Groundwork

Dear Mom,
Well, that was an unexpectedly long break from blogging. I never intended to be away this long, but I let things get in the way and as it turns out, unlike sugar, blogging is a habit that is easy to drop.
All is well here, and when I last posted, we were anticipating the cool temps of autumn. It is now April and we are still experiencing Sweater Weather. Yesterday we woke to find about 3 inches of wet snow on the ground and clinging, beautifully, to the branches.

 This morning we were awakened (and lulled back to sleep) by loud rumbles of thunder. Between the snow melt and the heavy rains I am looking out on a temporary creek and pond in the backyard. It seems everything is delayed in blossoming here. The trees have only just started to bud and there are no signs of blooms on the forsythia.


Most of my winter was spent helping dear Olive recover from TPLO surgery to her right knee. She finished off the canine equivalent of the ACL on Christmas and had surgery in January.

We had gates up through the house to keep her contained in the kitchen. No running, jumping or climbing for 6 weeks. And on leash for visits to the back yard. Rugs were purchased and strategically placed to keep her from slipping. It was all a bit nerve racking. But she bore the cone of shame with as much dignity as a black beast is able and was a good patient. I built a knitting nest for myself in the kitchen to spend as much time with her as I could.

Thankfully, restrictions have been lifted and her leg is getting stronger. The gates are put away and the rugs are rolled up and stored. I asked the surgeon what our odds of seeing him again are: 50/50. Better than I'd thought. I really hope we don't have to go through that again on the left knee. 

All that kitchen confinement restricted my time in Sweet Haven and Donna Reed (and blogging). I am making up for all that lost weaving time. I'd started a project in November-  Before The Knee Event. I think that project was doomed from the start. I acted on an idea without doing all my homework- rushed through the process. Ordered fiber, then had to order more because I'd not even ordered enough for warp threads. Then dressing the loom had to happen in fits and starts when I could make time. Once Olive was free to use the stairs, we settled in to weave. I was attempting to weave some linen napkins. I realized pretty quickly that ThingsWereNotGoingWell. I stopped to consider whether to carry on or trust my gut- which was telling me (shouting actually) that the napkin was about to be a table runner. I modified the Pattern and wove what I hoped would be 4 lovely natural colored linen napkins. I ran out of warp at 3 napkins. They looked and felt like burlap. Stiff, bullet proof burlap. Discouraged, but not willing to "throw in the towel"-haha- I threw them into the washing machine, hoping that a softening miracle would happen. Wrong. I threw them away and began questioning why I even have a loom. I let the wrong combination of project and fiber get to me. I won't let myself consider the time and money wasted. Lesson learned. I've successfully woven napkins in the past and will do so again.

The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.

~ E. J. Phelps

Bruised and nearly defeated, I decided to go back to weaving what I love best and the reasons for my wanting to weave in the first place- dishtowels. I am very happy weaving dishtowels and feel such satisfaction in the process, in giving them and in using them.  I sat down and took time to do all the preparation calculations, and started weaving 6 lovely lilac dishtowels. Followed by another set of cheerful yellow dishtowels, and last night I finished another half-dozen colorful towels to finish off some partial cones of cotton. All that is left is hemming on the yellow and striped sets. 

My weaving confidence is somewhat restored. My reaction to my failed project has me pondering.Why do I feel I must do more than "just weave dishtowels" without feeling like I am somehow failing.  I DO want to learn more- I'd hate to be a One Trick Pony, but is it really settling for less if I weave beautiful, useful towels AND I feel contentment and enjoyment doing it? 

For the past few years, MelissaWhoSpins and I have selected a WORD for the year. Something to inspire us or to focus on throughout that year. This year my word is GROUNDWORK. As evidenced by those bulletproof napkins, I often hurry through things I don't like spending time on (like math. or cooking dinner) and end up creating messes for myself and feeling harried. I know this rushed habit comes from my belief in Not Wasting Time. But I've come to realize rushing often is a waste of time, that feeling panicked and frustrated is not a good use of time or how I want to feel in the short time I have on earth.  I've decided to take more time for the Groundwork- taking time for the prep, getting everything ready before I begin, feeling a sense of calm when I start a project or start cooking, or whatever. It's working. Groundwork may be my best word yet.

