So many hobbies!

Best laid plans...

Instead of freezing apples and making pumpkin butter, I spent most of my weekend with a girlfriend and my sister.  Much better than spending the weekend in solitary confinement in my condo.  Saturday morning I helped a girlfriend measure and cut fabric for some quilts she's making and in the afternoon, my sister and I went to Craft 2000.  Craft 2000 has EVERYTHING you might possibly need for any kind of crafty pursuit.  Oh, before Craft 2000, I picked up the solid fabrics I needed for my Halloween quilt:

 

I'm not too sure about the orangey one on the top right.  The one on the bottom right is actually a light gray but for some reason, it photographed blue.  I really need to take a class in photography.

One of my previous incarnations saw me doing rubber stamping, card making and altering books.  I got rid of nearly all my stuff for those hobbies a few months ago and I picked up just a few things at Craft 2000 for an altered book I hadn't finished.  Saturday night, I finally finished the book.  The last few pages aren't as elaborate as the earlier ones but I'm pleased with them all the same.  These are my favorite pages/spreads:

 

 

 

The cats spent their weekend doing pretty much what you'd expect them to:

 

 

Novels: the ultimate time suck

I found a new author I like:  Sherrilyn Kenyon.  Her books are found in the romance section at the bookstore but they're far more action than romance.  Yes, there's a smooch or two but there's actual plot (shocker) and lots of good action.  I picked up the novel "Acheron" Friday and I can't seem to put it down.  In spite of way too much reading, I still managed to cross a couple of things off my To-do list.

I was commissioned to make a spindle box:

 

She liked purple and green so I put the purple on the outside and the green on the inside:

 

I was hoping to start a beaded necklace this weekend to go with one of my new shirts but between the book and the box, I haven't even started picking out beads.  Oh, hey, I finally got my garden in.  I'm a bit late in planting but the weather's been so cold here in Michigan the last couple of weeks it probably won't make a difference.  In addition to the tomatoes, zucchini, green beans and basil, I also bought thyme and rosemary.  The rosemary will have to come inside during the winter (it's not a winter-hardy perennial this far north) but I'm hoping the thyme will make it through the winter in its pot.  I'd show you the pots but they're not very exciting right now; mostly just dirt or dirt with tiny seedlings.  They'll be more exciting in a few weeks.

If it warms up, I'll be picking strawberries and rhubarb next weekend and making jam.  The season's been delayed because of the cold.  It'll give me something to look forward to next weekend.