Move over Scarlett O’Hara…

My days are slowing down.  This is a really good thing.  But of course, I’ve been putting out fires for so many months I’m not sure exactly what I should be doing now.  One would think that would not be a dilemma in my life.  I’m not teaching for two whole months and I don’t quite know where to begin.

I’m trying to attend to my house and yard.  They do need occasional attention, and with my daughter home, and all her stuff, we are choking in the detritus of life and so a bit of a clean out here and there is inevitable.  Weeding and garden care are important, as are dusting and vacuuming, especially in shedding season.  And if I’m not careful, I’ll lose the balance and busy myself with busy work instead of what I really want/should be doing which is enjoying my studio.  Which is very hot at the moment, the airconditioning system is needing replacement, and the guys come Saturday to do the look over before they begin.  I don’t envy that job in the summer.

I’m booking lunch dates with old friends.  Friendships need maintenance as well, and getting together with people I love makes my spirit soar.

So attending to what has been sorely neglected these last six months, my family, my home, my gardens, my friends, my music, in no particular order are important, but so is making stuff.  Keeping my hands busy and out of trouble makes the rest of me function more normally.  If that makes any sense.

I have a number of piles around the studio, small unfinished objects.  Yet they weren’t my unfinished objects.  I have a beautiful silk chiffon scarf from my mother-in-law, sitting on top of my loom, which is at the moment storage space, and I’ve pulled a couple of bags of merino/tencel that are gorgeous with it, and I think felting it into a panel and then ultimately part of a garment sounds like a plan.

There is a handwoven dress and a pair of wool crepe pants whose colors long to be put together, and I think a summer dress, recutting the original which is a throwback from the 80’s, is definitely in order.

But the one that jumped off the pile first, was a partially knitted white cotton lace throw my mother in law started way too long ago, and there it was, unfinished in her stash when she died in 2006.  I looked at it everytime I searched through the attic for something.  I did drag it out a few years ago, and had a knitter friend help me figure out the lace pattern. Lots of yarn overs.  I knitted a couple rows, and then pulled them out, my gauge was definitely not that of my mother-in-laws.

And there it sat in a basket in my living room for years.  I shook off the dust and looked at it again.  It was a generic white cotton flake, I could undo the whole thing, but I have so much light colored cotton flake on my shelves that it would be a waste of energy.  I could toss it.  Which just seemed wrong.  I woke up in the middle of the night a few weeks ago with an idea.  The throw was a yard wide, and she had knitted about 22″.  I wrapped it around me, under my arms like a bathtowel.  It just met at the side seam.  Hmmmm…

And so I started to knit, just leaving out the lace pattern, and continuing the garter stitch ground, I made armholes and necklines.  It didn’t take long to turn this partially finished throw into a gorgeous summer tunic, which I’m wearing as I type, on my way out to a luncheon with a couple of really old best friends.  Old meaning friends for a long time, they are both younger than me.

My mother in law is smiling and I’m pretty proud of myself.

Stay tuned…