sewing

meltdown

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green & gold ski cap

After a slight meltdown last weekend  over wrong style hair colouring (it’s growing out), the whole area is now into a real meltdown. Unfortunately, my old air conditioner’s compressor protested Thursday, packed up, and left town.

In other words, no cold air speweth forth-eth.

With ‘feels like’ temps in the 90’s this is not something to mess around with. Thankfully, Maintenance was ready: They moved in a room unit so I could have a cool bedroom – yeah!

Then after closing time the supervisor came by to try his luck on resurrecting the old compressor one more time. Yep. He raised that puppy from the dead, and had the new one installed by noon Friday. Phew!

For which I am very grateful as this weekend begins some seriously hot weather… probably ‘feels like’ temps in triple digits.  Seriously. Not. Nice.

What am I sewing? Welllll . . . I did get the thread changed twice last weekend, and sewed a seam. Does that count? LOL! 😇

But I have been industriously crocheting and even picked up knitting needles.

You’ve seen what I call the peacock colours currently and slowly being crocheted into a throw for the bedroom. Six 200 gram balls should do it, I hope.

I succumbed to a sale yarn, which is crocheting up nicely into a ski cap (pattern here).  Am having to concentrate a bit more with this yarn as the two colours (green & gold) are twisted together to form the strand. When I single crochet into the back post (to create the stretch) often those two strands will appear to separate. But the acrylic is softly agreeable to work with so I’ll persevere.

The other has autumnal colours that are so enticing I couldn’t keep my hands off it. As soon as it arrived I knew I wanted to knit a long scarf and maybe crochet another cap. I love how the colours are shading into each other. It’s like working with soft acrylic angel’s hair.

Other than that I’ve been reading Simon Doonan’s Eccentric Glamour, just finished listening to Marie Kondo’s The Life-changing magic of tidying up, and re-read a couple of M.C. Beaton mysteries.

The Kondo book is quite a different sort of organising book, stressing quite different things than other books I’ve read about organising. And I’m not certain I should have listened to it. Might take a look at the actual book to see if there are pictorial examples illustrating her methodology. I would enjoy hearing from any Lovely Readers who’ve read her book.

What did you think of her way of characterizing “things?” Am not certain about her concept that “things” all have energies of their own, and we should thank them for being in our lives and  bringing us joy. Maybe it’s just a word thing, because I am frequently grateful for the joy of having the right tool for a job, or a yummy yarn or fabric.

A good contrast has been Simon Doonan’s Eccentric Glamour (2008). I’d never heard of Mr. Doonan until Hila (Saturday Night Stitch) mentioned him, and piqued my curiosity. (Thanks, Hila!)

I found the book humorous, enlightening, occasionally upsetting, yet affirmative. I particularly appreciated his concepts and explanations of Gypsies, Existentialists, and Socialites.

A section with much food for thought was “Growing Old Ungraciously.” Considering he wrote this 10 years ago and Things Have Changed, I’m not going to quote anything. . . but here are a couple of brief ones just ‘cause I couldn’t resist–

“Confidence, not physical perfection or power, is the ultimate aphrodisiac… Children and dogs and God do not discriminate against people based on their looks.” (both p. 217, Eccentric Glamour, American edition)

Like to read a bit more by Simon? See here, here, and here.

And now for a Grand Finale — a brief (16 min.) TED Talk by someone all Great British Sewing Bee enthusiasts will recognise, Patrick Grant. Saw this on Lizzie’s Vintage Traveler blog – thanks, Lizzie!

❤   ❤   ❤    Enjoy!    ❤   ❤   ❤

16 thoughts on “meltdown”

    1. Dear Linda, how kind of you!
      Thank you so much for your thought, but I would rather not participate just now. It just doesn’t feel like the right time. Hope you understand.
      Lots of hugs,
      del

