Maybe next month

Many years ago, before I had children, I was an active member of a local spinning guild. It was a lot of fun and enjoyed interacting with other spinners. The guild meets at a local history museum and as long as the weather is nice (which is true about 9 months of the year) the meetings are outside in a little meadow.

I haven't been in a long time, since before the kids were born. With my recent resumption of spinning activities I've been wanting to go, but it hasn't happened yet.

The chances are good I'll need to take both kids, so I've been waiting until the weather warmed up so the kids could run around outside.

Last month was a possibility, except I had to work that day.

This month's meeting is today, but we've spent the morning getting ready for my 9 year old's slumber party, whose guests are due to start arriving in 15 minutes. So it's not going to happen this month.

Maybe next month! In the meantime I'll keep spinning. I finishes the Lisa Souza BFL 3 ply for socks and it is fabulous, I think I'll make some socks for myself. I've been sampling some hand-dyed merino, trying to make a lace weight singles, and I'm having fun. I haven't come up with a yarn I'm satisfied with yet, but I'm learning while I figure it out.

Spin, Span, Spun

There has been a lot of spinning, and spinning-related activities going on around here lately, and I've been having a blast!

First, actual spinning content:
Back when I first learned to spin I acquired several fleeces at the Monterey County Fair fleece auction over the course of several years. One of them, a tan 1/4 blood merino, I sent out to be carded.

For some reason I decided to spindle spin this fleece into lace weight yarn. I worked at it off and on for years, not making much progress (it was about 3 lbs of fiber). Plus, the spindle was probably too heavy for the yarn I wanted to make, and my results were a bit wiry at times.

Fast forward to last fall when I took a spinning class with Stephenie Gaustad. I came home full of excitement over the soft and fluffy yarns I now knew how to spin. I finished up the project that was on my wheel at the time and looked around for what to spin next. I thought of the carded tan fleece, and decided to experiment. I spun different weights with different amounts of twist, plied doubled and tripled, and paid attention to what the fleece seemed suited to.

In the end I decided to spin a lofty three ply. I spun and spun, not worrying about the occasional slub or thin spot. This was a real change for me - I have tended to be a very controlled spinner in the past, but I liked this style. I filled bobbin after bobbin, understanding for the first time why a Woolee Winder would be an appealing accessory. I spun for months, borrowing storage bobbins from my friend Sylvia, keeping track of what I was doing so I could ply with a plan.

Finally, about a month ago I finished the singles, all 3 lbs. or so. Then I began plying, which took about a week, and now it is all done.







I wish you could feel this yarn - it is soft and light, and I just want to cuddle it. It's not next to the skin soft, but it is the opposite of wiry and I am thrilled.

I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with it, but that's a question for another day. It's washed and stored and in my mind I'm contemplating options!

In other spinning news, I spent an hour last Friday afternoon with my daughter's third grade class, demoing carding, spindle spinning, and wheel spinning. I opened by reading the book "Woolbur" which was a great way to introduce the subject, then talked about all the steps in the process, showing them the tools and how they worked as I talked. I gave each kid samples of different kinds of wool prepared different ways, and then when I was done with the demo I gave each kid a straw loom I'd prepared, so everybody got a chance to weave and something to take home.

It was so much fun. The kids were really interested and asked lots of great questions. A couple of boys got antsy at one point, but I was amazed at how much they followed, and stayed on track. One boy told the teacher that it was the best Fun Friday ever!

And my last bit of spinning news for the day is that I have applied for a scholarship to attend SOAR, the Spin-Off Autumn Retreat. I don't know how many scholarships they award and how many people apply, but I am really hoping for the best! I think about how much I could learn in a week at SOAR and my fingers get all tingly - wish me luck!

My Other Mother

I grew up in a traditional family: one mother, one father, one sibling. My parents are still married after almost 47 years. I have no step-parents or half sibling or anything like that.

But I did have an "other mother" as a kid: a woman whose house I was in almost as much as my own, whose kids were like siblings to me, who was a close friend to my mother, who looked out for me and was a big part of my upbringing.

When my parents finished graduate school they moved to New England, leaving all of their family behind in the south. My father worked incredibly long hours and my mother had two children and knew almost nobody. It was a lonely time for her, a woman who needs the company of friends as much as food and drink.

On one of my grandmother's visits, when I was about two years old, she told my mother that she had a cousin in the next town over, one she had never met. My grandmother, who valued family connections, called her up, arranged a get together, and laid the foundation for a lifelong friendship between our families.

Several years later we bought land and built a house next door to the Jones's house (yes, we lived next door to the Joneses!) They had three daughters, and the younger two were the same ages as my brother and me. The town we lived in was very spread out and there were only a few other kids within biking distance, so we spent much of our time together (plus they had a pool!) The four of us grew up like siblings - playing, bickering, shifting allegiances, growing closer and sometimes farther apart. The youngest daughter became my best friend (or sometimes best frenemy) and still is to this day. (See my earlier blog post about her).

JJ (as we called my other mother because she and my mother had the same first name) was one of those women who did it all without seeming to ever lose her cool. Gardening, cooking, sewing, parenting, Girl Scouts, town events. She had a hand in most everything that went on in our small town, and we were the better for it. She was a nurse who later went back to school to become of the first certified nurse practitioners in the country. She patched us up when we fell and saved my brother's life (at least once). She was a New Englander through and through - practical, hardworking, kind, caring but not sentimental, and eminently resourceful.

