California Dreamin'

Next week I'm taking a trip to the west coast with my family.  We are going to a relative's wedding, but it's a great opportunity to add a few days of sightseeing and fun. (We plan to go to Disneyland as a family.)
 I can't tell you how much I need this.  Let me say that when life hands you a few bits of citrus and you make some cool drinks, it can be fun. For a little while.  Then more citrus, a little more refreshment.  After a while, doctors tell you that your teeth can begin to erode, if you're not careful.  You know what I'm saying?  I'm so grateful for grace, mercy, patience and opportunities to grow as a person.  Looking on the bright side, counting my blessings and all that.  But sometimes you just really, really need to get away for an extended period of time.  The time is now!  Or next week, as the case may be. Hallelujah!

I had coffee yesterday with a new friend who shared with me some of her experiences of loss and her ministry as a result.  Its amazing how comforting it is to meet people who have truly compassionate hearts!  We miss out on the opportunity to learn compassion when everything is always going our way.  And its also needful to find good resources to refill your emotional tank when you're running low. My friend has that kind of ministry. 

I'm reading a great book that I'd reserved at the library a few weeks ago.  It just came in yesterday and I've got it for 3 whole weeks.  Monday Mornings by Sanjay Gupta.  Its a book about the meetings that surgeons have every so often to talk about their mistakes in a safe, private environment.  What a great concept!

I'm setting aside the book I just bought with my Mother's Day money from my father in law, Destiny of the Republic.  Very good, by the way!  I'm still working on Mornings on Horseback (Audible) and its about the same period of time as the former book mentioned.  I think Downton Abbey has got me brushing up on my turn of the century history!

There's virtually no knitting or spinning progress to report.  I've spun some white silk which looks "splendid" to borrow an adjective from Teddy Roosevelt.  I've run out of yarn for the white baby blanket and need to get some more. I can't really get to my carding and combing equipment right now.  We've been blessed to have my daughter and her husband with us for the week, while they're waiting for their new place to be ready.  Moving day is Saturday and some of their stuff is in the garage, so I'll get back to some combing when I get back from California. My husband's friend is going to make me a special table, just for my drum carder and wool combs too.  I can't wait to put it all to good use! 
We also have another houseguest for a few weeks and of course my father in law now lives with us, so we have six people in the house. Our driveway looks a bit like a used car lot at night when everybody gets home! But it's sweet to have so many loving people in our lives. We are blessed.

I don't plan to take any knitting with me on the trip.  I have done lots of alterations from my new sewing closet, and I really look forward to actually starting a new sewing project soon.  But for now, my dreams are of the west coast and sunny beaches!  Woo hoo! Time to dust off the suitcase and grab some flip flops!

The Biggest News in Years!

This week I bought something for myself that is life-changing, monumental and may even bring about world peace.  I got the biggest, baddest wool combs available. So righteous are these combs, that Iran wishes they had skipped that namby-pamby nuclear program and bought these combs instead.

We should have bought the 5 pitch English combs!  What were we thinking?

 So lethal that the CIA and some local governments are thinking of issuing permits before letting you take a pair home. Yes, they are English five pitch combs like the ones from the Middle Ages. 

Now for some background, you need to know that I've never bought combs before. Not mini combs, not  even two pitch. I've seen the videos and watched my friends use theirs, but never invested in any myself. So its like a toddler skipping the tricycle and going straight to a Harley.

But in all fairness, I don't think I made the wrong choice.  I actually think it was one of those ordained moments when everything lined up and there was a little beam of light shining on the spot where I was standing when I bought them.

So let me back up and tell you how it happened, since world peace may be at stake.  I have been curious about combs in general for years and I became interested in getting a set about three or four years ago.   I was meeting regularly with my spinning group at Susie's house,  when I would look at her wool combs and listen to her talk about how she would order a great fleece, wash it and comb the wool (as opposed to carding it) and come up with some super fine, really nice "top" (which is what the end product is called after combing). 

I'd hear others talk about the whole process and knew someday I'd buy a pair.  But being extremely frugal, as all spinners are, I have put it off for a really long time.  So on Wednesday morning, I told my husband I was going to a LYS that had just moved to a new location. He said to go ahead, and if I saw something I really wanted, to go ahead and get it. And not to worry about he price.  I told him I actually had something in mind, and he said to go for it!

