Chickenlips Knitting

Yes my friends, I've fallen and I can't get up. There's now a Louet spinning wheel in my living room, and I must say it looks quite at home there. I mentioned at Wednesday night knitting/spinning/etc. that I wanted to learn to spin, once and for all, because my two previous attempts at learning were half-hearted and half-assed at best. I received coaching and support, and also the loan of this really nice wheel that I have the option to buy. My fiber friends are the best, where would I be without them?!

Now this isn't to say, that I can actually spin. In truth I am horribly, maddeningly stuck because on my own I can't get the rhythm of drafting and treadling, hell I never was good at multi-tasking. I have a big mess on the bobbin, of fiber that wants to become yarn but is twisted back on itself and sticking through the damn orifice. Fortunately, tomorrow morning and early afternoon is spinners' guild, and I can take the whole kit-n-kaboodle in there and say "Help!" and kind souls will rescue me, I have no doubt. I'll stick with it until I can actually make yarn, and will keep you posted on this saga as it unfolds. Not that my spinning, knitting or dyeing is all that exciting, but it's got to be better than what's on the news.

I enjoyed your comments last post about my hot guy wallpaper and my family's reaction to it. I didn't mind taking Russell down; but I did get the last laugh, in my usual passive-aggressive way. I just gently reminded husband and daughter that they have a tendency to react negatively whenever I do something that's the least bit out of the ordinary, case in point my Russell Brand wallpaper, and when they began to protest, I informed them, "I am so blogging this".

What, after all, could they say to that?

-ps. Oh yeah, I did see "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and I totally agree with Kiki!

Yes way. All the checks have cleared, and if you go to Black Sheep Gathering and Sock Summit websites and follow the Trade Show/Vendor links, you will see Stitchjones on the list. It's as official as it's ever gonna get. So now is crunch time, and my inventory looks woefully inadequate for a 3-day fiber festival. I can get dyeing, sure. The only thing is, cash is a bit short and there's just so much time to get in what I think is enough undyed fiber and dye it! So now I have a small taste of what the intrepid planners of Sock Summit have been dealing with. They are doing something that's never been done before, so how could they know what they would need in terms of bandwidth? BSG is my first really big fiber event. I have about 40 skeins of kettle dyed superwash worsted, 30-odd skeins handpainted worsted, 100 skeins various types of sock yarns, and a rough guesstimate of 10 lbs. fiber. There will be about 5 more pounds of fiber done up within the next week or so. I have no idea what to expect. Given the sheer number of great vendors, I could be sitting on my hands like the Maytag repairman. However, I sold quite a bit of fiber at the last spin-in I attended. I want to have enough on hand to not sell out the first day! It's a tightrope walk, to be sure, but a really exciting one. And I'm still close enough to my last job to be grateful that I'm not working for some jerk who treats me like crap. Proving myself competent in the yarn business, after the hatchet job my last boss did on my self-confidence, has been my prime motivator to succeed. If you'll pardon my tendency to be a bit of a drama queen, that experience was my personal 9-11, and I will never forget.

Before this devolves into a post-midnight ramble, here is some yarn. It's Titanium Sock in Light Mulberry. Somehow, just looking at the color of it mellows me out.