January One -- Spin

February 26, 2007

I'm BACK baby!

So it would seem that my Wookie Winder (as G called it) or my Willy Wonka (as Claire called it) or my WooLee Winder, as it's properly called, and I have been getting along after all. You know how you meet some people, and at first they piss you off to no end and you think why would I spend more than five seconds in a room with this person and then suddenly as your forced together more and more you start to see something you missed in that first five seconds? You start to think, hmmmmmm. I could grow to love this person. I'm not saying I'm in love or anything, but I will say that I've never plied better in my life. In my LIFE people!

I've had some questions about what a WooLee Winder is - it's a flyer that goes on your wheel in place of the flyer it came with and it has a mechanized bobbin attachment or some such thingy that allows the bobbin to fill up on it's own - meaning you don't have to stop and change hooks or move hooks in order to fill the bobbin evenly. The flyer moves back and forth, powered by the spinning wheel, and fills the bobbin in an even and orderly way. So you can essentially spin forever without getting up to pee or pet your cat or hug your husband - you can sit there until the bobbin is full. And these bobbins are quite large and can hold like half a sheep or something. You have to buy the WooLee Winder that is right for your wheel (assuming one is made for it) and you have to buy special bobbins for it, but it's not terribly expensive. All the information you need can be found here.

So it seems all I needed was a little more patience and/or Ann laughing at me, calling me a petulant child and pointing jeeringly as I stomped my feet at my own frustration. (Seriously - who doesn't need a friend that can point jeeringly?) Ann invited me out to Lawn Guyland last week to attend one of her FABULOUS guild meetings. She's always bragging about her guild - they're all so talented, they have the best classes, blah blah blah. (Secretly I think she wanted me out there so we could practice our new Bee Gees act. Don't know what I'm talking about? Look here. Or maybe we're going to have to be the LI edition of Bronx Beat, which is hands down the funniest new skit to come out of SNL since Will Farrell was a cheerleader.

What are you Sioux? Are you Sioux? Cherokee? Are you Sioux? Funniest fucking thing ever. Go watch.)

Okay. Sorry - back to business. So last week I traveled out to LI to the Spinning Study Group of Long Island meeting. Before hand I spent the afternoon spinning with Ann so she could help me get the feel for the WW. Then I spent the night at the meeting, where they had almost FORTY people show up to spin in a wonderful old barn in Smithtown, spinning my little heart out. I loved the meeting so much I JOINED! YAY! I'm officially a GUILD MEMBER! WHOO HOO! I feel like a real spinner now! Thanks Ann and everyone out there in Smithtown. It was great to meet you all! Thank you for accepting me into the fold.

When I got home the next day I ignored the piles of work I had to do and got down to some serious spinning. The WW is very fast so I was able to spin up aroung 2 oz on Thursday night in just a few hours and 2oz on Friday night in another few hours. But then it was time to ply. For a long time I've had some issues with my Lendrum Lazy Kate (apparently this is Lendrum owner wide - it's not the best out there by a long shot.) I knew, too, that my new bobbins would probably be even worse on the Lendrum LK because they're a bit wider and taller. So I put on my thinking cap and remembered that it's fairly easy to make your own Lazy Kate. One of the first places I looked for instruction was over at Theresa's - she's always got GREAT stuff - especially on spinning. Didn't take me more than a second to find what I was looking for: A Do It Yourself Lazy Kate.

I had everything I needed right in my house - a cardboard box (wide enough for the bobbins, but not too wide so there was lots of room for the needles to stick out), some excess cardboard (I used the flaps from the box), two knitting needles (size 9s were perfect to fit through the bobbins and the box), and some waste yarn. I also used a box cutter, but a scissors would work.

This is how I made the Lazy Kate. I stuck the needles through the box. That's it! Done! No, okay, really, I stuck the needles through the box to establish the holes, then I cut up some cardboard and folded it so that it would act as a buffer against the bobbins so they wouldn't slosh around on the needles, then I loaded up the cardboard and the bobbin and stuck the needle through the other side of the box. Pefection!

In order to provide some tensioning on the Kate, I thread some waste yarn through a hole in the side of the box, right at the corner, then over the grooves in the bobbins, then out the other side through another hole. Then I pulled it a bit taut and tied a knot.

I'm not sure if it was the lazy kate or the WooLee Winder or both together but I have never had an easier time plying. AND I was a teensy bit handy which is like a miracle for me. G was so impressed!! Thanks Theresa!

The roving I spun is from Dudley Spinner. She sells wool blends in super bright tie dyed colors. This particular color is called Lamba Bada (I think - I can't seem to find the little piece of paper it came with) and was a bit more than 4 oz. I ended up with about 320 yds - I'd guess it's sport weight. I'm very happy with it - and I can't wait to decide what to spin up next!

Re: The Oscars. Clive Owen is HOT. Markie Mark is HOT. The Japanese guy was HOT. Whoever dressed that little girl should be shot. What a sin. Jerry Seinfeld introducing the Feature Documentary was by far the best part of the night. Every time they announced another title, Georgie and I laughed harder and harder. I'm so glad Martin Scorsese won - it was a CRIME he didn't win for Raging Bull. And please, Academy people, bring back Billy Crystal. He seems to be the only one who can make this evening tolerable (or maybe Will Ferrell? I love Will Ferrell.)

And last but not least, thank you for all your comments on my last post. It's so nice not to write in a vacuum. I really appreciate your reading my blog.

Posted by Cara at 09:38 AM | Comments (72)

February 23, 2007

The Grass is Always Greener

I'm not perfect. (Even if I strive for it at times with an unhealthy force.) I'm human. I can guarantee you that, on a fairly regular basis, I piss off and annoy and sometimes hurt the people that love me and that I love most in this world. So imagine the damage that I can inflict upon the strangers that may stumble upon this blog. I have deliberately chosen to write this blog in an open, intimate way - I'm not sure I could do it another way; that's how I am in real life - and because of that it may seem to regular readers, and even casual readers, that you know me. The closer you feel to a person, the more you think you know about their life, the easier it is for them to let you down and disappoint. It's just the way it is.

It's been suggested that I put myself in someone else's shoes. I am empathetic to a fault, but the truth of the matter is that I CAN'T put myself in anyone else's shoes. I can ONLY KNOW my own life. I've often said that one of the reasons my marriage is as healthy as it is, is that early on I figured out that people CANNOT read your mind. If you want something from someone - if you're not getting what you need - you MUST communicate what those needs are! You can't fault anyone for not giving you what you want if you've never told them what it is you need and/or expect. (Now if they don't deliver after that - or your demands are extraordinary - well - that's what couples therapy is for.)

Many times I've felt myself apologizing to people when I talk about my problems, my pains, my disappointments because they just aren't as bad or important as war or famine or disease - or whatever horrible thing you or someone else has had to suffer through. My problems surely aren't as bad as other peoples. But I still have problems. And they're the only problems I know. And because they're my problems and I have to live with them every day, I can't diminish how they make me feel. NEVER APOLOGIZE FOR HOW YOU FEEL. Feelings aren't rational. They oftentimes come out of nowhere and don't make any sense whatsoever but they are what they are and there's nothing you can do about them. If you've got a hangnail and it's making your day as shitty as it possibly could be - THAT IS VALID because you're having a shitty day. There is no need to feel bad about your shitty day because someone else found out that their loved one is very sick. Or they lost their job. Or their kid is being picked on in school. You can feel for those people, sure, but you can still feel bad for yourself.

I think this is really important. We live in a society that is always comparing things - my tv is bigger than yours. Your house is bigger than mine. My stash blows away your stash. Children are starving - why are you still buying yarn? Size matters. And, honestly, I don't see anything wrong with a little healthy competition every now and again. But not when it comes to feelings. My feelings are my feelings and I have every right to feel them - whether you think I'm an ass or not - just like you have a right to your wonderful, horrible, gut wrenching, soul soaring feelings. I would never take that away from you. I would never judge your bad day in the face of all the horribleness happening in this world at any given minute of the day.

I think one of the greatest strengths of humans is the inability to really understand other people. It's our most useful survival mechanism. If we could be in each other's head - if we could actually feel the pain of others - we'd all be doomed. How could we possibly live with the weight of the world literally on our shoulders? As it is, it's enough that we have to feel our own pain. And through that pain, we can imagine what other's might be feeling and show them the compassion we'd want shown to us.

