Tag Archives: wool

February 18, 2015 · 6:00 AM

Late winter burn out…

I’m just a little bit tired of winter.

Rather, I’m really just tired of the lingering dirty snow and ice and its hazards, and now, a cold snap.

Normally this time of year would have me tearing at my breast and howling with rage at the season, but I’m semi-coping – I think I hate December much more anyway…

The tired snow is showing the well-trod path of our neighborhood deer through the side yard.

And their antics at night in the backyard.

And they’re getting hungry and bold and starting to lurk about during the day as well.

(We just got more snow, and then some more snow, so it’s back to looking fresh and solidly winter again.)

I’m getting antsy to be finished with organizing my crap, but it is slow going… our basement looks like a well-stocked thrift store with 95% cool stuff.

I finally found the missing box of stash yarn.

And it had all possible variations of yarn and notions, so I had to partially undo and redo my massive organizing job of last month. (And I may have done a little cramming, which is how the messes start in the first place). But I found some slipper bottoms I forgot I had too, so those will be put to good use… soon?

I finally finished a pair of gift socks I’d had on the needles for months but only worked on sporadically – I can usually crank socks out at a decent pace, but these took a little longer than I expected – especially at the dash to the finish which usually goes quite speedily, but this time was more slow and steady…

(The color isn’t right, they should be less pink – it’s an older ball of my favorite ONline Supersocke 6-fach yarn, and a reminder that I prefer fraternal twins for socks).

And I made five Botanics (some with fold-over brims, some without) in the last couple of months – really burned out on the pattern, but it’s still an easy and good one.

I sewed a few more curtains, yet five more still need to be hemmed, and four need to be replaced with something more interesting… burned out on those as well.

And our water line froze (but we didn’t know that was the problem at the time) just before the weekend started, so we just had several days without water and went ahead with some sloppy smelly house projects – think I might need to actually burn the clothes we’ve been wearing…

(Don’t worry carolsinspring, I mailed those socks to you when I could still bathe and after I gave them a good soak!)

3 Comments

Filed under collecting, home, knitting, sewing

Tagged as burnout, deer, February, flash your stash, footprints, hats, knitting, snow, sock yarn, socks, well water, winter blah, wool, yard, yarn

January 21, 2015 · 6:00 AM

Stash flash – the commercial yarn edition

I’m not a huge fan of stash flashing.

Sometimes it just seems like crass showing off, sometimes I think of the world’s starving people, sometimes I think it’s a little funny when a middle age woman poses naked with it in a bathtub*, sometimes it gives me anxiety of having too much, sometimes it gives me anxiety about having too much of one thing but not the needed thing, and sometimes I’ll admit I’m a little jealous.

But we reached a milestone on the house – the floors and walls are done in all of the main rooms – so I’m finally moving into my teeny tiny studio and figuring out how to cram everything in.

And part of that involves taking stock of my yarn stash.

It was in relatively decent storage – a few big plastic tubs – but sock yarn was mixed in with sweater quantities was mixed in with random cones of mystery fiber…

And of course there was yarn shoved into other yarn…

Everything needed to be aired out – there was the odd unfortunate odor of our old apartment’s carpeting trapped inside some of the tubs, and a few lavender sachets lost their pleasant one. But all was well – no evidence of wool-munching crawling or flying f*ckers.

The sock and fingering weight yarns are now separated out into their own bin and I know I don’t need to shop for the stuff possibly ever again. I’d been wanting to make some jolly-colored tights for years now, but I haven’t even considered casting on for them, so maybe it’s okay to just make one pair of socks from one of three skeins, or consider making a blanket. I’d really like to make some pants, but though I’d like wacky tights, I’d rather have more dull pants (trousers to my friends across the pond) though I do adore my wool pants (underwear).

Need I remind you that I got everything really cheap? Yeah, the internet is good for that, as are Italian markets and those newer craft/construction materials thrift shops. I’ve been picking up the odd cone of stuff for a few years – I thought I’d be weaving by now and dying more too… And I do intend to use some of it in spinning…

My old favorite Lamb’s Pride is all in one place now too – this is one of the few yarns I have sweater quantities of – large coat or king-sized afghan quantities… I fell into a brief obsessive love with mosaic knitting several years ago and planned to make a cozy big long coat. I got a billion yards of two shades of green on the cheap online, but the colors weren’t contrasty enough and besides, I never got around to finding or making up a pattern, so it sits and waits…

And the bulky green in the bottom right was, for a short time and twice, an Owls sweater, but I never got the sizing right, so I frogged it and gave up.

