The past few weeks have been a lot of preparing for my mom, sister in law, and nephew to visit next month.

Cleaning Up and Finding Stuff

The first step to preparing for visitors was cleaning out a portion of the garage to move things from the guest room. After we made what we felt like was sufficient space we moved the boxes from the guest room to the garage. And were left with the furniture and things that had not yet been packed into boxes. The guest room had previously looked like this.

In the garage we found some shoulder marks and patches that are assumed to be Uncle Leon’s. Leon was married to Florence Rasenen the youngest of the three sister’s who grew up in this house. Leon a Seebe in the Engineering Corp in the navy during World War II. He was stationed in the South Pacific. The patches are actually really telling about his rank in the navy. The ones with the oak leaves and stripes that we found are for a Lieutenant Civil Engineer.

The current thoughts on the gold and navy chevrons are that they are the rank insignia for a USAAF Sergeant. I also learned that it was common to trade insignias and things with other services so this one could have come from a similar trade. My brain has so many theories on why Leon kept and/or traded for this insignia. It could be that he got it when they knew that the USAAF was going to be turned into the USAF and the insignias would be changing. Leon signed up for the navy with a group of college classmates and he was the only one to have made it back. He was sent to Hawaii for back surgery and his unit was bombed while he was recovering.

Spinning

I wanted to prepare for a new fiber swap with the Jillian Eve Discord by spinning up the last of the fiber from the Distaff Day swap. I had a lot of fun just sitting and playing with this fiber and practicing my long draw with the rolags. I got sent some hand made rolags of a merino, silk, and angelina (sparkle) blend. I can’t wait to see what I get for the Tour de Fleece swap.

The other thing I have been preparing is the Icelandic fleece that my dad sent a while ago and I finished scouring a while ago as well. I am getting closer to being finished separating out the tog and thel. But I have a good amount separated now and wanted something to comb so I combed up some of the wool that I have already separated to spin up. I have really pretty fluffy nests of combed thel and some on my wheel now. I also was struck by a wool bandit at least once during this process…

Sewing Preparations

I wanted to make my nephew a present as well. So in preparation for the visit I started sewing his little outfit. I ended up hand sewing it all because it was easier to do while watching the kids. Step one was picking out the fabric which I thankfully had already done. Step two was picking the applique fabric and/or the applique.

Step three was copying the pattern to patterning paper so that I didn’t have to cut the tissue paper one. I accidentally didn’t trace all the necessary lines from the tissue paper pattern because the piece was confusing but it looks okay now. I had to do a little extra fussing but that is okay. Step four was cutting all the pieces out of the appropriate fabrics. Step five was following the pattern instructions to sew everything together. I did I little bit of rearranging of construction steps because I was handsewing and felling the seams so that they didn’t fray. This meant that I wanted to make sure that I didn’t accidentally sew any of the seams open.

Double Knit Practice

I am also preparing to make a scarf for a good friend for Christmas and am waiting for the yarn to arrive. The scarf is done in a knitting technique that I had never tried before so I started practicing and learned so much about double knitting with color work. The results were actually pretty cute as well. I was using a copper and teal that looked like tarnished copper when put together so I knit a gear pattern with them that Ben is now using as coasters in the office.

There is likely to be more cleaning/setting up the guest room fun. While people are visiting we are hoping to re-do the girls room and maybe play around in the attic some. There is also going to be hopefully more spinning for July with Tour de Fleece.

Thank you so much for joining the adventure!

Lots of Love,

The McMullins