Time Flies

This is the best washing machine I have ever had.  The drum is huge so I'm able to do the laundry in fewer loads.  And the dingy sheets are bright white again.  I was feeling sorry for myself because the choices were limited to what would fit in this little laundry closet under the stairs, but no more.

One of my recent hikes was high above the Deschutes River.  It's beautiful in its own craggy way. 

I met these ladies through the community garden at our church and last week we decided to form a small hiking group.  Our first outting was on the Juniper Forest trails in the Badlands, east of Bend.  It's hard to believe that it's February when you look at this photo.

My weaving has taken a back seat to everything else but I finally finished a set of towels, a variation of Turned Taquete.  

I've wanted to participate in the guild's color challenge and this is the inspiration image I was given.

These are the colors I've chosen.

I've wound three quarters of the warp and this is how it's shaping up.  I'd like to finish winding and beam the warp tomorrow.  My weaving has been infrequent and the downside of that is my back gets tired quickly.  Usually winter is when I get the most weaving done.  If there's one thing I've learned through the pandemic, it's that there is no "usually" anymore.  And on that note I'm going to read on the patio since it's a sunny 63 degrees this afternoon.

 

Winding down

 

I've been in Reno since October 27th, in time to see the spectacular show of the turning leaves.  These photos are from our old neighborhood but it's like that all over the Truckee Meadows basin.  I'm reminded of Walter Von Tilburg Clark's book, the City of Trembling leaves.  The Clark Administration building on campus is named for him.  I've been gone from Reno for six years after living here for 40 years.  I was surprised by how much I enjoyed revisiting the city.

 I've had a couple of visits with Delaney but her other grandmother has been sick so I might have to be content with that until we come back next year for Alexia's high school graduation.  Delaney loves her new sweater.

I wanted to see Alexia's band performance.  The different high schools have taken marching band into almost the same level of sports.  I have wanted to see her do high school stuff and was excited to finally have an opportunity, but I had forgotten how much driving time is involved when you go to anything in Reno.  It took me 35 minutes to get to Spanish Springs High School and I was just in time to see her high school take the field.  She is the drum major.

When given the "all clear" she climbs to the top of the platform where she will beat out the rhythm with her raised arms.  Their performance isn't very long at all, maybe five minutes - and she's holding her arms at shoulder height and beating the rhythm - not easy.  She says she chose this because you can't hear a flute in a marching band.

She has visited Yarn Refuge, a local yarn shop, and wanted us to go together to their Knit Night.  The store is every bit as impressive as she said it is.

I had a hard time reining in my buying impulses and was relieved that I held myself to these three skeins.  I've cast-on using the middle skein for a scarf for Chrissie.  Greens and rusts are her colors.  I went back later and bought another skein - oops.

Meanwhile, weaving lessons are progressing.  Alexia is so busy that it's hard to find time but we're doing a little here and there and I think we'll get enough done that she will be able to weave after I go home.

Tomorrow is the last day we'll have for weaving and since she has a threading error, I'm going to show her how to repair it.  It's a common error and every error is a learning opportunity.  She is doing great.

Every day Chrissie feels a little better and she's looking forward to the day when she can leave behind this special chair and sleep in her own bed with her C-Pap.  She is a trooper.  I was stunned to learn that because they opened her chest, they had to wire it closed.  That little dark knot on her chest is a knot of the wires that are holding her chest closed and will be hers for the rest of her life.

Today we took our first outing, her in the backseat of course.  We went to see my oldest grandson's apartment, meet his roommate and the cats, and we had a surprise visit when his girlfriend came home for lunch.  We visited for a couple of hours, reassuring to Kiernan to have his mother feeling up to a visit and reassuring to me that my grandson is becoming a man.

That's about the size of it.  The forecast is for rain on Monday so Tuesday I'll saddle up and ride off into the sunset, i.e., Bend.  I've learned that you never stop being a mom.

And another month

I've been playing around some more with turned taquete.  I'm getting a plaid of sorts.

I started this warp thinking that we might be able to have a guild holiday bazaar after all, but now I realize I won't be here, since I need to be in Reno for my daughter's surgery.  I attended our guild's rigid heddle loom study group via zoom today and got infected by their wreckless design aspirations. They are all about texture and color.  I'm having second thoughts about taking classes for difficult structures and think I may need to return to my original love, color and texture.

Color!!

Meanwhile, I've been participating in Pat Clark's root project.  Pat has been a powerful and unifying force in our local art community and I'm super fortunate to have become a part of that group.  I didn't get the splint off my hand until Monday so signed up for a sketch time with her on Tuesday.  That's because Pat is in hospice and sketch times with her are limited.  We are sketching this root that was extracted from her yard and has been hanging in her garage for the past two years.

This is Pat's sketch.    I gathered up my things to leave at the end of my session and she took me aside to wish me the best with my family and said, that when life had thrown her a curve, she had learned that the word she needed was "adjust."  I treasure that piece of wisdom. 