I’m in love with that old gold greenish shade “golden mushroom” in the upper left, so it’s high time I cracked it open… I love nearly every shade of green though, so I’ve got some thinking to do…

On the day that I organized this stuff I had one of those disturbing time warps wherein I missed lunch. I never miss lunch. And the day was pretty much shot – I feel a bit guilty overall for “wasting” the time and that I have so much, yet I can’t part with it either. I got some of it up on ravelry, so I may sell some things if asked. But I also don’t really need any more clothes or blankets, so my knitting mojo for anything other than gifts, sales, or a few smaller accessories is pretty flat at the moment.

I’d like to replace a few commercial sweaters with me-knitted ones, but the ones I wear most often are grey. Do you see any grey yarn up there? Nope.

And since I work from home, I need nothing. Absolutely nothing. I don’t get the people who work from home or stay at home and are crazy prolific garment sewers and knitters… where and when do they wear the many, many things that they make?

(And I still have loads of yarn from unraveled sweaters, a nice bunch of that lovely Italian wool, and a smallish (relatively speaking) amount of handspun.)

And though I accomplished a needed organizing job that day, I ultimately failed when I realized that there’s still another box/bag/tub of the stuff somewhere…

*I’ve seen a few of these on ravelry, but sadly can’t find one at the moment for you – and no, I won’t do that.

3 Comments

Filed under collecting, knitting, thrifting

Tagged as balls, brown sheep, bulky, cone yarn, fingering yarn, green, heywood wakefield, lamb's pride, skeins, sock yarn, stash, wool, worsted, yarn

January 14, 2015 · 6:02 AM

In praise of old wool socks

Since we finally got some furniture for our clothes, I’ve been unpacking and evaluating stuff I’ve had in “deep storage” and haven’t seen for years. Some things are easily tossed – underwear with shot waists; some things are joyously recovered – an oversized thrift cashmere sweater perfect for wintertime pjs, though covered in holes, so it looks like a night terror was a reality, and I really should fix it, but don’t really feel like it; and some things have a stubborn endurance that gives me pause and I take them out to wear again, but they’re the first things to be crammed back in a bag if I’m short on storage space.

Like a few pairs of my old wool socks.

I can’t kill these things… And they’re actually from the 1980s, so on that aspect alone they should be banished…

Wool socks used to be a rough, no-frills, utilitarian item of clothing. They weren’t even dyed, and were made of mostly wool with a teeny bit of nylon for strength. The soles weren’t cushioned or contoured, and silk liners were essential when wearing them for hiking.

Some of them lost their shape and got dumb baggy ankles and some are lightly felted and all the cozier for it.

These things tromped around Midwestern forests and fields, endured a month without washing high in the Rockies 25 years ago, and slid around on old wooden floors in old creaky old urban houses.

I don’t like wearing them to hike now – I’ve gotten too soft these days and prefer the squishier kind, and I have enough hand knit socks to wear when out in public, so these are pretty much the sock equivalent of sweatpants.

All of them have balding heels and toes, yet there still hasn’t been a full break… Some of them look nearly as delicate as hosiery, but despite my recent frequent wearing and washing, they’ve held on tight.

(And they also made it through my horrendous slaughter by moth ordeal 10 or 15 years ago…)

I’m really trying to get rid of things – to throw away things that truly no longer serve a purpose to anyone and to donate those which do – but these fall in neither category.

I’m actually considering (when they finally do have peep-heels) unraveling the cuffs and combining a few old pairs to make new ones…

But I don’t think I’d survive the bomb/apocalypse/undead uprising that would be required to finally destroy these things.

Jadeite

I used to collect vintage dishes.

I use the past tense because I haven’t bought a whole set since the late 1990s, but an occasional cup and saucer will still come home with me.

I still have most of the dishes, though I’m too scared and sick to unpack them since the Great Box Avalanche in our late apartment.

I’m also paranoid to use them now because I learned that some might have lead – yes, even restaurantware can have some – and I’ve probably caused myself mild brain death from the years I used them. I bought a lead testing kit, but misplaced it in the move.

We used to have easy access to Fiestaware seconds and so we’ve got a rather large dinner party worth of the stuff and I don’t use anything else these days, nor do I expect I’ll ever want anything else (except for a piece or two in a new colorway or to replace the occasional broken piece).

