crafts – Page 4 – The Hermits' Rest

Sometimes Simple Is Spectacular

Send good thoughts our family’s way, since we’re experiencing a loss.

So let’s talk about yarn. Good idea.

I’m like a dog with a bone when it comes to needing to craft during stressful times.

Since I’m still waiting for my pale yellow yarn to arrive so I can get back to the temperature blanket, I’m experimenting. I saw a Facebook post by Lily M. Chin about crocheting a fancy hot pad/oven mitt thing using leftover yarn and a stitch called thermal stitch. This stitch is like double knitting in that it makes a double thickness of fabric.

I liked the looks of it and the idea of making something sturdy out of wool that would be oven safe and protect surfaces if you set something on it. Sounded like a good gift idea, from someone who isn’t buying gifts this year.

I followed Lily’s advice and searched for instructions for thermal stitch. Sure enough, there are plenty out there. I conveniently share the one I used, just so you won’t ask.

My sample swatch I made from two skeins of sock yarn held together. I had a bit of a learning curve since crocheting into the back of one stitch and the front of the stitch in the row below is harder with doubled yarn is challenging. I also was not very good at turning and starting the next row. But the pattern is really pleasant to look at.

I decided to make a “real” hot pad/potholder out of one strand. Hanging around in a tote rescued from my former knitting closet happened to be a bunch of beautiful teal blue Lamb’s Pride wool/mohair yarn that many years ago was intended to be part of an extremely complicated cabled sweater. Look at that sideways cable. Note it’s in the round. Check those stitch markers. Ooh fancy.

A partial sweater in light that makes it look green.

Yes, it sure was fancy. I’m not sure why I gave up many years ago, but one reason may be that the weather here in Texas will newer be cold enough here to wear a wool/mohair cable extravaganza, barring the occasional polar vortex. Never fear! I think I’ll make a pillow out of what’s finished.

Mostly I no longer feel the urge to make the most complicated project possible. When I looked at the thermal stitch in this yarn, I saw a beautiful and subtle movement and felt a satisfying thickness.

Thermal stitch doesn’t have a lot of “give,” so it’s not a good garment choice. But it’s great for household items! Here’s the first one I made. I was still a bit unsure about the edges, and my border idea did not disguise it. I think I’ll erase that.

The one I’m doing now has nice edges, so I’ll deem it gift worthy. I have enough yarn to make a third one, so I’ll use the first one myself.

Maybe when the temperature blanket is done I’ll make a large one like Lily Chin did. Hers was long, and folded over at each edge to make holes you can stick your hands in while slipping the main part under a casserole. It was cool. Also, turning it under hides any ugly edges, heh heh.

Photo by Lily M. Chin, used with permission. I like how turning the ends under would hide my ugly edges.

I really like the look of this textured stitch. I’m resisting any urge to embellish it with embroidery or threads running through it to make a plaid. Resistance is NOT futile.

PS: Daily birds will return tomorrow.

The Hippie Takes a Day Off

What are your two favorite things to wear?

I say I’m a hippie, because when I saw the prompt for the day, two things popped into my head: blue jeans and t-shirts. I have had that as my uniform since the day I was allowed to wear pants to school, which I think was in 1971. It sure saved Mom money, so she didn’t argue with me. My clothing budget shrank a lot. And I bought my own shirts.

My avatar wears my usual stuff. Jeans, t-shirt, jean jacket and cowboy boots.

The t-shirts have only changed in that now there are more horses on them and before I had stylized drag racing cars. Peace symbols and flowers have stayed.

The jeans started out straight, became bell-bottoms, got high-waisted and low-waisted and repeated in various ways. Mostly I wore basic Levi’s.

I didn’t catch it, but I did see this goatweed leafwing butterfly today.

Now, on to the day off. I felt so good after a very long night of sleep, that I decided to take it easy today. I spent a lot of time birding, including being startled by the blue heron twice. It’s been picking off fish in the dwindling overflow pond, and neither of us can see the other until we’re on top of each other.

The other encounter I had came when Carlton and I took a walk in the woods. Suddenly he froze. I think he was trying to point like a hunting dog. We’d come upon an opossum along the stream bed. he must have smelled it, since he doesn’t see well.

