Category Archives: Knitting, Spinning, & Weaving

A Rather Important Announcement

We bought a house today.

It is small but sweet, in remarkable shape for its age, and very charming. It was built in 1947, and sold for the princely sum of $560 to the first owners. (We will be the fourth owners. We paid significantly more than that.)

Yes, househunting hell is OVER. Now, of course, we shift into packing hell, but as this has a concrete goal at the end of it and a structured timeline, it’s bearable. I’ve packed a home in two weeks before; a month will be fine.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who listened to us vent and offered moral support through this entire affair. The past six weeks haven’t been easy, but you have all made it less hellish by being positive and encouraging.

I must say, this has been a rather excellent birthday week, what with a house bought and a job offer received. Also, as a wonderful cap to the excellence, the boy paddled all over Ceri and Scott’s in-ground pool today with a floaty thing, and we were over the moon about his decision to leave anxiety about swimming behind. (When I say he was paddling all over the pool, I really mean all over, deep end and everything. For someone who wouldn’t leave the steps this is huge, and it seemed to happen within about ten minutes. There was even jumping in involved. And he paddled for ages, and then it was nigh-impossible to get him out; he kept wheedling to swim across the pool one more time.)

And in unrelated news, tomorrow we head out to the Glengarry Pioneer Museum for their Sheep to Shawl day-long celebration of fibre arts, where I will be spinning from ten till about four, unless I am slain by the heat first. It should be wonderful fun.

Even More Photos

Yesterday I finished plying and wet-finishing 390 yards of woollen-spun two-ply yarn. I love it with so much love. It’s springy and lofty and just gorgeous.

The pictures show two pretty tightly packed skeins of yarn, so it isn’t exactly displayed to its best advantage. But you’ll get an idea, anyhow.

This was the SpinKnit&Life’s Luscious Ditty batts in the Baby Silks colourway, “a 7 ounce luxury blend of Merino, Tussah Silk, Alpaca and Blue Faced Leicester Wool. Blue with muted splashes of pink, purple, mint green. Loaded with Tussah Silk for extra softness.”

Here, I used the other camera on loan to us for a macro picture of the sample skein so you get a better sense of the loft:

The second photo is closer to the actual colour.

Photo Post

You haven’t had pictures in a while, have you. Poor things. And it’s not like I have the focus or attention to write a thought-provoking post about oh, anything these days. So!

The boy plays Rock Band (we have discovered that the original Rock Band on the Wii does not have a no-fail setting, alas, so there is lots of saving by whoever is playing with the boy):

SpinKnit&Life’s Baby Silks batts on the bobbin (just over halfway through spinning this up, and it’s just lovely to work with):


Yarn I spun for Jan! The multi-coloured skein in the middle was Icelandic fibre dyed by someone else, but the plum skeins are local mohair/wool fibre I spun then dyed myself in the slow cooker, and let me tell you, I’m so glad I scribbled the on-the-fly dye blend down for future use:

It took a while, but the boy finally managed to carefully balance his soot sprites on Gryffindor’s back:

After which Gryffindor lost patience, knocked them all down, and tried to eat them:

Brief Weekend Roundup & The Birthday Monday Activity Log

I am really, really tired of househunting. HRH spoke with one of the daycare dads last week who is a real estate agent, and when he complained about how quickly houses were selling — literally in less than 24 hours between the listing going up and agents calling for clients to see it — the dad nodded and said, “What’s happening is people are buying up houses in batches unseen, painting and doing slight renos required or uplifts like lighting, and reselling them at a profit.” HRH expressed his frustration at this, because it really screws families who are actually looking for houses to live in, and the agent agreed. He said it irritates real estate agents, too. He asked how many houses we’d viewed and when HRH said about thirty, he nodded again and said, “Yeah, that’s about the average these days.” So it’s nice to know we’re not just having an atypically horrible experience, but still incredibly frustrating to know that we’re being stymied by people who are just in it for the money.