I used to tell myself that buying vintage dishware was an investment, because for a tiny period of time it was – Ebay was just getting rolling and things like Fireking’s Jadeite went for unreasonable amounts of cash. My books for grad school and some bulk rice and beans were paid with my Ebay earnings…

Until a year, or maybe even just a few months later, when the market was flooded…

Today, my old crap isn’t worth too much more than what I paid for it at the pricier thrift stores, and isn’t really worth the bother of packing and shipping to sell online (or even to unpack it for some proper photos).

But I still really love the stuff – I love the colors, and the sturdy materials, and most of all, I love the size – modern plates are too damn big. And I drink espresso, so the coffee cups might be a little small for today’s average American Joe, but they’re perfect for a double shot.

So I’m thinking about dishware because I finally finished spinning my “Jadeite” wool.

The last in a trilogy of Pigeonroof Studios superwash merino roving that I bought last year and intended to knit together in the same project. I’m still pretty sure I’ll make a shawl/scarf or perhaps a sweater yoke of all of them, but maybe I should make a tablecloth instead….?

Nah.

8 Comments

Filed under collecting, home, spinning

Tagged as china cabinet, fiestaware, fire king, green, jade green, jadeite, made in usa, merino, Pigeonroof Studios, roving, spinning, superwash, vintage dishes, wool

October 29, 2014 · 6:00 AM

The hat with the incurable case of wanderlust and amazing feats of reproduction

We got a surprise in the mail last week.

N’s favorite hat came back after being left behind in our August vacation cabin. I wasn’t too terribly upset when he lost it – I felt sympathy for him, but not anger because he lost something I made.

(And this isn’t the first time he left it behind somewhere – it regularly has alone time far away from us.)

It was the first of a series of Botanic hats from Stephen West that I’ve made over the years. N picked the pattern too – riffled though a big box of printed ones while I tactilely browsed in a LYS in the state where we now live, but haven’t been back to since (it’s a good shop but a bit far away still). But when I made it, I messed up by making an unnecessary and unsightly seam where you alternate between the two colors – in fact, I messed it up on more than one hat, but this was the first before I knew it was wrong, and the one that didn’t get ripped out.

And though I love knitting with you, oh Malabrigo, you really suck in the long term. I pay too much for you to collapse in a miss-spent pile of pills, though I did get this batch of yarn with my customer loyalty discount (meaning I’d spent too much previously) at my old beloved LYS.

And the pattern has a weird habit of scrunching upwards and flailing outwards – so even though it’s long enough just off the needles, a few weeks later it exposes the ears.

So even though I have to routinely pick and brush and shave the hat, I was willing to make him another in the same yarn (I have some left anyway) only this time without the mistaken join seam thing that annoys the hell outta me every time I see it. But he didn’t want a longer brim on the new one – this is mostly an indoor hat to keep his hair out of his face and take off a bit of chill, and to wear to bed which is where it usually likes to go rogue and fling itself between the wall and the bed frame.

My other Botanic hats were one for one of my brothers out of Cascade 220 superwash in two shades of green.

(And yes, my blog banner was on this same chair with the yarn for N’s first hat).

This is is the unnecessary seam issue I’d had (you have to drop the the old yarn before picking up the new rather than wrapping around it) so this hat got ripped and re-made.

And I had enough yarn left for another for N, though he doesn’t like this one quite as much as the other – but I like it more since the yarn is virtually pill-less, though more prone to stretching out…

Then one for me. Oddly, the grey of the ribs is the same as the non-rib part in N’s first one – it’s my favorite colorway in the yarn – “Pearl Ten” – and though the color is greyish, tanish, lavenderish, in his hat it turned tan, and in mine it looks grey (and he calls his hat his “brown hat”). I think the peach color in mine is “Applewood.”

One day I might add more length to the brim, though I too like to wear mine indoors or only when it is just a little bit cold – I can’t tolerate exposed lobes even within 15 or so degrees of freezing…

And finally, one for an old friend at work who underwent chemo.

I didn’t know if he was a wool person or not, so this is a synthetic blend, and though a single color defeats the purpose of this pattern, the texture is still interesting, and it is especially soft when the ribs are worn on the outside.

If you count the green one I ripped and re-knit, I’ve made this hat 6 times – my most knitted pattern besides my vanilla sock recipe.

