Crafty

Had a great weekend. Had a lovely dinner with friends of penne pasta with scallops and shrimp in a spinach pesto sauce. Oh, I so love to cook and this meal was a hit. sebrina and I were in her kitchen together whipping up the meal and I very much enjoyed that. :) Dove and his girl brought fresh strawberries and this concoction that was truly sinful... marshmallow fluff and cream cheese whipped together... just a delight entirely.




After dinner the paint was brought out and their cross was taken apart and given a nice coat of black. While most worked on that Dove was showing me how to braid a rope whip. His is the one on the right, the blue and purple one. They are about 4' long cracker to handle. I was tickled to pieces when he gave me the pretty spring colored bit of naughtiness. I even got in a bit of practice with it on live and squirmy girls... just a couple quick cracks to the bottoms of the reluctant ones. Now that was lovely.

So on Saturday I took the lessons he offered, and tried my own hand. I have three blisters and the whip on the left to show for it. I actually got it to crack and the pillow in the living room saw no mercy from Miss Honey and her Easter egg colored whip, pink and green are so very intimidating... HA. I had trouble pulling the rope as tight as I think it needs to be, not sure if this is an engineering issue or a strength issue. I look forward to learning more about this art and there are several really great youtube videos available that helped me when I struggled with the over, under, under, over, over of plaiting.


In leaning about the braiding of the rope, I also stumbled on this little technique for wrapping a handle that was so easy and I thought looked terrific. I used it on the handle of one of the rattan canes I have added to the collection.

Love how the knots of the cord spiral up the handle. Just a bit of mason's twine in two colors and I really like the look of it and it adds a nice bit of grip to this.

Also done this weekend was this. Now, I am not one for random scars on my body, but in the interest of trying what I will ask others to do I wanted to experience this, the cell popping I wrote of last week. This was just free handed onto my arm. It started out as just a pop or two, but it didn't feel like much of anything so I said, well do a couple more... and in about 2 minutes I had this little star on my arm. And honestly, maybe I am oddly immune to this kind of pain, but I have removed band aids that hurt more than this.

So... what did you do this weekend?