Textile Stockpile

It’s funny now to go back and read my previous post.  I’ll give you a quick run down.

August 6th.  The day we originally planned my baby shower for.  I had a feeling it would be too close to my due date (the 25th) so we moved it up to the 23rd of July.   My shower gift from my best friend Leah was a generous gift card to Baby’s R Us that came with the rule that we would go there and use it together.  We met in Lansing, roughly half way between our houses, and spent the whole day together.   We met at a VERY cute little breakfast place near the capital building called Soup Spoon Cafe.  The food was great and inexpensive.  We each left full and satisfied for about $10.  From there we headed to Baby’s R Us and spent a couple hours oohing and aaahing and squealing.  I filled up my cart with necessities and fun things.  We spent a good amount of time looking at the clothes trying to find the perfect outfit to bring the baby home in.  Of course we needed a boy version and a girl version.  I ended up finding a neutral outfit that was cute and snuggly.

After Baby’s R Us we headed out to eat again.  This time Sushi Ya downtown on MSU’s campus. Wow. We didn’t realize we were ordering so much food, but it was literally a boat load of sushi.

The entire day Leah kept rubbing my belly and saying, “Dinger, come out!” and “I want to know who is in there!” And other things along those lines.

After dinner we both headed home with tears in our eyes.  It was a perfect last girls day out together before baby.  I made it home and unloaded all of my purchases.  Took everything out of the packages and ready to wash and put away.  I stayed up late and then fell asleep on the couch.  It was very early Sunday morning, about 4am when I went to bed.  I was laying in bed thinking about the two more weeks of work I had before my due date.  About all the things I still needed to finish before baby-time.  And about how great it would be to have a few days off of work before the baby comes…  When my water broke.

Since it was about 4 or 5 am, I waited a couple hours to text Leah with this message:  “WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?!”

24 hours later my contractions were 5 minutes apart.  We headed to the hospital, meeting our doula there.  Shannon and Leah were there by 10am waiting with my dad and Ryan’s parents. After about 12 hours of labor and 2 and a half hours of pushing, our little girl arrived!

Violet Grace, born August 8 at 7:53pm

7 pounds 12 ounces, 19 1/2 inches

It’s been a while since I’ve poked my head back into my blog.  Without going into a huge laundry list of reasons and excuses, I’ll just say that I have been doing some things here and there.  I did do a bit of knitting and I did get all but one of my Christmas gifts finished.  But mostly I’ve been sleeping.  And not feeling well.

While nothing really has been coming out of my sewing room or off my needles, I have been productive.  You see, I’ve been busy growing a tiny human!

Here’s our little one.  We expect him or her sometime at the end of August.

My mom always told me that she never felt healthier in her life than when she was pregnant with my sister and I.  I always used that as a comparison when I heard pregnant women complaining about this or that.  And I always expected that I would feel the same way.  Healthy and happy.  I am an optimistic person, I always think ‘mind over matter’.  But the very day I took the at-home pregnancy test, I started to feel kinda crappy.  I had a headache for at least three days and didn’t know what I could take for it.  And each day after that was new uncharted territory. No way to tell if it was going to be a good day, a migraine day, an uber tired day or a lovely nausea day.  I never wanted to be one of those complaining pregnant women.  And I was really surprised to find myself not having so much fun during the first trimester.

There is so much to do! So many things I want to sew and knit for this little one and I can’t do anything but sleep!  I am in the last few days of the first trimester, so here’s hoping that it all changes for the next couple months.

Do you have any links for me, anything that I just MUST HAVE for a new summer baby?  I’m working on a quilt, a knitted blanket and a lace cardigan.  I already have the pink cabled cardigan and a dusty blue pullover that I never took a picture of.  Both of these sweaters STILL have no buttons.

And now, completely changing the subject.  I am turning off the snow on the blog.  Seriously… I’ve had enough of it.  While it’s beautiful and cozy out there from the warmth of the inside, I am totally over it.

Ok, I’m being dramatic again.  I am counting down the hours; 3 hours and 2 minutes to be exact, until I leave work and go on my mini vacation.  Everyone at the office has excitedly asked me, “Are you going somewhere warm?!”  I kind of giggle and say, “I’m not going anywhere, just to my sewing room.”  I got a few puzzled looks but a few of my coworkers got pretty excited for me.

