Well the new layout on the towel shelf in the linen closet seems to be working. It lays out so evenly and well that I could even label the front of the shelf if I wanted to help husband figure out which are the towels he likes and which he hates. (He takes towels and after he starts using them he realizes that they are not the ones he likes.)
I am not sure if I have mentioned that among the other crafts that husband and I work at, husband does weaving. He had always wanted to do this and a few years ago we found a floor standing loom that was small enough to fit in our living room, but large enough for him to weave scarves, shawls, table runners and the like. This past September he bought a second one that is narrower and smaller to bring to events where he is selling his weaving to demonstrate. He also has a much smaller loom that is a reproduction of a type used in earlier centuries that makes fabric tape used in clothing in the period. (Remember Disney's “Snow White? The ties across the front of her clothing would have been this type of tape.) After a piece is woven it has to be washed to “set” it. If he uses the dryer to dry the pieces they end up with folds that we have to iron to try to get out. He uses large white towels to roll the pieces in to take down the wetness of them (similar to wringing something out so it is not dripping wet). He bought a towel to use for drying himself that he hates and it has been in the linen closet taking up space. I took it out when I redid the layout and brought it to the living room (which is the “loom room” mid January to mid December) for him to have it to use when drying pieces he has woven.
With the new layout working and the removal of the above towel and the two large ones mentioned last week – I decided to move the shelf below the one I worked on. The two larger towels had been on that shelf. Currently they are rolled up in a bag and will stored on the top shelf of the closet in a spot we cannot reach without a step ladder.
The shelf below had our bed sheets, our spare mattress pad, and the 2 large towels and was jammed. The sheets are still in a stack (we have 3 sets – one on the bed, one being washed, and the next ones to put on the bed, so the most in the stack in 2 sets of sheets. The pillowcases hang below the shelf in a wire hanging shelf, like those below the first shelf. There is a second wire shelf hanging with pillowcases from old sets of sheets - the sheets wore out, but the pillowcases are still good. In addition to still being usable for sleeping, they are also good for putting needlework or cloth dolls that we have made to protect them when going to an exhibition. The sheets have remained where they were. The mattress pad is folded in thirds the length of them and then rolled up - for some reason this is the best way to store it. Instead of putting it side to side on the shelf, I put it on the end of the shelf from front to back. Fit perfect – okay, it did take a bit of pushing to get it in place.
I then managed to fit a couple of spare shower towels between the sheets and the pad – they are still folded in quarters and are pushed to the back of the shelf. I put our spare bath mat on top of these spare towels. We have 3 “bar towels” that we use in the bathroom to wipe up things when we notice they are wet. Normally two of them are in use and I will rotate the three of them to laundry one while two are in use. I put the third one of same in front of the spare bath towels/bat mat.
Again, a shelf that seems to work great!
Next I have to go through things on the wire hanging shelves on the inside of the closet door to get rid of stuff. Husband tends to buy shampoos when he is not happy with the one he is using, not like them, and stick on these shelves – and they are not sample bottles. I will toss out about 4 or 5 bottles of shampoo. There are a variety of other items that have accumulated on these shelves that I will also get rid of. Anything of his, of course, I ask before I toss. I hope to have enough room on these shelves so boxes of bandaids do not have to be stacked on each other and fall down on our heads, as well as fit washcloths and guest hand towels on the shelves – or else they will have to be fit on one of the two shelves. I might even be able to put the box of “ear swabs” right side up on a shelf – right now it is sideways and sometimes swabs fall out.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Little by little this is being accomplished. If I tried to do it all at once it would not get done. Try doing small bits of organizing when you can.
This week I hope to defrost a small spare freezer in our basement – there is years of ice in it. We have not really used it in awhile, but the freezer in the new refrigerator seems smaller than the one in the old one – and I am not allowed to put anything against the back wall of it as, apparently, that stops the air from moving correctly.
Showing posts with label scarf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scarf. Show all posts
Friday, February 21, 2020
Thursday, September 26, 2019
PLANNING YOUR ORGANIZING
Another week – another post – but not much done during the week.
