I think it’s catching up to me

I’m cranky today.  It’s a zillion degrees out and the stupid little wall AC that’s supposed to cool our entire apartment isn’t, I have a bunch of packing to do and mayhem-in-a-diaper is making that rather difficult, and for some reason my computer is running slower than molasses.

 

So rather than sit here and bitch anymore, I’mma do something about it 😀

 

Exciting thing #1:  You know my beloved Dyeabolical Strong Arm sock yarn, the one that’s been discontinued? I have made 6 pairs of socks with this yarn.  It holds up better than almost anything I’ve knitted with, and it’s squishysoft and gorgeous.  Magical!

 

I love that stuff.

 

So when Kara mentioned she was de-stashing some, well…

That’ll be greeting me in Ohio.  All the Strong Arm for meeeeee!

 

Exciting thing #2:  I have disposed of the remaining donuts.  So they’ll no longer be haunting me.  Also, this is why we never buy donuts.

 

Exciting thing #3:  Simon has some new skills:  shaking thing with rhythm, manipulating his stacking rings really quickly (laboring over each piece is so yesterday!), and banging on his little drum.  Yesterday afternoon he was playing with the stacker and I was packing in the kitchen, and he tossed another ring on the post.  By that point I had said “YAYYYY!!!!!” and applauded about 400 times, so my enthusiasm for the accomplishment was, understandably, waning just a bit.  So I said, “Yayy!” and went on about my business.  Looked over a second later, and Simon was staring at me, solemn-faced.  Once we made eye contact he slowly clapped, once or twice, to show me what I needed to do.  When I said, “YAYYYY!!!!!!!” and clapped, he burst into a giant grin and, satisfied, went back to his  stacking.

 

It’s like he was saying, “That’s right, Mama.  You’d BETTER be impressed!”

 

Speaking of the lil’ stinker:

He comprises Exciting Things #3 through 13,248,895.

 

Exciting Thing #13,248,896, though, is that in less than an hour we get to leave to pick up Jeff, and once he comes home I’ll have the rest of the evening free to pack.  Whoopee!   After Simes goes to sleep, I think I’ll try to finish the lef oof that knee sock.  I’m about 3/4 of the way there!

 

Now that we’ve danced to Gangnam Style 5 times in a row (at least 600k of its 1.75 billion views have come from our IP address), it’s time to go be a Mama.  That is, feed him Joe-O’sand sing Jayhawks songs off-key while I make a racket arranging pots and pans in boxes.

 

What’s your exciting thing for today?

I feel very clever right now. But also, not.

Gretchen (that’s my wheel’s name.  It’s a good name for a spinning wheel, isn’t it?) and I are having a fabulous time getting to know each other.

On Friday, we finished our first-ever yarn.

That used to be some beautiful Dyeabolical cheviot roving, that looked like this:

Now, through no fault of its own, it is crappy, uneven, under-spun yarn that looks like this:

I’m sorry, fiber.  You deserved better.  But thank you for sacrificing yourself to the cause.

I have since learned that cheviot is unique because it is a helix-shaped fiber.  And that maybe under-spinning it due to my inexperience was an understandable error.

Still makes me wanna go pout though.  Just a bit.

So instead of pouting, I decided to bust out this goodness:

That’s more Dyeabolical, just marked “100% wool”, that Rachel gave me during last summer’s wheel-borrowing adventure.  She gave it to me because it was unsellable (read: compacted), but with plenty of pre-drafting I think it’s turning into halfway decent yarn:

I’ve divided the fiber into three approximately-equal sections (thanks to my digital  food  yarn scale, and the plan is to make this into a nice round three-ply.  Call me stupid, but I’m actually pretty optimistic about this one.

 

Finally, yesterday I ran into Knitorious for one specific purpose: 4 oz of BFL fiber.

Last summer, my most successful spin by far was BFL, so I figure that one good turn deserves another.  Hopefully this will be easy, quick, and (thus) gratifying.

 

I’m going to attempt to spin that a bit thicker, too – maybe aim to end with a worsted weight?  Either just a normal 2-ply, or maybe navajo-plied?

 

Here is when I start muppetflailing in excitement, and also freaking out a bit because I DON’T KNOW EVERYTHING YET AND HOW CAN I BE EXPECTED TO DO ANYTHING COMPETENTLY WHEN I DON’T KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT WHAT I’M DOING.

 

But if that were my attitude, I suppose I’d never learn anything new.  And how boring and un-gratifying would life be then?