Week Eighteen: Testing, Testing

This week was the third exam for my calculus class (I started sitting in on this section just after everyone else had taken their second exam). Lately I’ve discovered that although I’m learning the new concepts, my foundations are still shaky — particularly when I’m dealing with trigonometry. My professor has realized this, and graciously extended the time she’ll allow me to make up last semester’s Incomplete. I’ve proposed to her that that I do acres of homework to catch up to where I should be, and finish when I can. It’s work I need to do for this kind of math-work to become second nature, so I’m fine with that. I just have to take little breaks when I realize I’m wasting good time after bad. So yesterday, while everyone else was taking an exam for which I was woefully under-prepared, I was holed up in my “office” working on concepts about two chapters previous. But it’s starting to click. Mostly.

Paige’s problems ARE the material I’m covering in class!

The school year is also, of course, coming to a close for the kidlets. My daughter informed me recently that there were only 20-something days of school left, and that she knew this because “the fifth graders are keeping a countdown.” Personally, I’m not so sure it isn’t the teachers who are counting down the days. Both my parents are retired public school teachers, so I know they’re capable of it. Hey kids! Don’t forget you’re signed up for Session 1 of summer school!

Other “doings” include knitting. I went nearly a week without knitting a stitch, and I just felt so frustrated that there seemed to be no time right now for something that relaxes me so much. Over the weekend I holed up in my library-bedroom and knit furiously on a baby blanket for someone who refers to herself as “the nice lady from the library.” And she is! She has three young boys and doesn’t know if this baby is a boy or a girl, but either way, this child deserves something new. I know from experience that boys don’t really “hand down” things of much value, unless you like your jeans with holes already in the knees. And then, one day, I looked at the blanket with honest eyes, and realized that the edge intended to be the short one was about four feet wide. Ten more pounds of yarn, and this would be an awesome blanket for me. So I (brace yourselves) slipped it off the needles, pulled out every stitch, wound up all the yarn, and started again the next day.

On Monday night I reached a milestone in my double-top-secret ginormous long-term project. It took me a couple of hours, but I laid out all the sections of it on the floor, and switched parts around to match dye lots in certain places. I figured out how to seam it all up, then carefully packed up each section so that I would be able to start assembling it, column by column.

No, not THOSE kinds of columns.

My other knitting has been touch and go. I’m designing a scarf that is a giftknit for a friend, but I’m kind of stalled on it right now. And a “brainless” knit I was working on, then set down, proved to need extra brain power to sort out when I had the time to pick it up again. It’s been a week since I got input from a professional designer, and I just haven’t picked up the needles on this one. The baby blanket and the ginormous project really must get done sooner, as they both have organic deadlines.

I’m reading… I’m thinking about my life… I’m exercising… I’m taking care of errands that have waited for months… I’m cooking… I’m straightening up the house… I’m writing… I’m playing outside with the kids… I’m busy.

It’s nice.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

Registration is now open for the 6th annual Unwind social event, held in conjunction with the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival in Jefferson, Wisconsin!

How do I sign up, you ask?

Well, just click the small image below, and it should open, full size, in a new window. Then just right-click (Mac users, control-click) the image below and you can download and print a PDF of this year’s registration form. Ta daah! Oh, and you can make plenty of copies for your friends — one person per form, please.

This year we will be selling T-shirts with a new design. They are $12 each, available in sizes S through XXL, and must be ordered when you register.

Details will be posted on Ravelry on my profile page, and in the WI Sheep and Wool group page.

Any questions? Ask them on Ravelry, so we can all share the answers.

Hope to see you there!

Judith, Judith, Judith

That’s “Judith MacKenzie McCuin” for those of you who still need to update your scorecards.

I’m blogging from my hotel room, after a long and somewhat frustrating day full of Learning Experiences. One thing I learned at the very end of the day was that my wheel needs some fixing and updating. Pending the availability of the right parts (odds are good), Maggie should receive a new flyer (with extra whorl — I will have two ratios from which to choose), a new brake band, and a new drive band early tomorrow morning before the last day’s session.

