Do You Take Breaks!

I belong to some groups on Facebook that are about knitting, spinning, weaving, and dyeing.  One of the questions that came up yesterday evening was "Do you take breaks with your knitting?"  This particular group is about knitting Persian Dreams.  It is a difficult thing to knit, but everyone is addicted to his own little hexagon world. 

The woman who posted the question has gone five days without knitting anything.  She says she isn't sad or upset, but she really is enjoying "not knitting".  She, of course, has young children that are in sports and other activities.  She also mentioned she has been bingeing on Candy Crush.

A while back I found myself obsessed with these hexagons.  As soon as one is washed and blocking I was onwards to another.  My hands got tired of managing the colorwork.  I am also knitting other projects, so I was trying to fit them into the schedule.

I suddenly pulled back. I give myself a three day break in between the hexagons.  I pick up the blanket or the sweater if I have to knit.  Yesterday I did not knit all day.

Today I laid out my eight that are completed and studied the colors.  I know what color I have to go to next.  I haven't gotten number 9 pattern out yet.  I just wanted to think about colors.

I am listening and watching a Rebecca Mezoff weaving class.  And I am finished with the purple roving I found that I had stashed away.  I am listening to Armand Gamache mysteries on audiobooks from the library.  I have listened to two of those this week.  I have read four books this week. 

Of course, all of this keeps me from turning on the t.v. and hearing the crap that is being hashed out there on the news.  I have limited my time on Facebook.  I do enjoy certain computer games, but that's when I take a break.  I haven't been watching as much Netflix as I normally do. 

So do we listen to ourselves and take breaks when our hands or our eyes or our backs or our families tell us it is time to do so?  I hope most people do.  I remember the "old days" prior to shows that I would make myself sick working crazy hours to finish the last pieces, label them, price them, etc.  No more of that.  I am not on a time schedule any more. 

I will say that I do set a goal to completely finish one hexagon in a week.  According to many of the others, that is slow knitting.  I just don't like to sit and knit all day long. 

If the weather keeps up, I may be mowing the yard one more time.  It has been coolish in the mornings and late evenings, but it is warm in the day time.  Little or no rain lately.  I have been watching for the first frost, but none so far.  Weird!

I guess I just wanted to expound on the question of the day.  Do You Take Breaks!

The Light Is Changing

It is the second week of August.  I noticed that there has been a shift in the light and that there is a change in the yard.  Sometimes I can complain continuously of the rainy-ness that makes lawn  mowing a necessity.  I know that we are blessed to have rain.  I know intellectually that rain is a blessing.  It isn't a blessing to wait until 7pm or 7:30 pm to mow because of the heat.  Taking a shower can't take the stickiness away. Rain also equates higher humidity.

Yet, the light has shifted.  The cicadas and crickets are noisy.  The web worms are making bigger and bigger messes.  Leaves are beginning to break away and fly around through the air.  The robins have migrated back.  I have seen large groups of blackbirds migrating through.

All these minute changes that one takes for granted.  It really sneaks up on us.  We are so used to summer and we isolate ourselves in our air-conditioned spaces.  Yet-when one sits quietly on a porch or outside, the changes are all around us. 

I don't want to be one of those people who suddenly realize it is time to get the woolens out.  I want to notice all the changes that move us towards the woolens. We only have about six weeks until Autumnal Equinox.  I want to feel and hear and smell and see the changes.

So, I finally finished the second pair of Roxanne's socks.  I told her I am taking a break from sock knitting.  She has a fantasy going that I am going to be her personal sock knitter.  I am going to figure out a way to get out of this gracefully.

I started knitting Persian Tiles, but I am not doing much knitting.  I also picked up the Striped Blanket again.  It is going fast.  It is worsted weight yarn on bigger needles.  I find that larger needles make my hands tired.  So really not a lot of knitting.

I went to Fiber Christmas in July, and I was really good.  I did buy two braids of roving of different colorways.  I am combining them into a really pretty yarn.  I finished my book on tape, and so I stopped yesterday at the end of that.  It is satisfying to me to listen as I spin.  I love my library loaning system over the internet.

I have also been watching some of the Olympics.  I finally realized what it is about the televised mess that was off-putting the last Olympics.  The commentators pick and choose what they show to their audience and they tell all these stories. I love when they build up all this crap about the athlete and then interview them after an event.  The poor athlete is trying to catch a breath and normalize his body systems.  The silly cow sticks a microphone into the athlete's face and asked a stupid question. Last night she asked Michael Phelps about pre-race jitters with his opponent doing something stupid right in front of him.  Michael Phelps looked perplexed and looked at the monitor. "Oh, I wasn't even noticing that.  I was just watching the race before mine on the monitor."  He smiles and walks off.  No drama there.

I finally had enough and turned on Netflix.