Last week, as mentioned, I hurt a muscle in my stomach and husband would not let me do anything heavy so I would heal. This meant that I could do computer work, some cooking (not “heavy” pots) and such. He carried the laundry bag downstairs so I could do the laundry and then carried the basket of clean items upstairs (twice as I did clothes one day and towels the next) for me. The basket of clean clothes that I carry upstairs on one hip with one hand normally, he can barely lift. Unfortunately after feeling better, today my back was hurting – I could not even twist to see the office phone to dial as I had to lean around the file holder stack on my desk – I had to go to the kitchen to call our bank to see if something coming into the account had arrived. So not much done again this last week.
I will say that we were very pleasantly surprised after using up most of our available time last week to prepare for the reenactment event I mentioned that it was much easier to do than we had figured how it had been explained.
Rather than hand everything over the fence, we were allowed to drive right to the space set aside for our unit. The people from the museum that was having the event were the nicest people we have ever met running an event – and we started doing craft shows in the 1980s. They bent over backwards – if we wanted the space set a different way, they were glad for us to do it and helped us. They were helping us unpack. They had tables out for us to use – one less thing for us to have to take out and set up. When we had finished unpacking I asked one of the men to help me back the van out of the museum grounds. He sent me up the road about a block to a school that was letting them use their parking lot - okay, a small bit of disorganization, the lot was small and full – there was a children's soccer game going on. There were no spaces. The fellow (not from our unit, but a friend) who was the blacksmith followed me in – he had a regular car and told me he as going to park between the two rows as another car had done. I luckily saw a father and son heading to their car and got that space. Not sure what later cars did – demonstrators, volunteers, and the public.
Despite my back I held up one of the tent poles (this is a reproduction tent – not a modern popup tent) for the unit set up as our members put it up. We had table next to the tent with plenty of room for the wooden drying racks we were using as display for the scarves husband had woven. After we set up I found a space between our table and the unit's setup to sit and embroider. Other members set up across the aisle from us in a group.
I talk about this in this column as organizing a setup for a display – whether a craft show, a reenactment event, a flea market, or a display setup up involves advance planning and then one has to hope that all goes as expected. We have learned to carry a variety of setup items that we do not normally need or use – just in case. Even if one knows the space that one will have it may be different than it was last year or otherwise expected. If the person that the next space is reserved for does not show up, one may be able to expand into their space. One may have to deal with uneven ground – or even a large puddle or flooded area. This time we were lucky. The venue's employees were nice and accommodating and the space well situated and not limited. We have gone to craft shows where we are supposed to have the same space as the year before – a corner space with 2 sides to display on – and found that the setup had changed or an error was made and one had different space in a different area midaisle with one side to work with. As we did this when we brought more items for setup than we needed, one has to be prepared for anything.
Think of trying to organize your home – you have plans to clear out the closet in the spare room and then find items there that you had not remembered. You are not ready to deal with those items – maybe not enough garbage bags (or the bags you have are too small) or you need help to move what you find. Or maybe you have to sort a lot of very small items and have no where to sort them. One has to be ready to deal with situations that one did not expect when organizing.
As to the event we did – very nice. Husband has been weaving for about 3, maybe 4 years and has tried to sell his scarves and table runners online. No sales of same at all. He has been despondent about weaving and no one buying. Our thought was that if the pieces could be seen in person it would be different and hoped that to be true. Craft shows around here for the most part are buy and sell junk shows – no chance of selling an actual hand woven scarf if commercial scarves for $8 each are being sold, which is why he jumped at this chance to sell, especially in the fall (okay, it did not feel like fall, it was in the upper 80/lower 90Fs) but he sold a scarf partway through the day and then near closing, 5 scarves to one woman. Yippee. He is again happy to weave.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Plan for everything you can think of for a specific organizing chore. There will be things that happen out of your control, but try to anticipate what you will need and the time you will need to do it. Then “play it by ear” if something not anticipated pops up!
