Funny you should ask!

"Are you knitting anything these days?"

I was going to title this post 'Never Not Knitting' but that's owned by someone and they're probably sensitive as to how others use the phrase. 


But it's accurate. 

Or more to the point: Never Not Waiting. Lots of waiting room visits with my parents, so I need something to do!
I would like to say I knit to stay sane but this summer's obsession with the Jacobus Monkey pattern might question my claim to sanity. 

I made a bunch of them! 

They became my take-a-long project because once you get the face done the arms, legs and tail are mindless round and round knitting, only requiring you count rows and at some point recognize you've gone on long enough. 

And I kept knitting them!
And then I decided to try them on size 000, 0, 1 and 1.5. 

I also quilted! Or I should say: I pulled out a nearly finished UFO quilt-as-you-go project and FINISHED IT!

(And then I started another monkey :) 

Most recently I have been working on new felted slippers. Because winter will come. And they either wear out or my knucklehead dog thinks chewing on them is fitting punishment for being ignored.

It seems to be Mushroom Season

Let's go for a walk in our woods . . . 

Waiting at the edge

Sunrise will not be rushed.

Lakeside Landing. 

A lake road I've driven by for all of my adult life and never driven down to watch the sunrise. 

In early August we found out how little we knew about the symptoms of stroke. My dad was shuffling more, slowing down. At 81 it seemed to be allowed. But then he fell. When I called the doctor to get him seen, little things started adding up. Go to the Emergency Room NOW we were told. 

He was admitted on a Tuesday. We have been fortunate in that this was our first experience with aging.
Realities of life. 

To say he hated the hospital is putting it mildly. By Wednesday of the next week we brought him home, as he wished most desperately. 

By Friday I knew it was a mistake. We survived the red tape until Monday. 

He's now at a nursing facility regaining strength and relearning life skills. Fully aware of his surroundings and again wishing to be home. 

He says Saturday. I hope this is not another mistake.

Meanwhile, I've moved back home and started making morning trips before the sunrise to be with my 85 year old mother. Cook her breakfast, bring in the paper, be there when she showers to be sure she hasn't fallen. And clean. To keep busy, but mostly because it's desperately needed. A little at a time, everyday.

But occasionally I turn left towards the sunrise. 

To remember to take a deep breath.
Breathe. 

(Random days from August 22nd - September 9th.)

A Season of Change

Uncertain New Normal

My parents are in their eighties and with the recent stroke dad had, things have changed.

Things are still changing.

Helping care for them is a given, but it's taken a little while to settle into a routine that can be sustained, without falling apart.

Remembering to breathe. 

Some days it feels like panic mode has taken over and my desire to fix all the things is made harder when suddenly all the things need fixing.

An impulse left turn on the way to mom's one morning had me chasing the sunrise. After that first morning using the camera on my phone I began taking my Nikon with it's new-to-me used 18 - 200mm lens.

I've been thinking for a while now I would revive this journal. Blogging is as hard as I remember! I've written and deleted dozens on paragraphs. 
I'm going to hit Publish and hope it gets easier.

Sunkhaze Wildlife Preserve

In Aperture Mode!

Mostly.

I took a few snaps in AUTO to be hopeful something might come out fairly decent if I totally failed this exercise.
But the plan was A mode.
No chickening out!

This adventure was a Sunday Snowshoeing trip with Tom last weekend. We had only found this location before in summertime . . . driven by on the way to Some Place Else. 
Fishing usually. 

The trail we took was a wooded path that looped out to a platform and back around to the gate. Mostly dark old forest growth, without much to point a camera at. It seemed.

Newly fallen snow made snowshoeing easy although the camera needed protection from an avalanche of snow coming down from the tree tops. Completely buried me and the camera at one point. Not good!

I'm not sure which, if any of these were actually auto mode.  I was uncertain how to find out photo details after the fact. Turns out trying to remember what I did as I practiced in A mode didn't go all that well.

I downloaded software from Nikon's website yesterday so now I should be able to tell.  I had been letting Windows open pictures from the camera but it wasn't very satisfactory.

Winter Finally Arrived

Snowshoeing Adventure

Sara and I headed to Hirundo Wildlife Refuge. She was practicing on new cross country skis and I had the camera around my neck.

Still in AUTO mode but the camera seemed to do a pretty good job until the sun sunk behind a cloudy sky.

