For much of the day, I got to sit at the table that is my outdoor office, enjoying relatively clear skies and plenty of sunshine. However, I did bring myself indoors long enough to organize one cubby from my current project.

Using my newly felted stash basket made with vintage wool from my overflowing stash, I gathered together sharp sewing implements which include (among other things) scissors, needles, and pins:

I then cleared out a cubby, lined it with a doily of undetermined origin, and placed the felted stash basket on top of the doily:

With the cubby-of-the-day attended to, I turned my attention to other organizational matters, one of which was to photograph my most recent stash-bag-in-progress:

One thing that became clear to me yesterday when I surveyed my domain is that I am no where near the break even point in terms of using my stash to make stash bags to contain my stash, so I last night, after I had finished my blog post and before I fell asleep, I began work on stash bag 15.

This afternoon, however, after I cleared out a cubby and then filled it, I turned my attention to a project I began four summers ago when my youngest son was taking sailing lessons. On the afternoons the lessons were not rained out, I found myself at a picnic table in a wooded area working on various crochet projects while I waited.

One of the projects I worked on that summer was this hamster which I completed this afternoon:

Made from Narumi Ogawa’s “Sebastian, le hamster” pattern featured in her extraordinarily fun book, Mr. Funky’s Super Wonderful Crochet,once the lower limbs are attached, the hamster is remarkably stable.

Some things I did a little differently include the eyes (I elected to simply use black worsted weight yarn and about six whip stitches), and the nose (I crocheted the white portion of the nose as directed, then used two strands of black worsted weight yarns and these excellent directions, made a French knot).

I am delighted with this hamster that I began so many Julys ago and hope that when I send him off to the great unknown, he brings the recipient as much fun and joy as he has brought me.