Helen Mathey-Horn's Blog, page 4

Here we are…

…10 short days from Christmas. Temperature is 75oF. I’ve put up about as much Christmas as I feel like doing (two fake wreathes on the front porch). My Christmas tree (fake) started losing it’s light function (bad wires) a few years ago, so I need to recycle it and maybe buy a new one? Already saw some places have them on SALE. Really? I’ll probably try to get one after Christmas, if I’m in the mood. Otherwise, tree-free-zone again.

I have two new orchids which are flowering, and it looks like some of my ‘old’ ones might decide it is time for some buds. That would be a wonderful Christmas present.

Loving all the outdoor decorations in our neighborhood. Some people do such a great job, or they are paying someone to do that great job. There is one tree of about 30-foot tall that is lit with white lights on every limb and a lot of twigs. It is my favorite way of seeing a tree lit, rather than trying to wind lights around the ‘ball’ shape of the tree. I’m pretty sure the homeowners did not do it themselves. Hopefully I’ll take a picture and insert it here. Nope another day.

Inside, the orchids, okay. A garland I forgot to take down one year and now is permanently part of the curtain decoration in the dining room. We’ll just call it a decision, not a mistake. Will I put up more??? We shall see.

So, while my house is a little slack on Christmas decorations, I am certainly ready for it to get a move on.

What a world. What a world.

First up, my credit card seemed to be hi-jacked, so called the institution and got it cancelled and new one ordered. Grrrrr

Then this morning I could not find the small wallet I keep my id, COVID record, driver’s license and my other JOINT credit card in! Double Grrrrrr

Tried to remember when I last used it.

Go through all the pockets of everything I’ve worn the last couple of days that had pockets.

Call the couple of places I might have used it to see if I left it there.

Look around the house on tables, underthings, where I might (I never do this) have set it down.

Dump the contents of my purse and look through all pockets…three times. Check purses I’ve not used for over a month.

Go out to the car and look all around my seat and the driver’s seat, move the seats to check under the seats. Look under the plastic protector on the back seat (dog don’t you know).

Coming back into the house, beside the step up to the porch is a plant with a ‘drip pan’. And there laying in the dry drip pan is the wallet.

WHAT?????

Either the yard crew next door found it, didn’t get a response at the door (we don’t have a door bell, might have been gone) and didn’t find our mailbox (it is on the back side of a pilar) and laid it there for me to find or I dropped it there yesterday when I was wrestling the dog leash and wallet in one hand, purse in the other and the wallet dropped out of my hand into the pan???? I’m thinking that is what might have happened as the location is about right for that to have happened.

Moral of the story? Put it away, in the right place, immediately and then you don’t have to worry.

And the world it fine, I’m a ditz.

IWSG – DECEMBER! Already?

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group prompt for this month is December 1 question – In your writing, what stresses you the most? What delights you?

I will confess that I just spent some time yesterday looking at reviews people left on the books I have on Amazon. Not all the reviews were glorious, but some of them made me feel really good.

And I guess it is people’s opinions that become the stressors and the delights of writing.

How will people view your ‘child/children’?

Your books, you raised them, released them into the world and love them. Everyone else must love them as much as you do, right? Ah, not necessarily, and with a grain of salt and a recognition that there is truth in even the most painful feedback, you better be ready to take the good with the bad. I mean how can you cherry pick the good reviews and say those people are so smart and clever like me, and the bad reviews, well they are a bunch of dunces? Especially as you know nothing of the people writing the comments?

So, the delight is easy, when what you’ve written is received with the intent you meant. It was clever, the plot was properly convoluted so the ending wasn’t obvious, the characters were meaty and interesting.

The stresses, the characters were stock or unimaginative, the story shallow, and would they really have acted that way?

I try to take it with that grain of salt and figure it is all a learning situation. And in the end…did it satisfy what I was trying to do with the story? And I have that luxury as I don’t have to use the money to pay the rent. Meaning, I’m the one I really have to satisfy.

To read more of what other writers wrote to this prompt click the Insecure Writer’s Support Group highlighted here (or above) and see the list. (Not everyone writes to the prompt each month, but the ones that do always have interesting comments.)

Wovember 30 – Conclusion

“For we like sheep…”

I hope that you have found something educational and perhaps amusing about the posts I’ve put up for Wovember.

I know I’ve had fun thinking about what to write for each day. I’ve also found some motivation for myself and have dusted off my spinning equipment and purchased a black fleece that I am eager to spin.