Last week, as mentioned, I hurt a muscle in my stomach and husband would not let me do anything heavy so I would heal. This meant that I could do computer work, some cooking (not “heavy” pots) and such. He carried the laundry bag downstairs so I could do the laundry and then carried the basket of clean items upstairs (twice as I did clothes one day and towels the next) for me. The basket of clean clothes that I carry upstairs on one hip with one hand normally, he can barely lift. Unfortunately after feeling better, today my back was hurting – I could not even twist to see the office phone to dial as I had to lean around the file holder stack on my desk – I had to go to the kitchen to call our bank to see if something coming into the account had arrived. So not much done again this last week.
I will say that we were very pleasantly surprised after using up most of our available time last week to prepare for the reenactment event I mentioned that it was much easier to do than we had figured how it had been explained.
Rather than hand everything over the fence, we were allowed to drive right to the space set aside for our unit. The people from the museum that was having the event were the nicest people we have ever met running an event – and we started doing craft shows in the 1980s. They bent over backwards – if we wanted the space set a different way, they were glad for us to do it and helped us. They were helping us unpack. They had tables out for us to use – one less thing for us to have to take out and set up. When we had finished unpacking I asked one of the men to help me back the van out of the museum grounds. He sent me up the road about a block to a school that was letting them use their parking lot - okay, a small bit of disorganization, the lot was small and full – there was a children's soccer game going on. There were no spaces. The fellow (not from our unit, but a friend) who was the blacksmith followed me in – he had a regular car and told me he as going to park between the two rows as another car had done. I luckily saw a father and son heading to their car and got that space. Not sure what later cars did – demonstrators, volunteers, and the public.
Despite my back I held up one of the tent poles (this is a reproduction tent – not a modern popup tent) for the unit set up as our members put it up. We had table next to the tent with plenty of room for the wooden drying racks we were using as display for the scarves husband had woven. After we set up I found a space between our table and the unit's setup to sit and embroider. Other members set up across the aisle from us in a group.
I talk about this in this column as organizing a setup for a display – whether a craft show, a reenactment event, a flea market, or a display setup up involves advance planning and then one has to hope that all goes as expected. We have learned to carry a variety of setup items that we do not normally need or use – just in case. Even if one knows the space that one will have it may be different than it was last year or otherwise expected. If the person that the next space is reserved for does not show up, one may be able to expand into their space. One may have to deal with uneven ground – or even a large puddle or flooded area. This time we were lucky. The venue's employees were nice and accommodating and the space well situated and not limited. We have gone to craft shows where we are supposed to have the same space as the year before – a corner space with 2 sides to display on – and found that the setup had changed or an error was made and one had different space in a different area midaisle with one side to work with. As we did this when we brought more items for setup than we needed, one has to be prepared for anything.
Think of trying to organize your home – you have plans to clear out the closet in the spare room and then find items there that you had not remembered. You are not ready to deal with those items – maybe not enough garbage bags (or the bags you have are too small) or you need help to move what you find. Or maybe you have to sort a lot of very small items and have no where to sort them. One has to be ready to deal with situations that one did not expect when organizing.
As to the event we did – very nice. Husband has been weaving for about 3, maybe 4 years and has tried to sell his scarves and table runners online. No sales of same at all. He has been despondent about weaving and no one buying. Our thought was that if the pieces could be seen in person it would be different and hoped that to be true. Craft shows around here for the most part are buy and sell junk shows – no chance of selling an actual hand woven scarf if commercial scarves for $8 each are being sold, which is why he jumped at this chance to sell, especially in the fall (okay, it did not feel like fall, it was in the upper 80/lower 90Fs) but he sold a scarf partway through the day and then near closing, 5 scarves to one woman. Yippee. He is again happy to weave.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Plan for everything you can think of for a specific organizing chore. There will be things that happen out of your control, but try to anticipate what you will need and the time you will need to do it. Then “play it by ear” if something not anticipated pops up!
Thursday, March 1, 2018
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.
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.
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