Retirement

I have never been one of those people who plot and plan and count the days for my retirement.  But my last job, one that I thought I could well for many years, turned out to be so awful, I had to walk out, something I've never done before.  It was difficult to do, and once I had, I didn't know what to do with myself.  Well, I turn 65 at the end of this month, and decided to just do it, stop working.

And it feels weird, to be honest.  I've been working since I was 19.  I still, after three weeks, don't know what to do with myself most days.  I start out in the studio, weaving or threading or twisting fringe, and once I can't sit at the loom one more minute, I move to the living room and knit.  If I kept track of the hours I'm currently working, it would probably be more than 12 a day.  

I'm working on a shawl, above, that I've wanted to make for a long time.  It's from Knitted Lace From Estonia, by Nancy Bush.  It'll be the third shawl I've made from this book, if I can ever get past the fifth row.  I keep ending up with too many stitches on the second half.  The yarn was hand-dyed by Pam Howard, who gave it to me a couple of Christmases ago.  It's just my colors, and feels good in my hands when I'm knitting it.

The next project was started a few months ago.  I actually had an entire sweater knitted out of this cotton yarn, "Sommer Ella" by Lena Holme Samsoe.  You can find the pattern on Ravelry.  I made my sister one, altering the pattern to make it a cardigan, and then knitted myself a pullover.  Unfortunately, it came out big enough to fit two of me, so I ripped it completely apart.  I like the simplicity of this cardigan, one of Knitting Pure & Simple's patterns.  I'm on the sleeves, as you see, but it's kind of hot to hold in my lap for long.  

And these two shawls have the fringes I've been twisting.  I finished weaving the second shawl this past week. twisted their fringes while binging on Downton Abbey, and now they're getting a bath.  Clearly, I did not rinse all the dye from the warps or the wefts when I dyed them!  They'll take a few more soaks before they can be dried.  The pattern is gorgeous, and I'll post pictures next week.

The next project, that lovely blue and lavender warp I threaded last week has a problem.  You can't see it, and I didn't see it until I was half-way across it beading the hem-stitching, but I missed a sequence in the threading, exactly in the middle of the warp.  I un-wove, cut the beads off, but still ended up needing to cut about 8 inches off to start over.  I still haven't been able to sit down and re-thread it, though I have found the problem.  

So I have one naked loom and one with a re-threading issue that I can't face.  Nothing left to do but knit!  

The garden is going pretty well, except for a deer that keeps jumping the fence to munch on all the beans and the tender tops of the tomato plants.  Check out these weird heirloom tomatoes!  The seeds are from Italy, but I don't remember the variety.  They won't be ripe for another couple of weeks, but I will report back.

It's getting hot outside, after a couple of days with cool breezes, so Weft is our example for today.  Just find a cool spot and take a nap!