Whew!

It’s been a wild ride, hasn’t it? We’ve all done – or at least attempted to do – things that make us happy, help us retain some sense of our sanity while we tighten our grip on our health and our loved ones. Sometimes those activities and those grips are virtual, sometimes they’re in real life.

So what have I been up to for the last few weeks?

Well, I opted to start with the handpainted cotton warp in blues & greens. Here it is going on the back beam. This happened on October 25th, just 2 days after my last post.

I chose 20/2 mercerized cotton in a deep, dark purple-blue for those solid stripes, used doubled. Once it was all beamed, I threaded heddles and reed and set to weaving with the solid dark denim I’d dyed for the weft.

This was a draft I hadn’t used before. I downloaded something from somewhere (I’d happily give credit if I’d made notes – could be Cait Roy Bell, but maybe not), and then made some modifications to end up with this. Initially I loved it, but then I thought, “Uh oh. It looks like a chain link fence.” My sister assured me it doesn’t, so that’s good.

I only got about 60″ woven when life intervened. First up was Halloween with a full moon. I tried for some good shots of that great moon with clouds in front of it, but they all failed to show what I saw with my eyes.

Then the clocks changed and it was SO DARK in the evening when I was walking Jack that I decided I needed to make myself a hat to help me show up more. I bought this weird yarn at my local craft shop – acrylic plied with some reflective threads. The yarn is bulky so it knitted up quickly – just one day of knitting and watching meaningless TV and I got this.

Doesn’t look so impressive, right? Well, I took the hat off and put it in my dark green chair with a table lamp off to the side. That’s different.

But look at this! I used my flash when I took this photo. WOW!!

That should get me noticed when a car drives by, right?

Some time passed, and I finally had a chance to do something with my grands I’d planned for several weeks – mud dyeing! This totally non-toxic method provided a great opportunity to do some tie dying with them. The results are rather subtle but very on trend, or so my stylish daughter tells me. 😉 Here’s the bigger grand with his newly-dyed hoodie. We also dyed some jeans for him in a reddish hue, and 2 Tshirts for the little one, one in each color dye bath.

Next I decided it was finally time to paint the bathroom. Given that I HATE to clean, it took me most of a day to do a deep clean on the room in preparation. Then another day to do the painting. Although it may not look it in this photo, my bathroom is tiny, so there was mostly time consuming cutting in with a paint brush and very little roller work.

I am very happy with it. Here’s a piece of info for you all. If you buy your paint at Sherwin Williams like I do (and maybe even if you buy it elsewhere, I don’t know), you can have them not just mix the color on the paint chip as is, but you can also ask them to do a percentage of the value if you want the paint lighter. I chose 75% and could have gone to 50% for sure. The color is called Open Air and it sometimes looks like the seaside to me and sometimes like a robin’s egg; depends on the light.

Speaking of light…you see those light fixtures by the mirror? New. And I installed them myself. I’m always proud of myself when I do something like this. Something that is outside of my comfort zone for sure. I didn’t take a before photo, but here are the old fixtures, hoping someone in my BuyNothing group wants to claim them for their own vintage look. But I disliked them from the day I moved in; one of the few things in my house that I didn’t like. At all.

I needed to leave those lights in place while I painted to give me working light. The next day I turned off the breaker and removed the fixtures. You know how everything old is new again? Well look at the original paint under those light fixtures. Pretty close to my new paint, right?

So I turned the circuit breaker back on while I painted as it turned of my radio, too. Then I watched paint dry for a while, turned the breaker back off and installed the new fixtures. Sweet success!

Today I painted a bunch more rocks for my kindness rocks as I only had 2 left to distribute. This is the fourth batch of rocks I’ve painted for this purpose.

Leaving you with few nature shots and a wish. First, here’s my Japanese red maple putting on a heck of a show on Saturday morning. A beautiful start to the day.

Then a great sunset in my neighborhood on Saturday evening. A beautiful end to a beautiful day.

Now my wish…I wish for calmness, for peace. I wish that our country can begin healing the deep divide that we clearly have. I wish that we can begin to see some real justice – in education, health care, housing, policing, environment, and much more. This will take real work. Hard work. A willingness to really hear each other. To stop and listen. To breathe. To let go of our anger and hurt. To link arms with those who voted differently from us and move forward to create a future that will be better for our children and our grandchildren. It all starts with a single step. Will you take one with me?