If you couldn't find any weirdness...

...maybe we'll just have to make some!" —Calvin and Hobbes

One of these camelids is not like the other....

I spindle better than I wheel. You will not, therefore, be surprised to know that I can parallel park a pickup truck in a VW-sized space. But at a grocery store, where the parking lines are neatly drawn for you, with circles and arrows all over them, so even a complete novice can manage to park properly, I need a freaking laser level and a police officer.

I'm not telling you what I need the police officer for.

I'm way too stressed lately. I've been finishing up a major job, then worrying about being unemployed, which lasted for about ten minutes until my cellphone rang (miraculously and oddly, I had recharged it for the first time in months) and I became employed again while driving home in a snowstorm, as long as I could manage the job in the next half hour. As Bob The Builder says, Yes We Can. Because We Don't Say No. We Are Hyperactive.

I've also been scrambling to try to get my kid into a school which does not put her into catechism classes without asking me (we are not only not Catholic, we are a wee bit on the atheist side...) and which will understand that a child who is hypersensitive to sound might possibly have a hard time being placed in the loudest and most boisterous of the first grade classes in her school.

I have also been tearing my hair out over alpaca roving. Suffice it to say that I seem to thrive on the difficult and fuck up the easy. Every wheel spinner I know tells me they find spindling more difficult. But I'm here to say that the llama on the wheel was, well, not easy, but doable. The red Fleece Artist merino was a breeze...laceweight on the wheel, no problem. The alpaca, for which I have waited...the baby alpaca...sniff, sniff...okay, I'll just admit it right here: I can't spin that stuff on Hitchhiker to save my life.

Oh, sure, blame the wheel. Seriously, the slippery stuff,
merino/tencel included, needs twist and needs it NOW.
Not gonna happen with this wheel.
Just look at that crappy spinning job. Awful.

So, what's a girl to do when the twist is not twisting and the baby alpaca is in danger of being utterly wasted on overspun Crayola, but someone wants a scarf and this means yardage? Um, I mean, metreage? Emergency instant message to the SpindiCate. Who told me I ought to consider learning to spin from the fold, and that might solve my problem, but in the meantime did I know she bought a loom and a certain very understanding partner was starting to wonder why she had a certain wicked fast wheel in the house she was not using and wasn't it taking up too much room and couldn't she find a place for it?

So, uh, she did. Sometime in the next few months, I'm going to become a wheel slut. I can't afford the Lendrum I wanted, which would have allowed me to be Speedy Gonzales with the slippery stuff, so instead I'm doing things the old way. The "every lady worth her fibre has a wheel for the rough stuff and a wheel for the laceweight" way. This means double-drive, baby. Antique Saxony. God, I'm practically drooling and I haven't even seen the thing yet. It is similar to Cate's HEN, which was the first wheel I spun on, ever, and we were quite a pair, that wheel and I...so I expect that this Saxony will become my partner in silk laceweight crime in no time.

So, why do I feel like I'm wimping out, spindling this alpaca? I'll try it from the fold, once I have a free bobbin (why, yes, I'm still knitting the snowtire straight from the third bobbin and I now need a fourth. Why do you ask?). Well, here's a close-up of why I'm sticking with the spindle for this particular fibre for now:

Ouache, this stuff spins up fast, and beautifully.
Please ignore the hobbit hand.

I feel better, however, knowing that there is a new magazine online for people like me who have a thing for spindles. It's called Spindlicity, and many people you know from the knitblogging world are already in there, spinning up a storm and designing cool stuff to use up miniskeins of handspun. Gauntlets, baby. I'm so there, once I'm so not working so much. Which, luckily for my paycheck but very bad for the holiday knitting, seems to never be destined to happen. I see no vacation in my future. (Two weeks with in-laws is under NO circumstances a vacation. This is just a fact. You know I'm right.)

I promised photos of the bunnycrack, and I'm crapping out on you again because, well, today is when I took photos and today it snowed. No light. So I have done a "study in reddish gifties and purchases" to whet your whistle. Next post, promise, bunnycrack in two colours. Maybe even some spun up if I decide that sleep is optional.

Fugue à la rouge.

A brief guide to the wonders of red: Top ball is gorgeous red wool roving from my better pal, Beth, aka Big Geek. Small ball on right is Suri Merino from Beth, too. Yum. Braided roving is Fleece Artist merino I bought in Montréal. YES. Sad sack nostepinded Fleece Artist KidSilk is bottom middle. Barbie Pink yarn is hand-dyed by none other than Norma.
Galway dark red will help me make felted mittens with Barbie yarn.

Not a bad haul, eh? And this does not even include the Llama from Heaven. I'll tell you about that next time, and post pictures. But for now, I can say that I've found THE llama person for me. Her stuff is just what I wanted, and I'm thrilled to have it. I have to have a new room just for the camelid fibre, I swear. Because I kind of ordered a fleece. Shut up.

Regarding the massive ball of still-unidentified wool and the sooooo-soft Suri Merino, Beth gave me truly delicious stuff in the Better Pal swap, and she is the source of the Cari Hair locks you saw earlier as well. A challenge. I love Beth. Thanks to her, I might also learn to unwind a silk pod. And Norma gleefully informed me that yes, she does realise that this Barbie yarn is hideously pink. And that when (not if) I turn it into felted mittens for my daughter (what??? you thought I was using it for me??? yeeeeeek...), I should perhaps consider mixing it with something else to tone it down. Enter, tasteful Galway from Paisley Fabrics, which is also the source of my Fleece Artist KidSilk AND (This is so important. So amazing, I might cry) the source of my Fleece Artist Merino Roving. Yes, you heard right. Roving. In Montréal.

Excuse me while I have a...Wool Moment. Thank you.

A direct connection to Fleece Artist, right here in my hometown. I'm SO happy about this. Sorry, no website yet for Paisley. But Ginette's shop promises to turn into the shop of my dreams. She is open to spindle sales. Need I say more? Bowlful of roving at the door? Yeah, baby. She already has KidSilk, which just makes me melt. Unfortunately, it also makes me realise I am in deep need of winding technology.

I realise that my nostepinding skills completely suck.
So I told Spiff I can't nostepinde worth shit
and I need a swift and ballwinder. He pulled out his pen and paper
and wrote down the URL for what I need. No questions asked.
I DEEPLY love my Spiff.

By the way, many many thanks for the compliments I've received on the profile of Véronik Avery I wrote for Interweave Knits. Another profile, which shall remain anonymous until it's published, is also in the works. Yep, I kept the Avery piece quiet until I had it in my hot little hands. You just nevah know in publishing until you see your name in print, so I waited. I'm very happy to know people liked it.

Back to your regularly scheduled frantic spinning for a knitted gift. I'm an idiot. Read the Yarn Harlot regarding "IT"...that horrible state of mind when you realise you have no time left AT ALL for what you planned to do for holiday gifts, but you keep doing it anyway, and worse, you decide it's a good idea to make the yarn first. Just remember:

Friends don't let friends spin for Christmas.

December 10, 2005 2:18 AM  | Permalink  | Comments (25)  | Print