We all know how hard it is to get the people around the us - the people we live with every single day - our partners, our children, our parents, our friends, our co-workers. We SEE them - their body language, their facial expressions, the evidence of the bad hair day, the hang nail, the sore back that makes them moody and belligerant. We HEAR the pain in their voices, the excitement, the pity. We can FEEL their arms around us, the hand on our backs, making us feel that it's going to be okay. All this and we STILL have trouble understanding what they're really all about. As great as the Internet is, there is A LOT missing. Honestly, if I had every one of your phone numbers, I'd call you in a heartbeat - way before I returned an email. I NEED that connection. But since that's not practical (and my husband would plotz at the phone bill) we must make do with this superior, albeit, cold communication. We miss so, so much. We read things wrong all the time. We say the wrong things all the time. I, myself, have hurt people through email and have been hurt through email. I've imagined relationships that weren't really there. I've been disappointed, I've disappointed. I've also found some of my best friendships. A commaraderie that I never imagined I'd find. An understanding I'd never thought I'd realize.

I'm not perfect. I'm human after all. And more than compassion or sympathy or understanding, the one thing I'd like most in this world, the one thing I try very hard to extend (and I fail miserably sometimes) and have extended to me is RESPECT. From respect grows all manners of human kindness.

My Woolee Winder and I have come to a temporary truce.

We've decided to start over from a place of respect. I communicated my needs, and it communicated it's needs and hopefully we'll have some new yarn to show you on Monday.

As always, I know you have a choice on the Internet. Boundless choices, actually. And I fully understand if you don't like what you read here. I encourage you to move on and find something new. But if you choose to stick around, I'd ask you to remember - I can't read your mind. I can't see your face or hear your voice. I don't know how you're feeling and you don't know how I'm feeling unless I tell you. Most of the time that's better for all of us. I hope, though, that to the best of your abilities, you will treat my little corner of the internet with respect. And I promise, to the best of my ability, to treat you with respect. I thank you for spending some of your hard-earned time with me and wish you only the best.

L, C

Posted by Cara at 09:54 AM | Comments (160)

February 21, 2007

Jump Start

Aw man. You guys make me blush. Hard. Thank you so much for all the kind words on my CPH. I hope you all knit it - it's really a nice sweater - and like I said - it's a great FIRST sweater. I forgot to mention yesterday that there's a KAL going on - with all kinds of nice pictures and good advice. I never officially joined up - but I certainly referenced the site. Thanks again! It's great to be able to share my knits with such a receptive audience. I mean, Georgie's suitably impressed and all, but you know what I'm saying.

Okay. Now I want you to click here. It's okay - nothing work inappropriate. Just click and then come back. I'll wait.

See that? Yup. That's right. I used to SPIN! USED TO being the operative words here. Used to. Back in October, I finished my first handspun project which I knit with my own handspun. I loved the shawl, loved the yarn, loved the fact that I had spun the yarn to make the shawl - loved all of it. I loved it so much that right after I finished it I decided to buy a Woolee Winder because everyone said they made spinning so much better and plying a breeze and gosh darnit, I deserved one. I thought I might be able to buy it and pick it up at Rhinebeck, but the Woolee Winder people weren't going to be there, so I ordered it and thought it might be here when I got back from Rhinebeck.

Well, it wasn't. And then I waited and waited and I had emtpy bobbins and I didn't want to start any spinning projects because I was waiting for the Woolee Winder. No use starting something only to abandon it in the middle when the new toy comes. So I waited and waited and after about a month I started to question the whole Woolee Winder thing. In the meantime, G got sick and I reverted back to my first love - knitting - and let the whole spinning thing fall by the wayside. And I STILL freaking waited for this Woolee Winder. Of course, the day I send the threatening email (after about 100 nice ones before that: "Um, dear sir, can you please tell me when my Woolee Winder will finally be arriving, you know the one you were paid for six weeks ago?) it comes in the mail. But by that time I was so disgusted with the whole thing (and, honestly, the world in general) that I let it sit in the box for a few weeks before I ever took it out to try.

One day, though, I did try it and maybe I just had a lot of bad karma stored up around this particular apparatus because I hated it. I couldn't get the tension right, I was wasting good fiber on it and eventually I pulled out some of my plain vanilla BFL to practice on. I still couldn't get it and truth be told it's been sitting there ever since, my poor wheel, lonely and neglected because of this freaking Woolee Winder. Why didn't I just take it off, you ask, and go back to spinning without it - the wonderful way I know how? Because I was too pissed off. I figured I'd ruin everything I touched.

But now I think I'm ready to get back on track. Tonight I'm going to my inaugural Guild meeting way out in Lawn Guyland. I'm hoping this will jump start the whole spinning thing. I really, really miss it! And if it doesn't go so well, watch this space for a very slightly used Woolee Winder. I'll be selling it. See you Friday!

Posted by Cara at 08:22 AM | Comments (33)

August 24, 2006

The Miseducation of January One

Yesterday was all about the learnin'. I will share.

~~ When you change a password, best check what that changed password will affect. The comments are working now.

~~ Spin all your singles up at once. Then ply everything up at once. It will make for a more consistent finished yarn - especially given my newbie status.

I finished spinning up the 8 oz I had of Moonstone, merino roving from Spunky Eclectic. I was so looking forward to finishing this stuff up because I had grand grand plans for it! I was going to make my first handspun project from this yarn. And now that it's off the bobbins, I've got to say, I'm a bit disappointed. I should clarify - this has EVERYTHING to do with my spinning and NOTHING to do with the fiber. Of all the fiber I've spun (which is limited - I will admit) Spunky Eclectic is by far my favorite - for the color AND the prep. I was quite pleased with the first batch (see post here). I managed a nice tight ply and I liked that a lot. This time around, not so much.



Can you see the difference?




How about now?




NOW?!? New yarn on the left, old yarn on the right.

The new yarn is not as tight at ALL. And therefore I think it looks a little loosy and sloppy. It's not as smooth. Although it looks a TON better now that it's been washed and dried. It's also a bit thinner. I finally see a reason for two wheels. Before you all either start laughing or groaning - how great would it be to have one wheel for plying - where I could keep the tension and everything JUST SO and then be spinning on another wheel where I could also keep the tension and everything JUST SO. As it is now, I'm going to have to spin up all of the singles and THEN start plying. Clearly I'm not good enough to go back and forth. I need the stability of keeping things JUST SO.

In the first batch I've got about 310 yds and the second batch I've got about 566 yds, so a decent amount. I had wanted to make a shawl with it - and I guess I still could - I could use the 310 yds at the top of the shawl - where it's a bit bigger, and then use the rest as it gets to the point. Any and all suggestions for about 800 yds of fingering weight (I'm guessing here) would be great. I'd love a pattern that shows off the yarn - so something with a bit of stockinette to it would be great.

Eh. I'll do better next time.

By the way - before I change topics - CJ asked me to mention a new swap she and Christina have put together: The Spinning Roving Swap. All information can be found at that link. I'm off swaps for a while now, but if I was going to get in on one - this looks really good. Different sign ups for people wanting to learn to spin, and for experienced spinners. Check it out.

~~ Don't be afraid to try new things.

I'm very reluctant to show you this:

Yup. It's a toe up sock - STR - Pebble Beach colorway - old put up. I had almost given up the other day when I had tried the Magic Cast On, Wendy's short row method and Purly's YO method. Then, yesterday in the comments (before I broke them), Rachel mentioned that I should try the Turkish Cast On. So I checked a couple tutorials and MY GOD. This is the most mind-blowingly easy thing I have ever tried. Just wrap the yarn around two needles and start knitting. Seriously. LOOK AT THIS TOE!




The top down knee high I just finished - kitchener stitch at the close - is on the left and the brand new toe up Turkish Cast On goodness is on the right. They barely look any different. All you toe up people - why would you use anything other than this cast on? Also, I love me some M1. I've mastered the right leaning M1 and the left leaning M1 and it's so much nicer (TO ME) than short rows. So much nicer. Check it out!




Again, top down on the left, toe up on the right. You can barely tell the difference. Recently I've learned that I like a wider toe. I start my toe decreases very late - almost at the top of my pinky toe, and then I decrease four stitches every other row until I have fourteen on the top of the toe and the bottom of the toe (28 altogether.) Then I slip the stitch right inside the outer stitches over the outer stitch (I read it somewhere - makes the toe a bit rounder and not as pointy on the edges) then kitchener the 24 remaining stitches. Perfection!

So yesterday, I cast on 24 stitches - 12 on the top, 12 on the bottom) and knit a couple rows then started increasing four stitches every other round until I got to 64. DONE! Perfection!

The jury is still out on these socks, though, because I really don't like a short row heel. So if I can't figure out the toe up heel flap - I don't know. This might be a 325 yd STR prototype and then I'll start knitting from the top down again. Question for anyone out there that has knit a toe up heel flap: When knitting from the top down, I generally have about 58 rows between my last gusset decrease and the start of my toe decreases. Is it the same when knitting toe up - should I start my gusset INCREASES at row 59 from the toe decreases? How do you know where to start the heel? THANK YOU!

