Onward to 2016

 

Although my usual way of wrapping up the year is to go over the highlights individually, I'm going to keep it brief this time. 2015 was a year for growth and change for me, both personally and professionally - new endeavors included teaching some classes at the fashion academy, buying our first house, cutting my hair short, and vending my first show as indie.knits - but it was interspersed with a fair bit of loss and difficulty in my personal life. I feel really lucky to have a wonderful network of family and chosen-family that helped me through this last year, and hopefully 2016 will be a bit kinder on that front.

As far as goals, I just have a few things that I'd like to focus on in the coming year.

 

Make a home.

We've been slowly putting together our space - bringing in plants, adding rugs and curtains, hanging art, replacing crappy furniture with nicer stuff - and in the new year, I want to continue to make our little house feel personalized, welcoming, and comfortable. Lumberjack and I share a very similar style - modern but eclectic, colorful but not cluttered - and I want to continue to develop that aesthetic in our home.

To spend the time finding the right thing that fits with our budget, we've had to space out a lot of our bigger purchases, which makes some parts of the house feel perpetually in-progress, but hopefully in the next year, we'll be able to finish a big chunk of the design projects on our to-do list: Lumberjack's work space, the downstairs bedroom, and the yard in particular!

 

Make art, in its own time.

I overbooked myself a whole lot in 2015, mostly because I want to do everything. So although I'm really proud of the work I did this last year, a lot of it was done at a frantic pace, with no time for rest after a big project was finished. So in 2016, I want to be mindful of my physical and creative limitations, and give myself a bit more time to recuperate after expending big reserves of energy on a project.

I really connect with what Ann Hamilton has to say about creative work, especially her thoughts on work and time, and I hope to channel a bit more of that attitude into my creative work in the next year. 

 

Take care.

Whether it's pulling weeds in the backyard, repairing a vintage dress, or going for a walk, there are little things that I can do every day to care for myself, my home, and my belongings. When I was grading Sweet Root, I took walks around the neighborhood after staring at Excel for three or four hours, and it was exactly what I needed. Though these little acts sometimes feel frivolous, it turns out that they're really excellent for cultivating a healthy work/life balance.

One of the biggest aha moments I had last year was that creativity is not sourceless, and it's also not bottomless. It's a cistern of water that you have to fill, and refill, and refill. If you add water in your downtime - going for a hike, potting some plants, painting your nails - that water will sustain you when you have to work 12 hours a day for two weeks straight. But you also have to keep filling it, especially after one of those times when you use it all up in one go.

If I think of the refilling process as a burden, it will be a burden - but if I think of it as something exciting that I'm challenged to do, it becomes much more gratifying.

 

Choose happiness - and don't be afraid to use it.

One of the side effects of having less stuff is the opportunity to use and enjoy all of the things that I do have. When I was growing up, I often felt as though nice things were for other people, and if I did have something nice, I didn't want to use it for fear of messing it up - and unconsciously, I extended much of this attitude of self-denial into my adult life.

I would buy gorgeous cashmere yarn, only to have it sit in my stash, because I should really knit up that scratchy wool from the discount bin first. We would buy a hunk of good brie from the store and eat some of it, but have the other half go moldy because we didn't want to 'waste it' on a snack.

This self-imposed mandate of 'you should buy nice things, but you don't deserve to enjoy them in the way that you want' has gotten me stuck more times than I'd like to think about. So this year, I'm going to buy the cashmere instead of the wool from the discount bin - or better yet, to knit up that cashmere I've been hoarding as too-perfect-to-knit for four years - and I'm going to eat that brie with my fingers, straight from the fridge. Because in my estimation, life is too short not to enjoy the kindnesses that you give to yourself.

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And with that in mind, onward 2016 - Happy New Year, friends!

<3

Cory

To Thank a House

 

As September draws to a close, I find myself preparing the outside of the house for winter: sweeping a carpet of leaves off the deck, pruning the wire vine back, pulling dandelions and nightshade out of the mulch by the back fence. It occurs to me that this work will never be finished: that it moves in a wide, wobbly circle as the seasons change, each transition bringing its own tasks and trials.

In the first downpour of the year, the gutter above the kitchen window overflowed in great sheets of water into the stairwell below, and I had to pull out fistful after fistful of grit to clear it out, blind with rain and cold water funneling down my shirt front.

If this was not my house, I wouldn't have laughed. Because it is my house, I did.

And so, I remain charmed by this little house, with its cobbled-together, chicken coop roots. Each time I dig up a weed or sweep the front walk or pull English ivy off the light pole, I imagine that I am saying thank you. And in the early mornings when the weather grows cold, as I lie in bed and hear the faint click and whoosh as the heater turns on, it's as if the house is saying right back: you're welcome.

