Twists of Fate

I’ve decided that my lesson this Olympics is to not be such a tight ass or stress about, well, anything. I’m coming off a difficult winter, and I need to be more forgiving of myself. So if I finish these knee socks, great! If not, it’s perfectly OK too. They’ll still be there when the flame is extinguished, and I’ll be tear free. If that makes me a loser? So be it.

I never did play very well with the other reindeer, so they can keep their reindeer games and I’ll be over here with my book. ;D

So, as I knit around and around and around on these socks (whomever made the comparison that sock knitters are the short track speed skaters of the knitting world? You are SO right!), I’m looking forward to what to make next. I have a shawl in progress, which is lovely and will probably be complete fairly rapidly. Which, by the way, amazes me, because I’m not exactly known for speedy knitting and I knit the first part of the pattern and FOUR of TEN lace section repeats in a single night. I just about plotzed myself.

But I need to make something for my sister first, as she’s in Wisconsin for the moment, and the cold really hurts her. I have some Koigu PPPM that I think would be great for hand coverings of some kind. She mentioned once that she would love some gloves, but w/out the fingers. I specifically asked if she wanted half-fingers, and not just open space just past the knuckleslike all the wristlet patterns in the world out there right now, and she said no, she’d really like the half-fingers.

I need to finish getting ready for work, but I thought I’d toss this thought out there - does anyone know of a pattern for what are basically half gloves where I could sub the Koigu? Gauge on the label is 28sts = 4″ on US 3s (3mm). Any help would be fantastic.

Thank you kindly. *tips hat*

Er, Valentines Day. Not an actual VD. Although with the lack of the sex-ay in my life, I might as well have one. Then I’d have an excuse.

I grew up in a little town that has this little Valentine’s remailing program. The name of the town was such that there is a Miss Valentine contest, and the entire town looks like it’s been hosed down with Pepto Bismol there’s so much pink and red around the place. There’s also those stupid candy hearts, only really big and wooden, and attached to all the light and telephone poles around town. Glittering foil streamers of hearts and Cupids, fluttering gaily in the ass freezing cold wind streaming down the mountains. And if I never see another bare-assed Cupid picture in chaps? I’ll be a very happy woman.

I hate this day with the passion of a thousand burning suns.

However, there is chocolate, and a bottle of wine awaiting me at home (though now that I think about it, perhaps a visit to the store that sells The Scotch would be appropriate), and more fleece to wash, and snot-green Olympic socks to knit up, so all in all? Not such a bad day.

I hope y’all have a good one. :)

Progress on the socks remains at a standstill, for the most part. I went to see Brokeback Mountain yesterday and it was every bit as crushing as I knew it would be. I’d read the story ages and ages ago, and am totally glad I went to see the film.

But as one friend put it: “It’s like a shotgun blast to the chest.”

I just hurt for the remainder of the day yesterday, and still feel really awful today. Another friend called it “a story of missed chances”, and a love like that? Where it’s terrible and beautiful and awful for everyone involved? I feel…hollow.

So not much progress on the socks due to extreme dents in the tissue box last night. Even trying to motivate myself by saying, “But Michelle Williams’ charater was knitting! On screen!” only made me cry harder, since her situation really sucked rocks and no amount of knitting was going to make it better.

And then today I feel like I stepped in a cow pie with another knit blogger, who is lucky enough to be very wide read, and very smart and witty and funny and most of all - easily identifiable. I’m really glad she feels comfortable enough to be as open as she is with her life online. But some of us have to separate various online activities in order to feel safe-ish, which can be confusing, and can lead to the perception of multiple personalities.

The reply struck me in a pretty tender spot, whether it was meant to do so or not (I realize ‘tone’ is difficult to bring across well in text form), and I asked a friend if I was overreacting. She cracked me up with this comment:
How rude! I think you should tell her you’re offended and now that you think about it, the rest of you are too!!

I do wonder why one of my special talents is apparently to annoy the hell out of everyone with questions, and honestly? It’s been a rough 24 hours or so.

However, progress on fleece washing continues. Sig is done, Sif is almost done, and there’s just a little bit of Alda left to go. There continues to be fibery goodness, just not of the Olympic variety.

If you’ll excuse me, I need to go find another box of tissue.

ETA: Perhaps the comment struck the spots still tender from the movie. Many of us joke about how our knitting and/or spinning hobbies makes us ‘odd’ or ‘different’ to others in our lives. But there are plenty of things in our daily lives that we may not choose to share with others we know, for whatever reason. Sometimes the basic facts of who and/or what we love that could bring serious real-life ramifications down about our ears, from friends, family or complete strangers if they become known. At the very least this would probably be uncomfortable. The worst case scenario is something I don’t want to think about.

