On The Learning Curve

It's been the best of times, it's been the worst of times.

Last year, I hooked during the entire Oscars broadcast and got most of my Bucky Bee finished during four hour show:

And my shoulder and neck killed me the next morning!  But it felt like the pain of VICTORY! :)

This year, I forgot my hooking at work and the Oscars started and I thought, "Oh NO!  I can't hook during the show!"  It felt like three hours I could have planted the Iowa fields in my vintage Iowa postcard rug.  However, I have been able to get a bit of hooking done - and learned some valuable lessons.

I used this beautiful green wool for my treeline, and it made the most gorgeous trees:

Aren't they pretty?  I was so proud of them!  The green below is the grassy field by the barn.  So I kept hooking and outlining and filling and outlining and outlining and then....I realized I don't have enough of my beautiful green wool to fill in all those outlines! 

So guess what is getting pulled out tonight?  That's right. Trees.  I'm going to be a logger and cut them all down.  I have a nice lighter green plaid that will probably fit the bill to finish these trees out, but oh how I hate to pull out those loops! 

Before my logging expedition, I started planting corn.  Again, I got really lucky on the wool I have, and this golden pattern does a nice job of looking like fall corn, ready for harvest, or maybe a nice field of hay or wheat.  Here's a closeup of my crop:

I'm hoping to get some work in on it today yet - work project! - and see if I can complete my field and figure out those trees.  In addition to my proclivity toward packing, I see that I am dangerously optimistic about how much wool it takes to fill spaces in rugs!  I like to buy my wool in person, and I don't have many opportunities to do so, so next time I am going to OVER BUY the wool I like.  Consider yourself warned, husband who does Quicken - wool budget needs to expand.