Category Archives: Words Words Words

A Rainy Thursday

It’s pouring outside. December 3, and it’s pouring. HRH tells me that there’s a 40mm rainfall warning out for the region. This is entirely wrong; it ought to be snow.

We got new music at orchestra last night, so now I can share the programme for the spring concert (27 March 2010! Don’t say I didn’t give you enough advance warning this time!):

Sight-reading new music is always an… interesting experience. I can give you the correct rhythm, or the correct notes, not both, especially on something I’m not familiar with, like the Debussy. (Or something like Vaughn Williams, whose music I am familiar with and adore, but who is, erm, somewhat eclectic in his use of rhythm and key signatures, I am discovering now that I have the chance to see the scores.) On the other hand, I aced the Haydn. It’s nice that it was the last thing we did before we left.

That lovely skein of dyed mohair I showed off yesterday bled in the twist-setting bath, and is duller now, which makes me very sad indeed. It’s not unattractive, just not the brighter colours I loved. Kind of like leaves get after they’ve been off the tree for a day or so, now that I think of it. I really need to figure out a way to get the greens to set properly as the other dyes do. I’m currently discussing it with a bunch of other dye-people on Ravelry and they’ve got some suggestions for me to try. It may have something to do with our hard water. I’ll mess with amounts of vinegar and length of time the fibre is heated/left to absorb dye, even if the dye looks exhausted.

I handed in my freelance project yesterday, so today is back to the Poppy book. I have one hundred pages left before I run out of story. Let’s see what happens. Karine is coming over to work in the downstairs office today, and we have a sushi lunch scheduled. I deposited three freelance cheques in my account last night, so I deserve a little treat.

Mohair Dyeing Experiment Spun Up

Here you are, gentle readers, the dyed mohair spun up as a single:

It’s a thick and thin single that averages about worsted weight (which let me tell you, is really thick for me; I had to consciously tell my foot to treadle extremely s-l-o-w-l-y) and now I want to knit it up into something, despite the fact that it’s only 1 oz and about twenty yards long and very, erm, energized. I’m soaking it to set the twist right now. I spun it yesterday after I got up from my two-hour nap. (I then proceeded to fall asleep right after the boy went to bed at 7:30 and not wake up till 6:30 this morning, so evidently the nap didn’t negatively impact my night, for which I am deeply grateful.)

Someone asked me what I was going to do with all these tiny skeins, and the answer is: nothing. I’m going to keep them in a box with labels tied to them identifying the fibre, the speeds used to spin and ply, the weight and yardage, and the date. They’re samples. They’re not big enough to do much of anything with, but I didn’t spin them with a project in mind, or to stash them against a future project, or for any goal other than having the experience of trying something to see what happens. I’m playing with new fibres, or new speeds, or dye jobs, or new grists. It’s a way of experimenting without committing a bunch of time and money to something that might ultimately fail. And with these smallish experiments under my belt, I’ll be able to apply the skills I’m learning (mohair, long-draw, silk, bamboo, semi-worsted) to larger projects in the future without losing investment.

What I want to know is if the basic Louet line is all about bulky to medium weight yarns and I’m pulling off fingering to laceweight as my default, what the heck would I manage to do with the high-speed flyer or the faster wheels? Spin fingering to laceweight a lot faster is the answer, I suspect, but my point is basically that these supposedly slow wheels are capable of a lot more than those who don’t use them give them credit for. (Also, maybe if I spin with the brake band all the way on I’ll get thicker yarns. I had the brake band on about one-third of the way for this single so that the yarn would actually draw onto the bobbin and I wouldn’t put as much twist into it.)

Mohair Dyeing Experiment #2

One ounce of 70% mohair/30% merino:

ETA: (Hmm. In daylight the colours aren’t that vivid. The above is kind of what I was going for; the actual colours are a lot more neutral and less saturated, like this:)

All the dyes need more brown in them. Yellows and reds take up so much faster than greens; I’m going to have to weaken the rust and gold solutions and intensify the green dye. Also, next time I try this colourway, I’m going to put green between the rust and gold sections as well, so a bright orange doesn’t result from the gold and rust blending. (A not unpleasant effect, but not what I was going for.) As much fun as I’m having with the Wilton’s gel colours, I’m looking forward to being able to measure out dye powder and blend it with a set amount of water to get a reliable solution.

I also got a repeat of my goddaughter’s wrap done last night, and yesterday I did a light edit on eighty pages of my Poppy book (which, to my astonishment, I do not hate; although I suspect I will fall less in love with it as I get closer to the end of what’s there and realise that I have to decide how to finish it properly, after six years). I got an assignment last night, though, so I know what I’m doing for the rest of the week: it’s a 180K-word general fiction title to evaluate. I’m hoping it’s above average for a quick report…

What I Read in November 2009

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
Moribito II: Guardian of the Darkness by Nahoko Uehashi
Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella
Frostbitten by Kelley Armstrong
The Blythes are Quoted by L.M. Montgomery
The White Garden by Stephanie Barron
Knit The Season by Kate Jacobs
Knit Two by Kate Jacobs
Never Learn Anything From History by Kate Beaton
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
The Lost Art of Gratitude by Alexander McCall Smith
An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon
Ironside by Holly Black (reread)

I had deep things to say about a couple of these titles but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten my pearls of wisdom. I know; such a terrible loss. So the short form:

Leviathan: Utterly brilliant, and the first of a trilogy, which I did not know, and was left on a nasty cliffhanger at the end. Argh!

