Dyeing with Cosmos Flowers

In 2013, after those delightful, memorable, happy happy summer weeks in Scotland and the Outer Hebrides, I used marigolds to dye white wool from Orkney.  And with good results.

Fast forward to August, 2015.  Again, I have a bumper crop of flowers for dyeing.  But this summer I am using yellow cosmos to see what yellows will result after boiling on John's Australian wool.

Here are the cosmos flowers showing off for the camera in the early morning hours on August 15, just prior to being denuded with scissors:

(on the front porch)

(and this is on ONE volunteer, flowering cosmos plant; note it is trying to overtake the deliberately planted garden squash)

For basic dying principles, refer back to the Polish Granddaughter's post about dyeing with marigolds.  I substituted half cosmos and half marigold flowers, simmering for an hour to achieve this color in the dye pot.

Yellow yarn on the right, derived from cosmos and marigold dye, a bottle of yellow food coloring and half a bottle of citron acid dye. That wool resisted taking on a yellow hue, to say the least.  It is a wonder it did not felt amidst the process of all that stove top simmering.

This is the When In Scotland garter shawl.  It needs more of the lighter color green alternated with the lime green, then ending with the yellow cosmos colored wool. Figuring there is no rush on finishing the knitting (it is to be 97 degrees F today), I will add the new yellow for the last bold stripe, then finish with the teal color. 


On the Julie front, she is encountering a few more medical issues. Nothing is insurmountable, in her mind, for achieving independence in her own apartment in 2016.  We manicure her nails thrice weekly, play Word Chums and Words With Friends night and day via our iPads, and lunch together daily outside at the gazebo at Mesa Manor Rehab and Nursing Home. We also play a card game or two if she can tear herself away from the computer word games.

The husband does his part and brings the dogs to Julie for a pet at least twice a week. Julie has a remarkable and resilient spirit and has continually taught me about the universality of love.  Her birthday approaches in early September, and her abiding life cannot help but be inspirational despite her obstacles.

Bark if You Love Julie!

Outside Art: Painted Fence Update

Last summer was the advent of painting our fences with happy flowers.  Yesterday and today, I decided to update the east fence with a big ol' sunflower.  All acrylic, all half way peeling, and all flowers in need of a bit of fresh lacquer; or in this case, acrylics.

This is how it looks from the patio, not nearly so "in your face."

Except there might need to be a bee on the head of that sunflower.  We shall see how it feels later today.

A year ago in April and the west fence, which also needs a refreshment of paint:

Crochet Bowls, Again

Simply, I cannot get enough kale crisps, cashews, chocolate bites, or crochet bowls.  Luckily, the bowls have no calories, albeit they are addictive once one gets cotton yarns in hand. These bowls I make all the time from a pattern similar to this one on Ravelry, holding contrasting colors of yarns together while doing a single crochet.

Seed packets from friend Carol, who encourages good gardening habits for Mesa Manor.

Mr. Bear, above, was a gift from Auntie to Julie while in hospital.

Several have been given away, and did not have the opportunity to display themselves to my camera before going off to new homes.

These were made in February of this year:

Hand Dying Wool

Remember that gorgeous hand spun wool John sent me from Australia? We played Scrabble online the other day and he said he had dyed some of his wool.  He was kind enough to forward me a web site he had used in dying wool.  The instructions were easy to decipher, so I decided to dye up some of the wool he sent using food coloring.

Basically, this is it: Soak wool in 1 quart water per100 grams wool, and a solution of vinegar water: 4 Tbsp. vinegar to one quart water, and soak for an hour.  While soaking, I mixed up colors to dye the wool teal and lime green.

For Teal: 2 TBSP Green food coloring, 4 TBSP Blue food coloring

For Lime Green: 3 TBSP Yellow food coloring, 1 TBSP Green food coloring

Website Australian Organic Wool says:

Soak skein in tepid water with 4 Tbsp of vinegar per quart of water for an hour before dyeing. 