Settings. We need to learn them!
 

When There's NO Snow

 Letterboxing in December! 

The girls and I went looking for local hidden treasures soon after Christmas.  Since I tend to get us lost whenever I'm in charge of the clues, I'm not allowed to hold them. Which works for me! Taking pictures and getting used to the new camera was my priority.

I was still in AUTO mode because the minute I get outside anything learned from watching tutorials or reading the owner's manual has gone out of my head as soon as the lens cap comes off.  It was quite dark along the forested trail. It seems clear neither one of us knew what we were doing.

We only found one of the two hidden boxes, but we may have followed the trail backwards according to the clues.

NOT MY FAULT.

Giving it my BEST SHOT . . . ?

New Nikon D5500
I got a new camera for Christmas! 

I've watched a lot of YouTube videos esp. this one  . . . over and over again. It takes a while for things to sink in.  Now that I need reading glasses, seeing the menu on the camera is a bitch without them. I hate it!

My plan is to practice taking pictures and to blog a few of the keepers to document my slow learning curve.  As with most things that needs to be learned all over again, I intend to give myself a break. My favorite advice from one of the video tutorials to date: "You'll take a million BAD pictures before you become good at this..." Or something like that. 
I'm up to about 500.

Most of my trips outside have been either walking our trails here at the house or snowshoeing some of the local nature preserves.

My goal from this batch was to end up with a four season series of photos in more or less the same spot halfway down our field. 

The first fall photo with lots of color (when this plan was first hatched) was taken with my old Canon Powershot. 

The frosty morning pictures were taken with my new camera... I think. Probably in auto mode. Winter snow-covered attempts have included too little sunlight, a dog's butt and our tracks messing up the imagined "best shot".  Getting out of auto mode is the goal.

Snow is predicted for this afternoon and tomorrow.
Yay . . . another shot at it soon? 

(Wandering Camera Project link up! ;)

Treadling X2

1896 Singer treadle sewing machine!

I did a lot of spinning in May. In June I took a break and knit another felted bag using Log Cabin Wool. (the soft fuzzy one in the middle)

There were 2 skeins of white all ready to make another bag. Except I think I'll make mittens! I dyed one of the skeins with blue and green food color. I really like the color it came out.
You never know what you're going to get!!

I may have a "bag problem"! They are addictive to knit and although I've given a couple away...   
I seem to have a few on hand.

I finished plying 2 "Fine" singles inspired by the latest issue of PLY.  Sara gave me a birthday gift of fiber from One Lupine. And a baby lamb! Stuffed :)
It was very nice fiber and I did my best to spin thin. So different from the fat fluffy 3 ply I was getting into a spinning groove with recently. Probably a good idea to change things up. The other fiber is Mohair. Yikes! Never tried that yet and may procrastinate a bit longer.
Since July I have spun 5 more skeins of  the grey Romney from Log Cabin Wool. I finished carding the last of it into 4 batts but set it aside last night to begin working on the 2 Tunis fleeces from Montana!

Meanwhile . . .

I've had my grandmother's Singer treadle sewing machine since Aunt Vena gave it to me in the 90's. I got so far as buying a new belt for it but gave up trying to get it to work when it didn't just GO! and moved on to other things. In June I started oiling all the moving parts (and wiping down the dust).
In July it sewed stitches for the first time in about 50 years!!
It still needed some work as the bobbin winder was seized up so I had to wind it by hand. The wire spring on the tension knob was pretty much nonfunctional. I ordered a new one. It cost $1.69 plus s/h. Plus there was a $3.50 minimum so I ordered an oil bottle.

BUT IT SEWED! 

I have since fixed the bobbin winder.
With a hair dryer!
When days upon days of oiling failed to budge a thing someone on Ravelry suggested a blow dryer. It was like magic after just a few minutes of heat I had a perfectly functioning bobbin winder!
(Also worked to loosen the stitch length knob. ;)
I have now sewn 16 twelve inch crazy squares and am now deciding whether or not to use my new-fangled vintage Viking 960 with its nicer selection of feet attachments . . . 
or keep treadling!

In June I decided to rip out our old patio stones that had begun disintegrating from winter rock salt and build this new walkway. Tom helped me collect rocks from the woods with the ATV.  I spent 2 weeks putting the "puzzle pieces" together. My brother made me the bench!