Difficult

Yesterday was one of those difficult days. I spent hours on the phone trying to sort out some issues for a friend who is in hospital with a serious mental illness. I won't clutter this blog with the details. I was stressed and tired. I picked this little leaf from a friend's garden just to brighten my day.
















It's a tiny delicate subtle thing and I don't promise to do anything with it. It served me as a kind of a talisman in my difficulties. That's enough.

Detail

Here's a close up of the ruffle at the front of yesterday's little neckpiece.

I took it with me on my various travels yesterday. I felt the need for a little encouraging feedback. Mostly we were met with a smile or even a giggle. That's just what I was hoping for.

Spontaneous

After planning and measuring for textured scarves on Saturday, I probably should have continued in that vein yesterday. Instead I took one of the yarns and made this:

What to call it? It's a little woolly neckpiece--more necklace than collar really. There's a thread of magenta silk through the main yarn that doesn't show up well in the picture. Please add that visual spark in your imagination. One of the things I really like about crochet is that it builds one stitch at a time--that's great for free-form work because I can take it in any direction I like.

After that spontaneous outburst, I'll try to get back to the scarves in the next day or so. 

Making

Remember this?

Now it's this:

A long, narrow open-textured scarf using a variety of my novelty yarns. There are enough purples to make at least one more and then I have a great range of other colours to play with. I'm hoping to make enough to sell some at the next House Market. I'm wondering about offering kits for sale. The only trouble is that measuring and packaging the yarns takes so much time and trouble. So, I'll see how it goes. For now it's knitting.

More Treasures

I picked out the mother of pearl buttons from the old button box. These are much more my taste.

I already had some button bracelets on my to do list. These buttons would make them extra special. The only trouble is that I don't wear bracelets myself and I do love these buttons. So I'm thinking maybe a lanyard. We'll see. Meanwhile they're fun to look at. There are so many varieties and some of them show great signs of wear over years of use. I'm not much of a historian, but I'd love to know some of their stories.



Vintage Treasure

I had a fascinating hour at the Neighbourhood House this week. Somebody had donated her mother's old button box. I couldn't resist sifting through it. Amongst other things I found this:

Self-covered buttons in a white synthetic knit fabric--and an irresistably clear and polite little envelope to hold them. It's pure speculation, but wouldn't you like to imagine the garment they belonged to?

Hot

Our run of incredibly warm late winter weather continues--as does my pursuit of sunset colours. I bought some extra white wool top the other day to do some more dyeing experiments. When my eye hit on this orange, it had to come home with me too.

So, I have this running through my fingers at the spinning wheel and a skein in the dye pot brewing a pink-orange combination. The forecast is for showers later today, but I don't think I care!