I suppose if I had to ‘manage’ sheep on the hoof I might be a little less in love with them. They are living things that need care and tending. Like other living things they need: food, water, shelter, doctoring when sick, shearing when appropriate. They give us the ‘shirt off their back’ and they’ve been doing it for a long time. We’ve used sheep for meat, milk and skins for 11,000-9,000 years. Then we got smart and started just harvesting the wool instead of the skins about 6,000 years ago. Wikipedia claims they are (after dogs) our first domesticated animal. (People were probably collecting naturally shed clumps of wool caught on brambles and branches from wild sheep before that.)

Some ‘domestic’ sheep still shed their fleece each year without human intervention. Soays are a good example. Here is a fun blog of a woman who raises Soays (and a few Shetlands). They are pretty mischievous if left to themselves it seems. Some day I’ll get to her part of the country when she is having a ‘visitation’ day. I’ll have to remember to take plenty of ‘treats’. And here is a little more information about Soays in the US.

So, next time you look at a bolt or a skein of REAL WOOL, not that synthetic C**P, you’ll realize it may have come a long way from an animal someone raised with concern. Sheep are not ‘disposable’ any more than your pet is, or the cow that produces milk is. Healthy animals produce healthy wool, milk, and in the case of your pet, loving animals.

I’ll get off my soap box now.

Wovember 29 – Abundance

This word brings to my mind something overflowing without an apparent end.

Each year, each second, sheep are growing wool. Just as each moment you are growing more hair, nails and skin cells.

It isn’t something we think about having a limit.

If you wish to see what a sheep looks like if you don’t shear it regularly there is Shrek.

In New Zealand (as in many places including the western US) sheep are allowed to graze free-range. They are rounded up (called a muster down there) once a year to be sheared. ‘Shrek’ hid in a cave and managed to elude the round up for SIX years. He became justifiably famous. I’m pretty sure you’re not included in Wikipedia or had a book written about you. I know I’m not.

His fleece weighed 60 pounds and made 20 large men’s suits. That could be a definition of abundance.

It is also a good reminder why sheep NEED to be sheared, so I’ll not hear anyone talking about how shearing is harmful to sheep. Yes, Shrek survived 6 years, but New Zealand doesn’t have any predators large enough to catch and kill a sheep. That much fleece would not have allowed him to ‘dodge’ a determined predator. I will, however, grant that most of his body would probably been safe from attack, lol.

One more day

Wovember 28 – Warmth

When people think of warm clothing they tend to think ‘wool’ even if they are not sure what wool is beyond, it comes from sheep. Things might be described as ‘wooly’ when we are thinking soft, warm, comforting, and that German word Gemutlich. (Cozy, homey, comforting there is not exact translation, that’s why it is such a good word.)

Wool is warm because of its structure.

See the ‘crinkles’

That picture shows a ‘slightly’ teased apart lock of wool. Imagine if you ‘fluffed’ it up. All those little ‘waves’ which are not two dimensional but three, create even more wonderful little air spaces.

“Air spaces,” you say. “How can air spaces keep me warm?”

The same way air spaces in insulation that your house is wrapped in keeps it warm. They are know ‘dead air’ spaces and the funny thing about air, is it not really a good conductor of heat. (Heat is movement of molecules. It is this movement/energy that moves. If you touch a colder object the heat in your hand will move towards the object that ‘feels’ cold. They will transfer some of their movement to the slower moving molecules so that the ones in you hand move slower than before and the ones you are touching are moving faster than they were.) The molecules in air (of air) are spaced far apart and they have to bump each other to transfer their movement/energy to another air molecule. If you can create air spaces where the air is not being swirled or agitated, but still, you will stop the transfer of heat. Or at least slow it down.

You don’t want heat to leave your body. Your body has to cause air molecules in those spaces to get warm enough to transfer heat(movement) to the air molecules further out and so on until they reach the surface where there is the ‘outside’ air. There the energy can be transferred away by those ‘outside’ air molecules.
Getting through that ‘forest’ of air pockets is a slow process, hence the fabric keeps you warm. It should, and does, work in reverse for there being extreme heat on the outside and cooler body inside. Apparently traditional Arab clothing is wool and helps block the desert heat in the same manner. And if you live in a ‘hot’ climate, insulating your house against the ‘heat’ is just as helpful to your utility bills as insulating it against ‘cold’ in winter.

Okay, more than you probably wanted to know about heat transfer.

Wool is a great ‘insulator’ and will keep you warm. How’s that for a short and sweet summary?

Two more days

Wovember 27 – Designer

If you spin your own yarn, you can design it to be whatever you want it to be. Granted certain breeds of sheep have wool better suited to certain spinning techniques and certain kinds of yarn. Again, the possibilities are way beyond my limited space and perhaps ability to explain.

