It’s a LOVE Game

May 30, 2006 By

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 to
morrow. The pictures are taken I just have to work on them a little bit.
Have a great day!
L, C

Filed Under: Sock Hop Socks, Spin

PS: I love PINK!

March 21, 2006 By

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!

Filed Under: Project Spectrum, Spin

Fat Thursday

March 2, 2006 By

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!”

Filed Under: Spin

Project Spin

March 1, 2006 By

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!

Filed Under: Photographs, Project Spectrum, Spin

Red Hot And…Fizzling?

February 6, 2006 By

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!

Filed Under: Jaywalkers, Life, Spin

The Skankiest Skanks of All Skanks

January 17, 2006 By

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!

Filed Under: Spin

It’s getting better all the time!

January 10, 2006 By

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

Filed Under: Spin

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

January 9, 2006 By

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. 😉

Filed Under: Spin

The Mother of All

December 28, 2005 By

Filed Under: Spin

Give Me Five Good Reasons

December 21, 2005 By

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!

Filed Under: Spin
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