Burning the midnight oil...

Another in a string of late nights, surrounded by boxes just beginning to be packed, trying to track down Christmas presents (and still debating where to have them sent), setting some time aside each night to knit away on Iain's sweater, and then fill in the blank with whatever else needs to be done to get us through the following day/week/month. I have a feeling that there will be many more nights like this before all is said and done.


Tonight I'll be working on the sewing project that I started last night and need finished for tomorrow. But today, today, is Fair Day. Every one's looking forward to it. I've just set the crock pot with a stew since we'll be gone all day....late veggies from the farm, some local grass fed beef, kombu, some beef broth I made earlier in the week, a bit of red wine. The house will smell so good when we get back and it will be such a relief not to have to worry about dinner. Now I'm working on filling up a bag with food to eat out....green crispies, toasted almonds, frozen blueberries, leftover chicken, a bit of squash, bananas with carob dip, and whatever else I can think of between now and the time we leave. It was really a lot easier to go places back when we could eat out!

I think this season is going to be a practice in moderation for me. I'm going to have a lot of letting go to do to ensure that Crazy Mommy doesn't rear her ugly head. As it is, Steve's had to talk me down a couple of times already (and I haven't even mentioned that notion floating around in the back of my mind of making an entire quilt for Iain before his birthday).
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I got called away from this post this morning, and now I'm coming back to it at the end of the day (or, well, technically, very early the next morning). The Fair was nice. It's seemed somehow smaller and less impressive this year. I did a bit of holiday shopping, somewhat at Steve's urging, as he's all but convinced me that I really can't make all of the children's gifts this year (I'll admit defeat in not making them all, but I'm still holding out on at least making some).

I got Galen a beautiful little wooden cutting board. I'm so excited to think about how much easier it will be for him to help me in the kitchen once we move into the next house! I got some lovely plant dyed wool for his birthday crown as well. And a duck! Oh, I couldn't resist the life-sized stuffed duck. He's still all about the domesticated fowl. Funny, funny boy. Sadly, I smuggled it home, only to discover that the repurposed sweater that it's made out of still smells like perfume! Bah humbug. It's on the porch at the moment. I left Steve (who is a very early riser), a note asking him to bring it in and hide it in the morning. Maybe if we keep up with the nightly airings it will be ok in time for Christmas??

Darn. And I thought I was doing so well.

decisions

Just back from looking at another house. Another long drive. Another wretched house, full of scented candles to boot, and I walked away feeling ill and discouraged. To get home we had to drive through one of the larger towns in our area. We don't get out that way all that often (except for the express purpose of looking at houses, that is). I had this wild, mad urge to go shopping. To buy anything really. Anything that would be pleasant and make life prettier and nicer then it felt just then; anything that would feel home-like, warm and comforting. This town is home to my favorite yarn store, that lovely little Waldorf toy shop and the old fashioned office supply store where I was hoping to get some of our school supplies this year. I almost turned to Steve and told him to head to any one of these destinations. But I caught myself in time.

We spent a lot of money yesterday. A lot. There were lots of necessary things; food, a freezer for the half a cow we will be picking up soon, Iain's glasses. We got some supplies for making Halloween costumes and a birthday gift for a little friend, and on a whim I picked up a couple of shirts for myself. I don't feel badly for that at all. I very rarely buy any clothing for myself. I've been needing shirts for 9 months or so now. I was standing outside a store, baby sleeping on my back, waiting for Steve to come back from taking the boys to the bathroom. They were having a big sale and I was thinking how many of the things in there I liked. I had a now or never kind of feeling. Like there will never come a time when I manage a shopping trip with the sole purpose of buying clothing for me. I only made it about half way through the store. By the time everyone made it back I had a handful of shirts in my arm, in my best guess at a size that would fit. I handed them to Steve, asked him to pay, took over with the kids and we were on our way.

That was ok. That was self care and nourishing in it's way. The feeling of today was different, it was the desire to escape, to distract myself. And that is not ok. The feeling is ok of course, but the acting on it is not.

A quick assessment of my life right now leaves me feeling alarmingly off keel. My home is full to bursting with stuff to be sorted, things to be finished, belongings in need of places to *be*. It feels scattered, frantic, desperate. I do not need to add to that at this point. I do not need to compound the chaos.

The funny thing is, we don't even own a lot of stuff. But we also live in a house, in a place in between. A house that we are living in, but trying not to be. A house that we are in a frequently thwarted process of leaving. It's an uncomfortable sort of place to be in. Add to that the practical facts of life for us these last several years...the lack of running water, the limited electricity, the single broken dresser for a family of 6, the complete and utter lack of cabinets or closets or anywhere designed to put anything, even the unfinished walls feel cluttered and unkempt and well, it's over-whelming. When we were in a position of working to *improve* things, it was bearable. Things were always getting better, little, by slow and painful little, but there was a goal and there was progress to be seen. But now...since making the conscious decision to stop putting time and energy into the house, there is no forward momentum, there is no movement and the feeling in the house is stagnant. There is just this pitiful, difficult, messy existence.

I don't ever want my home to feel like that. Ever. No matter what else is happening in life. My feelings of desperation in the car today were a panicked need for some sort of shift in my reality. I had a choice to make then and I have a choice to make now. I didn't go shopping and try to fill the void with treats and distractions to smooth over my anxiety. I came home and took some time to regain my composure. And now I'm going to get up and start addressing one small area, one small project at a time. I know there are limits to what I can do, but I can try. And I feel like the trying right now is almost more important then the outcome. Just the intention of wanting to improve our quality life, closely followed by positive action, is bound to snowball and settle the uneasy feeling inside of me. And from there the feeling will spread to the rest of the family. And I feel certain that life will be just a little bit better for it.

