LIES AND LAUGHTER

We laughed so hard at today's all-day rug hooking meeting that I came home with a sore stomach.  [Ok, there's one lie referenced in the blog post title:  Actually the truth is that I ate so much that I came home with a sore stomach.]  Much of the laughter centered around hilarious stories about our experiences with lying, and then certain "lies of omission" about Cheryl's delicious coffee.  You had to be there, but we all laughed until we cried.

Pictures of people's rug progress are below.  (Maria and Lenore, how did I miss yours???)

The amazing Fish Rug is really humming right along.  How I wish I'd been able to get better photos of this rug so that you could see the colors in the water.  This is striking!

KATHLEEN (ON LEFT) WITH HER RUG; ANN (ON RIGHT) HELPING TO HOLD IT UP.

A BETTER LOOK AT THE COLORS, THOUGH THIS STILL ISN'T A GOOD PHOTO.

Next up, two shots of Cheryl's current rescue project.  The first photo shows how she is coming along with hooking the rug.  Much of the hooking was done by the original anonymous hooker, probably decades ago.  Cheryl has been finishing the hooking but is hampered by not having much of the original wool.  In the second photo, you can see two pieces of the wool she bought at Dorr Wool--the closest she could get to the original rug's colors.  While they won't match exactly, I do think they will work well.  Isn't this a beauty?

Ann had 2 pieces with her (below).  This one was one she had barely started last time we met, and now it's nearly finished.  I believe it's going to be a chair pad.

Next up, her wonderful leaves (she finally found the wool to finish this, which she had put "safely away" when she was due to have guests staying for quite a while; we all know how that goes!  She just found the wool):

Cynthia's Kokopelli rug is nearing the finish.  This will go in her living room:

As for me, I ripped out the loops I had put in to start my rug, because I'd changed my mind about colors and the plan to tweak the design a bit.  Last night at home I re-did the center entirely and here's how it looked then:

I am not yet committed the colors.  So today I fooled around with colors a bit more and did this:

This is still very much in the experimental stage (and I haven't even trimmed the ends on the upper yellow triangle, which is one reason that looks so messy above).  We'll see how this evolves.  I have to let it alone for a few days now, and that's probably a benefit as my subconscious can do some more color consideration.

With apologies to Maria and Lenore, whose pieces I didn't get photos of!  So sorry.

And now to the food:  Oh.  My.  God.  Cheryl is a phenomenal cook, and so are most of the other group members.  Cheryl served us wonderful Italian Wedding Soup with hot biscuits, and we had Maria's yummy savory Parmesan Cookies to go with that.  After that, a rest for a while...then out came Lenore's delicious casserole with whole wheat pasta (which we all loved), chicken sausage, kale, and other goodies.  Ok, by that time we were full beyond belief.  Another rest with more rug hooking.  And then the most amazing carrot cake by Cheryl, using carrot baby-food rather than sliced carrots.  I have never heard of that before but it was remarkable.

Are you surprised that none of us needed wheels to roll home after all that?

I do love my hooker buddies.  A creative and drop-dead funny group.  And oh my, such good cooks.  Do we get together to make rugs?  Or do we get together to eat?  Sometimes it's hard to tell.

I'll end with this anonymous quote:  "If we're not supposed to have midnight snacks, then why is there a light in the fridge?"

Good question, eh? 

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