Guilt Free?

I still feel a little guilty and unfaithful to knitting, but I am having an enormous amount of fun with it!

This is where I got to yesterday when I had to stop working on it.  It is not possible for me, working tightly as I am here, to go fast or long.  It could get very hard on my arm, and I am smart enough to know when it is time to stop without injuring myself.  

This morning I did a little more

and that is enough for today.  I completed on entire tier of the pattern, and am very pleased with that.

But yesterday, what with finishing for the day before 9 a.m., I was left with an awful lot of day to fill.  I thought about going out but every single time I leave my house, one way or another, it costs me money and I am trying to be money smart.  So, how to entertain myself for the rest of the day?

Well, I will tell you.  Bear with me.  It's a long story, but this is how things happen around here.

Brian and I managed to collect a fair number of prints as we went to dinners and auctions for the things that were important to him.  Framed prints went very cheaply on the silent auctions, so we felt part of our job was to play bidding up games. It was a way to help the organisations and take a little something fun home to remember the evening.  I had a lot of framed prints.  A lot.  And one unframed print.

That one unframed print has always bugged me.  I really liked it, but just never got around to framing it.  It was such an odd size.  I didn't know where on earth I would hang it here and I really didn't want to spend the money getting it done.  It sat unloved, behind the wee desk.

Enter thing two, sitting unloved and behind stuff.

Years ago, Brian and I picked up an old fashioned, maple gun cabinet at a garage sale and converted it to the a display unit. When I moved, I took off the door and added a few more shelves and keep part of my cookbook collection on it.  I didn't want to get rid of the door, because, well, you know.  It just felt wrong.  So the door sat tucked beside the bookcase in the living room.

It occurred to me one day last winter, that the very simple door, would make a good frame.  I thought about putting a collage of my grandkid's pictures in it, along with the silly pictures of their dad's youths.  I thought about putting Brian's flower pictures in it.  A hundred different things, but none felt right.  

I debated putting the unframed print in it too, but just didn't want to spend any money to get the print  mounted, nor to have the massive mats it would require, cut.  When my sister visited me, we were talking about her scrapbooking and that got me thinking about photo mounts and corners and nifty things you can do with scrapbooking stuff.   Photo corners were too small for a print of this size, but why couldn't I make my own corners?  Then the thought sort of sat a while.

Enter thing three.  I have a quilt top that is ready to be quilted.  I think I mentioned that, back when I sorted out my bedroom and hung my pretty flower print? Or not, but the top is flowery and pretty and will suit my bedroom.  Plus I have pure wool batting for it.  I thought I might pull that out and do a little prep work to assemble it and set it up for the quilting.

I did some reading about assembling quilts and found that many people used a spray adhesive to hold things in place till you can baste it together.  I knew I had some repositionable adhesive somewhere in my crafty things.  I went digging.  Sadly, it was the wrong kind for how I wanted to use it, but...

It was exactly the right kind for adhering home made photo type corners to glass.  

My envelopes had a blue interior and I was a little distressed that the colour shows through, but not enough to go out and buy more envelopes. The relatively large size of the frame is really the best thing about all this.  The soft buttercream yellow of my walls looks stunning as a 'matting'.  

I love how this worked out. I did not have to purchase anything.  Nothing.  Not a single dime and I have a really nice print framed and ready to hang.  Completely free!

After all of this, I knit just the smallest bit so even the guilt was gone. 

Guilt Free Me!