Okay. I'm off to help my newbie again today. She's finished the bottom of her bag - I'm so proud. Unfortunately the dog ate my homework. I've done like 20 rows out of 66 on my own bag.

Have a great day!

Posted by Cara at 10:51 AM | Comments (45)

August 14, 2006

My Aching Back

G and I were sitting on the couch, both of us in pain, and he said how much it sucked to get old. Now he just had a birthday putting him in the EIGHT YEARS OLDER than me category and I said, "DUDE I am not old." And he replied, "That's what makes you all the more pathetic."

Fucker. I hate it when he's right.

I know I've talked about this before - god, it's over ten years now - once upon a time G went away on a business trip and I slept funny in the bed and it got a little too cold that night and the muscles between my shoulder blades basically froze and I was in extraordinary pain for a couple of days. I remember going to work that morning and almost throwing up on the subway and when I took a car service home the jostling in the car almost made me pass out. I was able to function after a couple of days and it went away completely about a week later but it left me with a weak spot. Know what I mean? Whenever I sleep a little too deep or the temperature drops a bit or the sun transverses the moon at a 180° trajectory or some other such nonesense I get a nice crick in the muscles between my shoulders. See what happens when you wish for Fall and Summer's not finished with you yet?

I woke up Saturday and true to rules of the universe, my funk seemed to have passed, but my back was killing me. I've never ever had it as bad as the first time, but it's annoying nonetheless and I want to weep for my husband who is in physical pain on a pretty much constant basis. I probably would be better right now but I'm not because, you see, my husband was in more pain than usual this weekend and nothing tortures my sweet boy more than the weather being a shade better than perfect and him not being able to run around on the tennis court. A good indication as to how much pain he's in: he asked ME to play tennis with him.

I was going to the tennis court anyway to sit and knit and enjoy the outdoors while he played but he said he might not be able to find anyone to play with so could I bring my stuff. Just in case. I said sure full well knowing he'd find someone. I mean it's been AGES since I played with him. No such luck. You know what? I'm not bad. He even said I could be really good if I took lessons. You know why? Agression. I've got it in spades. I'm not kidding. One time we took a golf lesson out in Palm Springs and I could barely connect with the golf ball but the pro was really impressed. He told G that I had a lot of agression in my swing and "you can't teach that." The same applies to tennis. One guy that was there told G that I hit really hard. I do. And I love it when G hits hard back. (Go to it google freaks.)

About thirty seconds into playing I knew I was going to pay for it the rest of the weekend. It didn't really hurt my back to play, but I knew that as soon as I cooled off I was going to be fucked.

Fucker. I hate it when I'm right.

My back has been awful ever since. And not just my back but pretty much every other muscle in my torso, and a couple in my legs and arms too. Although I have been able to wrangle quite a few BENGAY massages this weekend. Soooo sexxxy!

I did have fun though. I'm looking forward to playing again - sooner rather than later. I also did a lot of knitting and a lot of spinning, neither of which helped my body recover at all. BUT I finished spinning up the rest of the Blue Heaven singles. I think I'm going to wait a few days to ply it all because I want my back to be better not worse. And, of course, I finished the first of the STR Knee Highs. G, in particular, loves the sock. He's already requested the outfit I'm to wear with it but honestly, these babies will be staying under cover. Like wearing sexy underwear - only you know it's there but oh does it make you feel good. I've cast on for the next one and I'm about halfway through the ribbing. I can't get a really comfy position to knit with though so I don't know what I'm going to do. Request for stats on the sock: US #1 Addis. I started with 325 yds of STR (in the old put up) and I have a little more than 1/2 oz left. Not sure what the yardage on that would be. You probably need AT LEAST 500 yds depending on how high you want to go and how big your leg is. I start out with 88 stitches, increase up to 98, then head all the way back down to 64. Whee!

Before I called it a day fiber wise, I decided to turn my attention to the roving Teyani sent me to finish off my Sock Hop Knee Highs. Now that the Blue Heaven only has plying left, I can think ahead to spinning up the heel/toe yarn:

I quickly (read: sloppily - I was in pain and frankly tired of spinning) spun up about a tenth of an ounce of roving to see how it would look and to test run if I can get it thin enough. I think I did okay considering I was high off BENGAY fumes.



The colored yarn is a couple strands from each of the skeins I'm using for the sock bodies. My plan now is to spin it up (I've got enough for like five pairs of socks here - at least it seems that way) and do the heels and knit with the old stuff until I run out or I need to start decreasing for the toes. Then, I MIGHT, might - depending on how it looks, clip the cast on stitches and unravel the American Pie yarn down to the stockinette and then knit it back in stockinette and only then start the ribbing with the new blue stuff. Does that make sense? Would it work? I've only got like 20 rows of ribbing - then I can make them extra long. We'll see. But I have a feeling it will work just fine.

Posted by Cara at 11:03 AM | Comments (34)

August 09, 2006

Marathon

DUDES! Enough with the L words. If you're not careful, you're going to turn this blog into a more scary than sexy soft porn cable drama about women who say they love women but only end up hurting each other in the end. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm on L word overload - too many to process - but I'm all about turning lemons into lemonade so hopefully I'll have a new ABC entry this weekend. Get your M words ready. Just in case.

And thanks for the book ideas. I used to read more than I now knit so I'm always gratified to ask for book titles and find that I've read a hell of lot. It's one of the only bad things about knitting - I read so much less it's pathetic. I'm off to the book store today, so I'll let you know what I pick up.

Yesterday was an experiment of sorts. I started out the day with only a couple of goals: Fold the laundry. Check. Spin up the rest of the blue merino. Not so check. Guess what I learned about spinning? The first 4oz? Exciting! Fun! You don't know what you're going to get so you spin spin spin and then you ply ply ply so you can smother yourself in handspun goodness! I MADE THIS! It's beautiful! Look! I turned THIS into THIS. YIPEEEEEE!

The second 4oz? Not so much. OH MY GOD I'M SO BORED I CAN'T STAND IT ANYMORE!

So I take the wheel out onto the deck because it's still early enough that the sun hasn't come around to my side of the building and I download a couple of episodes of Cast On because Ann and Julia have been singing Brenda's praises and I have my water and phone and fiber and I'm ready to go. There's a nice breeze and it's fairly quiet (read no kids in the pool) and I start spinning. It's okay. I'm not loving it - but it's nice to be outside and not sweat and stuff. The podcast is fairly interesting but I keep getting the headphones caught in the fiber and then my water goes flying with a big gust of wind and I'm sure the fiber's wet now and after I curse for like ten minutes and the headphones come flying out of the CD player (no IPOD here thank you very much) I pack everything up and head inside.

Lesson learned: I'm not an aural kind of girl.

Even the Bruce music I love so much I love because of the words - not so much the music. G is all about the music. He's always telling me what a great song such and such is and I'm always horrified because the words are like "I'll be so happy when you die" or something like that. But he doesn't even hear the words. Don't get me wrong, I like music - even love music - but it's the words that get me. Anyway. I'm not an aural kind of girl. I'm visual. I'm about touch. I'm not so into a voice inside my head (unless, of course, it's my own voice driving me insane - then again, I'm not really so into that either.)

Lesson learned: You know what I like to do when I spin? Watch TV. So much for the lofty pursuit of zen while spinning. I only want to watch episodes of Another World. That's it. And since I was all about accomplishing something yesterday, that's what I did. I moved the wheel back into my bedroom (where the Tivo lives) and started watching. But I was still so bored!!! It was then I realized that I have never gone back to a fiber before - I usually buy a decent amount of something I like but when I spin up and ply that first bunch - I don't go back. I move onto something new. But I want to knit something significant with this blue stuff so I've made a concerted effort to go back.

It was about two episodes in, when I couldn't even stand the latest Cass and Frankie shenanigans anymore and I was tired of waiting for the new Vicky to show up so her and Ryan can get it on, that I finally understood the TRUE zen like quality of spinning. I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's like hitting the wall when running a marathon. I've never run a marathon and can pretty much guarantee I never will, but I can understand that point where you just can't do it anymore. You are dead for all intents and purposes and somewhere deep in you, you need to find the strength to soldier on. I think I hit that wall in spinning yesterday. I couldn't do it. The yarn was killing me. I was blurry from the wheel spinning and spinning and on my god the spinning and my fingers were burning a little bit from running the fiber through my hand and I had a weird tingling sensation radiating down from my left shoulder and it got so bad I couldn't tell the difference anymore between Vicky and Marley and OH MY GOD! I DON'T CARE IF I NEVER SPIN ENOUGH FIBER TO EVER KNIT ANYTHING BIGGER THAN A BABY HAT! MAKE IT STOP PLEASE!!

