Today for the first time since my hand surgery I was able to make a few pairs of earrings.
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.
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
Tuesday, November 1, 2016
Different Cleaning
I spent over an hour tonight trying to get rid of junk email. It has been a while since I have done this. They make it very painful sometimes. Some require 2 or 3 different screens and then say it could take up to 4 weeks to get rid of it. Just to annoy them I will send an un-subscribe with each email until they stop. Hopefully it will mean less emails in my in box. I know it is cheaper for the companies to spam my email box, bit I would rather that they fill my snail mail box and keep the USPS working.
A Busy Day
Sunday, October 30, 2016
Slow Progress
This weekend while putting up the Halloween decorations we decided to clean out the Halloween storage box. Some was trashed, but the best part was that some was passed on to someone else. I got very creative. I made a FREE sign and taped it to the box. Then I left it by the mail box. When we got back from dinner all of it was gone. Somewhere our unwanted decorations will be decorating someone else's house. How cool is that?
I am also cleaning out my closet very slowly. I put a bag by the closet and every time I go to pick out my days outfit, if I find something that I do want or need I just put it in the bag. This weeks total is 10 empty hangers. It's a slow start, it it is a manageable pace for me. And then it will go on to charity for its next life.
I have also also decided not to try create anything else for the November 10th fundraiser at the Tucson JCC. I will just be finishing what has already been started. I will suggest getting there early for the best selection. Now it's time to finish the next project.
Saturday, October 29, 2016
Sharing is Caring or Is It?
Now here is where I get on my bandwagon. There are times when sharing is not caring. Sharing tubes of toothpaste, not cool, everyone should have their own tube of toothpaste. The plus side of this is colds will not spread as fast through the house. When you send your child to school sick or conversely go to work sick and share the illness, not cool. When you hug someone who is medically fragile, just because it makes you feel better and then tell the caretaker or person that you are sick, really not cool. What part of medically fragile is so hard to understand? When you go out shopping when you are sick, really!!! The person making close to minimum wage can not afford to get sick, they might not even be able to afford a doctor's office visit.
Lets face it we are living in an age where superbugs are a reality. The miracle drugs of my parents generations are losing their effectiveness do to overuse and bugs being able to evolve faster than scientists can come up with new versions of old drugs. So lets go very old school on this. When you are sick, stay home until you feel better. When your child is sick, keep them home from school, day programs and afterschool activities. If you need to go shopping, Then go online, they delivery everything from groceries to ready made meals. Heck, you can even do your holiday shopping and they will even wrap and deliver your presents for you. So let's care for each other by not sharing colds.
If you are wondering why this post now, Eric has been erypy for the last 4 hours. Eric has been exposed to any of those ways of sharing colds this week. I don't have the time to deal with this this week, I have too much on my plate. Most of all I don't want to stay up until the wee hours of the morning, it is not good for my hands recovery form surgery. I can expect a set back tomorrow.
So my request is PLEASE Don't Share Your Colds.
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
One Step Back
My hand has taken one step back. I need to slow down a bit on physical therapy among other things. So I gave my hand a day of rest.
Thus the short post.
Monday, October 24, 2016
This and That
Sunday, October 23, 2016
Projects Can Be Finished
Eric and I spent the day finishing projects. Eric and one of his Elmo's sat next to me as I worked. I managed to weight, label and tag all my Spinzilla 2016 yarn. Sorry friends have dibs on all the yarn. The good news is that it all leaves the house on Tuesday.
I managed to do the trimming on a dozen hand woven mudd rugs and trim the fringe. Next the failed attempt at twisting fringe was given up after 30 minutes. It did not help that the sound would not come up on you tube. The visual did not complete the necessary information to complete the task. So I did the fringe the way that I had learned.
Even without the sound I did learn that placing a heavy book on the woven scarf while tying the fringe did help a lot and made things go more smoothly. The scarfs were then washed and beat up. Yes, I slam freshly washed scarfs against a table. Then they get hung up to dry.
As as I was running out of energy, I decided to to set things up for tomorrow. I also emptied a knitting bag that tore and put the yarn away. I also decided not to repair the bag since it was not well made in the first place.
Friday, October 21, 2016
Zenning in 5 Minutes
Today after spending most of the day on fiber related activities I felt the need to do a bit of deep cleaning. Since it was 11 pm, I gave my self a limit of 5 minutes. In that time I cleaned out Eric's medicine cabinet and put a fresh bottle of shampoo out. Then I took the empty shampoo bottle to the recycling bag.
Most of the morning was spent setting the twist twist on freshly washed yarn and blocking hand knit and Chrochet items. Alas my blocking mat was not big enough so I will have to finish that later in the week as it is suppose to rain tomorrow.
A New Routine
Well it seems that I am starting a new routine with physical therapy. It goes like this, one hour of physical therapy followed by lunch and a two hour nap. Grrr. This does not help with my to do list. It also leaves me scrambling to keep Eric entertained while I try to catch up on my chores.
Today this lead to white and beige silk drying on one end of the clothes line and ten skeins of yarn from Spinzilla drying on the other with about four feet of empty line between the yarn and silk. I want a good distance between them so the dye from the yarn won't transfer to the silk. I would have finished setting the twist on the rest of the yarn, but I ran out of daylight. Since my left hand is still wonky, they will take longer to dry because I could not squeeze enough water out of them. I am really hoping that the lower humidity of fall will help the yarn dry faster.
I would also like to thank Prayag Verma for his very thoughtful suggestion for a new application for blogspot on my iPad. My post should be more regular now.