Carlton was a good boy and followed me so the animal could go on about its business. It was a good walk the rest of the way. I’m glad I didn’t bring the Mighty Huntress Goldie or we’d have had another bloodbath. Ugh.

Other than enjoying birds, I enjoyed the horses. This morning I caught them at playtime, which involved Drew and Dusty nuzzling then running down the pasture to the pens, rearing and pawing, then running back. Dusty still has it in him! (Pictures are blurry because I was far away.)

Mabel eventually got into the running, but not the rest of it. I’ve noticed that she’s now strong enough to chase off any horse who tries to nip her.

Eventually Apache thundered back and forth until they all gathered around the hay bale. It’s nice to watch them play, and I’m glad they have the space to do so.

See, he doesn’t spend ALL his time staring into space.

Later I spent quality time with everyone, which is always so nice. Drew is a little pissy lately, since his head injury. But the other horses and Fiona were fine. I got all the burs off Mabel, even. I just have to wait until it’s her idea to have a petting session.

I had plenty of time to make dinner, and was so relaxed I didn’t even get upset when Dish Network didn’t have the channel where Sunday Night Football was. Lee just went over and set up the antenna he’d bought weeks ago for just such an eventuality. Boom. TV. It comes in great, actually.

I made a potholder or hot pad. It’s very thick, because I crocheted it with thermal stitch.

And yes, I wore jeans and a t-shirt today.

Daily Bird

I’m featuring the orange-crowned warbler today, because I’d never heard one here before, just on one camping trip. I didn’t see it, but I can sure ID one by sound now. It sounded like one of those rhythm instruments you scrape across in Latin music, usually five sets of scrapy sounds.

They only drop by here while migrating, according to the map.

A bird I saw a lot today was the Savannah sparrow. It’s a basic brown sparrow, but it’s everywhere this time of year. It and the pipit make little peeps.

Hard Decisions That Turn Out OK

What’s the hardest decision you’ve ever had to make? Why?

You ask that, do you? I agonized a very this for about three years, during which time my mother passed away followed immediately by a breakup with the love of my life that was all my fault, followed by a serious of incredibly stupid relationship decisions and total failure at my career path. 1984-87 really stunk.

Here comes the brutal honesty for which I’m noted, for better or worse.

I’d say this was the period in my life when I realized that, no, I wasn’t the brilliant, nice, ethically consistent person I thought I was. That’s hard. I realized just how mentally screwed up I was in my drive to be perfect and that I was an emotional vampire who confused sex with love. Everyone has to realize they’re imperfect eventually (if they’re honest with themselves).

Worse, I ended up unable to stomach being an academic with all the drama, pressure, and competition. It just wasn’t what I’d hoped it was and I wasn’t actually very good at it.

So I decided to leave my career path and all the people I cared about at the university and do something else. I felt like a failure and that I’d let my family and friends down. That was hard. Acknowledging my inadequacy was hard. Admitting I was a bad partner was hard. Owning up to my anxiety and past trauma was very hard.

But no one really cared very much about my inner turmoil. They just wanted to see me stable, happier, and more positive. I ended up free of expectations and obligations and could move forward to use all I’d learned in a perfectly good career. I learned to love in a positive way. It was OK.

Oh look I’m crocheting something. It’s a hot pad in thermal stitch.

I make decisions much faster now. I’ve learned that whatever I do will be fine. I’ll learn the lessons I need to learn and keep putting one foot ahead of the other. Today is what matters and I want more peaceful, fulfilling days than stressful ones.

Daily Bird

I enjoyed a group of Harris’s sparrows today. I realize I’ve featured a lot of sparrows but we have eight kinds here! I heard these guys by the brush pile this morning, which pleased me because there was so much traffic on our road due to an accident that it was hard to hear birds in front of the house.

Harris’s sparrows make a less melodic sound than some of the others, more like very loud, low barks. It’s hard to decide how to describe it. But they were chatty and friendly today.

A pair of them started out in the honey locust, then got on the ground quite close to me, so I could easily see their interesting black head and chest markings. They’re the most distinctive ones, for sure.