We have another artist in the family.

Grandpa's grrl.

 

The Unexpected

I took Delaney to the park this afternoon, hoping to tire her out for a long nap.  It's a beautiful day and wonderful to be out from under the choking smoke.

She is just starting to get the hang of the play equipment, but the slide still baffles her.

She absolutely loves the swings.  It's her favorite and she squeals "Whee) on every forward swing.  And here is where I tell you the bad news.  Her parents have decided to sell their house and move back to Reno. After watching Delaney for 2 1/2 years, this is tough to swallow.  They have a list of reasons and I understand where they're coming from, but I don't like it.  I plan to enjoy her right up to moving day.

I'm lucky to have an engrossing hobby to help me move forward.  I checked out this rigid heddle loom from the guild equipment library and made this scarf with sock yarn as my first project.  It turns out someone else wanted to borrow it for a class, a beginning weaver, and so I hurried up to finish this and return it.  It was fun but I don't know that I'll be buying one anytime soon.  A Girl Scout is collecting 100 scarves for a badge so I put this one in that collection.

And I'm fortunate to be in the middle of a shadow weave workshop with Jennifer Moore.  I bought the yarn as a kit from Lunatic Fringe and chose the autumn colorway.  We had the option of 5/2 and 10/2 yarn.  Because of babysitting I am only able to attend two of the four recorded sessions of the instruction and they have been excellent.  I am able to replay spots that confuse me.  We had the option of using a four-shaft loom or an 8-shaft loom.  With the splint on my wrist I opted for four-shaft and 5/2 yarn or the class, then will do the eight-shaft later.

During Delaney's nap today I experimented with supplementary yarns, ones that weren't part of the kit.  The last session will be Thursday but the kids have asked me to babysit because they're going to a funeral in Reno on Friday.  I'll watch the instructions and will have all day Friday to weave, or until my back gives out.

I'm still knitting chemo caps and have four done so I need to drop them off.  There's still quite a bit of the yarn from Triana so I think I'll have enough for a dozen by the time I'm done.

And here is where I tell you the bad news.  Delaney's parents have decided to sell their house and move back to Reno. After watching Delaney for 2 1/2 years, this is tough to swallow.  They have a list of reasons and I understand where they're coming from, but I don't like it.  I plan to enjoy her right up to moving day. Matt dropped Delaney off the morning of the 31st and said he had an announcement to make.  I actually thought he twas going to tell me that they were separating.  I've sensed heaviness from both of them for at least a month.  But it's not a health issue.  I have to remind myself of the things their news is not, a crutch for now.

That afternoon my daughter called with even worse news.  She is going to need open-heart surgery and they're hoping to be able to do it in October.  It's called Bicuspid Aortic Valve Disease and it's a birth defect.  Her father also had this surgery.  I've lost sleep over this and somehow it makes Delaney's move a little less traumatic.  Chrissie has to stay in the hospital for a week and another six weeks at home after the surgery.  I'll go down as soon as she wants me there.  I will be so glad when this is behind us, the sooner the better and before the snow flies.

 

Can't we do better than this?

We decided to buy a bigger chair for the front room.  Our current chair is too small to hold us and Delaney when we read to her.  I went to Lazy Boy and fell in love with this chair.

I measured the area and the chair was just too big.  Plus as much as I loved it, it didn't seem to fit in.

I went back and bought this one instead.  We fight over who gets to sit in it.  We might need a second one, after we pay for this one :-)

Potty training Delaney is still in the thinking stages.

I took her to the park that's just a mile from here.  She loved it and I had to tear her away after an hour.  I'm surprised at how well preschool kids communicate without a whole lot of language.

I finally finished some dish towels which I'm hoping will do well in our guild holiday show and sale.  But I need to try something new.

For now that something new is Jennifer Moore's double weave class that starts in another week.  Getting ready has been hard on many levels, not the least is the limited use of my hand.  I ordered yarn kit from Lunatic Fringe, the most expensive yarn I've ever purchased.  It's 5/2 mercerized cotton and it's  a devil to work with, the way it wants to spiral and corkscrew.  It's awfully pretty and awfully difficult.

Covid has placed our hospital in crisis mode once again and the governor has sent in nonclerical national guardsmen to help with the overload.  They've announced that 98% of those hospitalized are non-vaccinated.  The break-through infections have us masking up again, sigh.   Can't we do better than this?

 

August already!

 I've been knitting on a cardigan pattern from the winter Vogue Knitting issue and had been having misgivings about the size, hoping I had enough yarn.  I kept knitting thinking that surely it would be fine.  This is when I realized I didn't have enough yarn for both sleeves, so I took stitches off the needles and measured on the kitchen table.  It was way off.  At some point I had begun to loosen my gauge and it was a couple sizes too big.

