Yay, Friday the Thirteenth

The wobbly draft as seen a few posts ago.

The sample. The weft is in one of the reds, same fiber content as the purple. Treadling is tromp as writ, and since I just finished threading, it's not hard. Except, see the plain weave in the purple area? I was listening to yet another superb Richard Ford vid, twice in a row, and I lost my place. I'm thrilled I can see the wobbliness in the sample as some of these design features are not as clearly visible as on the computer/paper.

The weird line in the middle is not a threading/sleying mistake; this loom has hocks in the middle of each harness that separate the heddles a little wider than desirable in some cases. Most times it comes out in the wet-finishing, though not necessarily in the sample washing, which in some cases are abbreviated. 

The real deal on the loom, and it's much bluer than seen in this late afternoon sun. It's been a while since I last wove something this lacy, but the piece is progressing, (oh, I don't want to jinx myself,) easily and quickly. I love the (subtle) difference in the ways the reds in the warp contrast with the weft. (See the lighter spot towards the left selvedge??) I think the piece will end up slightly wider and longer than the request, but that's not a bad thing.

The only worry is, the warp is 26/2 100% cashmere at 18EPI, and for the first time I see some sticky warp ends/sheds, making me unpick occasionally. I have to proceed with caution.

* * * * *

The baby blankets should have arrived at grandma's yesterday but I haven't heard anything; this makes me a little nervous. There is deafening silence in my Pop-Up shop, and though I'm no stranger to no sale, (Twilight Market in 2008, for e.g.,) gosh darn, I was hoping to earn a little spending money for Japan/Down South, and of course it's never encouraging. And I return to the many discussions I've had with numerous people; how many scarves/wraps does one need?

I did go over the donation bags as well as all the wools/mixes/cashmeres downstairs and edited the selection, and took inventory of pre-made warps; both of these activities gave me a direction/focus on what I'd like to do this summer and further. But if I can't sell, I'll have lost one of the reasons I weave, and so where do I go from here?

A few dinners with friends from the convent school, former IBM colleagues, and even mom's friends have been scheduled. And you'll never guess this: I'm getting together with Kaz in Tokyo; earlier we aimed for a Kaz/Terri/Meg meeting in Osaka but Terri's and Kaz's schedule didn't work out. Ben and I've also started thinking about the trip south.

I'm meeting with Maria and Alison tomorrow. And I might even get some gardening in next week.

I'm Doing Alright

Yesterday I did a bit of housework; rudimentary stuff, not serious cleaning or anything like that; restricted to indoors. Then I went through the wool downstairs and decided to donate about two rubbish bags full. I was ruthless; I held each cone/lot and tried to visualize something made of it I will be happy with, (un)foreseeable shortcomings notwithstanding. I also chucked nice years not my color. There is one ball I might want to keep after all; there are four cones I might give away. That was a little tiring, but after a late lunch, I inspected the pieces I want to put in my Pop-Up Shop and filled in my check list, which by this iteration is a pretty handy. Oh, we finally made it to the supermarket last night.

Today, after washing the dishes, I made two batches of sauerkraut. We've been eating it again now it's warmer, and the current batch tastes very, very nice, and I think it sat in the fridge for a couple of months. So I wanted to make some before I left, which by the time life settles back to normal, this batch will have sat in the fridge for roughly six weeks. If all goes well, it should taste nice. And then the sun was perfect; it was somewhat cloudy but not too much, gentle afternoon sun streaming, between periods of rain, into the living room. So I took some pics, and managed to open the Pop-Up Shop. Yay! (See the tab above? Or here.)

With a fortnight left, (actually, I have to be at the airport at the crack of dawn in two weeks today,) I know I can manage the red piece, and fingers crossed, I can work in the garden a little. Because with this cycle of rain and sun, the weeds are having a... heyday!

Here's a weaving conundrum: if you have a huge (old television) box full of wool yarns, and a bit more here and there, and you take away two rubbish bags full, why isn't the big box almost empty, or at least more gappy?

