This weekend I got on my craft grind again, with
ambiguous success. I don’t know if you heard, but there was a recent election
in the U.S, and due to the distraction, I didn’t tell ya’ll about my port
pillow achievement of a few weeks ago, wherein I sewed a tiny little simple
square pillow out of cotton flannel:
Port pillows are for cancer patients who have
had a port inserted into their chest for chemotherapy drug delivery, thus helping
to avoid multiple needle sticks. The pillow goes over the port to protect the
tender area from the pressure of seat belts, purse straps, etc. I was very proud
of my port pillow, even though it took me two and half hours to make. I got ambitious
over this long weekend and decided I would crank out five or six more, but it
all sort of fell apart. I’m still not very adept with my machine, and my thread
got snarled on the spool and my needle got un-threaded and I couldn’t get it
re-threaded, and I got frustrated and had a little temper fit and quit in a huff. But I still wanted to sew, so I decided to suck it
up and hand-sew the edging onto my peacock rug, which is now officially
finished:
Then, flush with the triumph of actually
completing something, I decided to start a new rug. I picked an owl-themed rug,
because making something with an owl motif is mandatory for all crafters, and
I figured I might as well get it over with. I hand-drew the design from a
mishmash of different patterns I found online, and got an okay start on it last
night. Here’s the back side of the rug:
And, finally, I started the rewrite of the first
section of my novel. I carefully re-read the feedback I got from the potential
publisher and tried to address the issues she had with it. I’m a little ambiguous
about the new version, but I will admit that what it lacks in raw energy it
makes up for in clarity and smoothness. We’ll see.
In all of this doing, I did find a little time
to read, and thus finished a Dave Eggers novel that I’ll review here soon, and started
a new one called “A Man Named Ove”, which I hadn’t heard of until I saw that
the movie of the same title was playing at my local theater. I’m only a chapter
or two in, but already, Ove is my hero. I loved him immediately, and can only
hope that I too, might one day have it in me to create such an obnoxious crank
of a character. The main character in my novel is plenty obnoxious in her own
way, but she has absolutely nothing on Ove. Ove is a true classic. Ove is marvelously,
willfully cantankerous, stubborn beyond belief, and someone who most rational
people would want to immediately smack upside the head upon meeting. I can’t
wait to get to back to this book so I can enjoy more scenes of Ove
tormenting Apple store employees and antagonizing hospital staff.
And, exciting news: I am giving
away my peacock rug! It doesn’t fit in with the Typist's apartment “color palette”
and I don’t really have anywhere to put it. So if you want it, comment here, or
e-mail me if you have my e-mail address, and it shall be yours to enjoy! It’s
just sitting in my closet right now, and I’d rather that it get some use.
--Kristen McHenry
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