Standing on words alone

I still don’t have picture taking ability, due to my prematurely dead camera battery.  Photos taken with Photo Booth are okay for spontaneous LOOK AT THIS! sort of things, but not for sharing such subtleties as stitch definition, etc.

I just spun a few more yards of lush green corridale/romney blend.  To see the fiber, look at my title bar up on top.  (It’s not really a lush green fairy cave, you see.  It’s wool!)  Anyway, my singles are getting a little more even, and the drafting business is becoming clearer (I think).

This helps.

I hope embedding YouTube videos gives credit where credit is due.  That is most certainly NOT me doing that drafting.  It is someone who knows what they’re doing.  I just happen to be able to click with this clip, in that it makes sense to me and my hands.

I got my time off for Rhinebeck!  It’s still three months away, but with my vacation time now written in stone, I feel like I can really start thinking again about it.  I’ve started a wish list.

• a Bosworth spindle, most likely a midi
• That Golding spindle that looks like tree branches inside the whorl, with an owl sitting on the branch
• Fiber.  Duh.
• Enough yarn for a sweater, pattern as yet unchosen.
• More fiber.
• More yarn.
• Hand salve from Blackberry Hill Farms.  Look.  Here
• At least a look at the Socks That Rock, although I may not stand in line for something I can order, unencumbered, off the internet.  I like the stuff, just maybe not enough to get into groupie mode.
• If I could find the jasmine tea I bought a few years ago at Rhinebeck, that would be lovely.
• I think I’ll skip the chocolate dipped potato chips this year.

The little girl who grew up across the street from me when I was married also grew up, I guess.  She is a few years younger than my daughter (23). Evidently she had a baby and is living with her mother.  Friday night her baby, just a year old last Tuesday, accidently drowned in their swimming pool.

 

She was a sweet girl back when I knew her, and her mother was a really good mom.  We all had pools back then, but we managed to escape the horrible tragedy that she’s now living through.  I can’t begin to imagine her pain. You have your baby’s birthday party on Tuesday, and the following Tuesday is the baby’s funeral.    I can’t wrap my mind around it, and I’m a distant observer.  I feel so horribly for them all.

 

It’s humid.  Life in western New York often resembles life in the bottom of a simmering tea pot.  Constant moist, bubbling, heat.  It’s so humid the a/c can’t even cut the water out of the air.  Combine this with my own internal combustion system (thank you, middle age, and thank YOU, menopause), and I am a sticky, whiny mess.  I heard Primrose Oil helped. With the internal combustion.  Not the weather.                                                                                                                                                                         

I have this desire to reread the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice.  It started last night at the bookstore when I was looking at the pile of ridiculously attractive vampire novels set up by the back door.  I was going to buy the first in the series, until I realized they were geared towards the high school set.  Now I’m all about exploring different genres of fiction, but I can’t bring myself to purchase books geared towards teens.  It’s bad enough I still sneak peaks at Glamour magazine now and then.  (I finally gave up on looking at Seventeen magazine when I was in my 30’s.)                                                                                                   

So anyway, I’ve got a taste for vampires today.  One of my favorite classes in college (first run through, in the ’70’s), was a Gothic Lit class, where we read Interview With A Vampire.  It had just been published.  I’ll never forget the professor.  Anne something or other.  She had long, black, witchy hair with gray streaks and floated around campus in a black academic robe that she wore like a vampire’s cloak.  But damn, she was cool.  She talked about vampires and angels (she was way ahead of her time) like they were real creatures who walked around with us every day.                                                                                                 

She was so authoritative.  ”Angels do not ‘graduate’,” she told us.  ”It’s not like a promotion from angel to archangel.  When you’re an angel, you’re an angel, you stay in your class.  You don’t move up.  And when we die, we don’t become angels.  We become dead.”  Oh, she was a hoot.  I can’t believe they gave out grades for that class.                                                                                                                                             

Look at this.  Nearly noon and I’ve done nothing but drink coffee and spin.

 

And now I’ve written to you.

Mac says

My days of struggling with Vista are over.  And none too soon.  (See high velocity trajectory of PC through glass window.)

I love this little guy.  (Wouldn’t Mac be a male?)  He’s fast and efficient and knows exactly what I’m telling him to do.  

There will be no comment on the Macbook user who could not figure out how to right click on a Mac for nearly two weeks, however.  (Please note I did figure it out, eventually.)

And the software.  Yum.  I got this totally free software called FreeMind that is stunning in that it maps out your thoughts in outline/bubble form. So it seems as though I make sense…at least on paper.  

