You Learn Something Every Day!

 At least you do on a good day.  My Dear One points out to me periodically that my middle name is Oblivious. I have to say that I almost always find that he is correct.

Last week was time to wash my socks. I had soaked them in a tub of Eucalan wool wash then dumped them out to start draining. When it came time to squeeze them out I could not do it. My hands were just not strong enough.  What to do?

For some reason I thought of all the European washing machines that have a gentle wool cycle.  I went to our tiny laundry room and looked at our washer.  This is what I found:

There was the exact cycle I needed: Drain and Spin!! I had never seen it before! So I threw in all the pairs of wet clean socks and started the machine going.  When the cycle was over I laid the slightly damp socks on a towel on the edge of the bathtub.

This worked great!! Now I can have freshly washed hand knit and compression socks way more often…save up all the dirty socks, put them to soak in wool wash, empty the tub of wool wash and socks, return socks to plastic tub then throw in washer and turn on the Drain and Spin cycle. Let ‘em roll! In no time at all there will be clean damp socks and by the next morning a whole raft of clean socks to put in the drawer and wear. 

I was about to start on another mammoth hand-knit socks project. Now I can wait a while and finish up some of the currently on-the-needles projects. This is pretty important since my recent monogamous knitting scheme has gone to heck and I have so many things I am working on that I am about going over the edge…must finish quickly then get back to monogamy! I had found that a very relaxing and productive way to fill my knitting needs!

So happy I learned this new thing one day last week.  A new day has dawned.  What will I learn tomorrow?!

Time For Painting Lessons, Or Practice...

 The last few years I have made birthday cards using a gelli plate and acrylic paints.  This year I thought I would do something different.  I love flowers so I thought I would try painting flowers.  Using gouache, a medium I have not used before!  Here are my first efforts.  Pitiful, but I have not shame and am sending them anyway, even though they are late.

This I call the Purple Flower, though it is not a real flower, just an inkling of a flower.

This orange and red "flower" shows what happens when you don't let the paint dry before adding more.

This flower shows the effects of wind blowing on the blossoms. At least that was my intention...

There is no telling what the recipients of these cards will think, but still, I did have fun painting them.  I just purchased a book about painting.  I think it is time to open it up!!!

Spring on our Table!

 Dear friends came to visit on Saturday. They brought the best gift: a vase with tulips growing in it.

The bulbs sit with their roots in water. There is a plastic disk holding the bulbs up out of the water so they don’t rot. Just the roots are in water.

This beauty is what we woke up to this morning.  So wonderful.

Spring is Coming!

 On Saturday we stepped out our front door and by a fluke we looked down!  There we saw real evidence that Spring is coming.

This is a sweet tender mercy from our Father in Heaven.  I did not remember that we had spring bulbs in the ground.

Heart Wreath

 Today I spent a lot of time at the Brother KX 350. It was so satisfying to figure out how to finish the wreath project. It took a few tries but managed it in the end.

What needed to happen was that the stitches needed to be rehung on the needles to add the extra 110 rows. When that was done—with lots of claw weights hanging!—the two ends needed to be hung on the needles for a sort of three-needle bind off. To do that I used two 16-inch US 4 circular knitting needles to pick up one side of each stitch. With both needles full of stitches I then hung both ends-one stitch from each end per stitch. I was concerned that the carriage would not work but it did.

Back To The Drawing Board!

 We have had a heart-shaped wreath base for some little time-maybe two years. I de used it was time to make it into an actual wreath. Since we had no pink yarn I went ro Hobby Lobby yesterday and made an acquisition.  Last night I caked the yarn up while the tv was running (I was not that interested in Survivor so caking up yarn was good to do.)

This afternoon I knitted a strip of wreath knitting on the Brother 350 knitting machine. It was rather taxing because I have not used the machine in months and sort of had to re-learn how to operate it.  In my mind I thought if I cast on 32 stitches then ran 20 rows of each color it would be good. Soon I realized I needed more so I knitted 10 more rows of each color then bound off. Sadly that was not enough.

Today is done. I am shot. Just back from the FamilySearch Center with Dear One and could barely make it up the stairs to the upstairs knitting chair. The daffodil yarn arrived today but it will have to wait for another day.

Health Note! Next week I have an unpleasant procedure coming up. Well, the procedure should be no problem as they put you out cold here apparently. It is the preparation that is unpleasant. AND here they have you prepare a whole week beforehand by not eating anything that we usually eat-no vegetables, no fruit, no whole grains, no beans, no nuts, no seeds, no nothing, sort of. So I may spend the week eating chocolate…at least I will think of that!

