WHEN A LONG STORY IS REALLY JUST A LONG STORY!

Do you remember the days when you could join a club  just by seeing an ad in a magazine, filling out a form, and mailing it to whomever was running the ad?

I did that with the Columbia Music Club.  I found the ad in my Mother's Good Housekeeping Magazine, tore out the form, filled it in and mailed it, and waited patiently for my first shipment of records to arrive in the mail.

I was 16.

I had just started my first real job at Don's Toys Hobbies and Crafts, and with my first pay-check I had gone over to Gambles Department store and purchased my very own stereo system.

Oh my heart still pitters a bit when I think of that Lloyds Stereo.   It had a turntable, a radio and a
8 track tape player.  Two Stereo speakers, headphones, and it all fit beautifully on a wooden stand - with wheels.  Be still my heart!

I had some Mono records that my older brothers had given me, and a few 45's - but I really wanted some good stereo LP's - so I joined the Columbia Music Club.

The first shipment of records arrived - I think I got 10 the first time around, because you got bonus records by signing up - after the first month you received 5 records every month.

What a blast!

That is until my parents found out - then - OH WHAT A BLAST!

I managed to acquire close to 40 records before they stopped showing up in the mail for good!

So what has brought this story to my blog?

Well -

I follow quite a few knitting podcasts on YouTube.  Great stuff - Love it!

Several of the hosts on these podcasts from time to time show what they receive in the mail.  Mostly gifts from subscribers, or other podcasters, or from companies they are endorsing through their channel.

Lately several of them have shown the same product which has arrived at their doorstep, so I started to pay attention.

The product is yarn, patterns, and accessories, and it arrives every month in a pretty turquoise box  from a place called Knitcrate.com.

The Box Yarn Club has several options of "crates" to choose from, and you get to Pick A Crate  - the crate of your choice, be it, a Sock Crate - which offers hand dyed sock yarn and sock patterns, or the Knitcrate Membership , which offers different types of yarns and patterns.  You can choose a palate of colours you want, or you can let them choose and have a surprise every month.

You can see where this is going - can't you?

It feels like I am 16 again, but this time I don't have to ask Mom or Dad!

But I do have to ask myself - is this something you really need?  Yes and No ..... Is this something your want....Yes!

So I am going to give it a try for a few months.  At the very least I will get some beautiful hand dyed yarns and some nice patterns.  I am going for the Sock Crate, because sock yarn is non-existent here in my neck of the world, and I have discovered that I quite like to knit and crochet socks.

So if you are inclined to want to be 16 along with me check out the link below.

knitcrate.com

BTW - This is not an endorsement - this is just a crazy knitter sharing some info to other crazy knitters!

End of story!

WHERE HAS TIME GONE - AND TIME WELL SPENT!

Can you believe we are already into the second week of September?  What happened to summer?

It seems that is was just a day or so ago that I was busy planning my garden and getting ready to sew seeds - and now I am slowly taking it all down.

Slowly I say - because for the first time in three months, my garden is finally looking like it should have all summer.

We had a severe drought here, only receiving less than 2 inches of rain from spring thaw until about 2 weeks ago when it finally started to rain.  In fact our Municipality and eleven others in this area had declared a state of emergency, especially for the farmers in the area.

This was taken at the end of August.

And then it started to rain, and grass that crunched beneath our feet when we walked, started turning green again.  Flowers that I planted in spring, suddenly started to grow, and just now are starting to bloom, vegetables that I re-seeded two and three times, are now growing in abundance.

This was taken this morning - a much different look to an area that was all but dead.  Sad to say the weeds are taking control over the grass here, but we will work on fixing that next spring.

This area was dead as well - now it's greening up nicely, and happy to say this is grass, not weeds!

We will enjoy the flowers and the vegetables for only a short while, because already the Robins have left and the Geese are arriving, and frost has threatened almost every night this past week.  This morning I could see my breath on my early morning walk.

While everything was falling apart outside, I turned my attention to projects inside the house.  I primed and painted all the trim on the main floor of our home, and it looks so nice now.

I have been doing a lot of knitting - I did finish my fall walking sweater, and a baby outfit for my soon to be new great-nephew ( due in October).  I made a quilted wall hanging for the living room, and a small one for the dining room, and just this weekend I finished this project.

I was lucky to be able to purchase two windows from a local church as they replaced their windows.  This window was an outside window, and it was in very bad shape.  It has the latch and hinges on it, and I left them on because I like how they look.  I chose to mount black and white family pictures in this window, and I love how it turned out.

This is hanging in my guest room now.

The other window I have on a wall in my living room.  I intend to turn it into a mirror using the spray-on mirror product, but so far I have not located that product in our area.  So for now an Ivy grows on the window.

Both these projects cost me a grand total of  $20.00 to complete.

I also cleaned my studio, which desperately needed some attention.  I made a little video on a special afghan made by my Aunt Margaret - a pattern from the 1970's which although really vintage, still is gorgeous today, you can see some of my finished projects as well on the video.

https://youtu.be/q5lX67Rx4G4

I am working on a follow-up video where I do a Tutorial on the Vintage afghan - so stay tuned if you are interested.

I hope everyone has had a lovely summer - now it's fall - time to change gears and head in a all new direction!

Come along for the ride -