Windmills of My Mind

I know it’s been a while since my last real post, so I wanted to let you guys know I’m still here!  Actually, I’ve been having quite the time trying to think of something to write about, and I guess I’ve just been busier than I realize with work, finding another part-time job, building my resume and filling out applications (and preparing for a possible interview--no more on that since I don't want to jinx it), and cleaning out my closets, dresser drawers, and *gulp* the stash (which wasn't as much of a yarn stash as it was a useless junk stash).  That’s been a major undertaking with all the crap I’ve accumulated. 

Anyway, I thought this would be a good time to take a breather, and to share some of what's been going on lately.

 

 Back to School?

 

Normally at this time of year, I would already be sucked into the mad whirlwind that is back-to-school season:  getting ready for classes, complaining about textbook prices, cramming the car with all the essentials and nonessential alike,  moving back into the apartments. 

Now that I've graduated, I'm kind of in that awkward in-between phase where I'm happy I don't have to board that crazy train, but at the same time, I kind of, maybe, almost miss it.  I think it might be the nostalgia for a more idealized version of school; I might be a victim of what I have dubbed "freshmanitis".  

We've pretty much all heard of senioritis, in which the afflicted is a senior in high school or college, distracted from his or her current tasks by the overwhelming desire to "just get it over with already" and be done forever with further scholastic chores.  Symptoms include a decrease in motivation, occasionally coinciding with an increase in daydreaming and/or partying (usually if the patient is a college student) or other social activities. 

 

On the other hand, freshmanitis usually affects former college students, and can trigger a longing for those "happy" days in the freshman dorms where everyone got to know each other, future lifelong friends were made, independence was finally realized, and the pressures of college applications were just a recent memory.  Symptoms include an inexplicable desire to shop for new school supplies, occasional nightly dreams of attending lectures (and sometimes nightmares of being late for class), memories of what may be an idealized freshman year, and forgetfulness of what really happened during your actual freshman year--good, bad, or indifferent.

My mind has been pumping me up for the (nonexistent) trip back up to the central coast, new classes, and new roommates, all with absolutely no sense of dread, anxiety, or reservation. Yep, there's no denying that I have it bad.

As far as the question mark after my "back to school", it has been suggested that I do indeed go back and find something to further my career path.  I have thought of hitting the books again, but let's just say it's going to be quite a ways off.   

 

 

The Dog

I love my dog.  I’ve had him since he was three months old, and he will be 7 years in September.



Here he is then (I love this picture, especially the way my mom is looking at him and. talking to him)...





...and now.  As of just this minute as I'm posting.

 

However, there are times when he can be a little pain in the butt, especially when he wants attention—this can be particularly messy if my knitting is unsupervised.

A couple weekends ago, I went up to get the mail.  I had left my door to my room open to catch the lovely breeze that was coming through the house.  Little did I realize that my lace-shawl-in-progress, which I thought was well out of the beagle’s reach, was in danger.  I came back in to find this:

 

The horror!!

 

Of course, this was taken after I picked my dear project up off the floor.  Fortunately, it was just the ball of yarn and not the knitting itself that he had gotten to, and even then it’s not entirely beyond repair (though actually doing so is gonna be a b***h), but you get the idea of the sheer horror I felt.  I just wish I could have captured a photograph of the culprit’s very guilty beagle face. 

Sadly, this is not the first time this had happened; the first time, I was working on spinning the bundle of roving into my first yarn when I heard a rustling coming from under my bed.  Generally, I’ll let the beagle in my room if he just stays under my bed or on top of his own, so this rustling wasn’t unusual.  However, the way he was dashing to the living room made me suspicious.  About two minutes later, my dad came into the kitchen with a very familiar ball of blue merino/mohair/silk laceweight.  Turns out, the little scamp had gotten to the second half of the skein and had swallowed about three feet of yarn, and still had some sticking out of his mouth.  I wish I could have been there to see it, because Dad’s story keeps changing.  The moral of the story: there’s no hiding anything from a hound dog.  Oh yeah, and fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

Not Gone Yet!

Hello, readers!

Just wanted to say I'm still here--I haven't forgotten the blog yet!
I've had a lot on my plate lately, with a heapin' helpin' of internet connection problems.  In fact, I'm currently using my cellular service on my iPhone 4 to write this post, so I'm really kickin it old-school.

So to apologize, please accept this offering of a silly knitting joke (it's an oldie, but a goodie!)

One afternoon, a ditz was driving down the freeway, swerving all over the place, causing all sorts of mayhem.  Pretty soon, the local highway patrol comes after her and the pursuing officer starts wailing his sirens and flashing his lights.  When she ignores him, he gets on his PA system and orders her to pull to the side of the road.  After ignoring him a second time, he shouts, "Pull over!"  Finally the ditz rolls down the window, looks back at the officer, and shouts, "It's not a pullover, it's a shawl!"

