Nostalgia

So its been a long while, I have started new post on several occasions and never finished the writing. I million things have happened in the time I was away. I moved back to the area I grew up in, I am living in my grandmother's old house and really loving being here. I planed a wedding and got married. Through the marriage I gained a wonderful step daughter, and she is the inspiration for this blog post. I grew up being a Girl Scout and continued to be a scout through high school even earning the highest award possible in scouting the Gold Award. I am a life time member of the Girl Scouts, so anytime someone is selling cookies I am buying, and any group of scouts fundraising I am stopping to see if I can help out. But this summer we had my stepdaughter E for a week so she could go to Girl Scout day camp and nostalgia set in. I went and took pictures of her doing the closing flag ceremony on Tues, just being there and taking pictures of the flag pole, and then the ceremony made me nostalgic for the simple days I had at camp.

Then I found out they were in need of additional moms for the overnight, and I could be of help. So after work Thursday I went out to camp parked my car where we would be sleeping and walked across camp to meet the girls for the evening activities. I feel at times like I grew up at this camp, I made amazing memories there. And I was happy to be able to be at camp again and even happier to be seeing E participate in these activities. Now you could not pay me to go back in time to those ages, but I have to say that at camp I was happiest growing up.

E took this picture of us together at camp.

It is amazing that one night sleeping on a mat could get me jump started in such a way, but I have a million ideas floating in my head of projects I want to do and Ideas for fine art pieces I want to make. I have been working on a scarf that has been great fun it is the Mini Mania Scarf by Sarah Core. I have been using min skeins up like crazy and the colors just keep changing, it is a simple linen stitch but the color is what keeps me so interested. I am going to try to post once a week what I have been up to.

A Gift

I came home to the most wonderful thing yesterday, an unexpected package from a friend. I was so excited that this friend of mine Katie sent me a package that I immediately opened it, and plunged my hand in to the most wonderful soft material to pull it out and discover a note and a beautiful pair of hand knit socks. Now Katie and I have been friends for 5 or 6 years at this point, we meet through knitting and we often buy knitting and spinning related gifts for each other.

When I was leaving for Graduate school Katie gave me the most beautiful hand knit lace shawl. While she was knitting the shawl several of us kept telling her we each would be a worthy recipient of such an object. So when Katie gave me this beautiful object I was honored, touched and overly emotional. I wore that shawl to the first exhibition reception that I had work at in Graduate school. It has been a treasured object for the last 4 years of my life. As a knitter I know the labor that went into the shawl, and for that alone I treasure it. 

So the socks that arrived yesterday came with a note, explaining the gift. Katie said that I had gifted her this yarn several years ago and that it had been in her stash since, that she found the pattern that the yarn wanted to become and she had knit these socks. The thing is she said that “EVERY SINGLE TIME I picked u these socks to knit on they SCREAMED your name at me. I am pretty sure they were telling me that they belong on your feet. Hope they fit.” Well Katie my dear friend they fit, they fit perfectly now I just need a big important event to wear them for.

I am a knitter and I have a drawer full of hand knit socks, but these are special because someone who loves me made them for me and felt I was deserving of them. I hope that the people who receive my hand knit object feel this special. And I will wear them after all that is what they were made for. So thanks Katie, for teaching me a bit more of what I preach, that hand made is always better. I hope you all enjoy the pictures of my new socks. 

Wonderful

So this weekend something wonderful happened. I have been trying hard to decide how to weave up a group of threads, and was not successful in any of my groups. So I just had the yarn sitting in my studio wishing for the answer. It came on Sunday, I had breakfast with a few friends and one came back to my studio to see what I have been working on, I excused myself to the restroom and came back to this. And it was the perfect solution, I was just making it far to complicated and this is the simple solution.

