myself with the thought that as a rag, it would have ended up there anyway (I hate to throw anything away).

Pinterest suggested a hula hoop rug that looked much more doable and I thought I had a hula hoop......but no such luck.  Did I really want to buy a hula hoop for the project?  Of course not.  And I wasn't going to pound nails into a picture frame to make a loom.  Thankfully, the nails weren't necessary.  Following this tutorial, I just attached the warp/vertical yarn to the loom (she used string, but I used my t-shirt yarn, mistakenly using an ugly color, but anyway....)and went from there.  It went fairly well, and I'm glad to have found a use for that leftover fabric, I'm just not entirely certain that I'd do it again. 

Elephant stuffie

I found this adorable tutorial on Birch Ogranic Fabrics and just couldn't resist making it (not like I really need an elephant stuffed animal).   And it was so easy!  The only thing that didn't quite go well was the tail.....I meant for it to be pointed down, but instead, as you see, it instead looks like my Ellie is about to make a, er, deposit, lol.  Oh well, I still love her anyway!