Mix up your colors then add the water and the dyeing solution to the pot. Add the yarn and heat until it is just below boiling point – steam will be coming off the surface of the dye bath.  Continue to simmer and stir gently until all the color in the pot has been absorbed by the wool and the remaining water is clear. This will take less than 10 minutes.

Trouble shooting tip: If your yarn will not take the dye you may be using wool that is too coarse. Coarse wools only absorb small amounts of color. The best wool for dying is fine and superfine classes of wool.  

Allow to cool then pour yarn into colander and rinse with tap water until all residue colour has run out. Dry out of direct sunlight.

 So... Here is the first attempt at dyeing a lime green along with a darker green, hand painted on plastic by the "pour method;" I liked it.

Then on to dyeing a second skein of wool. This one I wanted a teal color, but the first attempt at achieving teal blue resulted in too light a shade, and looked a little muddy; note the right hand skein of sickly blue:

Back to the dye pot it went, and simmered for 40 minutes, not the original ten minutes that was suggested in the instructions.  This is the resulting color blue, which in my humble estimation is much prettier, and more vibrant:

Now I am anxious to knit these two colors into a striped shawl.  It might take a while, but as my brother says, "what's time to a hog or a  (insert your favorite word here)?"  Here, here, what's time to a hog or a knitter?

Red Letter Day - NuMotion

Today is a Big Adventure for Julie. At 10 AM a new semi-electric wheelchair will be delivered to her at Mesa Manor.  It is to have wheels powered by an electrical battery that will give acceleration when pushed, with both low and high settings.  Even for a bariatric person, it should be able to go up inclines with a manual wheel turn.  It is a NuMotion chair, sold and fitted to her by a fellow who worked at the Para Olympics in prior times, pairing para athletes with specially adapted wheelchairs. A picture of the new electric blue chair will be included later. It costs as much as a small used car, a kings' ransom in my mind, but all for the cause to help Julie have a more functioning life. Her borrowed chair is unwieldy.

And speaking of Julie, I have set up a blog for her, As The Wheels Turn.  She is not enthused about this endeavor, but I will continue pushing for her to write about things that interest her.  She did manage to dictate her own "profile" for the blog.  When she sends me an email about a topic that piques her interest, that will be the clue for a new post.  I would dearly love to see if she gets any traffic to her site, but sitemeter has been down for over a month, and visits cannot be tracked through them.  Does anyone know of any gizmo that will track blog visit sites by location?  Please comment, if so.  Google only tracks visits by number in their stats.

Every morning, Julie and I stay outdoors at the facility, and she often eats her lunch on a tray alfresco before I leave for home.  So far, no other resident has been at the gazebo table, as one-to-one staff attendance is mandated outdoors.  And our lack of other patient visits to the gazebo may be because we are calling the gazebo our own, and I spread out all my doings on the tabletop.

A few weeks ago I was cutting down the front bushes at the nursing home and was told to cease and desist because of liability reasons; that incident must have come up in their weekly staff meeting since the summarial dismissal to QUIT making the facility more attractive was reversed.  Several days ago I was told by The Powers That Be that I could officially be a volunteer at the Genesis owned facility.  Official in their corporate minds must include coming under the umbrella of their liability insurance policy.  So, I duly underwent the first of two tuberculosis tests, and was deemed negative for the dread disease yesterday, but still they need to inject me for a second screening at the end of the week. It is a good thing they are allowing me to volunteer, because Saturday I planted several containers with geraniums and petunias, watered all the plants in cement containers, and weeded. Yesterday I painted one of the geranium boxes red because it looked like it had not had any attention in ten years. Surely the Powers are grateful for all this gardening attention?

This evening the husband and I are hosting a writers' class pot luck with fellow students from Sandy Dorr's spring writing group here in Grand Junction.  I am making sangria, red, for the festive occasion.  Pictures tomorrow if I remember to take snapshots.  The weather has been cloudy and rainy and since this is to be an outdoor soiree, we may have to be indoors, defeating the purpose of the outdoor summertime theme.

