S-L-O-W Progress
It seems hard to believe that we are already into June, despite the cooler temperatures and slow-to-start growing season. I am pleased to see that most of our plants are blooming, and our tiny little seedlings are beginning to reach for the sun in our vegetable garden.
My personal favorite this time of the year are lilacs. The beauty and fragrance fills my heart with joy, all the more with the knowledge that both are so fleeting.
Our apple trees also have blossomed, but so far I can't detect any perfume in the air yet.
In our vegetable garden, we have seen the beginnings of our squash plants;
green beans;
and lettuce.
As you can see, our ever-abundant weed population has already taken hold, despite us putting down some newspaper and straw. We'll try to keep ahead of it near the veggies, but that has proven to be near-impossible in the past. We are also behind in the rain lately, so we have to keep on top of watering, though many mornings are starting off either damp with drizzle or socked in with fog.
In weaving news, I just finished threading, sleying and lashing the warp on for the Circles towel project. Progress was hindered by my omitting to measure out 10 ends smack in the middle of the warp, which I found while threading. I measured more ends on the warping board and chained them together to bring them to the loom. After gingerly threading and sleying those loose ends (yarns NOT under tension are NOT happy yarns, nor do they make for happy weavers!), I had to figure out how I was going to weigh them as they hang over the back beam. Normally, any ends that I've missed are few and far between, so each one gets its own weighted pill vial. These ends, being chained together, posed a quandary as to how to hang and tension them together, while not allowing the chain to undo itself. This is the (MacGyvered) solution that I've come up with: mechanical pencil through a loop in the chain to prevent unravelling, clamp applied to this area of the pencil, looped chains placed over the pencil to keep it off the floor, and S-hooks to add some weight.
Sure hope it works!
Remember this lovely skein of yarn?
In the evenings while watching the news, I have been keeping my hands busy and my mind focussed by knitting some socks.
The colors make me happy, which is more than I can say about the horrible social situation that we are experiencing in this country. I feel drawn to follow the news, appalled by our lack of leadership during this volatile time of social unrest. Instead of listening to the protesters valid complaints and ideas, in many areas of the country the protesters are met with force beyond reason. I do understand that there are some bad actors moving into the protests in order to commit crimes and destroy property, but most protesters are urging change for long-standing inequities in our justice system. To have some local police departments and our "leaders" in federal government use tear gas and threaten to send the military against peaceful protesters, medical personnel and journalists, not to mention belittling governors who are trying to honor peaceful protests, is beyond anything that this country is supposed to stand for. I can only hope that peace prevails, change occurs, and people remember all of this in November.
Wishing everyone continued health...
My personal favorite this time of the year are lilacs. The beauty and fragrance fills my heart with joy, all the more with the knowledge that both are so fleeting.
Our apple trees also have blossomed, but so far I can't detect any perfume in the air yet.
In our vegetable garden, we have seen the beginnings of our squash plants;
green beans;
and lettuce.
As you can see, our ever-abundant weed population has already taken hold, despite us putting down some newspaper and straw. We'll try to keep ahead of it near the veggies, but that has proven to be near-impossible in the past. We are also behind in the rain lately, so we have to keep on top of watering, though many mornings are starting off either damp with drizzle or socked in with fog.
In weaving news, I just finished threading, sleying and lashing the warp on for the Circles towel project. Progress was hindered by my omitting to measure out 10 ends smack in the middle of the warp, which I found while threading. I measured more ends on the warping board and chained them together to bring them to the loom. After gingerly threading and sleying those loose ends (yarns NOT under tension are NOT happy yarns, nor do they make for happy weavers!), I had to figure out how I was going to weigh them as they hang over the back beam. Normally, any ends that I've missed are few and far between, so each one gets its own weighted pill vial. These ends, being chained together, posed a quandary as to how to hang and tension them together, while not allowing the chain to undo itself. This is the (MacGyvered) solution that I've come up with: mechanical pencil through a loop in the chain to prevent unravelling, clamp applied to this area of the pencil, looped chains placed over the pencil to keep it off the floor, and S-hooks to add some weight.
Sure hope it works!
Remember this lovely skein of yarn?
In the evenings while watching the news, I have been keeping my hands busy and my mind focussed by knitting some socks.
The colors make me happy, which is more than I can say about the horrible social situation that we are experiencing in this country. I feel drawn to follow the news, appalled by our lack of leadership during this volatile time of social unrest. Instead of listening to the protesters valid complaints and ideas, in many areas of the country the protesters are met with force beyond reason. I do understand that there are some bad actors moving into the protests in order to commit crimes and destroy property, but most protesters are urging change for long-standing inequities in our justice system. To have some local police departments and our "leaders" in federal government use tear gas and threaten to send the military against peaceful protesters, medical personnel and journalists, not to mention belittling governors who are trying to honor peaceful protests, is beyond anything that this country is supposed to stand for. I can only hope that peace prevails, change occurs, and people remember all of this in November.
Wishing everyone continued health...
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