Signs

Of my life returning to more or less normal:

1) Dishes pile up and get washed only once daily, on weekdays.
2) There's not a lot of cooking happening. (We had frozen Chinese dumping two nights in a row, three out of five nights, and Ben cooked the other two nights. He wanted to go to the supermarket today but I didn't finish work until seven in the evening and I didn't want to go then.)
3) Often I catch myself thinking of ways to convert visual clues to weavable segments.
4) I'm constantly looking for new color combinations.
5) I'm blogging more often, and checking here to fill in the gaps in my diary. LOL.
6) I thought of resurrecting my weaver's page on FB but now it asks too many questions that's on the back burner.
7) I started thinking of exhibiting; not so much looking up opportunities but projects/ideas I might want to develop further.
8) I am looking for opportunity to talk to other makers, but not that emphatically; finishing projects is priority.

I finished the last hem on the baby blanket, pressed both pieces again, packed, contacted the client. That leaves only Ben dropping the parcel in the parcel box at the PO. I'm exhausted, (I didn't used to get this tired, really,) but the mind is active and I've been thinking of double weave's different applications.

I think I can manage a wooly sale; I've worked on the texts in the evenings last week, rather than drawing faces. I need to inspect and press the pieces, and label/tag/make bags for some, and photograph and post. But I think I can manage.

As well, I need to untangle the tension problem with the red cashmere project; threading and weaving won't be so onerous, so I think I can manage.

It would be nice if I can get in some gardening time. But priority is priority.

As to our shaky-leg-cushion cover, Ben and I both liked the "inside" better so inside out it is. We'll be trying different in the closet soonish and then I can sew it shut. And then it won't really matter which color is on the outside; it'll just be a nice cushion to have around.

Baby Blankets

Or Toddler Blankets, or Toddler Drag Blankets.

This, my best and most patient, client and I go way back, pre-my-first-digital-camera and pre-Unravelling, although I recall having a few pics on my first website years ago. Back then, she was one half of the company that made my cloth labels, and in need of a wedding present. Since most folks in New Zealand, (OK, people around me,) don't use such delicates as table centers and cloth napkins, I proposed a couch blanket, which was also my first double-width weaving. I used two kinds of pale beige/taupe wool in the warp and undyed with-scale merino in the weft.

When a few years later she asked me for a boy baby blanket for her first grandchild, I gave it some thought: I'm very slow and the baby would probably be walking by the time I delivered; I wanted to make something a child would know, use, and remember rather than make a delicate/beautiful gift for his mother; and he lived on a farm. So I proposed a toddler blanket, imagining a small child dragging behind him a blanket bigger than him. And so it was for him, and his three siblings. All of these pieces have been roughly 140cm by 140cm.

Toddler #3's got thrown in the dryer by a German au pair, and I was glad to gift a replacement I happened to have had on hand from the same warp. When #1 felt sad #3 had matching blankets for herself and her doll, I was super glad I had warp-end fabric from his, although slightly worse for wear as I used to sit on it when I needed fine-tuning of my bottom position while weaving on the big loom; said child got a big kick out of me posting said warp-end piece addressed to his doll; firstborns, we're on similar wavelengths sometimes, even when separated by decades and kilometers.

These two new grandbabies were from a different stock, living in a stylish, urban, uncluttered home in much warmer climes. The order was something more towards the first couch blanket.

12 years after the wedding present, however, the foreboding was hard to shake off; I had been looking for good-quality/affordable merino/merino-mix here for some years. In the first instance we were looking for pale-to-mid grays, but with-scale merino at any size, any color was out of the question, as was good quality NZ merino, especially around 18/2. I looked all over the web, consulted Dianne, looked online and printed catalogues and a few shops in Japan when I was there for Mom's exhibition. Nada. Either they were prohibitively expensive, too fat, (mainly for knitting,) or charcoal gray.

I had merino boucle and possum/merino/silk, but the client never liked them. Mohair was a no-no as well. So I went back to the drawing board, consulted with Deanna at DEA, had another look at my stash, and chose Merino/Mohair 50/50 mix in 18/2 for the warp, (which I had enough of rather than 100% merino, and because that little bit of mohair produces a fabulous sheen in contrast to 100%, and I expected this little bit would be OK by her) and 2/30 merino called Saxon, doubled up, in the weft.

