Choices

Hey, how ya doing? Yea, I've been a way for a while...ya know how it goes.  We had a weekend trip to Arizona for a family wedding, followed immediately by a epic three week ear infection.  Then the spring push to get the summer veggy garden in and then my husbands arm surgery followed by a follow up surgery.  I've still been working on things.  But this morning I had a choice......

The third Saturday is the day that my spinning guild meets.  I absolutely love going to my guild meetings.  I can't always go and I can't always stay but since we started homeschooling my husband is more supportive about me going, it is type of therapy for me.  In my guild are some amazing women who are so talented that I stand in awe.  I come home so inspired!!

My Lovely Louet with Cotton

I was looking at my Louet wheel and decided that it needed some TLC.  I purchased some furniture cleaner and some wax to spruce it up. I cleaned all the wood and used some WD40 to clean up the metal parts.  While I was doing all this my 9 yr old son was working on his Pinewood Derby with his dad and uncle.  This morning the Derby started at 9 and my Guild at 10. My husband was taking the boys and our oldest son had strict instructions on video taping the races.  No problem, right.  It is kind of a guy thing.  When I woke him up to get him ready for the race we were snuggling on his bed when he asked me if I would go with him to his race.

I think I made a great decision!

While you were away...

The hard part about homeschooling on the internet is that I rarely get to use my computer for my own selfish ends, aka, posting to my blog.  Not to worry, I'm not slacking.  I have gotten quite a bit of things done.

First~Christmas!!! Not this coming Christmas, last years Christmas.  I had such high hopes for these hats that fell quiet a bit short.  And, of course, we here in southern California we are having a wonderful winter of 70-80 degree weather, so hats are totally what we all need.

 This is my lovely niece #1.  After looking online for some patterns two weeks before Christmas she setteled for the Snow Devil hat from Jennifer Stafford's Domoknitrix but I found that I couldn't get it.  I'm sure that given longer that two weeks before Christmas I could do it but I had such brain fog and was far to busy to give it the attention that I felt it needed to be a successful project.  I also wanted to make here something a little more grown up. She is 6th grade and I wanted her to have something hip but not to teenish. This is the Buttonhead pattern that was in the 2010 spring/summer issue of Knitty. I used the colors that she likes in a super soft acrylic so that it can be tossed into the washer. The buttons are sparkly to match her personality.  I would have had it  done two weeks earlier but when I got to the last two rows of attempt #1, I ran out of yarn so I did it again in a little different gauge so I would have enough yarn to finish it right.

This is my lovely niece #2.  This hat was to be a zombie hat. The hat itself was done in the beginning of Dec. and I had all sorts of plans for this one, eyes popping out, square teeth...the works.  Don't let this little girl fool  you, she love Zombies.  But, again, if I had started earlier then it may have worked out.  I found the eyeballs in my button stash and put them aside to use and promptly lost them. (I do that more than is reasonable)  I also totally gave up on the teeth and just stitched on some felt ones. I'm disappointed but she likes it so I guess that is the point.

I'm already looking for something for them for Christmas next year. I know that #1 would like gloves and maybe long stripped socks for the little one (she digs those!) but SSSHHHH!!! don't tell them!

Ohhh...Brother!!!!

 This is the Brother knitting machine that was hoisted upon me by my well meaning Aunt.  I didn't ask for it, she just gave it to me.  I'm sure there is a story about it somewhere.  I feel a weird about getting them, (this one and one that does lace as well as a rib attachment), because they are VERY nice and in perfect condition and probably worth some good coin.  I'm guessing she asked her three daughters and they all said no.  My mom had one and since I (somewhat) knit she decided to gift it to me. I am so amazingly grateful for it.  After sitting at my mothers house for untold years while our construction went on, my mom, who was tired of them being at her house in Utah brought them to my house in California when she brought me some antique furniture.

My mom was going to teach me how to use it when she last visited but she happened to come while we were in our winter quarantine and she got really sick.  I mean really sick.  My sister who came a week later and missed the epidemic of stuffy noses helped me figure it out.  We did it mostly by ourselves, some Youtube videos, the books that came with it and when were were about to give up...we called Mom.

After my sister went home I had one more week of unexpected winter break (long story, end lesson... read the bulletins from school more closely) so I locked myself away and got to work.  I was trying to use the knit leader that went with it but couldn't get the gauge right.  There was a lot of converting to metrics, measuring and bad word choices by the time I realized I didn't need it.

I have this wonderful book, "A Knitters Handy Book of Sweater Patterns", and boy is it handy!  After some measuring, math and some prayers I made all the parts in three days.  I did some more research to learn how to do the seams.  I'm not very good at seamng seeing how I rarely get that far.  All my knowledge of seaming is academic at best.  I put it all together and realized I forgot about the ease.  I wanted to put in a zipper but without the ease it wont work so I need to do button bands.

I wanted to have something nice for the edges and wanted to use some of my hand spun.  I had this very warm alpaca scarf that I spun and knit severally years back that had a couple holes in it and I almost never wore.  So I undid it and worked the edges in Icord.