Post Script: the party did take place outside, although we received more rain while eating and the six of us scurried under cover so our combined sweetness did not dissolve into sugar.

If Your World Rocks on its Foundations

source

Suppose your whole world seems to rock on its foundations; let it rock, and when the rocking is over, the picture will have reassembled itself into something much nearer to your heart's desire.

           ----From The Seven Day Mental Diet by Emmet Fox

From Why, O Lord?.....

I have known that if I want to be happy on earth I must fall madly in love with God and the things of God.

Then, all things being equal, in time of suffering the easiest way to allay the suffering, especially if it is really sharp, is to get out of myself - yes, get out of myself; visit someone who is suffering worse than I am, do something to remind me of the sufferings of the world, set my heart in order if I feel a residual dislike of someone, write a cheque for the world's poorest mission, answer a tiresome letter from someone who wants me to tell him whether hell exists, or what he should not do to leave his nasty possessive wife. 

In other words, perform an act of love that requires patience and honesty.                .... Carlos Caretto

Hand Spun Gifted Wool

An internet Scrabble friend whom I have virtually known for about seven years but have never met personally, sent me this:

An amazing gift of hand spun wool

This wool draped over a tomato cage is not even all he sent because I shared some with friends.  Natalie got right to work on her portion, knitting up a pretty shawl.  The darker and lighter colored two ply wool shown below will be worked up as the bottom piece of the wrap.  She is doing a good job of styling John's yarn into a usable creation.

My friend, John, spun all this wool himself.  It cost him a kings' ransom just to mail it from where he lives in Australia.  He and I have previously exchanged post cards; he sent me a picture of an Aussie wombat years ago.  He likes wombats.  I sent him something back, a watercolor methinks.

And not only does this John spin, he also knits.  He asked me via the chat line on the ISC forum several months ago if I needed something knit up: a baklava, or a hat. My reply was "no" because I happen to also knit.  But I asked him if he could spare some hand spun wool because I can't, don't, and will never spin wool.  

Lo and behold, he sent me over five pounds of hand spun Australian sheep wool.  Wow.  You should feel the lanolin in this wool, just marvelous.  Thank you, John!

This is the tomato plant not clad in wool, and it has produced three actual, edible tomatoes.

And this sweet little four inch tall angel was given me last week by the husband because he thought I needed a bit of extra love.  She is hanging off my newly replaced iPhone.  Replaced because the first one was in a sack in which iced tea was spilled, ruining the iPhone. Note to self: do not put your phone in a plastic sack with other items, especially one containing liquids. 

On the Julie front: after church this morning I am encouraging her to write a blog.  Her stepfather, her aunt, her uncle and I have all asked her to do this, but she has been unenthusiastic about it thus far.  It is now time to take the bull by the horns and sit down in front of a laptop plugged into some common room area at Mesa Manor and start the process.  Maybe next time I post it will be with a link to a Julie Created Blog.  We shall see.

Three Weeks in Summer

Forgive me readers, it has been 22 days since I last posted.  And I have made many mistakes and committed to just a few major decisions.

As daughter Julie is in a nursing home, and is the youngest resident there presently, she seems to be considered either a staff sister, daughter, or granddaughter.  Julie is treated well and respectfully, although at times waiting for help is inconvenient.  But waiting for her is not life threatening, and the hours and days continue on.

Visiting with daughter takes my mornings, and worrying about her comprises the afternoons.  I try to plan something to do with her each morning: a manicure, doing a crossword puzzle, a hair trim, petting a dog.  Suggestions appreciated.  I used to take care of the entry garden area, pruning the rose bushes with clippers, picking up debris, and puttering.  That came to a screeching halt yesterday when I brought in my battery charged hedge clippers to trim the bushes and was told that this was not allowed as it was a "liability hazard."  Funny, who knew trimming plant overgrowth was considered hazardous.

