Category Archives: Cogging for Kibble

Idle Schedule Dreams

Maybe it’s because I’ve felt shackled to my desk for the past couple of months and a horrible winter, but I’ve been dreaming of what I’ll be able to do when this book is handed in on May 2.

– Actually go to the yarn store, where I have not been since early December, to pick up the copy of Spin-Off Spring 2011 that they’ve had aside for me for over a month. Pat yarn. Buy spinning fibre.

– Head over to Debra’s house with an empty box to sort through her little girl clothes and abscond with some. Also, have tea like real human beings.

– Actually shop for baby things. Not that we need a heck of a lot; we’ll be borrowing used stuff from others to replace our equipment that wore out/came back damaged/expired. It’s more the principle of the thing: I’d like to actually have one or two new things for this baby. I do need to start collecting samples of cloth diapers for newborns, though, to have on hand for when the baby comes home so we can test them out and see which brands/style suit her best. Some of this has been dependent on cash flow, as well, so I haven’t been able to jump on excellent used deals on Craigslist and the like for things like infant car seat stroller frames and sets of used cloth diapers when they’ve come up.

– Nap.

– Stare out a window for a while and not feel guilty.

– Possibly do a photo session with Tamu. Do recon on photo studios for an actual family portrait, something we’ve never had done, ever.

– Start spinning the warp yarn for the baby blanket (May), and then weave the baby blanket (see, I am already planning into June!).

– Order the fabric online for the baby’s blanket that the boy wants made for her. Start assembling the bits for the mobile he has designed. (Both of these feature the boy as designer/director and me as executor. Sigh.)

– Schedule a playdate or two.

– Finish knitting the garter squares for the baby booties and origami them together.

– Go to my doctor’s appointments and ultrasounds (the regular and the extra oh-dear-you’re-high-risk ones) without feeling stressed because there’s work piling up at home.

– Play the cello. (I have one. Not that you’d know it if you lived here.) Prep for the June recital.

– Start planning the boy’s sixth birthday parties, Family Edition and School Friend Edition.

– Read.

– Sort through what baby equipment we do have on hand that is usable and needs cleaning/repacking/set up. Not that we can set anything up in our bedroom till mid-July. No, there will be no nursery till around Thanksgiving when the attic office is done.

– Do the tax stuff. That was scheduled for last month; it didn’t happen, nor did it happen this month, because there was too much work. And since we’re first-time homeowners there’s a pile of unknowns that needs to be ascertained, like what we can write off, what receipts or proof of whatevers are required, and so forth.

– And… work. Sigh. Eventually the edits on the bird book will come back, and I’ll have to address those, and I know they will not be the “oh you have six things to handle and that’s it” that the hearthcraft book had; these will need more attention. But I am looking forward to the more regular paycheque that copyediting yields. Pay vs energy/time input, copyediting gives better value than writing, I have found. That’s sad but true.

Weekend Roundup Etc

I was disappointed in the debate last night. I was hoping for actual adult discussion of policy and platform. What we got was people pointing fingers at one another. Snarking about it on Twitter with Canadian friends helped me get through it. All I really got out of it was an odd dream that I was an environmentalist active in avian preservation, and Stephen Harper personally promised me that he’d build a new habitat for penguins at the Biodome if I’d vote for him. I think the bird book is getting to me.

We had a whirlwind trip out to Rowan Tree Farm on Saturday for our annual spring equinox ritual (affectionately referred to as OsTaras) with t! and Jan, which was very enjoyable, and the next day we did a late equinox/early Easter brunch and egg-decorating session with the Preston-LeBlancs:

The bulbs HRH and the boy planted all over the place last fall are coming up, and we have discovered naturalized crocuses (crocii?) in the back garden, to our delight:

(Hello, lovely macro setting on my camera. You make crocuses look very, very nice indeed.)

I did a preliminary dye test to tint the Falkland warp fibre green to better match the Manos weft yarn. The green dye really turned the fibre an emerald, Astroturf-y green despite me using a half-saturated solution, gack. So I hauled out the hackle and blended the emerald fibre with undyed fibre in two different proportions, spindle-spun both samples and plied them, et voila; a pretty decent match, I’d say. The left photo shows the Manos at the back, a sample skein of a 2 white:1 green yarn in the middle, a sample of 1 white:1 green yarn on the right, and on the far left is the emerald dyed fibre, just for kicks. The photo on the right shows the two sample skeins laid over the skein of Manos, showing just how close my two hand-blended yarns got.