Noodles is beginning to show signs of change.  I am trying a state of denial and making up excuses for his silly behavior.  I am also beginning to get glimpses of truth edging in.  He is much more needy than he has ever been.  He is still killing, just not eating as much of the wild.  I guess it is inevitable that his age is beginning to show.

I am going to stop now.  I need to shower and get ready for an appointment in town today.  I decided to combine several errands that can be done in that part of town.  Ugh!  I hate traffic in Fayetteville.  It is just going to get worse as the college students trickle back for Fall semester.  Another sign of age creeping in on me, I guess.

No new news on the brother front.  B is still traveling with his job.  He also spends a lot of free time on his boat with his dog.  K hasn't  shared anything more about L.  She is so extremely secretive.

CJE and AE are going to Sante Fe for a week.  Time for AE's birthday trip to the Opera.

CF is thrilled that I ordered her a new practice book on her flute.

And my LYS should be back from holiday. 

Nothing else new on the home front.

It is time also for the Tontitown Grape Festival.  Will have to stay away from that part of town.

Stay cool and get out to notice changes around you.

Blogger Is Maybe Working

I have been using Blogger for a long time now.  Sometimes it gets a glitch from somewhere.  Hopefully today it will go through. 

I have been busy this week dyeing with my indigo pot.  The dress is an old one of mine that I normally just wear around the house.  It has been overdyed twice before.  The dye before this one was orange, and it shows through the indigo.  I have mended the holes and it is ready for around the house wear again.

The two cloths were single dipped.  I wanted some more moons, and some of them are perfect.  Some are a little blurry.  When I ironed the dried finished pieces, it appears that some of the blue skies are snowy and there are clouds around the moons.  So there is hope for this piece.  The other was accordion folded and then folded like a flag.  It came out an odd pattern.  I could redo another pattern or leave it to fussy cut from.  I don't know yet.

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I don't know why the cursor keeps going to the middle.  I am having some struggles with this post.

 

It has turned seasonably hot and muggy.  We had a drizzle the other morning, but it lasted less than an hour and made it more humid.  I am watering my new flower bed.  I don't know how established the plants are.  They seem happy and are blooming.  The new milkweed lost three of its branches.  Hopefully I won't lose all of them.  The one from last year that I transplanted is doing okay.  No sign of butterfly eggs.  The bumblebees are happy anyway.  Not too many honey bees.  Sigh!

 

I did find a box turtle by the step the other night.  Hopefully the concrete blocks will act as a deterrent.  It can munch all it wants to on other things.

 

The roadrunner is mostly at my neighbor's house now.  It strangely goes from door to door and pecks at the doors and low windows.  It has visited me  a few times and sits on the rail of the screened porch. It looks me in the eyes when I talk to it.  Some scrawny looking hummingbirds are feeding at the feeder. My friend has a Carolina wren nest in her asparagus fern basket.  She moved it away from cat availability. 

 

The Mugwort is blooming nicely.  The bachelor buttons didn't do as well this year as years past.  I ended up with patches in the yard that I mow around.  Only one hollyhock rose to glory.  I found new sprouts when I was weedeating.  Maybe next year we will have a great show.  The Echinacea is blooming.  The Brown-eyed Susan's are blooming.  The Black-eyed Susan's are big and lush, but no blooms yet.  So the garden is slowly doing it's thing.   I am waiting for the Tansy to bloom so I can use the flowers for a dye.  I like the color that the leaves produced.  I am spinning that right now on the electric spinner.

 

I am trying ever so hard to walk every day.  It means I have to get up early and go somewhere.  Today it wasn't going to happen.  Instead I am going to a sale at the Junk Ranch.  It is a two-day sale outside a rural town near here.  Vendors bring vintage and repurposed and refurbished stuff.  And some things are still junk, but one never knows if it is just the junk one needs.  I am looking for storage ideas, but either wall mounted or small, small, small. 

 

Yesterday the plumber came to check out the leak in the back shower.  He said it was the drain; he crawled under the house (ick!); confirmed it was the drain; gave me an estimate; went off to buy a new drain; came back an hour later; fixed it in about an hour with his helper (his son); and now supposedly I do not have a leak.  I have a fan blowing on the floor hopefully to dry that out.  I don't want to replace the board unless I really, really have to.  I was concerned about the mold, and a friend said to bleach it.  So I have sprayed a lot of bleach on the board.  I think after it dries more I will really scrub the corners and edge with a brush and bleach.  When it is all dry I can decide what to do. If I don't replace it, I will have to seal it with that white stuff.  I can't remember the name.  I used it on the sub floor before the installation of my bamboo floors in living room and hallway. 

