Ordinary Time

It's been a while since I shared any weaving on my big loom with you. That's because it has spent a great amount of time in time-out these past few months. I would start, some warp ends would break, I would fix that, restart, some warp threads would break and I would put the loom in time-out. Over and over and over. I would think I had figured out what was wrong, but then the same cycle would happen. It was frustrating.  Very frustrating.  It's probably a good thing my loom is too big to pick up and throw across the room.  I finally asked a weaving friend over to help me figure it out. She had some very good suggestions that I wasn't aware of and she loaned me her temple. What's a temple? This is: The temple is the wooden stretcher towards the bottom of the weaving. It holds the woven fabric to the correct size and prevents it from pulling in. I am hopeful that I can finish weaving this warp and get something worthwhile out of it.  My original plan was to weave two ...

When we were in Michigan last month, I binge read the first book in a new (to me) mystery series, A Case of Mice and Murder. The series is called The Trials of Gabriel Ward, with Gabriel Ward being a barrister at the Inns of Court (and very reluctant detective) in early 20th century London.  It was a clever plot, but it was the character and evolution of Gabriel Ward that I found most interesting. Today he would probably be considered autistic. He is extremely intelligent, has various rituals that help to keep him centered, and finds much of human emotion in others to be challenging. Over the course of the books, while he does not change his character, he finds ways to broaden his life to include a few other people in it. He is also just a charming character.  Today I finished the second (A Case of Life and Limb) and went to put the third on hold only to discover that it won't be published until January. Alas. Which brings me to my other bookish news. I took a friends advice a...

Y. has been taking Japanese for seven years, six of those with a private tutor. (And if you want to learn a language without moving to a different country, having a private tutor is the way to go ) She is pretty conversant and loves learning languages. Her tutor had told her about a Japanese Festival which was happening this weekend in Skokie and Y. was interested in going.  One of the downsides of having moved to the far western suburbs of the Chicago area is the lack of diversity. I'm still not quite comfortable with the monochromatic-ness of where we live, especially since we have children of color. (I need to explain that by far western suburbs I do not mean Naperville which isn't quite as far west as we are. We have to drive a half hour east to get to the Asian and Indian markets in Naperville. I am very thankful for them.) It takes effort to find cultural mirrors.  All this to say, J. and Y. had a lovely time at the festival this afternoon. They saw dancers and musicians...

So it seems everyone is okay with me blathering on about whatever happens to flit through my mind, so I'll keep going with that.  Today was one of the days that L. worked so I needed to drive her. It's about a 25 minute trip one way. (She is a deckhand for the paddlewheel river boat on the Fox River .) This also meant I would need to pick her up. I worked in the studio after lunch for a while, checked the time, and realized I needed to leave to collect L. G. wanted to ride along, so we both got in the car and headed for the river.  As I'm pulling into the parking lot next to the boat, I glance at the clock and notice it's showing an hour earlier than I think it is. My first thought is to wonder why I didn't remember that we hadn't changed the car clock when daylight savings began. That didn't seem to make much sense, so checked my phone. Yes, I was an hour early. No, I don't know how that happened.  There was no way I was going to drive home only to turn...

Having finished the last volume that is published of the Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, I am bereft. I feel as though I have lost a group of good friends and it's going to be far too long until I reconnect with them. Pity the book I just read after them because they were a hard act to follow. The world feels fairly flat without Emma and Pierce and the Duke of Islington and Young Hawks. Why can't authors write faster and books be published sooner?  To add to my woe, I don't have anything to write. I'm not even sure who my audience is these days. I don't really mind no one commenting, but it also means I have no idea who is reading. So my comment-shy readers, what are you interested in? I'm happy to continue my nightly blathering, but am not completely sure where I should aim. Help a blogger out. (With actual topics, it also means you avoid having to read posts such as this.)

It's been a while since I had a Fiber Monday post. This is mainly because I didn't have anything to talk about as I wasn't really working on anything. I've mentioned my interests tend to have seasons and early summer didn't seem to be a season for making things. I'm thinking about it, I realized that contributing to my lack of interest was that my studio was rather chaotic and I had too many projects started and left lying about. I needed order and clarity.  Much of the 4th, I spent organizing the studio... filing things, tackling piles of projects that needed organizing, doing some reorganizing, and then being able to clean because I could find the surfaces. I gave up on a couple of projects, put some others away for another season, and finished up a couple of things that were 95% finished it felt good. I now enjoy being in my studio again.  The newly clean studio: It had been a very long time since I spent consistent time spinning. So I put away the fleece tha...