So I’m slightly relieved to not have to make a replacement hat for N, but can you truly replace a “favorite” something anyway? A new one might be a little more tight or loose or feel generally different without the several years wear (and probably not enough washing). So I have to deal with looking at that ugly-ass seam again.

But I do enjoy making this hat and really like that it is reversible, so I’m sure another will find itself on my needles again…

5 Comments

Filed under knitting

Tagged as botanic hat, cascade 220, handknit hat, hats, knitting, malabrigo, reversible patterns, stephen west, superwash, wool

October 8, 2014 · 6:03 AM

Deer john and the changing seasons…

Random things of late…

Our garden is done, but the CSA is finally paying off – we completed a massive tomato and tomatillo salsa canning session last weekend.

The deer called Doe [rhymes with Zoe] might have had some babies, joined up with a larger family group, and has been bringing along another five or six to nibble at our backyard smorgasbord and leave an astounding number of shits – making me re-consider putting in a perimeter fence.

I found another alarming pile of poop of another kind when N moved one of our new window-unit air conditioners. I identified it possibly as:

1. bat guano

2. squirrel turds

3. roof rat droppings…

Amazingly, all of these beasts leave remarkably similar scat. I’m leaning toward bat though, because of the height of the window and I don’t want rats in our roof. Perhaps a bat took up residence in or under the air-conditioner while we were on vacation? But it didn’t stick around (at least I don’t think it’s in there still).

And I forgot to shoot the shit.

And speaking of bats, I do love them, and we’ve got plenty around here – I love watching them swoop in in the evenings and take out a sizable chunk of the even more sizable population of ‘skeeters. Eventually we’ll get around to building some bat houses.

I found out by accident that the giant spotty crickets that I found living near our well (that I was so startled by and didn’t bother to photograph in case I was the only one who saw them and they didn’t really exist) turned out to be another Asian invasion and quite common in the area. And now I’m wondering if they’re edible…

And we’ve finally experienced the yard in every season, and have identified all of the flora. The last hold-out was a large Burning Bush – I suspected that it could be one, and hoped it was so because otherwise it was a somewhat boring green thing.

Some of the weeds I never got around to pulling ended up being lovely flowers. I see the stuff around the roadsides here, so perhaps it’s native, or perhaps it’s an invasive beast? I wished I’d paid more attention to what it looked like when it was coming up, so I don’t pull it out next year, unless of course it is something to be rid of… I think it’s a Sunchoke. Anyone know if this variety is native to the Eastern states, or a nasty invader? I haven’t gone digging for the tubers yet.

And I have another pair of socks on the needles – these might end up being a gift.

I’ve been traveling for work a bit, and have enjoyed going by train, even though it adds another three hours to the trip. But the leg room is astounding, the cars are nearly empty (come on Americans, use it or loose it!) and the scenery on this particular route is nice.

I never wrote down (or can’t find my notes) my formula for going down a needle size or two for my standard socks, so I have to go through the misery again of figuring it out. In the meantime, I’m just using a heavier yarn and my old numbers…

And because of the new-to-us house and its ongoing expenses and labor (and my continued hobbled state) we decided not to go to Italy this year. The weather turning to autumn reminds me of my boots crunching along the trail in the warm central Apennine sun, so I’m a bit bummed out about it, but hopefully we’ll be back next year.

I also decided not to go to Rhinebeck to save money too – and since we’re often in Italy when it happens, this year was good timing for it – but I got enough of a fix at the New Jersey festival a few weeks ago.

I’ll have my own personal wool festival when I can finally unpack my boxes of the stuff soon…

5 Comments

Filed under gardening, hiking, home, knitting, travel

Tagged as Abruzzo, amtrak, Apennines, deer, dpns, floral and fauna, hiking, italian pottery, jerusalem artichoke, knitting, mountains, poop, Rhinebeck, saving money, scat, sock yarn, socks, sunchoke, tomatoes, trains, wool, yard

September 10, 2014 · 6:00 AM

Jersey [wool] baby…

Folks are always in a tizzy about Rhinebeck and the Maryland Sheep and Wool festivals, but smack in the middle is the small and very manageable Garden State [aka New Jersey] Sheep Breeders festival.

I went several years ago and bought a large amount of raw alpaca fiber. I think it was before I owned a spinning wheel, and had just learned to spin on a Turkish spindle…? And I also thought I got a really good deal, but I didn’t – though it’s in beautiful natural fawn, grey, and black colors, the fibers were shorn at a very short length, so I’m not able to spin it (at least not without experiencing anger). I need to felt it, blend it into something else, send it out for commercial processing, or just sell/trade/gift the mess.