Thinking about dyeing

~A day's worth of dyeing. The yarns on the end are from left to right: madder root, turmeric and beets~

All the pictures in this post are from 2005 and 2006. That was before I had a blog and before I was in the habit of taking pictures of my crafts. They are all of relatively poor quality, so sorry about that. I went through a phase back then of doing A LOT of dyeing. These are just some of the things I managed to find pictures of. There are so many more that aren't pictured.

~Play silks for wrapping Christmas gifts in~

In the years that these were taken, we were still really sick. I was past the crisis stage by then, up and about, but still ill much of the time and exhausted all of the time. Exposure to a trigger still sent me to bed with my oxygen tank and we were very limited in what we could and could not handle, but I was well enough to go about most of the normal work of life, a fair bit of the time.

~The Boys tie-dyed these as a project for Iain's 6th birthday~

It was during this time that we found out we were expecting Galen, which was, admittedly a bit of a surprise. We had wanted more children, but I had been so ill and we still didn't have safe housing. I think I met that pregnancy with equal parts joy and over-whelming fear. It was a really scary and dark time for me and I became deeply depressed. No one could tell me if he was going to be alright or not. There were many times when I would be so sick that I would start to feel myself loose consciousness. Steve would get my oxygen mask on me and things would improve. But I knew that if I was experiencing the effects of oxygen deprivation then he had been experiencing it for longer. Every day brought a new risk to him.

~So many different dyes here! I know that the bright yellow is turmeric and the main color on the sweater is madder root. As for the other colors, I think there is some beet in there, some coriander, maybe some coffee.~

We are so lucky and have been so, so blessed with his general good health. He has residual problems with allergies and yeast, but beyond that no other permanent damage seems to have been done. The joy of his existence, of his wellness, brought me through some really difficult times.

I'm not really sure why I'm talking about all of this right now. Seems like a rather odd lead in to a post about dyeing yarn, doesn't it? But I assure you, they are connected.

~A close-up. I remember being so pleased with this yarn as I was painting it. Then I tried to steam it and all the colors blended and mixed and lost a lot of their vibrancy. That little soaker is so tiny! I think I was around 24 weeks pregnant when I knitted it and I remember thinking that the baby would have to be born right then for it to fit! But it fit him perfectly for the first couple of weeks, when nothing else did. Màiri on the other hand was too big for it on the day she was born!~

Aside from the obvious, one of the major problems that we were having during that time was finding safe clothing for the children. I had boxes and boxes full of hand-me-downs that I couldn't go near and they couldn't possibly wear. Even our own things that should have been passed from child to child were useless. We had all started reacting to the detergent that we had used years before (Mrs. Myers in case you are wondering). So, here I was, with two kids that only had a couple of things to wear and one on the way with nothing at all.

~A couple of baby things; both natural and dyed with black walnut hulls. I always found it interesting how different fibers picked up the colors differently. Those wool booties are from the same dye pot as all the brown cotton above.~

So, hand-me-downs were out, as were thrift stores. Regular new clothing presented a problem as well; needing to be soaked for several days and then washed many times over before it could be worn (and making me sick all the while and leaving me feeling ill at ease about what I might be exposing my little ones to). Organics were great and what I wanted to be dressing them in anyway, but the cost was prohibitive and the selection extremely slim for the older children. I think there are more options these days, though it's still expensive and limited, but back then it was even worse.

~Toddler sweater knitted from yarns dyed with fustic (the rust color) and madder root (the red)~

What I did have access to were several co-ops that were around at the time (they're no anymore, so don't bother asking) that did buys for organic fabric and yarn. I crunched some numbers and figured out that I could make most things for about a quarter of what I could buy them for. And so I took on the task of making most of Iain and Elijah's clothes and all of Galen's. I had all but stopped sleeping anyway, out of fear and worry, so I stayed up every night, dyeing and knitting and sewing until I was so exhausted that I would drift off, usually with knitting needles still in hand.


~My Dad holding Sweet Baby Galen, who is wearing a pair of shorties, knitted with yarn that had been tie-dyed using chlorophyll~

I was really excited to find some gorgeous color-grown materials and I worked with then extensively for a while. There got to be a point when I started getting really bored with always working in shades of cream, brown and green. I remember Iain coming to me one day (I think I had just given him a new shirt) and sighing wistfully saying, "Can't we ever have anything blue? I mean I like green and cream and brown, but..." and then he sighed again.

~Longies from the same yarn, as you can see, I also did some solid to use for trim.~

I started experimenting with natural dyes, the irony being that most natural dyes produce lovely shades of colors like green and brown.

I didn't want to risk the toxicity of traditional mordants, so I resorted to vinegar and salt, depending on the dye I was using.

I did a lot of experimenting and more often then not, I had no idea what kind of color I was going to end up with. Which is probably how Galen ended up with such a wide selection of pink things! I never did manage to create a good blue, though I did use indigo to dye the snowsuit I made him and turned a pretty pale grey/bluish-green.

~Cotton jacket dyed with madder root~

The sad thing about dyeing this way is that it simple doesn't last. The madder and the fustic actually held up pretty well. The indigo developed strange rust like stains while in storage. Everything else just faded until it just ended up looking drab and dirty (even when it wasn't).

~Galen on his first Halloween wearing a black walnut hull dyed bunny suit. The underside of the ears are madder root pink like the jacket above.~

I've been really itching to do some more dyeing again. This week I experimented a bit with Kool-Aid dyeing, now that I'm well enough to do so. I'll share some of those projects with you here tomorrow. It was enjoyable, but by the end I wasn't feeling real great. I don't think I'll attempt it again without running the air purifier near by. I'm also not sure how I'll be with knitting it, but I thought it was worth a try!