Doing What Needs To Be Done

Today I accomplished some mending that I had been putting off for a few weeks. It's such a satisfying feeling to have your clothes clean, and in good repair. I have a red cashmere bathrobe that I bought ten years ago. (It was a splurge after receiving a Christmas bonus as a writer for Dancer Magazine.)  I debated on whether or not to spend the money,  and am so glad that I did. I still remember finding that super soft robe. It was half price. It's something that I wear every day in the cold season. It will last forever.  Recently it had developed a narrow run up the back, so I darned it with some cranberry red embroidery floss. I held the material  in position using my pink vintage darning egg.  I wish now that I had caught it earlier. As the saying goes, "A stitch in time saves nine." As I was fixing the hole, I thought about my childhood neighbor, Mrs. Hutchinson.  She taught me how to sew on a button, how to darn socks, how to knit, and how to do embroidery. I was nine years old at the time.  She was such a kind and generous neighbor. I really use those skills today. They are so important. She knew that I needed to learn them, and she trained me thoroughly.

I had a few small holes in two of the sweaters that I had knit five years ago. I was a very new knitter at the time.  I wasn't sure how to fix them correctly, so I paid my knitting teacher, Yuko Frederick, to do it. I stood off of her shoulder,  and watched her carefully. She patiently explained to me what she was doing.  It reminded me of sewing a shoulder seam. Yuko  is a talented designer on Ravelry. She teaches at our local knitting shop, Creative Ewe. It was interesting to see how she recreated the stitches, using duplicate stitch.  I was so glad that I had saved the leftover yarn. The details in any art form make all the difference.

My silk and llama pink cardigan sweater had started to fray at the edge of one of the sleeves. Yuko undid the cast on edge, and rebound off in that section, using the leftover yarn. I never would have thought about doing it that way. It looks terrific. I washed the sweaters by hand last week, and let them dry on a towel. Because I have a Nina Spinner, it only took a few hours for them to dry. I am wearing the rose colored one now, and it feels like new. The green one is the very first sweater I ever knit. I redesigned the pattern to fit like a costume. Hand knit sweaters are like old friends.

This morning I figured out how to delete photos from Windows Gallery. It's probably a simple thing for most people, but I wasn't sure how to do it. I googled my question, and got the answer. All you have to do is right click on the photograph. I am deleting as many old emails and non essential photos as possible. It will help to clear up space on my hard drive. I am hoping after doing this I will be able to upload photos from my mini ipad again.  

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