I thought that this year’s festival would be bigger, and I think there were a few more vendors, but as a whole it’s small and I love it – no crowds, no pushing in booths, and plenty of time and space to enjoy the animals.

And it really is about the animals – I know those other large festivals are too in theory, but the wooly nirvana shopping frenzy is the annoying take away. I like watching the judging, even if it’s for the meat breeds – brings me back to my 4-H youth, and I can still spot the nicest hindquarters most of the time.

There may have been fewer breeds on display this year too, but I’m not sure.

N’s favorites are the angora goats.

And I’m a fan of the Jacob sheep.

This little one – not sure if she’s Shetland or one of the small Cheviots – was bleating her cute little head off louder than anyone in the barn.

It seemed she just wanted attention, or she was nervous about an approaching late summer thunderstorm, or her buddies were in the ring and she was lonely, or she knew she was in the wrong state and the others were going Jersey on her ass…

But she calmed down once she got to pose for snaps.

[And for those who think they have an idea of what NJ might be like, they’re most likely wrong – this part of the state might as well be the Midwest, complete with more reasonable drivers and farm smells rather than malodorous chemical plants. Actually the farms are really well-managed around here and rarely give off odors unlike the factory farms of PA].

On our last vacation, I managed just walk on by two decent-looking LYSs, and we drove right past WEBS since I knew that wool festivals were coming up. I’ve also been good about passing up sales at my favorite indie dyers and deeply discounted full lots of yarns over the last year, so I could spend a little on some fiber directly from the source. I love so much of the beautifully dyed yarns out there at festivals though, and always kick myself for not picking up a skein or two of something gorgeous, but at nearly $30 a pop for most, I can get more [and more unique] fiber instead. This would have been the time and place to pick up a few of those skeins though – some of the same booths at Rhinebeck are virtually impenetrable.

The fiber-bearing-animal-keeper folks around here seem to prefer Romneys and Alpacas, and I’m done with both of those for a bit – I’ve spun plenty of Romney, and though I love a “rustic” yarn, I’ve already got enough, and I don’t love knitting with it. And the Alpaca is lovely, but the good stuff is pricey and I still have some waiting to be spun, so I’m mostly looking for different breeds to try, especially if they have a name and a face.

So a few ounces of Gustav the Gotland came home with me.

He lives at Cloudberry Sheep and Wool farm in central NJ and is a lovely pale to medium grey. I’m not sure how I’ll spin him yet, or if I’ll combine some of the various breeds I’ve collected into some sort of sampler project, or make small accessories of each…

I went on vacation and all I got was this [not lousy] hat…

We finally had our summer vacation – a week in a shack on a pond in the White Mountains.

My knee is still mostly out of commission, so I planned accordingly and packed several knitting and sewing projects along with bathing suits and sun wear to occupy my time while N was on the peaks.

What I hadn’t really planned was it ended up being cold as [insert favorite anaolgy here].

The forecast called for cool nighttime temps, so at the last minute, I luckily (and brilliantly I might say) packed our down duvet and one of our down bags along with that trickster ball of handspun* I just finished in case I wanted to whip something up out of it.

I quickly determined to make a hat since I neglected to pack one, and needed to wear one immediately.

(I wound the skein into a ball on the way up which didn’t induce as much car-sickness as I thought it would).

I also had a few basic patterns with me just in case, and I loosely based it on the Purl Beret, but with a much smaller/tighter brim.

I finished it on the second day after hours of otter watching.

There were also many murderous birds – a greedy heron, harriers that picked off the sweet warblers in the marsh grasses, kingfishers bombing around the dock, and less successful eagles and ospreys.

We even saw a moose – I’ve been patiently waiting to spy one of those for some time now.

I’m a little embarrassed to show the hat in its very wonky unblocked state, but the cool misty weather made the colors pop.

And the yarn was cooperative this time, though it had the last laugh by leaving me with an orange nipple on the top.

The hat could have been a little larger, but I was afraid of running out of yarn and I figured it would stretch since it’s superwash.

And after a month of physical therapy, I can at least ride a bike again (though not really uphill). So we enjoyed a few pretty awesome and underutilized bike/recreational paths, as well as tooled around the pond in a canoe.