I have a list (and still, on the 14th of December, the list is growing!) of at least 12 things to make as Christmas gifts.  I have 4 commissioned bags to finish (ahem, and start).  Two sewn gifts, and 6 things to knit… I think.  MOST of the knitted gifts have been started.  Of course, I can’t show you any of that.  But for the next three and a half days, I’ll be sewing and knitting my little heart out for my loved ones. You can be sure there will be a slew of pictures after Christmas.

To celebrate my little stay-cation or sew-cation I am offering a coupon code for 20% off any item at my Etsy Store!

Use the code VACATION during checkout

There is still time to pick out a great Christmas gift for someone you love or um… yourself!

I am pretty pleased with my accomplishments over the weekend.

Here’s the short version:

Saturday

• Make homemade cake donuts
• try to make Opal a harness so she can go outside
• successfully make harness that doesn’t really fit
• knit while Opal snuggles in my sweatshirt
• visit friends (said friends have an amazing gallery in Brighton where Ryan has his work displayed. The Artisan’s Bench)

Sunday

• poke around a bit in the morning
• attack storage room
• grocery shopping
• make amazing Seafood Bisque from Simply Recipes

Cleaning out the storage room was relatively painless. I was determined to get rid of stuff. It is a big job though and there was A LOT of stuff packed into that room. I’m guessing it is about 10 by 12 feet. The furnace takes up one corner, and two walls have shelving across them. The shelves were totally full of stuff both organized and not organized. There is the usual seasonal stuff: boxes full of ornaments, wrapping paper, Halloween costumes. Things being saved for our future kids. Stuff that was my mom’s that I can’t part with. Tons of papers and pictures, cards and drawings. Clothes that I (unrealistically) hope to fit into again. And a lot of dishes that we put down there to test ourselves to see if we’d need/want them again. We don’t.

I am fine with the storage room shelves being completely full. As long as it is organized and easy to access. What I am not ok with is the HUGE pile of crap all over the floor in the middle of the room. Well, it started out in the middle of the room but soon grew to reach all four walls. That was my main goal. I know what is in all of the boxes because as I’ve been organizing all of our storage I’ve been color-coding everything. Each season I buy a couple of the big Rubbermaid-type totes, red and green for Christmas stuff, orange for Halloween costumes, a purple one for all our wedding stuff, a yellow one for the baby stuff, etc. So I left all that stuff alone, and mainly attacked all the crap on the floor. Most of it is leaving us, either by way of ebay, yard sale or salvation army. (patting myself on the back)

Here’s the shocker. I got rid of art. I had THREE portfolios full of some pretty awful art I did in college. All kinds of ugly still lives, quick drawings, assignments I suffered through, things I’d be embarrassed to sign my name to. Some of them, though, are pretty funny. Don’t freak out, I did keep some of my favorites and all the paintings (good and bad) but the rest hit the trash can. Most of this art was done before my “ah-ha!” moment of realizing fiber and textiles are in my BLOOD. I am NOT a painter, I am NOT a still life draw-er, I am NOT a portraiteur (I may have made that word up. it makes sense in my head).

Of course I am going to share a lot of it with you though!
First, the stuff I threw out. (click images for big versions)

Assignment: sit in hallway and draw what you see	Assignment: draw realistic chair, then add background of your choice
Still life assignment in pencil	Still life assignment in charcoal

Assignment: draw another class member in black & white and in color

Ok, so all of those are gone, some are bad to the point of funny, others are just boring and not worth keeping. The one of the close up on the corner of a hallway was an awful assignment. We spent THREE weeks on it. I had class twice a week for 3 hours, that’s a total of 18 hours on that one drawing. I do not have the patience to spend 18 hours on a drawing, I got bored with it very fast and wrote notes to my then boyfriend, did homework for other classes and possibly took a few naps. I was smart enough to pick a hallway on the 4th floor, far from my classroom so I could get away with all of that.

The drawing of the chair I think is pretty good. Can you tell I have always been a quilter? Read on, there is more proof coming.

Here is some stuff I kept.

This assignment was from a 2-D design class. We were given two four-inch squares of black paper. We had to use each square in it’s own composition on a 5 by 7 inch piece of white paper. One had to be deconstructed in a way to totally hide that it was ever a square, the other had to keep the characteristics of the original square. You can see on the left that I used an exacto knife and totally annihilated that four inch square. It was quite tedious and my professor was quite impressed. I really love the composition on the right too. I got an A on both.

The next couple are from the only printmaking class I took. I really liked the idea of printmaking. I mean, you have one great idea, that if it were fabric, you make one quilt and sell it. In printmaking, like photography, you can have one great idea, make 50 of them and sell all 50! But the skill and time and attention to detail (and amount of cleanup!) required was not in me.

