Monday morning things

* One of the nicer things about moving my stash around (I moved most of it back into the guest room Saturday evening) is that I spotted a couple of yarns I forgot about. Now I want to find a suitable sock pattern (maybe lace) for a very deep ocean-blue (with some green) yarn that I bought at the BPAFF - and it was from Quixotic Fibers, which was how I learned they existed (I wish the BPAFF was still happening. There wasn't one last fall so I assume they couldn't swing it financially).

And I do have a renewed goal of "work down the stash some" which has two benefits:
1. I save money by not mail-ordering lots of yarn (I reserve the right to purchase yarn in-person - I plan on making at least one trip to Quixotic Fibers this summer, and Laura and I might do a Longview meet-up)

2. I free up space in my guest room (even though the yarn is much better organized now, it still takes up space).

* I started the "Time to Make the Donuts" socks. This is a striping yarn (wide stripes of orange and pink, with a narrower stripe of latte-brown between them). DEFINITELY inspired by Dunkin' Donuts, and it amused me sufficiently when I saw it (I think it was at either Loopy Ewe or Simply Sock Yarn) that I had to buy it. I think it will just be simple 2 x 2 ribbed socks.

* I also have to repair my beloved "van Gogh blue" socks - a simple pair of socks made from the Opal yarn that was inspired by some of his paintings. The toe developed a small hole. The good news is that while moving my stash about, I spotted the leftover yarn from them in a bag, so I can just pull it out and do the fix.

And yes, fixing stuff like that is important to me. I think PART of it is growing up with older parents who came from an earlier, more frugal time, when if your radio broke, OF COURSE there was a radio repair shop in town and they could fix it for (usually) less than the price of a new one. But given the cheapness and disposability of a lot of consumer goods now - a lot of those little repair shops are gone.

But I still repair stuff. Part of it is frugality ("Those khakis are still perfectly good as field pants; I just need to iron on a patch over the hole in the knee"), but part of it is that I do get attached to my stuff. Especially things that have sentimental associations (e.g., they were a gift) and things with faces, like stuffed toys.

I posted this on Twitter last night. It's long and slow (but restful to watch) and you may want to put the auto-generated English subtitles on (they're not perfect but you get a better sense of what is happening). Apparently this is either a web or tv series in Japan, called "Fascinating Repairmen." This one is about a woman who repairs beloved stuffed toys:



I particularly like her technique for restoring worn plush and have tucked that into the back of my head for if I ever need that.

And I just like watching people work on stuff like that. And I like the idea of taking the time and the trouble to fix stuff that can be fixed; there is something that seems good and right about that. (And I understand in Japan there's a tradition of repairing pottery with visible seams, the idea that the repair is somehow "honoring" the object or the repair person's art).

I dunno. I find video of slow, hand-done repairs (or hand work) restful to watch (and this one is also interesting to see the difference between a Japanese interior and ours) and I also enjoy the "how it's made" type of videos. (I still fondly remember the "Picture Picture" video from "Mr. Rogers Neighborhood" where they showed how crayons were made).

* And more fixing: the second night to repair the handbells is tomorrow and apparently the woman in charge of it asked the church secretary (she is in my Sunday school class) to especially ask me to be there because "she knows what she's doing" and I guess I take a little pride in that, but I suppose given my background knitting and quilting (and cooking, and when I was younger, making dollhouse furniture), I am good at following instructions and at doing things with my hands.

* I did a bit more sewing on the "birb" quilt yesterday (despite also mowing the lawn and cutting some brush). I have all the bits sewn together to make the "whole" blocks, so I just need to press those off and then sew two more seams per block...and then I have 16 half-blocks to do, then I can start setting it together. And as soon as it's done, I'm taking it out to have it quilted. (I have a backing already; I will just have to press it and seam it).

And once I get the block-parts cleared off my sewing table I want to put a binding on the green, red, and yellow mostly-Mary-Engelbreit-fabrics quilt I had quilted a few months back and never got around to binding - I have the binding, I just have to make it and sew it on and then do alllllll the handsewing.

What I should probably do is waste less time online when I get home early in the afternoon and instead try to take a half-hour or more and go sew on quilt tops. It makes me happy.