There’s so much variation in the kettle-dyed Manos that either of these blends would work, I think. Or rather, I could be a bit less precise about how much of each colour I’m blending in as I go, and it will still look lovely. Now I know that I can blend it, I could dye up about 4 ounces of green at this solution and trundle down to Ariadne Knits with it and another 4-6 ounces of undyed fibre to crank out 8 to 10 ounces of batts on the drum carder there… or I could further experiment with a much, much weaker solution of emerald green on a larger amount of fibre. Which I may still have to card with undyed fibre; who knows? It’s academic at this point, though, because I need my order of undyed Falkland to arrive at the shop first.

The bird book proceeds apace; deadline is in two and a half weeks, five days of which I am away for Easter. We had a bit of a setback last week when we discovered some of the art wasn’t available, which led to a three-level list of birds to be cut, and unfortunately I’d already written over half of them. It was somewhat demoralizing so close to the finish line, especially because I immediately assumed I’d have to find about twenty replacement birds from among the available art, but it turns out I won’t, so I’m still on track. I do mourn the loss of the research and time spent writing those entries I’ve already completed, though, especially since a couple of them were extensive. I am very tired, and I am aware that this manuscript will not be the shiny, polished thing I prefer to hand in. It’s somewhat uneven in that some birds just have a pile of folklore and superstition attached to them, and others don’t. Generally, birds that are found both in the Old World and the New World have more; New World-only birds have a lot less. It’s simply a question of the amount of time that the lore has had to accumulate. The proposed cover for the book is just wonderful, and I’ve been signed to write the intro to the accompanying birdwatching journal as well.

The book has been wringing me out, so I’ve been restless without a lot of mental focus to apply anywhere. I’ve been spinning a bit, and because I can’t seem to gather enough energy to select music I actually want to listen to I decided to try downloading free audiobook recordings. I’m working through the Librivox Sense & Sensibility right now, and I’m of two minds about it. Librivox switches narrators every two or three chapters, which is fair, but also jarring. I’m lucky in that there’s only one narrator I’ve really disliked so far whose reading isn’t very good at all (her recording level is low, in mono, and her enunciation isn’t great so a lot of the time it’s mostly a murmur). On the other hand, it’s kind of neat to have different interpretations; the change in narrator really wakes you up and makes you listen a bit more closely. I do about five chapters in a session and get through almost a half-ounce of fibre in that time. I wish my library had a decent audiobook selection.

Stopping By To Say Hi

I am swamped with work. I have a month to deadline, and hospitals and doctors have eaten up a lot of work days in the past couple of months. I have to add April to my list of Months In Which I Will Have No Time To Do Anything So Please Don’t Ask.

Here’s a scattershot report of the past week:

1. You know that whole “maybe now that I don’t have to visit so many hospitals for tests and consultations I can get work done?” Yeeeeeah. Guess where we spent Tuesday? That would be checking out the emergency ward of our local hospital, because HRH got ambushed by a wicked kidney stone. The hospital and staff seem very nice. HRH is bruised and recovering from medical trauma.

2. We went in to Le Melange Magique this morning to bid farewell to Debra, the owner, who after nineteen and a half years decided that she had other things to do in her life. From the moment she told me of her plan to sell the store in January I have been behind her one hundred percent. She’s pulled off some pretty amazing stuff in the past twenty years, and deserves her retirement from the metaphysical business and eventual refocusing on a new career. I admire her immensely, both for what she built, and for moving on when the time was right. And I am thrilled that a couple of my friends have bought the store; the administration team is going to be terrific. The store is in good hands.

