My Week with Murphy's Law

This last week was ruled by Murphy's Law - just about everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.  It started with another altercation with Windows 7, which refuses to run one of my favorite and most used programs on the grounds of incompatibility.  It's the program I use to design and print my pattern covers, and it's no longer being produced by Microsoft and therefore no updated versions of it are or ever will be available.  If I upgrade to Windows 7 Pro (or whatever it's called) and add a virtual XP program, there's a chance my beloved old program will run, but there's also a chance that it won't.  I'm pretty sure that Windows 7 is going to give me more gray hairs than I'd get raising a teenager for 6 or 7 years.

I think my best bet will be to redesign my covers in another program, one that isn't owned by Microsoft and has a reputation for sticking around for a long, long, long time.  I'd much rather use that time for other things, but we do what we have to do.  If I do one redesign per week, I should be done in about a year or so - groan!  Maybe I'd better try two per week.  Meanwhile, I still have my funky old conputer with XP at my parents' house that I can use.  May it live long and prosper!

I won't bore you with the rest of my mishaps, but share something positive instead.  A Yahoo group I subscribe to is doing a monthly challenge this year.  This month's challenge is pieced braids.  It's a technique I've wanted to try but never made the time to do so, so on Sunday afternoon I made time to try it.  I think I've fallen in love!  Lol!  I pulled scraps from my scrap basket and had a nice looking braid going in minutes.  I can see this as my go-to method for using up scraps from now on.

My first braid is being used to make a small purse.  On the second braid, I tried using only blue scraps.  I don't know, yet, what it'll become.  It's pretty but only 12" long (only 6" in the photo), so it might become trim on a tote bag, or a dog jacket, or perhaps an apron.  Or ...?