I envy those that can be so comfortable and so open about their lives in their online. The fact that there is such a strong knitblog presence is fabulous! Great! But on the larger stage of life, knitting isn’t something you’re likely to get beaten up over. I, for one, am likely to take a more conservative route, even as I share what I feel I can with the public at large. Knitting is but one facet of my life that I choose to share. If the worst result of this voluntary separation of interests is confusion and the perception of “multiple personalities”?

I can live with that.

So I’m not actually making much Olympic Knitting progress since ye old Opening Ceremonies. I left work early Friday because I honestly thought I was going to faint, which seemed way too Melanie Wilkes for my tastes. Not to mention it would re-inforce the ‘weak woman’ stereotype that my incredibly annoying coworker seems to favor.

So I came home early, opened the windows for about an hour because it was such a gorgeous day, and made like broccoli on the couch. Which is also kind of broccoli colored, but that’s just a neat coincidence. It’s Spring for me, now that Imbolc has come and gone, and the small birds I missed so much were back in *style*. I listened to their songs for the whole hour, since droves of them were hanging out in the tree and the bushes in the back of the building. I wish I knew more about my feathered friends, but I mostly just describe them as ‘cute’.

And then my sunbeam shifted, and it got too cold, and I staggered into the bedroom and did a ‘9.9 from the German judge’ worthy faceplant into my pillow. Until my friend rang to tell me she was coming to take me the Bosworth Charkha away. Which was definitely worth getting up for. Yes, I am in fact that easy. Toss a couple hundred bucks my way and I’ll get out of bed. No coffee required even.

Long story truncated, my not-so-short nap had me wide awake until approximately 2:30am. And I ended up getting up at 7:30, to go do a really fabulous and enormously helpful seminar on Mercury Retrograde (coming soon to a chart near you!). And my gods, I wish I didn’t have terminal camnesia, because the view from the rise there in Edmonds was stunning. The Olympics (the mountains, not the event), the Ferry, the blue blue water and the blue blue skies…I’m kicking myself.

I got home, and opened the next bag of Icelandic fleece, which necessitated an emergency wool washing spree. Because there is nothing on earth that makes me want to hurl more than the smell of a male sheep fleece. Granted, I’ve never had to a goat fleece, let alone one from Kazakhstan, so what do I know about stinky fiber, but still. Gag-o-rama!

However, all my washing tubs were occupied by Asta, the lovely ewe Icelandic, so I had to finish washing her in order to put Sig, the black male lamb fleece in for a presoak. With soap. Because he *reeks*, and now part of my apartment does as well.

I feel a Melanie coming on.

So there hasn’t actually been that much progress on the knee high socks, but I am optimistic! Once I get some sleep, some food, and the smell of sheep piss off my hands, though probably NOT in that order? I’m all about the knitting baby.

Actually, I think it’s going to be more like four and a half, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

See, today is the day when we’re all about to cast on for the Knitting Olympics (fuck, I forgot to get rabbit ears for the tv!), and I’m stuck at work. To add insult to injury, it’s *still* freakin’ gorgeous outside. After nearly 12″ of rain last month, and the greygreygrey skies the PNW is known for, having a week of mostly sunshine is like a gift from the gods.

And here I am, at work. Inside the cubicle farm, alternately staring out the window at the fabulousness, and gazing thoughtfully at the lime green skein of Regia on the desk in front of me. My boss, after all, is in a meeting….

Rather than answer questions about why I’m playing with yarn instead of doing my work, I can at least post here and still look like I’m working on something. So I thought I’d share a pretty big recent accomplishment.

This? Is Georgia, circa 2005. Georgia weighed a whopping 10.5 lbs when she came to me last spring. She lives at Skylines Farm in Harvard, Idaho under the incredible care of shepherdess Melissa Lines. I waited a full year before I saved enough money to buy one of Melissa’s fleeces, and it was worth it. This is one hell of an amazing Romney ewe fleece! Melissa uses organic methods to raise her sheep, and the difference in the fleece is amazing to me. Granted, I hardly know what I’m talking about, but I like supporting organic farming in the region, and her fiber is worth every single penny. It costs a bit more, but boy is it worth it.