Night Time Pain
Monday, October 10, 2016
Spinzilla 2016
Sunday, October 9, 2016
Facts
7. I have spun over a pound of yarn this last week. Pictures and yardage tomorrow.
Saturday, October 8, 2016
Delving Deeper - Less is Really More
Fast forward 12 years and the notebooks are a bit dusty. Some of the stitch patterns that I thought were so difficult that I knew I would need written instructions for if I was ever going to knit them. Now most of what got tossed I can do without thinking. They are also in knitting stitch dictionaries or on the web. Patterns for triangular shawls that were and still are so pretty, that do not look good on my body type, my shoulders are just too broad. Yes the boring rectangular shawls look much better on me. To the very lacy patterns that 12 years later I can now knit, but do not fit into my knitting life style. To the hat and scarf patterns that I can knit while I am half asleep or busy talking, yes they got tossed too.
I still have piles of old knitting magazines to go through and decide which ones I want to keep. If there is an old or vintage knitting magazine you are looking for just let me know very soon. I might just have a copy.
I am keeping it very simple. I go through one notebook at a time or one pile of papers 6 to 12 inches in height. If I finish that and still have energy I go onto the next pile or notebook. Depending on the age of the notebook or pile of knitting magazines I toss between 30 to 70% of what I have. Now everything else can be condensed in an orderly fashion without having to buy or find more storage. This will be the third week in a row for an over full recycle bin too. I am going at my own pace, but I feel that some people want me to go faster and just toss without looking at everything. I am not quite able to do that yet. I know that in the end that I will have more room for fluff and yarn. That's not what my minions really want to hear, but I still have bins full of yarn and fluff in the garage that I would like to someday soon move back into the house.
So the short term plan is more tossing, gifting, knitting, weaving and spinning things in the house. The long term plan is to go through the things in the garage. So that in forty years or so whom ever is going to do the last cleaning of the house will not have to call yarn hoarder's anonymous to haul everything off to sell to other fiber people.
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
Resting
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
More Deep Cleaning
Amber and I also divided the yarn into kits and projects in progress and just yarn. I have officially turned 1 closet into a Fibber McGee closet with fluff. Sadly all the fluff did not fit in the closet, so I will have to look for more homes. We also separated the weaving supplies out so I know what I have to weave.
Amber and I decided that I was going to be the go to person during the Zombie Apocalypse. I will have all the fiber you could want for a price. We figured that I would have about a year's worth of knitting in my kits and at least 2 years worth of spinning. We did not even take a guess at the weaving supplies. I also am passing on a sock pattern and using the yarn for something else. A few more balls of yarn were added to the destash bag too.
Still to go through tonight are a pile of patterns. Some from 12 years ago when I started knitting. I also found more knitting books not already on the shelf, so I think a book purge might be in order, but not today. My mind says keep cleaning, but my body says nap. So I will rest until its time to cook dinner. When John called after work, being the great husband that he is,"said that I sounded tired and is bring home dinner."
Thursday, September 29, 2016
Dibs
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
More Progresss
When her supervisor told the demo person that she was not selling enough coconut oil, this is what the demo person came up with.
"Coconut oil is a cure for dementia. You can even use it on your toast. You will see results within days. "
After that is was flying of the display. So if your snow birds call or come home saying that they have found the miracle cure for dementia know that they have been scammed. I wonder who is responsible for this snake oil saleswoman and her comments?
Coconut oil is very good in cooking. Coconut adds a lot of flavor to food. I love coconut, but it is not a cure for anything but hunger or rough skin.
Saturday, September 24, 2016
Empty
Friday, September 23, 2016
Huge Boxes
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
More
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Better
While driving Eric home from his day program, yes he did go. We were almost sideswiped by a red truck. Yes, I was driving my van that does resemble a big white brick. It also has the aerodynamics of a brick too, not that that has anything to do with the incident today. The driver was too busy talking on the phone, while weaving in and out of traffic. I would like to point out that in the 3 miles that he was weaving in and out of traffic, he only moved up 1 car space. In my very humble opinion it was not worth the risk he was taking with everyone else's life and livelihood for a stupid phone call.
I learned to drive in the mid 70's and nobody spoke on the phone while driving. If we needed to make an urgent call, we pulled off the road and found a pay phone. Now, I am not saying that we need to go back to pay phones. After all I like my games and apps like Metropia to get me around traffic jams. I just want people to pull into a parking lot, make their call and go on their way. Right now Metropia is only available in Austin, Texas and Tucson, Arizona. Hopefully your city will be added soon so you can enjoy the app as much as I do.
Tomorrow I will tackle the house. So it is time to call it a night.
Monday, September 19, 2016
A Rough Week
I am really hoping that Eric will be back at program sometime this week. When he is at home sick this much, my world feels a lot smaller. I swear that my world can not get that much smaller or I might just fade into oblivion.
My left hand is a little better. I have been able to use it between 30 minutes and 2 hours on most days. I can say for certain that the arthritis flare up post cold is not helping the recovery process in the least. At least 2 out of the 3 fingers are almost, well at least 50% healed. The ring finger is another story. I am really working to get my left hand fully functional again. It will make my life so much easier and neater. I would really like to know, say before a meal, if my hand will work all the way through the meal.
I am hoping that Eric is not real clingy today. Yes I just noticed that it is 12:40 and it is time for a nap before I start my day with Eric in a few hours. By the way, it is getting easier to type too. Not a lot of mistakes. I can even reach for some of the keys.
My goal for the coming week is to have a better week and get a lot of crafting and cleaning done.