I worked on another long-suffering knitting project that is nearly on its home stretch, though I wasted a few days when I messed it up and had to undo and redo, so I will say no more about it until it’s done.

And I never got to the sewing project or casting on for a new pair of socks that I though were must-dos for the week…

We really needed another week…

*There’s still enough left for a few token stripes on a pair of socks, and that little 2ply skein remains untouched.

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Filed under hiking, knitting, spinning, travel

Tagged as beret, bike trails, bird watching, cabin, dock, green, handspun, hats, knitting, mountain biking, new hampshire, orange, otters, Pigeonroof Studios, pond, purl beret, rails to trails, swamp, white mountains, wool

July 23, 2014 · 7:46 AM

Fried that squash blossom

Good god, this was a long suffering spin.

And I blathered on so much about it…

Last year, I was thrilled to buy the wool – Pigeonroof Studios superwash merino in “zucchini blossom.”

I started to spin it.

I fantasized about pairing it with other yarn from my stash to become some sturdy socks.

I realized I spun the first bobbin backwards, so I got irritated and put it away.

I started spinning it again during last year’s Tour de Fleece.

I cut my thumb.

I blamed the wool and put it away.

I got it out to finally finish for this year’s Tour de Fleece.

I made a three-ply and thought all was fine.

I ran out of one of my three plies.

I am now done.

I have 258 yards of a heavy fingering/light sport wonky 3ply, and 114 yards of a light fingering/fingering wonky 2ply.

(And we won’t speak of this).

And I’ll shut up about now until I have a finished item from it…

if I ever have one at all…

(Incidentally, I did fry up those blossoms and it was a mushy miserable failure, as are most of my neglected zucchini plants which are lousy with stupid male blooms).

4 Comments

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Tagged as butcherblock counters, fiestaware, green, injury, merino, orange, Pigeonroof Studios, roving, spinning, squash blossom, superwash, wool, yarn, zucchini blossom

June 18, 2014 · 6:38 AM

Old blue quilt

Many years ago, I found this old narrow reversible quilt at my old favorite thrift store. I loved that it was made from scraps, improvisational, hand and machine-sewn, and the fact that it was just plain old, and I like old sh*t.

I sewed a sleeve on the opposite of what I considered the more public side and hung it in my bedroom to ward off the cold seeping through the walls in my old apartment – I loved that place too because it was old – but damn, it was also cold.

It’s tufted with knots of white, blue, and reddish-pink (perhaps formerly red?) wool yarn. The interior might be filled with wool as well as it’s just a mass of somewhat disgusting clumpy lumps now, but I’d need to perform a little surgery to find out.

(And I don’t think I really want to see what’s in it in case it’s nasty).

The reverse has a pinwheel and some nice fabrics not seen on the front. This pinwheel got into my deep brain and caused me to make many half-demented pinwheels last summer, or maybe the summer before… I think I probably have enough to make something from them… I should find them.

I like this squiggly block.

The back has a few stained blocks, but were stained in their former life perhaps as clothing, as the stains were sewn over.

A few faint splotches look suspiciously like blood, or a really robust coffee mixed with a hearty and delicious red wine.

(That is also part of the reason I chose the other side to display).

And there are some lovely hand stitches too.

I also love that delicate blue pattern on the left side.

I can’t date it – there are definitely some old fabrics in it, perhaps from the 1910s, and the red, white, and blue color scheme could place it in WWII times, but some of the other fabrics have a 1950s and ’60s vibe? Though the shape is also older – long and narrow – somewhat too big for a crib and too small for a twin bed. It would probably best fit one of those narrow cot-like beds (don’t they have a name???).

But it seems that it could have been made from old clothes from a number of members of a family perhaps for a notable baby or a soldier – as a memento, or a comfort for someone leaving home.

But things are rarely as they seem, right?

When I was trying to pare down my things after I moved to N’s house, I gave it to him to give to one of his family members who was having babies at the time – I thought it would be nice for a wall in a kid’s room. But he wanted to keep it, though we didn’t get around to hanging it up then.

Or in that apartment of late of which I’d rather not speak or remember.

And we still haven’t put it up in the new house (or anything else yet until the painting is done…

rather, all of the repairs that need to be done to the walls before I can even begin to paint them).

But I rescued it from storage a few months ago, and I’m really glad I still have it.

And I ~~love~~ ~~hate~~ ~~love~~ ~~hate~~ ~~love~~ ~~hate~~ love that he enables me in the keeping of old sh*t.