I'll be back soon! I promise.

Love,

Kim

These have not been lazy days

Dear Mom,

This Song is mocking me. These have been anything but lazy. A few days of hot and hazy and a little bit crazy.  I keep hoping to settle into a soothing routine, but it hasn't happened yet. The last few days have been perfect - like northern Michigan weather- and I am spending as much of it as I can on the porch.

I've been making up for last summer's convalescence by weeding, planting, mowing and tending the yard, herb garden, tomato plants and perennial garden. I've squeezed as many annuals and perennials into my flower garden as it will hold. I've got zinnias growing with my tomatoes, and a variety of seeds sown amongst the sage, basil, oregano and chives in my herb garden. The bunnies have probably eaten 90% of the seedlings as they emerge, but I remain hopeful of full vases of freshly cut flowers on my table.

We've finally had a persistent and mysterious leak located and repaired, and things were definitely disrupted while that was going on. Just getting stuff temporarily moved out of one room made me think I never want to have to really move. Needless to say, Goodwill got a hefty load and the room is put back together.  While that was going on, I wiped my week clean of appointments to be here. I needed to see with my own eyes that things stayed dry as our contractor doused the area with the hose and I didn't want to miss it.

Things were is such disarray that I didn't feel like I could add to it with a sewing project, but I did weave some dish towels.

I happened to have the book, A Garden to Dye For, from the library, and something I read inspired me to try a "sun tea" dye experiment. I have a variety of purchased plant dye stuff from fiber festivals- osage orange, madder, logwood and weld. The garage was occupied by the contractor's equipment, so using my crockpots was not an option. I also had a 'What Are You Waiting For?' feeling about the full shelf of dye stuff and decided it was more wasteful to have it all sitting there doing nothing than it would be to use it in a failed experiment. I filled a gallon jar with water, plopped the cloth bag of osage orange sawdust into it, and let it steep. In the meantime, I put about 2 oz of roving (70%merino/30%mohair) into a mesh laundry bag and let it soak in a second gallon jar with alum to pre-mordant the fiber. (Mordants help the fiber accept and keep the dye. Also, different mordants can alter the final color of the dye.) Once my osage orange tea was a nice bright color, I added the fiber and let it sit in the sunshine. 

I let the fiber steep for a day or two, took it out and carefully rinsed it with water as close to the temperature of the dye bath as I could manage. The fiber stayed in the mesh bag through the entire process to protect it from too much handling. I did not remove the osage orange tea bag, nor did I dump the dye out of the jar. Part of my experiment was to see how much fiber I could dye with this one batch. 

This is the first batch, rinsed and dried. Beautiful! I ended up dyeing 5 (2 oz) batches in total, and they very gently fade in a gradient of bright to buttery yellow. This process might be slow, but it was easy, used no electricity, and was fun to watch. Best thing: the fiber is not sticking to itself. When I've dyed roving in the crockpot, it seems like it wants to felt. I think the shock of the heat and simmering does that to the loose fiber. I've not had that happen to yarn dyed in the crockpot.  Plus, spinning dyed roving makes a prettier yarn than dyeing already spun yarn, in my opinion. 

I am currently using the same process using Madder.  I'll share the results soon!

Enjoy the sunshine!

Love,

Kim

Making

Dear Mom,
I've been very busy making things. Lists, menu plans and healthy dinners, and best of all, things knitted and woven and spun.
By accident, what I finished spinning last week coordinates with what I finished weaving this morning.

I try to reserve Sundays for spinning. That plan got sidetracked during the holidays, but I am getting back to it. I also try to reserve Tuesdays for sewing (once all my household chores are done). It may take weeks to finish something, but if I wait for a big block of time I'll never get started. This dress took 2 1/2 years to sew. Maybe longer. But only if you start the clock when I purchased the fabric. Good thing these things don't expire! I know I purchased the fabric intending to make a dress for spring/summer. (I am just not sure what year that purchase was made.) When that summer passed by without sewing the dress, I then hoped to have it for the next Easter. And after that didn't happen, I thought I could wear it to the Young Lady's graduation. Surgery re-arranged that plan and here I am, January 2017 and Factory Dress #2 is finished! Hemmed and pressed, ready and waiting!