And then, as quickly as it came on, it was over. I kept on spinning and I broke through that wall and achieved some kind of fiber like zen that I can't quite communicate to you. It was a centering, a balance between my hands and my heart and the fiber and I did the only thing a person can do when they are in that sacred place:

I cast on for another pair of knee highs.

Posted by Cara at 12:16 PM | Comments (26)

June 27, 2006

PS: Blue Heaven

I told myself that if I folded the 87 loads of laundry and put my stuff away INCLUDING the piles of towels and sheets that had been sitting on the floor folded for like two months, I was allowed to ply up all the merino I spun up on Sunday.



I was a good girl, obviously. I switched out my regular flyer for my plying flyer and plying bobbin because I wanted to ply it ALL. I've got about 310 yds there. For some reason (and yes I can hear you all laughing) I get really obsessed with the spinning and have to get it all done AT THIS MINUTE. And I never remember how long it all takes. I'm ALWAYS surprised at how physical the plying is - much more physical than the spinning - and seriously - it takes forever.



I've really only had one spinning lesson and that was really focused on plying and I was taught that no matter how thick or thin the singles being plied, the distance between the two singles should always be the same. I think I'm managing that pretty well.



I've got another 4oz of Amy's Spunky Eclectic Merino in the Moonflower colorway from the Almost Solid series to spin up. I still don't know what the wpi is on this but I compared it to some STR lightweight I had and I'd say it's a fairly consistent sportweight. I'm also still feeling really precious about my hanspun and I have visions of a large basket or bowl sitting on the magic dresser filled with handspun - something like a living art installation where I can see it and touch it but never never actually USE it. I was thinking socks for this patch but how can I put this stuff on my feet and wear it around in smelly shoes and god forbid I get a hole.

In all the Spin Out excitement, I forgot to annouce the Bruce Quiz winner!!!

CHRIS from Woolybuns!

Congratulations Chris! I hope you enjoy the CDs and Yarn! Thanks everyone for taking my funny quiz. I think out of 202 quizzes, 95 were eligible to win. For those of you with less than stellar performances, here's a little annotated answer grid:

Question 1: Which album introduced me to Bruce?
A) The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle
B) Tunnel of Love
Georgie used to drive me around NJ and sing me Tunnel of Love. Incidentally, I fell in love with both G and Bruce at the same time. Cheezy I know.
C) The River
D) Lucky Town

Question 2: Am I
A) wrapped up like a douche?
B) asleep in a papoose?
C) snapped by a noose?
D) cut loose like a deuce?
Manfred Mann recorded Bruce's Blinded by the Light and totally mangled the words. To this day Manfred Mann's version is Bruce's highest ranked song - it reached #1 on the charts.

Question 3: Which artist DID NOT appear at a Bruce performance I attended?
A) Terrence Trent D’Arby
B) Billy Joel
C) Peter Gabriel
We attended the Rainforest Concert at Carnegie Hall a bunch of years ago that featured Bruce and Elton and Sting and Billy Joel and a bunch of others. Billy Joel also showed up at a concert we went to out on Long Island and Terrence Trent D'Arby showed up at a concert to sing Jumpin' Jack Flash.
D) Sting

Question 4: Which song was first played for me at a toll booth on the New Jersey Turnpike?
A) Drive All Night
I've told this story before.
B) Thunder Road
C) Racing in the Street
D) Stolen Car

Question 5: Where did they blow up The Chicken Man?
A) Trenton
B) Philadelphia
Well they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night they blew up his house too....
C) New York
D) Atlantic City

Question 6: What was my first Springsteen concert tour?
A) Born in the USA
B) Human Touch/Lucky Town
'91 or '92. Can't remember. I pumped my fist so freaking hard I had black and blue marks across my palms. No lie.
C) Tunnel of Love
D) The E Street Band Reunion Tour

Question 7: In how many states have I seen Bruce play?
A) 9
B) 5
C) 3
New Jersey, New York & Pennsylvania
D) 1

Question 8: Which song did Bruce write about a suicide bomber?
A) Point Blank
B) Paradise
Lyrics here. But I just the few people who gave answer C!
C) You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)
D) Souls of the Departed

Question 9: Bruce sings about getting stuck “somewhere in the swamps of Jersey.” Who’s he trying to get to?
A) Mary
B) Terry
C) Rosie

My tires were slashed and I almost crashed but the Lord had mercy
My machine she's a dud, I'm stuck in the mud somewhere in the swamps of Jersey
Hold on tight, stay up all night 'cause Rosie I'm comin' on strong
By the time we meet the morning light I will hold you in my arms
D) Linda

Question 10: Will I cry at the concert tonight?
A) Nah. I only cry when the E Street Band’s playing.
B) Maybe. Depends on the set-list.
C) Only if he plays The Fever.
D) Are you kidding? The waterworks will start on the Turnpike on our way down to Camden.
I'm pretty sure I made it there without any tears, but I was totally crying when he played We Shall Overcome. I'm a wimp!

Last but not least - all you Chi-Town folks! You think I'm dumb just because I'm from New Joisey? The first thing I did when I found out I was heading out to Chicago was call Toni at The Fold and tell her I'm coming. ;-) G and I are roadtripping out there Saturday. I basically have Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday night, Sunday morning and all day Monday free. We're staying right off of North Michigan Avenue if that means anything to anyone.

Toodles!

Posted by Cara at 09:31 AM | Comments (30)

June 26, 2006

PS: Forever in Blue Jeans

All I did yesterday was SPIN! I was so inspired by all of the spinners - old and new - at Saturday's gathering that I couldn't help myself. And I was so tired I didn't want to have to think or use any brain power whatsoever. So I watched like 8 hours of Another World and spun up this GORGEOUS blue merino from Amy at Spunky Eclectic. It's Moonflower - part of the almost solid series - but I think it should be called Forever in Blue Jeans.

I'm one of those people who drops trou the minute they walk in the door and leaves the clothes wherever they find the floor. So yesterday I was spinning in the bedroom and out of the corner of my eye I was constantly seeing my favorite pair of jeans (read the only pair that fits my fat ass these days) on the floor (pretty close to the closet door but more towards the middle of the walkway) and they looked JUST like the fiber I was spinning up.

This is my first attempt with merino and I have to say I'm really proud of how I'm doing. It's a bit overspun in spots when I forget that I've got the drive band set on the lowest whorl and I'm treadling away like a madwoman, but for the most part it's good. I'm going to finish up the little bit I have left of the first 4oz today and hopefully ply it all tonight. I think it's a nice sportweight and I'm very tempted to make a pair of socks out of it. Depends on how much I get from the 4oz. I have another 4oz of this so if I get a lot I may make a shawl or something. We'll see.

I promise a nice long post about Saturday but I'm really beat and need to process it all. When I talked to Shana and found out we had a place, I totally lost it. Tears and everything. I was just so relieved. Thank you again Shana and thank you Kim McNeal at the Parks Dept. Seriously rocking my world.

There's still LOTS to do with Spin Out. The registry will close on Friday - but as of right now we've raised $13,467!!!! There are a few more prizes to announce and I can tell you right now that prizes will not be awarded until after July 4th. I'm sorry about the delay - but my family's coming up to visit Friday thru Wednesday and I still haven't received all of the prizes to put together gift packages. So I'm not going to kill myself about it all. I know you know that it will all get out and things will be GRAND! THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!

Here's something for some of you to think about: I'm coming to CHICAGO! Yarn crawl anyone? I'll be there the third weekend in July - Fri-Mon and while some of my time will be spent with G, it's a work thing for him so I'll be on my own a lot too. Let's plan something!! (ETA: Um, I meant the weekend of the 15th. I figured that's the third weekend because the 1st is on a Saturday. So sorry!)

PS:
Is this you? Or someone you know?

I've had a request for information about the spindle you were using on Saturday, but I'm sorry, I forgot your name! Can you leave me a comment so I can get in touch with you? Thank you so much!

Posted by Cara at 01:02 PM | Comments (38)

June 05, 2006

500

This is my 500th post. And wouldn't you know, I couldn't come up with a good title.

There isn't any knitting. I think I finally finished the heel flap on my second Heat Wave sock, but I have to count again. I really miss my squares and I just don't feel like knitting anything else. So I spin....

I've had this Dudley Spinner tie-dyed roving in my stash since I first bought my spindle. I don't have a lot of it - I think that's about 3 3/4 oz so I wanted to make sure I could REALLY spin before I used it. I first saw the Dudley Spinner roving spun up at Mary's and I was INSTANTLY inspired. For some reason, when I pulled it out this weekend, I thought it was merino. I was all set to tackle merino - to see what I could do with it! And I couldn't believe how well I was doing. It wasn't until I went to look up which colorway the fiber was (Mattie in case you're interested, but I don't think she does repeats on anything) I realized that it's a wool blend. Maybe there's some merino in there, maybe not. Obviously, no matter how well I think I'm doing, I'm still a newbie. Merino, not merino, I'm very pleased with the results!





