Do Everything In Awareness of Whose You Are

This morning it was like I'd opened a whole new book when I opened my NIV scriptures and my "Jesus Calling," devotional book.  Days like this are a treasure to me.  You see I've been arguing with myself that I just don't matter at all, no one cares, blah, blah, blah, ad finium and ad nauseum.  I mean we even bore ourselves to death when we do that, let alone everyone else.

And then I rewrote, paraphrased, my lessons for today.  From my journal they read verbateum: "Do everything, --like eating, Mary -- in awareness of My Presence with you, says God.  I need to allow God into every aspect of my life, collaborating with God in everything, moment by moment."

My next devo I opened was paraphrased by me to read:  I am to abide in Him, not running from challenges and not turning from Him.  I have His Spirit to help me and I'm reminded to be the branch and to be branching because I'm not the Vine and being a vine isn't my job.  How often have I tried to be the Vine or tell the Vine what to do when I'm the branch!

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And now a few days later I can only see that I've not posted this yet.  Argh!  Below is a photo of the wonderful spinning wheel I'm borrowing and one of the yarns I'm working on.  Sure goes faster that way.  This is Merino wool, silk and alpaca and angora.

And what is on that wheel today is:

This is a Merino wool and Tencel fiber so very shiny.  Almost done with it too.

This is the kitty who has grown out enough hair on her ruff to not look quite so ridiculous.  She and I are both getting used to it and I have a photo to show how awkward she feels without her ruff.   Hmmmm, maybe awkward isn't quite the word!!!!   She's just gotten up from being stretched out on the floor for 28 minutes and gone to the couch.  She likes to rest against the old pillow!  I've hated that pillow forever and the kitty has to like it.  Go figure!

New Fingerless Mitts

At last they are done and up on Ravelry Fingerless Mitts Group as well as projects on Ravelry and here.  I used the Noro yarn I'd bought at the end of March and it is just an odd sort of yarn in my mind.  I'm not sure what all the hullabaloo is about over this yarn, but in the knitting world there are groups just for this yarn.

I started the mitts on one size needles and then took out 16 stitches on the palm side since I wanted the whole pattern to show on the one side.  I still wasn't content with the fit after a few rows and just before the colors changed in the yarn, I switched to a smaller one for needles.  A 2.75 in U. S. standards.  They looked pretty odd on the needles, but I soldered on and when it was finished  the fit was just right.  Loose where I wanted them to be and slightly snug where I wanted them to be.  So for once my lazy solution worked as usually this would be so obvious I'd have to rip it out and start over.  I was glad I didn't have to.   These mitts still haven't been washed or blocked, but here they are.

The colors in real life are closer to the enhanced photo at the top of the photos, so I hope you can see the difference.   All of this is from the same yarn bundle and I knit them with the magic loop method two at a time.  Used the skein inside for mitten one, and the outside of the other mitten.  Therefore the different color sequence as well.   Now to get caught up with my artist's journal and add the parts of the devotions that really spoke to me today.

New Spindles, New Haircut

    Arriving Friday was a box on the porch.  I've been in contact with Lily Spindles and it was some trepidation that I ordered these.

Why some trepidation?  I'd never seen them in person.  It was odd to me that one on top in the picture looks bigger, but in reality was lighter than the smaller one.  I twirled them both on the tags and they felt really nice and balanced.  I couldn't resist trying the lighter one last night on the fiber they are both lying upon.   And then I could hardly stop. Was it ever wonderful to feel and watch the spindle working.  Looking at it in the light of day, the darker wood is getting a really nice patina from the grease in the fibers and from my hands.  Very nice.  I think I've spun over an ounce since last night.  For us Americans that is about 28 grams, if you want to know.  The spin lasts for such a nice long time.  The balance is really nice, which helps it to spin for a long time and it is just about right for the fine yarn I'm wanting to spin.  I would recommend them as a good beginner spindle and they very beautiful.  The thing I like best is looking at the different woods in the layers of the whorl (the circular disc on the spindle,) and seeing what they are.  I like them a lot.  Lily Spindles are on the web. 

This week we had a day of kitty trimming and grooming.  My sweetie wanted to see her without her big neck ruff.  Oooooooohhhhhh, Big mistake!  I think she is just odd looking.  I mean really odd looking.  And she had a bath!  Boy she was very good, but she hated it.  And she spent over an hour after she got home licking everything; trying her best to get it, meaning herself, smelling like an animal and not a flower.  

We are in agreement that we let her hair grow out into a nice ruff again.  She doesn't even look like herself!  I think she knows it too.  

