MuzzyFuzzy

My brain is too tired to think. Far far too tired to do actual real work. Too tired, even, to knit.

It started last week at work - things are CRAZY here at the moment with the semester ending (pack 6,000 insanely stressed students on a small campus and then run them one by one *screeching* through the library as they try and finish up all of their last-minute assignments) and evaluations were due last week, too. So stressed & freaking students - and stressed & freaking co-workers. Add in a tired & cranky 3-year old and a husband who eyes me askance as I suck down spoonfuls of almond butter straight from the jar all the while saying "No! I'm fine! Really! Fine! Just need a tiny shot of protein! That's all!" and you've got last week in a nutshell.

I did go to Sheep and Wool. I went to bed around 12:30 AM, bracing myself for the alarm to go off at 5:30 (up at 5:30, leave the house at 6:30, catch the bus at 7:30 and ride the bus up to S&W) - only to have the Munch wake up at 3 AM with a low grade fever and a nasty attitude. At first I decided that the trip & the festival was off - despite spending $100 on bus tickets for the two of us - but at 6:15 AM when he was perky and wired and showed no signs of flagging I figured 'screw it' and with fifteen minutes before I was scheduled to leave ran to the shower while Peggers got the Munch dressed, packed my three (!) bags, lunch, and knitting needs and threw everything into the car. We left at 6:35 AM and caught the 7:30 LYS bus with mere seconds to spare. The Munch finally fell asleep at 1 PM that afternoon right in the middle of the big vendor hall, just as I was buying three beautiful braided rovings from Cloverhill Farms.

100% merino. Their 'Autumn' colourway.

50/50 Merino/tussah. TUSSAH.
I can't remember the official colourway, I just remember snatching it up happily...

After we returned from Sheep and Wool I fell down hard with an icky, exhausting virus that has lasted - thankfully - only three days or so at its worst. While I still have headaches and a few tender joints, the painful throbbing aches of my knees, neck, hips, and spine are now passed - and the debilitating exhaustion has given way to just general mild fatigue. In this time I have knitted a grand total of 2 rounds on my Twisted Flower socks, and managed to screw up one of the cable crossings. I'm going to live with it. Instead I have been spinning - and spinning happily. While my skein of 'Insect Wings' from the Hello Yarn fiber club is overspun and overplied, it is still not thoroughly horrid. I mean........it's knittable. It was fun, and it was most certainly a start.

My current work-in-progress - my March bundle of 'Red Velvet' from the Hello Yarn fiber club is going better - it is soft on the bobbin even though it's spun very fine, and when I let it loop back on itself the resultant plied yarn is soft and squishy and pleases me greatly. I also wised up and split the fiber as soon as I pulled it out of the bag - half bundled with a bobbin and kept safely to the side while I started on my first bump on it's own separate bobbin - so that I can ply my two strands each from their own bobbins and not instead from both ends of a center-pull ball. (The center pull ball was what I was forced to try and ply from when I plied the ill-fated 'Insect Wings'. I got far too excited to start spinning and never actually thought through what I was doing - and that whole twisted nonsense of an experience is responsible for a great deal of the over-plied-ness of the final resultant skein.) I have only one last final strip of roving to spin before I get to ply them together tonight - going slowly, taking my time, and keeping things nice and easy and soft.

It has been breaking my heart to not do a good job with these rovings - I totally arsed up a lovely braid of roving that I got from Gryphon (see above pic) - the Insect Wings is (like I said) okay, but not fantastic, and the Red Velvet? Well, far too early to know. Luckily the Red Velvet is the least favorite so far of my Hello Yarn shipments - the colours really aren't very "me" - and so it at least only cracks my heart instead of truly breaking it. I'm getting better, though, and I know that the only way I can ever get better is to just keep diving on in and spinning the good stuff (because why learn with crap? Honestly! Life is just too short!) and learning from my mistakes.

I have high hopes for the 'Red Velvet' in terms of technique and improvement - I found a totally new way (for me) to hold the fiber and to draft, and it's made a nice difference in how even my singles are, and in my overall drafting speed in comparison to my treadling - and after that I'm going to dive right into the last Hello Yarn Fiber Club shipment (April - 'Hive' - a colourway that is totally up my alley!) and see what I can do with that. Once I'm done with the H.Y. shipments then I'll step back and assess and evaluate and ponder for a bit - and after that I'll start in with my Sheep & Wool purchases.