When I left yesterday before lunch she was talking (high decibel level) to a resident new to her assigned meal table.  He was hard of hearing, and she was helping to make him comfortable by chatting him up.  She has a good soul.  Julie later called to tell me she encouraged him to eat, similar to how as a child she had also prodded her great grandmother to take "just a bite."   What caring lessons she learned as a child seem to have carried onwards.  Maybe she can still help someone now.  I think so.

 

Julie, smiling on the 4th of July, Gene, not smiling.  Dogs playing at Gene's feet, but out of sight. They were happy visiting.  Gene or I take one or two dogs several times a week to be petted and they are getting into a routine of outings in the car.  Libby, the Wonder Therapy Dog for 7 years, newly retired because of knee problems, is much better at sitting and patiently waiting for the visit to end.  Although she does like the head scratches and cookies that Julie gives them, albeit five calorie Milk Bones snapped in half.

It will not be three weeks until I again post, but sooner.  Count on it.

Clematis and More

Beauty observed from neighbor Woods' fence...

and a Woods' iris to boot.

Also, courtesy of Mr. Woods, a cedar nursery box he made for me in April; trusting the coleus will flourish through September on our back patio.  Some critter was munching on foliage this morning; everybody has to eat, just not at this smorgasbord.

A little crowd of google eyes was in Jack and Julie's knick knack box in York.  She thinks maybe Jack made it in years past.  It is now keeping company with the coleus.

 And day lilies about to bloom

Over the weekend, I pulled out tons of mint that overgrew grassy areas, and the bindweed was having a field day, too.  Out that went, which only makes it grow more profusely.  And I trimmed down the rose bushes, too.  At least I can expend energy in eradicating weeds, even though tackling the thorny issues of life is a bit more daunting. 

On the Julie front, she is moving to Mesa Manor this week from Colorado Canyons Hospital.   Mesa Manor is a Genesis owned 84 bed licensed facility.  This is a picture of its entrance and information can be accessed here. 

 It is probably the best place for her now.  She soldiers on.

Sharing Goodness

Indulge me in the sharing of the goodness I found and re-found today in searching the web.  Here are web sites, readily accessed in the future for perhaps Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (NPH) or recipes or music or books (if I remember this particular post).

• Quick link to NPH is here.
• I Know that My Redeemer Lives, great text and music are here.
• Life Adjustment Program at Hilltop are here and here.
• Breakfast drink here (thanks, Kepanie)
• the Magnacarta in stitches
• a crochet fly curtain, who knew?  Mrs. T did.
• Soup that the grand husband concocted, again please?
• free: complete Works of William Shakespeare
• jogless two row knitting tip: Craftsy
• liturgical mysteries (have read three, will read more)...will have you rolling in the (church) aisles
• Rijksmuseum for art
• modern church music for an old, old hymn sung in the Shetland Islands when I was there that wonderful season
• Chicken Tikka Masal recipe (forget the skewers)
• Etsy for handmade gift goodness
• recent article about the new Scrabble words

Julie is at Colorado Canyons Hospital, back from South Carolina last week, and is faring well.  Thank you for all your prayers and good wishes.  We hope for a Grand Junction placement soon.

Daughter Julie Returns to Colorado

Yesterday was a bittersweet 24 hours, filled with good byes to friends and Julie's home in South Carolina.  She and I spent several hours in sorrow, but welcomed a new beginning for her as she returned to Grand Junction, where she and Jack lived the first five years of their marriage.  As she said, she left Colorado as a wife and is now returning as a widow.

We flew back to Grand Junction from Rock Hill, SC via AeroCare air ambulance on a Lear 35 jet with Sven, the Norwegian pilot, and three other staff assisting us in all ways possible for a safe trip home via air.  Here are pictures from the journey yesterday.