The woodblock print was inspired by the cut paper assignment above. I didn’t get a very good grade on it. The composition is not that great, although my execution was quite good. Can I also say that wood block prints are the most un-fun thing. It is not easy… splinters, blisters, sore muscles. no thanks.
I love the screen print on the right though. It is the abstract (as abstract as I get) of the silhouette of a woman and the swirl is a baby that is connected to her heart. I still love this design. I think I have 9 or so prints of it in varying degrees of quality.

This next picture is of the first screen print I ever did. It’s pretty obvious I had never screen printed anything before, or I probably would not have chosen this design. Ryan and I were dating for less than a year at this point. He was in a band called Human Wick Effect (another name for spontaneous human combustion) and they had a big show coming up at The Blind Pig. So I designed this poster as an advertisement for that show. I still really love this design too, even though my execution was poor.

So those are the things I kept. This next group falls somewhere in between. There was a long period of time that I did this style of art, before I made my first quilt or even had my own sewing machine. This is the art I liked doing in my free-time. I couldn’t just toss this stuff away, even though I didn’t want to display it or store it.

The subject matter was generally a parent and a kid or a small family, or just one figure holding up a heart. The figure was always a solid color – generally purple, because it assigned no gender. Then for the background I would start in one corner and draw a squiggled line so that it covered the whole area around the figure. I’d color in one side of the line in one color and the other side in another. I think a lot of this was out of boredom, and just that need to make something and not having a real good idea, or the ability to draw a human with any accuracy at all. It is apparent, to me anyway, that I was more interested in the color and pattern than I was in the subject matter. Sound like a quilt to anyone? Even that squiggley line is just like the free motion quilting I do on all my T-shirt bags.

Since I don’t care to keep this stuff but can’t bear to part with it, I extend an offer.  For the price of shipping the artwork to you, you can have it.  Basically free.  Some are matted, some are just the heavy Bristol paper I drew on.  If you see anything you like leave a comment and we will make arrangements.  With the exception of the large piece, I don’t think any of them would be more than $5 to $10 by media mail. (well packaged and protected of course.)

The weekend is here!  It’s here and I am totally unprepared for it!  Not that I ever really prepare for a weekend but we have NO plans this weekend.  Therefore, I have SO MANY ideas in my head of how productive I could be this weekend. So many that I can’t decide what to do and I have a feeling that I will do a little bit of everything and not really accomplish anything to a satisfying degree.

Here are a few of the contenders.

1.)  I was reading the Empress of Dirt’s blog which was introduced to me by my mom-in-law this week.  She has a series of four posts about her adventures in Simplicity, Purging (not the gross kind) and De-Cluttering.  I read it and it really hit home.  I have SO much stuff.  We have a whole bedroom in our basement that is FULL of stuff we rarely use.  So much that I don’t know what is down there and I know that most of it is “mine”.  We have had two garage sales since we’ve lived in this house and we have sold and donated a lot of stuff.  But there is still so much more.

2.)  I guess this next option is contradictory to the first.  Or, more likely, that first option is contradictory to this and all the following options.  We got this cool old table/dry sink from a friend who was getting rid of it. I LOVE it!

We’ve had it for over a year and it’s had a couple homes and uses in our house, but it has spent the last six months or so in the garage.  I was waiting for nice weather so that I could scrape, sand and repaint it.  I also recently decided I wanted it to be a desk, instead of using it with the bowl (bowl not pictured).  That would require replacing the top surface, so it doesn’t have a hole in it.  It doesn’t hold a lap top very well the way it is now.  The backsplash piece is pretty damaged and would need to be replaced too.  This sounds like a big job, so I haven’t started it yet.  But I have a whole weekend free. I could probably get it totally finished by Monday.  I even found some great knobs that would work for the two drawers.

3.) Knitting.  I don’t think I need to say much else about that.  I would also really like to do nothing but knit all weekend.

The whisper cardigan is about 6″ of stockinette away from being finished.  That sock is FAR from being finished.  There are plenty more things on the needles and an embarrassing number of things in my head that I want to cast on.

4.) The last of the major contenders is a living being!  It’s not Bella, (though she is moving up the list quickly) and it’s not Ryan… duh duh duh daaaaa!

Opal is a 2-1/2 month old Abysinian Guinea Pig.  She is still pretty nervous around us and Bella is not making it easier.  Bella will not leave the cage alone, she is so curious.  Unfortunately her curiosity includes barking, whimpering and um… lip licking.  I had Opal on my lap last night and Bella was sitting in front of me begging, just like she does when we’re eating.  So I also would like to play with Opal and get her better acquainted with Bella, or at least get to a point where Bella isn’t so jealous of Opal. That’s not going to happen in just two days, but it would be a start.

