Converts

Damn me for not having my camera with me last night, damn me! Yesterday Windy IMmed me to plan our weekly Wednesday get-together, and she said the sweetest, most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me. She said, "I'm ready to learn how to spin."

And did she! I know she feels as if she was struggling, but I'm so impressed at how quickly she got the hang of things: threading the orifice, fitting the yarn across the flyer hooks, treadling, drafting, managing the twist, joining new fiber. The real treat for me, as I was hiding around the corner pretending not to watch (instead of looming over her and making her nervous), was the look on her face as all of the motions she was learning popped into rhythm and suddenly she was making yarn.

Best day ever! It gets better though: the whole time she was spinning, Joe sat next to her, staring at the wheel with utter fascination, and when she was done, he even tried it for a minute. I might have TWO converts!

Life is good.

Delphinium Progress, With Better Photos

When I'm not at work or soaking up all the attention my friends can give me or cleaning out my mom's house (okay, well, holding the trash bag while Scott cleans out my mom's house), I am sitting at home, sulking and feeling sorry for myself, and because I'm never one to pass up an opportunity, I'm taking advantage of my sulking time to knit away on this scarf:

I love working on this scarf. It will need a little blocking, but I'm going to have to take care not to block it too much because the stitches create a very three dimensional fabric and I don't want to flatten it out and lose that effect.

Again, my pictures just don't do this scarf justice, even when they are not blurry. Okay, look at the top two to get the idea of how the stitches and beads are put together, then look at the picture below to get an idea of the vibrant color:
See how it's a very rich, luscious pink, and then it has swirls of black-white-and-tan on top of it? A very nice color. Geezis, that window sill is filthy. Somebody get over here and dust. Yuck.

This project is special to me because my mom bought this fiber and dyed it herself when I first got my wheel. She was so excited about it. Naturally, once I started knitting something out of it she lost interest in it and I'm pretty sure she thought the beads were stupid. But we'll overlook that and just concentrate on the specialness, shall we?

We can also agree that the beads are SO not stupid. You can't tell from my deplorable photography, but these beads, which I bought at fusionbeads.com (see them here: http://www.fusionbeads.com/shop/product/27572/ ), are clear ruby pink but lined on the inside with silver to make them reflective, and they are gorgeous.

I'm really not a bead person OR a lacy pink scarf person; I'm sure I won't keep this scarf for myself, but my grandpa's new girlfriend Adorable Jan caught me working on it and said very casually, "Oh, I CERTAINLY LIKE PINK," and "MY, I HAPPEN TO, COINCIDENTALLY, LIKE BEADS. COUGH, COUGH," so I think I may have found a very deserving recipient for a project that is so close to me. Hooray!

Plug

Dug has updated his blog with Parts 6 through 9 of The Eternal City series. Hooray!

http://poeticsmoke.blogspot.com/

Freaking Out

I know, I know. I'm supposed to be fixing up my mom's house and also cleaning-purging-packing at my house. I know. But, despite the fact that I have three small knitting projects going to keep me sane, I'm silently freaking out because I don't have a sweater project going. I'm working on the Malicious Salad fiber very slowly, but while the yarn is absolutely gorgeous, I don't know if it's suited for a sweater. I might use it for very cute socks/hats/mittens instead; it would be great for those because I've plied it to be self-striping and the merino wool will be so soft next to the skin, just like my Nuclear Pumpkin sweater. (It's the same fiber; I bought four pounds of it.)

Not having a sweater in progress is really making me nervous. Really. Nervous. But can I justify buying and dyeing more "sweater" wool while I have so many smaller batches of unspun fiber and unfinished knitting projects filling up my house? On the other hand, the sweater on the cover of the last Interweave Knits is begging me to knit it. Can I justify ignoring it? I mean, how do you think that makes my unborn sweater feel, knowing that I'm refusing to bring it to life? Poor sweater. And that whole winter IK issue was about tweed, and I'm so wanting to learn how to spin something tweedy, and the challenge of spinning for a specific project would be so delicious.

I could do it slowly, too. I could pick out a nice, scrunchy wool and dye it and then I could work on it over the summer. I could let it dry and slowly work on prepping it before I move, and then begin spinning it when we transfer our crap to the other house. I could knit it over the late summer and have it ready for when the weather turns chilly again.

Some of you are asking: Why don't I just get on the innernets and order the yarn used in the pattern and start knitting? There are two answers: 1. Because that yarn, in the quantity needed for my ginormous plus-size sweater, will cost more than bailing out Wall Street. Spinning will save me money. 2. Spinning the yarn myself will bring me great joy. It's more about the yarn itself than the object made with the yarn.

Also, I've been letting my savings account build up, and after we move I am thinking of rewarding myself with a second wheel. I would love to spin for this sweater on my new wheel. I just have to decide which one. There's several candidates out there, and I may have to make the trip to Yarn Barn in Lawrence, KS and test drive some of them.

The Green Room

The House Part 3: The Green Room
When my mom and I moved into my grandpa's house back in 1993, my mom made me paint the sun room (formerly my late grandmother's sewing room) green. Goodnight Moon, Kiss-Me-I'm-Irish GREEN. And then she spent the next few years turning the woodwork I'd painstakingly painted white into a dark, dark nicotine yellow. The ceiling, probably once white, stayed dark brown. She didn't want me to change it because she liked the nicotine as a DESIGN element.