We lost my other mother over the holidays after a four year battle with Lewy Body Disease. It was hard to watch her struggle to continue to lead her life on her own terms as her body failed her. I saw her the day before she died and was astonished at how small and frail she looked, this woman who was always larger than life to me.

I came back to New England this weekend with my daughter for her memorial and to be with the family. It was a lovely service and a fitting tribute. We will miss her.

Best Laid Plans

I had my morning all planned out.

Yesterday I made bread. This morning I was going to get up before the kids and make French Toast (with the homemade bread). The get the girl to school, get the car to the service appointment, etc. all in a calm, orderly fashion.

Then the boy woke at 5, and by the time I got him settled and myself back in bed I was tired enough to sleep through the alarm. Woke up almost an hour and a half late, had to dash around to get the girl to school (late), got the car in (late), ate granola at 10:00 and had to shelve the French Toast until tomorrow. (That's okay, it's better with slightly stale bread anyway).

So now at 10:30 I am attempting to get on with what I wanted to be doing hours ago. I'm trying to take it in stride and just move on, roll with it you know?

Lately I've been feeling that way about my life: where I am now is good, but it's way different than where I thought I would be. Most of the time I roll with that (my MIL is fond of saying that Life is What Happens When You're Busy Making Other Plans) but sometimes I fret.

The upcoming trip back East for a memorial service probably has as much to do with the fretting as anything else.

So, I think instead of fretting I shall think about what knitting to take - there are so many possibilities, so many projects in progress.

Does anybody have any post-Christmas flying experience with knitting and TSA? I'm trying to take only carry-on baggage but I don't want to have my knitting needles confiscated, so if anyone has recent info on how stringent security is at the airports I would appreciate it.

ETA - on re-reading this post I decided there were way too many exclamation points, so I have removed them. That is all.

Stealth Deadline Knitting

A while back I agreed to be part of a project that Kathy had cooked up.

Of course it promptly slipped my mind for some time, until I checked in and discovered that the deadline was approaching, and fast.

So last Saturday I sat down with several Barbara Walker books and looked for a stitch pattern that was interesting and not too challenging, and then I got to work.

I have been working on no other projects for the past 8 days, and I'm happy to report that I have finished my part of the project with several days to spare.





Project: Stealth Orange Strip
Yarn: Red Heart Soft
5 oz/140g 256 yds/ball

Amt yarn used: 7.125 oz (can you tell I got a new kitchen scale for the Italian for Christmas?!)

Needles: size 8 Boye interchangeable

Dimensions: approx 6" wide (it was supposed to be 7" but I didn't allow enough extra for the intake of the rib" by 50" long

Stitch: Crenellated Pattern, pg 184 of one of Barbara Walker's books (I think volume 3)

Of course, when Punkin saw it she asked if I would make her a scarf in this stitch! I can't blame her - the fabric is amazing - it's so squishy, and it moves so much!

I have been knitting one orange project or another since August of 2009 and I'm not done yet - it's back to the Italian's orange sweater now, trying to get it done this winter!

Backfire

I think I may have outsmarted myself (I don't think it's that hard to do).

We have, historically, done things up for the holidays. We've baked and crafted and sent out packages to friends and family far and wide. One year we made cold pour soaps with items inside the soap chosen for each recipient (a small turtle figurine for my mother, a jumbo sized "diamond" ring for our friend who is a jewelry designer, etc.) I've also always scrambled to make something for each member of my immediate family, not to mention at least some of the extended family.

This is not to mention the huge meal we make for Christmas Eve.

This year's holiday is going to be a busy one, and I decided a while ago to pare way back on what I tried to do so I wouldn't feel strung out and exhausted by the time the holidays descended. No goody packages to send, and no new projects - just chugging away on the sweater for the Italian, and maybe try to finish a pair of socks for my mom.

I think it has backfired. I have no sense of how close the holidays are because I'm not frantically knitting and baking. I keep thinking Christmas is weeks away because I haven't started to "get ready" and I find myself very surprised to realize it is in a week. Its disorienting to say the least.

So much so I'm contemplating knitting some slippers for Punkin, just to give myself that proper "last-minute" feel to the holidays!

Ten on Tuesday

Inspired by Knot Much of a Knitter I'm trying my hand at at Ten for Tuesday list:

Ten Things You Wish You Knew How to Do:

1. Change the oil on my car. I know how to check the oil and put air in the tires, and that's about it.

2. Cook by the seat of my pants. I'm great at following recipes, not so much on following my gut.

3. Make beer. It seems like it would be fun.

4. Read poetry and enjoy it. I get too wrapped up in the rhythm of the words and forget to pay attention to the meaning.

5. Ride a motorcycle. Vroom vroom. Enough said.

6. Code html. I'm sure I could learn it but I don't think I have the patience.

7. Play the guitar. I can strum a few chords but I'd love to be able to play well.

8. Speak Mandarin. My kids and husband are all learning it but not me and I don't have a clue.

9. Take better photographs. I look at Jared Flood's photos and think that man could make a brillo pad look beautiful!

10. Draw. I can sketch clothing and draw precise technical specs for clothes but I can't drawing life-like pictures of much of anything. And I went to art school!