Back to it.....again

 Well I am back.  I cannot believe how long its been since I posted here.  Let's see if I can actually stick with it for a while.  Looking back I have not posted since November of 2019.  A lot has happened since then!

I am still weaving, lately not as much as I once did, but the looms are still in action.  I retired from work as of August 1, 2020 and I have mostly just been playing in Fiberland ever since.  It is a real pleasure to be able to do what I want, when I want to but the downside is that I have little to no structure in my life.

I have learned a few more art forms that I find fun and fascinating.  In January of this year, I started to learn to play ukulele.  I have never played a musical instrument before, so it has been an interesting and sometimes very frustrating, and sometimes very satisfying thing to do.  Unfortunately I found with ukulele, they are a lot like looms and vintage sewing machine, way too easy to accumulate them.  I probably have a few more than I really should, but it is just so darn fun and they all sound different.  

When my oldest brother learned that I was messing about with stringed instruments he gave me a McNally Strumstick and a mountain dulcimer kit to build.  I did actually build the mountain dulcimer.  It was an interesting and different experience and while it was okay to do, I do not need to do it again.  It really does not have a very sweet sound and it is hard to keep in tune.....which led me to ordering a beautiful Ron Gibson cherry mountain dulcimer.  I also wove a very cool strap for it on the Gilmore Mini Wave using a pattern from one of Laverne Waddington's wonderful backstrap pattern books.

It is a lovely, sweet sounding instrument that I really need to play more often than I have been.  There is an online class offered in January that I am kicking around the idea of taking.

A couple of years ago, I learned to stitch temari.  Temari is a form of Japanese embroidery on a sphere.  One actually makes the ball, which is a multiple step process and stitches a design on it.  I have been using DMC Perle 5 for the design threads, so that meant adding a new yarn stash....sigh.....  I now have 4 floss boxes full of various colors of DMC.  I tried using the 5/2 perle cotton that is in my weaving stash, but the twist is different and does not lay the same way that the DMC does.

Here are a few I wove last December for the holidays along with the holiday run of towels.  It's been fun weaving towels to go with temari and vice versa.

I also learned to shuttle tat.  I have known how to crochet lace, but never learned to tat.  I just couldn't resist those cute little shuttles!  And believe it or not, my favorite shuttles are some of the most reasonable, the Clover tatting shuttles that can be picked up at Joanne's in a 2-pack.  This also led to another type of yarn stash - because of course the twist on both the DMC perle and the weaving cotton is not right for tying a zillion little knots.  Crochet cotton is quite different from weaving cotton.

And as crazy as this sounds, playing with tatting cotton had me dyeing tatting cotton!  I always said I would not go down the yarn/fiber dyeing rabbit hole, and there I was this summer with bottles of dye and little skeins of cotton.  Here is a bracelet and anklet that I tatted from yarn that I dyed.  I have lost my mind!

I am also still knitting and spinning.  I actually finished a pair of wool mittens for myself that I started in January of 2019.  I also knit for Wool Aid, mostly hats, vests, and mittens.  One of the weavers I know from Ravelry weaves and knits for Wool Aid and I found it to be a good organization to become involved with.  I like to knit, but I do not really need a lot of knitted goods, so this is just a win/win for me.

It is amazing all of the different fiber pursuits that I am involved with.  I just bop from one to another to something else.  I guess that is why I feel I have no structure but I do not seem to be in a big hurry to do anything about it.  It satisfies a creative need in me that I never realized I had or that it was so strong.  Making things, either with fiber, music, or even in the kitchen just is so pleasurable.  Now to see if I can make blogging a part of my creative outlets.