For reasons that do not need exploring at this juncture, I never had the opportunity to work with, or hell, even wash the fleece before I moved at the end of last year. Living in an apartment, I also didn’t have access to a washer that didn’t take quarters and run the full cycle, so nearly every last lock has been washed by hand. I say nearly because I saved a handful of her in the grease for posterity.

Here you see the last bit of the fleece, washed and rinsed last night, and lounging about on a couple of sweater racks I bought at Linens ‘N Things. This is actually a double decker, and would be a triple stack but the third rack has Issues.

It took about forever and a day to handwash a fleece that weighed 10.5 pounds when it got to me, but oh, look at the wonder. The magic. Just looking at these pics make me want to plunge my hands in and get to spinning.

I’m still a novice spinner, and for some insane reason I have this need to start from the beginning, the roots of the process when I learn a new skill. Upon reflection, I realize that this is definitely one of those times when living in an apartment is a good thing. Otherwise, I’d probably have half a dozen sheep, a few alapaca, and a whole herd of rabbits. So while I have a fair *coughcough* amount of processed roving and top, I feel the need to begin with the raw materials.

I have a pair of handcards, and a pair of double row mini combs, and may look into the possibility of borrowing some five-pitch combs to more efficiently process this into spinnable form. But for now, Georgia is probably going to live in a corner of the room, breathing a bit in these paper bags, looking lush and tempting and quite come-hither. You see three bags in this shot, but the fourth was in the other room, and the locks currently drying will likely take up another half a bag or so.

Not the smartest thing I’ve ever done, having all that temptation lying around prior to taking on a big knitting event, but I’m glad to finally have her washed.

Fleece also ties into my Knitting Olympics plan, because Georgia is but one of eight? a few fleeces that I have waiting to be washed. If I don’t plan breaks between knitting bouts, I will definitely end up hurting my hands. So, this morning, I put half of Asta, a white Icelandic ewe fleece in for the pre-soak. But more on that later.

Good luck to those who are casting on today for the Knitting Olympics! I can’t believe there are over 4000 of us participating in this project. It’s incredible. Amazing. Awe inspiring. And other words that are stuck in my head because my coffee hasn’t kicked in yet.

Let the Games begin! *cue Olympic theme*

OK, one of my things to do this year was to get out and meet more people.

I never said it had to be in person.

While I’ve lurked and commented a lot in various knitting blogs over the past couple of years, I hadn’t ever really directed anyone to my main blog, because, well. It has more to do with fannish things than with fibery good times. There are a few knitters and spinners who are of like mind, but not that many, and I’m fairly certain most folks who want to hear about the fiber would rather skip the squeeing over pretty pretty people on TV and film.

So, here I am. I’ve pondered forever about what to name my knitting blog, and well. I never did come up with one that was completely satisfying and that really fit. So, here on the eve of the 2006 Olympic Games, and the accompanying Knitting Olympics, I pulled one out of my arse and we we go.

It also has a little bit to do with me selling my beloved Clotho the Columbine today, so I’m sort of honoring her soon-to-be memory with this post/blog/ramble. Thus the blog was born, based on the Greek name for those tricksy tragically misunderstood Fates. Well, that and the fact that I spin, if slowly and badly, but I’m working on it.

Hey yeah, Knitting Olympics. I’ll be doing the knee-high socks found here at a lovely Harry Potter site. Love those Quidditch players. I’m knitting them for a ‘net friend out of Opal Chameleon with some lime green Regia as an accent. I should maybe ask Athena to help a girl out here, because I don’t have time to swatch and I haven’t knit with Opal before. I haven’t even really knit with Regia, except for the socks I made for this same person about six months ago. Helllllo adventure!

I may also try the socks on two circs method, and snagged some size 1 US Inox circs in 24″ at the LYS tonight where I went to have a very, very small retail therapy session. I also sold my Bosworth Book Charkha today, so sad times, sad times. Unfortunately, I had nothing in my stash to accent the Opal, so I had to go and pick up something to help stretch the Chameleon yardage, and while I have DPNs, part of this little three hour 16 day tour is to do something new. Thus the two circs.

Here we have the yarn in all it’s unswatched glory. If nothing else, it should keep me awake as I knit. Please excuse the craptastic picture. I hope to fix that at some point, but not when I’m in the middle of washing a fleece.

So those who’ve known/seen me around the web as “perclexed”, welcome! I hope you’ll stop by again soon. We’ll have mead. Ambrosia (though not the kind with the green jello and mini-smarshmallows). Chocolates! And men in togas catering to our every whim.

Not a bad way to start a blog, eh?