I've got about 220 yds here and it's probably overspun and overplied but this yarn is EXACTLY why I spin. So I'm happy.

And I'm ECSTATIC about how things are going with the SPIN OUT and the Registry! Do you see the total today? Over $3300! THAT'S AMAZING! I'm so thankful to all of you who've donated! Just FANTASTIC! I'm adding some new prizes today as well: Heather over at All Things Heather is putting together some hand-dyed yarns for us and Peggy at Rivers Edge Wool & Fibre has promised us some handspun yarn and vintage knitting needles. Thank you ladies! AND Tom Diak of Grafton Fibers has graciously donated a Swan Drop Spindle, a crochet hook and a pair of US8 circular needles! His woodwork is just gorgeous - make sure you check it out. Thank you TOM!

THANK YOU ALL!

Posted by Cara at 10:04 AM | Comments (23)

June 02, 2006

The Beat Goes On

Did you see!?!?!? (Check the sidebar!) We're over HALF WAY THERE!!! I'm so excited. Thank you all SO MUCH! This means so much to me. YOU ROCK!

After my marathon spinning weekend, I haven't done much spinning or knitting. I did finish plying up what I could of the Spunky Eclectic Tahiti Biffle:

It's even thinner than the stuff I plied the other day! Socks - here I come!! I think I'm going to practice on some Merino I have in the stash before I dip into the really really really cool stuff:





That's The Beat Goes On on the top and Mustang Sally on the bottom. Fiber from Teyani over at Crown Mountain Farms so I can spin my own Sock Hop Sock Yarn! How great is that! I'm so excited to spin this stuff up, but I have to practice practice practice first. I want to knit my own handspun socks. It's nice to have goals! Wish me luck!

My sister had a great day at her first day of work yesterday. Ah to be 24 and beautiful and smart and have the world at your feet. I have to admit, I'm a little jealous. It's so great to see her so excited - she's been looking for awhile, trying to decide what she wants to do, and this job seems to be the perfect fit for her. And it will be really nice to have her so close. She was in Michigan for college. It's kind of funny - when I went to college in NYC she was five and she would come and stay with me and sleep in my dorm room and now she's all grown up. Man I feel old.

Oh yeah and did I mention WE'RE GOING TO SEE BRUCE!!!!!!?! Only 18 days and counting! Yeah Baby! Everyone I've spoken to who's seen the new shows says their AMAZING! If you have AOL, you can catch a glimpse - they're showing clips from each night of the US concerts. Oh Mary Don't You Weep is my absolute favorite from the album - I listen to it over and over and over again. Bliss!

Have a great weekend! DON'T FORGET TO DONATE! THANK YOU!
L, C

PS - I just arranged to have my new stove installed on 06/06/06. That's a good thing, right?

Posted by Cara at 12:50 PM | Comments (20)

May 30, 2006

It's a LOVE Game

So it's "officially" Summer. Summer and I don't get along. Almost all of my mental breakdowns have occured during the Summer. Add to that I hate being hot. ( I'm talking humid city heat not breezy by the sea heat or even dry 2 inches from a pool desert heat.) Also, this is the time when I become a tennis widow. G and I have spent sixteen summers together and every summer that I've known him he's spent the majority of every weekend on the tennis court. In the olden days, when I was young and hot (the sexy kind of heat), with long flowing hair and a twenty yr old body, I used to go to the tennis courts at the park and lay out in my bikini. Yeah. Not so much anymore. That was the first Summer we were together and I was trying to impress. Pretty much every Summer after that one I bitched and moaned and cried when tennis came around. Stay with me. Play with me. Don't leave me alone. As the years went on I would try to find something, anything to occupy my time while he was out doing his raquet thing. And then I found knitting. My Summers are now blissfully free of heat and loneliness and even the breakdowns aren't as bad as they used to be. With the airconditioning set to frigid and a good movie on the tube I can while away the hours while G plays tennis happy as a clam. Now when he tells me he's leaving for the courts, I say see ya! And when he tells me he's sorry he's home late I say, wha? Late? I think, these days, he's actually missing me. ;-)

I was hoping to work on the squares this weekend but I had a problem with the yarn so I'm still waiting. Instead, giving that I'm up to my ears in organizing the SPIN OUT, I thought I should take some time getting reacquainted with my wheel.

Reacquainted my ass. We, my wheel and I, are now inseparable. Bosom buddies. Lovers even.

I finally finished plying the remaining Hot Flash Biffle. If you remember, I was overjoyed at my results with the first Hot Flash plying adventure. This weekend was no different:

I was so happy that I could still ply after my lesson, being as I haven't touched my wheel (I think, literally) since then. In the end things were either overplied or overspun because the skein was pretty twisty when I took it off the niddy noddy, but everything straightened out with a nice wash and hang. I'm very pleased with it and I've got another 8oz.

I have to say though, I was getting sick of Hot Flash, for the time being at least, but I definitely WASN'T sick of spinning. And since I had three days of tennis to get through, I took out some of Amy Boogie's Spunky Eclectic Biffle in the Tahiti colorway to play with. I've got 12 oz. of this and spun up 4.

This is about as nice as it gets - this fiber is prepared so so well. It just falls apart in strips and you barely have to predraft at all. This is the absolute best spinning I've done to date. The singles were even and thin and the whole time I was spinning it up I was thinking of what I could knit with it. I think I might take a page from Wendy and make a shawl, but I'm not sure I'll have enough. I'm still not sure how to figure out how much yarn I have - you know - that pesky math. I counted 65 strands when it was hanging - so do I multiply that by 4, then multiply that by 18", the size of my niddy noddy? Anyway, I love this stuff and therefore you will see lots of nice pictures.









Gorgeous, isn't it? Tonight I'm going to ply up what's left on the bobbins and then start spinning more. The most important thing to come out of this weekend is that I definitely feel like I've conquered Biffle (Blue Faced Leicester) and am ready to move onto something a little more difficult. I'm not sure what yet, but I may tackle some of the merino in my stash to see how things go. I'm going to need to learn Merino soon because I ordered two different fiber colorways from Teyani so I can spin up my own Sock Hop socks!

Speaking of which, when I wasn't spinning I was knitting on my Heat Wave sock.

I'm still absolutely LOVING this yarn. I think next I'm going to knit up the American Pie colorway - hopefully I'll have a pair in time for July 4th.

SPIN OUT stuff continues! I had a great talk with Linda Cortright today, the editor of Wild Fibers Magazine. She asked me to write an article about the event! And photograph it! We're getting a page in the magazine. How COOL is that!? She also offered up three subscriptions as prizes. If you haven't seen it already, there are amazing prizes to be had in the Raffle benefiting Heifer International. I started the raffle in conjunction with the SPIN OUT, but they are two separate things. The registry will close on June 30th - a week after the SPIN OUT. You don't have to come to the SPIN OUT to participate. You don't have to spin to participate. All you have to do is spend (at least) $10 on a great cause and you will have a chance to WIN lots of FANTASTIC prizes. I'm adding new prizes everyday and right now I have more prizes than I have potential winners. I'm hoping you can all help me change that. Go HERE for all the relevant information. Thank you so much.

Car news soon. Like tomorrow. The pictures are taken I just have to work on them a little bit.
Have a great day!
L, C

Posted by Cara at 04:55 PM | Comments (29)

March 21, 2006

PS: I love PINK!

Who knew?! I'm not a girly girl by any stretch of the imagination. I wear comfortable shoes. I don't wear make-up. I really couldn't care less about my clothes as long as they aren't binding and don't make me look much fatter than I already am. The only thing I spend money on appearance wise is my hair, which I cut and color regularly and have for years.

So what's the fascination with PINK? I don't know but I've been loving it lately. I have a few pink shirts and a great pair of pink courderoys that I love to wear and lots of pink in my socks.

You can imagine how happy I am with this month's Project Spectrum color. SO. HAPPY. I told you all how I was going to use this particular a-long to concentrate on my spinning and man am I glad I did! I was sort of in a panic and didn't get my roving in time for the start of the month, but I'm making up for it now. I called my favorite intrepid dyer, Tina, and asked her to bail me out. She sent me 8oz of HOT FLASH Biffle (and I've got another 8oz on the way!)



Oh my god this stuff is GORGEOUS! (Photographing it, though, is very difficult. Reds and pinks by extension get very very constrasty and your exposure has to be spot on and even then lightening or darkening even a little bit is very difficult and the colors never seem true. This is the best I could do.) Predrafting it has been a DREAM.



