Sheep to Shawl, Longing to Weave, Getting Drippy

My last six days have gone by in a fog of spinning in most of my spare moments. I'm a member of a five-woman sheep-to-shawl team, and we're preparing for this Sunday's sheep-to-shawl (STS) competition at Estes Park's Wool Market. Some STSs require that the sheep be sheared at the beginning of the contest time (yikes!). I am relieved that we can show up for the competition with our fleece washed, our warp threads spun, and our loom dressed and ready to go. During the five-hour STS window, we'll card our weft fleece, spin the weft threads, weave and wash the shawl. After our five hours are up, the shawl will dry for an hour and then be judged against those of the other three teams. I'm told we're judged on the quality of the spinning and weaving, but also (and rather importantly) on how we interact with the public during the competition, as this is meant to be an educational event. I'll try to post pictures and write more after the competition. Anyway, I think I've spun something like 600 yards of fairly fine singles in the six days from last Tuesday night to last night, which was Monday night. The warp yarn, when 2-plied, is a light DK weight or so.

With our warp now spun (and other team members plying it), I'm taking a few days off spinning now to give my left elbow -- the only part that seems much bothered by all this spinning -- a rest before Friday's loom-dressing party and then Sunday's competition. Friday will be my first time helping warp (dress) a floor loom. I'm looking forward to the learning experience.

I did recently learn to warp and weave on a rigid-heddle loom. I had so much fun at the all-day workshop a few weeks ago, I bought a rigid-heddle (RH) loom for myself for my 40th birthday: a Schacht Flip, 25" wide. DH made me a beautiful oaken pickup stick to use with it, and says he'll make me other tools as I figure out what I want. I've promised DH not to warp the loom for a real project until I finish the curtains for our living room, the last room I haven't sewed for yet. When I made that promise, there were also two bedrooms uncurtained. This loom is providing some powerful motivation! I did warp the RH loom with some wool stash yarn, with DH's blessing to try out some weaving patterns, when we came to a technical roadblock on how to hang the living-room curtains, which meant I didn't really know what sizes to make them. Now we have that problem solved, so I'm back on the hook!

I didn't make any promises about not buying wool combs at the Wool Market, though. I loved the process of combing the fleece for the warp, and even better, spinning the resulting, luscious hand-combed top. I want to try it with my Cormo ram fleece. I've been spinning that, woolen (lofty, fuzzy) style, into laceweight yarn for a shawl, processing it with hand cards, but the enjoyment from that two-year-old project is wearing thin, and I enjoy knitting with worsted (smooth) yarns more, anyway. Maybe I'll make a cowl or some other small thing from the woolen yarn I've already made and spin the rest worsted to weave. :)

DH helped me out by replacing the worn-out batteries in our baby monitors (this is a soldering job, something I could do if I had to, but that he's much faster at), so now I have the ability to range out in the yard for more than a few minutes while DS is napping. I can work with the kids outside with me, but DS tends to cover himself in soil when I do that, so I have to figure in time to bathe him and get the soil out of every item of clothing and orifice afterward! He may be quite the gardener once I can focus those digging energies a bit.

Today I used my freedom to finish hooking up our drip system for the vegetable/herb garden. I've tested it and found it leak-free and functioning -- hooray! Next time the garden gets thirsty (it's pouring rain now), I'll test it for adequate coverage. I might add a few emitters here and there to get everything enough water. I already seem to hear the potatoes sighing with relief at not being watered from overhead, and my back sighing with relief at not needing to bend over and carefully water underneath them!

I Can't Hear Myself Think!

Sometimes I hear myself saying things to my kids that I should listen better to myself:

• If cleaning your room at the end of the day is too overwhelming, you'll need to clean as you go.
  
• You don't need to be perfect; just try to do your best.
  
• Why are you so critical?
  
• STOP YELLING!

Sometimes I think that parenthood is little more than an ongoing lesson in recursion. After seeing a friend lose her temper with her son recently, and then getting an abject apology from her by email, I constructed a story in my mind: A little girl grows up, getting yelled at sometimes for doing things wrong and feeling pretty bad about it. By the time she's a mom, she knows she'd prefer to deal with her kids without yelling if possible. But there's still a voice in her head, yelling at her when she falls short of her best intentions. You know the one? Then, lo and behold, when one of her kids screws up, she finds herself yelling at the kid in front of other parents, leading to much embarrassment and self-flagellation.

So how do we break the cycle? For this kind of yelling/criticism loop, I suspect it has a lot to do with learning to be gentle with ourselves when we screw up. Otherwise, how can we manage to be gentle with our kids? Can we come up with a mantra for ourselves? Something like, "I will remember that I am a good parent, that I have always done the best I could, and that I have passed on to my children as few of the hurts that I endured as a child as I could possibly manage. And someday, I'll get some rest!" (That's a paraphrase of the Parents' Commitment in Co-Counseling.) Or how about a chant I heard in a women's singing circle: "I will be gentle with myself. I will love myself. I am a child of the universe, being born each moment." Is it possible to remember that life is an ongoing learning process, and that most learners, ourselves included, don't do well with constant criticism and put-downs?

Looking at the list above, it seems like my own chief demons are perfectionism and impatience – the inward- and outward-facing parts of the same stinkin' thinkin', as FlyLady might call it. FlyLady's lessons have been one of the most helpful things for me in learning to be more patient with myself, to the extent I manage to do that. My co-counseling experience was helpful, of course, but FlyLady has helped me take the lessons of self-acceptance and patience with myself and others into the less orderly context of my daily life, amid chores, kids, and household chaos.