So those are my four big options.  There are many others that are floating around in my head including cleaning the sewing room (again – never ending), sewing, starting at least 3 different quilts…  I could go on, but I’ll stop.  I think you can probably relate.

I have a couple secrets I’ve been keeping. It’s all gift stuff; a knitting project and a quilt. But the quilt is done and has been given, so I can talk about it now. The knitting project will have to wait until the beginning of 2011. Gift Recipient, I think you know who you are!

I don’t recall if I mentioned it here, but a month or so ago my dad had to put our family dog down. She was very old and definitely in pain. I think putting her down was long overdue but that is always a hard decision and much easier to say when it is not your sole decision to make. Not that I haven’t, regretfully (and simultaneously thankfully) made that decision in the past.

Dakota was quite the terror as a puppy. She used to chase our feet and bite our toes. Not exactly in a playful puppy kind of way. She ate countless pairs of shoes, board games and the living room coffee table. She never came when called and she was, for the most part, indifferent toward her human family. But she was my mom’s baby. In Dakota’s later years, she started to become more of a “people-dog” (I think there are “people-dogs” just the way that there are “dog-people” and “cat-people”) and was more interested in her human companions as more than just the ones that fill her food bowl. I think she even liked it when we brought Bella over. They had their own brand of playing together. Dakota would play in short bursts of energy and Bella would play constantly around her. It was quite impressive for a dog that never really got along with other dogs. (so Dakota was neither a people-dog nor a dog-dog…) Shannon was definitely more fond of the dog than I ever was. Dakota and I had a complicated relationship since the first night when I begged for this cute little 7 week old Dakota to PLEASE sleep in my bed with me… and then she peed. In my bed. Twice.

After Daddy put Dakota down he brought over a bag of bandannas and other assorted dog items for us. He would not be getting another dog and had no use for any of Dakota’s things. We never really put bandannas on Bella because she has so much fur that it looks kinda funny and she doesn’t really like it. I would make a quilt out of them instead and give it to Shannon. I washed them all and laid them out in the sewing room. They were quite a mismatch of colors and design. I picked out the ones that I recognized her wearing the most and they sort of matched, in a very loose definition of the word. I threw in a couple that definitely did not match and just threw it together on the fly.

After it was all pieced I really didn’t like it and was starting to prepare the disclaimer that Shannon would get when I gave the finished quilt to her. “It’s not really that pretty, it’s just sentimental. You don’t have to hang it or display it in your living room, maybe just use it in your bedroom. It’s really soft and cozy… ”

I layered it with the batting and a sarong that I found at my dad’s that I recognized as being Shannon’s when we were younger. I picked out a variegated thread to use for quilting and started to just free-motion quilt it all over. To my surprise, the variegated thread really helped bring all the mismatched bandannas together and it was becoming less ugly.

The whole thing went really quickly and really showed me how much I can get done in a day if I have a deadline and no one is around to bug me. I have quite a few UFO’s in a box somewhere that I need to apply this realization to.

center detail

Edge detail

Shannon seemed to really like it. She liked it sentimentally of course and if she didn’t like it aesthetically… she hid it very well.

Just a quickie post before I head home to start the weekend.  Here’s a funny little story from last weekend.

Hubby Ryan and I are riding in his truck. I’m playing with Twitter on my phone (yes, he’s driving).

Me: You know who is surprisingly TERRIBLE at Twitter?!

Ryan: um… you?

Me: NO!  I am AWESOME at Twitter, Leah told me so.  And you can ask any one of my THIRTY-EIGHT followers!

Ryan:  [laughs] no, who then?

Me: Martha Stewart!

Ryan: give me an example, why is she so bad?

Me: Her tweets are just boring. I thought I’d be learning tips on how to better clean my floors or secret ways of tying ribbon, but no, it’s mostly her begging for people to watch her on The View or call in and ask her questions on her radio show.  And she has a surprising number of spelling and grammar mistakes.

Ryan: How many followers does she have?

Me: …. oh…. um… one million, nine hundred sixty four thousand, two hundred ninety eight…

Ryan:  … yeah, she could probably learn a thing or two from you.

A Story of Love, Sacrifice and Yarn

The decision has been made for quite some time now; at least a year.  I decided to sell my weaving loom.