The Blythes Are Quoted: Definitely not The Road to Yesterday, the book cobbled together from bits of this, Montgomery’s last manuscript. This was sensitive, painful, and an interesting balance between Montgomery’s usual themes and storylines and unexpected ones.

Twenties Girl: I wasn’t impressed with the last couple of Kinsellas I read (the latter half of the Shopaholic series), so this was a very pleasant surprise. It had a plot! And characters I didn’t find completely vapid!

Knit the Season: Jacobs is getting more mileage out of Georgia now that she’s dead than she did when she was alive. This felt flat and kind of forced. Knit Two was a decent read, though not as good as the first in the series.

Never Learn Anything From History: Kate Beaton is a brilliant Canadian artist and humourist who produces history-based comic strips. Here, lose yourself in her website and her journal (the comic up at the time of writing is Sexy Tudors, which is a scream.) Chortle as you will. The Brontës shirt will be mine; oh yes, it will be mine. (And here’s the link to the original Dude Watchin’ with the Brontës comic because, well, just because.)

Redeemed?

Well, someone on a spinning e-list I subscribe to said that 4-6 oz of fibre spins enough for a pair of socks or mittens, an adult hat, or a scarf, while 8 oz is good for a small kerchief kind of shawl. I’m feeling a bit better about possibly needing to spin up another two ounces to make a total of eight for my goddaughter’s wrap.

I need to knit it up quickly so I can find out how much more I might need to spin and knit onto the end of the wrap, as well as to have the use of Ceri’s blocking wires before she leaves for Christmas in Halifax.

HRH’s call for snow to fall this weekend just barely squeaked under the wire. I know he was aiming for Saturday, but the rain we got last evening turned to snow late last night, and it’s still snowing now. We have definite sticking to the ground happening.

Sigh

Great all-day co-coven workshop yesterday, despite three people missing due to illness, work schedules, or unavoidable extracurricular responsibilities. Today? Hello, full-blown cold and fibro flare-up. I can’t even lie down without the body hurting, but I don’t have the energy to do much while upright. HRH took the boy to monthly playgroup, thank goodness, although he really didn’t want to. I know he’ll enjoy himself once he gets there.

This afternoon is the group cello class, and then tonight is the monthly steampunquian RPG. I know everyone will understand tonight if I just kind of sit there and listen. The cello class is what’s going to be the challenge, but I also know that once I’m there and in the middle of it adrenaline will carry me. It will take a day or two to recover from the weekend, though.

My LYS e-mailed me yesterday to tell me that the winter issue of Spin-Off had arrived, even though I hadn’t asked them to put one aside for me. I love them. When I was last in to place that big order for fibre and a bobbin, MA said that I could come in and use the store’s drum carder any time I wanted to mess about with it. I suspect she’s figured out that I am easily sucked in by new toys if casually left alone with them and allowed to talk myself into acquiring them. (I have neither the space or the money for a drum carder, or the need for it right now. Nobody worry.)

I officially finished the first skein of yarn on my goddaughter’s wrap yesterday, and wound the second into a centre-pull ball and joined it to the WIP. I’ll knit up what I’ve got then wash and block it to see how big it is, but I suspect that due to the weight of the yarn it won’t open up as much as I want it to. Which means, of course, that I will have to acquire and spin up another two ounces. Despite having swatched with the yarn and the needle size I’m using, I think I should have gone up a needle size to account for the alarming amount of blooming the yarn is doing while being knit. Six (or what might possibly become eight) ounces for a shoulder capelet/wrap/hood really seems like too much. I should have spun it finer, or perhaps the test yarn I made was plied more tightly. Handspun yarn blooms sneakily as you knit, even after you’ve set the twist and thwacked it. Oh well; lesson learned. It’s a learning curve, right?

I need more Tylenol.

List of Things Accomplished on a Friday

schedule set in stone and released
reminders sent out
ritual polished
(and retyped)
final research completed
which enabled
workshop lecture notes to be fully written out
incenses blended: one, two, three
grocery list made
laundry done
two loaves of bread made
(now awaiting eggs and more flour
to attain cinnamon bun dough
that shall rise overnight in the dark chill of
the fridge)
cello played (though I practiced
none of my assigned work)
various small things
looked up, followed through,
checked, and confirmed

to unwind,
I spun bamboo (for the first time)
not as pleasant an experience
as it ought to have been

dinner (homemade pizza) was
a trial
(not the pizza, the dining experience)

I would be looking forward to this weekend
so much more
if every single waking moment wasn’t scheduled

and it’s not even December yet.