A blog about my life, my fiber arts and pictures of my finished work. I will also throw in the very occasional recipe or shopping tip.
Saturday, December 30, 2017
More Deep Cleaning
Thursday, December 28, 2017
Failed
Monday, December 25, 2017
Cleaning
Sunday, December 24, 2017
Intervention
My family is trying a Lola of Lion Brand Yarn intervention of my fiber stash. So I am going through every bag of fluff to see what I really don’t want to spin. Basicly it amounts to anything with bamboo blended in and some of the fiber that I bought as a novice that I don’t want to spin any more.
So I am taking the time to organize it by fiber. I have more alpaca fiber than I thought I had. I also have a bunch of small amounts of diffrent breeds of sheep to see how they spin. I found some unprocessed fiber that I thought that I would have time to wash and prepare. Now I think that I will send it off to a fiber mill that will do a small batch. The short fibers went into the dog pillow box, I have no time to mess with short fibers.
Some was bought when I thought that I. Ould help pay for Teri’s grad school. I needed to spend a lot more time at art and fiber shows than I had being a full time care giver for Eric. I will still spin it up and see if my Local Yarn Shop will take it on consignment. If not, I expext to give hand spun yarn to friends who knit and chrochet for future gift.
So all in all I rally don’t think I have a fiber problem. Rather, I have a distrubition problem.
Friday, December 22, 2017
Family Time
Wednesday, December 20, 2017
Shawl's
All my shawls seem to be made from high quality yarn straight from the farm or my local yarn shop. There seems to be a direct correlation of the quality of yarn with how long the hand knit or hand woven item lasts. So even though it is more expensive it is worth spending the extra money for high quality yarn. After all how often can you say my hand knit item is 17 years old when you use cheep, low quality yarn?
So if you are planning to make something for yourself or a family member Please remember to buy your yarn directly from the farm or you local yarn store. They have a vested interest in the outcome of your project. These are also small businesses that deserve your business.
*These are my own opinions and I have not received any compensation from anyone or any business.
Saturday, December 16, 2017
More Deep Cleaning
Eric's aide Nikki wanted to learn how to make my style of bed quilt for her boys, so we collaborated on a second big quilt for Eric today. We are telling Eric that this is his holiday gift from Nikki. I must say that I am really liking the cotton batting. It is easy on my hands and sews up like a dream.
I also think that I have way too many projects in progress. Although now that I am feeling better they are getting finished at a faster pace. I also found my watch at the bottom of you guessed it a knitting bag. It is time to see if I can finish one more project tonight and give John the computer chair so he can change colors on the printer.
Wednesday, December 13, 2017
Triple Chocolate Haystacks
Monday, December 11, 2017
Blankets and Watches
It is no secret that the kids are getting blankets this year. So Eric’s twin size quilt is almost done. Teri’ queen size blanket is hand knit on U.S. size seven knitting needles in a modular pattern. I have about 2 1/2 rows of modular knitting plus the I-cord boarder. I am really stumped on what to make Tej. I am also wondering since Teri’s blanket is so big if they could share the blanket. So many things to think about while I am waiting for Eric to fall asleep.
I am sad that my new watch died after less than a week. I have to return it and pick out another watch. I would not have to do this if my 10 year old watch did not sprout legs and walk away. So much bother.
Monday, December 4, 2017
Early December
Holiday presents are going slower than I would like. I wanted to be done with a few more than none by this point. It did not help that my body needed rest today. Hopefully I will make progress tomorrow.
Deep cleaning has kicked up to high gear again. It's not like I have the time, but with itemized deductions disappearing next year it has to be done by December 31st. We filled the recycle bin to the point that it needed to be stuffed down yesterday. So that is some slow progress. All the quilting batts have left the house and freed up some much needed room. Fifty percent of that is filled already. I also need to clean up a desk to turn it into an electronic work station for John. You did not think that I was going to play with the electronics did you? The electronic equipment has started to arrive. So I guess that I am way behind on that too.. I wonder how many drawers will need to be emptied?
Well tomorrow is almost here so it is time to call it a day.
Monday, November 27, 2017
Cyber Monday
I had really planned on shopping this Cyber Monday. I had a list of things I was going to buy. The perks for the most part were very nice. The prices were reasonable. Not having to brave the crowded malls or stores was a plus.
