Home Again

At the folk school I talked about how I used to do place mats three at a time across the width of my 60" AVL.  Here is a photo showing the type of mats I used to make.  All white warps, with the weft colour changing for each in a type of undulating twill that sort of kind of looked like willow leaves, so it was called "Willow".    Nothing like going for the obvious.

The fringe was short, just about the length of a cotton staple - around one inch.  The mats were woven with fugitive warp and weft ends to create the fringe, colour coded so that they could easily be seen to be removed for stitching.  Two or three threads from the fringe areas would be removed, then one line of straight stitching would be sewn around all four sides of the mat with about an inch overlap of the ending over the beginning.  Then after wet finishing the corners would be clipped so that they looked neat and tidy, and...finished.

The very first trip through the washer released a tonne of lint.  We had to make sure the filters were cleaned after every load, sometimes between the wash and rinse load.

But once they were wet finished, including a hard press, there was a 'normal' amount of lint only and customers continue to report that they use their mats daily and that they 'still look like new' - decades on.  I'm sure they don't, but they are happy...

I'm still dealing with health issues and not at my best.  All of my plans to hit the ground running have to be put on hold until I can get my body functioning properly again.  I have been advised by a nurse to stick to a clear liquid diet for at least two days and see if that brings things back again, and if not I guess I'll be phoning my doctor's office on Monday to try and figure out what the heck is going on.

It seems to have started with a food allergen, but that appears to have kicked off something else entirely.  This getting old schtick sucks.  Well, the decrepit part does.

I woke up early but didn't feel like doing very much of anything other than putter.  I need to get to the bank to deposit a couple of cheques.  I also need to see how much of a payment I can put against my VISA balance.  It's seriously gotten out of hand and I really hate going into craft fair season this far in debt because when I do, it seems all that happens is that I barely cancel that debt out.  On the other hand, it all makes shutting the business down even easier.  If I have nothing in my bank account, it makes it easier to close it?

I don't know.  It seems like even though I'm doing everything in my power to retire, shut down, downsize, the universe keeps kicking me, as though I'm not doing it fast enough.

The trip home went ok, and I arrived only a little bit late.  It was actually a good thing the last leg of my trip was delayed because the customs hall in Vancouver was slammed and even though they were moving us through as quickly as they could, there were just SO MANY people it took time.  I arrived at my gate 10 minutes after boarding was supposed to begin, but they were still waiting for 'our' plane to arrive, which did just after I got there.

So last night I slept in my own bed, and have lounged in my own space.

I did start unpacking last night in no small part because I needed some of the personal items in my suitcases.  One of the baggies with the 'gel' items had something leak, but fortunately it didn't seem to go anywhere other than the bottom of the baggie where a couple of hotel shampoo tubes were.  I rescued the top contents and tossed the rest. 

My laundry was put into the laundry bins - I did do a load of laundry at Mary's, but of course those clothes are wrinkled, so I may put them through again.

I really need to go down and see all the progress Doug made on the studio re-organization while I was away.  He's worked very hard on that and some other things and will deserve the praise for getting it done.

I had just so hoped that I would come home rested from two weeks away from all the stress and visiting with friends and...I'm sick.  I'm not a happy camper.

Currently reading Mind for Murder by PD James