The cloth drapes like a sleeping baby or puppy, if you know what I mean. The little bit of sheen is wonderful, especially in the gray piece. The fold is tight and the finer weft was far less forgiving than in the previous blankets; the pieces, the blue in particular, I honestly can't call rectangular. But if the Baby Mommy isn't impressed, perhaps the client and Hubby can use as nap/couch blankets? Ben wouldn't mind if the blue came back, I'm sure. (And there was no way I was going to even try to get the colors right in the picture today. Sorry.)

* * * * *

Because of the softness, size and available colors, I kept telling myself if I were to keep weaving, this new-to-me merino is perfect default wool; it worka well with many in my stash, but, oh, on their own, they make dreamy thin wool pieces. I've been learning to balance this "being kind to one's old body" thing and being realistic/productive and get cracking. Then it dawned on me, Mom started weaving at 59.5 and produced such a variety in her first 20 years, (and spun and dyed,) so I can't be seen to slack off now.

* * * * *

It's going to be a rainy weekend; even national radio's coverage highlighted Nelson, and we've had to adjust the telly volume every 20 minutes or so while watching UK upcycling programs, and switching the light off and on. It's perfect for reworking one hem on the blue blanket and fringing one end of the gray knee rug, then a vinegar bath for both?

* * * * *

EDIT: One funny thing about these baby blankets is I don't put my woven labels on them. Regarding babies, I imagine possible accidents from my babysitting days of yore, and I've cringed at the thought of tiny fingers and toes getting caught or, heaven forbid, toddlers swallowing tiny labels.

EDIT: I'm working on MegWeaves Facebook page v2, and in the process found the aforementioned wedding gift pics.

Randy-versary, Half-Birthday, and Changes to Changes in Plans

Eleven years ago this week I was in Randy Darwall's workshop. I often wondered if I'd have a chance for another workshop, perhaps in one of the famed American craft schools, but that wasn't to be. I was going to write to Randy and Brian before the tenth anniversary but didn't. Regrets don't do any good, but maybe I'll write to Brian.

I learned the phrase, "half birthday" in the last year or so. It never meant anything to me until 1985 when I met a work colleague who became a really good friend whose birthday is October 3. But the more I read FB posts about half birthdays, I've come to like it; there's less pressure as it's not the real birthday, but a good chance to reflect or revise plans.

Like on half birthday last year, I gave up the idea of most of my stash being used up by my 60th. Which is in six months. And when you're mildly/moderately depressed, that is one giant load off one's shoulder.

I finally finished hemming the baby blankets; one hem on the blue isn't as nice as I'd like it to be, or as the other three, but I'll see what happens when I wash them. I have a contingency plan. I love the gray, (it's pale gray on undyed, so nothing like in the picture,) Ben loves the blue. The drafts are similar but different.

The cloth part of the blankets are nice, thin and delicate. As baby, (toddler, really,) blankets, they may be not as robust as their cousins', but these babies live in the warmer climes in the city, and it was what Grandmother ordered. To be sure, it's more my style. Although I said I'm never weaving this width again, these make nice grown-up nap blankets, and Ben and I are, "hum!"-ing.

Maybe next year.

The blue pillow cover, I constructed the way I intended; the side showing more warps on the outside. I hope it fulls a little in the washing, but from my past experience with this merino/mohair, not likely. On the other hand, fewer merino loops will be undone in the hard ware and tear. Its size, pre-wash, is roughly the size of a standard pillow. (As in on the bed, not cushion on couch.)

The charcoal piece, I've cut off most of the naughty part, and am now unravelling/unpicking enough, (a nasty, dusty job!) so I can make fringes like the other end to make a shorter piece, and call it a knee rug, either indoor or in the car. I still really like the way the design shows, but even with the same wefts in different colors, this one is decidedly scratchier than the other two.

I had hoped to have a wooly sale in July/August, but didn't because it felt a little too soon after the cashmere sale, and it was the hottest time period in some places, so I changed it to September. Then we had that interminable cold, and now it's kind of close to Japan trip, (and I still have a few stuff on my priority list closer to the surface,) and it won't be until early December when I can work on this. So I was going to bring (back) some to the Suter.