The Scoop on Spinning: A Beginner's Perspective

If you've read my last post, you'll remember that I've recently taken my first leap into the world of hand-spinning. For the unfamiliar, spinning in this case refers to the process of twisting fibers—derived from plants (cotton, flax—aka linen, bamboo, etc.), animal hair (sheep’s or lamb’s wool, mohair, cashmere, alpaca, and many more), or even synthetic sources—into yarn.

I first caught the spinning bug when I received two skeins of Daisy Chain by Knit Collage in the Frosty Azure colorway as part of a graduation gift from my aunt (she saw me admiring it on a walk to Pike Place when I went to visit her in Seattle back in April); I knit a lovely mock-rib eyelet scarf, with a repeating pattern of k1, (yo, k2tog) on the right-side rows, and purling on the wrong side rows.

Top:  The full scarf.  Bottom:  Close-up of the scarf pattern.  I really wish you could see the tinsel (or "Angelina" as they call it) sparkling in the fabric! 

As I was working the yarn in all its sparkly, flowery glory, I couldn’t help but think about how much fun it would be to do something like that: to be able to make my own yarn in whatever color, weight, and fiber(s) I want, and spin in some fun little doodads here and there once I become more advanced. How hard could it be?

Now that I had the drive, I needed the supplies. At this stage, a drop spindle was the most feasible, and I knew I would have to make my own. In my neck of the woods, spinning supplies aren’t commonly found until the local fiber fiesta in October, and I wasn’t quite ready to make a full financial commitment by buying one online. I’d found several tutorials on how to make and use a drop spindle; this one from Of Wool And Loveliness was my favorite. And she’s right: it really did only cost $1.75 to make (I got my things from the bulk wood section at my local Michael’s). I just had to sand down the end of the dowel to fit my whorl (the wooden toy car wheel), and since I didn’t have access to a drill, secured some heavy plastic-coated crafting wire to the top of the dowel with some masking tape, after twisting the wire and coaxing it into the shape of a hook. Voila! I had my very own spindle!

I started with cotton for a while, just to hold me over until I could buy some wool. It was okay for practicing and making sure my spindle had enough spin, but I found that it was a little to ambitious to start. I’ll go over that more a little further along in the post. Then I found The Wool Lady and all her gorgeous yarns, crafting supplies, and bags of roving (see my previous post, “Fleece, Love and Happiness,” for more on that adventure).

As a total beginner in spinning, and having it go relatively well so far, please allow me to share some of my observations, tips, and my overall perspective on the matter. For those with more spinning experience, there may be a few “no duh, Sherlock” moments, but for all intents and purposes, they do deserve to be acknowledged.

• Take the time to really feel the fiber as you draft—that is, pulling the fibers out from the roving before spinning. Note how much distance the fiber puts between your thumb and forefinger, and how much it spreads out. This will determine how thick your spun yarn singles (un-plied yarn) will be, and is really useful for keeping things consistent. 

• Note that you probably won’t have nice, consistently sized singles the first time around. I certainly didn’t. It takes practice, which will eventually lead to muscle memory and better control.

• If you bought your roving already dyed in multiple colors like I did, divide the roving into thinner strips for a shorter length of a single color, and thicker strips for a longer length, assuming you draft it to the same degree. Also, plan out if and how you want your color pattern to repeat. This will come in handy for plying if you want your yarn to have a particular look.

• If you’re using a spindle that’s not quite heavy enough to produce a lot of spin, don’t let that bother you. As you store your new yarn on the spindle, it will get heavier and spin very nicely. However, if your fiber of choice requires a lot of twist, you might want to add some kind of weight.

• To quote Dr. Seuss, “I'm sorry to say so but, sadly, it's true, that Bang-ups and Hang-ups can happen to you.” Like this for instance: your loose end of roving accidentally blows into your spinning end and gets sucked up into a twisted vortex of doom.

Don’t panic. Take a breath, or two, or several, and gently rotate the spindle in the opposite direction until your roving is free; if it needs some help, gently run your finger along the spinning end of your yarn, starting at the top, going down towards your spindle. It’ll be free in no time.

• Lastly, get your hands on anything that could possibly be spun. You may find that you don’t really like wool, and that cotton provides the texture you’re looking for. Or bamboo. Or alpaca. Or mohair. Have you heard of chiengora? And even different breeds of sheep have different wool characteristics. Research. Put spinnable fiber in your hands. Experiment with plying, or using different amounts of twist.

