Archives for March 2005

Tummy is better. Thanks for asking. It really wasn’t that bad for that long. Just violent. Whew.

I got up this afternoon (finally managed to get some good day sleep!) and found the new Vogue Knitting magazine on my coffee table. The knitting elves have been very, very good to me. This will make my night at work tonight so much better. I usually save knitting magazines a) for work, when I need to escape in my mind the room that I physically can’t leave for 10-14 hours and b) the bathtub, if on my weekend. There ain’t NOTHIN’ like lying in that tub until the water runs cold, reading about knitting. Unless you’re me, and it’s within the last two weeks, and you’re reading about spinning. But you know what I mean.

[I just got an email from Lala, responding to my thanks for the magazine and she says: "I’m glad you like the magazine. I try to be a good provider. At least of the necessities."]

Yesterday I dyed my hair with a punky teenage Loreal color called Funky Cherry — came in a mousse can in a metallic package, and it was cheap, and I gotta say, if you’re gonna dye your hair, there is no better method than mousse. I don’t know why they all don’t come this way. It was thick and gloppy and I just pushed it into my hair and there were no drips, none at all. I did accidentally fling the can behind the toilet, spattering the back wall with blood-like drops, but I washed most of them off, and since the only time anyone will notice will be when the toilet is moved out of the way, I’m sure the person noticing the stains will have bigger problems.

And I curled my hair. I’m loving this longer haired thing — takes more time, but it’s fun. Here:

Okay. I’m going running now. And then back home to bathe, quickly, and then to spin again. I’m a woman possessed. I talk about it so much perhaps I don’t really have that much time to do it. Yesterday, I grabbed exactly 20 minutes to spin. Today I might get an hour or TWO before work, and that’s very exciting. Must run. Mwah!

You know what you really, really shouldn’t do? Eat a bunch of vitamins, and then ten minutes later eat some salt’n’vinegar chips. Five minutes later, feel really sick and bolt for the bathroom, hand over mouth, scaring co-workers. Find out only after scare that the vitamins were in a base of sodium bicarbonate.

Yes, I mixed vinegar and baking soda in my tummy. This clears drains, people. It was not fun. But the Exploratorium has a good bomb for you to try with the kids or when you’re up at four in the morning with nothing to do but mess around with kitchen supplies and listen to Dinah Washington. Or whatever. Not like I’d do that in my kitchen sink for fun. What do you take me for? 

Burp. Excuse me.

I’m having a hard time getting and staying online lately, something to do with my phone service. Normal people call the phone company when this happens, I suppose. Me? I was glad to have the time to spin. (Yes, I will write. But right NOW is for spinning.)

Seriously, it’s getting to be addictive. I slept three hours in a total of sixty over the weekend, mostly because the four hour slot I was supposed to sleep on Saturday night (extra shift on Easter) was used up with fiber insomnia. What if I hold the wool like this? What if I adjusted the band just this way? What would it be like to spin alpaca? The question was raised why I just didn’t get up and spin a little while, and the answer was: I was too MAD about being awake. So I just kept my eyes squinched shut, willing myself to sleep, watching the wheel spin ’round in my head.

Is this how crazy starts? It might be.

Now, when I think of MDSW, I’m thinking about roving and combed top, not yarn and cute little sheepdogs (yes, we’re going! Woot!). (Also: When I think of MDSW, I think of what my friend Monica heard when I said it out loud: "Maryland Sheep and Wolf Festival." She was horrified. Let’s all call it that, shall we?)

And before I run back to the wheel (o lovely lovely wool), I must show you what I got over the weekend, in addition to the best homemade enchiladas ever.

I got some Cadbury Creme Eggs.

Forty-eight, to be exact. (Lala bought fifty-two, actually, but her brother got some along the way, as is right and good.) She just kept pulling them out of bags, and then more bags. Boxes and boxes of happiness. Sheer chocolate goodness. Come on over. I have plenty.

And in fact, I have the Last Egg in Oakland. We hit the stores yesterday, looking for sales, but all we could find was this one, which Lala found abandoned at the bottom of a cart full of scary sugary baskets.

Yes, that’s Koigu. No, I didn’t set up the purse to highlight the wool — if I had, I now realize it would have been good form to have moved the pad. Oh, wells.

Now. Back to spinning and eggs and the imminent but welcome sugar crash.

