Hot and Smokey Daze

 I fell into a creek while on a hike into Todd Lake when Alexia was here.  I got very wet and jammed my thumb.  When it didn't get better after a couple of weeks I went to Urgent Care at our medical clinic.  They diagnosed Gamekeepers Thumb and put a giant splint on my forearm and referred me to The Center, the orthopedic care facility.  I took the splint off and waited.  My thumb was still sore and weak.  Finally last Monday I got called in to see Dr Holt.  He said, yup - you have Skiers Thumb.  It's the same thing as previously diagnosed but he's young and we don't have gamekeepers here in Bend.

I got called that afternoon to see if I could take an MRI appointment the next morning at 7:10 and I said sure!  Then I got called Thursday to see Dr Holt again and was fitted with this handy little splint.  He was surprised by my MR which shows a partial tear.  I have to wear this 23 1/2 hours a day until September 20 and hope to avoid surgery.  I can knit simple things but weaving isn't workout out yet.

The reason I wasn't baby sitting that Thursday is because I was scheduled to take a warp painting class but a friend died on August 3rd of brain cancer and the celebration of life was scheduled for that same day.  The service was outdoors in the Prayer Garden at our church and in spite of being 99 degrees, it was surprisingly comfortable.  Triana was a prolific knitter and all of our knitting group has received yarn from her stash.  Some are knitting toys for the pediatric ward at the hospital because toys were Triana's speciality, she said, because they don't have to fit anybody.

I've decided to knit chemo caps since I hate sewing toys together.  This is the first one I've finished and it's from acrylic.  It's the Rikki pattern in Ravelry and since over 12,000 people have logged in as knitting it, I figured that was as good a recommendation as any.

This is the second cap I've finished using the Foaming Waves Chemo Cap, also from Ravelry.  The yarn is Debbie Bliss' Cashmerino and feels very soft to me, but I'm reading that wool can be irritating on the bare scalp and that acrylic and cotton are the preferred yarns.  I'm going to take both of these into Oncology this week and get their advice.

Our tomatoes have started coming in this week.  We only planted Early Girls and it's paying off.  BLT sandwiches are what's for dinner tonight!

I sowed wildflower seed in a little strip of cleared dirt along out eastern fence and they're also doing quite well.  A Japanese friend gave me this ikibana vase and explained the sun, moon and earth order of arranging flowers.  I have had fresh flowers in the house for the past month and absolutely love them.

Delaney loves Disney Now and especially a show called Bluey.  We clear off the coffee table on the days we watch her and it's usually covered with toys and books, but she got sucked into the story and parked herself on it.  I love how she folds her hands when she's engaged.  Language is slowly picking up.  I had stripped the sheets from our bed to wash them.  She picked up a pillow and handed it to me saying, "make the bed."  Yes Ma'am!!  We'll be starting potty training very soon - yikes!

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.

I'm still here

We're still in the early days of spring and some days are too cold for much of anything but taking walks.  I'm knitting a lot and finished this sweater for granddaughter Alexia in Reno who will spend this July with us again.  The pattern is on Ravelry, Glass Ceiling, by Heidi Kirrmaier.

It fits her great and she loves it.

I also finished another sweater for Delaney.  It's gratifying that she likes to wear my sweaters so much.  As cute as this is, the twisted rib took forever and I wouldn't knit it a second time.

I am part of a group of knitters that call themselves The Knitterbugs.  One of our group was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer about two months ago so we put on our thinking caps and decided to knit an afghan for her; each of us would knit a 12" square block.  Her favorite color is blue so that was the only unifying factor.  Because Covid restrictions are still in place we met in a park to arrange the blocks and stitch them together. 

Adele ended up taking it home to crochet twice around the completed afghan to give it a finished look. We gave it to her on Mothers Day.

I've done very little weaving this past month, only completing this scarf.  I wanted to use a pattern that had a wif file and found this one on www.handweaving.net.  The files are part of your subscription.  My next goal is how to make my own wif files.

I'm weaving it a second time but I think I'm ready to return to block weaves after this.  I have mountains of 8/2 Tencel and after Linda Hartshorn quipped that scarves make great samples, I'm having no problem weaving them, along with a sample of 2-3 weft colors.

There's a shop downtown that sells used kids' stuff and that's where I bought this Bob stroller for $100 which anyone who is familiar with these will tell you s a steal.  Delaney loves it.  I'm working on getting her to wear her sunglasses properly to protect her light blue eyes.  She still hates hats.

The yard is beginning to wake up and the hostas are just now poking their noses up through the soil.  Our growing season is about 3-4 months long and it's a lot of work for such a short time but I always enjoy it.  As my friend Kathi said - this is fun, right?  I said, yes it's fun in May, not fun on August.  I suspect weaving will slow down even more.