I still have a ways to go. Perhaps alongside FlyLady's 15 minutes of decluttering per day, I could try a daily practice of forgiving someone -- myself, my kids, my husband, a stranger, but myself at least some of the time -- for something. Anything. It's time to declutter my mind of impatience, perfectionism, and eventually whatever other demons I might turn up after those clear out a bit. Then maybe, when I give one of my kids a piece of advice or correction, I'll be able to hear myself think!

Attack of the Exercise Imp

I remember my first bike ride for fun after I moved to the Bay Area 18 years ago. I’d had the same mountain bike all through college and pretty much only ridden it for short trips around campus and town. I didn’t have, or know how to use, a patch kit. I didn’t have a quick-release rear wheel; this was great for locking my bike on campus, but not conducive to repairs. See what’s gonna happen here? My girlfriend and I went for a 12-mile-or-so ride around Contra Costa County, on rural roads through grazing lands and rolling hills. Just about as far from BART as our route would take us, my rear tire tangled with a 6-inch piece of barbed wire on the shoulder. It was a mess. My girlfriend had a patch kit and the knowledge to use it, but not the 15-mm wrench to remove my wheel! We walked to the nearest farm, and fortunately found someone willing to lend an adjustable wrench. After something like an hour of dealing with this, we were back on our way, having used just about all the patches we had. And then I had another flat. No need to go on; suffice it to say that that day was what my dad used to call an existential experience. I did eventually proceed to ride long distances (six years later, from San Francisco to Los Angeles!), but it took a little while to get back in the saddle after that debacle.

Is there some spirit of mischief that plagues people trying to set out on the path to a healthier, more active lifestyle? I ask because I think today it bit me again. This past week, I got my bike back in riding condition for the first time since last summer, and I took my daughter to her dance class along with the little guy in the double bike trailer. It went pretty well, though the ride back home, uphill all the way, was a challenge. I figured I’d have all spring to get in better shape, now that my bike is ready to go, I’ve found all the appropriate locks, etc.

See it coming yet?

So this afternoon, when we all decided on the spur of the moment to go to the library, I suggested we take the bikes. Husband and kids were all game, and soon we were off. No sooner did we get to the library, though, than the little guy barfed up his lunch in the parking lot. Oops! Was he motion-sick? He’d never had that problem before. We decided to hang out outdoors for a bit and see. Nope. More barfing. He’s just sick. I hung out with him outside the nearby supermarket, while DH got some dinner stuff and a roll of paper towels for cleanup. More barfing. We rode home slowly, checking on him constantly. He’s convalescing slowly in front of a video now, to take his mind off things. Or maybe just to make us feel better – he only seems unhappy for about 30 seconds longer than it takes him to have a couple of heaves. Thank goodness for small favors!

So I’m thinking, how long will it be before we’re ready to get back in the saddle for a family bike trip? Maybe, now that we’re pretty sure it’s not motion sickness, not too long. I will be packing a change of clothes and carrying that roll of paper towels and a plastic bag or two in the trailer, though! Maybe we can avoid the spell of the exercise imp and get past the mental barriers this time. Wish us luck!

Putting On My Own Oxygen Mask

For 15 years after college, I lived in the same area in California. I built a good network of connections there that gave my life stability and depth. Now, three years into my life in Boulder, I'm still looking for that. As an at-home mom of two young children, I crave adult connection. It gets hard to be really present with my kids if I don't get that. So what works?

I've gone door-to-door in my new neighborhood, sort of like a Welcome Wagon in reverse, meeting people and compiling a neighborhood contact list. I probably know more people in my neighborhood by name than most longer-term residents -- but only a few any better than that. I have hopes that this will progress into regular neighborhood-based social activities or mutual aid like sharing tools or skills. But there's still work to do.

I joined a local church in my denomination (Unitarian Universalist) and have met some folks there. But between having two young kids and my husband not being a church guy, it's been hard to take full advantage of opportunities for connection there. Connections at church are starting to form, but they, too, need work.

So does school. I talk to some of the other parents at my daughter's school, but finding the ones I have much in common with is a slow business.

The one place I felt instantly at home, when I found it, was the monthly spinning/knitting gathering at my local yarn shop. The people there are all different ages and have pretty widely varying lives, but something about their being crafty with fiber seems to bring out common values:

• We crafters seem to value making things more than having them. Many knitters give away most of what they make; it's really the pleasure of creation that keeps us going. This tends to correlate with interests in things like simpler living and slow food, though that's not universal.
  
• We value teaching and learning. People often ask questions when they're having trouble, and there are always people ready to drop what they're doing and help out. Just listening to conversations there, I learn more about the crafts I know and get useful background on those I have yet to learn.
• We know it's important to take time to create. The setting selects for that, of course. Some of us have children or demanding jobs, but we make time for fiber, somewhere between once a month and every day. It feeds us and makes the rest of our lives more doable to take this time for something we love.
  

For me, as a mom, socializing with fiber folk is a form of putting on my own oxygen mask first: making sure I get some down time, some connection, so I have something to give to my kids when they need it. In some families, I think the same idea is expressed, "If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy." Amen.

I continue to work on connections at church, school, and in my neighborhood, but I've made the most progress with crafty gatherings. Since December I've been hosting a monthly craft circle at my house on a Saturday morning and serving lunch afterward. My husband, who can see the benefits of these connections for me, takes care of our kids and sometimes others who come with their moms (it's all women so far) while we sit and ply (or spin, or knit, or crochet!) our crafts. I've taught a couple of brand-new knitters at the gatherings.

Our circle is slowly growing, and it's knitting together (oh, but the puns are rich here!) friends from school, extended family, and folks I've met at the local yarn shop gatherings. (I got the owner's blessing to recruit there as long as I don't schedule in conflict with their spin/knit-ins.) I can feel my root system getting deeper and more complex with each monthly circle. The oxygen mask is on, and the air is sweet!