On the left is a third of the big hank. Then split in two. Then the final draft of the middle strand. Predrafting, it turns out, is key to spinning, thank you very much. Essential. This was by far the best spinning experience I've had so far. My last attempts taught me much about tension and the revolutions of the wheel and spin and this time out I paid very close attention to the feel of the yarn beneath my fingers. I set the drive band on the second whorl and therefore was able to treadle at my usual slow-ish pace but still get a really nice spin to the yarn. I felt the spin travel down the fiber under my fingertips and for the first time I think I really, really got it.



I made yarn. Every now and again I did the Claudia test and pulled it out from the bobbin to test it's sturdiness. Yup. I made yarn. I'd like to think that 99% of this bobbin is actual yarn and will not pull apart when I go to ply it. I now know that in all my previous attempts I was NOT getting enough spin on the wheel - therefore there wasn't enough spin in the yarn. It was falling apart all over the place.



Besides figuring out what SPIN actually is in the yarn - feeling it - really feeling it for the first time it seemed, this Biffle drafts like freaking butter. This is the most even yarn I've spun. And even then I was deliberate about it - pulling it back if it was thin in places and breaking off and rejoining the fiber to thicken it up, or pulling it out and respinning thicker parts. I wasn't successful all the time, but I tried to be conscious of what I was doing. And I think it shows.



I had the MOST FUN last night. Just a blast. Thanks Tina and thank you Lolly for the inspiration of Project Spectrum! Tina sent me some beautiful Red Biffle as well, but I don't think I'll be able to spin it up before the end of the month - especially since I'm going to try to get the whole pound of this pink stuff spun up. It's too good! I ordered some batts from Grafton Fibers today for next month's challenge too. I can't wait!

Posted by Cara at 12:43 PM | Comments (27)

March 02, 2006

Fat Thursday

Mardi Gras
Lisa Souza Biffle
approximately 380 yds.

It looks so pretty right? Well looks can be deceiving. Check out the back side of the skein. It's positively skanky. (Click on it for a bigger look. I'm not sure what's going on because some of the ugliest parts seemed to have plied well. Is it just that I need to set the twist?)

Let this be a lesson to you: DON'T FUCK WITH YARMA*. Yesterday I made the beyond beginner's mistake over at Rock Chick's by mentioning that I thought plying was easy. HAHAHAHAHAHA! Yarma! That cruel bitch laughs at me and then makes me stay up until 2AM skeining and re-skeining and damn it took me like five hours to ply this crap! I bow to you YARMA! You are my queen! (And I was even spinning in front of the exorcised yarn cabinet. A lot of good practically setting my house on fire did for me!)

Anyway, before you all tell me how great it looks - it looks so sloppy to me! I was so excited about my nice even singles and when I said yesteray that the more you spin the more it covers up all the shit on the bobbins I was RIGHT! Maybe I just really do suck at plying? Could it be that the skein is too large and I should break it up into two smaller skeins? I haven't set the twist yet because as I said I was up until after 2 dealing with this and this morning I wanted to take pictures which actually suck because it's snowing today and there's like no light in the apartment and I refuse to use a flash. And I got that 380 yds number by measuring the niddy noddy length (17") and then counting how many strands there were on one side(203) then multiplying the number by 4 then by 17 then dividing by 36. Right?

Back to my yarn. I thought it would be so much nicer. I might not like the colors so much, that's true, but I really thought it was going to be better this time. It seems just like the last stuff I plied and yes I was all happy about that stuff, but that's because it was the first stuff I ever made. I wanted to feel like I made progress.

Ugly



Pretty

Any and all advice is greatly appreciated.

*Yarma: Last night I was talking to my brother and telling him about the whole Ikea debacle and I told him about the exorcism and I said I didn't want bad Yarn Karma and he said, "Yeah. Yarma."

Good Yarma: Anybody who participates in this or this has it in spades.
Bad Yarma: What happens to you when you don't kiss the knit goddess's ASS. "Oh that's easy! I can [knit/spin/crochet/put your fiber related activity here] that with my eyes closed!"

Posted by Cara at 09:53 AM | Comments (29)

March 01, 2006

Project Spin

I know I said I was going to work on Short Rows, but really, that's about weaving in ends so any distraction is welcome. Luckily, procrastination projects are close at hand as this is the first day of

the brain child of superfantastic librarian/historian extraordinaire, Lolly. As soon as I heard about Lolly's idea to concentrate on certain colors during each month, I KNEW it would be about spinning for me. One of the main reasons I got into spinning was because of all the color possibilities - mixing colors in fibers, making my own barberpole yarns, dyeing even, maybe?

Last night I got out the old wheel. (Yeah, yeah. I know it's brand spanking new. Don't think that its lily whiteness doesn't remind of my newbie status at every turn. I'm a dink-ass nub.) I've missed the ol' girl. I took her up to Boston, but she got barely a workout.

Enough, though, that Claudia was able to give me some excellent advice which I incorporated into my spinning routine right away. She noticed that I was spinning, but I wasn't actually making yarn. Which, in retrospect, I knew all along. She suggested that I move the drive band lower on the Mother of All so that I could treadle at the same speed, but have the wheel make more revolutions. Yes?



Things were a bit funky at first, but the beauty of spinning is that the more yarn you make, the faster it covers up the icky stuff with lovely, evenly spun yarn.









I know it's not pink or red, but I love the yarn. And as I mentioned yesterday, Jan sent me more of this great Lisa Souza Biffle (Mardi Gras colorway) which I plan on diving into later today. Have I told you lately that I LOVE spinning? It's been a while since I sat down at the wheel for some extended spinning and last night I spun up around 4 oz. and it was heavenly. The best part - G loves when I spin too. He loves to watch my feet treadle and he loves the whir the wheel makes as it goes round and round. He's been pretty crazy at work, so it's a nice break for him and me. Perfect!

Back to Project Spectrum. As I said, my goal is to spin yarn in the colors assigned to the month. I was behind in figuring things out fiber wise - I want to try some Grafton Fiber batts because I hear so much about their goodness, but they won't get here in time so that will have to be for next month. In the meantime, my friend Tina is special dyeing some Biffle for me! Yay! I can hardly wait for the pink and red goodness.

So that I can start the month off right, here are a couple of pink and red pictures. (I know - the sky picture's been getting a workout lately, but I just love it so much!) Enjoy!

Posted by Cara at 01:41 PM | Comments (24)

February 06, 2006

Red Hot And...Fizzling?

I like that word. Fizzle.

My weekend was eh. G had to work a lot so I was kind of lonely. PMSy. And I learned that miscommunications, misunderstandings and hurt feelings make me headachy and tired and a bit sad. So eh.

I also learned that our virtual relationships leave a lot of room for interpretation by virtue of the fact that they are virtual. We learn so much about each other through unspoken language: body movements, facial expressions, voice inflections. Just the other day I was talking to my sister while she was picking up my niece at school. She told my niece there was someone on the phone for her. I heard my niece ask if it was Cara? But her sweet little voiced raised so high at the end of my name that I could hear her surprise (talking to Cara on the phone at the playground at school? What fun!) and delight that I was lifted even higher than her voice! All that very important non-verbal communication is missing from email and blog posts and what might be a heartfelt admission or admonition or constructive criticism or a plain old pat on the back can be received in a way that was much much different than the deliverer intended. I teach my students this all the time. When we do critique in my classroom, the student being "workshopped" (yes - it is a verb) is not allowed to speak at all. Why you ask? This seems cruel when everyone is sitting around discussing their story - the good the bad and the ugly? Well, for one thing, when you write and hopefully your story goes out into the world, you will not be able to sit by the reader and say - no no! I didn't mean that! I meant this! You're reading it all wrong!!! The writing must stand on its own. And while you can never guarantee that your readers will always get exactly what you intended - by the sheer fact that they bring along all of their stuff and you brought along all your stuff in the writing and that stuff will never match up - you can try to get your point across as best you can and hope that the broad idea of what you wanted is out there.

Most of us are not sitting in a room together, or talking on the phone - most of us have never even met each other! But good or bad our words carry weight and what we say when we blog means lots of different things to different people. While I certainly don't expect everyone to read my blog or even like my blog, I would hope it would be clear that when I blog, I try to blog the way I try to live: with respect for everyone.

Whew! I feel a bit better now.

Onto the Red and Hot and I'm not really sure about the Sizzling.

(What a difference white balance can make! The only difference in exposures on these two pictures is that top had the white balance set to Auto and the bottom had the white balance set to sunny. Neat huh?)

Here are my red hot sizzling socks. Ruby Slippers, STR, Jaywalkers with a picot edge, size #1 Addis. Can I tell you? I don't LOVE these socks. I like them very, very, very, very, very much but I don't love them. The pattern is great, true, the picot edge is the cutest, true, the yarn is fantastic as always. It's the color I don't love. And the striping. The STR colorways I like the best are the ones with lots of different colors - making little stripes everywhere. These are too blocky and the stripes are too thick. But I have to tell you I like them A LOT better on my feet than I did on the needles. They are definitely growing on me. For anyone keeping count, this is my seventh full pair of jaywalkers. ;-) (I've actually got eight pair finished, but one's mismatched so I don't count it.)