Now I love this yarn shop because its the only one anywhere close by that carries real, true spinning stuff.  And my visit did not disappoint.  There was an Ashford wheel prominently displayed in the front window, and halfway back was a large table loom on top of a yarn display case.  Wow.
I said hello and congratulated Meredith on their move and said how nice the store was.  I told her I was looking to buy some wool combs and she said she only had one pair in the store. I knew this might be it.  That moment when you know you're going to throw down.

And I did.  I brought them home after meeting my son for coffee. I took him to my car   and opened the back door so he could look in the box.  He just blinked for a moment.  Anyway, they're set up in the garage now and I've already combed three different kinds of wool and spun the samples on my little Ashford spindle.  Super fine thread with no noils.  Serendipity.

Birthday Girl!

Baby mama is 28!

Last night was my daughter in law's birthday so we had the family over for supper.

Snicker cake!

My son, Josh made his sweet wife a delicious Snickers Cake.  It was awesome!! 

Josh and Amber and the cake

We have such a good time when we're together and I never, ever take these occasions for granted!

Adam and Betsy

My hubby had treated me earlier in the day to a visit to the garden center.  I endured it, I tell 'ya!  We got wicker box planters, petunias and potting mix. Just as soon as we got home, he went straight to the back yard to install the hooks to hang my planters on.

Petunia baskets

Today I got the soil and plants into the baskets.  They look so good and in a few weeks, they'll be spilling out of the baskets and wowing all the birds and squirrels that I hang out with in the back yard.

perfectly cut grass featuring newest flower bed/veg garden on right

Today I went out to survey my husband's handy work, and all of nature scattered when I opened the back door.  He had cut the grass and trimmed everything so neatly, for last night's birthday party! It looks amazing and I'm so proud of him.  He always does so many nice things for me and for so many other people.  Things most folks will never find out about, but I know.  He's a treasure.  He made sure I got a great little desk in my new sewing closet.

father and son

 He takes me out to eat if I even exhale like I'm tired.  He goes out of his way to take care of my car, make sure the trash is on the curb on Thursday night, keeps up with all the bills, and warns me when I try to do things that aren't prudent or safe.  There's nobody that's got my back like Jamie, my hero.  My knight in shining armor (blue jeans). 

The Man!

I will love this man till the day I die!

Coming out of the closet

I am such a freaky creature - I  crave order.  I'm not kidding.  I can clean and organize and forget to eat.  That's how much I crave order.

And when there's not order, I get grumpy.  When things don't belong somewhere, I am unsettled until they are in their right place.  I don't obsess (OCD) but it just bugs me and I want to make things right.
 
You know how you grab a ball point pen and it doesn't work, and you scribble on paper for a while hoping it will work and it doesn't?  And then you toss it, like its a bad pen; like someone did something wrong.  (Poor pen!) Anyway, that's how I feel when things are a mess.  If I can't fix the mess, I go somewhere else where I feel like things are in better shape.  Or someplace where I can fix things. 

So.....ever since I moved my office upstairs last summer, there has been a nagging feeling that something is just not right.  Where my spinning wheel sits, how my desk is ordered, the cramped quarters and the inability to get to things without a lot of hassle.
Today much of that has been remedied.  And it feels so good!  I have cleared out things that just don't belong in my little office.  Now I've added a sewing area to the newly emptied closet. I've got the sewing machine and Serger set up, plugged in and ready for action.  Or sewing.   All the what-not stuff that's been piled around, laying in limbo without a place to land, has been put away. Or thrown away.  Done.

Its that time again!

You know what time it is!  Go ahead, say it.  Its Howdy Doody Spinning Time!  That's right boys and girls, its time to spin those silk cocoons you bought and have been waiting to spin. 

Silk Cocoons fluffed and ready to spin!

 I finally finished the recycled blue jean roving and am feeling no guilt whatsoever for starting the silk.  Its so, so pretty and I have a million ideas about what I can do with it.

Recycled Blue Jeans with and without core thread

I started with lots of hand cream because silk is notorious for getting snagged on everything in sight.  Now I just reach into the plastic shoe box and grab a little ball of silk.  They're a lot like cotton balls but the drafting is so much easier than hankies. And I can spin pretty fast, too, so it will go way faster than the blue jean roving. 

Silk Baby!

I've been busy with the garden and back yard lately. Today I painted some old oak picture frames glossy black. I think they look marvelous.

 I'm getting so excited about our new family member coming in September!  We are talking about getting the floors re-done, getting rid of the builder's grade beige carpet and getting some hardwood or laminate floors.  Something clean and without the residual life/DNA of the last 10 years imbedded in it.  Yuck.