(No no no no - not these - I got these at S&W, but they're 'just' sock yarn.
Trekking & Koigu sock yarn, that is.....)

Why all this spinning, you ask? I have found while in the midst of this viral-induced exhaustion that knitting lately just takes far too much brain power. I only have one project currently underway that doesn't require me to either document carefully what I'm doing for pattern posterity's sake, or else to consult a chart every stitch/row. And that single project - Chuck's Cabled Socks - just is not doing it for me lately. I'm not going to frog them - I'm one cable crossing away from starting the heel work, and I'm going to wait and see if their appeal greatly increases once I have the heel stitching next to the cables - so they're not in danger of dying a froggy death anytime soon - at least, not without getting your feedback first. But I'm most certainly not feeling the love. And in the thirty or so minutes that I have to myself every night after I put the Munch to bed and before I pass out myself, I don't want to work on something that doesn't make me feel pleased - if not downright happy. So spinning it is.

On the other side of the knitting front, my May Day Sock Swap socks were happily received by my sock partner - Anita! Anita is very very cool - she lives out in Seattle with hubby & a whole armful of the most beautiful quits I've ever seen. She likes the socks, and they fit - so a win-win as far as I'm concerned! I still haven't received my own socks in the mail, but I have faith that they'll show up fairly soon - my sock swap partner left some very sweet comments to me on the blog, so I know she - and the socks -are safely out there, and that soon a pair of knitted-for-me socks will be headed my way!

I'm starting to fade - my energy levels are just stunningly low at the moment - so I'll leave you with a few photos that I took on Saturday at Sheep & Wool. Have a great weekend everyone - I work both Saturday and Sunday, so it won't be the best weekend for me ever, but it'll certainly be a LOT more restful than last Saturday!!!!!!!!
1. Clean legs, dirty sheep, 2. Munch feeding angora goats, 3. a S&W fairy princess, waiting to get her funnel cake, 4. crowds, 5. the dude in front of me to buy gyros, 6. a killer spinning wheel, 7. sheep, 8. Casey from Ravelry!, 9. Munch and more of those angora goats, 10. a pair of cute sheep , 11. angora goats, 12. this guy kept peeking at us!

Silk Shell - 1: Socks - 3: Sleep - 0

That should actually be more like "silk shell - 1/2" but I didn't think that the Blogger title would handle fractions very well.

I'm currently working on the back of the shell that I'm designing for Gryphon, am two cable turns away from starting the heel of my Chuck's Cabled Socks, am a mere 10 rounds from decreasing for the toe of my second May Day Sock Swap sock, and have knit several inches of the Twisted Flower sock out of my brand-spankin' new Beekeeper wool/seacell yarn from MamaBlue. I keep spending so much time knitting lately that I'm going to bed around 1:30 or 2 AM every night. Ugh. I really need to curtail this a bit, as I'm a bit groggy and fuzzy around the edges lately. More so than usual, that is.

(This picture grossly misrepresents the colours of this beautiful yarn. Damn overhead lights!)

What a day! It's been utter chaos here - we found out this morning via a very suprising e-mail that a colleague who has been working in the department for well over 30 years is leaving - and leaving in 3 weeks. All of a sudden there is major scrambling to get the soon-to-be-vacant hours covered, shifts dealt with, committee appointments changed, liaisons notified, etc. Major major major changes.

Luckily for me all of the shifting helped with one thing - I was able to change out my work day of Saturday, May 3rd for Saturday & Sunday May 10th & 11th. I'm certain that at first glance that doesn't seem at all a good switch - a single shift for two shifts? A single shift for two shifts on Mother's Day weekend????

A single shift that occurs smack during the middle of the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival?

(There's the rub.)

I am now happily free from that single pesky shift, and the Munchkin and I are going to sign ourselves up for a bus ride to and from the festival, courtesy of a LYS - the same one that Kim and I took advantage of last year. We'll leave our place at the jaw-droppingly early hour of 6:30 AM (the Munch is such a lucky weasel - he'll get to sleep on the ride up!) and will leave the festival to come back home at 4 PM. All in all, it should be the perfect time - he can play with me and read books during the bus ride up to the fairgrounds, and can probably sleep on the bus ride home, which will provide him with just the perfect nap so that he's not a cranky monster that evening. Me? I'll just drink a boatload of coffee and will get by merely on caffeine and the contact high from being around all of those alpacas and sheep.