3. The boy attended his first group cello class on Sunday, and it went very well indeed. He saw seven or eight other kids, ranging from his age to late teens, playing, and was thoroughly energized. He played open strings that fit into whatever the other kids were playing from the Suzuki repertoire, and I saw him imitating their bowing rhythms and pretending to move his left hand fingers on the fingerboard like they were doing, too, which is huge because he’s been resisting left hand work; he just hasn’t been ready yet. My teacher lent us a basic first cello performance book that uses the Twinkle Variation A rhythm for the young “soloist” along with a piano and second cello accompaniment, which sounds like “real music,” and we have played “Wintertime in Russia” and today we played “Carnival in Rio.” Sure, the young soloist in question is playing an open string over and over, but the piano and second cello move around and use different keys, and as a result different moods are created. “Wintertime in Russia” really sounded Russian; “Carnival in Rio” sounded like a gentle samba. He loves playing with me, and I think the fact that we’re playing “his” music makes a big difference to him. And he’s doing a good job maintaining the rhythm, and watching for cues to stop, too.

4. We’re in the last few days before the spring concert this Saturday. There are some things I still can’t get, mostly cues that feel sudden to me, and I can’t do any more work on them on my own because it’s about fitting in with what’s happening in the orchestra. I can play the stuff on my own. It’s understanding where to come in that’s throwing me. And as usual I feel awful, because I’m right in front of the conductor, and I feel like I’m personally letting him down when he suddenly turns and cues me and I miss it. I know it’s coming; I know, and I’m physically prepped, and then whoosh it’s gone. I am definitely proud of conquering some stuff I was struggling with up till last week, though.

5. The baby (whose code name is Owlet, dubbed thusly by the boy) is big enough to be visibly bumping my tummy around from the inside. It is amusing.

6. Yes, the baby has a name, or one so far, at least. No, no one’s getting to hear it until she’s born. Partly because, well, it’s ours right now, and partly because if it really doesn’t suit her when she’s born, we don’t want to have to explain that we’ve changed it. She has actually had a name since a couple of days before she was conceived, when the boy casually mentioned to us at the breakfast table that he was going to have a baby sister, and this is what her name was going to be. Two weeks later I showed HRH the pregnancy test, and when the boy asked what it was, we told him it was the baby he’d ordered. It’s an unusual name, too, one we’ve never heard before. We have no idea where the boy found it; we know no one with that name, there are no kids at school of that name, it hasn’t been in any books or films we’ve seen or read. We suspect he made it up, although HRH has since found it online as a variation or diminutive of another name. We really love the fact that he’s so voluntarily involved with this baby. He’s taken on the task of designing the nursery theme as well, and has proposed several crafts for us to do to create mobiles and blankets and so forth.

7. I got the mock-up of the cover for the bird book, and it is absolutely exquisite. It’s easily my favourite of all my book covers. It looks like an old botanical illustration, but with birds. The tentative release date for the book and the companion journal is January 2012. (If I ever get it finished, that is. I’m going to have to start adding another work day on weekends, probably Sundays, to hit my deadline. Stupid doctor appointments. At least I only have two scheduled this month.) (She said with great emphasis, glaring at the universe.)

8. I need a new laptop. The borrowed iBook is running Panther (2003, boys and girls!), Safari crashes on it repeatedly when I try to access half the research pages I need to access, and it is, alas, very slow. I can write a rough draft of one entry on the iBook in the time it would take me to write two polished entries on the desktop. My original plan to buy a secondhand iPad on which to write has been morphing into a less-exciting plan to buy a secondhand Macbook, which will serve me better in the long run for switching between documents and online research. Not that I can buy either until my delivery cheque is issued to me after I hand the bird book in. (The point that I will not need to switch back and forth so often once this research-heavy book has been handed in has not escaped me. I have three months to decide which to choose, in which I may be able to borrow an iPad for a day or so to test it out.) Yes, I do have an old Windows laptop, too, but it dates from about 2003 as well. I should see if I can update its browsers and such.

That’s all I’ve got right now. I have to go turn the oven on to bake today’s bread, and get at least one bird done today (this morning and early afternoon were errands and such). I got four birds done yesterday, which was heartening. I’m looking at the number of birds I have left, and at the remaining space within my allotted word count, and thinking that I need to stop going into so much detail. But I’m still stuck on the “can you flesh this part out more?” request that came back after I handed in a sample with my proposal, so I’m adding as much as I can. It can always come out later, but as time is beginning to be of the essence, I may have to dial back to basics.