(If I had the skills to show you a screenshot, I would.)  Maybe this will do, instead.  

Note that I have all the skills necessary to show you this utterly useless wonder. 

 

The garden is OUT OF CONTROL.

I need to find some stakes today, and get those tomato plants standing up, before they rot.  

The herbs are going wild, too.  

I’ve been spinning my favorite color of green.

 

And knitting a new Clapotis in Noro Silk Garden Lite.  

Quite inadvertently, the stitch markers match the yarn.

I am now a Reiki II practitioner, which is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.  The class was held last weekend — Friday evening, all day Saturday, and all day Sunday.  Reiki is something I can use both at work, and at home.  

Work.  Yeah.  Still the same.  The agency, and more specifically, the hospice, is undergoing multiple management changes all at once, so it’s not an especially peaceful time.  But this too shall pass.

The boyfriend is all moved in.  Things are going well.  We generally get along quite well. Sometimes he reminds me of my grandfather, though.  My grandpa used to yell from the living room, “Helen?  Where are you?” like he was some sort of lost lamb without her sitting next to him. The boyfriend does this, too.  This generally drives me insane, until I remember my grandfather, and then it seems like this is the natural order of things.  So I go with the flow.

In terms of animals, things are much the same.  Harrison P. Cat, Little Man, and That Goddamned Cat (synonyms for the same creature) is fine.  He is involved in the same activities as always.  

We had a couple of visitors a few weeks ago.  Both times we are woken up by soft flapping of leathery wings and the muffled ‘thump’ of body hitting wall, presumably while their radar system failed them.

They were both escorted outside peacefully.  But not before at least one photograph was taken.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Did you ever

Did you ever…

• Have one of those days when everything seemed right in your world? Like today. My job is good. I get paid, not great, but reasonably well. The bills are paid. Sometimes I can buy yarn. My patients are cool. The families, though sad when I meet them, are always fascinating and sometimes people that I wish I had a chance to know better. (Actually, I wish I could know some of my patients better, but there’s usually not time enough for that.)

• Look in your closet and discover the perfect pair of shoes you forgot you had were right there, in a box, right where you left them, high on the back shelf in the spare room?

• Spend several minutes throughout the day holding your foot up for self satisfied inspection of said shoes?

• Try and spin silk? (Here’s a tip. Use hand lotion first.) (Here’s another. Rejoice, rejoice, and rejoice again when you see thread. Because in another minute that thread is going to break, but damn. It sure is pretty for a second.)

• Watch episode after episode of House Hunters and then start to suddenly believe that $400,000 doesn’t seem like so much to pay for a house?

• Get a disproportionate amount of glee from keeping a promise to a cat? (I promised Harrison Greenies, and he got them. Cats. Love. Greenies.)

• Feel incredibly worldly because someone in Bezon, Ile de France visited your blog?

Days like today aren’t all that rare, really. And I know that to the uninitiated eye, they’re not even all that special. But they sure do balance out all those funky days that come along with alarming regularity.

Just saying, that’s all.

If I do say so myself

There is an improvement.

Between my first skein of handspun

and my second. This is the tiny bit of over twisted, fat, thin, 90/10 wool and mohair that I showed you yesterday. Now plied, nice and balanced (if I do say so myself, see above), and shown here pre-soaking.

The lighting is bad, but my camera battery is pooped out. Another picture later. It really is a lovely shade of blue.

****************************************************************

Here. This is better.

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Remember that really gorgeous hand painted mohair I posted the other day?

I think I want to ball it up and turn it into this. If I could find some really lightweight shell buttons, that would be all the better.

Actually, my Grandma had a button box.

There are several possibilities in here. This could end up being one very funky scarf/capelet.

Some of these buttons must be 100 years old.

I have her old sewing chest, too.

The first couple of times I opened the drawers to see if she had a crochet hook, or a size of knitting needle I didn’t, it sort of freaked me out. What I wanted was usually in there.

My grandmother is long gone, but she’s here every time I open her chest and find what I’m looking for.

Definitely cool.

New Year’s Eve spins

Not what you think. No alcohol is involved.

I spun a “starter ball” of this 90/10 wool and mohair fiber that I bought at Rhinebeck this year. Just to see how it would turn out, and also to check on my burgeoning spinning skills.

Which clearly are still in the burgeoning phase, but baby steps, dearest. Baby steps.

The spindle was also acquired at Rhinebeck, but I am sorry to say I don’t remember the vendor, and I don’t seem to have the tag.

