Trip project

For this trip, I packed every little bit of Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride worsted that I could find in the house. It's fun on road trips, because I can take lots to work with, and my palette is extended.

I'm planning to make 20 of these blocks for a 4 x 5 block blanket for children ages 7-14 in Afghanistan, the current campaign of Afghans for Afghans. Deadline is the end of October. It takes about 3-4 hours for me (including daydreaming time) to make each block. I'll crochet them together and crochet an edging. Putting them together is the most fun for me.

Yesterday I thought I'd go poking around the internet to see what projects are active for donations these days. I found one that particularly interests me, making blankets to comfort wounded and disabled soldiers. This project is called Blankets of Hope. I also found a long list of groups looking for donations on the Interweave Press site.

These are the blocks I've made so far. I have a hard time not being controlling over the colors and find it's best for me to pick blindly from a basket and not think it over too much.

Hurricane Love

I'm not usually one for posting much about my family, but today was so funny, I can't seem to let it go.

I went to my grandson's Pee Wee Soccer League game today...he is almost 4 years old, so I imagine the other kids on his team are, as well. Their team is called the "Hurricanes".

Today is the first game I've been able to attend. It was hilarious. Our little guy was not very excited about playing, and when he got out on the field, he wanted to engage the coach in conversation and hold his hand. Finally, the coach paired him with Gianna, and they spent the remainder of the game, racing around the field, holding hands, totally oblivious to what everyone else was doing. It was pretty darned cute.

Traveling days

Tuesday night I found myself in the historic La Posada hotel in Winslow, Arizona. I know I've posted about this old hotel before...but if you're not familiar, it's the last of the old Fred Harvey hotels that was designed by Mary Colter. It was closed in 1957 and used for many years by the telephone company.

It has been lovingly restored these last years and whenever we cross the desert on our way to California, we try hard to stay there. If you're in the area, I recommend you stop in to visit, or stay, and schedule a meal at their fabulous restaurant.

While walking their grounds, I found this unlikely person resting at the base of a tree. She is, to say the least, a little out of her waters...but as with all things La Posada, her presence just seemed right.

Tuesday afternoon, after checking in, I decided to find a quiet spot and sit and sketch. I found a bench tucked into an alcove across from the back entrance to the hotel. I love the sentiments on these doors and wanted to share them with you.

Gratuitous cloud pictures

Two days ago, as I was driving down to Arroyo Seco, this cloud bank was lying low over the mountains.  It was so very dark and ominous, not to mention a bit unusual, I pulled over for one of my iPhone paparazzi trips.  The edge of this layer was rolling out to the far west, over where I live.  The darkest part was over the pass to the ski valley. 

At the end of the day, when the clouds lifted, there was snow on them thar mountains.  It was spectacular.

There are no mistakes

Years and years ago, I had the opportunity to be around an extremely talented woman who could take just about anything and make it seem exotic and glorious (Barbara Chapman, if any of you know of her).  I remember her telling me there are no mistakes.  I have to say that I never quite got on the program with that concept, but I like the sentiment a lot.

A few weeks ago I had something go terribly wrong with some very specific things I was dyeing.  I'm not sure yet what happened, possibly the change of my water source over the summer...I'll have to do serious diagnostics later this month or next.  All I know is that a whole lot of roving ended up not looking like I wanted it to look.  It was sort of the straw that broke the camel's back, to be honest with you.  I felt  pretty down in the dumps.

Last week, when I went on my fall retreat, I decided to take those same rovings along to contemplate what may have happened by studying them.   I have had some physical problems for several months that have kept me from doing many of the things I like to do, including spinning.  I hadn't planned on taking my wheel on retreat, but did so at the urging of Mr. Sunflower.  I'm sure glad I did.

I decided that my pain was there no matter, so why the heck not spin.  Guess what?  The rovings looked really pretty once I had them laid out and subtracted my expectations from them.  I managed to spin 8 of 13 of them in three days and loved every minute.  Now I have some new yarns to put on my Etsy shop when I reopen in early November (if I don't decide to keep them for myself).

Barbara was right after all, I just needed to let myself be more open.

Home

Happiness is a locked gate.

One year ago today

At 5:00 p.m. on Sunday of Wool Festival 2008, we closed the doors of Taos Sunflower Yarns & Fibers forever.  Wow.  Where did that year go?

Time was spent mopping up the many loose ends that came with the closing...bookkeeping, packaging  and counting the remaining inventory, fielding phone calls, correspondence, and having to turn away sad faces at our door on the days we were still working in the shop. 

A month later we (Monte and I) opened the Etsy shop, and got thoroughly absorbed in all things Etsy for the next several months.  It was an intense learning curve (still is, actually).  Suddenly I found myself spending countless hours on the computer trying to understand all this "social networking" stuff.  Not so good for me!  I made it about one month (if that) on Twitter, failed miserably at being an on-line group person, and have had a love-hate relationship with Facebook, which I have now winnowed down to only a handful of friends and family I know I would never ever hear from otherwise.  It recently came to me that "social networking" might be a nice euphemism for voyeurism, but then remember I've chosen to put myself out there and need to suck it up and take what that may bring back to me.

It's been a year of big changes for me personally.  I'm really enjoying the chance to learn new things, travel a bit more, and spend more time hanging out with Mr. Sunflower and enjoying our little piece of the forest. 

I feel like something big is around the corner, but I want to rest a bit more before I step out there to see what it might be.