Stop Me If You’ve Heard This Before

I’m tired and swamped with work, and stressed by that raft of family health issues. I figure saying “I’m tired and I have a lot of work to do” is kind of boring to read and so rather than just write that, I don’t write anything at all. It’s only fair to check in at least once a week, though.

The weather has made a marked improvement in the last week. It’s been beautiful the past couple of days, and the snow is disappearing rapidly. We are watching for robins. The sun does wonders for my mood and the generally warmer temperatures do likewise for my general fibro malaise. The time change had a surprisingly positive effect as well, although I’d already been having trouble gauging when to make dinner because it had been staying lighter longer and now it’s worse.

Cello practice with the boy got difficult. He already had an after-school routine, so trying to introduce cello into it was a challenge once the novelty wore off. We’ve switched to mornings before school instead, which seems to be working so far. He’s resisting working with the bow, and I fully understand that it’s hard to get it to do what you want it to do; I worked pizzicato for a couple of months before starting with the bow myself, and I was twenty-three. My teacher keeps reminding me that it’s process not progress at this point, and I have to keep telling myself that it’s impressive that I get him to sit down for fifteen minutes every day at all. The other issue was getting him to want to do the exercises that had been set for him instead of making things up. Part of the point of music lessons was to cultivate focus and commitment to working on an extended project, so in that respect we’re doing just fine.

My teacher agreed to do our lessons back to back on Saturdays, so that solves my problem of losing most of a work day to my cello lesson on Tuesdays. I have so much work to do that I’ve been having to slip work in on the weekends to cover for cello and doctor’s appointments and hospital visits for tests lately. Right now I’m checking the proofs of the repurposing project I handled last fall, which means the bird book is on hold for a couple of days yet again; I had paused on it while waiting for feedback from the publisher’s review of the almost-half and then again for a copyediting project, which proved to be lucrative but time-consuming.

HRH has been working on the what-will-be-the-stairs-to-the-attic, tacking the stringers up, taking plasterboard down and measuring to see where beams and joists are. He bought all the stairs on sale a couple of weeks ago, so now we just need the risers so he can actually start putting them in one by one. He hung an unused door in the doorway too, which helps the general augh-there’s-a-hole-in-my-hallway issue I was having.

The boy has discovered Mo Willem’s Pigeon books, and thinks they’re hilarious. They’re also really easy for him to read. We read The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog aloud together, and he does the duckling in a hilarious high-pitched cute voice that makes its masterful manipulation of the pigeon with anger management issues side-splittingly funny. We have all four main books (thank you, Scholastic Book Club) plus a bonus board book called The Pigeon has Feelings Too, sent to us as a freebie to apologize for temporarily being out of stock of the four-book set.

I finished my first sweater ever, a child’s cardigan in garter stitch. I used KnitPicks Comfy cotton in a worsted weight, merrily adapting a pattern I’d never used before that called for doubled yarn to make a bigger size to use thinner yarn and make a smaller cardigan, and it turned out okay. I even found nice little wooden buttons for it. I haven’t sewn them on, so no pictures yet. I am rather chuffed, because I’ve never actually knitted an article of clothing other than a scarf before, so I am rather proud of it, twisted stitches and weird increases and all.

No spinning this week. I’m waiting for a shipment of Wensleydale to spin a special yarn. This was originally supposed to be done in the wool-bamboo blend, then I realised that I’d have to dye it twice to get a solid colour, one round of acid dye for the wool, one round of fibre reactive dye for the bamboo, so I’m going a different route for the special yarn instead. This means I will have a pound and a half of wool-bamboo blend all for myself. I am dizzy with the potential. Last night I pulled out some organic Merino to sample for a two-ply yarn to use as warp for a new baby blanket (the weft will be a lovely Manos Clasica thick-and-thin in a discontinued pale green colour, so pretty!). I tried the second-to-last fast ratio on the flyer pulley plus the faster bobbin pulley on the new wheel, and I made a thin, thin thread like magic. Wow. Also, the organic Merino is like a soft fluffy cloud that drafts like a dream. I just need to decide if I want a really thin warp yarn to create a weft-faced blanket, or something akin to the Manos weight for a balanced weave. I’m leaving the Merino in its natural off-white state. This may call for a sample of both a really thin yarn and a loftier yarn, and a tiny sample woven on a card or something to get a better sense of my options.

