Now I can 'Finish' my Rugs...

Kathy always tells us that a rug isn't finished until it has a label on it. Well, Kathy, I finally made some labels.

Took me a while to decide how I wanted to do it- print them on the computer, just write on it with a micron pen, or....what???. I can't seem to get permanent archival ink for my printer so ruled that one out. Didn't think my own handwriting was really what I wanted either.

Decided on the dreaded embroidery machine! When I bought this machine, reading the literature makes it seem like it is soooo easy and everything is done automatically. There are icons on the computer screen with Auto-this and Auto-that, but......! And the tutorial is a breeze! Just click on the line in the drawing and it automatically traces around the drawing and makes outline stitches! NOT!!!

As you have probably guessed, the reality is that everything has to be done manually and it takes an age! LOL!!! Sone lettering fonts are provided with the embroidery software, but not many. And there are a few small decorative embroideries.
But the nice thing is, you can purchase wonderful designs on the internet if you don't have the time or patience to use your own designs. Embroidery Library is an especially good site (and reasonably priced!)

So here are the labels. The top one I'll use with designs that are not my own. I plan to write on by hand the name of the rug and the designer. The bottom one I'll use for my own designs.

Here is the machine in action. No hands necessary! It just does it's own thing until it needs a change of thread color. The sewing is the easy part. The setting up is the pain-in-
the-butt!

We had a really bad weekend with kitty health problems. I have been a total wreck!!! After finding out about two months ago that Sophie had diebetes (she is doing well at this point!), her brother Robbie fell off the window sill in the kitchen and now has some kind of neurological problems. We are not sure whether he had some kind of seizure that caused him to fall or if the fall was the cause of the problem. Anyhow he seems to lose his balance frequently now. We took him to the vet on Sat. morning and the bloodwork was fine, no inner ear problems, etc. And while he was at the vet's, he wasn't showing any signs of balance problems.

Sunday He was really schitzy and distressed. Yesterday he seemed better, with only one minor loss of balance that I noticed. This morning he had a small episode. Unfortunately without lots of expensive tests and ones that our vet is not equipped to do anyhow, we probably will not know what is causing this affliction. If it doesn't get any worse, he will be able to adjust. We will just have to wait and see and pray for the best.

Since I was such a basket case over Robbie, the only thing I had any concentration for was hooking. My gameboard is a no brainer at this point! The picture came out kind of dark. I took it on the front porch where there is better light than inside, but the sun wasn't shining directly on it. But you can see that it's progressing.

I'm getting tired of doing little red and black blocks! There are an awful lot of them!!!

Hope to see some of you at the hook-in at Grant Street Woolworks on Thursday!