I added a little lace that I purchased at an antique store to the pocket. I do love this Merchant & Mills pattern. This week I will start laying out and cutting their Top#64 pattern.

My most recently finished knitting project is this cardigan:

It is based on the vintage Sweater Wheel pattern I inherited from Aunt Betty. I've seen Sweater Wheels for sale on eBay. I made several modifications to the pattern- I knit the body of the sweater in one piece, lengthened the armhole depth and picked up and worked the sleeves from the top down, and I knitted faced button bands using Anna Zilboorg's "Almost Perfect Button holes". I really like this classic cardigan. I'll definitely make more for myself.

I 've begun a new, more thorough schedule for myself. I had one when the kids were little. Life was just easier to schedule back then, I guess. But I got away from it in the past few years. Makes sense when I think back on all the comings and goings and schedule juggling that middle and high school years brings. Now that this nest is mostly empty, I find I need that schedule again to make the best use of my days, to make time for creating and making and getting done all that needs to be done to keep this household running smoothly.
Last week I cobbled together all my lists and had fun with watercolor paints and ink to make a master   schedule for myself.

The Schedule includes exercise ( 5 days/week for heart health!) , vacuuming, specific laundry loads, bathrooms, floor mopping, plant watering, sewing, spinning, ironing- basically everything I thought of in logical, bite-sized, daily doses that I can easily manage. No more wasting time trying to decide what task to tackle. I look to my list. I get it done. And then Hallelujah! I have time to play! I have a separate notebook with the week's meal plan. When I make that plan and write out my grocery list, I include the recipe location. I wasted too much time trying to decide what to fix for dinner at the last minute. And even more time putting off housework because I couldn't decide where to start. I did all my thinking and put it down on paper. Tweaked it and made my master plan. I can still tweak things- and will need to make seasonal adjustments- but the essentials are there. Even better- I don't feel guilty for spending time at creating when I know my days work is done and done well.

I am continuing to work through the cotton fabric stash I accepted from one of my knitting students. This past weekend was very productive. Donna Reed and I wove 8 placemats and 2 table runners. That photo up there is the length of those placemats and runners before I separated them! I got smart and found 2 sets of fabrics that would be happy with the same warp and then wound enough warp for both sets, saving time dressing the loom.

Earlier in the month I wove this pretty set-

I am going through that stash of fabric quicker that I thought I would. Weaving these is almost instant gratification and I enjoy it, but I am eager to weave some nice dish towels again, soon.
All is well here at the end of the cup-de-sac. I even noticed some daffodils poking through the ground when I went out to fill the bird feeder yesterday!

Love,
Kim

Donna Reed

Dear Mom,
What I should be doing is wrapping gifts. Wrapping is one of those tasks that always takes longer than I anticipate and my back always hurts about 1/3 of the way through. In a constant effort to KeepThingsSimple, a year or two ago I ordered a Humongous roll of brown kraft paper from Uline and use that to wrap all my gifts.

Brown paper packages tied up with strings.

I set up a wrapping station at the kitchen table and have a marathon session of tape, scissors, paper shrapnel and ribbons littered and scattered about. I feel relief and deep satisfaction (and the need for a massage) when it is over and Put Away.

Right now though, my kitchen table is occupied with another project. Do I get creative points for delaying my wrap session? no. I've probably earned demerits for inefficiency when I should have  wrapped first and then finished this project later.

Donna Reed (my Schacht Baby Wolf loom) and I have been busy.  One of the ladies in my knitting class purged her stash of quilting fabrics and I adopted about 100 pounds of it. Not to quilt with, but to weave rugs, table runners, and place mats.
With your help, I sorted those fabrics into coordinating 3, 4, or 5 yard bundles. After pre-washing the fabrics, I use a rotary cutter to cut them into 1-inch wide strips. After a couple cutting sprees I had a mild epiphany and realized if I folded the fabrics crosswise, I would have the nearly the same number of strips of each fabric, but in different lengths. Generally, the fabric is 44/45" wide. No matter how many yards, they are all the same width. Cutting width-wise - not lengthwise - means I can have the same number of strips, but different lengths depending on the yardage of the particular fabric. Make sense? No more figuring out how to balance the different patterns of fabric across the length of my weaving. I can just sort them in the order of how I want them to be. I look only at the color - the designs on the fabric disappear in the weaving.