However. Considering all of that, I think we did all right with worsted, woolen, wet spinning, plying, bouclé, and slubs. It was a bit of a liability to have missed everything that took place in the Friday sessions, but I caught up as best I could. (It’s hard to concentrate on your draw technique when your flyer keeps falling off.) I did some spinning and plying and skeining-up in the hotel, too.

Tomorrow we’re going to work on tweeds and encased yarns. Woo hoo! But tonight I’m missing an informal dyeing session (boo hoo) because I had to leave that hotel in Columbus and check into this hotel in Watertown. Oh well. I’m not going to worry about it.

I have a lovely quiet evening to myself after driving through the fog to get here — dinner for one, a room with a TV I haven’t turned on yet (and might not at all), and Firefly DVDs I can watch on my computer if I wish. But maybe I will just knit, or spin, or read the Judith book I already have.

P.S. I tried to upload my pictures of Flickr, but the hotel’s wifi doesn’t seem robust enough to handle it. I’ll put them up tomorrow — wait till you see my “clown barf bouclé cabled yarn”!

I can’t believe I’m going….

So, like, there’s like, this spinning retreat, like, starting tomorrow — and I get to go!

Well, not to the whole thing, but something like two-thirds of it plus a little slice of Friday. It’s the Judith MacKenzie McCuin-led retreat held through Susan’s Fiber Shop. Getting there has been an interesting journey, what with date changes and roommate arrangements and hotel reservations — but it starts tomorrow.

On the one hand, the original plan was going to be *awesome* with all the things that a friend and I had schemed up. Nothing can replace the weekend that I had, briefly, in my imagination. But this one should be pretty good too, even though I’ll miss everything that happens in the daytime Friday session.

The best part of getting ready for it (have I packed a single thing? NO) has been clearing the spinning equipment so I can start fresh this weekend with spinning every freaking thing in my stash, with intelligence and intention. This week I made two new Wookie skeins totaling almost 200 yards of 2-ply, I updated my spinning records as much as I could without Actual Research, and I made little labels for the jars I keep my handspun in.

(No, I haven’t knitted a single stitch on any of my handspun. There are many reasons for this. But I do have a project in mind for my Wookie-wool once it’s all spun up. Right now I have about 25 percent of what I need. Wait and see….maybe by 2011.)

So. I emptied my bobbins, I reglued most of my bobbins, I printed out directions to the “field trip” portion of Friday…. 

Yup. Going to yarn camp, and I couldn’t be happier.

Wait till the kids find out.

Knitwise I’ve been a bit of a slug. I started working on the second Retro Rib Sock again, figuring if I did one pattern repeat a day I would eventually finish the sock and could get on with my life. That plan worked about as well as most of my plans do, but this time I’m going to climb right back on the wagon and keep trying to work it.

I got caught up on Logan’s Blanket tonight, too. It’s pretty easy to work twelve rows on that blanket — you just have to turn your back on teh drama of Ravelry and actually sit down to knit.

So. Let me know if you’d like me to blog from mid-retreat on Saturday night, and I’ll take the computer along with my collection of two-hundred year-old technology. Hey, maybe I’ll even take the camera!

Everything

Here it is, Post 300. Long in the making because, well, these benchmark numbers put one under such pressure to perform! Until, finally, it occurs to me it hasn’t been three days since the last post, it’s closer to three weeks and by the time I write the next post there won’t be anyone there to read it anyway.

Emergencies

I have had my share of little panics over the past three days three weeks. Remember that extra little Christmas we had when I found the presents I’d hidden? One of them was a Scout knife, fresh from the factory and twice as sharp. The very next day, said Scout forgetting that putting it on top of his dresser wasn’t exactly removing temptation from his four-year-old brother, we had ourselves a small crisis. I’d tell you all the details, really I would — they were hilarious! — but until some sort of statute of limitations runs out, I’m afraid I’ll have to plead the Fifth lest someone from Children’s Services is reading this and decides I need some time in solitary to reconsider my parenting skills. (Short version: I did not know the knife was on the dresser until we were on our way to the doctor’s office for some skin glue. The reasonable explanations I heard for there being blood everywhere were all lies.) But we did meet a lovely new pediatrician.

