Tools

Pleasures Great & Small

by CZeitler

This is a good time of year for reflecting on the blessings that we have, both great and small. I’m not sure how to define each of the blessings I am grateful for, because those that are considered essential are the most expensive so it is hard to call them ‘small’. Given that I will start my thanks with my ‘essentials’ and then work my way through to what happened yesterday. There is not going to be any crafting content, though I am very grateful for the supplies, tools, and physical ability to work with my crafting supplies.

The essential blessings I am grateful for are the home I have to live in, reliable transportation, food in my fridge and freezer (I love this time of year for the $.99/lb Turkeys). I have a full-time job that pays me enough to cover my bills, gives me over 22 days of vacation/floating holiday each year, and is a positive environment to work in (occasional patron problems notwithstanding). I have my health, pretty much, and my hands still work.

I am also grateful for the non-essential blessings that I get to celebrate. I have an amazing family that I know I can speak to, visit, and enjoy in so many ways. I was able to visit my sister yesterday, she was looking for a pegboard and I just happened to have taken the same pegboard off of my walls a few days earlier to put up a new bookcase. I was able to purchase new bookcases a couple of months ago so that I can get my supplies organized in a way that is useful to me. I have the creativity, skills, and supplies to create ornaments and other presents for my family.

I was able to purchase tickets for a livestream of my favorite YouTube channel, participate, and laugh along with Sorted Food. I will also be able to rewatch this stream as well as those that I have purchased in years past. I was able to take the time off so that I could watch and rewatch the streams at my leisure.

Yesterday when I visited my sister I was able to purchase lunch, gas, and a few treats and snacks for both of us to enjoy over the holiday season (and hopefully beyond depending on how hungry I get). I purchased a prickly pear fruit from an Asian Market my sister found. It was lovely to try, tons of seeds that I am going to try to dry, and a slightly sweetly mild flesh that I was able to eat. It tasted like a very light kiwi fruit, with a little sour tinge that was pleasant as I got very close to the skin. We went to Ikea where I found the Vintersaga Ginger Thins cookies were a dollar less than they have been, so I purchased two tins for myself and two for my sister. These cookies are amazing, I had to hide a tin from myself in the freezer or they would both be gone before the week is out.

Finally we went to Grandpa Joe’s Soda store. I had looked up the prices online, and was pleasantly surprised to find that many of them were slightly less since they do not have to worry about shipping. I did not get the Grizzly Energy Drinks though I was very tempted, I did get a Jones Select Zero Sugar Rootbeer, which was just as lovely as I thought though I drank it on the way home so I do not have a photo. There were several candies that I decided I could not resist. I bought two different Cherry Mash treats, and tried one today, It was lovely, the milk chocolate was a thick shell that tasted lovely and smooth. I expected some juice, like a chocolate covered cherry, instead there was a dense sweet nougat-like cherry flavored filling.

The other cherry mash is ‘Big Cherry Milkshake’ and will live in my freezer with the Brachs Swirl Gumdrops, until I rediscover them in a frenzy for something sweet, hopefully a few months in the future. I do have an extreme sweet tooth, horrid when you’re a type 2 diabetic, however I have been low key craving some of the sour candies that I enjoyed when I was in my early 20s. This store had them, though I admit I cannot remember which flavor I enjoyed. I guess I’ll just have to try all three of the flavors I purchased, sigh!

I do think that the Mango version is what I really enjoyed since I can remember the tin colors, however I hope that all three flavors are good. I was also very lucky to be able to purchase some sweets to share with my colleagues. Originally I was going to pick up a huge bag of tiny sweets that was under $10, however the bag admitted that in could be cross contaminated with tree nuts, to which one of my colleagues is allergic. Instead I found some bags of freeze dried treats that were $1 per bag, I could not resist. There are five different types and the bags to not fess up to any kind of nut tree contamination so they should be safe for my colleagues.

I am safe, warm, loved, relatively healthy, and able to feed myself. I have the freedom in my budget to send presents to my family and treat myself and my sister to a few treats to enjoy over the holiday season. I was able to purchase a few supplies to support my joint health and ability to keep crafting for years to come during the Black Friday Sales. I plan on putting a post up about those very soon.

Along with all of these small blessings, I have a supportive outlet for me to remind myself of these blessings. Thank you for reading my blog, and I hope that you all have a lovely holiday season depending on what you celebrate.

Live Life a Little More Abstract!

So Much Fun at H&H Americas

by CZeitler

Before I get started with this post, I’m going to put two very important caveats in here: 1. I am not sponsored by any of these organizations and any freebies that I received were welcome to everyone that was attending. 2. While attending this show, I made every effort possible to ensure that I did not distract attention of the vendors from their actual retail customers, not doing the ‘I am an influencer’ thing or anything of the sort. If someone is tempted to go to this or volunteer in the future, please make sure that you are being respectful because many of these individuals are basing their livelihood on getting customers from this event.

I drove to Chicago on Tuesday, May 6th so that I could attend H&H, Americas, Wednesday and Thursday. I was lucky enough to be able to volunteer at the HGA HandWeavers Guild of America booth. As a volunteer, I brought my ladybug spinning wheel by Schacht, which I so cleverly named Lady. Lady was an absolute hit, people just loved her stickers which was validating because in the past some guild members (not HGA) have been not as thrilled with the stickers.

For my first “shift” volunteering I was loaned out to the Louet booth. David was just lovely and setting me up with their E spinner because most of their wheels had not arrived. He was wonderful about answering all of the questions and in case you didn’t know, Louet just acquired Schacht and David will become the president or company head, CEO of Schacht. This spinning wheel was just a delight to spin on, they have a wonderful feature where the leader thread actually gets nestled inside the bobbin so you don’t have to worry about it just spinning around, usually on an E spinner I have to tape down the leader thread. Also, oh my goodness, the new Harmony loom! The beater is on a track so that you get an even beat every single time! Totally mind blowing. If I had anywhere near a budget, I would be getting that immediately because having an uneven beat is a reason that I don’t weave a lot because I always angle to the right when I’m beating. Louet also purchased the yarn line Venne which comes in a huge variety of colors as well as some very fine weights. The one that sticks out in my mind that was mentioned to me was 32/2 however, I can’t even dream of what kind of a set that would be I do plan on researching and exploring these more in the future as they seem like an amazing yarn to work with.

It was so much fun to be surrounded by weaving and spinning related booths, and everyone was so friendly. The Ashford and Schacht booths were a little kitty corner so I did not get to spend as much time ogling their merchandise. However, the Kromski booth was right across from me. The woman running the booth was absolutely delightful and I had so much fun chatting with her. The products were amazing. I am so jealous that they are coming out with a purple wheel! And I mean a royal purple wheel. Their looms were amazing and I loved how they had their drop spindles displayed in so many different colors. Their entire booth looked like a candy store.


Speaking of candy stores, the other booth across from the HGA booth was a silk producer, Spun Silk World, They not only produce silk yarns, but they also produce silk fiber for spinning. They were generous enough to offer me samples, both days, as well as samples of their Mulberry and Eri silk to take home to run an experiment on. Each set of samples came with three little puffs of fiber, and I was able to spin them so much faster than I’ve ever been able to spin silk before. I am so excited to ply those up and I will be showing those skeins off in the near future.

I will have more posts in the near future until then remember to live life a little more abstract.