Productive Day: Spinning/Plying, Warping Loom, Family History Work, and More!

 Today is Wednesday.  Hurricane Debby came by and scared us into staying home.  Because we were home, other things were done.

First things first: scripture reading, etc, Reviewing Names for FamilySearch, DuoLingo (not a perfect lesson today!).  When these were done, I moved the Ashford E-Spinner off my desk and onto the spinning table and finished the plying I was working on last night before bed.  The height of the desk did bad things to my shoulder and back so the spinning table was important.  Finished those two bobbins-one white, one lavender- and put them soaking.  The skein is now hanging in the shower to dry.

There were about 93 yards in this skein/hank.  This was no-name lavender wool roving I purchased from Amazon.  I hope in future to only purchase fiber I have seen and felt.  When we were living in Vermont, we were fortunate enough to have farmers who sheared their sheep give us the fleeces to skirt, scour, and prepare for spinning.  That was so great.  You could call it free fiber but though that particular farmer did not want any money because he was composting the fleeces, there was a ton of work to prepare them. I am still enjoying the fruits of his kindness and my labors!  Still more roving ready to spin.  So good.  Of course, if any other farmer wants to give me fleeces he or she is not going to use, I won't say no, almost certainly!

Next after the plying, I spent an hour-plus deleting more than 5,000 photos from my Photos app on the computer since that will take them off all devices...AND since I can no longer back up my devices or store photos having used up 200 GB of cloud space, this was important.  It was rather tedious and eventually I just started deleting photos wholesale.  I had been saving pictures of handwork, plants and flowers near us, scenery and animals that had caught my attention.  Well, many of them had to go.  More that 12 GB gone.  I will need to do it again tomorrow.  And tomorrow. And tomorrow....which WILL creep in a petty pace but has to be done!  There are SO MANY DUPLICATES!  Many of them are Dear One's hiking pictures that I backed up on my computer again and again and again...

Of all the things done today, preparing nice meals was not part of the day.  Dear One had Cheerios for breakfast and I ate the leftover dried out meat and cheese grinder from a couple of days ago.  Nasty thing, but...Later on around 3:00 I wrapped two hamburgers in buns in foil leftover from Sunday and put them in the air fryer for ten minutes.  Mine was not quite warm enough but I ate it anyway.  I noticed Dear One had not consumed the last of his and figured he wasn't going to eat it.  Turns out he was getting to a stopping place in his audio book then got up and heated it in the microwave.  Good for him.  Very self-reliant.

Another completed task today:  setting the Lindal Torkle Scarf blocking. I had put it in a bucket of water overnight so I just had to pull it out when I wanted the water bucket for the plied yarn.  The Scarf is now quietly blocking on the guest bed on a laveder towel.

If you click the link above, you will see that the pattern is really pretty nice.  It is all garter stitch and wrap and turns. It amazes me how easy wrap and turns actually are. I had tried them before and had a terrible time with them.  I think all the wrap and turns on the Emotional Support Chicken made the path clear to me finally!

The last big thing I did today was to warp the loom for another string of dish cloths. I had to remind myself of the proper way to do it by watching the Ashford YouTube on simple warping of the rigid heddle loom.  Kate is so clear and easy to follow.

Here is the 16" Ashford Rigid Heddle Loom all warped and with the first dish cloth woven and hemstitched.  I will see if I can be regimented enough to weave and hemstitch one cloth a day until the warp is used up.  I think it is about ten feet.  The white strip at the end of the cloth is a mini-blind I purchased from Walmart and cut up into 16-inch lengths to use in place of the cardboard strips Kate in the video uses.

It is always a good idea to record one's handwork project notes so you can repeat a project that was successful.  In the case, I warped 14 inches on the 16" rigid heddle loom with one strand of white at center then ten slots either side twice then the multicolor.  For the weft I just some leftover dark pink fro ten picks then one white pick, ten more picks, one more white pick, then a final 10 picks and hemstitch to end. I put in one of the mini blind strips to help me have a regular amount of yarn before starting the next cloth tomorow.

Supper was the same old protein shake I have been making for a week or so: 1 cup milk (dairy or non-dairy-yesterday was homemade almond milk, today was dairy milk since I forgot to put the almonds soaking in water this morning), 1 scoop protein powder (this was vegan protein powder by a fluke), 1 heaping Tablespoon unsweetened cocoa, 1/4 cup raw oatmeal, 1 banana, 2 cups ice cubes all thrown into the Vitamix for 60 seconds.  It makes two servings.  Well, it is supposed to be one serving but the two of us find half the amount satisfying enough.

Since I did a major clean-out of the refrigerator on Monday and yesterday emptied all the elderly soft/liquid items into the garbage disposal, I was able to reclaim the jars and wash them in the dishwasher yesterday SO there were plenty to use as Protein Shake Measuring/Beverage Containers.  Dear One is not so thrilled to drink out of canning jars, but he is beginning to be more accepting of my slothful ways...!  If my sister sees this post, she will probably fall over dead to learn that I am actually drinking protein shakes.  Every day! Many years ago she tried to hook me onto them for my health's safe. I complained too much about the flavor or texture or smell of the protein powder and did not drink them.  Well, Sister, now I am in.  I only have made the chocolate ones though I forgot to mention that I also throw in a handful of blueberries.  

Finally I sat down at the computer and entered my second great-grandparents into my genealogy pedigree chart. I have done this multiple times over the years but finally a few months ago I bit the bullet and purchased Reunion Genealogy Software For The Mac.  If you are a genealogy person you know GEDCOM files. I made GEDCOM files of the various family trees I had on my old Windows laptop and am now generation by generation entering the data into a new and clean genealogy file. Tomorrow I hope to find birth, marriage, and death records for each of the people in the first four generations to verify their information.  FamilySearch FamilyTree (familysearch.org for free global family tree where you can enter your own line and find records to back up your information...) is where I have put information over the many years it has been available but I know absolutely that a lot of the information is incorrect. I did not know what I was doing in the beginning...now I know better.  And need to do better and fix errors.  Will take the rest of my life, I am sure.

So now I feel totally virtuous and happy and comfortable about going back to knitting on the Dream Stripe Sweater Test Knit that I am working on.  I managed NOT to sit down and knit at any moment during the day.

May you all be safe and comfortable as Hurricane Debby rages on outside the windows.