And then it wasn't enough that I started a new pair of stocking on my needles -- I was just tired of doing big bad lace so I'm not doing it for now, which may not last long.  Here are the stockings.

Think those are bright enough!  Yeah me too.  But then on Ravelry.com, which is a web sight for knitters and spinners, they also have a fingerless mitts group and I like those.  I haven't even gotten the cuffs done yet so no picture, but whew am I going to be knitting a bunch.  In fact I need to get back to that.  

Who Is In Charge

      We all want to live abundantly.  To you does it mean being rich, famous, well thought of, popular, thin, have breast augmentation, etc.?  Sounds like a good thing, right?  Not necessarily.  That means whatever goes wrong has happened because you are in charge.  It means if you lose your job, your house, your company, your health it is your fault.  After all those things, Wealth, Fame, Popularity are all human based.  So if they are gone it means your identity is also gone, because you can't live abundantly without them.  Yep, that is a lot to think about.

     You have been taught from the beginning that everything you want you can have.  What's more there is no reason to wait.  Your dreams are about all that matters, well, that and fulfilling them.  Everything else is secondary to what you want.  All you have to do is start by loving yourself above all else.  It isn't as though that needs to be taught.  We do it naturally!  But I have lousy self-esteem you might say.  Perhaps you do because it seems to me that self-esteem comes from learning to handle adversity successfully, not in being told you are wonderful.  Again that is a lot to think about.  Let me lay another one on top of that.  You are the one who make a decision of being in love or not.  Yes, you heard me right.  Love is a decision!

     It is a lot to think about.  Would that mean my strength comes not from myself, that when I'm right it was probably an accident?  Does what I think, when I'm thinking how lousy my self-esteem is, mean I'm wrong?

     Do you recognize that weakness, as the world sees it, may well be strength that could save the whole world.  Do you think of love as a weak emotion and not as a final decision.  Our divorce rate seems to indicate that is what the world thinks.  In loving a person and hating the sin am I strong?  There is a book we have that everyone in the world makes fun of that says it is so.  This book tells you who is in charge and what will ultimately happen in the world.  Worried about the election.  Don't be.  The book tells us who is in charge.  You might want to read that book.  Think about it.  

New Book -- New Week!

     Another week has gone by, I think.  Where did it go?  In everyday activities I believe.  New sink faucet put in, new garbage disposal put in, exercise, meeting with people and yarn making.  The best however is the new book on yarn which is below.

   
     Lots and lots of really neat yarn type factoids that I just love learning about.  Probably most people would be bored to death, but not me.  I love it.  I didn't know for example that at one time Alpacas were almost extinct.  I'm afraid the same may happen to Musk Ox.  I know, how many people worry about that one?  Almost none.  And yet their hair is the warmest thing known on the planet.

    Got to talk to an old friend from Alaska this week.  Their Christmas letter arrived a bit later than usual and rather mangled, it may have been in the other side of the couple's truck for ages, or just one of those strange mail things.  It was fun to chat with her.  How much Alaska has changed in the intervening years and of course Fairbanks has tripled in size.

     Have lots of new yarn made also.  I need to get a photo up so you can see her and took some new shots of Miss Elly, aka as Cinder-elly, precious and baby kitty girl.  She is a 16 or more pound cat.  

     Not best pleased with me here.  Just tolerating having her photo taken and wants a drink from the bathroom sink if you'd wait on me as you should.  Here is one of her outside thinking about eating grass.

    It is early in the spring and the snows from October have finally melted except the huge piles in the parking lots of commercial and business places, but too early for grass to grow much and it is mostly in the brown dormant state.  Also don't you love the fluffy end hair on her tail.  Makes me chuckle all the time.

I decided to take a quick photo of the yarn ball I've made so far.  This is nearly an ounce of yarn ready to be plied (twisted together the other direction to be a 2-ply yarn) together for something to be knit from.

     The fiber is a batt made from wool, a nice merino wool, a bit of alpaca, some silk and another wonderful component which I've forgotten, but it spins beautifully and is with some of the batts (on the far left side) I'd ordered and the spindle is one of my new ones I'd ordered.

     I added pages to my Artist's Journal, but this post is long enough and that will be for another time.  suffice to say I'm having a ball with both things.

     Did you remember to jump ahead today?

The Week That Was

     Wow!  Has it been a week already?  Well, yes and I don't know really where the time went.  This last week as seen the install of a new garbage disposal, with the help of a plumber because I was worried about breaking the porcelain on my 'new' sink which I realized was about 15 to 17 years old, so it can no longer be classified as new.  I'm not sure where that time went either, but I'm going to enjoy it while I can.