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  2. So sorry to hear about your air conditioning woes. I recall my first visit to the US was in July and I couldnt be in a room without air conditioning and was shocked at how incredibly hot it gets. I hope all gets sorted out soon.
    I quite loved the KonMari book – read it circa 2014 and wrote my thoughts here https://bookeworm.wordpress.com/2015/01/16/the-life-changing-magic-of-tidying-a-simple-effective-way-to-banish-clutter-forever-by-marie-kondo/
    I read about it and even implemented it (parts of it). I think like most things, you cherry pick what works for you. PLUS this book doesnt take into account living with a significant other or children. Much as I would have liked to clear out my OH’s old folded up posters from his childhood bedroom that have been sitting in a box for over 2 decades, he refuses to let them go (among other things). For me, the bit where she said if you loved a book instead of keeping the whole book you cut out the pages with your favourite passages highlighted and put them in a folder made me gag. I could never do that and its such a waste as books can be passed on for others to enjoy – pages should never be cut of books!
    The book was a natural extension to my own philosophy about things – I have never been one to have accumulated things and never struggled with letting go of things that I didn’t use. Many times I was accused of being an unsentimental hence heartless person for donating birthday presents from years earlier that I had never used. I also talked to the things that I loved the most – I have some items of clothing that I have had for 15 plus years that sparked and still spark joy in me. I have always looked after these better than others (my OH knows that these are garments that only I launder :-). So it was nice to read that someone else did that.
    Its a good book but like most things, if taken zealously is unhealthy, if taken moderately can benefit most people. The dosage is the poison.
    TFS the link to the TED talk – I will watch later and let you know what I think.
    Completely agree about the confidence as stated by Simon.

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    1. What tremendous comments, Hila – thank you!
      Hadn’t realised, as you pointed out, she discusses tidying for singles, which is quite different than a group of individuals in a family.
      Am with you on the ripping pages out of a book! 😱 I always pass to others, and you can’t pass on a book in pieces.
      I also have clothing made in far distant seasons and am glad to see their return each season. (Must admit I also have no prob releasing gifts that don’t fit into my life!) Read your review & enjoyed it – thanks for the link. Are you a Phryne Fisher (by Greenwood) fan? Just realised she’s a great exponent of Simon’s confidence concept.
      Always enjoy your enthusiastic videos, and have learned much from them – thank you!

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  3. I can’t imagine how it would be to live somewhere where air conditioning is so essential. The UK rarely gets hot enough to give it consideration – but I hate being overheated so I’m very pleased to hear that yours has been sorted.
    I just listened to that TED talk. Magnificent, and also very thought provoking. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

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    1. Thank you so much for your sympathies and comments, Kim! I’ve rarely lived anywhere that air con wasn’t needed from time to time. And like Su, I’d much rather be too cold! So glad you had a chance to watch the talk and found it interesting.

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  4. I like the idea of a life changing tidy up but can never quite summon up the energy to do it 😉
    The yarn looks lovely – I’ve knitted two dog coats with the James C. Brett Marble and they did come out lovely and soft although the dogs concerned didn’t comment.

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    1. Delighted to hear you’ve also used J.C. Brett yarns and been pleased. If the dogs didn’t complain, guess they’d agree. Otherwise you would have been made aware, I’m certain. 😉

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  5. I don’t know the books you mention but hope they help.
    Your yarn is really lovely- those colours are glorious.

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    1. We’re a tiny bit even, as most of the books you read I’m not familiar with, and this library almost never has any of them so they stay unknown. Aside from my friend Samantha’s hearty recommendations, the colours are what attracted me to these yarns. Am so glad I took the plunge and ordered.

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  6. Glad you got the air-con fixed; must have been really horrible without it. I hate being too hot waaay more than cold.
    I read the KonMari book, and do have a problem with the “thanking your stuff” thing. Even more, I found her willingness to give books away just astounding. But I figured that Japanese houses are so much smaller than mine that maybe it does make sense to treat books as disposable. Though even saying books and disposable in the same sentence makes me want to wash my mouth out!
    Aside from that, I found it incredibly useful and completely reorganized the house after reading it. I especially like the idea of sorting all of one thing rather than going room by room.

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    1. Thank you so much for your very interesting comments! I also would rather be too cold!
      Having listened rather than read the LonMari book I hadn’t been too aware of this term ‘KonMari” so thank you for this detail.
      AGREE ABSOLUTELY about books! One of my happiest times was living across the street from Chicago’s huge, 8 or 9 storey main library. That was heaven!
      So interesting about your experience of sorting all of one thing at a time being so helpful. Can you elaborate? It’s one of the things I can’t quite rationalise.

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      1. Her argument is that we tend to store the same kind of item in different places (we have towels in three different cupboards because we have multiple bathrooms for example), and we lose track of what we have. She says you should get every single item from a category together and decide what to keep etc. if you tidy room by room, she reckons you just end up shifting things around the house. She was right in our case — we had stuff everywhere. Mostly I consolidated all of one item into a single place. Except towels. I really haven’t got that sorted yet.

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