Inanimate objects make me feel guilty.

I think one of the reasons I really like the Saturday Seven concept is that unused objects make me guilty. Here I have a stack of perfectly fine school uniform skirts, a school polo, and an outgrown pair of Kermit pajama pants are going unused. I don't have any reason to keep them and they are all too good to throw away. Yet, they've been lounging about my laundry room all summer. They have no purpose any more in my family. Not allowing these objects to have a purpose makes me feel bad. Guilty, even. It shouldn't matter - it's not like they are animate, living beings - but I feel like their purpose is being denied.

In Nina Kiriki Hoffman's great book, "A Red Heart of Memories," Matt (Matilda) Black can speak with inanimate objects. She talks with cars and trash cans and walls - generally everything. Mostly, they tell her that they are happiest when they are doing what they are designed to do. Garbage cans are happy when they have trash in them. Walls like standing up. Cars like running smoothly. Now, I don't really think that these skirts will feel happier being worn by school girls - but that's what they are for and I want them to go on working. Someone needs them and I don't, so - off to the uniform exchange. The pajamas will probably go to the daughters of a friend of mine. They can fight over Kermit.




My trusty Lendrum has been making me feel guilty for another reason altogether. I pulled it out last spring to spin up some pin rovings I dyed. The roving is just too rough, however, so I left it out to use after Shepherd's Harvest in May.

Well, since then, it's been gathering dust. Just something to vacuum around. Friday, however, I found the lovely Riverwinds Farm Cormo roving I bought at Shepherd's Harvest and went searching for fiber. I dug up this gorgeous blue Corridale roving (from last year's SH, I fear) and began some spinning. Late in the day, I had a spare hour and ran over to Creative Fibers in Minneapolis where I picked up this great Oak Lichen greeen cloud roving made by the Matt Shimon's Red Star Yarn Company. It is the nicest prepared fiber. I think I was almost giddy with happiness on the way home. Sometimes, you just need to make some yarn. That roving was calling to me to be made into yarn! I am a bit puzzled about what the yarn will need to become but . . . that can wait. After all, it took amost two years for the blue yarn to "become."