If you have any tips and observations that I’ve missed, share them in the comments below!  I don't have any pictures of my handspun yet, but the moment I have something made out of it, I'll share my creation with you!

Fleece, Love and Happiness

I've been getting more adventurous with my yarn crafts, and I'm liking the results so far.
I'm working on my very first original pattern: a lace crescent shawl, constructed top-down in Cascade Yarns Kid Seta (the new version). Here's what I have of it so far:

It's been a while in the making, and I know it will be even longer before I finish, but I'm logging the progress and writing down just about every row, so I should have a pattern to publish by the time I bind off. For those of you with a Ravelry account, here's the link to the project: Cottage by the Sea shawl

I've also made some strides in hand spinning; I made my very own drop spindle, using the tutorial from Of Wool and Loveliness. I made mine as a low-whorl spindle, and it really did only cost $1.75, plus the time to assemble it. Last Friday, I drove up to Old Town Temecula and made a second visit to The Wool Lady; I visited her shop for the first time a couple weeks prior, and absolutely loved it! She is very friendly, and she's willing to give advice for whatever craft you do or want to learn. Her shop carries a selection of high-end commercial and locally crafted yarns, hand dyed and undyed roving, buttons, some shawl pins, and supplies for all manner of needlecrafts, including rug hooking. On my first visit, I purchased a bottle of no-rinse wool wash (which works really well--I also use it for spritz-blocking); this time, I came home with a bag of gorgeous, multicolored hand-dyed wool roving (see below).

I was originally going to buy the undyed, or maybe some dyed with a single color, as I'm usually a little nervous of pooling with variegated yarns, but I just couldn't resist those colors! I was also a little apprehensive about spinning it at first--the thought of messing up and "ruining" it teased me, much like that one obnoxious kid in elementary school that connivingly shouts "you're gonna miss! you're gonna mmmmmiiiiiiiiiissssss!" when you're playing basketball with your friends at recess. Nevertheless, I bought it with the intent of spinning it, so what else could I expect myself to do with it?

Uh... no. Nice try.

So, I just held my breath, parted out and drafted some fiber, and spun away. I haven't gotten around to spinning as much as I would like, but so far, I'm in love with the results.

 

 

 

Learning this on my own has been interesting, to say the least. Next time, I'll get into my thought processes on spinning, how I learned, and maybe, if you'll pardon the very deliberate pun as I giggle at myself, what got the wheel turning!

P.S. My apologies if anyone had already thought of the pun in my post title... and to any fans of G. Love and Special Sauce, or the Chambers Brothers, that I may have offended.

Busy, busy, busy!

The past few days have been a nonstop, whirlwind ride, and I finally have time to wind down and actually follow through with this whole blogging business.

For those who don't know me already, I'm a summer intern for the overnight camping experience at a branch of a particular *ahem* world-famous zoo (click here, or here). Sorry I have to be so elusive, but I think the PR department would be a bit happier if I just take you directly to the main websites. Anyway, as a tour guide, I have some early mornings and late nights, but I get to meet some awesome people, and talk about some of my favorite animals!

 I had the morning shift on Saturday and Sunday, both days requiring me to wake up at 4:00. Now, I'm fine when I have to leave the house, and I'm actually surprisingly chipper by the time I clock in at 5:45, but getting out of bed is no picnic. Saturday was particularly brutal since my silly beagle, Linus, was just winding up as I was trying hard to wind down.



"What do you mean it's time for bed?  It's only 9:00!"

Saturday was jam-packed--after work, I drove down to the mall to meet a dear friend of mine, and then we turned around and I took us right back to the park. It was nice to come and spend time as a guest for once, and being able to share it with her made it all the better! We arrived at 11:00 and stayed until about 4. 

To this day I'm still surprised I lasted that long.

 I wish I had thought to take pictures, but I think it's nice to view life with your own eyes once in a while, instead of through the screen of a camera or a phone. No selfies, just yourself and your friends and fellow humans in the moment. 

Sunday was almost the same, except I got to go home straight after work. No busman's holidays, no errands. Just home. And a nap.

 Then yesterday, Monday, things picked up again. I joined the other interns for our last intern event of the summer: a career information day that went from 7:00 to 3:30. Being able to see my friends from last year, not to mention the awesome breakfast and lunch provided for us, definitely took the edge off another early morning and long day.

Though the day was long, I learned quite a bit about how these internships and other life experiences can shape and mold us, prepare us for our ultimate goals, and lead us to pathways we would have never considered in the first place.  Never take anything for granted, and always see the opportunity and the (sometimes hidden) value in everything, even if it means you have to look a little harder.

I can relax now, and I should hopefully have new posts up soon, this time with more pictures (yaaayyyyy!) and a look at the crafter in me! 

Until next time,

Alex