There was some spinning this weekend!

I went back to the biffle and MAN was I a lot happier! This is Lisa Souza's biffle in the Mardi Gras colorway. About 2 oz. G's out again tonight so I'm hoping to spin up the rest and try my plying head. I hope it all holds together - it seems so fragile at times. And a lot fuzzier than I remember! I'm still basically spinning to spin and get the hang of things, but it's all good. I enjoyed myself last night which is the most important and I'm happy with the way it's going.

I finished the Jo Sharp swatch, which I think I'll talk about tomorrow, and I made some really good headway with the ends on Short Rows. Thanks to a comment by Anmiryam, I've been weaving in the ends between split purl bumps in the most crowded of places and that seems to be working. I've got somewhere to wear the sweater now - I'll be in Boston at the end of February, so I need to get it done by then. Goals. They're good sometimes. (Speaking of goals - go wish Anmiryam good luck! She's pursing her dreams and we should all be encouraged in that! YAY Anmiriyam!)

Have a great day!

Posted by Cara at 02:20 PM | Comments (38)

January 17, 2006

The Skankiest Skanks of All Skanks

Hizzle is my frizzle homizzle biffle, fo shizzle!

Yo, yo, yo! I'm a spinner now, so I will be referring to my Blue Faced Leicester by it's street name, Biffle. Yo Mama.

Okay, here's the 411. The green skank is the Spring Green Biffle from Lisa Souza first seen here. Friday night was my first attempt at plying and man did I suck! I'm getting that this whole spinning thing means completely and totally fucking things up on your first few go arounds. Now that I understand, I'm down with that. The yarn (if you could call it that in places) came apart a few times (Knots. They are your friend.) I couldn't get the two singles to freaking stay on the leader yarn. Eventually I got it all going and man was it fun! To see the little barberpoles wrapping around each other - I was so, so pumped! Once I was done I did the whole niddy noddy thing and ta da! A SKANK! A beautiful, fantastic, oh my god I made this SKANK! I wore it around my neck while I called everyone I knew to tell them that I HAD MADE THIS!!!!! (I even called Lisa Souza out in California, ostensibly to ask her advice on setting the twist, but really just to tell her I MADE YARN!!!!) Of course, when G got home from work and saw it hanging in the bathroom, because, well basically I dragged him in there to see it, he was, as usual, completely and utterly impressed. Thank you my love! Let's look a few more pictures, shall we?

Oh my god - look how AWFUL! Half of it isn't even plied and it's all knotty and loose and thick and thin and isn't it GORGEOUS?! I will never knit with this, I will wear it around my neck like a most precious jewel.

Clearly I was taken with the yarn. Ya think? So on Saturday I dove into my fiber stash and came up with some gorgeous Biffle from Amy Boogie of Spunky Eclectic in the Popsicle colorway. I'm not sure, but I think I improved A LOT.

Okay so this one is so unbelievably beautiful it made me cry. THIS YARN is exactly why I bought a wheel. I spun the singles and plied it all on Saturday - 4 oz. It's still thick and thin but I did much better with the plying. MUCH better. And the biffle is incredibly soft. I wear this one wrapped around my neck twice like a fantabulous scarf. With all the yarn wrapped around my neck I look like some kind of ancient queen. I am royalty and I am the yarn I spin.

I was pretty funny carrying the skank still hanging on a hanger and a touch wet along with my wheel to go out for my first spin-in with Jen on Sunday. The Essex County Handspinners, eh, Club, for lack of a better word (I don't think you can really call it a guild at all) was having a spinning demonstration at Modern Yarn in Montclair and I kidnapped Jen to give her a break. It was really nice sitting around and spinning with a bunch of like-minded ladies. Elisa, the woman who heads up the Palisades Handspinners Guild was giving the demonstration and she brought a long a bunch of samples of her own yarns. She also gave me lesson on the Charkha. Very cool. I had brought some Corriedale to spin - some of my practice fibers and I happily spun along - just like I belonged there. No one pointed at me and laughed. No one looked at my spinning and said Oh It looks WONDERFUL in that tone of voice that tells you god help you woman get a real job. And they all liked my socks. ;-) Jaywalkers. Rock Star. The Originals.

Of course it's always wonderful to spend time with my great friend Jen. We've been through a lot, Jen and I, in the years (has it been two already Jen - or 18 months?) that we've known each other. Seriously some heavy shit. And on Sunday we had yet another bonding experience. In a scene STRAIGHT out of Hitchcock, we were attacked by killer pigeons. I SHIT YOU NOT. I parked my car on Church Street in Montclair and Jen and I got out and I went into the back seat to get out my wheel. As we were walking away I noticed all these birds flying around my car. I hate birds. They scare the shit out of me. I've been attacked by birds before - don't ask, but I have. Anyway, so these birds are LANDING on my car. Yeah. With their scratchy pointy talons they're landing on my car. I think to myself G is going to shit. So I go back to the car and lightly hit the hood and they all scatter. We start to walk away again and I'm all like what the fuck with the birds and then I see them landing on someone else's car so I'm like okay whatever. Jen and I cross the street and we're walking up Church to get to the yarn store when I turn back to look at my car and THE BIRDS ARE FOLLOWING US!!!! The whole freaking flock of birds is like chasing us up the street. By this time Jen and I are both picking up our steps and are like what are the birds DOING? Make them STOP! They were EVERYWHERE!!!! We were practically running and crying and saying STOP STOP STOP. Make the birds STOP! It was VERY traumatic. VERY. We finally got into the store all out of breath and completely freaked out. I don't know what the hell the birds were thinking. I mean it's not like I have peanut butter mixed with bird seed caked all over my body. Jen can totally back me up on this. It was really freaky scary. I hate birds. Well, not all birds I guess, just the ones that fly around outside all unrestrained and menacing like. Rats with wings I tell you.

But, hell, I'm a spinner. It's all good.

PS - Happy Birthday sweet boy. Your Aunt Cara loves you so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so much!

Posted by Cara at 01:17 AM | Comments (44)

January 10, 2006

It's getting better all the time!

My spinning, that is! This is Lisa Souza's Blue Faced Leicester in Spring Green. I'm very happy with it - still not as even as Norma's singles, but more even than yesterday's Coopworth. My plan is to finish spinning half on this bobbin, and then spin the rest on the second bobbin and PLY! Hopefully by the end of the week. That's my goal.

I spent a decent amount of time preparing the fiber yesterday. It helped tremendously. And I tried to spin S L O O O W.

I was very productive throughout the day - I read in the morning, blogged, finished up two reprint jobs, sent them out, went to the grocery store, read more in the evening, spun for an hour, made dinner and finished the evening off knitting! I was quite proud of myself. Today, not so much, but I've read for the morning and I'm off to knit with a friend in need for the rest of the day.

Have a great day!
L, C

Posted by Cara at 12:37 PM | Comments (28)

January 09, 2006

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

Last week I didn't spin much, but when I did I was using some of the beautiful handpainted rovings I have in my fiber stash, and basically, well, ruining it. NO MORE. So after a couple of emails with Cassie, I ordered a bunch of practice fiber: 1/2 lb. of Romney, 1/2 lb. of Corriedale, 1/2 lb. of Coopworth (from Halcyon) and 1 lb. of Blue Faced Leicester from WEBS.

Yesterday I spun up almost the entire 1/2 lb. of Coopworth - that's what's in the picture above. I had a really good time. I've narrowed down my problems to drafting and treadling. ;-) No really - the drafting was really hard on some of the handpainted stuff I was spinning but I realize now it's because I wasn't PREdrafting enough. I was ripping it apart into smaller strips but I wasn't pulling it apart at all to get it less compacted. Today I'm going to try some of the BFL I bought from Lisa Souza - I figure after all that white yesterday I'm allowed a little bit of a treat today. And it's green - which isn't my favorite color these days so I'm not TOO concerned if I screw it all up. The treadling problem? Well, I've slowed that down considerably and I think that's helped a lot. Thanks to Ann, I also found a sort of close by guild. And someone to give me lessons! I think I'm going to have one next week.

I've been thinking a lot about the spinning - in a kind of zen way - and I'm working my way up to a nice long post about it. Not yet though.

My anxiety's been kicking my ass a little bit too - I think it's kind of a there was so much going on the last two months of the year and then the birthday and new years and now there isn't so much to think about so why not go back to the bad place and make yourself crazy kind of thing. You know? I'm working on it though. I do have a big project to get out by the 20th, but I can't do it all day long or I really WILL go crazy. I'm trying to work on it in the mornings (hence later blogging) because if I leave it to the afternoon I inevitably fall asleep. (It's a lot of reading work.) So I set a goal for the morning, and then go back to it in the afternoon and if I fall asleep, well, that's okay because I've already hit the goal in the morning. How smart am I?