Kitchen Table Wisdom

Until we stop ourselves, or, more often, have been stopped, we hope to put certain of life's events "behind us" and get on with our living.  After we stop we see that certain of life's issues will be with us for as long as we live. We will pass through them again and again, each time with a new story, each time with a greater understanding, until they become indistinguishable from our blessings and our wisdom.  It's the way life teaches us to live.
                                                by Rachel Naomi Remen

As a physician, I was trained to deal with uncertainty as aggressively as I dealt with disease itself. The unknown was the enemy. Within this worldview, having a question feels like an emergency; it means that something is out of control and needs to be made known as rapidly, efficiently, and cost-effectively as possible. But death has taken me to the edge of certainty, to the place of questions.

After years of trading mystery for mastery, it was hard and even frightening to stop offering myself reasonable explanations for some of the things that I observed and that others told me, and simply take them as they are. "I don't know" had long been a statement of shame, of personal and professional failing. In all of my training I do not recall hearing it said aloud even once. 

But as I listened to more and more people with life-threatening illnesses tell their stories, not knowing simply became a matter of integrity. Things happened. And the explanations I offered myself became increasingly hollow, like a child whistling in the dark. The truth was that very often I didn't know and couldn't explain, and finally, weighed down by the many, many instances of the mysterious which are such an integral part of illness and healing, I surrendered. It was a moment of awakening. 

For the first time, I became curious about the things I had been unwilling to see before, more sensitive to inconsistencies I had glibly explained or successfully ignored, more willing to ask people questions and draw them out about stories I would have otherwise dismissed. What I have found in the end was that the life I had defended as a doctor as precious was also Holy. I no longer feel that life is ordinary. Everyday life is filled with mystery. The things we know are only a small part of the things we cannot know but can only glimpse. Yet even the smallest of glimpses can sustain us.

Mystery seems to have the power to comfort, to offer hope, and to lend meaning in times of loss and pain. In surprising ways it is the mysterious that strengthens us at such times. I used to try to offer people certainty in times that were not at all certain and could not be made certain. I now just offer my companionship and share my sense of mystery, of the possible, of wonder. After twenty years of working with people with cancer, I find it possible to neither doubt nor accept the unprovable but simply to remain open and wait.

I accept that I may never know where truth lies in such matters. The most important questions don't seem to have ready answers. But the questions themselves have a healing power when they are shared. An answer is an invitation to stop thinking about something, to stop wondering. Life has no such stopping places, life is a process whose every event is connected to the moment that just went by. An unanswered question is a fine traveling companion. It sharpens your eye for the road.” 
                         ― Rachel Naomi Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal

On Eagle's Wings

If only Julie could believe this power as she is in the midst of despair.

On the Watch

A reflection on the almond tree:

Elizabeth wrote a thoughtful comment on the previous post about God being on the watch.  He is. Looking into the Old Testament verse in Jeremiah 1: 11-12, indulge me in this. This link gave me pause.

It is amazing to see beautiful almond trees blossoming all over Israel every winter. They are the first tree to blossom and yet the last to bear fruit. 

The almond tree is associated with one of the earliest prophecies of a young Jeremiah. “Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Jeremiah, what do you see?’ And I said, ‘I see a branch of an almond tree.’ Then the Lord said to me, ‘You have seen well, for I am watching to perform My word.’”

God is on the watch, taking care of us all, if we only pause to see the wonderment of His goodness.

Also from the referenced link:

The Hebrew word for almond, shaked, is also translated “to watch”. By seeing the almond branch, God assured Jeremiah that He is watching over His word to bring it to pass, no matter the passage of time.

The picture of the two chairs with the sunlight coming down on them was one of the last dozen or so Jack had sent me from the vantage point of his front step, looking out onto their lawn.  Now there is only one person left on earth to occupy that pair of chairs, and Julie is setting her mark on the world in her unique way from her bed, if not her wheelchair.