And our little garden helper loves being outside.  This activity is moving dirt from one spot to another.

One of the weavers in our guild writes a column for our local newspaper.  This one tickled my funny bone.

 

Entering the sixth month with Covid

I got my materials for the Sarah Jackson workship, Color Confidence, and have been warping my loom as the heat upstairs allows.  Each of us got a packet of five colors, no two are the same.  This is the image that inspired my colors.

You can see how closely they match.  We were instructed to choose the color packet we were least drawn to but I liked them all but one, and I didn't pick it.

The warps arrived already wound but without a counting thread.  I tried to improvise and finally just decided to spread the yarn as evenly as I could.  I reminded myself that this is a workshop sampler.

We started this month off with a birthday - Matt's 40th!  He also started off this month running his own company.  This has been a dream of his ever since he got into setting tile, so in spite of his very successful run as a project manager for a construction company, he got his contractor's license and as of this week is Double Diamond Tile.  Julia is the vice-president and office manager.  She has to continue working two days a week so we now will add watching Delaney every other Tuesday so she can focus on paperwork.  You can't focus on anything and watch a toddler!!

A friend told me that she had solved her earwig problem with soy sauce/oil traps so I read about how to make them online and installed one using a cottage cheese container.  I never thought about the raccoons.  So I'm back to the old way of putting a head of cabbage in a pot of water and drowning dozens.  I do a final bath to make sure they're all gone and use the half of a head that they didn't eat.

I planted some sunflower seeds months ago.  I wanted those saucy blooms that look so pretty in a bouquet, but what we got our these monsters that we have staked up with a tomato cage.  The finches have loved these, eating the leaves, and when the seeds mature, the jays will eat them.  We want to feed the birds so next year I'll plant these again and also plant the saucy ones for cut flowers.

The only thing I have to weave on right now is the Prayer Shawl from Sarah Jackson's weave-along.  This has stretched me the most of anything yet even though it's only four shafts, but I know now that I like Shadow Weave and will weave it again.  Between the heat upstairs and the hours babysitting, I am weaving very slowly on this.

I finally finished something - ten more towels for inventory.  I have always had Christmas sales opportunities but in lockdown I don't know how that will go.  Often I'm contact directly and am able to sell towels that way.  I don't want to be caught unprepared.

The weather is hot all this week and I know how much Delaney loves to be outside so that's how we started today, on the patio, knowing that we would be in the house for the rest of the day.  It's scorching and yet our maple tree has already started to turn red for autumn.  Mixed message!

 

Finishing things, starting things

I don't make soap to sell anymore but I like it too much to stop making it altogether.  I've discovered that one batch makes enough to get us through a year, and it's that time again.  I looked at the upcoming week and realized that yesterday was the day.  The kitchen is pretty small so I have to put things away after I get them out, which really is no different than my weaving studio.  

I've made soap for over 20 years and things change from year to year.  I still use the equipment I started with with the exception of the electric stick blender.  Now soap is poured into silicon molds and if I were starting out now, I'd invest in some.  The palm oil and sodium hydroxide I was using yesterday were completely new to me.  I was nervous about the volume of the flaked lye but since I measure by weight, it turned out to be soap in the end.

I wrap it up in one of my favorite quilts and let sit for 24 hours before I cut the bars.  And then the bars cure for a month before they're ready for use.  We only have a couple bars left so I felt the ticking clock.

I started this morning by attending church on our patio.  I must admit that it's mighty nice to take my coffee and iPad outside and be there.

I've signed up for Sarah Jackson's Prayer Shawl weave-along.  This was a difficult warp for me so I only did it in increments so I could stay focused and even then I had to redo more often than I wanted.  It changed from light/dark to dark/light and the heddles changed direction with the color change.  Clearly I need more practice with this.  I finished the last of it this afternoon and recounted everything again.  I'm sure there are lurking errors anyway.

I also finished the Summer and Winter dishtowels.  I made too many threading errors.  I probably should put on more warp and do it again, but this evening I'm tired of them.  I had dangling loops on the backside of two towels which I started trying to stitch in place, but then decided - the heck with it.  I'll hem them and use them as hostess gifts.  They look good from the front.

I'll wash them with the towels this week and start hemming.  I have 16 towels to hem which is more than a little daunting.

I took away the automatic pencil that Delaney loved and have substituted three fat crayons.  She was pretty angry at first but is getting along just fine with the switch.  I'll see how she does with the little pads this week and maybe tape some butcher paper to one of the walls as has been suggested to me.  The problem I see if that she might not understand the difference between the paper and the wall.  I figured these little pads are good for this week at least.  And the good news, I've found another work-around that I think will still be effective after Google does their upgrade in September.