 

I finished the sock carry-along project, so now I only have the scarf.  I tried taking it to knit night last week, but I had to rip out one row when I got home.  So yesterday I wound off the two balls of turquoise/multi color handspun and started a shawl.  It is a very simple 8 row pattern, and I almost have it memorized.  It is a pattern that I used for a shawl for a fiber show. 

 

The shawl sold in the last hour of the show, and I did discount it because the woman really, really wanted it.  She had on a green shirt with her jeans, and the green matched the shawl.  She tried it on and pranced around.  Everyone told her it looked like her.  So the sucker that I am, I would rather have someone really happy with my knitwear than be rich and have someone give it to Goodwill after one wearing.  I have an idea that this new one is going to be a Christmas gift. 

 

I am spinning on the treadle wheel and the electric spinner.  I mentioned that the tansy green is on the electric spinner and I am still spinning some purple on the treadle wheel.  I was looking for some white fleece to dye with the tansy.  I happily re-found a pound of the purple that I had stuck away for later.  Hopefully I will have enough for a sweater when all done.  I don't know yet what my annual winter sweater will be.  I am leaning towards one of Anne Hanson's patterns.  It will depend on the yardage.

 

I made the muslin for the new top I want to make.  I have hips and now I have to accommodate for those hips.  Sigh!  This sagging business is ruining my memory of my figure.  I have a new scale that tells me the BMI and the percentage of body fat.  Not a comforting thing to find out.  I know that I am 67 years old, but inside me still hides that athlete I once was.  Oh, well, I will keep on walking.

 

So off to shower and clean myself from top to bottom.  I have to get ready to go sweat and look for junk at the big sale.  It is kinda exciting.  A treasure hunt.  Happy Friday everyone!



Thanksgiving-A Celebration of Thanks!

It still feels odd calling this Thanksgiving Week.  It still feels too soon, too early,too something.

But in my quiet and silly way, I still have so much to be thankful for that I don't care that it is early.

I usually spend my day of Thanksgiving thinking and praying and giving thanks to the universe for all that is important to us all-peace, love, happiness, joy, friendships and all relationships.  I like to spend the day to myself, and I try not to interact with anything other than my quietness.  I don't need to stuff myself silly with food to find thankfulness.  I just need quiet time and me time.

I have almost finished with the pink yarn.  Whew!  It has been a marathon to finish the last bits and get it plied.  I did most of the spinning singles with a really good YA audio book called Gone-Away Lake.  It is about cousins spending the summer holiday exploring the woods and having adventures.  He is 12 and she is 11.  They find a hidden swamp that was once a summer lake resort.  The homes were abandoned when the lake disappeared.  But they find a very eccentric couple of elderly people living in two of the abandoned homes.  It is a really interesting book, and helped me get the work done.

I also am done with one sleeve of the winter sweater.  I am going to finish the body now and then knit the next sleeve.  I am so close to starting the yoke.  I am doing a very simple stranded colorwork, but it has to be more interesting than the stockinette of the body and sleeves.

I also started another hat, and I want to finish that before I start over on the colorwork bag. 

Today has been a gloriously warm and sunny day!  I just ate a sandwich sitting on the back deck in the sun.  I am getting plenty of sun on my arms with just a tee shirt on.  I also am barefoot, so the feet are getting some sun, too.  I remember when I had to scrape ice on my windshield at this time.  So this is glorious weather!

One of the women in my knit group just published her first pattern.  Yeah! Cassie Dominnick.  I don't think she will mind my telling her whole name.  She will have more, I am sure.

My friend CJE has been so worried about her mother.  She has been very ill, and not managing herself well.  Yesterday at the doctor she is discovered to have the worse case of shingles the doctor has ever seen.  She has never had them before, and suddenly she is covered up one side of her back, down her hip and groin, and down the leg.  The doctor told her it is following a nerve path.  That is probably why she is so sick and weak.  It is scary, isn't it?

I need to take advantage of days like today to work in the front flower bed.  But....I think I like just sitting in the sun.

Noodles has not been well, and I haven't figured out totally what is wrong.  I finally figured out why he is limping so much.  He has scabs all over his head, neck and shoulders,  There is one big wound(scab) under one arm pit.  That means fights with a straggler who has ventured into our yard.  Yes, he is very defensive about his territory.  But I haven't figured out the occasional tics in the face.  I researched it online, but just like humans, he could have a brain tumor, or seizures, or anything.  He doesn't show any ataxia, so I am ruling out seizures or a brain tumor.  Oh, well, it is almost time for yearly well-check and shots.  So unless he shows major changes, I will wait.

H and R have had to put one of their dogs down.  But they now have rescued Georgina and added her to their family.  Granddogs are great!

So nothing else new.  Remember to have a lot of gratitude this Thursday for all you have.  Happy Thanksgiving!

What To Do On A Cool, Rainy Day!