That was a Wednesday. The following Monday I went upstairs to wake the same four-year-old boy for school, and was met with a zombie. I carried his limp body down to the couch, where he lay all day, eyes glazed, fever burning, unslaked by orange juice. The doctor’s office had no open time slots, so he didn’t get there until Wednesday, when it was discovered he had an ear infection and a teensy bit of, well, pneumonia.

It’s interesting to tell people that your child has a touch of, well, pneumonia. They look at you as if you’re about to breathe some pneumonia on them as well, while the thought bubble above their head wonders do people still get pneumonia any more?

Some of them do, and I hope they’re almost done with it. Because for a whole week, TV sucked, medicine tasted nasty, I was the most horrible mommy on the earth and deserved to DIE, and school became the Emerald City. But we did meet another nice pediatrician.

Meanwhile, I was adding “I am SO going to Knit Night” to the end of every e-mail I was writing last week. The events of the night were undiminished by the fact that one of my brake lines blew out as I was leaving the Beltline on the way to Verona, and were of course completely out on the hourlong drive back. I could tell they were handling differently — I just didn’t know why. But I brought me home safe. We dropped off the van on Monday, and maybe it will be fixed tomorrow morning. And we did get to reacquaint ourselves with the guys who fix my car.

So.

I finished a Secret Knitting Project I can now call the Old School/New School Scarf. Check it out in 2009 Finished Projects. It’s a tube scarf, with colored stripes transitioning from Marquette Warrior to Marquette Golden Eagles. It’s hideously warm and was completed two days before it absolutely had to be.

I finished my January sock for the Personal Sock Club — check it out in Finished Projects as well. I finished this sock yesterday, so technically it’s a January/February sock, and I don’t care to speculate as to when the second one will be finished. I might cast on for it tonight, just so that doesn’t get delayed any further.

Who’s left? The only other active project I have is a Season 16 Doctor Who Scarf. I’m coming to terms with my other projects not really being Works In Progress, but Hibernating Items I’d Rather Not Think About For A Few More Months. But I really would like to get them all wiped out by the end of 2009.

Thanks for reading my 300th post!

P.S. I did some spinning the other night — yes, Wookie roving. I have a spinning retreat coming up in less than a month and thought I’d blow through the open bag of Wookie wool, have fun plying it, and have all the bobbins free for the retreat.

So, this one time, at Sheep and Wool…

…we had this little party, and about 40 people came? And had cheesecake? And won door prizes?

And then we all got massively tired and wished we could sleep for weeks and weeks. But we did take some pictures. They’re not great, but they’re pictures, and they’ve already taken Stage One of their journey and now actually reside on the computer rather than in the camera.

I’ve got a few things to do first (like shower, and run out for diapers and wipes) but I want to take advantage of this being a 3-child school day and put up a very nice blog post with some of those pictures and lots of words.

Here’s our display at the Country Store on Saturday morning. I don’t know why the camera was doing that! (Hi Brandy!)

Here are some sheep (including Shetlands). Check out the horns on that Jacob!

Four-day-old lamb, 2008 WI Sheep & Wool

 

 

Shetland sheep, 2008 WI Sheep & Wool

 

[/Jacob Sheep, horns and all!]  

The feed is sweeter in the other pen!

 

Here is the food at the Afterparty before anybody had some. Chocolate chip cookie pizzas in three flavors, pizzelles in two flavors, chocolate dipped pretzel sticks in four varieties, and two types of cheesecakes with three fruit toppings. Coffee, soda, water, etc. The wine was a door prize ONLY.

 

Chocolate dipped pretzel sticks

 

 

Cheesecake bar — New York style and chocolate mint chip

 

 

Chocolate chip cookie pizzas

 

Here are the door prizes, almost all of them. Some people came to the party and dropped more items on the table.