Here is were my plans to shop went by the wayside. It was simply an overload of emails sent to my in box. Some of you got the jump on Friday reminding me of your sales on Monday. Then there were two to three emails from the same companies on Saturday and Sunday. Today though takes the cake. Some of you sent me emails hourly starting at midnight. This came across in two ways. First, is that you were desperate for sales and this left me wondering if: A. You had enough stock on hand. B. Could your shipping department handle what you wanted to sell. C. Could your servers handle the mess you were creating. D. Are you filing bankruptcy on Tuesday morning and not planning on sending anything out? Second it came across as annoying, Do you know how many emails I got today? I have no idea either because as soon as I deleted one email from you another popped up. My tablet inbox was full all day, it holds just about 200 emails and they were ALL from today. There were too many to open let alone read. I spent the time I would have been shopping at your site deleting emails from you and your fellow marketing executive's so I could see if something I needed to respond to came through.
If you were using snail mail you would have sent me only one or two adverts period. Maybe that would be an idea for next year. Remember sometimes "Less is more", less emails gives me more time to read the emails and shop.
Saturday, November 25, 2017
A Blanket and Zenning
Thursday, November 23, 2017
Thanksgiving Dinner
Did I mention that I was the one to spill cranberry sauce on the pale green damask table cloth. I sprayed it with Tide stain remover to pre treat and washed it as soon as the table was cleared. I would like to say thank you to the people at Procter and Gamble for making Tide. The cranberry sauce stain came out in the wash. The paper napkin that I forgot to take off the tablecloth did not fare as well.
I have got to make a list of fiber and art projects that need to be finished before the end of the year. It occurred to me today that the holidays are really here. I have enough projects to keep me busy until mid December. So if I am not on Facebook or Twitter I will be sewing, knitting, quilting and making jewelry for presents. I think I might just try to wrap things as I go. At least my sewing machine just had a tune up.
Well it's time to get back to some knitting. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Tuesday, November 21, 2017
About 70%
Now that I went totally off track the remaining 20% of my to do list was shopping for Thanksgiving dinner. I will have room in the fridge once the cake has made it's way to the party. That will get done tomorrow, the day before Thanksgiving. The day I really hate to be in the grocery store. Such has been my life this year.
My energy ran out around 5 pm. I was even too tired to knit tonight. So I just sat back and relaxed. I also found a little energy for round 2 of Eric's birthday week. He loved the dinosaur sheet set that Teri and Tej bought for him. I need to wash them so that they can go on his bed this weekend. I also managed to find 2 DVDs that Eric does not have, plus they are birthday themed, Eric just loves them. Now if I could just get Eric to go to sleep.
Thursday, November 16, 2017
Knitting
The part that I am not so happy about was a talk from a local yarn shop owner, whom shall remain nameless. What I took away from her talk other than she did not know the subject matter as well as she should have. Was a lack of understanding of what it takes to design, knit, and write up a pattern, get test knitters and find a model. For me this takes a minimum of 2 weeks, but most of the time 4 weeks of all my "FREE TIME" and then some. For her to stand in front of a room full of knitters and say that unless you were a major player your patterns should be free is beyond believable. Does this mean that she is going to give the yarn in her store away free? I personally don't think that she will, so why should my friends and I give our work away for free? If she asked most of us I am sure that we could cut her a deal like the book publishers. Hey, wait we already do that. Also for goodness sake if you are giving a presentation with pictures in a lecture hall please don't hold up your laptop to a room full of people and expect the people in back to be able to see. Be professional and ask for a projector.
Please note that these are my impressions of the talk. Also if you are a regular reader you know that the majority of my knitting goes to the fall fundraiser at Eric's day program at the Tucson JCC and the Flowing Wells District Clothing Bank. So I do get offended when a for profit business asks knitwear designers to give away our work for free so that they can sell yarn. I know that we all will design an easy pattern for a favorite shop to help sell a certain yarn, but that is a shop where we are allowed to come in and create or just sit around a table and knit with friends.
My rant is over. Goodnight and sweet dreams.
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
A Lucky Day
Today we got the letter from our insurance company saying that Eric’s formula will be covered for another year. This is the first year in a long time that we did not have to spend months fighting this. We are not sure how this happened, but we would like the trend to continue.
Tuesday, November 14, 2017
Gloves
Friday, November 10, 2017
Crazy Busy
Wednesday, November 8, 2017
Finally
I finally felt well enough to make dinner tonight. A wonderful chicken pecan salad and fresh ginger bread. John brought home fresh frech bread. I would have added a picture but apperently blogo has not updated to IOS 11 and everything is not functioal in the app.
Eric thought it was funny that I said we were going to Trader Joes just for dinner things. Well I guess he was right, I got a few extra things. Although I did stop at 1 basket of groceries.
Saturday, November 4, 2017
An Afternoon Out
Afterward we went out to dinner and enjoyed patio dining. I just love our 2 weeks of fall weather. I am also 6 inches into the scrappy hat ( this is to read all the blue and green small balls of yarn in my knitting bag) that I started this morning. I will try to finish it tomorrow.