My relationship with the loom is a sentimental and emotional one.  The short version is my mom gave me the loom for my birthday.  It was really expensive and she didn’t care.  We didn’t have room for it in the house and she didn’t care.  She didn’t think my dad would approve of spending that much on a birthday gift for a hobby that may just be a phase and she didn’t care.  Selling it may have broken her heart, or she may have understood.  But I will never know.  Selling it will be hard.  I will probably cry.  I may be tearing up right now…

I put it out at our garage sale last summer.  I made flyers to hang in yarn shops and other bulletin boards.  I passed the flyer along to friends who have other fiber-friends.  I posted ads on Craigslist.  I got a few responses just from the Craigslist ad, some of them spammers and a few asking for more info and of course if my price was at all flexible.

A couple weeks ago I was here at work with a lull in activity and I had an idea.  I thought I’d whip up a quick couple paragraphs detailing the what, how and why of me and the loom and then post that on Craigslist.  My quick couple paragraphs soon turned into a 1,500 word essay; a novella if you like.  It just flowed out of me like a free-writing exercise with correct punctuation and grammar (for the most part, I’m no English major).  Somehow I had that whole 3-page story written, edited and posted in less than a half hour. With no tears or even a shred of emotion.

Amazingly, I think it worked.  I have at least 3 people that want to come see it.  One this weekend and the other two women are waiting to hear what the 1st one decides.  I could nearly have a bidding war if I finagled it that way. (but I won’t)

I was telling my friend, Kristy, a couple days ago about my story and my posting it on Craigslist and the huge difference in responses I’ve gotten between just the normal For Sale ad and the Story with For Sale note at the bottom. We wondered why this ad was getting more visits and why I was getting more responses.  Responses with actual potential for panning out.

Kristy had not read the story or seen the ad.  We were just hanging out at her house and while she was cleaning up she asked me to read it aloud to her.  I thought for half a second, wondering if I would be able to read it without crying.  I figured since I wrote the thing without a big freak-out, I could read it that way as well.

It started out fine.  We laughed, we rolled our eyes and Kristy complimented my writing.  Then I got to that whole death part.  Wow.  It was so different reading it out loud.  I completely lost it.  We both cried.  I read one sentence at a time, pausing to take deep breaths.  Blinking hard to clear the tears and swallowing hard to try to keep them contained.

After I read the story, we were quiet for a minute.  Through sniffles I said, “ok, I get it”.  We looked at each other and laughed.  Kristy agreed.  Something about making the seller into a real human and the item for sale into a treasured possession, not just some old thing ready to be kicked to the curb.  I think also for making the potential purchaser into a human as well.  More like I am looking for someone to adopt my beloved loom; and less like I just want it out of my house and will sell it to the first schmo who comes along.

So here’s the story.  Like I said, it’s kinda long but worth it.  Also, if it doesn’t make you cry, you have no soul.  On that note… Enjoy!

Not so long ago, in a town not so far away there lived a girl named Candice.  She was a student at Eastern Michigan University in the Textiles Department where she learned to weave.  She loved this new skill and quickly became obsessed; as she had before with quilting, sewing, knitting and all of her other hobbies.

She regularly came home to her mother with stories of the glory of weaving with the beautiful woven scarves and table runners to prove it.  Anything between delicate lace, bulky wool singles, roving and even scrap fabric could be woven through the long warp ends.  It was amazing and magical how yarn thrown back and forth with a simple over-under-over-under could create fabric and beautiful garments.

Candice’s mother was enthralled with the process she was learning about from her daughter.  She saw the sparkle in Candice’s eyes when she talked about weaving and decided then that Candice must have her own loom.   Candice’s birthday was coming up and no other gift would be acceptable.  And not just any loom.  A 24-inch LeClerc 8-shaft Compact Floor Loom.

Candice’s mom located the perfect loom, paid for it and had it delivered in time for the birthday celebration.  She told the man at the loom shop that it was to be a surprise birthday gift for her daughter and to please not call the house.  The man did call the house though and left a message on the answering machine.  One spring day, a week before her birthday Candice innocently checked the answering machine.  There was a message from the man with the loom.  He had a question about the time of delivery of the large birthday gift.  Candice was at once excited and disappointed.  She was excited to learn of the amazing gift she was about to receive but of course disappointed to learn of it this way and ruin what was sure to be a great surprise.

Candice left the message on the machine, as to not let on that she had accidentally snooped out her birthday gift.  She went on with her day and in the next week tried to forget about the message she heard.  But she couldn’t forget, she was too excited.

