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Creativity is…

(a) messy.
(b) fun.
(c) exciting.
(d) all of the above.

lots of yarn
I’m all over D, of course!

The other day I got an inspiration for a totally different kind of scarf. I went to the store, bought an array of yarn of the types that I never use for weaving, and dumped them all out on the living room floor. Then I went into trunks, closets, and shelves, and added to the melange.

I spent all day working on the new concept. Nothing, of course, is as easy in real life as it seems in your mind (or at least in my mind), but I have made progress.

Tomorrow I should have something to show you for my efforts. And my mess.

Your turn: what have you made a mess with lately?

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Easy As 1-2-3…

4-5-6….127-128-129…462-463-464…

WHAT?

I’m a counter. I admit it. I enjoy counting things, and have all my life. The steps I take on my walk, the pieces of wood I’m loading into my wood stove, the ceiling tiles in my office. I usually forget these numbers as soon as they’ve been counted. It’s the act of counting that I find pleasing, not committing the numbers to memory.

This counting habit is rarely bothersome and often comes in quite handy. Like when counting the stitches in a knitting pattern.

coned yarnCounting is not fun at this time of year, though. Why? At year end, I have to inventory everything for tax purposes. I have to count both my raw materials and my completed stock. For my fiber addiction, this isn’t overly onerous: cones of yarn and scarves count relatively quickly.

For the jewelry end of my business, it’s another story. Counting literally thousands of beads in hundreds of stones is amazingly boring and tedious.

Every year I make an improvement to my process, so the job is a little less ugly. In fact, dreading it is often worse than actually doing it.

This year I dragged the process out, doing it in 4 sections: jewelry raw materials; completed bracelets, necklaces, and earrings; yarn; finished scarves, shawls, and baby blankets. I didn’t finish that last piece until this week.

Whew…I won’t have to do that for another year.

Your turn: what do you put off until you MUST do it?
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Beet Soup

Although it felt too weird to take pictures of the soup when my friends were here, I had some beet soup left over, so took a shot when I ate it a few days later.
beet soup
It was delicious! I’d love to give you the recipe, but I sort of mushed two recipes together, made some other modifications, and didn’t really measure most things, so the best I can do is guesstimate amounts.

Saute 1 chopped sweet onion in about 2 TBS olive oil for about 5 minutes. Stir in about 1 pound each chopped beets and carrots. Saute for about 5 more minutes. Add about 1 cup chicken stock, cover, reduce heat, simmer for about 10 minutes.

Add 3 more cups chicken stock, about 1 cup water, about 1 tsp. grated fresh ginger, juice of 1/2 lemon. Simmer covered until all veggies are cooked.

Puree the veggies in small batches. At this point, I thought the soup needed something, so I pureed a Granny Smith apple with the veggies (cored, but unpeeled). Add more freshly grated ginger & lemon juice to taste.

Heat gently. Put 1 rounded teaspoon plain Greek yogurt in each bowl, stir gently to soften & mostly mix in. Eat & enjoy!

Rayon Chenille Colors

Last night I finished weaving the solid black rayon chenille scarf, the last of my custom weaving orders. This morning I wet finished it, and I’ve just finished the hand hemming.

Now I can get back to weaving with the colors, fibers, and patterns that move me.

At the end of December, Tammy, the talented woman who hand paints virtually all the variegated yarn I use, had a sale on rayon chenille. Although I sure didn’t need to spend more money on yarn at the end of the year, I couldn’t pass up the sale, so I placed an order. Tammy painted 30 skeins for me in 5 different colorways.
hand painted rayon chenille yarn
It’s pretty easy to see that I love gemtones. But those golden skeins are really exciting to me. I can’t wait to work with them.

That being said, the first colorway I put on the loom is a gemtones colorway Tammy calls Twinkle. I guess I can’t escape my first love. 😉
Twinkle rayon chenille yarn on loom

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Blue Light Special

blue lights
I know I ‘should’ be taking down my Christmas decorations, but I just can’t. I didn’t decorate much this year, a string of white lights around one window surrounding all the lovely cards I got. Then, in an after-Christmas sale, I picked up a string of blue LED lights and put them around another window.

Those blue lights make me really happy, casting a soft, pleasant light throughout the living room. And the fact that they’re so low-energy just makes them all the better.

Then I say to myself, “Well, heck, if you’re leaving up the blue lights, do you really want to take down the white lights and the cards?”

And my answer is no, I don’t. It’s not a matter of laziness, as it is when I don’t do some of the things (ok, many of the things) I intend to do. I really like these lights and the cards. They make me happy.

My decision is to leave them right where they are. To Do List be damned.

Your turn: what’s making you happy today?
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