Life Slows Its Pace Again

Starting the morning in the garden

I would highly recommend that everyone split their time between two households. I hadn't realized what an incredible break moving from one place to another--even for just a couple of months--gives one's brain. I cannot stress what a great life-resetter it is! I remember feeling vastly relieved and unencumbered when I moved to Austin last June. Yes, I had a ton of unpacking and organizing to do, but any bad cycle or habits of time that I had in Atlanta were broken. Every day dawned fresh with things to do, but no chains already set. I had choices, and I didn't feel overwhelmed.

Gallifrey helps separate the roving

Montana this summer feels like that too. I get up in the morning and I garden--or not, I work on my spinning project--or not, I have an appointment or lesson--or not. There is no drive, only flow. Life stretches out in front of me with endless possibilities and refreshingly few obligations. Sure there is some maintenance (it wouldn't be a home of it didn't require time for upkeep), but it doesn't swamp me.

Before we left Austin I cleaned out the refrigerator and threw away old bottles, jars, and packages of things that would be out of date before we got back from the summer. It felt liberating, and I reveled in the knowledge that I will return home to a clean (and mostly empty) fridge. I wish I had done the same thing here. I really looked at the contents of the door of the refrigerator here today and I was horrified. There was mayonnaise from our last stay here... two years ago. The door was crammed with things I know house science projects or alien lifeforms waiting to eat our brains while we sleep. Looks like I do have one upcoming obligation here...

Kaiju guards the roving I decided not to use

It's so quiet in this house that, when I am not typing on the keyboard, I can hear my heart beating in my ears, and the occasional squeak of Dave's chair upstairs. The pets aren't even snoring right now. It's putting me to sleep, but before I head off for a nap, I'm going to write about a project I have begun. It's a SAL/KAL (spin along, knit along) that I am starting now and will continue in conjunction with the Tour de Fleece. (More on that another day.)

The project is designed to help use up beautiful but random (not matched to a color or project) 4 oz skeins of hand dyed roving. Every spinner buys them, luscious little braids of scrumptious color that we have no idea what we're going to do with but which we absolutely, positively must have. Then they languish in our stashes because there's not all that much you can do with 4 oz of yarn--no matter what the One Skein Wonder books tell you. But for this project, it doesn't matter if you only have one skein of any given colorway as long as you have eight skeins that you can see going together in a glorious technicolor project. Eight skeins (11 for me--I don't want to run short) are enough to knit a sweater. I'm going to knit a sweater coat!

Look at the lovely crossover cable in the back!

I really hope a little over 3-1/2 lbs of yarn will be enough to make this pattern. Maybe I should do more than guess and actually take some measurements because once I have started spinning, it will be hard to add more roving into the mix and I have my heart set on this pattern.

When I was in high school I found a thick red mohair and wool sweater coat knit in a thick cable pattern by my mother. It was enormous--I don't think she ever wore it. She said I could have it and I wore it everywhere, whenever it was cold enough (and in Montana that meant I had plenty of opportunity). I wore it through college and brought it to graduate school in Chicago. Somewhere there I lost it, as often happens with things one loves and drags around the world. I have thought of it many times in the 30 years since it disappeared, and wished I still had it. Now I am taking roving of every color in Merino, Polworth, and other blends of wool and I'm going to spin a light yarn for a lightweight sweater coat that I can wear in Austin. Merino is not the most durable of wools. It is the softest, but I have some reservations about its appropriateness for this coat. I guess I'll have to wait for the final evaluation and choice when I finish the yarn.

Pavlova sleeps on the discarded alpaca roving

The pets all helped in the preparation of the fiber--mostly by napping on or near it. Pavlova took a brief, but more intense roll by chasing and pouncing on bits as I pulled them apart. She was eventually dissuaded.

And then it was time for a late lunch, some reading in the Sky chair, followed by a two-hour nap. Dave napped too as it was after 5:00 in Austin and the work day was done. He is convinced that we are sleeping so much because of the lack of oxygen in the air (we are at about 3,000 ft being at the top of the hill in Polson). I think it's just been a hard couple of years.

Now the evening stretches lazily ahead. Maybe some spinning, maybe some reading. There'll be enough time tomorrow or next week for more serious endeavors.