The real question this year is - what to buy? I think I'll skip the 45+ minute long wait for Socks that Rock this time around, and might instead look for some nifty spinning fiber rather than yarn. But then again, I might be utterly seduced by something completely different all together!

Suggestions?

Ideas?

Requests?

(I certainly take custom orders, if anyone is dying for something and can't make it themselves!!!)

Wool. Sheep. Sheep. Wool.

And alpacas!

Their frizzy little haircuts just kill me, they're **that** cute.

I'm still here - just trying to catch up with life & work after last week kicked me square in the butt. You know how it is - as soon as the weather warms up & all sorts of fun extracurricular activites start to rear their enticing heads life comes around & swats you one!

To recap:

Monday - grade roughly 75 research projects, providing individual feedback for 5 full steps per project. NOT FUN.

Tuesday - arrive at work at noon to be asked by Dean to call & check 5 references for our #1 job candidate. NOT FUN.

Wednesday - watch your 2-year old son go in for minor (outpatient) surgery that nonetheless requires general anesthesia, and which because of the "no food or drink after midnight" thing meant that when he woke up around 1 AM that night and couldn't nurse (he's a late weaning child) he REFUSED TO GO BACK TO SLEEP. NOT FUN.

Thursday - work 4 hours of reference desk. Straight. NOT FUN.

Friday - Conference 30 minutes away that starts at 8:30 AM - realize that you have only 20 minutes to get back to demo that begins at 1 PM - miss demo - make it back just in time to attend Honors Convocation dressed in stiflingly hot faculty regalia. NOT FUN.



Thank goodness Saturday was Sheep & Wool! Kim and I both went, and were lucky enough to score a seat on a bus arranged by a (somewhat) LYS, which made the trip that much more enjoyable for us. Particularly the fact that because we were on a bus we had kick-ass parking options and got to avoid the insane field that was a parking lot for the rest of the folks.
I was relatively restrained in my purchases - there is just SO MUCH to look at. It's not overwhelming (at least it wasn't to me) as much as it was just a blur that I had to keep walking past so that I wasn't mown down by the rabid fiber fans all around me. If I had about 5 days I probably could have fought my way into each & every booth that was there and fondled and cooed and coveted and purchased properly. At least five. Maybe six.

I did learn something about myself at Sheep & Wool though - I'm a major, and I mean a major fiber sniffer. Not necessarily fleece, but anything that was already spun I took a mighty sniff of. And me? I do love the smell of wool.

Happily enough, despite the fact that Blue Moon wasn't listed on the vendor list (and Kim was majorly crestfallen as her one & only hope for S&W was to buy a skein of Socks That Rock) we quickly stumbled upon the most insanely long line - and as I brazenly asked a woman standing there what the line was for, realized that while the Blue Moon folks might not be there themselves, a vendor selling STR was indeed present & majorly accounted for! So Kim and I valiantly fought our way up to the booth, fondled, chose, put back, chose again, put back, picked again, etc. until we each had what we wanted. And then we stood in line for 45 minutes to pay.

This was my view in line for a veerrryyyy long time.

FORTY-FIVE MINUTES. Ducks, that is a very long time to wait in line for sock yarn - particularly sock yarn that you can buy online. (....as I heard one woman scornfully say as she shoved past me......) The wait did have an upside, though, as it gave me ample time to reprogram my digital camera to stop beeping so annoyingly and to stay set on the settings that I prefer - so time well spent, all in all, I'd say. Plus hey - it's all part of the festival experience, right? I purchased one skein of STR in .....uh, something Canyon. Red Rocks Canyon? I honestly didn't care what the name was, I was so so so so in love with the way the terracotta went to red to brown, and the way the red went into that amazing dusty sage-y green. These are going to be a blissfully basic pair of socks for ME. I think I'll divide the skein & do toe-up to use up every single fluff of fiber in them. I don't even care if that means that one will be a few rounds longer than the other. Nope, I don't care at all.

After that was finished, happiness reigned among our little group, as we had Nothing Else Official on our list of things to purchase - which meant that we could roam at will. Here is a little photo montage of what I saw that I thought was interesting enough to photograph...

I have no idea if these wheels are any good, but they're just so SMALL and cute I had to take a picture.

Many of the vendors are very very good at arranging their stuff in such a way that it really catches your eye. I thought this booth did a particularly good job of it.