And here is the TARDIS I made just for the party. You won’t believe how cool my children think this is, and where it is now.

Off to do errands, then I’ll fill it in later.

A tremendous thanks to everyone who attended, everyone who just stopped by the table to say Hi even if they couldn’t come, everyone who helped in any way, and especially to Cheesehead with Sticks, who really made it all possible. I really hope there’s an event like this next year, even if I’m not involved with planning and running it.

September 11: OK, I almost give up. Sorry about the formatting. If I can figure out how to fix it, I’ll do so one picture and caption at a time, saving in between. Meanwhile, I’m on with the rest of my life.

Fleeced

Bwahaha, the fiber acquisition program has begun. Some would say it began a while ago, starting with “practice fiber” from Chief Enabler Lauren, and was augmented with raw llama fiber from a local farm last fall… and they would be right. But now I am starting to put them into Proper Storage, so it’s official.

I have a white Romney fleece, raw and somewhat skirted, from a sheep named Betty. And I have a black/brown Romney fleece, raw and not skirted, from “Pebbles.” I am almost completely ignorant of the processes I’ll have to follow, but I’m guessing my first step is making a skirting table so I can get rid of all the VM by hand. Then, figuring out what parts is what, separating them, and starting the cleaning and carding process. Hoo baby.

(If you know more about this than I do, which is quite likely, feel free to chime in.)

Knitting projects: all the same as last time, except I am into the plain knitting for the Salt & Pepper sock. I don’t remember what size needles I used for Sock One, and whether I changed them after the cuff ribbing, but it’s starting to look like I did. As in, the first sock’s cuff pulls in and the second one’s doesn’t. But I am perfectly willing to leave it be and treat it as a Learning Experience. (Those of you who have known me for a Very Long Time will realize this is small potatoes compared to some Previous Learning Experiences.) After all, these socks are for me myself, and only I should notice it.

Doctor Who update: looking forward to re-viewing “Army of Ghosts” and completely viewing “Doomsday” tonight. DH seems all for it as long as we can watch “Hot Rod” next. What can I say, he’s been on a lot of planes lately.

It’s stopped raining here long enough for the wind to blow everyone’s trash bins into the next county (for two days). Rain is forecast for five days out of the next seven, though, which might lead to more road closures around here. The Rock River in Jefferson is up almost to the tops of the pilings of the railroad bridge — can’t imagine that’s good for it. Any engineers out there want to calculate the stress-loading of that when a freight train rolls across the top of a bridge just poking through a fast, flooded river? Need pictures to work from?

Knit Night tomorrow, time for making elaborate Harlot-meetup plans with Dale-Harriet. Oh, and yeah, there’s a little Mountain Colors trunk show and sale going on. Someone please save me something, anything!

A spring, a spring, a marvelous thing

I know everyone is soooo excited about this, but yesterday I actually did make it to the hardware store. I got a parking space right in front of it, then looked at the storefront and read all the signs. The big news? That hardware store has been consolidated into a bigger one (still local). One with a parking lot, bigger aisles, more staff, etc. I ended up with a pair of springs that sort of matched my old one, plus some 3-in-One oil in a neat container that has a telescoping nozzle.

After the hardware store trip I drove around looking for fiber farms. I passed two farms with sheep, and one with llamas. (Actually I left my name at the llama farm to see if they had any fiber for sale.) This was all within ten miles of my house. (The same radius includes a winery, honey for sale, an organic farm, and at least two places that sell eggs.)

There was no further knitting or fiber content to my life until the Cub Scout meeting, during which Colleen got to play at the school playground (Jack didn’t because he hid his shoes, which are still AWOL). And that’s when I — gasp!! — cast on for a scarf for the Red Scarf Project. I will have to check their deadline to see if I can really make and send a scarf in time, otherwise it’s somebody else’s Christmas present.

Free Red Scarf Pattern from Chocolate Sheep
Cast on 33 stitches any way you like.
Row 1 (wrong side): knit 2, *purl 1, knit 1, repeat from *, end with knit 2.
Row 2 (right side): knit all stitches.
Repeat Rows 1-2 until scarf is desired length.
Bind off.