When I saw the sonogram picture of the baby just now, while going through photos for the blog, my heart skipped a beat. I felt a catch in my throat.  My family is growing so fast now. 
When I was 20 I married and that made two.  Then when I was 22 I had a little boy.  At 23 I had a little girl. That made four of us.  My daughter married, then my son so that made six.  Now my son and his wife are having a baby and that will make seven. wow.

Life is just happening so good in so many directions.  My daughter and her husband are moving closer to us, since he got a new job about 20 minutes south of here. DD works 20 minutes north so we just happen to be the halfway point for their commutes! Now do you see why I've got to spruce up the house?

Hand Me Downs

Baby Knitting

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to read books that I didn't have to buy.  My goal was to read existing books on my bookshelf, borrow books from the library or get free books from some other source.  It has proved to be a very good challenge. Not only has it made me a little more resourceful, but it has brought books to me that I never would have read, all by my lazy self.

I am reading a book now by Norah Lofts called The Town House. Its first in a trilogy, which seems to be the flavor of the month.  Trilogies, I mean.  Only this book was written over 50 years ago and does not contain all the stuff I personally find silly and tasteless.  It is a good story, with lots of twists and turns.  And the chapter I just read reminded me of something from my childhood.

I was born the youngest of three, and we were not a rich family, although we never went hungry.  In those days, hand-me-downs were not unwelcome, and were in fact a prize for me, as every season my mom would get out the big "drum" which was a large bin that old clothes were stored in.  My sister was about 3 years older than me so there was a little gap between her outgrowing an outfit, and my growing into that particular size.

As I grew out of an outfit, it was not uncommon for my mom to "let out the hem" of a dress so that I could wear it a bit longer.  Only, if the dress was starting to fade, the "let out" part was darker and it was obvious that the dress was old.  This could be remedied with a bit of rick-rack or lace to help hide the fold that was a little faded, but not always.

The book that I'm reading references this practice of letting out the hem and it made me realize that nowadays people probably don't do that any more. My mom was a SAHM and knew how to sew anything (and passed the skill on to me and my older sister) so it was no big deal to alter any bit of clothing that needed adjustment.  Funny thing is, today it super-cool to re-purpose something!
Sewing and hand-me-downs are probably very in; I think they just call it Vintage.

Recently I decided to make better use of my sewing machine and have determined to make a sewing nook out of an extra bedroom closet.  There are a few items that need to be moved out of the closet, to make room for a small table to put the machine on, but I hope very soon, I'll be able to post some things I've made out of some old "Vintage" patterns I found in the attic.

On Sunday my kids, their spouses, our new "boarder" and my father in law joined my husband and me for dinner.  We had so much fun playing with a fake moutache, watching the Muppet Movie and catching up on all the good news in everyone's lives.  That was my Mother's Day gift, but the kids brought me these things too, and I couldn't refuse! 

Mother's Day Roses!

Mary Englebreit-O-Rama!

Action Figures

I started a new baby item last night, a soft, white baby blanket in moss stitch on size 6 Harmony needles.  I don't know how many stitches I cast on, I just grabbed about a yard of yarn and cast on stitches till there was no more yarn.  How's that for being specific?

Moss stitch  baby blanket

It's like when your mom or grandma tells you how to cook something and she says, "You know, just a pinch" or "a handful" or she pours something into a pot and says, "about that much".
Everybody wants to know exactly how to do something to save ourselves the trial and error.  Well, in my experience, that's a great big No-Can-Do!  Experience is the only way to learn, except in skydiving and bomb testing.

Harmony needles

I am learning as best I can, how to weave.  Here is what I've done lately on my rigid heddle loom.  The weave is getting better and more even.  The edges look better, too.
This is all warped with dark brown cotton crochet thread.

brown

purple

red and blue variegated

And I dyed a pound of white wool last week. Lavender!

The crimp is great and the staple is pretty long, too.

We have entered the dog days of summer and today is May 2nd. What does that say about the summer ahead?  We slept in the guest room last night because the air conditioner went out again downstairs.

We just paid nearly a thousand dollars to patch a leak and refill the freon and now it needs more work. We had an independent repair guy come by today and he was adamant that our existing unit should last 20 years and its only been 10. He said we should demand that the current repair folks stand behind their repair and not ask us to replace the unit yet.  Thank you Lord, for an honest repairmen!  Thank you Lord, for an honest anybody.
Why is honesty so hard to come by these days?  Didn't Billy Joel write a song about this already? Do we need to write another one?   C'mon ya'll, lets step it up a little!