Camelama

Back again! This time around I'll be posting about my embroidery adventures, my return to knitting and quilting, and the vast changes looming in my life. Last year my mother and father passed away a month apart, and now as we deal with clearing out their house and scattering their possessions amongst many, there will be reminiscing and childhood photos to share.

 

Now, I would rather have my mother in my life, but she was done with this life and has moved on to whatever is next. On her passing, I inherited her lovely Singer sewing machine from 1940-something. Love this beast of a machine! It looks dainty, but this can sew just about anything. I know I've seen Mom put it through a heck of a lot of tough stuff - including repairing old Army pup tents!!!!

 

So, now that I've returned to the normal work-a-day world again, I'll be posting more.

Groundhog-along for Groundhog Day

Are you ready for Groundhog Day?  Do you have your own little Groundhog?

If you still need one, join the Groundhog-along!

Join the Ravelry Group for the Groundhogalong and get crocheting this lovely Planet June pattern!

I picked out some yarn this afternoon - it's a nice lightly fuzzy merino in what I consider to be a lovely groundhog-ish color.

 

Ends and starts

It's been strange, over the past week, to read everyone else's New Years posts.  It's all about new beginnings, joyous looking forwards, cleaning out and looking ahead.

I've been stuck in looking backwards for the past few weeks. 

My brother David died on December 29th, 2009.  He was 50 years old. He'd had a stroke-like injury this fall and never recovered. His poor health to begin with didn't help, either.  As we learned more and more of his life I got more depressed - here was a person I really hadn't seen for about 20 years, and certainly wasn't close to. I knew very little indeed about him, I found out. Even being in the same city with him for a year prior didn't help - he made no effort to be with me, and my efforts were certainly not encouraged by him. But he loved me as a brother loves a sister, I know that, he showed it sometimes.  We just weren't part of each other's lives, really ... perhaps the age difference was too great, he was up and out doing big things when I was still a little kid.

We're finished now with burial plans (thanks in large part to another brother working tirelessly on this) but it won't actually happen until spring, when the ground has thawed enough to dig. Until then, he rests temporarily at a cemetery's holding spot. 

It's only now that the decisions were finalized that I feel like I can start to let go of the past few weeks and start looking forward again.  To better health, to organized craft space, to more time with friends I love, to new job (please oh please), to cuddles with the cat, ferry rides and road trips and time spent out in Nature.

Possibilities ....

Came across this skein in my yarn stash.  I purchased it from my friend Astrid from her Damselfly Etsy shop.

The color is so richly rose, with touches of light pink.   I'm not a hardcore pink person, but this stuff just sang out to me when I first saw it!  I can't believe I haven't used it yet.

September's project is: use this yarn!   From her shop description: Sturdy Sheep is a blend of 75% superwash merino wool and 25% nylon. This yarn is fingering weight, 4-ply, firmly spun, and has a lovely sheen. It knits with beautiful stitch definition, is marvelously soft to the touch, and is very hard-wearing, perfect for socks! It is also great for baby garments, as it can be machine washed.

What should I make with it?

Energy

Unfinished projects demand energy.   This is something I am only now realizing.

Every time I have to move that unfinished scarf: energy.  Every time I have to worry again about where to put that notebook of ideas: energy.  Every time I have to find all the pieces of that necklace that broke and I never repaired: energy.

My goal in the next 3 months is to finish projects that are sucking away my energy.

Today I finished a scarf that has been halfway constructed

Tomorrow's goals involve a lot of running around town dropping off stuff and picking up other stuff, and then sleeping to fend off this awful ick.

Friday's goals are job-hunting oriented and more ick recovery.

The weekend's goals involve more ick recovery if needed, plus lots of sewing.

And it just goes on and on.

People ask me: "Do you find things to fill your empty days while unemployed?"  Empty days?!?!  What empty days?!  Every day is cram-packed full of stuff!  I need even MORE time to do all that I want to do!

But I'll just take one project at a time, finish finish finish.

The more I finish, the more energy there is to use for finishing other projects, and then finally starting new ones!

Low Tide

It was a 20-year low tide the other day, and I decided to take it as a good time to make changes.  Low tide ... low point ... low expectations ... nowhere to fall, you're already down there!  I'm not talking depression, I'm a happy person.  I'm talking about low times for projects, goals, activities, energy.  There's no where to go but up the beach - so here we go.

I wandered down to Golden Gardens and spent a couple hours on the sand, wading in the water and clonking around on the stones.  Lots of kelp, barnacles, sea stars, crabs and snails.  It was wonderful to be so far out onto the sands! 

Today I had the joy of meeting for the first time a most handsome young man.  James is quite the quiet gentleman.  His mother and I went to the mother's showing at a local theater, and saw Sex And The City.  Me, the not-much-for-kids person, surrounded by 50 moms and their babies for 2.5 hours.  Hee.  It was actually ok - the screamers got taken out quickly, and the general baby babble was nothing compared to regular theater cell phone calls, conversations, etc.  Plus, um, not exactly a movie one needs to hear every word to enjoy the movie and comprehend what's going on...  :)