On A Hot Sunday Afternoon in July

On A Hot Sunday Afternoon in July

As you can see Weatherbug is reporting the type of weather that keeps us indoors.  Anyway, Ross is feeling a little under  the weather, so it's just as well.

We are watching a series we have discovered called "A Placed To Call Home".

We're finding it interesting enough.  I believe there are six seasons.  So we are spoon feeding them, a few episodes at a clip.

I have started a new type of crochet craft.  I used to enjoy doing this many years ago.   It has since gone out of style.
No one uses doilies any more, do they?

A few days ago as I was attempting to de-clutter my clothes closet, which also doubles as my craft closet, I came across a group of  vintage crochet instruction pamphlets.  I had stashed them away in a dark green Rubbermaid tub with an impossibly difficult-to-open top.   Which is why I rarely go into that tub.
The intricate designs of the lacy doilies and table clothes piqued my interest.   I saw them in a new light, as pieces of art, really.

I am the type of person who can easily get obsessive.  Which is what I did when I decided I was going to crochet the "Pineapple Merry-Go-Round Doily", featured in the photo there.

I knew I had a ball of crochet thread somewhere in the closet.  I knew this because every time I got in the closet de-clutter mood, I would come across this ball of thread and debate with myself as to whether I should toss it out or not.  I was pretty sure I always voted to keep it.

I began to furiously rummage.  After fifteen minutes of an on my hands and knees session of  opening bins,  pulling out, and pushing stuff aside, I emerged from the closet, flushed, hair standing on end, with my treasure tightly clasped in my sweaty little hands.

Now all I needed was a very thin steel crochet hook.
I knew I had a stash of them.  I acquired a least 50-75 of these hooks over the years. Back when I was into the doily thing, I made sure I had every size I needed.  I also purchased vintage ones at estate auctions.
So I reluctantly went back into the now turned upside down craft/clothes closet.

As I was hunting around I pulled out an old sewing chest, again one I purchased at an estate auction.  I was sure that's where I kept the hooks.  When I opened up the chest, though, it was empty.  That's when I remembered that I had sold all of my steel crochet hooks on eBay.  That would have been about a year ago, the last time I did a craft/clothes closet de-clutter.  Apparently, the hooks lost that keep/throw out vote.
In my heated obsessive state, I was determined, though.  I must have kept at least one, I thought.
After I checked every possible junk nook and cranny, I found one in the coffee cup/pencil holder on my desk.  I guess it was one I couldn't sell.

See how tiny and thin these hooks are?

I was all set to go.  The closet would have to wait to be re-straightened and decluttered.

I started working on this doily three days ago. The pattern is total mind control and I have immersed.
It is extremely challenging.  I refer you again to the tiny hook.
I have restarted instruction number 9 at least a dozen times.   But today, today I conquered instruction number 9.   I whizzed through 10, 11 and 12.  I'm not sure what challenges "lucky" number 13 is going to bring.  But I say bring it on!

Tomorrow is Ross' last radiation treatment.  Hopefully, he will feel okay and will be able to go.

We are both relieved that this part of his treatment is over.   I can't say it flew by, because that's not how it felt.
I would describe it as each day floating by, the days blurring one into the other.

So far I've managed to maintain an even temperament, only feeling an imminent breakdown a minimal amount of times.

So, in case you haven't guessed by now, that's what the total immersion, obsessive doily making is really all about.  I don't think about cancer when I'm attempting a triple crochet cluster shell with a picot on top.