Snowman Latchhook Rug

My favorite things to order from the Herrschner’s needlecraft catalog are felt Christmas ornaments with lots of sequins. They are so cute! It’s so fun to cut along the pre-printed lines and sew the sequins on the dots provided, with the pre-measured thread. Oh, the wonder of having all the necessary supplies (other than stuffing) included in the kit! It’s relaxing.

I loved this snowman latchhook rug from the first time I saw it. The shading is nice. The kit went on sale a couple of years ago, and I bought it. The box has been sitting on my shelf since it arrived at the house. Until now, that is. I decided to get started on the rug, which incidentally made room on my shelf for more books.

Since this photo was taken, I have done several more rows. It turns out to be a good project to do while listening to book tapes. My current tape is Miss Julia Hits the Road , by Ann Rice. The reader, Claudia Hughes, is worlds better than the reader for the first Miss Julia book I listened to ( MJ Throws a Wedding , can’t remember the name of the reader). She makes Miss Julia sound irritable and opinionated, rather than whiny—a great improvement. Miss Julia is a well-off southern widow woman who organizes solutions for other people, like weddings and new homes.

At first glance, Miss Julia is pretty conservative. But if you stick with the book, Ann Rice slips in a few wry and fairly blunt criticisms of church, politics, society. Here’s one, paraphrased: “Pastor Ledbetter got the whole congregation worked up about the evils of gamblin’, but I can’t understand for the life of me, why he forgot to mention the stock market in that sermon.”