Crafts Direct

 I took out my I 💙 Crafts Direct mug this morning for my cuppa tea. Wouldn't you know, it has a large crack down the side. Fitting that my mug will go out with the store. I think I have enough Tombow on hand that I do not need to go to the store again before they finally close. 

It has been a busy week. We set up for the mission group garage sale on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The sale started Wednesday afternoon. It ends at noon today, so I am heading out soon to help with the pick-up.

I finished Patrick Madrid's Search and Rescue. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in evangelization or apologetics. Patrick is usually so calm in his radio presentations. This book also is very gentle. 

I have been sewing up a storm. I finished a toddler/lap quilt top out of fat quarters which my sister gave me. I have one final seam to do on a table runner, and two other autumn print table runners ready for backing and binding. I have been emptying out so many odds and ends of bobbin thread it isn't funny. It is good to make a dent in my fabric stash. Now for the quilting part!

I also worked my two days at Catholic Charities this week. Before I left in the morning I made some posters advertising our mission group craft and bake sale to put out at our garage sale - taking advantage of the opportunity for advertising. For the life of me I could not figure out why my copies kept coming out crooked. Finally it dawned on me that the sheet I was copying was on the plate crooked. Ohhh! Then at the food shelf I picked up a container that hat broken open in the donation box. I ended up spilling chicken broth all over. Yuck! The smell and the sticky mess! More yuck factor in the jar of open peanut butter in the box, and an open Kool-aid canister. We have been putting out food from the Post Office' Stamp Out Hunger drive. But items have been flying off of the shelves as fast as we can put them out. 

My brother-in-law sent pictures of the St. Magnus Cathedral in the Orkney Islands. How interesting, since I read Susan Peek's St. Magnus, the Last Viking. It puts the book in a real time and place.

It's the End of the World as We Know It

     Joe Soucheray's theme song is running through my head. But I don't "feel fine". It is truly the end of an era. Crafts Direct is closing, and I am feeling it keenly. Years ago I bought a mug that says I 💜 CD Crafts Direct. Now it will be obsolete, or a collector's item. Crafts Direct was my go-to place for supplies. Michael's and Hobby Lobby have their niches, but do not have nearly the volume. Both tend to carry their own brands of items also, and I do not always want their brands.

    I did make it to the closing sale last week on Thursday afternoon, after the fire marshal had been there and closed them down because too many people were in the store. I bought a set of 25 dish towels, four packs of Tombow adhesive, and several skeins of Sugar and Cream yarn. I also bought my I Love Minnesota puzzle. I had purchased two of the puzzles previously to give as gifts, but wanted my own as a Minnesota keepsake: it is spread out on my dining room table almost completed. Easy-peasy for a puzzle. Did I get any good deals? Not really. And then after all that I forgot to use my Shop 'n Save certificate, so had to go back again the following Monday when I got another set of 25 dish towels. But stocking up will save me a few nightmares. I go through Tombow like crazy when I am making cards. Michael's carries Tombow, but it was never on sale like Crafts Direct had it, and their everyday price was higher than CD by 20 cents. It is too difficult to buy dish towels for embroidery on-line because one can't judge the quality. Perhaps Fleet Farm would have a suitable substitute, but I rarely go to that side of town. Crafts Direct was just so convenient. 

    I did talk to one of the owners while I waited at the door to get into the store. He said that the supply chain was a big issue. Another craft store had bought out two of their suppliers, and as an independent store they could not compete. COVID was also a factor. 

    I had intended to add some pictures to my blog, but our camera batteries are dead, and we have no replacements at hand. I have a pile of completed projects on the table; five Christmas stockings for our mission group craft sale, a scrappy quilt with messed up latticing which is going to a resident at Edenbrook, two embroidered dish towels, an apron and a draw string bag. I gave up on the knit dress I was sewing and put the regular needle back in my machine. The change has energized me. Last night I cut the fabric for the two pillow cases for Ari. I also started some nine-patch blocks for mug rugs out of the fat quarters I had gotten in my silent auction basket from St. Anthony's last April. Husband probably can't tell, but my fabric stash is going down slightly. ?And I plod on with that afghan that I am knitting. I do about three rows at a stretch. I am on my second skein of yarn finally. Slow and steady wins the race.    

Thanksgiving at Our New Table

I promised myself that when our new table arrived, I would put up a puzzle. I saved this Peace Like a River puzzle by Kim Norlien just for the occasion. He is, or was, a local artist. His studio was down the road from us in Clearwater. When we stopped in there this past summer the studio was locked, and there was a realty sign on the lawn. The last time I checked his web site it still had the Clearwater address. At any rate, the puzzle finally went up and was finished.  But just like a country music song, I have to analyze it! Notice that the sky looks like daylight. You can't see it from the picture, but there are people sitting out on the deck on the right, just above and to the left of the blue car. Yet. the fireplace is lit, and all of the lights are on in every room of the house. They are wasting electricity and firewood! I guess that means the light is merely symbolic. When I first started this puzzle I was dropping in pieces left and right. As I neared the end, when it is normally easier, it got harder and harder. It was a challenge. The hidden images were a little bonus, and the scripture quote a commentary on the artist. I am sorry that he is moving, or has moved from, the area.

I have been able to finish two mysteries, Ralph McInerny's On This Rockne, and a garage sale find, George Harmon Coxe' Top Assignment (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1955). Ralph's book was entertaining from his commentaries on academic life and on the state of affairs in the Catholic church. I got a kick out of "The Old Bastards Table" and the faculty senate. Took me back to my days at CSB/SJU. Academia! Top Assignment was interesting in that Communist infiltration in the United States was part of the plot. Today no one would think anything of it, and in fact people would probably cheer it on.  

We have had some life adventures this week. Arthur's car just came back from the garage. Mine needs to go in. On top of that our local e-mail service provider closed up out of the blue, or if it was a one man operation, he was injured in a hunting accident and is lying in a hospital bed somewhere while the company goes belly up. We had not had service for almost a week. Last night we decided to scramble and go for a new e-mail.

The St. Marcellus Mission group craft sale is over for the year. I am free to craft as I like without deadlines for another whole ten months! Glory! But not really any time to rest. I had to deliver a bunch of leftover hats and scarves to Catholic Charities, and I brought home some stained and holey vintage embroidered tablecloths that I will have to figure out how to use for next year's sale. There is no rest for the wicked. And I still have to get caught up on dishes, housecleaning and laundry.