Chez Sleepy

Since the "no knitting" until my hands recover pledge, I've settled into a pleasant routine of reading in the evening. The cats appreciate that I'm not dangling yarn in their whiskers and they often join me. Then I fall asleep. That's right. I'm asleep by 8 in the evening some days. I never realized that knitting was a stimulant, that it kept me awake and engaged. I do know that I sometimes cannot fall asleep because I'm thinking about a pattern or a yarn or what I'll knit next. 

The paint color scheme for the living areas in my house has been troubling me too since I'm nearly finished with wall paper removal in the dining room. I fussed and made a half-hearted attempt to find a color-wheel so I could examine colors and see which ones would be most companionable. I got a decorating book instead, which makes basic suggestions, and has a small picture of color wheel in the introduction. I also realized that compared to getting the layers of paint and wallpaper off of the walls, having the dry wall contractor make repairs, and prepping the trim, the actual painting will be very easy and inexpensive. If I really don't like a color, I can paint it again.

The eureka moment arrived with the Pottery Barn catalog. One of the rugs has reds, blues, yellows, and greens. Those were the colors I wanted and finding the right shades was the challenge. So now, I'm going to use that rug as my palette. I probably won't buy the rug, but I am certainly happy to have picture of it.

Bye-bye Green

The green paint from the dining room is almost entirely gone. There are only a few little bits along the baseboards and the windows that need to be removed. It was surprisingly easy to pull the old wall paper and paint off of the walls. My father recommended that I fill up a sprayer with warm water, find a good tv show, and mist the walls on every commercial break for an hour before starting to remove the wall paper. It worked so well. I should listen to Dad more often.

The wall preparation and removing the texture from the ceiling will keep the me very busy for awhile. Looking at the brown of ancient sheet rock that is offset by the creamy-colored joint compound raised the question of what color the room should be. The late 90s hunter green doesn't seem right anymore, but I liked the way it was the complementary color of the red entry way. Between the entry way and the dining room is are very neutral beige living room walls. The couch is slate blue and probably the only upholstered item that I'm committed to keeping unchanged. I see my future. It is me surrounded by paint chips and muttering about color combinations. It frightens me. 

The green roving that I've been spinning for a very long time is finished. To my way of thinking, everything is practice. This project has amounted to only practice. Projects that are practice and end up being useful or liked are the best scenario. These finished products aren't things that I like, but I know so much more about dying roving and spinning yarn that I did at the outset. The names for the colorway varied from Kermit in a Blender to OMG, You Didn't or, on a particularly vexing day, Holy Fuck It Is Green.

I knitted a really rough looking scarf and still had about half of the yarn left. Then I gave the scarf to Mom, who was extremely polite about it, but it was a cool day and she was glad to have it. She was really surprised by how warm it was. Ugly can still be warm. Finally I told her my plans for the scarf had been the trash can. She looked so relieved. As for the yarn, I'm not sure what will happen with it. Maybe it will be good for tying tomato plants to stakes next summer. 

In the meantime, I'm trying to decide what color the next batch of BFL superwash will be. Purples, blues, reds? Brown, blue, pink? Whatever it is, one pound is way too much for one Sally to spin in the same color. Four ounces sounds like a very manageable amount. Maybe I'll try out the painting color schemes with the roving.