VERY FRUSTRATING WEEK

We had a very frustrating week.  Husband has been weaving a scarf for me.  He is using a yarn that he had used before - lighter in weight than most yarns he works with and thinner.  I like a light weight scarf.  He bought a skein each of light and dark blue - my favorite color.

The first sign that this project was not going to be as simple to do as past weaving projects was when we set up loom to do the weaving.  To do this we have to run long pieces of yarn which are attached to the loom on each of the two ends of the pieces of yarn and stretched out tight between them.  When we did this we saw something we have never seen before. The yarns pieces, parallel to each other, were pushing away from each other - static electricity.  Remember, he has used this yarn before.  We ignored this and went ahead.  There are various other steps to setting up the yarn to be woven through and they were hard to do as the pieces of yarn kept pushing away from each other. 

Well, this is a bit like the frustrating things which happen when we try to organize and declutter.  Dividers we know will fit in a space do not.  We start doing one part of a project and find ourselves led into another project.  But, we carry on trying to get the end of the project.My part in the weaving is done after the loom is set up and I left husband to work. 

The easy part of the weaving follows - the actual weaving.  Yarn wrapped around a long piece of wood - the shuttle - is pushed through the yarn pieces that have been tied onto the loom.  Then the yarn that has been taken through is pushed against what has already been woven in a process called “beating”.  Then the yarn pieces on the loom are switched so what was up is now down and vice versa and the process is repeated.  On the kind of loom my husband has - with a solid bar that the yarns on the loom have been tied through to lift them up and down - the same bar is used to beat the yarn after each pass - the yarn passing through alternate holes and slots in the bar. 

Husband, upset, comes upstairs.  He is having a problem.  Apparently the yarn that he was using is yarn wrapped around a core thread - we did not know this.  At one spot on one piece of tied on yarn the wrapping had unwrapped and was being pushed backwards as he used the bar as a beater - a bunch of fluff sitting on the wrong side of the bar.  We managed to get the fluff through to the right side and he glued it in place not knowing what else to do and left it to dry.

Again, similar to doing organizing - if we hit a snag (which is what this was) we try to fix it and move on. 

The glue was not enough to hold the wrapped yarn in place, so we repeated getting it through to the right side and then husband kept weaving, but used a large comb as a beater - needing to repeat this several times across the loom for each cross thread being woven. 

Along the way a second spot on the same yarn had the same problem.  We again pulled it through and glued it into place and husband kept working with the comb. 

Well sure, we have all had the same problem repeat - perhaps magazines which are sorted for storage and then additional magazines are found and they all have to be sorted again.

Finally all of the problem yarn was woven into the piece.  Husband looked and the rest of the yarn he could see looked fine and he relaxed and went back to his regular manner of weaving.  Happy that he was making something for me and it would be greatly appreciated.

Suddenly he is back upstairs.  The same problem on the same yarn piece has appeared again in a new spot!  At this point he could not deal with it and he decided that the piece had to be finished, even if it was not long enough to be a scarf. 

Frustration - we all know this feeling when organizing - what we think will work does not.  The time we think something will take is underestimated.  Mostly we go on, but sometimes something is so impossible that we have to stop and figure out an alternative.

I know the work he had put into the piece and how disappointed he was that something he was making special for me did not work out.  I figured I would take the short piece when it is finished, and use it a table runner or mat (depending on how long it is).  It turned out to be long enough for me to use as a scarf - although it will get a bit smaller when it is finished (washed to set it), so I will be able to use it as scarf and show it off to friends as something special he has made for me.

Again, sometimes an idea we have had about how to organize something does not work out - and we must rethink what can be done - how the containers or dividers can be repurposed to be used.

Yesterday we set up the loom for a new project for him - with a more basic yarn which he uses much more often.  He has been happily weaving since then.

Similarly, if a project to improve our organization goes awry we must go on and continue doing what else is needed for us to clear clutter away and organize.

He had bought 2 other skeins of the yarn that he had problem with in other colors (it was a sale) and I have pulled the receipt for them and we will be returning them.  After all, if they stayed around and he would not feel comfortable using them, we would just be adding to the clutter in the house in addition to being out the cost of them.

Just to add to this week’s frustration, we are suppose to go to a woodworking show (he is a man of many crafts) this weekend.  The show is in the next state and is here only once a year.  While he does not buy much - if anything - he had in mind to buy a few very small, inexpensive items which are not sold locally (and we don’t like to order things) and it is something different to do and see.  So far in this year’s planning to go we have dealt with it being moved to a different venue - not an easy one to get to - and the fact that there seems to be no place nearby for a quick, cheap lunch - found a place 15 minutes away, we hope - and now - the rain and wind storm that is coming may also have - snow.  Snow would be a deal breaker and he would have to miss the show - or what is known around here as the typical end to a planned trip.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -           

Frustrating things happen.  Things go wrong.  All we can do is look at what went wrong and what we can do to deal with what happened.  It is life and it just must be dealt with.  Sometimes the alternatives are better than the original idea - based on the length of the finished scarf, if he had made the entire scarf he planned, it would have been much longer than I wanted - sometimes they are not.