Progress, Not Perfection?

First, the successes: Claudia says my plying is much more balanced:

So that's great, and I feel good about it. However....once I get the hang of the spinning & plying, I may be destined to knit only rectangles forever. My sock is a disaster. Helpful folks on Ravelry got me right through the heel flap and turning the heel. I learned about slipping stitches and ssk and even found a great video to help with the latter. And when I saw that heel start to take on a cup shape, I was thrilled! "Hey! I'm getting this! I'm knitting a heel, by golly!" I foolishly thought to myself. Then came the gusset, and 'pick up and knit the chain selvedge stitches'.
  Ya know what I learned? That when you throw a sock in utter frustration and despair, it sort of just flops. There's no satisfying-yet-accusatory THWACK like I got when I threw Getting Started Knitting Socks. No, my misbegotten sock just laid there, double-pointed needles askew, like a dead fish used as a voodoo doll. I thought I knew what I was doing (okay, I hoped I knew what I was doing), but when the directions went on to say "you should have 54 stitches total" and I had 60, and it was a twisted mess, and the needle holding the reserved stitches was not on the same side as in the utterly worthless book photos, I gave up. Lots of knitters have told me it's a great book, and I'm sure it is....I'm blaming the user, not the author.

                                                                    

    
At first I swore no more socks. I can be happy knitting pot holders and scarves and blanket squares, right? But I need to get over this. Millions of people have knit billions of socks over the ages. So, I will bring it to CountryWool on Saturday, ask where I went wrong, and then ask Claudia for the easiest sock pattern she knows (that will let me use this same yarn). And I'll try again....after all, 24 hours ago I had never knit a heel flap and turned a heel, right?

Remedial Spinning

  Let me say right up front that the self-indulgent whine that follows is the product of a mixture of prednisone-induced moodiness (unresolved severe allergy that is awaiting diagnosis), the end of three long, discouraging weeks at work, and sadness because my younger son is semi-moving to Boston temporarily. Minus that sludge-in-the-soul combo, I might be laughing at myself after today's class, not despairing of ever being a capable woolly person.

  Today was plying and finishing class. Plying is when you take multiple single yarns that you've spun, and spin them together to create yarn you can make stuff with. Sounds easy enough. Hah! There are twists and turns and treadle speeds and ratios...and a sad mess. Today I was the remedial student. It was embarrassing. There I was surrounded by creative people...there was the womon who infused wool with the color of late summer sunshine--using marigolds no less, the guy who had no questions but great--and clearly achievable--plans for the roving he was smoothly and flawlessly spinning, and another womon quietly sitting in a corner plying three singles together to create a fine, lovely yarn of wool and angora; when she talked about the sweater she'd make from it, I knew I'd be seeing that sweater, and lusting after it! But my wheel and I produced a tangled mess, that even my absolutely untrained eyes knew didn't vaguely resemble something usable.

  I never expected to sit down at the wheel and 'get it' all at once. But to be so infatuated with wool, to love the feel and energy of it, to want to linger long and have a meaningful relationship with it, only to still be knitting squares and spinning slubby singles that bceome painfully plied pairings is discouraging. All that mess up there, and here's the little segment that is what it should have been:

  Do you ever feel like you came into your own life too late? I didn't meet Linda until I was 43. Didn't meet wool until I was 48. Didn't figure out that a homespun life with critters (besides cats) and gardens might be what my soul longed for. And now that I know all this, sometimes it just seems too late for all of it. Not too late in years; I'm only 50 1/2. No...too late to learn new tricks. Too late to be a student all over again, to face failure and be the remedial student, that 'one' who needs all the extra help. Too late to get up and feed chickens before going to work. Too late to relish digging and sweating on a hot summer day even for the profound joy of biting into the sweet flesh of a sunbathed tomato. That's how I'm feeling today. Tomorrow I'll sit at the wheel and spin my singles and count the treadling in an effort to create something consistent and worth plying. Tomorrow I'll read Backyard Poultry and talk with Linda about how we'll address all those things that made me quit on chickens (like Winter housing and fencing) so we can try again and be successful. Tomorrow--or some snowy day (if we EVER get one this Winter)--we'll pull out the seed catalogs and garden bed drawings, and plan again. But today, I'm just tired and discouraged. Today I feel like the little match girl peering in the windows at the wondrous creations of people who speak the language of wool, and feeling like I'm never gonna get there. Deep sigh.