(left) Yoiks! Big Horns!

(Right) Spinning a Rabbit. (Gryphon apparently does this, if anyone wants details)

Speaking of Gryphon, this is a picture of Gryphon being silly. ;) Here she is, looking totally like an Anguished Mommy because Lia, who had been sitting in her lap not 5 minutes before the picture was taken did a characteristic baby 'wiggle and lean' and by the time Gryphon was able to reach down and stop Lia's lean towards the ground (I'm guessing 1.5 seconds at the most) Lia had grazed her head against the ground. Lia loudly protested the fact that gravity worked and that she had landed on her cute little baby noggin, and Gryphon promptly decided that she was the Worst Mother On The Face of the Earth. See? This is a picture of Gryphon being silly.

And here is a picture of Lia who, once her cries were soothed by Her Absolute Mostest Favorite Mommy, promptly forgot all about it.

See? Not a care in the world!

The Anguished Gryphon and the Happy Lia pictures were taken at Gryphon's Knitblogger meetup, which was loads of fun. I got to meet several nice people including Stephanie, Mary, Mel (who I shall talk about in more detail in just a second) and Theresa whose pigtail'd hairstyle I immediately wanted to copy. I was particularly thrilled that Mel came over and sat down next to me, as I had seen her wandering around earlier in the day and had TOTALLY fallen in love with the sweater she was wearing. In fact as she started to walk past our little knitblogger group I shamelessly said (mind you, to a large group of women who I had never ever met before!) "THERE! The redhead in the cream sweater! Does anyone know what sweater that is????" and so imagine my amazement and delight when Mel walked right over to us and sat down next to me so that I could ask her myself! Happily enough Mel offered to lend me the sweater pattern when she gets it back from the person she's currently lent it to - it's in a magazine called Sandra - one that's totally new to me & that I must obviously immediately look into!

15 minutes before I climbed onto my bus for the ride home I bought 2 huge skeins of alpaca for a steal - 665 yds for $20 each. I haven't photographed them yet, but I will soon. They're destined to become shrugs for me - nice little light yet WARM cozy pieces that are much needed in my frigid workspace!

I will leave you with what was potentially one of my favorite sights at the whole festival - never say that we fiber folks don't really LOVE our animals..............right?

(Somehow, this seemed almost wrong, given the setting. I'm a carnivore and all, but somehow, I dunno' this seemed almost wrong..........)

Knitting during meetings & suchlike

This post coming to you from the beautiful conference center of the 2007 MLA (Maryland Library Association) meeting.

I am knitter - hear me roar! More specifically, hear me roar that during the first half of this morning's presentation titled "Blogs and Podcasting for Everyone" I finished my last Chart 1 repeat of Icarus. I now need to do a few more rows before I can move over to Chart 2 (and that is - unfortunately - no little thing to say as I'm up to - what - 375 stitches or so per row now?) - but man o man - the second chart is in sight, and I can hardly wait!

No pictures, because my cell phone camera isnt' fantastic & who needs a blurry picture of what is still at this point a silky blue blob?

But I am close - so close that I can almost taste it.

Now I'm off in search of coffee before the 2nd half of the presentation kicks in (the podcasting portion) and after that I am going to play hooky from the beginning portion of a demo this afternoon for a wee bit to sneak in some lunch w/ Peggers as I am a mere 15 minutes from his workplace and the man's offered to buy me lunch!

How could a girl resist a free lunch?

Happily, though, the demo that is slated later this afternoon is as knitting-friendly as this morning's presentation is, which means by the end of the day I'll be that much closer to starting Chart 2 than I currently am. Hip hip hooray for meetings and presentations and demos!

Booo booo booo to Honors Convocations when I'm not allowed to knit!

(That travesty happens today at 3:30. Boo! Hiss!)

;>

Pictures & info about my Gryphon Traveler sock to come next week, plus pictures of Icarus into Chart 2, plus a final synopsis of my Green Tea Raglan sweater as well - my month from hell is wrapping up (my month bled into about 6 weeks instead of the more standard 4!) and I'm starting to emerge!!!!

Plus - Maryland Sheep & Wool is this weekend and baby I'll be there - Kim and I are catching a knitting bus up and we're planning on meeting up w/ Gryphon and her MD knitting bloggers group at 1 - hopefully I'll see some other folks there for a fun get together!