Allow me to be precise.

Or, How Many Horses' Asses Is That?

You know, precision is a wonderful thing. I'm an obsessive typo-spotter, born with a red pen in my hand. And in knitting, I have fallen newly in love with precision. I even do swatches now. They're small swatches by most people's standards, but they work. I've noticed that the level of success of a given project is directly related to this kind of precision. (Duh. You would think that years of watching Norm on New Yankee Workshop say "Measure twice, cut once" would have an effect on my ability to get a clue in the knitting department. A bit slow on the uptake, that girl....)

So in my efforts to have a little precision in my medical life, I found out that the two best neurosurgeons in Montréal disagree with each other on, well, pretty much everything, right down to the size of my aneurysm. I pointed out this little discrepancy in measurement, and Herr Doctor Second Opinion Guy replied, "Bah, 3, 5, doesn't matter, it's not 10 mm." Well, then, buddy, it's a good thing you're the one who says we shouldn't do the surgery, because I wouldn't want that level of precision to be your MO for opening my head..."Let's see, we'll just cut from here to about, uh, here...that's what? one cubit or so?" A little unsettling, non? I nearly asked him, "You don't swatch, do you?"

I'm sure many of you have heard the story of how the precise measurement between railroad ties matches the exact width of two Roman chariot horses' asses. Which, apparently, are less variable than human beings' asses. So if we divide that railroad measurement by 2, one horse's ass is 28.25 inches wide. And I am 2.124 (rounded to the nearest thousandth) horses' asses tall. Not exactly suitable for tying to the train tracks. (Note to Stephanie: I would say "arse," but I'm only Irish by descent, Canadian by residence, and I'm still not clear on whether or not you pronounce the "r"....)

Speaking of precision, I've made a little progress on the Frankentank. It measures exactly 0.283 (rounded to the nearest thousandth) horses' asses. I'm in the middle of the increases heading towards the rack coverage area. No pictures today because I'm feeling bloated and I don't feel like showing you how many horses's asses wide my belly actually looks right now. Instead, I will show you this fabulous present to me from me:

This kit's only drawback is the colour of the dyed roving:
the exact teal L.L. Bean loves and I hate. My apologies
to mallards everywhere. You're lovely, but I don't want to wear you.

You, you, you, and especially you: stop that maniacal laughter. You, too. I haven't spun anything yet.

Spiff is alternately amused and confused by this desire to make one's own yarn. He wonders if this is a cost benefit thing, or just a freaky fiber person thing. He did, however, pull out the roving and start to fiddle with it, and I practically had to yank it out of his hands because he wanted to start pulling it apart to spin it. No way, buddy, that's MY roving, you can try it out when I'm done. And yes, I did stick my face into the roving as soon as I pulled it out of the package. I'm all about the precision, you see. Just for your reference, the hand-dyed roving cannot stay under the chin without causing a massive itching fit, but the undyed roving can.

So, can anyone tell me how much yarn your average beginning spinner, spinning wicked badly (or spinning the horrifically double-apostrophed Thick 'N' Thin, depending on your perspective), can get out of 8.425 (rounded to the nearest thousandth) horses' asses worth of roving? Spiff and I want to know.

Knitting and measuring like the general public (i.e., in metric, Mom)
will resume in the next post. Meanwhile, I leave you with a shot
of my neighbor's garden, because I don't have one.
And because, despite my medical difficulties, I've grown fond of the skull.

June 14, 2005 1:34 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (14)  | Print