While pressing Ben's shirts today, though, I wondered if I can set up another pop-up shop without having to work as hard as the previous two. And I have an idea. It'd have to be worked quickly, (oh, so not my forte,) but possibly possible.

I'm going to sleep on it.

Sequel, Midquel, Prequel and Sequel

Previous post was supposed to be the last of the recent consecutive streak, but there are plenty of deliciousness left I want to share.

Well, this is not delicious, but three makers told me Thursday night of their arthritis, or similar. inflictions interfering with their making; a couple are much younger than me. For me it's been lower limbs and stamina, but let's all be careful, OK? (Even though I have no idea how to be careful about arthritis.)

* * * * *

I had to catch the 5.12 bus to get into town in time to pick up a Richard Ford volume at Volume before they closed at 6, then cross the street to Nicola's Cantina. Because it was Esther's birthday, I wanted to make an effort to dress up, so I donned a black top, black pants, and black shoes so I can put on my step-grandmother's Japanese silk jacket. Came 4.45 and I started my journey; I should reach the bus stop 5.05ish.

Walking up our driveway was fine, but soon afterwards I noticed there was a leaf stuck on my left shoe, so I stepped on it with my right and kept going. It felt my shoes picking up a lot of pebbles, then I saw a twig with three leaves stuck on my left shoe, again, so I peeled that off. I checked my soles for sticky stuff, but there were no gum or dog poo. My shoes felt increasingly awkward with every step, but never mind.

As I crossed Tahunanui Drive, I thought the shoes were going to be OK and plodded along the elementary school, when suddenly, but in retrospect unsurprisingly, my right sole exploded. I don't mean disintegrated, not peeling off the rest of the shoe like another pair a year ago, but it exploded, into narrow strips of black... bits.

I dragged my feet another 10 meters, turning into Rawhiti St, and wondered what to do. The bus stop was closer than my house; I could get into town and ask Ben to pick up a pair of shoes before coming to Nicola's; I could remain barefeet the rest of the evening, not unheard of in Nelson but I never do that, or ring Ben and ask to be picked up, taken home, then taken into town. It was 5.10 and earlier than when Ben usually leaves work, I rang him; he wanted to meet at home but there was no way I could make it, so I stood in the grass, not the sidewalk, for 25 minutes, kids and parents staring at me while they came and went to the basketball court.

Ben drove up laughing, wanted to see my shoes there and then, (I wasn't laughing at all, so no go, mate,) we went home, picked up my navy blue shoes, got to Volume at 5.50, got the book, went to Nicola's, and I ordered a pitcher of red sangria for myself, and Ben a margarita. And the rest of the evening was exquisite.

Said red jacket, which I couldn't put on until we left Nicola's because it was too hot. And I had merino socks in the same red, not that anyone got to see.

* * * * *

Rosie and I powwowed what Stella said about practical considerations in making. Rosie is a bookbinder, and we share difficulties in breaking out of the technical/utilitarian considerations/constraints of our own crafts, so we explored each other's. Rosie proposed we look into the opposite of what our end products usually do, and she chose "telling a story" as the primary function of her books, while I chose the woven cloth's ability to wrap a body, and being pretty. I hope we get a chance to continue this thread.

Everybody at the birthday party love books and, well, tend to buy a lot. Among other things, I said I have a few "current issues" paperbacks which were current when I bought them, got started, but couldn't be bothered finishing. Richard reminded me they now have historical values. He is such a gem.

In the last two nights, I also found out one of friends' kids are finishing university this year, another starting in Feb, two starting their last year at home; one started his first part time job last night, and one I knew as a sweet little boy is now twice as tall as me, (OK, maybe not that tall,) and half my weight. He still had the sweet face, but no wonder the rest of us are getting old. I loved that I was not the only one taking off the glasses to read the menu.

Today we delivered some hellebore babies to Stella and Thomas. I love the idea my kids are going to flourish at Esther's, Maria's and Stella's in the slightly distant future. (Hellebores are so slow and somewhat unexpected.) We ran into Barbara at the supermarket.