Unlike the bored dog, this is the best solution to what is happening outside the house!  It is around 65 degrees, raining, and not very pleasant if you have to go outside.  So why not just cover up the nose and bury your face, and sleep through all the mess?

Otherwise, the bored dog is bouncing around and cannot settle!  What a nutcase!

I am almost finished with the Sheep Heid hat.  I am down to the final row on the rams horns, and then on to the final bit of decreasing.  Yeah!  I did cast on the brown Targhee wool I got from Ozark Carding Mill.  Gail told me it is from their own sheep that they sold when they moved to Oklahoma.  And that is all on the knitting front.  Two projects.  I am going to cast on a shawl as soon as I finish the hat.  I am seriously eyeing the bowl of sock yarn.  Hmm!  More socks?  Fingerless mitts?  Hmm!

Well, I went to Knitting Group last night.  I was a bad girl and went down to Hugo's and ordered a blue cheese burger.  OMG!  It was so good!  C shared the burger with me.  Thank goodness!  Then I topped it off with a piece of the coffee cake that D brought.  So much for the 5 pounds I lost!  I only knit two rows on the winter sweater beginnings.  Oh, well, I socialized some.  That's important.

CJE and AE returned from their trip to Indonesia.  She sounded excited and still on adrenaline when I talked to her on Wednesday.  It appears the moms did okay while they were gone.  Neither had a crisis, and neither one had to go to the hospital. 

So now I am going to eat some lentil soup and see about the decreases on the hat.  I want to get that done.  I think I am going to use a balloon to block it.  I'm not sure.  The color I chose for the ewes is not very dark, so I may go back and embroidery around them after I block it. 

Tomorrow is Spinning Guild.  I have to go because I am supposed to bring the door prize for the day.  I want to take my sweater to the craft store for the fiber art show in a few weeks.  I am going to combine everything I can in the one trip to conserve on gas.

My friend OSM is coming from California soon, and I am waiting on her call.  I think she is going to her cabin in south Oklahoma first.  If so, Patty and I will drive down for a coupla days.  There is a historic marker we are looking for down there.  We will see.

Have a safe and warm weekend.  After all this rain, I will certainly have to mow again.  But the temps are supposed to be much milder.  Fall is coming too fast around here.  We are still having the hot days, but then we are increasing in the cool days.  I noticed that the light is changing pretty quickly also.  Sigh!  I hate the darkness of the coming months.  Oh, well, nothing I can do about it but be grateful for a warm house and warm food. 

So off to lentil soup and cornbread.  Then onward to the hat.

Knitters Like to Party!

 This is our newest member of our knitting group!  She was born July 31, and she is such a beautiful baby!  She and her mommy and daddy got lots of nice things.  Our group always makes a blankie for new ones in the group and that was given to her very early on. 

We had so much food it was sickening.  I thought it was nice to bring gooey brownies made with Ghiradelli chocolate, but Tina brought coconut macaroons, and tarts!  Then there was cheese, chips, crackers, cupcakes, fruit, and Molly's surprise.  Something like Maui Wowie-homemade ice cream with Kahlua, macadamia nuts, chocolate drizzled on top with sprinkled nuts, and then she put whipped cream on top of all that.  I did not eat that.  I did not want the sugar overload.  My gosh! 

It was loud, it was fun, and it was more than any baby should sleep through.  But she did!

I took Patty with me, and she was very good.  She nosed around until more and more folks arrived.  She settled under the table and watched me.  At one time she heard the baby making noises, and she looked for that.  But otherwise, quiet and well-behaved.  And she ignored the shop cat, Sasha. 

I did go to the County Fair, and the man actually asked me if I was a senior when I got to the gate. That was nice.  It was senior citizen day and admission was free. I saw a bunch of animals, and I looked over my friends' lovely things in the exhibit hall.  I met lovely Olivia in the sheep barn.  She had her first sheep, and it was a Jacob.  She told me she drove 6 hours to Missouri to find a "show-quality" sheep.  Since she was still a baby sheep, she did not shear her for the show.  I gave her my card.  I found one French angora rabbit and it was for sale.  I emailed a friend who is looking for another rabbit.  It was very lovely and well-groomed, of course.

So Isaac arrived some time last night.  The wind was interesting up to bed time.  I did not think we got any rain, but when I woke up there is a light rain falling steadily.  Hopefully it will be light enough to just soak in.  The frogs have been chirping on the back deck area.  I fed the birds and they are squabbling for food.  So, not a bad day for fiber art indoors.


Noodles pulled the quilt that I am sewing on down and made his own nest.  I need all the help I can get to finish the hand sewing.

So have a good Labor Day weekend.  I am staying home rather than go camping with friends at Mirkwood.  The latest report is that no one knows for sure if the creek has flooded.  I don't really want to drive for miles and find out we have to go somewhere else.