New Day, New Doo

Good morning, my friends. I'm thankful it's Thursday, and I don't have to go anywhere. Two consecutive days out among The English is almost too much for this old bag. It was kind of a busy run-around day yesterday. I had my haircut appointment, and I had a few errands to run in town. I'm super happy with my new doo...something I almost never say. I have a good stylist, and she cut it exactly the way I wanted. This morning I'll have to style it myself. I'm "hair dyslexic," and so I'm hoping I can pull off this simple style.

There was just enough time yesterday morning to get a small start on my newest stitchery. This is Block #6 for the quilt I'm calling "Domestic Affairs." The pattern is an old BOM from Jenny of Elefantz. You can see my little bit of stitching in the upper left corner of the image below.

This morning I'll have more time, and I should be able to get a lot more done.

So, it was my last gasp before taking a bold step and whacking off my too-long hair. That isn't to say it was "long." It wasn't. But it was completely unmanageable. My hair has always been fine and thin, but I have even less of it now than I did when I was a teenager. A very short style seemed like my best bet. I went in search of short styles online, and came up with a few I liked. I showed the pictures to my stylist, and this is what she did:

We took another picture from the side so you can get a better view of the back.

I almost never like whatever hairstyle I have at any given time, but I believe I will like this. Even this morning with a bedhead, I ran a comb through it and it was acceptable. So, phew! Always a relief when I can go through life without wearing a paper bag over my head.

So back home, a second day among The English meant I had to sleep it off again. When it was time for sewing, Smitty was more than ready to get started.

The first thing he did was to push my project box off the table. That was just getting in the way.

And then he helped me choose fabrics and finish off the first two blocks for The Story of My Day. These were fun to sew together. Looking at the picture from the book, I wondered how difficult this was going to be. Those little spots of color had me curious.

The instructions were excellent. It was a little like putting a puzzle together. Here's the first block:

And here's the second:

It's going to be fun making this quilt. It will allow me to use my smallest scraps. I'm doing the blocks in the order of the book's table of contents, but they will be sewn together in a different order. Here are the first two together.

Today I have a couple of easy housekeeping chores to do. Happily, the pattern and instructions have been posted for the Crabapple Hill stitch-along for International Embroidery Month in February. It's one of my favorite stitch-alongs, and this will be my fifth year participating. You can find all the info about it right here. Here's the little peek she posted on Facebook yesterday.

Once I have my chores done, I'll probably spend most of my sewing day on this. The tracing and coloring can be time-consuming. I'll do this one with colored pencils. I've used both crayons and colored pencils when doing her designs. Crayons are easier, but colored pencils give a better result, if you want my opinion. And, if you don't want my opinion, then just pretend you didn't read that part. My brother always told me that opinions are like a$$holes. Everyone has one.

Okay, so there's no time like the present, and it's time to get started on my day.