Finally the day of her birthday celebration arrived and she was surrounded by her immediate family; mom, dad, sister and her boyfriend of nearly three years.  As usual, birthdays entailed the dinner of the birthday-girl’s choice and the onslaught of presents followed by cake and ice cream.  The other birthday ritual in her family was the constant teasing of the birthday-girl, making her think her birthday was actually forgotten and there were no presents.  “Presents… What presents?  It’s not like it’s your birthday or something…”

After dinner they all helped clear off the table and sat back down for the gift portion of the evening.  Mom continued with the “what presents?” act as she turned toward her studio to bring out an armload of meticulously wrapped packages.  Admittedly the armload was much smaller than it had been in all 23 of her previous birthdays; she knew why, but didn’t say anything.  After these few presents were opened the hilarious act of, “ok, that’s all you get” continued.

Mom always kept the birthday cake in her studio because it was “colder than a witch’s tit” in there until summer when it instantly turned “hotter than hell”.  She asked Candice to go in the studio and see if someone remembered to make her a cake.  Of course she knew there would be a cake and she also knew that this is how she would be presented with her birthday loom.  Candice turned the corner of the studio doorway and saw the giant piece of equipment covered with a sheet.  She instantly panicked that her feigned excitement would be obvious.  She gasped and muttered a few Oh My Gods and with her eyes wide turned back around to see her mom just beaming with happiness.  There was nothing mom loved more than spoiling her girls.  She was also thrilled that her eldest daughter had grown to love fiber, sewing and all things creative just like her mom and that was something they could share.

In the weeks that followed Candice set up the loom, dressed it and made a few basic things.  A baby blanket for a friend’s new babe, a few small scarves and a big big mess.  The only space in the house they could set up the loom was in the middle of mom’s own studio, which was just a spare bedroom off the dining room and only about 12 foot square.  It was jam-packed already before the loom showed up, but mom would sacrifice that space for her daughter’s new endeavor.  It had the added bonus of them both working in a small space together.  It was both frustrating and cozy at the same time.

Fast forward to that autumn, Candice started a new job and looking for her own apartment.  Over the next three years she moved through three apartments, taking the loom with her each time.  The loom, while loved sentimentally for the great gift that it was, was loosing it’s luster for Candice.  The time that weaving required was just not available when there were so many other hobbies to attend to.  Not to mention having a full time job and continuing her college education in the evenings.  Add onto that a relationship that was developing into a long-term commitment and all the family functions and responsibilities that come with it and Candice’s free time was vanishing quickly.

Over the next couple years Candice and her then boyfriend bought a house together. The loom of course came with her into the new house and was well cared for, but never used.  After more than three years of not using the loom Candice started thinking about selling it.  She couldn’t bare to tell her mom that she was losing interest in weaving, especially after Candice learned of the very big fight that ensued after her dad found out how much this birthday gift had cost.  The cost of the loom was more than financial at that point because Candice’s mom had not consulted her husband before purchasing such an extravagant gift.

This is where the story takes an unexpected and shocking turn.  In 2008 Candice’s mom died suddenly.  There would be no more birthday gifts from her, small or large.  Christmas had lost its appeal and nothing would ever be the same.  Even all of Candice’s favorite hobbies; the things that made her tick, the things that comforted her always, were not able to pull her out of her funk.  Everything seemed a little dulled around the edges.

It only took about nine months for Candice to go back to thinking about selling the loom. This time though, the pain was not in talking to her mom about wanting to sell the gift.  The pain came in that the loom was now a sentimental symbol of her mother’s love and sacrifice.  And although she hadn’t woven anything in more than 3 years, she was confused about keeping it or selling it.  She went back and forth with the decision and posted ads in a few places, secretly hoping no one would respond but at the same time just wanting the ordeal to be over with.

When someone responded that they wanted the loom and would be in town the following weekend to look at it and probably purchase it, her heart ached.  She dreaded having to watch the loom being carried out to a stranger’s truck and driving away.  When the deal fell through she was relieved.  The relief quickly turned to disappointment and back again to relief.  Candice was still conflicted on what to do.

It has now been one year and seven months since the death of her mother and Candice still has the loom and it has been at least five years since anything has been woven on it.  Many ads have been circulated (but not at JoAnn Fabrics because they would not let her post her For Sale flyer), emails have been exchanged but there has been no sale of the loom.

Candice is ready now for the loom to move on to a new home.  A home where it will be loved and well cared for.  Beautiful things will again be made and worn by people that love fiber as much as Candice and her mother did.  The loom will always remain in her heart and be a wonderful memory of the thoughtfulness and love of her dear mommy.