Crochet For A Change…

 For ages I have wanted to knit some nice flowers for a dining room table bouquet. Today I crocheted a lavender stem. Not perfect but good enough for today!

As you notice I got done before I actually finished with weaving in. There was a reason for that but do not fear…I will do the weaving in. The pattern calls for hot glue gun usage. Not thrilled with that idea but may need to resort to it eventually.

Learning Curves...

 The first of anything--hour of the day, day of the week, week of the month, etc--is a great time to make changes for the better.  Being a new day and a new month in a new year is especially propitious for these changes.

There are multiple places on social media encouraging us to improve our health this new year.  I bought into it.  So I did it!  And thus enjoyed, in a manner of speaking, the beginning of a new learning curve.

Before the end of the last year I saw challenges to walk a mile every day in January so I decided to do it.  On New Year's Day I got up, did my morning ritual (bathroom, health numbers, scripture reading, reviewed names on the Get Involved App from FamilySearch.org, DuoLingo), made a pot of oatmeal with raisins and cinnamon (and ate a good serving) as per The Oatmeal Cure--more on that later--, put my headset on, got the big stroller out of the truck bed where we store it, turned on Map My Walk, and started out.

It was a great morning for a walk.  Fresh air, a little cloudy, not a lot of people out driving around after a night of potentially carousing in the New Year, just a perfect time to walk.  I put on a book I have been reading: The New Testament Environment by Eduard Lohse and really enjoyed myself.  My idea was to walk the whole perimeter of our housing complex...to get in a mile of walking AND to find out how far it was around that perimeter.

May I say that it was a great walk for the first while: past MonaLisa's house, up Niblick,  left on Glenmorangie, then onto Masters out to US 15, back down Masters to Talisker then picked up the other end of Master, left onto Macallan, and then a problem struck: the top of my left foot began to call my name. In a most unpleasant way.  I was almost to Abelour where I would turn left to move into the second part of the perimeter.  I could either take Abelour or continue straight, go past Niblick/Lagavulin  and then to our street, OR I could just keep walking along the greenspace by the neighbor's house and get home pretty fast.  Each step along Macallan said, "Go home faster..."  so I did.  

When I got home I actually did fold up the stroller and reinstall it in the truck bed before squeezing past the truck and into the house where I sat in my wonderful 40-year-old rocker.  And stayed there for an hour or more.  The bad news is that I did not complete my quest.  The good news is that it was 1.37 miles so that part of the goal was accomplished.  As I sat there recovering I decided that I would go past MonaLisa's house and turn left over the dam to complete the perimeter walk going the other direction the next day.  Did not happen.  Some part of that same leg's knee caused me fits.  

As far as health goals go, I have a fair amount to learn.  Often I get excited and do more than turns out to be reasonable.  On 2 January I did no perimeter walk but I did have to go out and did store walking or rather store sauntering and got in nearly an hour of that.  Still, that knee screamed at me.

Now it is 3 January.  I am trying to gird up my loins to try the second half of the perimeter.  There are some housecleaning goals I have for today so I am unsure about the wisdom of doing the perimeter walk but we shall see.  (I get deflected by pain. And many other things...)

On the First after dragging myself back up to my knitting chair I worked on a project for the kind friend who had come over the previous Friday and pruned the Abelia bushes in front of the house.  I had decided to make him a hat.  This is the hat I made:

The hat is called the Boxed Button Hat by Cori Eichelbeharger of Irocknits.  The little squares between the upright sections of Knit 2 stitches are meant to have nifty buttons sewed on.  My friend, being an adult male, did not seem like a person who wanted sheep buttons or fish pole buttons or rainbow buttons or any other cool buttons installed, so I did not do it.  His wife can sew them on if he wants them...!

Because we had some nice white Patons Classic Wool yarn  (the same wool as the red) left from the Christmas Advent Stocking knit along, and since I had just heard someone speaking of corrugated ribbings, I decided to make a corrugated rib.  Starting from a place of no knowledge.  I just did it.

Not such a great idea!  

You will notice that even though there is a ribbing on the hat, the edge curls out as all stockinette work does.  While sleeping it came to me to crochet on a single crochet edging to see if that would straighten it out.  You can see by the completed hat that it did.

So today you see learning curves in both walking and knitting!

What I learned about knitting corrugated ribbing:  the cast on needs to be be followed by a round of plain knitting before starting the corrugation.  At least that is what I am going to try on my next hat to see if that solves the problem.  Stay tuned. More yarn is on the way and I plan to make four hats soon. It may be that the cast on should be two-color.  I may try that, too.