I have been bogged down lately with lots of stuff, I helped a friend move Friday, lots of stairs and really hot. It was not fun. But she is a great friend and she did help me move earlier this summer. So the weekend was spent knitting, and reading. I have spent the day today getting ready for school to start. School starts two weeks from today and last week I got a contract to teach one fibers curse at the University of Missouri Columbia. So today has been a day of decision making and planning, along with syllabi writing and this will continue into tomorrow. Things are coming together nicely in my plans lets hope the semester goes as smoothly. 

New Yarn

Short blog post today, I finished this yarn of last night and wound it off into skeins. I am in love with this yarn, it is a wonderful range of colors. I purchased a series of Baby Cakes from loop on etsy. I did ply it with a solid black. I hope you enjoy.

I will be posting more later but I got really good news about the scarf line I have been trying to get going today. I will share more when I can. 

This weekend I had the great pleasure of teaching a 9 year old girl to spin on my spinning wheel. While Emily loved plying yarn, she had a harder time spinning singles out of roving. So what follows are the photos of her first yarn, she plied it from singles I had.

These are the skeins that Emily made. 

These are the balls of yarn she wound. I started the balls and she then wound them herself. I have placed a AA battery next to them for scale. 

She was very proud of herself and was determined to understand the process and tried to fix the problems that came up on her own. She would try to fix the problem or try to understand what went wrong before she would ask for help. It was a joy to teach this one how to use the spinning wheel. Now she has dreams of spinning the yarn for her next knitting project, as she is learning how to knit this summer as well. 

Meanwhile I have been getting a bit of my own spinning done, I have several singles spun that I am planning to ply. This is what I have done. 

More Tools.

Trouble in blog land is making this post a day late I apologize.

I work in another artist studio as an assistant one day a week. Yesterday after posting the blog for the day I went to her studio to work, I always grab my own sewing bag, I realized that my scissors are a very important tool. I am attached to these simple embroidery scissors they have been used for years, the tiny screw sometimes loosens and I have to retighten it but then they are perfect again.

And today in my studio I realized that I have a mug that I am attached to, I actually have many mugs I am attached to, this is one of a few that are manufactured. I typically use a hand thrown or hand built clay mug. This manufactured mug is special, it was given to me as a birthday gift by a dear friend. I am a sentimental person about objects and their connection to people. She and I are great knitting friends we became friends through knitting, we have both moved away from where we met. I am in Missouri and she is in South Carolina, so some how this beautiful mug makes me feel closer to her. My morning coffee at the studio is always in this mug, the morning feels better with this mug and my coffee.

Today I spent part of my day helping a friend put bookcases together and moving furniture around at her house and the rest of the day weaving and getting some more work prepared for hand stitching at home. But I think that tonight I will spin some at home tonight, feeling like I need some time at the wheel. 

Tools

So while working yesterday I began to reflect as all artist do on my tools and materials. Yesterday I was ironing cloth for a project, and I thought about the new ironing board cover that I have it was new when it came to the studio and I do enjoy it, it is bright and cheerful, but it is the actual ironing board that I use that is under all the layers of covers and to most people looks like a plain old ironing board. The ironing board was my grandmothers, and the idea of having her ironing board that saw hours and hours of ironing now in me studio getting the same daily use, it made me smile and think about the new and old in the tools I have. I for instance could not live without my new iron, it shuts itself off, which is a good thing for me the sometimes forgetful one. I can lose track of time and all of my responsibilities while in the studio. So an iron that shuts itself off is a good thing. So here are some of the photos I took while ironing yesterday, I am constantly taking photos while I work. 

I am also someone who wants to see my materials. I am including some photos of my yarns and threads in my space. It makes me happy every morning to come into my space and see all of the colors and textures of yarn. I can dream up my next project while weaving as the loom is right next to the yarn.

So do you have a favorite tool that you use everyday? An object that you appreciate and use everyday, I am trying to slow down and appreciate these things and notice them I encourage you to do so as well. I will continue to share objects and tools with you that I use and appreciate daily.