Normally two consecutive nights of socializing would start an exhausting regurgitate-a-thon interspersed by variations of, "I should not have said that." It's not that this weekend is an exception, but this is part of living with depression; when the going is good, I try to make the most of life outside my head/house. It may appear almost bipolar from the outside, (I'm not as far as the last psychologist could determine, just mildly/moderately depressed and acutely anxious,) with a barrage of appreciative vibes. I try to curb my enthusiasm without much success, but good people are the best gifts in life, no?

And I love my husband, including the part where he wanted to see the soles right away. But seriously; what was he thinking, when I was struggling just to climb into the car!

Ben Called it a "Birthday Scroll"

I started writing about this a while back, but since it involves a birthday, I thought it better to hold back. I've been quite pleased with myself about having come up with this idea, though.

Two Saturday morning ago, Esther asked if a Friday night two weeks hence, i.e. tonight, we'd be free to join her birthday dinner. We were/are. I'm "scheduling" this post, so by the time it goes up, we'll be chatting away at a Mexican cantina in town.

I wanted to give her a small cashmere scarf, but to weave it for her specially, and knew the earliest I could get around to it would be Christmas, but most likely much later. So I had this idea of a "card" roughly the size of a small scarf; I cut/pasted a piece of brown wrapping paper and started doodling/collaging, with a promise of a cashmere and/or merino scarf, "of approximately this size, in the design of your choosing within the weaver's grasp and colors of your choice within the weaver's reach," or some such, "to be completed by your birthday in the year 2020."

"Or thereabouts."

I think I can manage. I'm also happy to be retired tax-wise; I can use/mix purchased-for-business and purchased-for-pleasure-or-gifted-or-rescued yarns without measuring and calculating their $ value and putting them in the correct columns.

One of my fav parts don't show up too well... See the gold swirls?

Ben called this a scroll so I tried rolling it up but the water-color-painted collage part, the red part, was too stiff so I went back to the original idea of folding and stuffing in an envelope. The project looks childish, but then she's a museum art educator of students so she's used to childish art, I thought...

* * * * *

Last night's presentation by Stella was fabulous. She brought some of her pieces, many of which I had seen but I got to look really close up, and handle in some cases, and some I didn't know about that informed me more about Stella's making.

Ronnie and Maria were there,  Sue was there talking about a new way to wear my wraps, (in bed, especially when you're not feeling great, which is something I've recommended to many; try it if you have one of my softer pieces,) and good neighbour Duane and Barbara were there, (and gee, we like them a lot.) Ronnie and Barbara are involved in running these talks, and I can now hitch a ride with Barbara if I want to go to future sessions.

Stella touched on art vs. craft for jewelry making, but when I asked how much she thought of the practicalities of a piece, and she said none. One of the "fine lines", (my word), for consideration for her is "to sell," (assuming the buyer wants to wear it,) or to exhibit. What's that for us, for me? My first thought was something-to-wear vs. something-decorative, although... a decorative that is reasonably flexible/wrappable that is of reasonable size would be the equivalent of gigantic or spiky-things-poking-out kind of ring. For example.

Maria and I have been hatching a plan, to get (back) in touch with makers to talk about making, but Stella does a lot of collaborative work and curating, so there may be new components to our future discussions. We and my friend Alison, a painter/dress-maker, are powwowing at my place in a fortnight. Ben might bake a cheesecake for the occasion. :-D

* * * * *

I cleaned the basement yesterday, after much dithering. And I'm glad I did because it was worse than I expected; there was mold on the walls of the far side of the room, near the single-glazed window and door. Not a lot like we used to see in the house before upstairs were refitted with double-glazing, (I was wiping at least twice a week,) but then we have the shower we use more often downstairs, and I think I'm correct in saying we had more cold days and more rain this winter. None of these would have mattered had I been going down regularly, like I do other years; when I find something fishy, I clean as I go, but this year I used the upstairs shower much later into autumn just to avoid going downstairs.

Should be OK now I've washed the walls with vinegar, but Ben's going to move the drawer/desk thing so I can wipe behind that, too.