    We've been so warm I wore my work out shorts all day yesterday because I just couldn't have the time to get them off until late.  Then this morning it was cold and damp and misty with a few desultory snow showers now and then.  Got my clean up car all dirty again, but it was clean for a couple of days.

     Today was an art day and tomorrow is a running to and fro sort of day.  I'll be home mostly, but have to do some errands sometime and hope to spin some.  Nothing really to report except the new saying I'm sort of living by, right now which is:  You can choose your sin, but consequences will be tailor made for you to realize that there is no choice in consequences.  I love that right now.  So very true.  Think how much better people would have it if they choose their sin carefully.

     I've gotten a lot of spinning done, and am getting better at making yarn closer to what I want.  Practice does improve a lot.  Now, I get comfortable with that and off I go to learn more of how to do it faster.  Again a lot of practice to do that.  I've taken a lot of photos and may actually post them soon.

The Day of Spinning

Sure it seemed like a normal day, but it turned into a day of spinning.  I'm trying to relearn -- not that I was every very good at it in the first place -- hand spinning on a hand spindle.  I've had spinning wheels, but now I'm using hand spindles.

Good grief, Why? you might ask.  Well, because I love doing stuff with my hands.  That is why.  Always have and probably always will as long as I have a mind.  So I made some little spindles out of a wheel and dowel I bought at Michael's and a tiny cup hook I bought at Lowe's and there I was with my old spindles and my new ones looking at my new yarn.

     The spindle with the bright pink/red/hot pink yarn I just finished and is left over from back in the day before I started beads and other things.  The one with the blue/turquoise/aqua yarn and roving (The thick strings of fiber of various kinds used for yarn making.) is the home made one from the toy aisle at Michael's and Lowe's.  I learned about making these from the book, "Respect the Spindle," from Interweave Press!  Good book if you want to learn to spin on a spindle and there is also a DVD available which I really like.  Now why on earth would anyone want to learn to do this, you may wonder.

     I do enjoy using my hands and my head at the same time, but also did you realize until about 100 to 150 years ago that all fiber was woven by hand?  The author of the book mentioned above said something about the sails of boats, the first until lately sails of all boats, were all spun by hand.  Did you ever think of that?  I hadn't and it is sort of stunning.  This is an ancient craft and there are hundreds of people in my area that practice it.  True many of them use a spinning wheel.  Pictures are below.

This is one from New Zealand and probably looks like what most people now days think a spinning wheel should look like.  Here is a more modern looking wheel.

Okay a really modern looking wheel.  There are also many kinds of hand spindles.  Currently the most popular seems to be the high whorl hand spindle with a hook on top.  But different spindles are most efficient for different types of fiber and what you expect to make out of them.  For me and my future in spinning, I want to first make and ply (plying is just putting together two single pieces of yarn and wrapping them together in the opposite direction from which they were originally spun) good yarn for some stockings and then spin some for lace knitting.

      I love doing complicated things way into the foreseeable future.  It just satisfies a part of me that needs that sort of planning and thinking about.  Besides, do you realize how many tools I need?  And you know how I love tools and gadgets.  Oh, I'm dreaming about beautiful and spindles.  I'll need some new ones of course . . .

Finishing things

This has been a week of finishing things I wanted to get done.

One is a pair of socks that I've not done a photo of yet, a pair of half mitts, and the other is a jig-saw puzzle.

It has been such fun on winter days or quiet weekends.  Yep, I've had a good week and I hope to take some photos of my Artist's Journal.  That has been best of all.  Each day a little something.  I love it.

We were supposed to have less than an inch of snow, but this morning I and my sweetie shoveled about 6-8 inches of wet heavy snow.  Had to put the garbage and recycle out this morning and need a place to set it.  Oh, the joy of snow in the spring with wind.  Nope with wind I don't love it so much.  Ah, Well, it is okay as I got the work done and can go out and exercise when my sweetie wakes up from his nap.  Plus I have the book for with the lily of the valley motifs in it.  Yippee!

The first post for a new blog

Today is the day I have and it matters to me.  True, it is my day of the week to be lazy if I can and today I can.  I worked like a fiend yesterday getting all sorts of little things done so that today I can do this lazy day.  I deserve it.

Things I like to do is knit, do jigsaw puzzles and write/draw/paint, etc. in my Artist Journal each day.  You may or may not get to see that stuff here.  I'm a Christian and that is my biggest motivator.  The Lord God, the great I AM is sovereign over my life.  I hope to bring Him glory in each day.

I don't remember much about blogging, but will do some and see if I like it again.  Remember today matters.