By the way, the house wren and Carolina wren are loudly lobbying to be featured, so I’ll get something else soon. In the other hand, I’ve seen Mexican eagles (caracaras) doing mating dances in the sky twice this week. They do some loud wing flapping! So, they’re candidates. More to come.

Early Anniversary Gift – WOW

I am completely bowled over by the wonderful gift Lee made me for our 15th wedding anniversary. It may be “only” 15 years, but we’re very pleased to have had such a great time in our late-life relationship.

I’d been seeing Lee messing around on his computer a lot lately and I was really wondering why he was putting so many photos of birds in his journal. It’s not that he doesn’t like birds, but he’s not crazy about them like I am.

I knew he’s been practicing book binding and has bound a couple of books he wrote and plans to bind recent journals. On top of that he’d asked me a few questions about my own journal. But I didn’t think anything of it until he spilled the beans that he was making me a journal for an anniversary gift!

There is a great deal of hand work involved in book binding. Lee decided to tell me what he was doing so he could hang out with me while he hand sewed all the signatures (units of a certain number of pages) together. Otherwise I wouldn’t have seen him last weekend. He sewed it with red thread, too. I like red.

I’d have been impressed just with a blank book, having watched how hard it is to press all the pages together, create the cover (with genuine book cloth), and affix the cover to the book (I think that’s the actual binding part—gee, I worked for a book publisher in my twenties and still don’t know all the terms).

But no, he made a bullet journal with dots on the pages, a pretty place to write headings, and lovely images on each page, which he cut with his scary killer paper cutter to go all the way to the edges.

And it has a cute title page. It’s really a labor of love, which I truly appreciate. It means SO much to me to get a handmade gift, especially one so carefully thought out. I’m going to use it as a bird journal, so it will be in use a long time.

What did I get him? I also gave him his gift early. It was a bunch of tasteful linen book cloth from a library supply company. I guess we were thinking along the same lines.

Lee got a really good new printer that will print in high quality on large paper, so now he’s working on book sleeves. I just want to print horse pictures, of course.

I said the above to Lee and a minute later he handed me this. It’s pretty impressive!

Daily Bird

I thought I was going to have to do the cranes again, because until late in the evening the only birds I’d heard or seen were dozens and dozens of them. The day had started out very windy and cold, so no one was flitting about.

But, as I was putting Apache’s saddle away and listening to cranes, I heard something else interesting. I started the Merlin app and finished what I was doing and let the horses out of their pens.

I was right! I was hearing owls. Multiple owls. Great horned owls! The only known predators of the barred owls who are usually here! Where did all these owls come from? I don’t have an answer, but this was my first time hearing them here. They make the “normal” hoo-hoo owl sound, among others.

To add to the wonder of the evening, all the black vultures started heading to their roosts for the night. There were 25 I counted. It was lucky that the wind had died down and there was no traffic noise from FM 485 for once. I could hear their wings beating. I love that sound.

The sunset was also beautiful, but I was too busy listening to take a photo. Here’s last night at Tarrin’s house.

Better Days Do Come

Sometimes when you have a long string of anxious and worried days, it’s nice to have one that builds you up. I hate it when I’m dealing with annoying physical symptoms and I’ve done all I can to get my equilibrium back, but the truth is sometimes I just have to wait it out. Today helped!

I got to enjoy what passes for fall color in College Station Today.

Penney woke me up by wigging and licking like crazy for about an hour, so I got up, looked at the damp day, and did my nails with a set I’d looked forward to using, which looked like a brocade cloth with big flowers on it. It didn’t go on really great, but it perked right up when I added some gaudy jewels I had hanging around. Now the whole thing looks over the top, but it cheers me up.

After talking to the chickens, I headed over to the place I got them, Bird and Bee Farm, where our Master Naturalist wildscape project is located. I rarely have time on their special days to get out there, so I was glad I had a while to drop by.

I’d intended to take photos of all the butterflies, but it was still too damp in late morning for them to be out. Even the bees were still napping.

My friend Debi and I looked at all the flowers and found lots of caterpillars and a cat.