But after I got everyone to bed, I oiled up the wheel and attached a new spring. And tried to spin. And tried and tried and tried. I am not treadling smoothly enough (is one of the problems I am having).

I managed to quit just before I got furiously upset, and switched over to knitting. I brought the Baby Tsock all the way up to the last 16 stitches for Kitchenering, which I can knock off tonight. And I went for the Red Scarf, only to see one of my needles was misplaced. The rosewood Lantern Moon, sob! But I found it this morning next to my purse, so everything is fine. (I promptly sat down and knitted two more rows on the scarf. Just because I could.)

Also last night I got a Flickr account set up. Now if only I could find the cable that connects the camera to the computer. I suppose I can get started, pre-Ravelry, by taking pictures of all my projects. And I can get all my needles in the same place to prepare for inventory.

Today is the “big” shopping in Watertown with 3 kids, then picking up the oldest on the way to a doctor appointment for the youngest. It all starts when Colleen comes home on a big bus rather than the cutie-pie bus she usually rides. What fun, wish you could join me!

Sheeped out

Today, after Mass, we went back to the fest again. Yes, again. I ended up taking the three Eldest because they’re not yet capable of watching a Packers game with Daddy in the proper manner. It’s a good thing they at least claim to like sheep and sheepdogs and yarn and spinning wheels.

Once again I did not take many pictures of the place itself, or the vendors. Molly Bee, who darted in and out on Saturday morning without so much as a by-your-leave, scooped up a beautiful spinning wheel and took some pictures, so I refer you to her.

Brandy and I met up again. I swear she must have just known when I would arrive because I was just loading kids into the double stroller and there she was. Thank goodness, too, because when it came time for me to hang with the spinning demo folk and try to inhale some good spinning karma she volunteered to take the Wonder Twins to see the sheepdog trials (“Mom, the dogs were chasing the sheep!”).

Total haul from the weekend:

* three bags “starter” spinning fiber from a local sheep named “Wookie”
* two knitted finger puppets: one black sheep, one cream alpaca to remind me of my herds-to-be
* “leftover” chocolate and cream alpaca yarn
* a rubber stamp depicting my exact spinning wheel
* a free issue of Sheep! magazine
* prize fiber for Michelle at Boulderneigh
* 4.5 ounces of Jacob Sheep roving, which I knew I would kick myself for not buying while I had the chance, so I bought it

Next year… I hope to have a booth there. There. I said it. It’s a formal goal now. And when I can tell you exactly why I will be there and what I will be selling… I promise that I will. If you live in Wisconsin, you will want to buy one. And until I get off my butt and work on that project, I’d better just leave it at that.

By the way, Sheep! magazine looks to be really good. I have worked on magazines, so I think you can trust me on this one. Based on what I have skimmed out of the current issue, I think my future herd will be just fiber animals, and not meat-market lambs. So let me know what you want to have spun up. I’m leaning right now towards Shetlands and/or Jacob sheep. They look like a manageable size, with naturally multicolored fleeces. I also liked the Lincolnshire Longwools, but they were Seriously. Huge. Animals. Might as well just have horses if I’m looking at shearing a 200+ pound animal.

Mass was interesting, too. Last week I ended up taking all four kids to Mass by myself. We sat in the back of the church and it was awful. Nobody smiled, said Hi, or ever offered to help with anything. And obviously I was struggling. But my attitude afterwards was, This is my church and I will keep coming, no matter what.

This weekend we got there late and couldn’t find seats together in the back. The ushers said they could find us a place.

Q: Where is there space for a family of six coming late to Mass?
A: Why, the front row, silly!

The front-of-church people were much more charmed by our little family, the choir was back in session, the organ was in use. Everything was better. And that’s when I remembered the reading from the previous week. It was the one that says, when you get to a special event, don’t seat yourself with the important people so that the host will come in and demote you. Rather, place yourself in a low station so that when the host comes in he will say, Friend, go up higher. Gulp. That’s kid of a scary text when you put it into practice.