There's been jaywalker progress over the weekend, but honestly, I'm afraid to show you a picture. After Friday's update, I think like THIRTY NEW PEOPLE signed up for the KAL! How insane is that? Kathy and I had a little bit of a it's your fault, no it's your fault kind of thing going on - she blames me, I blame her, but really , it can't be MY fault. I mean, SHE wrote the superfantastic pattern sweeping blogland. I told her - if it wasn't such a great pattern I wouldn't be knitting it over and over and over again and neither would anyone else. Right? So it's her fault. ;-)

Posted by Cara at 01:31 PM | Comments (29)

December 28, 2005

The Mother of All

Posted by Cara at 02:58 PM | Comments (40)

December 21, 2005

Give Me Five Good Reasons

why I SHOULDN'T call Toni right now and order this.

I'm not sure what my problem is - I've got the go ahead from G. My birthday is eleven days away. I saw some gorgeous barberpole yesterday and about plotzed. So why don't you tell me the real reason I'm hesitating. Is it because I've never actually tried a Lendrum? But everyone I've talked to that has one absolutely LOVES it. No matter how many other wheels they have. I don't care about aesthetics. Honestly I don't. It's affordable. Versatile. A workhorse. From all accounts it will grow with me in all directions.

Is it because I don't know how to spin? I'm sure I can find someone to teach me, right? RIGHT? I've looked up guilds in my area and while there are lots it seems in New Jersey, they're all just a bit out of reach. I'd totally be into hiring someone to give me private lessons. That's always an option, right? Tina says Toni could teach me over the phone. I think she was serious.

Is it because I'm not sure I WANT to know how to spin? I know you can't help me here - but whenever I see those gorgeous explosions of color in some of the best barberpole yarns I've seen - I can't help myself. But other times, not so much.

[ETA because of Val's comment] - If I want a wheel anytime soon, I'm going to have to buy it site unseen. I tried a couple at Rhinebeck, but I'm impatient and I don't want to spend A LOT of money (read more than $500) and there really isn't anywhere close by for me to try a wheel. And all the places that do have wheels? Well, they don't sell Lendrums. So all of the test drive answers aside - give me OTHER reasons than I haven't sat in front of one. I KNOW that's the best way to do it, but it ain't happening any time soon.

Thanks for the help. Let me know what you think.

Grumperina asked a question the other day regarding who knows about your knitting and your blog and why you've chosen to tell about it. First off, I'm an open book. Spend ten minutes with me and you'll know my life history. There are plenty of people who can attest to this. I think a lot of this has to do with my anxiety. Sort of like, if I'm anxious, I almost feel the need to tell you I'm anxious, because somehow that takes away the anxiety. So you've got that aspect of my personality. Also, if I'm excited about something, I find it really hard to keep it to myself. I know you're all thinking, NO, Really? But it's true. So pretty much any stranger I meet knows about the knitting ten seconds into the conversation (of course, if I happen to be knitting when I meet them, well, then, it's faster.) The blog? The blog I might not blurt out in ordinary conversation - but I don't hide it either. My family and friends all know about it - but I don't think they really pay attention. No one reads it on a regular basis that I know of - except for my brother-in-law's friend Bill - hi Bill! And I'm not quite sure what he's getting out of it, I don't think he knits, but thanks for reading, Bill!

The blog is quite personal, I guess, but personal to ME. I don't really give away anything personal about anyone else. I'm sure there's some stuff G would rather I didn't say, but then again, he thinks the same thing when we're riding in an elevator. He's gotten used to it. He even posed for the blog! (See picture below.)

T Minus 11 Days and Counting

Happy Solstice!

Posted by Cara at 10:04 AM | Comments (37)

November 28, 2005

Spinner's Beware!

Forgot to mention - I had the freakiest dream this morning. I was in some kind of office setting and I was showing this young woman all of my fiber - and all the little balls/batts/whatever were wrapped up so pretty with bows and wrapping paper and I was telling her all the things she could do with the fiber. Like make clothes or something. I don't know where I went, but when I came back she was gone and so was all my fiber! She STOLE my fiber! I was running around telling everyone she stole it and I knew she didn't know how to spin, so when I found her I confronted her and told her that I had put a call into the syndicate (you know who you are) telling them NOT TO SPIN FOR HER! If she approached them, take the fiber and send it back to me.

I swear this was my dream.

That wheel can't come fast enough!

Posted by Cara at 11:35 AM | Comments (12)

July 28, 2005

Better, no?

Posted by Cara at 04:26 PM | Comments (14)

Hold Everything!!!

Look what just came in the mail!

From the lovely Juno! Thank you! Thank you! (You enablers are good, let me tell you!)

Hold my calls for awhile will you? I've got some stuff to spin....

Posted by Cara at 02:27 PM | Comments (3)

July 27, 2005

Thick and Thin

This counts, right?

Thank you, Claudia, so much for your instructions (see yesterday's comments!). I started there, and didn't get it. Went to the icanspin.com website and didn't get it. Found the Grafton Fibers tutorial and started to get it. Messed around a little bit - put the spindle down, did some stuff, picked it back up again. Got a lot frustrated (but didn't think about any of the bad stuff) and then I looked over Claudia's instructions again and GOT IT! You pinch with the right while you spin, then switch to the left - draft out some yarn with the right - then pinch higher up and let the twist travel to the pinch! Genius! I was off!

It was light when I started. Dark when I stopped. I think three hours went by. Not sure.

A question - see in the third picture how the yarn is kinking back on itself - is that supposed to happen, or do I have too much spin in the yarn. You really need to draft it thin to get thin yarn, huh.

I don't know. I'd like to think that some of the stuff I made is a little Manos like. And wow - those Manos people don't spend too much time spinning their stuff do they.

Thanks for all your good thoughts - yesterday wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and certainly not as bad as it could've been. And I'm confident today will be better. We're getting a new bed delivered so I have a lot to do around the house to keep me busy and my mind at rest. And a big, huge bag of fiber calling my name.

Posted by Cara at 08:39 AM | Comments (14)

July 20, 2005

Another One Bites the Dust

I caved. And really, what did it take? Fondling some amazing yarn? Two freaking days? A night of delicious dreams? If I tell you I've already bought the URL for www.barberpoleyarns.com with delusions of mass production will you laugh at me? That is, even more than you're already laughing.

Toni at The Fold tried to reign me in. I mean, I KNOW I interrupted their dinner, for pete's sake. But in the end I bought a Bosworth Midi in the Paduak wood. She talked me out of a second spindle. I'm insane. I feel nauseous. Then I felt like she was going to actually get off the phone with me after getting all my credit card info and I was like, wait, I'd like to buy some Fiber. And she said, why don't I throw some in for you - you know - so you don't feel any pressure (I had told her I was a beginner and all about my lofty barber pole dreams) and she said the price is right - it's for free, and I said that's great, thank you so much, but can I buy some other stuff, you know, something to look forward to? I swear she was laughing AT me. I walked away with 6+ ozs of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Targhee in a phenomenal Gold Rush colorway and 6+ ozs of Merino/Tussah in the Serendipity colorway which isn't online, but Toni described as purple and brown and green. I think. Honestly, I went with the name. Kind of the same way I went with the Paduak wood. Names mean a lot.

One thing I've definitely learned in all this is that I absolutely DON'T like hairy yarn. By that I mean angora (sorry little bunnies!), alpaca (sorry weird but cute llama/camel type animals) or mohair (sorry sheepies.) Now, of course, I realize that merino wool and its just-as-soft counterparts are hairy (I mean wool is kind of like hair, right), to a certain extent, but I think you know what I mean when I say hairy. Cashmere is definitely NOT hairy. The hairy stuff itches and I wouldn't want it actually touching my skin.

Oh, yeah, and to prove I'm no WUSS, I bid on TWO auctions on ebay last night and I WON BOTH!!!! More roving for me - from dudleyspinner because Mary's Yarn is just incredible!

It wasn't until an hour or two later that I realized that the whole time I was making these ridiculous purchases I was wearing my Maryland Sheep & Wool T-Shirt. Do you think that means anything?

I really do feel sick. I feel like I'm getting sucked into some kind of black hole vortex and I'll never knit again. Never write again. Never blog again. Never take another photograph. My head is literally spinning.

I will be okay, right?

PS - Bloglines isn't updating my feeds again, so if you haven't already, please read yesterday's post about Prudence Mapstone. I don't want anyone to miss it - her fiber arts are beyond imagination. Thank you for indulging me.

Posted by Cara at 12:08 AM | Comments (28)