I started writing a blog post last night but I was tired and I tore it up. I decided to knit instead. Now that was a far more calming use of my time even though I am still knitting the same red sweater. I am past the half-way point on the front, moving up the sides, and almost done with the sequined yarn. Before long I'll start the neckline shaping. I stopped knitting for a while, but now I'm back. Sometimes lately however, I am already too tired before I begin, and I end up unknitting as much as I knit. Somehow I find even that to be soothing, a way to let my mind purl with the stitches, putting the day to rest.
That reminds me that yesterday started and ended in the sewing room. I wanted to wear a skort I had purchased in Florida two summers ago. I wore it heavily that first summer, and not at all last year because it needed mending and some minor alterations. I failed to get the sewing room unpacked so the skort sat, unworn, until now. The inner portion was partially disassembled, so I traced it off before reassembly. I wanted to trace the entire skort so that I can make a pattern and reproduce it, but I could't find my tracing wheels and the day was moving on. Instead I dressed and took Tikka for a walk.
That makes the second garment I've worked on in the new sewing room. It took me a year, which is pretty bad, considering I will probably have to pack back up soon enough while we go through the remodel phase. I am not however, going to stop sewing, stop making, and this time I have a plan for how I can continue working, whatever else is going on. I've done enough of putting my heart aside. No more of that.
But all I've done so far is mending, although I have pulled fabrics and patterns. The first thing I worked on were my favorite black shorts. They needed taking in, in fact this is the second time I have taken them in and I still love them, even after 5 years and two major alterations. I suppose when they finally fail, which may well be at the end of this season, they too will have to become a pattern. But working on them was difficult. Black thread on black fabric in a room with no light is not how I define fun. I have not yet unpacked my task light that I used in the old sewing room, where the light was also very good.
Are you seeing a theme here? Things unfound? The lamp was not in any of the boxes labeled "sewing room", all of which have been unpacked. That meant it had to be in one of the boxes still in the basement, the boxes labeled quilting, needlework, or dying. Perhaps my tracing wheels could be located down there as well. But initially , at least before the skort, I wasn't eager to go down to the basement and haul those boxes out. Instead I went to Target and bought two small, inexpensive task lamps, six-month lamps, lamps I will be happy to use until the new sewing room is done, hopefully in early 2019, and then, if I no longer need them, will be happy to set free. Those lamps made using the sewing machine and the serger possible, navy on navy this time, for a navy skort.
Then the day got in the way. Tikka and I walked. I rode my bike. Sheets went in the wash while I went out in the garden to plant small dwarf sedums and Meditteranean iris, iris ungularis, in the sunny rock garden near the roses. After working in the heat and the sun, I went down into the laundry room and chilled, ironing sheets and drinking coffee. The laundry room stays about 62 – 64 year round, and I keep a sweater by the door, but yesterday, hot from the sun, the chill felt wonderfully refreshing. I looked at the last two winter sweaters drying on a rack, ready to be stored until next year, thinking about the large alpaca blanket I need to disassemble, wash, repair, and reassemble in a slightly new form, thinking about how much I love that space and how I should really hang photos on the wall, make the space more cozy.
Just as I finished the sheets, Varmint Busters showed up to take a look at the bat problem in the attic. Apparently not much can be done abut the bats until they leave for the season, meaning the end of November or early December. The previous owners had apparently tried to fix the bat problem before they put the house on the market, but rather than putting up the kind of screening and one-way gate system that prevents the bats from reentering, they have some other kind of ad-hoc screening system, which gives the bats a way in and a protected space in which to stay should they so desire. Apparently it also allows squirrels in, and the squirrels have already chewed through the screening, which I suppose the means I have had squirrels in the attic as well. Trying to get the bats out now will be a major headache, if it is even possible, and it probably isn't. In December the whole mess will have to be torn out and done properly. Oh well. Welcome to my old house.
Lunch, more work in the yard, some time spent starting to clean and clean-out the garage, errands, another walk with Tikka, dinner. So goes a day.
I decided that I would try to find the tracing wheels and the lamp, so I hauled the three large boxes out of the basement storage area and into the laundry room. Needless to say I found my lamp, in a box labeled "dye stuff — store". That was a mistake. I also found the tracing wheel and a stash of other miscellaneous tools, some of which will prove to be useful. I found a bolt of muslin, a plus for summer sewing plans. I also left a pile of stuff on the laundry room floor, stuff I have to go back and sort through and put away.
It is time to finish sorting and unpacking anyway. I've been here too long, I hate the weight of things undone, things pulling me backwards, boxes of things that are never opened. Some things are waiting for the remodel, such as books waiting for library shelves, but generally I want it all unpacked and sorted, which is strange because in a couple of months I'll be embarking on the remodel and things will get packed up again. But I am different than when I moved here. Decisions I could not make a year ago come more easily now. I no longer want to drag the past along with wherever I go.
I went back upstairs and traced my skirt. I didn't take the tracing and make the actual pattern pieces. I was already too tired for that. As I mentioned above I tried writing a blog post, but I was too tired for that as well. Instead I knit 8 rows in my red sweater and went to bed. All in all a successful day. Today there is more planting to be done, and I have to water all the new plantings, take a walk, and deal with the chaos in the laundry room. It is enough.