24-inch
8-harness, 10-treadle
Compact LeClerc Weaving Loom
FOR SALE

More info and pics available.
$850

Email Candice using the link above if you are interested in the loom.

Or visit http://www.textilestockpile.com if you liked this story and would just like to read more about Candice and her fiber adventures with and without her mom.

So that’s my story.  Someone is coming to look at the loom on Saturday and I will be strong… again.

How does that happen? I got out of work at 3 on Friday afternoon and had Saturday, Sunday and Monday off work but it flew by and seemed jam-packed full of (self-imposed) obligations. Here’s a rundown with many pictures!

Friday I went to Value World on my way home and bought quite a few t-shirts. I tried to get pairs that coordinated so that I could make bags out of everything I got right away. I am running out of storage space for all these mis-matched shirts. I also seem to have a problem using things I already have (I have the same issue with needing new fabric or yarn for a project and not pulling from the stash). So once the shirt for the outside of the bag is filed away in a box somewhere it is very unlikely to become a bag any time soon. Buying shirts that are cool enough for the outside and also finding a shirt for the inside at the same time ensures I’ll make a bag right away and not have to store anything but one bag that is ready to sell.  That is…  if I go home and make the bag right away, which is not the easiest part of the equation.

Friday night I went with a friend to watch her jump out of a plane. That was fun and exciting. I’ve watched the skydivers in Tecumseh before but never anyone I knew. And we were there for quite a while as she suited up and went over the instructions again. We got to watch SO many people jump out of planes! The instructors hit the ground and run to the back, throw on another suit and come out just in time to go up again. I’d say if you like to jump out of planes then being an instructor just might be the perfect job.

Saturday I had planned to get right to work in the sewing room but we were completely out of food.  Basically we had eggs and condiments in the fridge.  I can’t believe I was dumb enough to venture out to the grocery store on a Saturday during a holiday weekend.  I spent more than three hours including drive time and the stop at Tim Horton’s for coffee and a donut.  (I said we had NO FOOD…)  Boy is it expensive to totally re-stock your kitchen!  Yikes.  So the grocery trip pretty much blew my Saturday.  When I got home Ryan and I played with Bella who had been neglected for a couple days, at least in her opinion.  She could get walked four times a day and play ball in the yard for HOURS and still appear to be a pitifully neglected dog.

After that we had just enough time to pack up a picnic dinner and hit the road.  We went to Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn for the Salute to America Concert with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.  It is an outdoor concert and the finale is the William Tell 1812 Overature with live cannon fire!  Followed by fireworks with orchestral accompaniment.  They played two Sousa marches that I recognized from my days in the high school marching band. That was fun to hear.  I could still remember some of the key parts of the Semper Fidelis March where my section turned at the 30 yard line. Ah, I’m such a nerd.

The concert was so much fun and I am so glad we went!  They have this show every 4th of July weekend and I’ve wanted to go for a very long time.

I was really surprised that we got home as early as we did.  For the over 5,000 people they said were at the concert, there were basically no traffic problems!  So we were home by 11pm.

I finally made it into the sewing room on Sunday to start on the T-shirt bags. I picked out 5 combos and started cutting up shirts and fusing them to the batting.  I decided to do 5 together, assembly line style.  I got 5 fronts/backs cut out and quilted.

Sunday night we headed to Ryan’s hometown for his mom’s birthday.  We visited with family and watched fireworks on their street.  Nearly everyone on the block was out doing their own little firework display.  LOTS of BIG fireworks.  We came with our $9 box of dinky fireworks from the grocery store, but all the neighbors had big rockets and all kinds of illegal things.

After all the busy-ness of the actual weekend, I declared Monday MY day.  My day to get some stuff done.  Ryan had to work, so I knew I could get up and into the sewing room and get to work.  Well… in theory anyway.  I had my alarm set for 8.  I thought I’d just lay there for a while and enjoy not getting up and going to work.  At 10:30 I woke back up and cursed my laziness.  I had a leisurely morning and was out of the shower and ready for the day by noon.  Then I was hungry.  Finally by 1:00 I was in the sewing room.  I moved some stuff around and left again.  I decided since it was such a hot and humid day I should dye some fabric.  The heat is supposed to make the dye more brilliant, darker or better somehow.

I got some great results! I had no plan and just grabbed colors and threw them in willynilly. I didn’t take any notes and have no idea what colors I used where. I did three buckets using the parfait method from Ann Johnston’s Color by Accident book. I used 1 to 2 Tablespoons of dye powder per 1 cup of warm water. I left the buckets to sit in the sun for a couple hours and rinsed them well in the sink before throwing them all in the washer set to HOT on an extra long cycle.

