Weaving A Gem Of A Life

My New Cone Rack

I told you I had to get a new computer desk because my wonderful son made me a great cone rack that needed space, and promised to show it to you.

Here’s the new rotating cone rack empty. It doesn’t give you much scale to judge its size.

Michael’s standing next to it here. He’s about 6’4″, so you can get a better sense of how large it is. Large enough to hold 132 cones of yarn!

Pretty impressive, isn’t it??!!!

I finally had time to load it today.

I will admit that the size of it is a bit overwhelming to me at the moment. I’m afraid of tipping. Michael will be home today to see it loaded, and I’ll see what he has to say about that possibility. If he thinks it’s safe, I’m sure it will be. If he thinks it’s too tippy, no doubt he’ll make a design modification to correct that.

Trust me, I could have taken a lot longer organizing it. Should I do it by color? By fiber? By yarn size? Don’t forget, you have to put the largest, heaviest cones on the bottom to make sure this huge piece of equipment doesn’t get top heavy. The two sides you see here are rayons on the right and cottons on the left.

Here you see more cottons and some cashmere silks. Peeking behind are some mohairs. I probably won’t leave the mohairs on the rack now, nor put on my chenilles. I think those fibers should stay in boxes or on shelves for now to reduce dust they’ll collect till I’m ready to use them again. In the winter I’ll probably reverse who lives where.

Undoubtedly the cone rack will help me get a better idea of what colors I have, and will allow me to play with colors more. Move the cones around and see what looks good together. How many coordinating colors to mix with a few contrasting ones.

Your turn: any color combos you see speak to you in particular?

March 23 – Spring or Winter?

I awoke this morning to 6+ inches of snow on the ground. The heavy, wet type.

Slogging through it at 5AM with my dog wasn’t fun, but we got through it. Poor little Red had snowballs up the entire length of his hairy legs, and all over his belly. I had to put him in the tub when we got home to melt them off with warm water, or it would have taken hours for them to melt on their own.

It was, however, beautiful.

I left my job at Pfeiffer Nature Center early because it was doing some lovely combination of sleet & freezing rain. When I turned onto my dirt road, I was quite surprised to see a killdeer running up the road in front of me. I think it’s pretty early for them to be here. Surely they can’t find lots to eat with all this snow.

When I got home from, I was glad to see that my plow guy had been here, or I wouldn’t have made it up my driveway.

So Red & I headed out again for our afternoon walk.

A short distance from the house I saw those sweet, little, round-bellied juncos. I think they’re so cute. But wait, what’s that next to them? There were house finches pecking at the side of the road. I think it’s pretty early for them, too, and again, don’t know what they’ll find to eat under the snow.

Got back home and started writing this post when the Fed Ex man arrived. I hurried down the stairs to open the door, holding the hand rail, and suddenly started saying, “Ow, ow, ow, ow.” I was still saying it when I answered the door. I got stung! But good. Right in my index finger.

I took the package from Mr. Fed Ex and grabbed a bit of snow for my finger. Went upstairs and immediately applied lidocaine and ice. It took about 1/2 hour for me to be able to move my finger enough to chop some veggies for dinner.

This is about an hour after the sting, and you’ll just have to trust me when I tell you that the picture doesn’t show the difference in swelling and redness to the full extent. I challenge you to take a decent photo of your own fingers. Tripod and timer were involved, and still not great.

So who bit me? I didn’t see it, but I’m assuming it was one of these guys.

I’ve seen a few of these hornets in my house recently, along with the stupid cluster flies and Asian lady beetles. I must have put my finger right on the bugger, who was forced to defend his life.

I’m glad it was only me. I can’t imagine the impact of this sting on my ancient cat, or a baby, or something else small. Two hours later and my finger is still quite swollen and red, making typing this interesting. That venom is POWERFUL!

Anyhoo, it’s your turn: what’s spring like so far in your neck of the woods?

How hardy are you?

Today’s very windy, grey, and chilly, and they’re predicting three days of likely snowfall later this week. So to brighten my spirits I decided to post some of the pictures I took a few days ago on the beautiful, sunny, warm days we had before the vernal equinox arrived.

Although folks who live in town have bare yards, I still have plenty of snow in mine.

Despite that, many plants are poking out their heads or sharing their lovely greenness.

Here’s a lenten rose (hellebore) just waiting to show its dusty rose flowers.

And my wintercreeper (euonymous) that stays green all year round.

This is a sweet English primrose (primula) pushing through the dead leaves.

The same is true in the wild — plants are moving to take early advantage of the light through the tree canopy. Mosses…

…ferns…

…buttercups…

…and one of my favorite spring ephemerals, herb robert, a lovely little true geranium.

Spring is absolutely my favorite season. I love to see these little green things, to learn what’s strong enough to wait months under more than a foot of snow cover and come out smiling.

I try to be similarly philosophical about how my less-than-favorite animals make their way through the winter, too, but don’t always succeed. Last year the moles decimated a good sized patch of crocosmia I’d had for well over a decade. This year they attacked a beautiful stand of creeping phlox.

The crocosmia and creeping phlox were on different sides of the same bed. It’s my only bed that’s pretty much all nice, loose, sandy soil that was hauled in as opposed to the thick, heavy clay I’ve spent years building up. No wonder the moles like it!

I have to figure out what I can plant in that bed that the moles can’t hurt so much, and need input from other gardeners out there. Any ideas?

Out With The Old

My clever son built me a new rack for my coned yarn. (You’ll see that later.) It’s wonderful. And big. In order to make room for it, something had to go.

I spent last night assembling and organizing this sweet little computer desk.

I really like to assemble things, so that was fun. I must say, however, I found it humorous that the directions told me to read through them thoroughly before starting to assemble, then there wasn’t a single word in the assembly instructions, only pictures. Nice joke, guys! 🙂

Anyway, putting the new desk together was the easy part. I had to make space for it in the dining room cum jewelry-making room. That meant some cleaning. Ugh!

Then came the really hard part. I had to go through everything on the big, old computer desk…

…and figure out what was garbage, what had to be saved and put somewhere, and what had to be moved to the new location. Double ugh!

Obviously, it all got done. I moved the old desk out on to the porch, posted it on Freecycle, and someone will come and pick it up today. The downsizing feels good and the new look is much cleaner, and plenty of space to hold my MacBook!

Now I can clean the old space, move the cone holder, and load it up!

Your turn: has spring, or new furniture, pushed you to clean things long neglected?

My Baby

Michael, my youngest, mugged for the camera wearing his baby hat. Pretty cute, huh?

I must say, he’s as pleasant, as easy going, as charming now as he was when he was a little boy. Now he adds to it having any number of talents that’s he’s happy to share with friends and family. What a joy to have him near!

Your turn: do your children have the same essential characters they did when they were little?

Weaving A Gem Of A Life

Categories

Archives

My New Cone Rack

March 23 – Spring or Winter?

How hardy are you?

Out With The Old

My Baby

Weaving

What Else I'm Reading Now

Tags