I ended up frustrated by the variations in twist, and so took this batch off the spindle and balled it up.

And discovered it wasn’t half as bad as I thought. Maybe I’ll ply it later and make a teeny-tiny, little skein of yarn.

In the meantime, I’m spinning the rest, but really working on my drafting. I have found that when I draft so that just the merest amount of fibers are left, and it looks like a cloud of fluff, it spins the best. Meaning the spindle does what it should, and it spins, rather than quickly reversing direction and undoing all the twist. Which I suspect is a result of spinning to thick a “cloud” of fiber, and getting too much twist.

It’s a rough balancing act, this spinning is. And I don’t know what I’m talking about, so take all of this with a grain of salt.

Ravelry has some good spinning forums that I’m learning a lot from.

Here’s to 2008, and the pleasure found in clean slates, new beginnings, and all that jazz…

Blogging:1, Rhinebeck:3

Ah. A week’s vacation.

I knew I’d need a rest after the chaos that is Rhinebeck.

I also knew I wanted to publish a blog, but never found the time in those minimal hours between work and sleep.

So. Here’s my blog. My name is Ann. I am 48 years old in body, and about 29.5 years in mind and spirit. I live and work in Rochester, NY with a large gray tomcat, who you’ll meet in a minute. I have two college aged kids and a boyfriend who orbits around my moon (light side vs. dark side) on a regular basis.

Vacation goals. Blog. Check.

Rhinebeck. Check. Oh, yes. Check. Check! Check!

Rhinebeck is full of fiber producing creatures. This lovely llama had a bit of the drama in her. Note her haughty posturing and disdainful expression. I was fearful of being spit at, so kept my distance.

And the sheep. The sheep! They were all clean and fluffy, with none of the usual caked on sheep poop/grass/mud stuff going on on their butts. Nor were they recognizable as the usual dumb variety of farm sheep. These creatures appeared to have functioning independent brain cells. No group think for these guys!

Despite my less than glowing opinion of the relative intelligence of farm animals, let me assure you that I am an animal lover. I have my very own animal, even. His name is Harrison. Harrison P. Cat. Sometimes known as H.P. Cat.

Dallas had J.R. Ewing, the library has J.D. Salinger, and I have H.P. Cat.

A fiber artist/weaver at Rhinebeck, Gloria Scannell, fiberart@mhonline.net made wonderful catnip mice stuffed with this absolutely primo ‘nip her mother grows in the garden. Harrison found it a fine diversion to an otherwise boring Tuesday afternoon.

Anyway. Rhinebeck. It was my third New York State Sheep and Wool Festival. (And this is my first time blogging, hence the title of today’s post. Clever, aren’t I?)

THE HAUL.

Here’s a listing of what I got.

1) 2oz ball of llama fiber from an animal named Luna. Who could NOT buy something that came from a llama named Luna?

2) 4oz of wool/merino blend roving from Wellspring Farm (same vendor of Luna’s fiber above), and a cloud blue ball of wool/mohair roving, also from Wellspring.

3) A Golding’s spindle! This one is 2.6 oz., made from ebony and walnut. Perfection.

4) A much smaller/lighter spindle from I’m-sorry-I-don’t-remember-where-and-I-misplaced-the-tag.

5) 4 skeins of Brooks Farms wool/silk for a Clapotis. The color…oh, well…here…have a look.

6) a skein of Decadent Fibers super bulky in all these wild rainbow colors that knit up like stained glass. (I knit a scarf. All it needs is a good blocking and some black wool fringe.)

7) As one who can use all the healing properties she can get, a smoky quartz ring to keep me grounded in reality, and a flourite ring to make my spiritual self soar…

A teddy bear made of fur from a llama named Annie. Annie the llama is quite funny looking, with brown and black and gray spots, so there was no way in hell I could leave that bear made from her funny looking self on the shelf — because I’m “Annie” sometimes, too, and more than a little funny looking. Her fur is a reminder that even us Annie’s of the world are beautiful creatures, indeed.

9) My mom bought me a pewter pin in the shape of a ram, because I “needed” a sheep pin to commemorate the weekend with.

Note those two spindles. I just took a spindling class from Village Yarns in E. Rochester last week. My first skein of yarn turned out like this.

I put the Golding spindle to good use. My singles are getting more consistent, don’t you think? Harrison is impressed with his human’s burgeoning spinning skills, too. See his gray ear flicking at the bottom of the picture.

Tomorrow, some WIP’s, and thoughts on blogging and the new breed of socialization it brings.

And maybe some more control of Typepad. Though not bad for a first day blogging…