All these black ones came up as salt marsh moths

It was so pleasant just wandering around and seeing what is still hanging around this time of year. The dew was so heavy that it made for fine photo ops. It’s nice to photograph non-wildflowers like roses and zinnias occasionally

I hung out with birds a bit, and heard a new wren on Merlin, a sedge wren. I wish I’d seen it because it sure looks cute in its photo online. Instead, here are turkeys.

After talking a while with other Master Naturalists, I had to leave. I hope Patsy notices I put my nails in the blog for her.

The reason I had to leave was that I had my second watercolor class at Brazos Watercolor Retreats in College Station. We learned to paint trees with sunlight pouring through them. There were lots of new techniques to learn, like making white space by putting some rubbery stuff on the paper before painting. I also learned to make the sun rays.

I didn’t do a great job on the tree part, but I know what I’d do differently if I tried again. For a first try, I’m fine with my finished product. Maybe I should get some paints, brushes, and paper. It’s fun to see how the colors come out.

I even made it home in time to feed the horses before it was too dark, which makes it a lot easier to give Apache his medicine. They have a new bale of hay, and judging from the holes in the wet ground, they had a good time running around after they escaped while the tractor was going in. Those little dickenses.

So, yay, today has been fine enough that I’m handling learning about a few deaths in my circle pretty well. I have plenty of energy to send out love to all the families and friends, which feels really good.

Hug a loved one.

It’s Easy to Guess My Favorite Subject in School

What was your favorite subject in school?

It rained and rained and I worked and worked today, so I didn’t have any “adventures” to write about. I was glad to see the blog prompt for today, since it fit in with my day’s activities.

Have you guessed my favorite subject in school? It’s pretty obvious, though after sixth grade there were really two.

Since I have the condition where I’m just driven to write (hypergraphia, self diagnosed), it’s no surprise that I loved English grammar and composition. I still do, though I’ve cut out all the convoluted sentences and polysyllabic vocabulary of my youth, at least in public.

I don’t have any photos from today, so consider these old collages as writing prompts.

There’s nothing I liked better than to be assigned to diagram me some sentences or write a nice, juicy composition. Term papers with lots o’ footnotes were also my idea of fun. In high school the only way I got a boyfriend was to find the guy who liked fancy sentences as much as I did (he’s an English/film studies professor now).

But I did have another passion, which, probably not coincidentally, involved arranging words in certain ways. It was my second love, choral music. I loved how chords worked, harmonies intertwined, and crescendos followed decrescendos. While writing was a solo activity, chorus involved working with others, blending and matching in tone.

I learned a lot about discipline, learning rules so you can later break them, cooperation, and vulnerability through these activities. Sharing your writing and performing in public are not easy until you get a lot of practice and learn to take feedback constructively. (My high school chorus teacher and grad school advisor are still alive and could tell you how much I had to learn in that area.) (Note that there’s still work to be done.)

Thanks for being an audience for my blog. It’s a nice break from job aids and meeting minutes, which I wrote all day today. I’m lucky to have a place to be a “real,” person, not an influencer or manufactured celebrity.

These SoulCollage cards can make you think.

Go out and read some other great blogs by real people! I love learning what I have in common with others, as well as our differences. I learn a lot, and you can, too.

We learn more if we look. Right now looking can be hard.

Time Is Not Real

Do you need time?

But it feels like it. Just like I can’t be my higher self and live in the moment, I feel like it’s necessary to act like time marches forward since everyone else thinks it does.

The Temperature Blanket, current as of November 6, acts like time is real.

I had more things in the bullet journal to do today than I was able to get to. That’s even with working on videos while doing my helping calls. But I’ll start again.

Trying to get burs out of horse manes and tails required way more time than there were hours in the late afternoon. But I got Apache’s mane cleared off and I got him to eat his medicine. Tarrin was right. Burying it in senior horse feed got him to eat.

It was a hard day. Money stuff was hard. Horse stuff was hard. Work was work-like. I’m still full of anxiety but I got back on my medication. I hope I don’t leave it next time I go camping!

I did have time for lunch with the friends and to check out progress on the new bakery being renovated in town. That will be another great addition to downtown Cameron!