Happy Wednesday, friends.

<3

Cory

Checking In

 

This last week, I weeded my front yard. My current projects are both secret and all-consuming - work that somehow makes me exhausted and furious and intensely fulfilled at the same time, work that has kept me frustratingly absent from this space - but in between the long days and late nights, I've been driven outside. Mostly to chisel dead grass from the cracks in the sidewalk, but also to get to know this little piece of land around our home.

So lately, the internet, the local nursery, and the neighborhood landscape have been my guide to the unfamiliar language of plants: the cost of a palm; the proper plants for shade; the name of the climbing vine that has taken over the front fence. The neighbor gives us a bag of ripe figs in a brown paper bag and they spoil on our kitchen counter in a day or two. Each day the climbing rose shakes loose a fresh carpet of petals to rot on our front step, and each night the neighbor's cat comes by and uproots our little yellow decorative cactus from its pot. It occurs to me that there is a deep and stubborn wilderness to even the most cultivated of land.

And yet, there is a satisfaction in putting things in order: trimming the hedge, sweeping the sidewalk, pulling the bindweed from the side yard. No matter what I do, entropy will continue its slow-growing sprawl across this particular patch of earth, but perhaps that's the charm of it: the constant growth and re-imagining of space; the reminder of a world untamed by human laws and structures. The opportunity to shape something beautiful from that wilderness, if only for a moment.

Happy Friday, friends.
<3
Cory

We Bought a House!

Two days ago, Blake and I turned the key to our very first home.

In all of my notes from the last two months, I call it the pretty blue house: a petite Craftsman from 1925, carefully remodeled over the years into a small but beautifully detailed modern home. It is the reason for all of our duck-wrangling and stuff-sorting, and it has been a long and stressful journey to get here.

But in the end, it's all been worth it. Because this house? This house is special.

  

In each room, there is a moment of magic: in the color of tangerine paint slanted with afternoon sun; in the parallel grains of wood floor and ceiling that catch your breath as you walk into the kitchen. In the oft-forgotten, tucked away places, too: in hidden closets, and bright, small tiles, and windows whose very presence is carved into the walls. The heart and care of this house is everywhere.

In our two years of looking, this was the first house that we walked into and felt immediately at home. At the end of the open house - completely unprepared for the possibility of making an offer, in every way but enthusiasm - I had begun to feel a deep pull to the place, so much that I almost ached at the thought of leaving. And now, months after the initial sparkle has rubbed off, even as I scrub away crayon from the walls and wipe down cabinets and vacuum away layers of dust, I can feel the life of the house humming through my feet - and it is just as warm and inviting as it was the first time I set foot there.

So the weeks and months to come are going to be an uphill journey, as we continue to sort and clean and move from our house of two years into the home we'll share for years and years to come. But the promise of this house - our house - is just wonderful enough to make it all seem achievable.

Happy Wednesday, friends.

<3

Cory

A Knitter's Guide to Eradicating Carpet Beetles (or, DIE, LITTLE *#@$(*&$, DIE)

So, I've mentioned a few times that our life has been on a bit of a tailspin for the last few weeks, and now that we're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, I wanted to do a post about it.

The day of Mackie's diagnosis, Lumberjack found a carpet beetle larvae in our room.  Carpet beetles, for those who are lucky enough to have never heard of the evil little beasts, are a particular bane to museum collections because of the larvae's tendency to ruthlessly devour animal proteins, starch, and pretty much anything else that comes into their paths.  (The beetles don't eat the stuff, but they do move around and lay eggs willy-nilly.)  So when we found out that we had them, my heart sank at the realization that our house is essentially a smorgasbord of vintage clothing, yarn, fabric, and other tasty carpet beetle delights.

At first, we thought it was confined to our bedroom, but as the days progressed, we started finding them in the studio I share with Sparklepants, our 2nd-floor bathroom, kitchen, living room, and stairs.  Every time we found them in a new place, I got progressively more hateful and frustrated.  Much of the first week, I spent 8-12 hours a day on my hands and knees, wearing a dust mask and camping headlamp, picking up dozens of larvae with tweezers and yelling, "I HOPE YOU STARVE, YOU STUPID PIECE OF SHIT."  (It made me feel better.  I swear.  I'm usually the girl who insists on taking spiders outside, but I have zero sympathy for these destructive little assholes.)

Currently, our house has been sprayed and all visible larvae & beetles removed; all of our belongings are bagged, and slowly going through the process of heating in the dryer or freezing, then going directly into plastic bins or bags for storage.  Anything tasty to carpet beetles that has come in or out of our house in the last few weeks has gone through one of the two cycles, as the only thing I hate more than carpet beetles is the thought of knowingly or unknowingly inflicting them on someone else.  The whole thing is overwhelming and gross, and I never, ever, ever want to deal with it again, so my attitude is to nuke it from orbit; it's the only way to be sure.

