Beautiful muff in progress

Now, you may be asking yourself, how will she ever recreate those lovely Technicolor tones? I'll tell you how. I went to Bruce Variety, a five & dime store of the old-school, thinking that if I was going to find yarn to do the muff justice anywhere, it would be there. And I was right.













Meanwhile, here's the base of the muff, slowly but surely coming along. Next up: roses!! The pattern calls for "muff liner," but I'll be damned if I know what that is. I'm not so much with the fabric and the sewing.

Chapeaux tres belles

Regina over at Monster Crochet has begun a crochet-along (known in the biz as a CAL) for some super fun hats that she found in an old magazine from the 60s (possibly even older than I am, hard to believe, I know). I am going to make this rosy, elegant, and totally beautiful headband and muff. And then I will embarrass my husband by wearing them everywhere.

Oversight

It's been pointed out to me that I neglected to follow up on my Musings On Turning 40 post with a description of the lovely Fairy Princess party that my coworkers threw for me that afternoon. I had every three-year-old girl's dream birthday, except that I also got a big-ass box of delicious items from Bliss Spa, one of the most divine places on earth.

Here are some of the highlights, including a rare sighting of my actual face (I'm the one in the feathered and beaded pink tiara).

Tweed clutch

Here's a little purse I made for my friend Mary. I wish I could have gotten better photos, but I'm just not the world's best photographer, and my camera is pretty bottom-of-the-barrel. Mary, if you have any that are better, send them along, will you? I got the pattern from the latest Interweave Crochet.

Albino rat

My best friend's daughter has an albino rat named Scabbers (of course), so I crocheted her a faux Scabbers as a Christmas present. Scabbers apparently has a green tail from the chlorophyll in his tank--it's hard to see in these photos, but faux Scabbers does too.

The scarf of paralysis

Here it is, the scarf that had all the problems and that had me paralyzed for three weeks. The photos don't show all that well what the problem was, but essentially, the tension wasn't the same in the middle of the scarf, so you might be able to see an area in the middle where it's sort of riding up.


I also had problems with the threads on the very ends breaking, which is why you can see some fuzziness on the edges.

Once I was told how to fix the tension problem, it wove up pretty easily. I still can't believe that it stymied me for as long as it did. And my good friend Sheila seems to really like it, so that just proves that you don't have to be perfect to be appreciated. I'm so wise now that I'm 40.

Unfortunately, I never took a picture of it finished. I'm just glad it's off my loom.

The big 4-0

Well. So here it is, my 40th birthday. I’m not entirely sure how this happened. Last time I checked, I was about 26, although I do vaguely remember freaking out when I turned 30.

I’m happy to report that my brain did not win its Death Before 40 campaign. I was up and out the door before 5:30 this morning to go running -- might as well start the day on an energetic note.

I have to say, I thought I’d be a lot more distraught about the prospect of being 40, and in reality, I’m sort of … pleased. My 20s sucked ass. I met and married someone who turned out to be not the person I thought he was, so we split and divorced. My 30s were about a million times better. I met and married a man who is nicer to me on any given day than the first one was in a month. So I figure that the trend will continue and that my 40s will be amazing.

Here’s a little list of what I’ve got going for me:

--Excellent, kind husband. He drives me nuts, of course, but he’s about the nicest person I know. I should probably make an effort to be nicer to him.

--My family! My parents, while crazy, are also quite cool. In February my mom turns 60, so together we’ll be 100. We’re trying to figure out a way to celebrate that fact. My sister … just simply one of my favorite people ever. She's married to one of the other nicest people in the world. And her two daughters. My GOD those sweet little babies! Who needs kids when they have those two girls for nieces. And then there’s my husband’s family, who are also amazingly kind and wonderful.

--Incredible friends. The list of people I consider close friends has shrunk quite a bit in the last several years, but I suppose that happens to everybody. People change and drift off. My close friends are just fantastic, and I know that every one of them would have my back in a crisis.

--My health, more or less. Still with the migraines, but hey, I’m still fairly lean and mean, and that’s mostly due to running, which I took up about a year ago. I never thought I’d consider myself to be a runner, but at 820 miles for the year, I think that’s pretty good evidence that I somehow have become one. Goal for 2006: A cool 1,000.

--Stunning good looks. Heh. Hey, people still guess my age at least 10 years under what it is, so what the hell, add that to the List of Happy.

What would I like to accomplish in my 40s? No clue. My life has been a series of serendipitous occurrences and I’ve never really had a life plan. It would be nice to find an actual career, I suppose, although I’m definitely a work-to-live person, not a live-to-work one. I’d like to be a better weaver, maybe work on my own patterns. Same goes for crochet. Ooh, I’d like to learn to spin (wool, not pedals). It would be lovely to travel to places other than Alaska for vacation (if you’re reading this, dear husband, take note). But on the whole, it turns out that I’m pretty satisfied with life at the moment. Who’da thunk it.

Happy Birthday to me!!