Category Archives: Diary

Friendly Warning

I’m going to catch up on posts over the next couple of days, so your feeds may get confused. I have about half a dozen posts in draft form in various places; the time has come to add photos and publish them. I’ll backdate them after a couple of days.

Blur

It’s the fourth of the month, which means there would be an Owlet post, yet there is not. There hasn’t even been a post for Sparky’s ninth birthday yet. The Tour de Fleece launches tomorrow, and if haven’t done a post on what I have lined up as my project(s) for that.

I am swamped by work. My last project took a lot out of me, and this one, which the publisher lined up ahead of time to start on the very day the other one was due, is 450 pages of single-spaced text with equations and tonnes of reference material. I’m 250 pages through it, and my pace has really picked up as I solve certain issues and can look for more of the same going forward. It’s due next Wednesday night, and I will be glad when it’s over, because it’s thoroughly draining me mentally, apart from making me work evenings as well as days.

I will catch up next week.

In Which She Creates Her First PowerPoint Project

(Or whatever the Google Drive equivalent is…)

Sparky’s class is doing a Careers module. As part of this research unit, parents go in and do a 30 min presentation on their jobs. I volunteered, and then wondered what on earth I’d do to make my job sound interesting. I mean, I love it, but I’m sure “looking at text for mistakes” sounds like a prison sentence for nine-year-olds. Especially when they’ve had a jeweller come in — “I wore a titanium ring!” — and a firefighter — “He showed us how he kicks in a door!” His best friend’s mom showed them how to make a website. I will be so boring to them. I will be all, “Words and sentences are cool! Be responsible for your writing!” Yawn.

So I suggested to Sparky that maybe I could do a PowerPoint presentation along with my talk, since he learned how to do them earlier this year, and he was very enthusiastic. I have never done a PowerPoint presentation before. It didn’t exist when I was in school. (Remember, dear readers, critical analyses of works that were the focus of my thesis were researched in actual printed books of Arts indices and physical copies of periodicals. The Internet was only a few tubes with a couple of cats in them at that time.) These grade 3 kids use a SMART board daily, though, so I need to be up to their speed.

So as of early this afternoon, I am ten slides into creating my first PowerPoint presentation ever. It’s entitled “What Does a Copyeditor Do?” and covers where the copyeditor fits into the publishing process, why copyediting is important, what tools I use, and that kind of thing. I am probably not allowed to say stuff like “My superpower is saving the world from plagiarism, typos, and incorrect facts.” I bet the phrase “Sometimes I edit using the Force” slips out during the presentation, though.

I’m hoping the coolness of meeting someone who is part of the process of making books carries a lot of it, honestly. And I’ll be emphasizing the importance of taking responsibility for your writing, why plagiarism is bad, and why your writing needs to be as polished as possible, so your information gets across clearly and concisely. Also because it is often the first thing associated with you that people encounter, so it’s an important part of how people form their first impressions of you and the information you’re presenting. It’s to your advantage to make it as error-free, clear, and accessible as possible.

I may not have titanium rings to show off or an impressive uniform complete with axe, but I’m hoping the Chicago Manual of Style and snapshots of a stylesheet and an edited paragraph, complete in all its Track Changes glory, will be at least somewhat interesting.

Done!

Thank you, everyone, for your cheerful support. My dermatologist couldn’t even find one of the moles he’d said he wanted to remove this morning. Not that it wasn’t there, just that he kept looking at the few in that area and said, “Well, I’m not sure which one I was worried about; all these look just fine. So we can cross one off our list today.”

As some of you told me, the worst part was the waiting (we were half an hour early, and he was running forty-five minutes late; I finished reading the last half of the book I’d brought with me and the nurse called me just after I’d closed the cover) and the injection of anaesthetic. You weren’t kidding when you reassured me that the area went totally dead. The only way I knew something was happening was because I could feel the skin around the deadened area moving a bit. This stuff was so much better than the dental anaesthetic that was used on me in the past! The numbness started wearing off on the highway home, though. I just need to be aware of how I hold my arm when reaching for things.