There was nothing I could do but start over.  Actually frogging and reconditioning yarn is pre-starting over.  It's been my Olympic knitting and I am halfway to the armholes right now.  It's a complex pattern and I recognize that it probably won't be a garment before next year.

The county fair shaped up at the last minutes which left everyone scrambling so I was really impressed at what we were able to do for the fiber arts exhibit and demonstrations.  I haven't been weaving so the bright towels on the left were all that I had to enter for judging.  I didn't deserve a ribbon and I didn't get one.  But attendance was surprisingly good considering the short notice and high temperatures.  It was the 100th birthday of the fair and I think they were loathe to miss another year after last year.

Our guild's spinning study group put together this "sheep to shawl" display along with information on rare breeds and wool samples that said "touch me."  People seemed to be happy to have their fair back and were curious, though all entries were down, all except quilts which were more than they had ever had.  We think it's because the Sister's quilt show was last month and they accepted half as many entries as usual which meant that quilters were happy to have a place to display their work. 

Our displays were attractive and it was nice to be indoors, which I'm sure is what our visitors thought too, with temperatures approaching the century mark.  Some of the displayed pieces were submitted to be judged but we also beefed up the visual appeal with items "for display only" like my turquoise and copper scarf on the table.

We've had returning deer these past couple of weeks.  I seemed to be the only one who hadn't seen the new neighborhood fawns but then a couple of days ago the twins shot by me at the start of my morning walk.  One raced across the street but this guy stopped to double check before scampering off.

And on the other side of our fence, the wildflower seed that I sowed have taken root and are producing cheerful little meadow flowers.  I thought I distributed the seed evenly but it looks like I tipped up the bag and dumped it out.  I think it will even out next year but it's sure a cheerful addition to our yard right now.  According to the package the annuals will flower this year and next year the perennials will bloom.

Alexia has been displaying a lot of interest in weaving this year and is asking me really intelligent questions.  At first I was thinking I would order a 16" rigid heddle loom and having it shipped to her but then I remembered this Dorset loom that I bought to use in workshops.  Since discovering zoom weaving workshops, I've decided to skip the workshops where I have to fill the back end of my car with equipment and unload, reload, unload, etc. It occurred to me that its a perfect starter loom for Lexi.  They're coming up in October to pick it up.  

With all the time that pandemic and quarantine have provided me, I have done just about no weaving.  I finally have a warp on one of my looms.  Instead of trying to learn something new or use workshop information, I've defaulted to my old friend, turned taquette, and boy does it feel comfortable to be on my own home turf.  

I've started taking Delaney to the library once a week.  She gave up naps when she outgrew the Pack-n-Play so on the recommendations of her parents, I take her for a car ride after lunch which causes her to fall asleep and take a two-hour nap.  The trick is to get to the library without her falling asleep first!  The conditioning is so good that she falls asleep within the first mile and the library is three miles from the house.  It's tricky.

 

Pleasurable passtimes

 My friend Melissa flew up a couple of weeks ago for a quick visit, taking advantage of the promotional prices from Alero, a new airlines that has just begun serving Redmond and several other secondary markets, like Burbank which is her airport.  We only had two full days and made the most of them.  This photo is from our visit to the High Desert Museum.  Our favorite thing was the outdoor wild raptor show.  Highly recommended!

She's been painting every day and has started moving into mixed media and collage.  I showed her how relief printing with lino works and she loved it.  We ended up doing this on two of our afternoons.

We printed a couple dozen of these Christmas ornaments which she'll assemble when she gets home.  They wouldn't travel well otherwise.  She's coming up again the end of August and by then I will have completed a two-day woodblock class so will have more to show her.

I finished this sweater for Delaney which she loves.

The buttons are perfect, from Skacel.

I started another sweater for her using the variegated yarn that a friend gave me.  I bought the muted peach to go with it as the single ball wouldn't be enough.  My friend messaged me last night that she found a second ball of the variegated and though I don't need it, I have accept it for a different project.  I sampled for over an hour trying to find a pleasing way to blend the two yarns.

I realized when I turned the work over to purl that the wrong side is the answer.  The wrong is the right!! 

Our-soon-to-be-17-year-old granddaughter Alexia is with us again this summer.  She has stepped up her knitting game and enjoys knitting with the Knitterbugs when we get together in a park.  She knitted this shell from linen, not quite a beginner project, and she nailed it.

It fits her perfectly and she is going to wear it this Wednesday when we meet up to knit.

I've done very little weaving in the past few months, other than a workshop.  I decided to return to Turned Taquete again and experiment with squares of different combinations of the same hue.  I'd like to finish in time to have something to enter into the fair this year.

It's too hot to weave in the afternoons but instead of using the morning time, I've chosen to sit outside and enjoy the fresh cool air.  I've worked hard on the yard and like to sit out with my coffee and either knit or read.  The summers are short here and I'll have the rest of the year to weave.  That's what is going on here.