I also have too much wool downstairs, stuff I had planned to use up by the end of last year, and you know the more breathing room you give wool, the more they expand. I can't believe all of that used to occupy one-half of the big box upstairs; now they don't come near fitting in another big box. (And the upstairs box is full without my adding.)

Over the years I've been donating yarns that weren't nice, but kept everything of reasonable quality/size/color. I changed my mind yesterday and decided to further give away yarns I won't weave with. Some are too harsh, and while I lament parting with them, (mostly old-style weaving yarns with scale left on!) but they will be better served by someone who repurpose them, and I'll regain space and peace of mind. I hate having to label my pieces car/boat/camp/cabin-suited to mean, to me at least, they aren't as soft and lovely like my "usual" stuff.

Right.

Dad

My Dad would have been 90 today. I'm not sure what he'd make of this new world; angrier than 2000 or hysterically laughing after running out of options. I'm pretty sure we would have been in frequent contact, my being his political offspring, trying to outdo each other name-calling politicians; neither of us were/are satisfied by boring ones, although I've logn run out of creativity this time around.

That's him on the right and his younger brother, who predeceased Dad by a couple of years; they were the last of their nuclear family by 40-plus years, having lost two elder siblings as kids, then their father when Dad was 33 and their mother when Dad was 43. So, well done, Dad, for sticking around until I was 55. This would have been taken probably some time in the 1930's/40's, before The War.

When we were cleaning up the house after Dad died, Mom commented Dad's family had astonishing amounts of studio-shot photographs, not just from this generation but from the grandparents' generation, when "these things weren't cheap." I don't know if her family had photos and lost them in in the fires in the war, or if Grandpa was too busy to think of it. My cousins, (Mom's big brother's girls,) who lived next door to us also had studio photos taken at least once a year that I knew of, which I envied because they looked so posh, but turned out to be irreplaceable gifts because they lost both parents ridiculously young.

Tonight I have Stella's talk to go to, "No time for Art! (Or how to make jewelry in another dimension)"; Dad would have loved the idea, "at your ripe old of age of 59.5-minus-five-days," (and he would have said exactly that; I get my penchant for details from him,) I still think there is wonder to be had in life.

* * * * *

The cushion cover is done and the whole warp off the loom, and the client still wants the two blankets, so that's a relief. A tube, without floating selvedges, wove quickly. And pretty big, at 45cm long. I had a tad more warp left, but I thought just the dark weft was nicer than a bit of lighter coming out of nowhere at the end. The only thing is, I wanted the outside of the cushion, (inside of the tube as I wove,) to have more weft (blue) showing, and checked and double-checked the 1/2/2/3 twill but failed. The start of the piece has single-layer plain weave, which was meant to go inside as a seam (?) and the other end, tubular plain weave. So, errrr... Hum.

* * * * *

Stat Counter reminded me blogs can be, and this one is occasionally, read machine-translated. And while I don't give a lot of credence to machine translators, having been a human version in previous lives, there are measures writers can take to make the machine-translated text "readable". As in not using so much colloquialism. But then it takes away the character of the writer and the flavor of blogs, and while I know sometimes I overdo it, I also like it here because Unravelling is more about a record of how I spend my life. Rather than respectable weaving.

Hee hee...

Eh.

Good Thing Weaving (and Moving) Forward is Easier than Backward

I finished weaving the blue baby blanket; all things considered it was fast. Ish. Although this width, and this draft particularly, was hard on the body, I love weaving on the big loom as we've done the most to accommodate it to my body size. And with no broken warps in the two blankets, (that I remember,) and only a slightly weird tension on the left, I hope, I hope, they finish up nicely. Wouldn't my client be surprised to hear from me after a year of silence! And I'm fine if she doesn't want them.

For the warp end present to myself, I'm going to weave a simple twill or plain tube with merino bouclé to make what I hope will be a skinny cushion cover, about the size of half a pillow. (If I run out of the dark wefts, I'll finish with the light.)

