Expensive Mistakes

I haven't woven for nearly three weeks, which is bad, and I hadn't felt like fringing, which is worse. Last night, realizing I only had a couple of days to the end of the month, (remember I was going to fringe/finish all 16 before April?) I fringed five cashmere pieces and today I washed them.

The purple, second from the left, and the achromatic both have a rather glaring treadling mistake each, but the latter has a bigger problem; the gray parts where the twill goes in the opposite direction bulge out. Now that I see the white weft is silk/cashmere but the gray is 100%; I have no idea what I was thinking, but while I wove I was confident it would work well because I had checked all cash grays. I feel all five have one kind of a problem or another, so they might have to spend some time under the couch. I'm feeling sorry for myself, disappointed, while I continue to fringe. Such expensive mistakes.

While avoiding fringing, I've been in the garden longer. Which doesn't mean our place is looking better; we now have neglected areas, and "tampered" areas where the more I weed, the more vigorously they come back, (convolvulus grow right under the heavy mulching and show up somewhere vulnerable two and three meters away,) and big black trash bags of weeded weeds posturing as art installation. I don't know where I'm going with our garden, I've kinda lost the plot, but I can't stop now so I keep going.

I'm frustrated how tired I get after only four hours outside when, for several years this side of 2000, I spent at least a month gardening "full time" in the winter with only muscle aches first couple of days. Alright, that was more than a decade ago, but now it's not just muscles but joints and tendons requiring medical advice. The latest is my overuse of Japanese secateurs, (size small) for not just the herbaceous and small branches but, ahem, small trees and biggish branches. Gardening also overstimulates and causes sleep problems and some days my whole body feels broken, but the mind is well.

Mom's coming in late April out of the blue, and an Internet friend Mana is coming the following week. You'd think I'd be going crazy at the thought of preparing the garden and the house for visitors, but I'm finally passed it; there is limited time/energy and with this old body, "my best" is all I can commit to. Which sounds like a good lesson in aging. Ben's taking time off after Easter. Instead of another staycation full of good intentions to garden/clean, we might shoot down to Christchurch for a look see. Perhaps.