Changing colors, changing focus

It’s hard to believe that we’re half way through the month of October. Weather patterns have shifted towards a wetter, cooler experience. Temps have not yet reached freezing, mainly staying in the 40’s at night and fluctuating from the 50’s to upper 60’s during the day. I’m keeping track because we still have temperature sensitive house plants outside. Originally I hoped to have a heated greenhouse constructed by this time, but that’s not the case. We don’t move at lightening speed at this house. There tends to be quite a bit of debate and wrangling of ideas before anything moves forward, often getting stalled due to discussions. This is probably why most of our home improvement projects never get completed (and we have way too many to count!).

So what has been happening?

The donation to The Arts Center sold quickly. The lamp donation is currently up for bid until October 21 at 6pm Pacific Time. If you’re interested, please click HERE. All proceeds go to help the orphan children at the Makindu Children’s Center in Kenya Africa. I purchased 4 pregnant goats for the kids this week and will probably do more before the auction end.

I’m learning yet a new way of using wool: Weaving! I guess it’s kind of inevitable, having an overload of wool and a desire to always be learning. It came about because of a friend who needed to move her small table loom out of the house. The Nilus/Leclerc table model has 4 shafts and can produce almost a 14″ wide piece of cloth. Not huge! I’m hoping to change the warp out soon and start trying my hand at creating cotton hand towels or wool table runners. This isn’t a field I’m familiar with so everything is totally new. Very similar to spinning wool a year ago! I tend to jump in and run with it until my attention is pulled elsewhere or the body can’t function. Fortunately, the loom will be staying with me for a while until the friend has cleared out her home and eventually can reunite with her art passions. If I, for some reason, want to work larger I could possibly borrow a loom from my sister who has numerous. Kim started a weaving journey about 20 years ago to complement her love of quilting. If I look back into our mother’s lineage, there was a line from Ireland that were weavers and textile folks. Maybe I’ll research that when the genealogy bug strikes.

Another reason for attempting new artforms is to balance the arthritis problems. I get tendonitis easily and it doesn’t go away even though I’m on several heavy medications. My body is currently in a major flare up which slowed my internal drive this week. It looks like I need to start physical therapy yet again to get over the newest hurdle. I just need to find more patience with my body and try not to aggravate the situation by consuming inflammatory foods (even when those foods taste soooo gooood!) or doing overly physical yard work.

Probably not much else worth sharing except ballots arrived yesterday and I’ve already voted. So happy our state of Oregon has been entirely vote by mail, primary and general election, since 2000! Get out and vote!!!

Stay safe and have a great weekend wherever you live!