The button bands were quite the conundrum.  Mainly because I didn't have buttons and I wasn't sure how to proceed.  Fortunately, Saturday my spinning guild meeting and those women are GENIUSES! They always can help me out.  I decided, after some consultation, to do a 2 inch 2x2 rib button band with the red then crochet along the outer edge with the brown to tie it in as well as making the button holes for additional inches since it barely goes across my front.

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Today I was able to spend a lovely half hour in the sewing store with actual money and purchased some wooden buttons to go on. Hopefully, if all goes well, it will be done this month.  

One (almost) down, dozens to go!

Technical Difficulties...Please stand by.

I'm having a problem uploading some pictures of what I've been working on this week. It is all going well and I have made progress. This weekend is being spent cleaning the house and since Monday is a holiday and school starts up from our super long break (I really thought three weeks would be awesome, but not so much) I'm hoping to get some gardening done.

The other problem I am having is with my hands. I am worried that at a fairly youngish age I am getting arthritis in my hands and they hurt most of the time. I broke the small bone in my middle finger on my right hand a couple of years ago and it has never worked right since. I can't put a lot of pressure or anything with that finger.  I can do the obvious but I try not to.

For a while I was trying to limit what I did because they hurt so much. Then Charles Monette died. Brother Monette was an older man that went to church with us. He was always helping out and being of service. He had started coming to church about the time we moved here.  At his funeral service I learned that he started coming to church just after his mother died (he never married and lived with his parents) and we were able to fill something in his life that he missed with the loss of his parents.  He kept the church house clean and was always helping,.... quietly, silently being of service to everyone. It seemed that we filled a place in each others lives. A couple that were his friend visited with him last Friday and he asked them what he could do for them. Charles...lying in a hospice bed, with tubes and monitors wanted to be of service to his friends.  He died of cancer Sunday morning.

I took a valuble lesson away from that is that even if my hands are hurting, it means that I am working to be of service to other people..my family, friends and neighbors, my family at church. I want to be like Brother Monette and wear myself out in service.

Rules of the Game

I like rules.  I'm mostly a rule follower.  So I thought I needed to have some kind of rules for my endeavor.  They are all subject to be broken at any time, I mean, they are my rules. Things happen and stuff comes up, I may have to stop doing one project to do another that needs to be done. 

1-Definition of a UFO (UnFinished Object)-Anything that has been started and not finished. That could be anything from partially spun fiber to be spun for a purpose, spun fiber that needs to be made into an item, fabric earmark for a specific articular of clothing, all sweaters that need sleeves (that is usually where I fall a bit short...weird)...etc. DO NOT START ANYTHING NEW!!! (unless I really want to)

2-Do only 2 projects at once. One large, to be done at home and one small that is portable to take places, mostly in the car, with the exception of spinning. (see rule 3)

3-Spinning is its own category. I know what needs to be spun and will work on one project during that month. My guild meets in two weeks and we are starting a new year and I don't know what the year program will be. We meet monthly and I need to take one thing a month for "show and tell".

4-The one thing that will shelve all is anything that my girls need.  I'm a sewing/weaving leader for our local 4-H club and the 2nd counselor for the Young Women's organization for our church.  If one of the girls needs help sewing or warping their looms and they call or come over to my house, they are the priority of whatever needs to happen. I love doing these things and teaching other kids to do them is very fulfilling!

5-Post the progress and finished stuff here and Ravelry (onewildbee).

6-All these rules are subject to change at any time according to my whim.

Follow through has never been my strong suit. I don't think that I am really lazy, I just get distracted easily. I start project and something comes up or the pattern is to hard. I get impatient about the amount of time it takes or I just run out of time.

I recently moved into some new diggs! After years of sewing in closets, having all my spinning and knitting stuff piled by the side of the couch and under beds, two knitting machines that my aunt gave me still in boxes, and having the loom that is intrusted to me under a sheet for several years...I moved into my new sewing/spinning/knitting/weaving/crafting room. I came up with a better name for it rather than "Mom's Sewing Room" since I do more than just sew. Calling it my "Studio" like some of my Spinning Guild members call theirs seemed presumptive (I'm not that good). I call it the Growlery, because it is where I go to growl. It is from Dickens "Bleak House", I love myself a good period drama!


Upon moving into the Growlery, I found lots of UFO's (UnFinished Objects). It was almost like Area 51! All sorts of stuff! Bags of fabric with fabric, pattern and notions all waiting to be made, fiber partially spun, spun yarn in need of attention, it was shocking...shocking! The goal is to finish it all. Sounds easy enough right. I'm a bright youngish woman with medium talent and lots of ideas...I just don't have lots of time.



We all have time constraints but some manage to get lots done. Not me. My setbacks include being a stay-at-home/homeschooling mom who has a "microfarm" (an acre with lots of fruit trees and a huge garden with a few farm animals thrown into the mix). Not much "me" time. But I do get to do a lot of "sitting around waiting for kids" time. My older son, who is a Sophomore, does more of an independent study so all I have to do is poke him to make sure he is on task. My younger son is in 3rd grade but has had some learning issues that make it harder for him to do things on his own but has some things where I just need to sit with him and poke him to keep him on track. Since school seems to have a lot of poking involved I usually sit between them and poke them with knitting needles and get some work done at the same time.

The premise here is to pick one or two idems that need to be finished and get it done within the month, posting as I go. I'm hoping it all works out!