That’s enough for now.

For The Fans

I have had requests for pictures of the boy and his proper-sized cello. So without further ado:

That thing on the floor under his feet is a mat/map showing where his feet go in two different positions, where the endpin goes, and where the chair goes. He got to decorate it (and chose rockets and arrows and alien script, as you can see).

We both survived March break together last week, and I made my noon deadline on Friday. In general, he was very good at understanding that when Mum was working, he was to be doing Other Stuff. It was hardest at the beginning of the week, when he interrupted me pretty much every ten minutes asking for help or entertainment, but it got easier. HRH took him to work on Thursday to give me the entire day to work on my own, and he had a blast there helping HRH cut out the stringers for stairs, buying wood, eating in the cafeteria, and playing with clay.

Today HRH cut out what will be the doorway to the attic stairs. It’s framed and has molding around it and everything, and tomorrow, a door will be hung in it to contain the workspace while the attic is being built. At the moment it goes into my office closet, but once the plasterboard is up, the stringers can be mounted, and the stair steps (also purchased on Thursday) can start being placed. That should come in a couple of weeks. We think it should be warm enough to punch through to the attic itself in April, when all the work on lifting and strapping the insulation can start. Somehow, the new doorway makes the hallway look much bigger.

I finished spinning the Polworth, and then finished plying it this morning. I’m skeining it now, and it’s taking forever, because it’s turned out to be real laceweight, and so far I have 400 yards of plied laceweight yarn. And it’s not even quite halfway done. I’m boggled. There will be pictures when the pile of skeins are done.

In Which She Is Tired

Stuff has happened, but I’m tired, as usual, so all you get is:

– We (meaning the owlies and I and the blog) are nine years old as of a week ago. Happy birthday, little owlies and your Court!

– The hospital tests happened, and I’m not dead. The procedure was extremely uncomfortable, although I was told that it was out-of-the-ordinarily so due to specific circumstances, and it’s something I hope to never have to go through again. The doctor’s initial response was positive, but that was based on looks alone; we have to wait four weeks for the samples to be analysed for final and accurate feedback. I spent most of the rest of the day on the couch downstairs trying not to move and jar the painful test site. I was mostly okay by the next morning, though. I have prescriptions contingent on the outcome and follow-up appointments and all that sort of stuff.

– Chuffed by my success with my beautiful, beautiful wool-bamboo blend on the new Symphony wheel, I jumped into the second half of the Polworth so I could have it finished and done. I wish I was enjoying it more. While it’s easier and certainly faster on the new double-drive wheel, it’s still not the fabulous experience I’ve read Polworth is supposed to be. It doesn’t draft easily (in places it does, but generally it does not), and doesn’t have the light shine Polworth is apparently supposed to have to it, and looks dull. I am willing to believe that it’s due to how it was dyed or handled before it got to me, and that this is not representative of the more general experience, but it’s not encouraging me to try the fibre again, really. The best news is that it’s going miles faster on the Symphony than the Louet, so it will be done with and then I can ply it and that will be that.

– The boy completed his first ever self-directed school project with no teacher input. He planned, designed, and executed a three-dimensional model of a penguin. I’m very proud of him, because on last term’s report card the teacher indicated he needed to work on clearly thinking through all the steps of an activity, and he accomplished this very well indeed.

I love this for so many reasons, including the wacky orange pipe-cleaner beak and the googly eyes. The paper-towel tube wings are held on with brass brads so they swing back and forth. It is, he would like you to know, an emperor penguin, and obviously a male, because it has an egg at its feet.

– We finally have the 1/8 size cello! It looks exactly like my 7/8, but miniaturized (it’s from the same manufacturer). It is adorable. The boy and I are sharing a lesson slot this coming Tuesday, as it is March break and I’d need to bring him with me anyway. I think it will be very good for him to watch another lesson in progress.

