Dog Pillows

 I had an incredibly bad night, followed by a BBD with a pain level of crying.  I still managed to sew 2 pillows to be filled and filled 2. This leaves me with one pillow to add my yarn scraps to.  The pillows are loaded in the back of my car.  Yes this is the 3rd  charity trip in the last 7 days.  I am on a roll.  I thought I would be able to make more pillows but the green one is very large.  There is just no comparison on the sizes.  Off to the shelter they go tomorrow. 

Going,Going,Gone

 I promised myself that what did not sell at the yard sale would be leaving the house on Monday. Well I was exhausted yesterday. So I organized the things to go today.  John graciously load up my car so I could drop everything off at Goodwill.  At Goodwill the very nice employee unloaded my car.  It looks like I was not the only one doing spring cleaning.  There was a constant stream of cars  

Because it was the beginning of rush hour, a misnomer in Tucson.  Rush hour starts at 3:00pm and ends around dinner time.  I decided to turn right instead of left.  It was a good choice in the end.  I took Glen to Stone and went north on Stone.  Right at Prince a couple of fire trucks and an ambulance started turning on to Prince.  My guess there was an accident at 1st Avenue and Prince.  This is because the fire station is at 1st and River.  The accident must have messed up southbound traffic too.  I was so glad that everyone pulled over and we all let each other back into traffic.  This is rare in Tucson.  

I came home and vacuumed the back of my car. John loaded the back of my car for tomorrow’s charity drop off.  I am too tired to do much.  I hope that there will be knitting tonight.

Here is the picture from today.  The car is a lot smaller than the van, but I still got a full load in.  

Picture Time 100th

 This is knitting project 100 for 2021.  A charity scarf.  Taken in the back yard today.  

Projects 94 & 95

 These are both charity projects.  Project 94 is a hat.  I tried a new pattern that I saw on Instagram.  It is so cool that it is reversible.  This is meant for an older child or teenager. 

The next project is 95.  A 60 inch scarf for an older child or teenager.  It is meant to be folded in half or can go over the head and wrapped around the neck. It was knit with 2 strands of yarn on size 17 knitting needles.  

Really Deep Cleaning is Tiring

Today I had a system for cleaning up craft room 1 aka the guest room.  I started out with one bag for trash.. one bag for recycling..lastly one box for charity.   I spent 1 1/2 hours going through everything that I swore I would never touch again. I had everything in boxes to be ignored forever, I don’t think my family agreed with my plan of moving the boxes out of the way with out going through them. So I meticulously went through everything bit by bit.  I threw out projects that were never ever going to be repaired.  I put beads in their places.  I cleaned off resting places for things that I had just not put away.  I put all my broken stitch markers in a box to be repaired.  I stacked boxes for future delivery.  I worked until I was too tired to move.  Most importantly I managed to empty one box. That box will help organize my knitting projects stacked on shelves, so they don’t fall as often   I have one more box that I hope to finish tomorrow. At least with that part. The whole process should take about a week to finish. I might even try to get a bit of sewing done before I need to set up the guest room.

At the same time I was washing the last 3 skeins of yarn from Spin Together 2021. Once they are mostly dry and can be moved into the house for the final drying, I will take a picture of all the skeins.  Some colors did change drastically, others were about the same.  Then I will play with the order of colors to make my next shawl.  I might even spin a few more skeins to get the colors just right.

I even had time to add 6 inches to the never ending scarf..

 

Day 2 Spin Together 2021

 As you can tell from the picture below I am super into Spin Together 2021.  On the right side is my Louet Victoria I am currently spinning a white single to ply with my art yarn.  I will also doing my plying on this wheel. I have never noticed before that undyed arm is smoother and easier on the hands than dyed yarn to spin. It must be something in the dyes that effects the fiber and how it feels.  Now I now why so many spinners spin the raw fiber and dye it later.  

In the middle is my Cubii2  so that I remember to get my exercise in.   On the left is my LendrumDT for do my first spins.   I might even do some art yarn singles on it.  On the fireplace are my 2 baskets of warp and weft for weaving.  Since all my Spin Together 2021 yarn will be for charity work I had better get my loom running too   

I currently have 4 bobbins that need to be plyed.  I have also found that 1 1/2 hours seems to be my maximum amount of time that I can sit and spin without hurting. So I am sad to say that I won’t be adding much yardage to my team’s total.  

It’s time to get some rest so that I can try to have a productive day tomorrow.  

Waiting for Supplies

 I am spending about 2 1/2 hours a day cleaning up the mess I made by wanting a second shoe rack and storage boxes.  Today I organized my shawl collection, I really think I need to knit other things. I found a place on the shelf’s for my double pointed knitting needles. Put smaller project bags in a repurposed hanging shoe bag. 

In addition to cleaning, I filled up the back of my car with snacks for Eric’s old day program and dropped them off. After lunch John and I made a Goodwill run.  The the rest of the day was spent on laundry and knitting.  

All and all a good day.  

Errands

Today I got out of the house for some errands. I managed to get to the library to return the equipment on loan from the Library of Congress, Services for the blind and disabled. The librarian knew he was supposed to take them back, but had to research were to send them.  He was really nice.

Then it was off to the Flowing Wells School District main office to drop off the hand knit hats, socks and a few school supplies.  They were very happy to receive everything. All 3 bags full.

Then off to drive across town to drop off a check and check out a venue.  I think the event will be inside.  That’s great because it’s supposed to rain on Sunday. Then I went shopping and headed home. A 9 hour work day left me exhausted. Did I mention that I started making earrings and stitch markers at 6 am and forgot to eat breakfast because I was so busy.

After dinner I got in some weaving time on the new scarf. I even managed to empty a shuttle.  I am almost at the splash of red part.

It’s 10:30 pm and I am so tired that my body is saying go to sleep. I really don’t know how I managed such long hours with Eric. I guess I am a mere mortal now.

Projects 101 to 108

The next 7 charity hats.

Black Yarn

We all have some black yarn in our stash. Weather it has been bought or gifted. We all know it is a pain to knit with. Well my solution is to weave with it. I managed to weave 12 inches in one TV show. This scarf should be ready for tying off tomorrow. Back to weaving and watching TV. 

Journeys

I really think that I like my doctor's office scale much better than the scale that I have at home. It shows that I am 2 pounds lighter than my scale at home.  With that being said, I have lost one sixth of the weight that I want to lose. I have only 2.5 pounds to lose before I reach my 1st goal of losing 5% of my body weight. I know it is all about baby steps and moving more. With that being said I have exceeded my daily step goal by over 2,000 steps today.

I have finished knitting another hat today and am closing in on 4 dozen hats knit for the year. I was lucky to be able to book my Stitches West 2019 classes and hotel today. I only had to live through 2 computer server overloads. Thank goodness I called and entered my classes when registration opened this morning. By this afternoon the hotel was booked and 1 class that I am taking is filled.

Well it is time to call it a day. Have a very productive day tomorrow.

Busy and Productive

I am zenning the house on a smaller level now. Today I found a box of business cards that use to go in a Rolodex, now I am inputting them into my contact list on my phone. At this point 5 cards at a time are enough for one day. So this will be a multi week project. I am also spending a few minutes a day going through other things too. I have 4 bags that will go to charity tomorrow. 

I have also found a really good use for all the cotton crochet thread that I received. I am weaving scarfs with the crochet thread as the warp and using up small bits of sport or fingering weight yarn for the weft. The plus side of this, is that I can weave a scarf faster than I can knit one. It will also give my hand more time to heal while I speed through a lot of fiber. I hope that the kids who get them will like them as much as the hats that I knit. Below is the scarf that I started weaving tonight. I am on the 4th color change. Every color change on the weft is a partial ball of crochet thread. 

We also have a new lamp for one of the bedrooms do to a failed science experiment. I had John pick out what he liked and he came back with the same type of lamp that I would have picked out.

Cleaning

Teri and I finished organizing the fiber by breed. Teri found out that there are a lot of different breeds of sheep. I think everyone learned more about sheep and breeds at dinner than they wanted to.  The fiber is now neatly stored. The only mistake that I made was not labeling the big bags. Oh, well that can happen at a later date. We also went on a deep cleaning spree. The end of the hallway is knee deep in charity for Goodwill. I think it will take me a couple of hours to make a list of everything. I think we are going to try to fill the van.

We also found time to go see the new Star Wars Movie, The Last Jedi.  No spoilers here, just go see it on the big screen. 

Goodbye 2015

It has been a very busy and sometimes hectic year around here.  We finished our kitchen remodel. We finished the craft room remodel. We did a lot of decluttering.  Teri thought the house looked like it did 20 years ago with the exception of the new kitchen. A few dozen items were knit for charity.  All in all I think we had a good year despite a few bumps in the road. I would like to wish everyone a happy and healthy 2016.  

Eric Paid it Forward Today

Today Eric had a chance to pay it forward.  After his day program we drove to to the mall where the Salvation Army and a number of community sponsors were collecting toys for kids. So we loaded Eric up with craft projects and toys.  He was very happy to help.although I must say that the new design of the kettles made it a little hard for Eric to put money in the kettle.  

If One Nap is Good then....

Today started out very busy with 2 errands before Knitting Guild.  We had a lovely yarn tasting with Vicky Konecky from Grandma's Spinning Wheel here in Tucson. I so wanted to break my yarn diet and head over to Grandma's after the meeting, but I was so tired that I headed home instead.

I took some homemade chicken soup out of the freezer for lunch. John cut up some fresh carrots and celery to add to the soup. Before it had finished thawing and was warm enough to eat I had fallen asleep. Two hours later, I did not have time to eat the soup, but instead went and picked up Eric at his program. I did manage to cover a person's desk in yarn, knitting needles and knitting books before I left the building. I do love to do a good yarn bombing every once in a while.

We were not home for 30 minutes before I fell asleep again for another long nap. It is my hope that these naps today will help my body heal from both the cold, which is still lingering but also the arthritis flare up that it has caused. John served the soup for dinner along with some fresh bread.

After dinner I packed up some more charity to leave the house tomorrow. This time hats, scarfs and special needs bibs. They will head over to the Flowing Wells School District Clothing Bank.

Fun Hats

I am getting to the point in the knitting of next winters hats that all I have are a couple bags of bits and pieces of yarn.  I like this kind of knitting because it challenges me. I want every hat to look like something my own kids would wear. They have to have a nice look and texture to the pattern. Most of all the color must flow so the hat looks well planned.  I even throw in bits of Hand spun yarn leftover from other projects. I like to go from this to that. 

Finishing Things

Today was spent cleaning and finishing projects. The gifts are almost done. I finished 2 more hats for charity, I will try to get a dozen done by this weekend.  A friends  son is working at a charity collection center this weekend. This will give him something to put on the bus.  I just have to find out when, because I know where it is.  

I am hoping for a good week for Eric and getting everything done on time. I hope everyone has a great week. 

Overdone

I can honestly say that I might have overdone it by more than a little. My goal today was to wash 3 loads of laundry, take all of Teri's Charity boxes to Goodwill, make dinner and, and, and, I think I might have recycled the rest of the list when I got too tired.

About 2/3 of what Teri had for Goodwill filled up the center of the van. So I dropped that off and debated weather I should finish the job today. I was sore and tired but not ready for lunch, so I thought what the heck and finished tallying and loading Teri's stuff into the car. Then there was still room in the car so I decided to gather our stuff for Goodwill. I managed to fill the van yet again. The guy at Goodwill did not believe that I had managed to fill up the center of the van twice in a few hours. I can honestly say that I got a lot of stuff out of the house that will not come back again.

This left me a little to tired to move let alone cook lunch for myself. So instead of going for my 1st idea, which was a couple of donuts and a cup of tea, I went home. The pomegranate looked and tasted great, but it was still not enough for lunch so I added a couple of Justin's dark chocolate peanut butter cups to top things off. The peanut butter had the protein and who can say no to dark chocolate.

I found a little time to get some holiday shopping done before it was time to pick up Eric. Eric had a great time at his day program today. I am so happy that he is well enough to go to program. I even managed to get a little more cleaning done before it was time to make dinner. I wonder if I am going to be fired for not spraying the casserole dish with Pam? Well it is time to fold the last of the laundry and hopefully knit a few more hats after dinner.

Ambivalent

I have been ambivalent about a lot of things lately. I'm not quite sure where it's coming from. I just have to keep chugging along so I get out of this funk in the mean time I'll keep knitting, organizing and deep cleaning. 

I think I will warp the loom tomorrow for a scarf. It's time to play with some yarn.  I'll probably pull another skein of hand spun,  because the hand spun yarn makes really really cool scarves. Did I mention how quickly they handwoven scarf goes compared to a hand knitted scarf.

I have made a dent in the yarn that I pulled out at the beginning of September for the charity hats. I think in another dozen or two hats  or maybe three dozen hats I'll have all that yarn used up. Then it will be time to pick out some more yarn for more hats. The hats are coming out very cute. I hope the kids like them.

I think it's time to go put Eric to bed for the night. And then listen to a little bit of the story that  I'm currently listening to and wind down for the night. I hope everybody has a great weekend.