That’s oil paint. Blue oil paint. Blue oil paint that stains like you would not believe. Frances’ tennis ball got stuck in a corner where one of the canvases I’ve been working on was drying.
In digging out her ball, she made a giant mess.
And for the second time in less than a month, I have removed oil paint from my dining room carpet. Also the living room carpet, because she tracked it everydamnwhere.
Some days, my coffee needs backup coffee.
An open dresser drawer will function as a cat trap, in a pinch.
I finally finished the basket I was making for Franny’s toys, and it’s not even June. I used the tutorial here as a jumping off point, but I changed several things.
1. I pulled the strips of T-shirt, to make them curl into yarn-like tubes. I think they’re easier to work with that way, and the edges are rolled to the inside, so they aren’t likely to fray.
Flat
Curled
2. I used a no-sew method to join the ends of the pieces together.
Stack the ends on top of each other, fold over, and cut a small slit in the center of the folded edge.
Unfold, then pull the opposite end of the new piece through both slits.
Pull the end of the “parent” piece through the slit of the “child.”
Pull taught.
3. I aligned the braids so that the stitches are invisible. I’m right handed and worked from left to right. If you look closely at the direction of the strands in the braid, you can see that they mirror the direction of the thread. That makes it easy to hide the stitches under each section of braid.
4. To start and finish, I tucked the ends of the three strands under sections of braid on the back side. The original tutorial showed tapering the braid to finish, but I didn’t like the way that looked.
Finished start.
Finished end.
And…
The End.
ETA: I opted to omit the handles. I’m using this as a dog toy basket, so I didn’t want to encourage Franny to drag it around the house. I also changed the way I started and finished. I didn’t like the way the gradual step-down looked, so I wove the strands from the ends of the braid back into the braid on the coil below, then stitched them into place. Like so.
I thought Harriet was expressive, but Franny takes it to a whole other level.
I mostly take reusable bags to the store with me, but when I go shopping I have to bring home at least one plastic bag for Piglet. He will climb into it before it’s empty, if I’m not quick enough putting things away. Also, if you hold out an empty bag and call him, he’ll come running and jump in it. Weirdo.
I made more progress on Franny’s toy basket. It’s all of two inches taller.
If you sew each stitch from back to front, the stitches are invisible on both sides.
I could stop right now and call it a cat bed.
I’m in the process of turning a stack of old T-shirts into a braided basket for Franny’s toys. I should be finished sometime in June.
red paper boat 