This makes me happy. Thanks to Quantum Tea for the link.

I’ve got some questions, yo. These are about spinning, so if your eyes glaze over, scroll to the bottom where I’ll post a picture of something. Not sure what yet. Oooh! A surprise! Even to me!

So: Dear Janine taught me the long-draw method, using the folded over bunch of staple-length fiber held like an egg in my hand. I’ve been doing it like this: Pulling out five or ten such little bundles and lining them up on the couch, grabbing them as I go. It works well, even though as yet I’m only able to make a consistent worsted-weight-thickness single. I can’t seem to go any lighter-weight than this, which kind of precludes any kind of plying, since with my gauge, I could never work with bulky weight yarn. I’d get 3 stitches per football field or something.

And somehow, even though this is quite silly, I have a yen to hold the whole mess of top in my lap and spin right off it. I see that the Yarn Harlot (let me just say that she is my hero. Yours too. I know) has a fab tutorial that somehow I missed because I wasn’t spinning and must have glazed right through, as you’re doing if you don’t spin. (I’m telling you, skip to the bottom.) Her method seems brilliant. And she explains it well: If you do it this way, you get good yarn. But but but… But. I’m whiny. That seems like so much WORK. But I’m planning on trying it. Maybe this afternoon. I should totally go for a run, but the wheel is sitting there, calling me with its siren songs, daring me to crash on the slubby rocks.

Okay, this: How do you spin? What’s your fave method? The more descriptive you are, the more I’ll gape in admiration and appreciation. Fave links? I’ve been to Joy of Handspinning, and I know I need to buy Spin Off mag (anyone in the Bay Area have any old copies they’d like to offload or lend?). What’s your favorite trick? In other words: HELP!

Thanks. So here you go:

(This actually means I leave this page and go to my picture file and decide which old photo to lay on you today, since I ain’t got nothin’ new.)

(I’m back. And you lucked out — I took it way back, to last May when I was back east.)

Tulips in Central Park:

Bethany in Central Park:

Em (in Rosedale), Cari, Sadie, and Diego. I *love* this shot. Alison was there in spirit that night, too.

And finally, me wigging out at the Happiest Place on Earth, MDSW:

Don’t forget to stock up on Cadbury Creme Eggs this weekend! And on Monday, when they go on sale! Unless you live in Oakland, of course. Then you’re totally not allowed to buy more than three. I’ve got needs.

Happy weekend!

You know when you’re thinking something, and you know it’s a bad thing, and you hope no one thinks the same thing, so you keep doing what you’re doing and keep hoping no one will notice? Yeah, you know what I mean. You just keep plugging along, thinking, Oh, hell. No. You’re wrong. No one will say that. I’m just crazy.

And then your coworker says, "That sweater makes me want a Big Mac. You gonna wear a Ronald McDonald red wig with that? Maybe you should go on down there and tell ’em you want a job." And later, when I was actually ON my way to McDonald’s, "Hey! You forgot your sweater! You could get a discount!"

I got all pissy. I called her names. I think I might have flipped her off. I acted like I hadn’t been thinking it all along.

And then I talked myself into thinking it was funny. Like it would endear me to the sweater. Won’t it be great to have a Fast Food Cardi? Everyone will want one. That is, they’ll want one when they come back from their food run that they suddenly had to make — they haven’t had a cheeseburger in years, but just sitting near me made the visions of 2-pickles-onions-lettuce dance in their heads.

Here it is. Camera phone shot, but believe me — this is the classic red/orange married with brilliant yellow of all your childhood happy-meal dreams.

I was gonna put more yellow around the vee-neck and the button bands, but I don’t think I can now. I tried it on and just stood there, thinking. I love red and yellow. I adore them together. But this….. Even if I did stick to my guns and finish it, every single time I put it on, I would think about Ronald. Every time I got out of the car, I would wonder if people thought I was on break from taking orders (not that there’s anything wrong with that, god forbid. I just don’t want something I make to look like a fast-food uniform). No matter what I tell myself, it’s just not going to happen.

I think I might rip the yellow out and add black rolled bands instead. Oooh! Or attached i-cord! Or white, as a summery contrast. Or hell, orange.

Sigh. Now I want a bacon-egg-n-cheese biscuit….

Oh, man. I was kinda kidding when I said that. But now I’m not.