It’s an extra cheerful blue now. Quite an improvement.

Secretly I’m sending tons of good thoughts for friends dealing with the consequences of mishaps and accidents that happened to loved ones. Know you’re in my thoughts, friends.

Am I Unfaithful to the Temperature Blanket?

What’s this? I’m knitting with hand spun yarn (by a person named Genevieve) that’s distinctly not acrylic sport weight. Why, it’s wool, silk, and sparkles! It’s not making a mitered square. It’s in the round!

I’m enjoying doing something different, using my pretty wood yarn bowl, and feeling natural fibers. It’s a K1 P1 cowl. I need one for all this outdoor stuff I do. But I’m not being unfaithful.

The thing is that I finally, after all this time, caught up to today! And since a cold front just blew through, I’m not sure what today’s low will be. You can see the last ten days were pretty okay. Not over 95° so I didn’t have too much heat trouble.

However, as you can see, we’ve finally had a rainy spell. And with rain came humidity. So sweating had occurred. You can easily spot the 6” of rain we had this week!

So, from now on, I’ll knit a square per day. I’m looking forward to the cooler colors for the next few days. I even ordered more blue, optimistically. And I’ll make a few little things. I seem to have lost all my fingerless mitts or moths ate them, so I guess that’s next.

I can’t write about much else. I’m pretty anxious right now. Send me good thoughts. Knitting helps some, as will a visit from friends this evening.

Can You Guess My Favorite Hobby?

What is your favorite hobby or pastime?

Oh my. If you’ve known me for the past few years, you’ll probably have a good idea what my favorite hobby is. Or you’re saying, “Wait a minute, how can Suna choose between knitting/crocheting and horses?”

You’re right. I can’t choose between my two favorite activities, which I’ve consistently loved since early childhood. I think I liked horses the moment I popped out of the womb, and I was knitting in kindergarten. I’m not one to stray from things I love, which does lead to “clutter,” I guess.

Current temperature blanket progress. This is September. Still hot. The next row will be better!

But I’ve given up on caring if people judge me for my collections!

Note that reading and hanging out in nature are not listed among my favorite hobbies. That’s because they are necessities, not hobbies.

Life without a Computer Is Like Snow White in the Forest

Your life without a computer: what does it look like?

Now, y’all may be surprised by my answer to this question, given that I have made my career in online activities and teaching folks about software. I made websites when there were no images in them, after all (1993).

First, I’d still be outside a very often, hiking, playing with horses and dogs, and observing plants, birds and other wildlife.

You can see my house way down this hill.

Second, I’d still be knitting, crocheting, doing needlepoint and all that. I’d just have books to learn from and go to the library a lot, just like I did in the blissful 70s and 80s.

I think I’d do many of the same things in person that I now do online. I’m a writer, so nothing will stop me from writing. I used to be a great typist, too. I typed a book on Catalan using three different IBM Selectric type balls, which you young folks have never even heard of, probably. I also have excellent handwriting in cursive, that ancient indecipherable script.

I could also still teach adults. I guess I’d teach at a community college or vocational school. From books. Books are good.

Book I’m reading. I prefer real books, but use the Kindle when traveling. I’m not an auditory learner by preference, so I’m not as fond of listening to them.

I’d create communities, too, just like I used to do with email groups and chat software, but (gasp) in person. I do that now, anyway, or try to. I love being with like-minded people to learn and support each other. Who needs Zoom?

But mostly I’d wander around listening to birds and watching butterflies, just like Snow White or whoever it was that had all the forest creatures flocking around her in a cartoon. Ah, it was Sleeping Beauty.

I think I’d be very happy. I was certainly happy outdoors among nature today. It rained 1.5” overnight, so all the living beings were happy. I even recorded two new birds on the Merlin app, a gray catbird and house wren (both birds I’ve seen before but never recorded). And it was only up to 84° today!

I didn’t hear these vultures, but I saw them, along with a crested caracara and a red-shouldered hawk.

The only sad part was finding a beautiful leopard frog that had gotten caught in the shredder last night when all the front field got all smooth and pretty. But that means there are probably more of these beauties!