A book (or two) to the rescue.

Yarnitecture: A Knitter’s Guide to Spinning at WEBS | Yarn.com

(Just so the reader knows, I do not get anything by listing these books/sources. I just know of some books I’ve found useful/interesting that apply to the topic.)

This one I’ve found from $50 to $500??? This one looks promising.This one I have and it has ‘fun’ yarns.

Most of these if you look them up on the internet will give you more than one place to purchase and quite a range of prices.

Two notes –

When you first learn to spin, what you will spin will qualify as ‘thick and thin’. This is normal, do not give up. Also…

Keep that ‘funky’ yarn because if you later when you are spinning ‘consistent’ thickness yarns and want a ‘thick and thin’ yarn it becomes one of the hardest yarns to replicate.

We spinners are not sure why this happens, but it does.

Just a few more days

Wovember 26 – Community

Is it me or are these prompts becoming more ‘diffuse’ in meaning?

What is meant by community?

The shepherds? The spinners? The guilds? The interconnections?

Why do people bother to raise sheep for a handspinner market? Why do people still take time to spin when such a variety of commercial yarns exist? Why join a guild?

Probably because any person involved in any of the above LOVE what they do.

You are not going to get rich raising sheep for handspinners. (At least I don’t believe it will be more than a break even proposition.)

The spinning by hand is not a short cut to producing yarn at a cheaper rate if you figure how much your time costs and you add that to the cost of your fleece and any processing you’ve had done to it.

Belonging to a guild might be for the comradery, information or contacts, but you could pick other topics of interest and join other kinds of groups. Everyone has a voice in the internet age. So why sheep?

Probably back to that ‘joke’ I used earlier and Handel’s Messiah. “For we like sheep…” (The rest of the song doesn’t apply.)

Not sure why sheep ‘float my boat’ but I like sheep and wool and the making of things with wool fleece. It is nice to know there is a community of others out there that think/feel like I do.

Wovember 25 – Appreciation

On Thanksgiving no less!

Yesterday’s post mentioned the ‘graft’ blanket that was given to my father-in-law during the Depression in appreciation for his work that Oklahoma family. Perhaps I should have saved it for today. It is a good story and true.

Appreciation…hopefully all these posts and others on the internet are giving you an appreciation for the qualities of wool.

If not, or you want more…look no further. The Woolmark Company (British) offers an online Wool Appreciation Course. * Yawzers…looks like I’m going to learn a little more during Wovember myself!

Also another free site Woolmark Learning Centre* (love that ‘re’ on center!)

So as you digest your Thanksgiving meal, here is something to think about and make you thankful for Wool.

*You will have to register, but there is no cost.

Wovember 24 – Stash

Stash, better known as your hoard? We can’t be dragons because if we were our breathes might light up our stash…actually wool is a good fire retardant fiber. It doesn’t want to ignite. And as another source mentions, if it does ignite it won’t ‘melt’ onto your skin. Yikes. Today’s health tip…wear wool, sleep with wool.

Back to the STASH also known as SABLE (Stash acquisition beyond life expectancy). Yes your wool will probably outlive you.

We have a wool blanket we were given from my husband’s father.

He worked as a loan agent in Oklahoma during the 1930’s Depression. He was a federal employee, so the ‘loan agent’ term is a little miss leading. He helped farmers in Oklahoma get federal loans to improve their farms. He, because of his agriculture training (OSU), knew and helped them with what to buy and how to make the best use of their land and resources. He also lent money to families to improve the wife’s lot by improving kitchens and equipment as so much was home made. One family as thanks gave him an orange wool blanket which the family fondly call ‘The Graft Blanket’*. It is from the 1930’s…and we still have/use that blanket. The binding (possibly silk or synthetic) has long been removed but the basic wool ‘square’ is sturdy and usable. We’ve taken it off the bed in honor of it’s long useful life and to keep the dog’s hair from messing it up. If we didn’t have the dog, that blanket would still be out.

It has outlived my husband’s father and is likely to outlive us.

Just keep the moths away…everything has its Achilles’ heel.

Back to your STASH…just keep the moths away and keep spinning, knitting, weaving that supply down. With COVID this past year, some of us are feeling kind of smug about having a STASH.

We told you it would eventually come in hand.

* The blanket’s name is a ‘joke’ as my father-in-law was one of the most honest men I knew and a blanket can hardly be considered a bribe for the work he did to help that farmer, but it was he could offer as thanks.