I was amused by the waiver they had me sign before it all. Yes, I agree to have the doctor cut these off; and yes, I agree to a biopsy; and yes, I acknowledge that I may have a scar. I laughed out loud at that last one. Seriously? I have scars from cat scratches that are probably worse than this one will be.

So that’s done, and I’ll just call in six weeks to make sure the results are in, then I’m good for another year.

‘Apple Orchard’ BFL

While I wait for today’s new project to land in my inbox (I have work lined up for the next three weeks, it is very comforting), I can show you the lovely, squooshy BFL yarn I just finished.

Last spring I dyed some fibre for a swap. I got some humbug Blue-Faced Leicester from Espaces Interstertiel, our local spinning and weaving studio, to use as a base. Humbug BFL is a blend of brown and natural BFL fibre, and it looks like the stripes on a humbug candy. I dyed the first half in greens, and wondered if it was too dark, if the natural variegation of the fibre was lost. So I dyed the second half with a lighter moss green and some russet dabs:

And then I ended up sending my swap partner the all-green braid anyway, because I was worried that the green and red together in this braid would end up a muddy brown. (Spinning colour is fascinating. You’re never entirely sure what will happen: will the colour intensify? soften? blend to make something cool? blend to make something not so cool?). That meant this one, which I called ‘Apple Orchard,’ went into my own stash. I pulled it out a couple of weeks ago, split it into three, spun it up kind of semi-woollen (supported longdraw from the end of a worsted prep), then plied it into a lovely three-ply.

There was a bit of brown created where the red and green spun together, but the biggest change was the russet spun into a sort of pinkish shade that looked worse on the bobbin than it did in the finished yarn. Before a wash, the yarn was 16 wraps per inch and measured about 276 yards. After a wash, it poofed up to 12 wpi and shrank to about 246 yards. Yikes! I was hoping for enough yardage to knit socks (even though wool without nylon or bamboo in it will wear through quickly, so it isn’t the best choice), but not this time. It will probably end up as a shawlette, or fingerless gloves at some point.

It is very squishy. Very, very squishy. That’s where all the yardage went — thirty yards turned into poof and squoosh. I love handspun BFL.

Socks!

A couple of years ago, my friend Elina sent me a skein of sock yarn along with a pattern for socks, and said that she knew I could do it. I had to use it for socks, too, she said; no cheating and using it to weave something or knit a scarf.

I did a couple of trial runs. I knitted a pair of bulky socks that I felted down to make slippers (which, despite having leather soles sewn onto the ball and heel, have worn through anyway), and I knit Sparky a pair of Gryffindor socks. I cast on this yarn for a pair of socks for myself last September, and finished the first one around Thanksgiving. I started the one right away — I have heard a lot about Second Sock Syndrome — and got a few rows done here and there. I turned the heel early this year, and then it sat in a project bag while I did a bunch for other stuff. I brought it with me and worked on it in the car on the way home for visiting my parents this Easter, and grafted the toe this morning.

I have Made Socks!

I am very proud of myself. They’re not hard, really; you just need to pay closer attention in a couple of places. Otherwise, it’s just plain knitting. Obviously I haven’t done anything complicated pattern-wise; I may eventually, but for now it’s nice to have something that’s a go-to project for knitting in waiting rooms or in the car.

The pooling is different on each sock. The ways patterns and dye repeats pool differently is something that I find interesting.

The grafted toe feels a bit odd on the inside. I expect that will vanish (or at least be reduced) with a wash.

I used a lot less than the full skein, too. I’ll have to weigh what’s left, but I think I may have used about 2/3 of the yardage. Maybe I’ll knit Owlet a matching pair of socks with what’s left over! But the good news about the yardage is that now I can look at my handspun in a different way. I always thought socks would use up about 400 yards, but if I can knit a basic pair with about 300 yards, then lots of my handspun is now potential sock yarn!

Alpaca!

Dizzy spells yesterday. Charming. This medication can settle down any time.

I recently spun some raw alpaca I bought from my friend Jenn, who runs an alpaca farm and sells alpaca fibre at Frayed Knot FIbres. I got an ounce of cream, caramel, and chocolate alpaca, washed them, blended them together on my hackle: