After months of planning, preparation, painting, and moving, my new space is officially open and ready to accommodate this mushroom person. The most stressful part of the whole transition was having to sort through all the fibre I’d accumulated in the eight years since I started spinning. As any fibre person will attest, a stash is not a static thing—it reproduces in the dark, silent hours, apparently exponentially, until it has occupied space in every room of the house. (Yes, even our guest bathroom had fleece spread out to dry on the floor.)

This turned out to be an exercise in cleansing and purging, as I realized I have no space in my life for unwashed fleece filled with VM (short for vegetable matter) or the leftover bits and pieces of commercially dyed wool that might have one day gone into the making of something interesting but will be put to better use by my grateful fellow Guild members.

Already, after just a week of gloriously peaceful afternoons spent in my little cottage (formerly our B&B cabin), I can see the huge difference it makes to have everything at hand, especially when that everything doesn’t have to be put away at the end of the day.

In honour of my mom, who created her own little contemplation room she called My Blue Haven, I’m calling this My New Haven, a space I feel truly blessed to have.