Things are going well.  Julie is getting through the anger stage of grief, although it will still flare up occasionally when she is especially stressed, trying to heal physically and emotionally. Only a few days ago she told me that she had Stage IV breast cancer, diagnosed in 2012.  She had originally told me the oncologist had diagnosed her as "Stage III plus."  Her pressure wounds have shown no improvement, but as far as we know, she is in remission from cancer.

None of us knows the timing of our demise.  Henri Nouwen's meditation today was apt. 

How we leave others depends largely on how we prepare ourselves for death.  When we can die with grateful hearts, grateful to God and our families and friends, our deaths can become sources of life for others.
  

Jack certainly left a source of life for all of us.  I can only hope to do as well.

Planning for a New Beginning

It has been a week since last Juliet (daughter) and Jack (now deceased) were given my blog attention.  This was a picture taken of them in 2005 during better times

Jack's obituary can be found here.  He has been gone two weeks today.  Julie was able to attend his funeral, being allowed a  few hours window of opportunity to say her final good bye to him at the cemetery. Piedmont Medical Center in Rock Hill, SC made a policy just for her so that she could be allowed away from her hospital bed without being discharged from the center and then having to undergo a new admission. Seems the two of them were always changing policy, and from the number of conversations that I have been privileged to share since his death, they were also accustomed to converting mind sets about physical disabilities as well.

Julie was transferred to White Oak Manor in York, South Carolina where she remains.  Her pressure wounds are a bit worse for the transfer, as is her physical condition.  Her spirits are becoming more hopeful. The one concern now is transporting her back to Grand Junction either through Angel Flight or Charity Care Flight.  Nothing is quick about this process, but I trust it is all in God's Time.

If one is aware, looking for little miracles, they occur daily while I have been in York.  The first sign that God takes care of even the most minor of details was when I was clearing debris from their yard; fallen branches from oak trees, trimmings from hedges that I had cut one morning, that kind of yard pollution.  As I had it in my arms wondering where to put the dead foliage and heavier bits of wood, I glanced up to see the City Of York and three of its heavy duty front load hauler trucks one house down from where I stood, laden with wood pieces that had been torn from trees and bushes. As I walked with this load to the street where the trucks were slowly making their way toward me, the equipment operater motioned for me to drop my load in his front loader basket.  We shouted at one another, and he gave me to understand that this was the annual city pick up for trees and branches left on the curb.  I simple dropped my load into that container and away went the truck to the next house for the next load. Phillipians 4:19 says:

And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus. 

What a concept.  Two other minor amazements have occurred this week, which also tells me that God is on the watch, supplying answers to questions before they have even been asked.

My new mantra is "IDK" meaning "I Don't Know" which is my standard reply to most questions asked of me.  When is Julie going to Grand Junction?  How are her wounds doing?  When will the house sell? When is their house going on the market?  When will you be appointed Personal Representative for Jack?  When for Julie?  When can you pay off their outstanding bills?  How are you going to get their specialized van sold? When are you going home to Colorado? How is Julie really coping with being a young widow?  

All questions are asked with true concern, but I just do not have any answers yet.  Sometimes I almost yell out " I Don't Know!" but most recently I can more calmly mouth or in sotto voce simply reply "I D K."  It is my most recent coping mechanism.  That and discarding trash.  What a sense of accomplishment to put something in a rubbish can and be done with it, never more touching the object or thinking of the consequences surrounding that discarded item.

House update: Pure & Simple and its owner Jennifer, will be here later this morning.  She is turning all the knick knacks, furniture, appliances and household items into sale items for the Estate Flash Sale scheduled May 23-24.  She is an energetic young woman sailing around the premises on angel wings, directing her staff and readying the house for a clear-out.  

Now is time to put away the coffee cup, finish up this post, retrieve clothing from the dryer, shower and put away personal items so that Jennifer will not tag and price them for sale.  I will be on my way shortly to see Julie and stay out of the way of Pure & Simple personnel.  

(the house that Jack Built in 2003 in York, SC, now "The Estate")