Gift Exchange

I whipped off this little mat over the weekend. It's the same image as the frog on the "Home Sweet Dome" mat (still in slow progress). I needed a gift in short order for Mrs. Mandu, my elegant and generous benefactor in Japan. When she heard that I had started hooking, she sent some lovely pieces of wool fabric for me to use. Now I must reciprocate with a thank you gift. We have been engaged in this endless cycle of gift-giving for over ten years!

I chose the frog image because apparently the Japanese word for "frog" is a homonym for the word "return". Frogs are good luck symbols for travelers, I read, but I think this one is more of a "I return your favour" kind of guy.

And yes, I got my hair cut. It was getting noticeably thin around my face, so I have now joined the legion of women with short gray hair and glasses. (On Gabriola, we have a distinctly senior population - I will find myself describing someone as having short gray hair and glasses, and then realize that could be almost anyone.) When the stylist turned me around to look in the mirror my first reaction was "Oh my god, I look like my mother!" But my mom is still kind of a dish, so I guess that's okay.