Jananas

I scored some fun yarn related Craigslist finds this week. Even better was that they turned out to be from Caroline’s mom’s best friend. The first is a basic yarn winder, but I adore the old/rustic look that this has. I may have to spin up some yarn today so that I can use this to wind some skeins.

The second find was her mom’s working spinning wheel. I’m going to have to do some research to find out more about the manufacturer, etc. I’m thrilled that this wheel came here as it means that it will get loved and used and the tradition of loving yarn will continue. There is definite wear to the original orange paint job, but Caroline has already expressed interest in stripping it down and refinishing it. What an awesome project (and what awesome friends). I really enjoy the sense of collaboration and shared creative energy that my house has.

This wheel looks very antique/old school. Especially in comparison to my Majacraft Little Gem, which is tiny and has a very modern design. Something about this wheel makes me wish that we had our own little cottage. I think that it would be a perfect summer wheel. Imagine this next to a big stone fireplace and me spinning away the summer evenings. Time to stop daydreaming and to get my day going!

Its been a while since our last root beer challenge and even this one took place a couple of weeks ago.

First up – Kiri. This was a bottle that I was nervous about trying because the total lack of writing seemed sketchy to me. We did finally find an ingredient list – in teeny tiny font on the top of the cap. Despite my misgivings, this turned out to be a decent root beer. It smelt great, had a subtle taste and was the fizziest of the bunch thus far.

Next up was Fitz’s Root Beer out of St Louis MO.  This was an awesome creamy root beer, still made with real cane sugar (yay!). I think it would make an awesome root beer float. Their website has a history of this root beer and you can still buy it from the original diner in St Louis. I’m a little bummed because if we’d known about this a year ago we could have stopped off and tried some for ourselves when we passed through St Louis last April.

When Gucci first arrived he didn’t really understand how to play. We knew that we didn’t want him playing with squeaky toys (not only are they annoying, but they also mimic the sound a cat might make had he gone after them). We tried kongs and rope toys to no avail. Tennis balls were promising, but his all time favorite toy ended up being a ball made up of layers upon layers of felt. He’d half fetch it and he definitely loved to eat it/tear it apart. Problem with tearing it apart is that he also destroyed it. Although to his credit he still plays with the little bits of felt.

And so my adventure in making homemade felted dog toys started. I have enough fleece laying around that I could experiment. The first time I tried I used more traditional wet felting methods – think dish soap and agitation in the kitchen sink. Then I tossed the ball into the washing machine for a final pass. Big mistake! I ended up with an overflowing washing machine and piles of bubbles on the basement floor. Note to self, never using dishsoap in the washing machine. Really, I swear I have two degrees and am in Mensa…

To help out me self esteem my second attempt turned out fantastic. I had done a little internet research and read that an awesome way to make felted balls is to wrap the felt into a ball (however big you’d like it to be) and then put it into the toe of a stocking/nylon (or in our house a pair of Jason’s athletic socks given that I abhor nylons). I made several balls in one sock by tying off the space in between each ball with elastics – we have a giant pile because they come around our mail sometimes. I put these through the wash on hot twice with our various articles of bedding. I also put them through the dryer. They came out perfectly! The one on the top right was made using a braided rope of 6 strands of extra bulky weight yarn I had leftover from a project. I wrapped the fleece around the middle, so it acts sort of like a ball on a rope toy.

This was a remarkably easy project. It took minutes to get them set up and ready to go. I finished them while doing normal household chores (laundry). And they are reusable. As Gucci destroys them, the little tattered bits will be used as the centres of the next generation of balls. Oh, and each one uses less than $2 worth of fleece! I’d say that’s pretty cost effective and time effective all around.

Do you have any tips or tricks for dog toys that your doggo loves?

This weekend I’m taking the two day Modern Batik workshop at Poetic Art (an awesome little art gallery and studio space up at Davisville and Mt Pleasant). Its very different from the Batik course I took in Chiang Mai Thailand, although the premise itself is the same.

I picked a picture of Mazinaw Rock (it drives much of my art so this shouldn’t be a big surprise). At the end of day one, here’s where I stand. I’ve coloured in and covered most of picture. Tomorrow I have to finish colouring the water and then draw in all the lines.

It takes a little while to get used to working with the wax, so I’m hoping that all the places where I messed up and lost detail won’t be too noticeable in the final product.

People have given me a lot of flack for being a planner. Let’s use Christmas shopping as an example. I hate the big, crazy crowds and the panic that comes from trying to get everything done last minute. Instead, I plan ahead and get the majority of my shopping done in advance. I’m enough of a natural planner that I can think far enough ahead to see this dilemma (crowds and time pressure induce my anxiety) to think of an alternative, however I see this planning as a coping mechanism.

It allows me to not deal with the stress and craziness, because I puttered away at it at my own slow pace months before. And yes, there will always be some last minute shenanigans but for me this copying mechanism helps minimize them so that they are less stress inducing when they do happen.

To take an extreme example, this past Christmas I had 98% of my shopping finished by the end of September. My train of thought was that I would be traveling from the beginning of October until mid-December. When I got home it would take me a little time to get things put away, deal with house stuff, get adjusted, run errands, etc. Which doesn’t leave much time for shopping (or for shipping of stuff ordered online!). So I just dealt with it ahead of time.

Planning is my coping mechanism so that I feel less stressed out by all the little details when the time comes.

What coping mechanisms do you use and for what situations?