Anyway, we made it. I think we’ll go back next week.

Now I’m off to bed. Last night I couldn’t sleep because my mind was busy trying to spin up the Wookie wool. Goodness knows what it will busy itself with tonight.

Contest winner!

And our contest winner (remember, we had a contest? Lo those many moons ago?) is…

Michelle at Boulderneigh!

Michelle, I forgot to pick up extra goodies for a prize when I was at the fest today. So if you’re out there tonight, comment and let me know what you’d like to have. A book, some fiber, some yarn… it can be yours. And let me tell you, I saw some baby camel blends that were, as Cheesehead With Sticks put it, dreamy. If I don’t hear from you before I head out tomorrow, I will just put together a nice prize package of something you don’t have immediate access to (i.e. from your own flock). E-mail me so I can get your mailing address!

Brandy and I already scored some nice goodies from the WI S&WF, and petted and drooled on all the rest. And we’re going back tomorrow to take pictures, we Swear To God. If Brandy survives the night in her cheap motel.

Want to know what I picked up? Pictures sometime, descriptions now. Spinning fiber from a sheep named “Wookie.” A rubber stamp of Maggie May. Alpaca yarn to knit up a keepsake. Finger puppets to keep me on task (a black sheep and an alpaca).

And — oh. I must say. As much as you think knitters are enablers, spinners are worse. And shepherds are even even so much worse than spinners. Folks — even though I did move to the country, we’re only renting. We don’t have land or a barn. Can’t adopt a flock of Shetlands or Angora goats or bison or whatever. Not yet. No matter how much good karma it adds to the world. Not yet.  But, we’re planning to add lots of good, in the form of sheep and alpacas and maybe a stray horse or two. Eventually.

The pull of the wool

Okay, I couldn’t resist. Brandy, you can go ahead and hate me again now, because the thought of struggling with the kids all evening not ten miles from a wool fest was just too much, and after dinner I wiped everyone off and dragged them to the no-admission night.

We got there at 7:30, so only had 30 minutes to run our eyes over everything. Does that make me ADD, that I like to go to new places (note: of my choosing) and drag my eyes across all the visuals? (INPUUUUUUUT, INPUUUUUUT)

I took the double stroller so I could strap Jack in. You’d better believe this was important. But all the kids were good, and I praised them highly.

We went through two huge pole barns (i.e. Country Store East and Country Store West) and ran our collective eyes over locks, batts, roving, skeins, finished knitting, weaving, wheels, spindles, combs, notions, knitted animals, finger puppets, books, old magazines, looms, and even Angora rabbits. JC and Colleen ran right away to the rabbits. There’s even a giveaway for one. On the way home we decided to make it a yearlong family project to find out everything we could about Angora rabbits and rabbit keeping, so by this time next year we will know if we really want to take care of one (or if we are just lustful). Since I think the dog will view the rabbit as a snack, I would rather not even get into this territory until the dog has passed. So this “research project” may stretch on for longer than a year, or I may just decide to manipulate the data. Yet I digress. (Does that mean I have ADD?)

Then we passed through two of the sheep barns, where very few of the sheep were set up for the weekend. There were, however, three ewe-and-lamb pairs penned together. The lambs were 7-10 days old and I must say the ewes were downright suspicious. My kids didn’t poke their fingers in the pen but did say “BAAAA” all the way through the barns. How original.

The sun had fully set when we left at 7:56 and I hadn’t spent a dime. (They all, however, want me to buy them knitted finger puppets when I go over tomorrow.)

I can totally see how someone could spend a small fortune, or a large one if that were all that was available, at one of these festivals. I saw Jacob Sheep roving at $2/ounce and felt a strong urge to shoplift. So I need a firm plan before I go back tomorrow. My main plan is to get breed information so that I’ll know what sheep to have on my own farm. But practically, I know I’m going to buy yarn and/or fiber this weekend that I will learn to spin on, so I want to make a wise choice. Any suggestions?