So, in the hopes that other knitters and textile stashers are spared our fate, here are 12 tips for dealing with a carpet beetle infestation:

1.  First, don't blame yourself.  I initially thought that I brought in the infestation in a bag of vintage Pendleton yardage from a consignment store, but as we started to understand the scope and locations of the infestation, the more we realized that it was from something else entirely.  Carpet beetles are found all over the world.  They usually live outside, but often migrate inside for various reasons.  Chances are, unless you skipped around tossing carpet beetle larvae all over your home, you did nothing to cause this.

2.  Carpet beetles are not a hygiene problem, but they can be combatted by stepping up your cleaning.  By a lot.  They love lint, hair, and small bits of food, so keeping as many areas clean of these things is essential to curbing their food source.  Pull out seldom-moved appliances like the refrigerator, oven, and washer and dryer, (note: if it's safe to do so!) and vacuum and scrub underneath them.  I found almost as many larvae under our oven as we did in the rest of the house.

3.  Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever store anything in corrugated cardboard if at all possible.  Cardboard boxes are like theme parks for carpet beetle larvae.  We found 95% of the larvae along mouldings & baseboards and under appliances.  The other 5% were in cardboard boxes being used as storage.

4.  Do store things in plastic.  I have a bit of a hard time with this, because plastic does off-gas and sometimes causes a smell, but smelly yarn > ruined yarn.  Plastic will defend your items from becoming infested, and contain the infestation if they do find their way in.  All of my yarn and fabric is currently being transitioned over from open-air storage to plastic containers.

5.  If you find larvae or beetles, keep at least a few of them so they can be properly identified.  That way, if your suspected carpet beetles are something else, you can get the proper treatment for them.

6.  If you can afford it, hire a professional.  Really.  They can help you identify your problem, give you tips to keep the beasties under control, and treat your carpets and nooks and crannies with chemicals that kill and/or inhibit growth in all stages of the beetles.  There are non-toxic options available, so don't fret that you're going to have to fill your house with poison to get rid of them.  The exterminator we hired was $250 for treatment with a free follow-up appointment, and to us it was worth it for the peace of mind.  Keep in mind, though, that the exterminator is only doing part of the work: the long-term effectiveness of this process is highly dependent on you.

7.  Did I mention that I was cleaning 8-12 hours a day for a full week?  Yeah.  It bears repeating.  It takes a lot of cleaning to get an infestation under control.  Vacuuming is essential, as is laundry.  I tried as much as possible to touch and inspect every single thing I own, which sounds daunting - and is - but it can be done.

8.  Let go of as many old or unused items as you possibly can, especially if they're infested.  I've thrown away 3+ full garbage bags full of stuff from my studio.  Infested or very old yarn is just not worth saving to me - I have too much other yarn and fabric that I love more, and if I have to sacrifice 3% of my stash to save the other 97%, you bet I'm going to.

9.  Rid your house, roof, or yard of any bird's nests.  Carpet beetles like to hang out in them, then migrate into your house once they've lost their food source.

10.  Carpet beetles hate extremes of heat and cold.  Run all of your washable clothing and textiles through the dryer on medium (or hot) for at least 30 minutes.  And, from what I can tell from researching it: for more delicate items, freeze for a minimum of 3 days at 0 degrees Fahrenheit, let it come to room temperature, and repeat the process again - or dry-clean.  We ended up buying a large freezer, because Sparklepants and I have approximately 16 metric tons of fabric and yarn that needs to be treated, and we don't have the funds to dry-clean all of our stuff.

11.  Be patient.  We've bagged 90% of our belongings, and it's probably going to take 3-6 months before we're able to run all of them through the eradication process.  That's just how it is - it sucks, but I'd rather do it right and never have to do it again.

12.  It's healthy to have and acknowledge feelings of frustration, anger, shame, and/or guilt - I know I struggled a lot with all of these - but keep optimistic.  You can do this, and you will.  It may feel like your life is over, but it's not.  It's frustrating to have every account on the internet be all, "I've had carpet beetles for 10 years and they follow me when I move", and not a single one say, "I had this problem, I dealt with it, and you can too."  I'm here to say that it's possible, because we're doing it.  We haven't seen a single larvae since I found and destroyed their campsite under the oven two weeks ago, and here's hoping that it stays that way.  I'll keep you posted.

In summary: Carpet beetles suck, and dealing with them is a pretty overwhelming amount of work, but I have absolute faith that it's possible to eradicate them - not to mention, completely worth it.

If anyone has any tips, comments, or stories, feel free to mention it in the comments.  Thanks for reading, and for bearing with me for the last few weeks!