I use cotton rug warp. And dress my loom according to width for rugs or placemats.

In this case, I am weaving a rug. There are 240 threads- through heddles and reed; 1 per dent in a 10 dent reed. This is the part of weaving that I thought I would hate. It was the thing I told myself would be unbearably awful when I was trying to resist the Call of the Loom.  When I could no longer resist and started weaving, I was pleasantly surprised to learn  that I do NOT hate this part!

Once all the prep is done, the weaving part goes really fast. I cut slits in the ends of my fabric strips and loop them through each other to join them together. I also don't usually fold and iron my strips with right sides out, preferring to let the right and wrong sides of the fabric add an interesting depth of color. If I think the combination of right and wrong sides will be too washed out, I will fold and iron the strips first. Generally, though, I don't think it is worth all the extra work involved.
I hand finish the beginning and end with a hem stitch. No sewing machine involved.

And this is probably breaking some unspoken weaving law, but when they are finished I coat the backs of my rugs with 2 coats of a non-skid backing. I don't want my rugs guilty of causing any slips or sprains or strains or broken bones. Obviously, I can skip this last step when I weave placemats and table runners!

So, right now, my kitchen table is working as a rug backing application work bench. We'll eat at the kitchen island tonight.

All the leftover strips of fabric are going into a canvas bag. I'll make a crazy odds and ends rug with them one of these days.  Here is a pile of some of the placemats and table runners I've finished. I've barely scratched the surface of those re-homed fabrics!

Love,

Kim

A Room of My Own

Dear Mom,
I still have pictures to hang, but otherwise I am all moved in to my new studio space. "Studio" sounds so much more grownup than "craft room".  Although it might be more accurate to call it my Play Room. Or Time Out. My heart wants to call this room Sweet Haven. With invaluable help from our Young Lady, I chose a very pale lavender for the walls.

Elle and Penelope Swift stand side by side in this corner. My warping board hangs from the closet door, and behind that door is a well organized (for now) assortment of sewing and weaving supplies, back issues of Vogue Knitting magazine and lots and lots of yarn.

Judy Jetson, my sturdy Singer Slantomatic sewing machine is happy in her new home and ready for action.

My knitting nest is now surrounded by baskets of yarn and the music stand I use to hold knitting charts and my iPad when I want to watch something as I knit. My desk and computer are on the wall to the right of the chair.

This sturdy, old bookshelf once held my college text books. Daddy built it.  When the kids were little I painted over the bright yellow and added some child-friendly paint pen drawings. I could paint it again, but I like the memories in addition to the knitting books it holds. The long shelf above the bookcase is perfect for the cones of weaving threads and skeins of hand spun yarn.

I have a lovely, bird's eye view of my flower garden; a table for watercolor painting sits under the window. There is just enough room for Donna Reed (my loom) in the center of the room, and Olive has cozy spots to curl up and nap. Sweet Haven.

Love,
Kim

Good Busy

Dear Mom,
Lest anyone think I never came back from that getaway in October, when Last I Posted, I think I'd better get an update here on the blog as proof of life.
The October trip was perfection. For the first time in EVER that I was reluctant to come home. For a total homebody to say such a thing is Something. Our cabin was charming, with a big fireplace and lace trim on the cabinet shelves. We dressed for comfort, took turns cooking meals, took long walks.

Since then my time has been filled with family visits, picking apples and freezing them in pie filling; I've been knitting (and un-knitting) and weaving and painting a little, too.  Sewing and littering the house with threads and fabric scraps. (Why is it that I can conceive of and knit an entire sweater out of 2 sticks and a string, but I am unable to figure out how to sew bias tape in a straight line with angled seams? I gave up and sewed the strips together with the ends smack into each other at 90 degrees.) Baking for neighbor gifts and really appreciating Amazon! Reading  Career of Evil, Fairy Tale Girl, and Banquet of Consequences and binge watching The Tudors, Land Girls, Wives and Daughters. (Wives and Daughters is very good. A+! ) Making friends with the elliptical machine (attitude is everything) and creating The Binder of Organization. More on those last 2 in another post.....
Love,
Kim