Spinning a Tale

Once upon a time, two womyn visited  the NY Sheep and Wool Festival on a whim, and one of them fell head-over-heels in love with all things woolly. A year after that festival, having taken a class, read books and rented one from Country Wool in Hudson, she bought a spinning wheel of her very own--an Ashford Traveler, to be exact.  It arrived in a box. A big box.  It arrived at the same time as house guests and the impending holiday season and, well....never came out of the box until February.

As daunting as this was, it almost went back in the box!  But wool's siren call drowned out the fears, and some "antique red" water-based stain and several coats of acrylic later,

it was time to help her get her act together.  Thankfully Linda likes assembling things AND is very patient and good at it.  In the end, the assembly took maybe two hours.  Claudia from Country Wool was kind enough to make an adjustment or two (it may be a double-drive wheel, but that doesn't mean both drives should be engaged simultaneously!), and at last, she's finished!

She's a thing of beauty, although neither photo captures her lush, deep rosewood coloring.  She's 'functional art', and I can't wait to finally pick up spinning again!  There's all sorts of alpaca and Romney roving here just waiting to be practiced with, not to mention the Lincoln fleece from Cricket and Leicester fleece from Ozzie, obtained last Fall in anticipation of this time.  I keep reminding myself it's an art that will take lots of practice and time, like all great love affairs.

Feeling Squirrelly

This year we've noticed hordes of squirrels squirreling away winter sustenance.  There seems to be a frenzy of hoarding among squirrels and chipmunks, not unlike the rush on bread and toilet paper that happens every time an inch of snow is predicted. They race across the road, up trees, and perform highwire acts clutching walnuts as big as their heads in their mouths.  Linda and I agree we haven't before seen such squirrel intensity, but also concur it's possible we're noticing it more because we're out every day with Yeti.  We've also been catching sight of a flock (flocks?) of ugly, comical wild turkeys as they determinedly scratch and forage in assorted yards along our dog-walking routes.  Did you know wild turkeys roost in trees? It's a very weird sight to behold!  Frankly, given the air shattering report of shotguns all around us these days, if I were a turkey, I'd be following Weight Watchers....a skinny turkey has a longer lifespan in Fall than a well-fed one.
We too have been acting squirrelly, and it feels wonderful; we're just a wee bit smugly snug here in our little nest.  The freezer is slowly filling up with chili (okay, I'm dying to make some terrible pun about chilly chili in the freezer....), sausage and white bean stew, cassoulet, carrot soup, pumpkin bread; this is the time of year when one begins longing for hearty, homey meals eaten by the fire.  On Sunday we received our three tons of pellets to keep the aforementioned homefires burning through the Winter.  Linda has new warm slippers on the way, and I have a brand new pair of Solmate socks waiting for that first snowstorm.
The socks came from the Sheep and Wool Festival this past weekend, and the preparations for Winter continued as we browsed the countless exhibits and vendor booths.  In addition to having already secured delicious yarn for two more scarves and a blanket (all of which I'm trying to complete by Christmas!!) between my two local yarn shops--Country Wool in Germantown and Amazing Threads in Saugerties--I left the festival carrying lots of roving for practicing spinning (including some luscious alpaca); some fleece (gray and cream from Cricket, a Lincoln sheep, and a black-dark chocolate-milk chocolate fleece from Ozzie, a Border Leicester/Romney  lamb); and some felting kits so I can finally try my hand at that. The next two months will be consumed with knitting, with breaks for felting because I dearly want a felted sheep on the tree this year, and because one of those felting kits could yield the perfect accessory scarf for someone I know.  The roving and the fleece are for the deepest part of Winter, when the holidays are past, when the January craziness at work subsides, and the days are cold, gray, and easily remedied by the shush of the by-then-it-will-be-stained-and-assembled spinning wheel, and the heat of the fleece-washing water.
So we're squirrelly these days, here in the foothills of the Catskills, and the nuttiness feels good!