Image Meditation

The End: 100 Days (100)

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 100:

Here are four of my finished (and nearly finished projects) from the last 100 days. The quilt is a fifth project that I worked on.  I also made a couple hundred hearts and flowers, and dolls for Radiance.

I have learned quite a bit about myself during the months of this project:

1. While I do sometimes abandon projects because I forget about them or get a little bored or get busy with other things, I think the main reason I have abandoned projects is when I hit a problem-solving challenge that overwhelms me, or when I don’t like what something looks like, and I am too overwhelmed to take it back a step and re-do. I am doing a lot of inner work and mindfulness meditations right now to break my cycles of overwhelm and self-criticism.

2. It is SOOOO satisfying to finish a garment! I don’t know how many times I have heard myself say, “I don’t have the attention span for big projects.” Ugh. Well, I have disproved that to myself right now, and I am definitely making myself more garments!

3. Working with others is incredibly inspiring. During this 100 Days, my friend Michael asked me to teach him and some other friends to knit. We’ve met three times, and one of the crew has finished a baby blanket and a baby hat, and most of the others are far along on scarves, and I am incredibly inspired.

4. Bamboo yarn may be hard to work with, but the finished cloth has such a beautiful drape, and it feels luxurious on the skin.

5. I see texture and color differently when I spend part of every day working with texture and color.

6. Art doesn’t have to be slogans and rage in order to be an act of Resistance. Authoritarians are against humor and art and tenderness and beauty. Create those things in everyday life, and you are doing acts of Resistance.

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Penultimate: 100 Days (99)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 99:

At least I managed to get the seams crocheted together before I hit Day 100! The next steps: sew in the ends, crochet a couple more squares to make sleeves and finish those, crochet the trim, block. Maybe we’ll have some cool days this summer where I can wear it. I’m including some other images of beauty from my day from my mother’s magical shells and stones collection, including a couple hearts and flowers I made this morning with yarns I bought at yesterday’s barn sale.

Tomorrow, I’ll gather all the projects I’ve completed, and photograph them together. Here are the projects from my list which I DIDN’T complete:

1. The Granny Square Yard Sale Cardigan (I’m hoping that one goes a lot faster because of the experience I have with this one. The granny squares are all made—I bought them at a yard sale.)

2. My Tanzania 2024 Book

3. The Rosary Zines (I have actually done some of this writing and processing in the past 100 days)

4. The Words Collection (this is an ongoing thing, and I have some new ideas about this one)

5. The Red Thread Embroidery

6. Last year’s Temperature Snake (I might abandon the temperature piece and just make a long snake. . or not.)

7. The crocheted neckpiece (which I cheated and started in the days before the project so I could say it was an Unfinished Object)

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Conferences: 100 Days (97)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 97:

The shadberries/Juneberries/serviceberries are purpling!

I have never been at a school where I loved Parent Teacher Conferences. I would say that I have enjoyed meeting parents and talking with them about their kids, but they were always grueling and energy-draining days, weirdly lonely (every teacher in their little silo cranking out 15-minute conversations that never seemed to get very deep.

All that changes at The Janus School. We meet with parents in teams. All a student’s teachers sit in a circle with the parents (and the student, if they’re in high school), and talk about needs and successes and challenges. When the conversations are easy, it’s wonderful to have other teachers there, celebrating together. When the conversations are hard, it’s wonderful to have a whole team of teachers working together with the family to talk about how to help a student problem-solve. We see threads of goals met and behaviors experienced across many classes. We strategize together. We hold each student in a bowl of care. It’s still exhausting, but it also gives energy and reminds me why I love teaching these kids.

******

Today I finished the triangle half squares and steamed them to block. I might need to make four more in order to shape the sleeves. (One of these photos is of the sleeve of sweater one of the moms was wearing to our construction groundbreaking today. It reminds me of my granny square cardigan.)

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Fledging: 100 Days (96)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 96:

For the past three years, almost every school day, I have done the NYT Crossword Puzzle with a delightful group of students. Today was my last day of classes with this particular group of mostly seniors. They’re so ready to fledge, like the eaglets on the livestream of a local nest we watch every day, testing their wings, jumping up and down, stepping to the edge of the nest.

May they fly well. May they learn to find sources of nourishment like the flock of several dozen cedar waxwings who are feasting daily on the shadberries in the trees outside our classroom window.

