Noro Days

(Can't you just hear Bruce singing Noro Days?!? Now it will be in your head, with modified words, all day!!!) More than a decade ago, probably closer to a decade and a half ago, I was on a sock yarn kick. I bought every clearance skein I could find. I knitted or crocheted socks for all my female friends for Christmas. I still to this day have bins of luscious yarn, sometimes in color combinations that don't really tickle my toes anymore. At one time, though, those hanks of crazy sock colors were like buried treasure every time I found a new sale.

Noro definitely was my favorite. I bought quite a bit (not sock yarn) in one colorway fully intending to knit a sweater that winter. I also have a bunch of gorgeous purple silk sock yarn which also was supposed to be a sweater. They go together so well, perhaps I can craft something using both stashes one day...

During sleepless nights, I sometimes dig through my sock yarn bins and work up little Etsy projects with that exquisite sock yarn – in sometimes unusual colors. I was kind of looking for a project I remembered starting but never finishing a long, long time ago. I can still remember how that yarn used to make me smile. And I knew if I had my chance, I could make my crochet hook dance. And maybe I'd be happy for a while... (And now you'll have THAT song in your head, with modified words, all day long!)

I remembered designing this purse back in 2010 or so, and I would hunt for it whenever I had a few minutes of nothing else to do. I finally found it a few weeks ago, but not in the sock yarn stash. It was buried beneath a pile of beautiful black, satin-like vest lining leftovers. Along with a second purse I didn't even remember making!!!

Both were crafted with Noro highlights left over from projects I made back in my Noro days. Both needed to be lined, and both were stashed safely away for the day I could get around to hand-stitching a lining. That day has come. I cut linings for both this week, pinned the linings in place, then packed the unfinished bags in my neat little quilted crochet bag (formerly carried weekdays aboard the commuter train) so I can hand stitch the linings into place whenever I get a chance. I'm really hoping I'll be able to list them in my Etsy shop soon! Because they are so totally unique!

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Changes

A couple of years ago, I had to streamline the living room and dining room to eliminate tripping hazards. I knew then the day would come when I would have to begin working on the rest of the house, too. That day has come.

Some of the things I'm finding are taking me back in time. Back to the days of craft fairs, handmade greeting cards, spray paint for rocks and snowflakes, weeklong bicycle tours, overnight drives to 14er trailheads to begin hiking at 2 a.m. and hopefully summit before any threat of lightning... man, where on earth did all the time go?!?

Here are just a few of the stashed things that brought back pleasant memories:

an entire box of used and shredded paper scraps I hoped to craft into homemade paper (circa 2016)
travel sanitizer bottles I planned to crochet wrap for loved ones
every variety of glow-in-the-dark glitter and pigment I can imagine
17 bottles of colorful Elmer's glow-in-the-dark glue (not the clear I used on snowflakes)
reams of photo paper and ink for a printer no longer made

Crafts and activities I planned (pre-pandemic) to do with the grands during the summer:

homemade rock-painting kits
crazy buttons for homemade Christmas tree hoodies
coloring books
boxes and boxes of photos of their birth parents as children
eight huge bags of to-be-recycled plastic lids for a giant mural

Therapy tools I collected to help Lizard increase or maintain skills:

sliced-up pool noodles to help combat shuffles
mystery novels he would hopefully read to me in his LOUD voice
three huge boxes of colored pencils for his art therapy
southwest, shark and aircraft coloring books to motivate coloring
word game magazines
cycling magazines
wooden birdhouses he intended to paint and seal for outdoor use

Lizard belongings he can't or won't use now:

maps, maps, and more maps
hydrology textbooks
college thesis materials (for two hard-earned degrees!!!)
camera batteries and memory cards
his GoPro
his calculator
his flight simulators

My own unfinished projects (which doesn't even rate on the scale of quilt WIPs):

a stack of unfinished snowflakes
a stack of finished but no-pattern-yet-snowflakes
three crochet baskets
the motif project I began after Lizard's knee replacement
the Harvest Flower motif project
a pair of crochet leg warmers (or, more accurately, 1 and a quarter leg warmer)
three headless troll bodies
dragonflies in every color of thread I've dyed
the snowflake flower vest
carbon fiber I intended to spin into yarn for a Christmas beanie for Lizard
hundreds of beads, charms and drilled stones I'd planned to crochet into jewelry for my (still empty) Etsy shop

The unfinished projects listed above also don't rate on the scale of handmade greeting cards. I'll bet I could open up my own card shop if I finished all these!!! But, oh, yeah, most card shops are like extinct dinosaurs these days. No one sends paper cards now. Everything is virtual these days. Too bad we can't make Parkinson's virtual.

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