My intention for the weekend was to get as many bags done as I could to prepare for the Stockyard Stomp on July 10th. Ryan and I are both participating in the show and I want to have as much to sell as possible. I’ve never taken my bags anywhere to sell, so it should be fun to see how people (who aren’t related to me) like them. And I am so excited because yesterday I had an epiphany of how to display the bags! I had been trying to come up with something that related to them being T-shirts and all I could come up with was somehow hanging them from clothes hangers. My Ah-Ha moment: dresser drawers! I threw it together for a quick photo this morning.

Dresser drawer full of T-shirt bags!

I think it will be perfect! and so easy too because I can use the drawers to transport the bags too and not need any other boxes to keep them in.

In theory, I should have been able to get at least 10 to 15 or more bags done in a three day weekend.  In reality, I started 5 and have three evenings after work to finish them.  The fabric I dyed on Monday was intended to cut into fat quarters, bundle them in pretty color combos and sell those too.  Now that they are dry and sitting in a pretty pile in my sewing room…  of course I want to keep them.  If nothing else I WILL finish the 5 bags before Saturday.  I will.

Saturday morning I went out to the garden and snapped a few pictures to post here.  Everything is growing like crazy!  I have never grown any kind of lettuce before so I wasn’t sure when it would be ready to harvest.  After I took the pictures, I meant to go inside and find the seed packet to see if there was any information on when to pick it.  And then I went inside and did something else and forgot about my lettuce.

A couple hours later I went outside to play ball with Bella for a little while and she wanted nothing to do with it.  She was preoccupied with her head down a rabbit hole (sure hope it’s a rabbit, not a skunk or raccoon).  So I went to the garden to see if anything had happened in the last couple hours since I checked last.  And boy did something happen!  Most of the lettuce was gone!  Someone had had quite a feast and nibbled most of the lettuce plants down to about an inch tall, sparing a few leaves here and there.

Freckled Romaine at 10 A.M.

Freckled Romaine 4 P.M.

I am only slightly perturbed by this because

1. I tasted the lettuce when it was only 2 inches or so tall and it was bitter. I was hoping that it would get sweeter as it grew, but I tasted it on Saturday and it did not.

2. Only half of it was eaten by this bun bun, and I immediately harvested what was left and ended up
with a gallon size ziploc bag, half full.

3. Bunnies are really cute.  Especially when they chew.  Although I didn’t get to see any of the cuteness, I can imagine it was pretty adorable.

I think there is some kind of spray I can get to spray the perimeter of the garden to keep the bunnies out.  I’ll have to look into that before it starts on the carrots, zucchini and strawberries.  The first year of our garden I had acorn squash that the bunnies couldn’t decide about.  Each squash had one or two nibbles out of it.  As if the bun expected the next one to taste better than the last.  I couldn’t tell you how the squash tasted because the bunny had more of it than I did.

I have no segue to the next topic, so here is a picture of my patriotic pup.

A couple weeks ago I had mentioned to Ryan that I wanted to start saving money for a ‘real’ camera.  A digital SLR camera that is more flexible than the point-and-shoot one I have.  I totally love my digital camera, it is small and so easy to use, it takes great pictures for my website and really great close-ups.  But I wanted something that I could get a little more… um… artsy with, I guess.  or just have more control over what gets the most attention, that is, being able to focus in on something in the foreground and leave the background stuff a bit out of focus.  Fast Forward to last Tuesday, this same thought popped into my head again and I clicked onto Craigslist on the camera page and there, right at the top was a just-posted listing for an old camera.  Camera, plus 3 lenses, a tele-converter (makes zoom lenses even zoomier!) and the flash.  All for $50.  Yeah…  That’s gotta be at least $1000 worth of equipment.  For $50.  I emailed the guy immediately and said I’d pick it up on Saturday.

Ryan and I drove the 5 or so miles to pick it up and here it is:

As of right now the camera bag I am using is…  a brown grocery bag.  If you read my last post you can guess what my next project will be.  I don’t think I need to say anything else about that.

Did I mention I have absolutely no knowledge of photography?  I have the camera and accessories packed into my brown bag and am going to my dad’s today after work for a primer.  My dad had quite the eye back in the day and took lots of great pictures with an old Ricoh that my sister now uses.

Just what I need, right?  Another hobby…  Bella thinks it’s funny too.