*****

I think I have finally decided on the design for the side panels on the sweater/vest. This choice may perhaps make the decision for me—it will make it more difficult to add sleeves.

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Senior Trip: 100 Days (95)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 95:

Ooooh. A long day today. Three of us took the senior class to Philly for the day. It was marvelous and wonderful and grueling. We left the Lancaster train station at 8:30 this morning, and got back at 8 this evening. We walked in the rain, we went to museums, we walked in the sun, we took a thousand pictures, we had excellent food, and we enjoyed each other’s company.

I have made six half granny squares, and I think I am going to make the sides of the sweater/vest like this. I am determined to make it a sweater, so I’ll keep working on granny squares into the summer when this project is finished.

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Experimenting: 100 Days (94)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 94:

I put the cattycorner panel on the one side today. It makes the armhole a little too snug. I think I can make it work, just sliding it down a little.

Tomorrow is an incredibly long day, taking the seniors to Philadelphia. I am looking forward to it. I think I’ll take a crochet hook and black yarn and make a bunch of triangle half grannies on the train.

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Grandmothers’ Hands: 100 Days (93)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 93:

Lots of progress on the vest today. It’s all either stitched or tied together. I’m considering taking out the side panels and making panels that use the squares on the diagonal, in order to keep it from gapping at the armpits. I learned how to make a triangle half of a granny square to fill in the spaces if I do that. One side of the vest is pretty much stitched up with straight squares, and the other one is tied together, so I’ll undo that one and tie on a catty-corner side panel so I can compare them.

Before this 100-Day cycle I always said I had too short an attention span for garment construction. And I had proved that to myself by having five or six garments unfinished. Now that I know I can finish a garment and be satisfied with it, I think I’ll be making more. Women traditionally clothed their families by spinning and weaving and knitting. Perhaps I can feel my ancient grandmothers’ hands guiding mine as I create with yarn.

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Grumpy: 100 Days (92)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 92:

Oooh. Good thing I did extra work on that self-judgement and self-compassion challenge yesterday. I got a lot of piecing done on the cardigan today, and I am feeling really judgy. It isn’t going to be big enough. I used a construction pattern I have seen everywhere for granny square cardigans, and it’s still too small. This leads to so many layers of self-criticism: about my crocheting, about my planning ability, about my body. I’m trying to sit with those emotions, give them a nod, and then move into problem-solving mode.

I could stop construction, make twenty (or 28?) more granny squares, and then finish the sweater. I could make a vest, using the granny squares I had made for the sleeves as extra rows on the sides. I could add rows and rows of double crochet or granny stitches before I sew up the sides.

I’m inclined to go the vest route for the moment. Then when I have a completed piece I will feel less despondent, and more likely to add sleeves later. I might not finish this in the next eight days, so I will have to figure out how to keep myself motivated for the finish. I think this process has changed me enough that I will be better at completing projects than I was beforehand.

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Self-Compassion: 100 Days (91)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 91:

I’m so motivated to finish this project in the next ten days, but today was full and busy. I haven’t worked at Radiance for quite a while, so it was delightful to spend the day in that wonderful place with those wonderful people.

Afterward, I couldn’t find my car in the parking garage. This is the second time this has happened. It makes me feel incompetent. Both times it has happened, I had checked where the car was when I left it, and then thought I had made a note of the correct level and placement of the car before walking away. This time, I figured out my logic error before I asked for help, but by then I had been walking around the parking garage for half an hour.

I’ve been working really hard lately on breaking my cycles of self-criticism, and then when I arrived early to the restaurant where I was meeting my people for dinner, I sat in the car and did the day’s mindfulness meditation with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield, and it was on self-judgement and self-compassion. Whew. I needed that.

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Stew of Emotions: 100 Days (90)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 90:

The Inspector checked my seams this evening, and pronounced it snuggly. 

There’s such a strange energy to school at this time of year. Everybody—students and teachers—is ready to be done already. Still, I also dread the end, dread saying goodbye to those who won’t be returning. And also, I’m so excited to see this crew of seniors spread their wings and fly. I love spending my days with teenagers. And I look forward to the gentle rhythm of summer, without having to be “on” all day everyday. Such a stew of emotions.

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