I did this at the end of Cherry Blossom way back, and though it's tiny, I love the cushiony feel. The size, (inside is 30cm*30cm commercial cushion insert folded in half,) is handy in filling the gap behind your back, neck, under a knee, etc. In fact, it's super handy while travelling, and while this one doesn't travel because the bouclé loops proved more fragile than I expected, I might make a fabric-covered one. (And I may even spring for latex foam rather than a regular cushion insert.) Cherry had merino in the warp, this is merino/mohair, and at a slightly tighter EPI, so this will have a different feel, but that's OK.

On Monday, I remembered the Pillars warp-end door piece needed washing. It's been hanging on the basement door for five years, and though I occasionally vacuumed and turned it upside down and inside out, I neglected it completely in the year I didn't weave, so while weaving the baby blanket, I put it through the gentlest rinse/spin cycle, in weak vinegar water. (Against some hesitation, I must add, but this machine does such a great job on our sweaters, so nothing to worry about, right?)

Yikes.

I know! And slightly less grievous bodily harm to the left, almost in the same rows, too. And I can't figure out where the rust mark came from. I might mend it; I might do something else; there is always the compost bin.

Yikes.

That, and the search for suitable wefts for the blanket warp leftover showed me in warm spring daylight the true state of the basement. Usually I can say it's only messy and crowded, but it's really icky after not using, moving things around, and ventilating in the way one does when using a space rather than just turning on the bathroom vent and leaving doors/windows open. Which is what happened for a year.

I've been disgusted at the state of upstairs these last few days as the sun rises higher and I can see dirt in ways different from the sideway sun of the winter, (that's bad, too,) feeling the screamingly dire need for a good clean. (By the way, I'm Japanese, so spring cleaning is not on my calendar when hay fever is at it's worst; Japanese clean house like mad folks at the end December near dead of winter. Mom used to say it sanitizes the house, too. In Nelson we've gone for big cleaning in summer when we can evacuate stuff outside and work long hours, and sanitize in a different way, I suppose.) But the basement pointed out I really was depressed some of the last year, how not only did I try not to think of, but didn't think of cleaning.

In my defence, there was the big food issue, and I kept up with not just laundry but ironing, and I tried/learned new things with paper, and to be faced with not just the garden that's in a bad shape, and I have limited time before I go to Japan with priorities that may or may not fit in that time, and next to no time before we take off South, and really no time before we have Mrs and Dr Cady for lunch/dinner or an extended Q&A, and JB and Ali and hopefully Duane and Barbara from next door, who are all very tidy people. Yikes. I so wanted to have Duane and Barbara over the winter.

I don't like living like this.

So instead of crossing off the baby blankets on my To Do list, (because it's not done, I just finished weaving them is all,) I added "Clean basement".

And to be honest, I don't really want to go to Japan this time; first time Ben said it may not be a nice idea. But that's another story.

The Weekend that Was

And I am totally out of touch with a world that could have had Corbin, Sanders, common sense, or our own Jacinda Ardern, but refuses to.

I'd written a whole lot more, but the crux of the matter is, we are waiting for overseas/special ballots and won't know until early/mid-October which way the third party's professional kingmaker will fall, (from memory, this is his third time!), even though politicians have started talking and media speculating energetically. Either way, even if She get in, it will be an uncomfortably slim majority. The good news is, She's still 37.

And there's a good chance NZ$ will plummet, (further,) which makes this a good time to have an online sale, which I decided on the weekend to put off until Dec/Jan/Feb to concentrate on my priorities. Maybe not. I am cutting back on mixed media now.

(That's not Her on the telly; it was an advert for an Al Jazeera doco on drug trafficking.) Staying up late watching the telly, moving the clock forward an hour, and then watching some more telly, even though I stuck to explanations/timeline and none of the speculations, I am exhausted, and will now go back to worrying only about nukes vaporizing my country of birth. I'm weirdly confident South Korea won't be nuked, but then who knows in this new world.

The cherry is 90% open, later than usual, the tree is producing about 60-70% of flowers this year. Must remedy. And here, as in Japan, those delicate flowers opening up means open season for rain/wind and this week we might even have some thunder and lighting to make things interesting, before spring settles in.

The weather has been extraordinarily rewarding to conscientious gardeners; fairly consistent rain-sun-rain-sun cycle combined with sudden warming; flagrantly embarrassing for others of us. But priorities beckons me to the looms today.