Somewhat related: The house we saw yesterday was tiny but sweet, well-located in regards to amenities and school but the general neighbourhood was a bit more working-class than others we’d seen. And it had the most adorable cat, who was about six months old. She was mostly grey with small splotches of blondish red on her sides and white legs, and was very affectionate. She and the boy played all over the house while we viewed it. And we have come to the conclusion that we will never find a house with three bedrooms on the same level, because for some reason ninety percent of the houses we’ve seen have only two on one level and the additional room or rooms somewhere else. It’s very odd.

I spent an hour last night working through the Gigue of the first Bach solo cello suite with the bow, and the Prelude of the second suite in pizz. I used the heavy practice mute, and even so when HRH and the boy came upstairs the boy ran up to me and said I was so loud he could hear me even in the garage and the noise could really get on people’s nerves. HRH pounced on him verbally and the boy had a severe talking-to about speaking without considering how you’re phrasing something, and the difference between practising something to get better and just making random annoying noise, but even after we both had a go at it he didn’t understand. It was one of those parenting days where you’re certain nothing you have ever taught your child has sunk in, never. And way to go, kid, hitting me in the most sensitive hang-up I have about playing the cello.

Saturday night we had a double-header game of Settlers of Catan with the upstairs neighbours. Everyone pitched in with various alcohol and nibbly things, and it was a really awesome evening.

In good news, I discovered today while paying bills that I only have $21.05 left on my student loan. As of the end of the month I shall be free of it. While I should like to revel in having a few extra dollars a month, I shall be a sad and disciplined Responsible Adult and just program the equivalent monthly automatic payment to my credit line. Actually, it ought to go to my Visa, which has the higher interest rate.

Today, I:

– baked bread
– baked a birthday cake for myself
– paid bills
– finished my freelance assignment
– handled the post-weekend and daily correspondence

That looks kind of short. Hmm. Plans to go to the bank and the post office were rescheduled to tomorrow morning, because when I checked the thermometer outside it said that it was 37 degrees in the shade. If I don’t have to go out into the mid-afternoon heat, why would I?

And best of all, my lovely editor with the publishing company I worked with for a few years pinged me regarding a dearth of copy editors in the company. She’d told the copy chief about my super-clean manuscripts and the beginnings of my search for a more regular copy editing position. The chief thought I sounded marvellous and told her to send me her contact info so we could get started right away. I wrote her a “hi here I am you asked for me to contact you I’m looking forward to talking to you” message and am now waiting for a reply. Seriously, a regular book copy editing gig with a publisher would be the best birthday present ever. My editor rocks.

I’ve spun up four ounces of the Luscious Ditty batts in the Baby Silks colourway from Spin Knit & Life, and am about to resume filling the second bobbin with the other half of the batts. I’m using a modified longdraw for it and enjoying it very much. It draws beautifully, and spins up equally nicely. I think it’s going to make a gorgeous two-ply light sport weight yarn.

Tuesday Activity Log

I am freaking exhausted. I know I have fibro, I know travel knocks me out, I knew being outside knocks me out even before the fibro diagnosis. Two twelve-hour car rides in four days, plus all the time between those trips being outside? Recipe for dragging myself around for the week following. I’m really struggling.

In other random news, in the past twenty-four hours I have spent more time on Facebook talking to people I reconnected with this weekend than I usually spend in a week. Which wasn’t much to begin with (I am a Twitter girl more than a Facebook girl), but whoa. It’s good to be with them, even virtually.

In my ongoing project of recording what I do each day so I don’t feel like I wasted it, I can report that today I:

– baked bread
– baked a pan of shortbread
– coloured my hair
– finished weaving the baby blanket (that link takes you to the blanket’s Ravelry project page, which I set to be accessible via this link only if you’re a non-Rav user)
– did all the finishing on the baby blanket (hemstitching the ends, cutting it off the loom, doing the fringe)
– did research on a couple of things
– reactivated my freelance status with my employer
– viewed a house
– spun two ounces of mohair/merino blend (longdraw, ultimately trying for a worsted weight chain-plied yarn)

Notice that “practising the cello” is not on that list. Why yes, I do have a concert in two days.

