Plans afoot

Hi there Myrtle and Maude,

It's been a long time since we've seen each other.  I'm excited to spend time with you in New York State during October. We planned our sister retreat to include Rhinebeck Weekend.  Double win.

Some photos of my life and travels over the last few years:

I used these and 95 more images in  a miniMoo Card business card order.  All set to help people remember me as I travel in my avocation life.  Vocation life has its own set of business cards.

Mavis

 Woohoo!!!

Restlessness redux

[Hey who  knew there is a draft folder on Blogger.  Guess you will be able to read my ramblings after all.]

Mavis here,

It has been far too long. I had to Google to find the blog portal because I forgot the blog title. Yoiks!

Today's post is a ramble of thought.

The fall rains started Friday. It was a slow steady rain, very good for the baked earth. Only a 1/4" in the past three months means runoff could have been fierce if we had a down pour. Mostly cool and damp with an occasional mist Saturday and today.  That gave me time to put weed and feed down yesterday. Yep this organic, hippie, crunchy, granola type caved. The front yard is atrocious, as is the back, and needed a boost.

The loss of the sun meant I had to turn on the heat, too. The house residents were complaining. Darn anemia make cold seem even colder. I can make me be uncomfortable, but not so good at creating discomfort in others.

OK, so restlessness. I must need some sort of boost or creative kick in the pants. ALL I want to do is create. I don't want to do homework. I don't want to cook. I don't want to...

Perhaps I needed a vacation after a straight 21 months of school.  Telling myself i will get one next summer just isn't cutting it. Perhaps I should look into a job change to take advantage of my newly earned license and quit playing it safe in the old one until I finish this next degree. Oh, but how I really need the insurance of the current job. And how I do not want to be learning a new job while I am going to school full time.

That is my microcosm. But that doesn't explain why I am hearing a similar restlessness from many sources. Is it because there is political uncertainty? Is it a sign that there is a pent up tiredness of economic woe? (Positive sign is all the car dealerships have adequate supply on the lots, as opposed to the downturn when sold cars were not replaced so those lots became more and more empty.)  Is it that a new era is afoot and we just can't see it yet?  Or is it one of those I'm restless so I am attuned to the restlessness of others? Time will tell.

In the meantime I am trying to embrace the need to scratch that restless itch with knitting and spinning. My daughter is getting warm accessories for her college life. My son is getting desperately needed socks. I am even contemplating Christmas knits.

And then there is the spinning. I find joy in watching the colors change as I spin the pre-dyed rovings. I find even more joy as the colors twine and mix during the plying.  I occasionally spin solid colors, but not now. Not unless I can see how the solid can be plyed with one of the multicolors for an incredible color explosion. Wanting ever more color I can understand how some spinners end up with multiple wheels so they can have several projects different colorways going simultaneously.

I guess enough procrastination for now. Back to the books.

-Mavis, RN

Restlessness

Well that stinks!  I just lost a perfectly good post. Looks like all you get is a picture of the color of procrastination.  Hopefully the act of writing about my feelings of restlessness and disquiet helped reduce those feelings and allows me to get back to my homework.

The color of procrastination in spinning. Colorway #36 -  Targhee fiber from Sweet Grass Wool, Pay no attention to the difficult color balance. The turquoise is dominating the camera's eye.  The upper photo shows the singles which are shown plied in the lower photo.The colorway is primarily turquoise and soft grey with a small amount of greyed-green.  I'll plan to use the hand spun in a project with a soft gray yarn also from Sweet Grass Wool.

Mavis, RN    

Mavis was here (at some point in time)

visited 39 states (78%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or Free android travel guide

16 completed, 14 in the queue

KNIT


I completed 16 knitting projects in 2011. 5 shawls, 3 cowls, 3 pairs of socks, 2 toddler shrugs, 2 hats, 1 pair fingerless mitts. Details are here on Ravelry.



Would have been 20 projects if I could get myself out of sweater finishing ennui. The last 4 are two baby sweaters - two that only need buttons, one that needs a neckline redo, and one that needs the edging. The last one I am sorely tempted to frog as the yarn is not that well matched to the pattern. A big part of me wants to finish it to see if I am right in my suspicions - a learning opportunity if you will.

SPIN

I spun 1.5 - 2 pounds of fiber. And knit with some of it, too.


PLAN


With all that productivity why do I feel so much like nothing has been done? Could well be the 10 projects +4 baby sweaters that are still in progress. Plus the yarn I purchased as a special order from Huckleberry Knits* for a sweater. I think it is all the projects still to be completed that are making me feel like a slacker. SOOOO.... I am planning on a special type of fiber club for myself this year. It is the 'finish an unfinished project before starting a new project club'. I hope if I alternate back and forth between new and older projects I might just catch up with myself. Stop laughing! You never know.


*PLUG
Huckleberry Knits, found here, here, and here, was not my only love of 2011. It shared the lime light with Dragonfly Fibers found here and here. Scarlet of Huckleberry Knits and Kate of Dragonfly Fibers are both enjoyable people. I had the pleasure of visiting with both of them at Sock Summit 2011. I saw Scarlet at Black Sheep Gathering and Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival, too.

Happy New Year
- Mavis

Mawhata? Mawata !

Finals are next week. Projects and tests are this week. So what am I doing? Dreaming about finishing a few projects that I have underway. You know the ones that have been languishing in project bags for months. The ones I think I will magically finish because of course I won't be working, getting ready for Christmas, trying to finish 3 (or is it 4?, 5?!) baby sweaters.

One project I do want to complete is the Mawata Mitten project I started in May.


Once I've soaked my hands in lotion and talked 3 dogs and a cat to realizing I'm not doing this to play with them - I'll prep a stack of silk squares and get cracking on the mittens. I have it on good word of a Toronto resident that these mittens are WARM. I'm all for that.

-Mavis
Check back with in 2 weeks to see if I have made as much progress as I imagine I will.

single word descriptor

This is not a whinging post!

I would venture to say all three of us can use this descriptor to define the underlying condition of our lives. - Exhaustion.

Isn't it great we share a commonality beyond genetic make up? As different and varied as our lives are we can know we also share a similarity. :-)

Love you guys,
Mavis