When Dug and I began our house-cleaning last Tuesday, we quickly identified the "green room" as the most difficult room (well, besides the basement and attic, but we're just working on the living areas of the house right now) to clean out, and started there first. There was junk piled up to the ceiling. The walk-in closet could not be walked in to. There were mounds of trash and debris that had to be excavated before we could see the floor. Somehow, in our fervor, we got all of the trash disposed of, the treasure sorted through, the drawers emptied and furniture shoved out of the room, and at 10:00 that night we found ourselves giving the room a good coat of kilz.

The next morning, paint swatches in hand, we went to Lowe's intending to purchase a sophisticated, creamy beige paint to start coating the walls. We stopped by the paint chips to be sure we'd made the right decision, and simultaneously we spotted the absolute perfect color for that room. I felt Dug's arm tighten around me. My eyes met Dug's smoldering gaze and I breathed huskily, "We're gonna ditch the beige and paint it RED, aren't we?" Dug grasped my hand passionately and assured me, "Yeah, duh, you knew we would." I jumped up and down a little and replied, "Teehee!" Then I did some clapping and squealing. Dug shook his head and told me, his voice laden with anticipation, "You are stupid." I gasped. "No," I said, "YOU are stupid." Then we said that back and forth about 347 times until the store guy said, "You're BOTH stupid, okay?"

Anyway, the important thing is, Dug and I still agree, it's a really good red:
And also that closet you see there? Scott came over the next day and totally helped me finish cleaning it out. Woo!!



Zoetrope was asking me if I'll have a good room for spinning when we move. Oh yes, yes I have.

The House (Or: Where I've Been)

I guess everyone who reads my blog is well aware that my mom has passed away, and that I've been MIA for a couple of weeks. I've been off work, at first taking care of my mom during her last few days of life, and then taking some time off after she passed away to put things in order again. It's been unpleasant - but that's okay. It's supposed to be unpleasant. We all have to go through it sooner or later, and hopefully we're all as lucky as I have been, to have so many friends to help us through it.

Speaking of friends. Wow. I know I am never going to get around to properly thanking all of you as thoroughly as you deserve to be thanked. (No, Scott. You won't be getting thanked THAT thoroughly. Even though you did clean out that closet.) I love you guys.

The House Part 1: The Mess

So, after all the craziness was over, Dug and family and friends and I began the arduous task of cleaning out my mom's house. Let me preface this by explaining that my mom did not clean. In the 33 years that I knew her, I never once saw her clean. A few years ago, I made the monumental mistake of deciding that I wasn't going to spend all of my not-at-work waking hours frantically cleaning her house in an attempt to keep up with her record-breaking speed at mess-making. I just knew that if I stopped enabling her, she'd clean. I know. Stupid.

When she got sick, I retracted this edict and tried to undo the damage that had been done. I spent every weekend cleaning at her house, but I never got past the dining room table and the kitchen. I'd work on the table for four hours, come back the next day and have to start over entirely. Eventually I gave up.

I was going to burn the house to the ground after she died, but turns out my grandpa still owns it. And grandpa wants me and Dug to move in to it. It is a bigger house with a basement and central air conditioning and a nicer neighborhood, my grandpa put a lot of work in expanding it over the years, it has 4+ generations of my family history in it, us moving in makes my grandpa really happy, and probably we were going to clean it instead of burning it down anyway. So, moving in is really the only possible decision. We're okay with it.

On the other hand...well. I forgot to take "before" pictures, but here's her dining room after Dug and I did some cleaning:

You guys might notice that the walls are PEACH. Years ago, mom made me paint the whole dining room and the whole gigantic living room PEACH. It's like when my dad painted everything in his house magenta and left it to me, except I think the peach is more horrifying. (Note: you guys will see prolific use of the words "horrific" and "horrifying" and "horrors" in the coming months while my blog is devoted to house fixerupping instead of yarn. Just so you know.)

Here is my mom's bedroom after my grandpa's girlfriend Adorable Jan removed 6 bags of clothing to take to the thrift store where she volunteers:

Here is my mom's computer room:

After a week of working on the house, we did get ONE room entirely cleaned out and painted. I'll post more on that later because I'm running out of room here, but it's coming together. That one room. Very nice.

The House Part 2: I Need A Contractor

No, seriously, do any of you guys happen to be or know a contractor? Because OMFG. Here is one little detail from my mom's bathroom:

I don't have to show you the rest of the bathroom. It's the same.

The most interesting part of my mom's house is the kitchen. Circa 1978, my grandpa decided to redo the kitchen, but alas, never finished. He tore out one side of the kitchen and put in new cabinets and drywall and a pretend window:

But never tore out the OTHER SIDE of the kitchen (also with a pretend window):Those are two facing sides of the same kithen. 1980 and 1920. Sexy, huh? I like how one side has drywall and the other side has plaster, but the whole room is unified with a thick patina of nicotine. I so want to cook meals in this room.

There are other things in the house that will require contractor intervention, but which I forgot to get pictures of. Like the giant fluorescent light in the dining room that no longer has a cover. That has to go. I'd like to remove the pipe in the living room from where there used to be a bathroom before grandpa remodelled - when Scott noticed it he began shrieking with joy because he thought it was a stripper pole. The utility/laundry room was tacked onto the side of the house in the olden days and is actually falling off, causing roof leakage and other horrors. (See, there's that word again.)

Unfortunately I am not insanely wealthy so I think I'm going to start with the bathroom first, for obvious reasons, and save the kitchen and larger stuff for later. The kitchen is perfectly functional; it's just...weird.

Stay tuned for more installments on The House.