I passed out in the car on the way home after struggling not to nap this afternoon. I’m trying hard to not beat myself up for being useless after the trip.

Weekend Roundup, Father’s Day Edition

Happy summer solstice!

I’m exhausted. I feel like a black hole; I keep absorbing energy, but it vanishes. It was a good weekend, with nothing specific or enormous that drained me. There were small annoyances and obstacles, though, and when I deal with those the energy tends to slip away like something appropriately metaphoric through a sieve.

Saturday morning we headed out to do groceries and our Father’s Day shopping, and the boy got his hair cut. Then we headed to Angrignon Park for a naming ceremony I was leading, but the people were an hour later than they said they’d be there to prepare, and then the guests showed up half an hour after the specified time, too. They were all wonderful people and the ceremony was lovely, but it reminded me of why I usually charge for these things: the money covers hiccoughs like these that end up forcing me to adjust the rest of my day’s schedule. While we were waiting for everyone to arrive our real estate agent called with yet more bad news (actually, this was a repeat of earlier bad news that had been potentially rescinded, but no, we got disappointed for the second time on the same property). We ended up having to leave pretty much right after things finished because of the late start; the boy was very upset because we’d promised him he could play in the playground for half an hour after the ceremony, but the adjusted schedule meant the time wasn’t there for it any more.

We went home and changed, and fed the boy a very late lunch, then we headed to to the library just as it began to rain. The boy and I kicked around there for the better part of an hour and then came home to watch the storms batter the backyard till our agent arrived and we did some more paperwork.

Sunday morning I made pie crust and then quiche, and the Preston-LeBlancs came over for a lovely sunny Father’s Day/ Solstice brunch. We had piles of delicious food and the kids played inside and outside, and we had a wonderfully relaxing time talking to old friends. When they left I called my mother for our weekly chat, and while we did that the sun vanished, the wind kicked up, and we had another bad storm roll through. When it cleared up we headed over to HRH’s parents’ house (where they hadn’t had a speck of rain!) for a Father’s Day dinner of ribs, chicken, and multiple salads. I’d reached my limit, though, so all I managed to do was sit and watch the boy play in the pool with his grandmother and knit a couple of rounds on the short-sleeve sweater that I started last year.

After we put the boy to bed, HRH and I finally got to watch the Robert Downey Jr Sherlock Holmes, which was fun and an interesting take on the characters, but somewhat annoying in that the foley and dialogue editors seemed to have fallen down on the job of making sure the lead character’s dialogue was clearly audible in the first third of the film.

I have so much to do in the next three days. I’ve already booked off my regular freelance thing because I have an interview to finish up, and we need to pack for our upcoming camping trip and do all the other stuff associated with it. I have tonnes of planning to do regarding shopping for food at the other end, plotting out the route, trying to pin down the budget… and mix CDs need to be made!

But first, I get to invoice. Hurrah!

Friday Activity Log

This is a bad fibro day. I didn’t sleep well for a variety of reasons (most of them being in the last two hours of the night, which ruins a whole night’s sleep for me), and I suspect cuddling a three-month-old yesterday, contorting my body to support him and be a comfy bed while in a waiting room chair, did nothing for my posture. I woke up super achy, and have become increasingly dizzy. So today’s work got rescheduled till Monday (the deadline’s next week, thank goodness), and I did fibro-friendlier stuff instead.

– answered e-mail
– finished polishing the baby naming ceremony I’m doing on Saturday
– final communication and details with the mum involved in the baby naming
– showered, washed hair (and, no surprise, wiped myself out)
– laundry
– yogaed
– wove on the baby blanket some more

The boys are due home in about forty-five minutes. We are going out to get ice cream, then off to a Surprise, AKA Toy Story 3 at the theatre. Let’s see if I can set the timer on the pizza dough properly today.