– The boy began his March break on Friday morning. Friday, being one of my work days, was very trying, because while he intellectually understands “Mum is working till lunchtime, do not bother Mum,” he is a very social boy and drops by frequently to see what I’m doing, to invite me to play, or to ask me to problem-solve. HRH has been marvellous this weekend, giving me an hour here and there to catch up on work time I missed due to doctors and hospitals and other regular engagements last week. He took the boy out to do groceries yesterday morning when I had a brutal headache, and they came back with a potted hyacinth:

and a potted daffodil:

Bless them.

– I have to work this week while the boy is home on March break. This is going to be a Very Valuable Learning Experience for everyone. We are doing our best to get through the boy’s head that Mum is working when she sits at her computer, not playing as he does when he sits at it, and she cannot be interrupted every five minutes. I have a deadline on Friday at noon, and while I’m at the halfway mark as of this afternoon’s work session, it could all go very badly if the manuscript takes a turn for the worse, or the boy is too clingy. The afternoons are being spent together. Trust me, if I could have taken this week off, I would have, but I miscalculated how much time I’d lose to hospitals and medical professionals and waiting rooms last week and accepted a freelance assignment, and so I have to finish the last half of the project this week while he’s home.

– It’s beginning to feel suspiciously like the end of winter (note: this does not exactly equate to “the beginning of spring”; that happens sometime later). The sun is reducing the huge snowbanks down somewhat, and there are steady drops of snowmelt off the roof. We are all very cranky every time Environment Canada issues weather warnings for the region that scaremonger with threats of 25 cm of snow, but so far we’ve just gotten 5 cm here and there. March may come in like a lamb after all.

My Deadline Carrot

Carrots work so much better than sticks, don’t you think?

Gentle readers, behold: HRH and I finished the staining and waxing the new Kromski Symphony spinning wheel.

It’s a bit darker than I initially envisioned, but it will lighten with time. Finishing it took about two weeks, but that’s because I didn’t have a lot of time or energy to stain it all in three days straight, and then there was a delay before the waxing step because I refused to use the stinky petroleum-derived paste wax that is ubiquitously available. There were tonnes of tiny finicky pieces to stain, too. HRH did about half of the work, staining the drive wheel itself, and doing the second coat of golden-tone stain over the initial walnut colour on everything. I love the homemade beeswax polish I made, which was essentially one part beeswax to four parts walnut oil, with about five drops of lavender essential oil stirred in as it cooled. The wax really brought a nice glow to it. It’s already fading; I may want to wax it more frequently than I thought. We assembled it Sunday night while rewatching the penultimate episodes of the first season of Farscape.

Today is Deadline Day. I am theoretically supposed to hand in half of the bird book, but I am actually a couple of thousand words or so below that. My editor, bless her, said not to worry about it when I contacted her on Friday with the grim facts. Things are actually going very well now, and I’m getting the entries for about two birds a day done. No matter when the wheel got finished I wasn’t going to be allowed to play with it anyway, until I’d handed in my half-book. That happens this afternoon, so tonight or tomorrow, I get to sit down and test-drive my new beauty.

She does not yet have a name. I did figure out that my Louet’s name is Lillian during this whole process, though. Poor Lillian; she has not been used since I decompressed in early January after the November/December trudge doing the two ounces of laceweight Polworth with those lovely creamy four ounces of Merino. I have no idea what I will spin first on this Symphony. Goodness knows I have a lovely basket full of indie dyer braids that I have collected over the past quarter-year from which to choose. I think there’s a Rambouillet in there somewhere; that might be nice.

Back to the salt mines! I need to finish the entry on doves before I give it all a quick once-over and e-mail it to my editor, because I have to drive out to pick the boy up to school. There’s a school bus strike that began today, you see, which cuts about an hour off my already truncated work day. No idea how long it will go on, either. The school appears very organized, though, as does the school board.

EDIT: I seem to have neglected to post a photo of that delicious thick-and-thin single of Merino in the Blue Bells #2 colourway that I spun in early January. You poor, deprived readers! Here you are:

LATER EDIT: I have just handed in my partial manuscript of the bird book. It’s only a couple of thousand words shy of the halfway point, which was the goal for today’s deadline. Go. Me.

And now I will fall over, until it is time to suit up and go collect the boy from school.