What I've Been Up To: Part One

The last two weeks of June and the first week of July passed in a blur. The good news is that it was a fibery blur--I worked at something fibre-related for 8-10 hours everyday, then fell asleep dreaming of fibre! The bad new is that I have been too busy to blog, so now I have a blog-jam to clear. So, I have decided to divide things into chunks and blog separately about the different topics, rather than spend the day writing an epic that would rival War and Peace in its length and scope!

Part One: Prep and Packing

Getting ready to go away to teach spinning for a week is an adventure in and of itself, but this time I worked to coordinate materials with the other instructor, who had been preparing materials for the whole Level 3 class before it was split. That went really well, but in the end, there was still a lot for me to do on my own. I have never taught to someone else's curriculum before, so there was a real learning curve in sorting through the information and breaking it into exercises, then breaking the exercises into materials. Many emails were exchanged with other instructors and with purveyors of fibre, and the stash was dived into several times before I got things under control. My studio looked as if a flock of sheep had exploded in it, after a tornado had hit!

I was also madly spinning to prepare a yarn to submit for the silent auction, plus frantically knitting to get my Phoenix sweater done (which I didn't!). And then I decided that I had to have a dye day.

Now, I may or may not have mentioned that I love to dye, but that the work takes a toll upon my creaky knees and back. This means that I tend to let dye projects accumulate, then do a day-long blitz. This is also partly because I do not have a dedicated dye space, so I have to set up my temporary place out on the patio. So I set up and go, go, go.

This day's results:

...kid Mohair locks in 7 different colors (A friend dropped by, saw this pile and said "So I see you've been scalping clowns again, Michelle". Again?!?);

...painted Corriedale roving in a colorway I named "Opal";

...and the same roving in "Jade";

...my fat yarn from this post, handpainted in blues and greens;

..and the silent auction yarn, handpainted in "Shiraz".

I also handpainted some silk hankies for my Level 3 students, but neglected to photograph them. Much mess, but fabulous results!

And when it was all done...

...we ate dinner on the coffee table.

The painted Corriedale went into "learn to spindle" kits, the "Shiraz" yarn got yoinked back into my stash, the fat yarn got alloted to the silent auction, and the Mohair got bagged up for sale. Then I packed all the materials that I had accumulated into kits for each student, sorted books and equipment, rounded up clean undies and my toothbrush and took my show on the road.

Next time, in Part Two: Our intrepid heroine goes to Fibre Week.

...In Which We Get Caught Up

It's been a while since the last post, breaking the promise I made to myself to post at least once a week, but once you read this, you will understand why there hasn't been time to sit down and write since I got home...

First of all, I came home to this:

after a week of this:

Now, that should be excuse enough for me to crawl into bed and not come out for two weeks. But noooo, there's more.

While I was blissfully gazing at the daffodils in Vancouver, Number One Son and his friend finally reached the breaking point with their roommates. A little background: They have been living in another unit here in the same townhouse complex as me for the past 9 months. They shared the unit (950 square feet) with friend's sister, her boyfriend, and his other sister, who has Down's Syndrome. The townhouse is owned by friend's parents. They were paying $800 a month for a bedroom. They were not allowed to use the kitchen except for limited cooking privileges. They were only allowed to use the upstairs bathroom at scheduled times. They were not allowed to leave anything in the living room, and if they did, they would come home and find that it had been thrown away. I was not allowed to visit, unless someone from friend's family was in the house (apparently, I look a little shady--hide the silverware!). These were the rules, imposed by friend's sister and her boyfriend. And the guys seemed okay with this, for some reason or another.

However, after living in close confines with these people for a while, it became evident to everyone that sister and boyfriend were in a rather abusive relationship. Door slamming, shouting, breaking of dishes and tormenting of small pets became a daily occurrence. When the guys complained, they were told that the relationship was none of their business and sent to their room. The violence escalated, broken only by episodes of loud sex and the introduction of drug usage. The guys started hanging out at my place more and more. Any attempt to intervene was met with threats of eviction from both the couple in question and friend's parents. The family is in total denial, and the guys were blamed for the fights and damage to the property, because my son is, apparently, the root of all evil.

I knew little to nothing of this situation until the week before I left for Vancouver, when I had to go to their place to do some vocal work for a puppet show. A fight broke out and I suggested calling the local constabulary, but was shouted down by the guys, who were "on probation" for arguing with the sister about her drug use. I still regret not overriding their objections. However, the next weekend, after a marathon fight, Number One Son had had enough. He called the landlords and told them he could not stand the violence and was moving out and they could eat the overdue rent. He was told he had 8 hours to vacate the premises or his possessions would go in the trash. So he called all his buddies and they moved all his stuff into my house, in less than 8 hours. His friend moved with him, even though he was told he could continue living there rent-free. He had had enough of the crap.

So. Now I have two guys camping out in my living room. And all their stuff. And Miss Lexi came home for a visit. And Miss Julia hurt her knee playing soccer while I was out of town. And then we all go off to Edmonton for 5 days "for a little break". So who has time to blog?

Things have calmed down a wee bit now. Everyone is back to work/school. The puppet building has been moved to a local yoga studio. We have worked out shower schedules and dish duty issues with our new roomies. I actually had time to knit on the weekend, and today a warp goes on the loom. The DAAGBF sweater is coming along...

...and I'm loving the lace patterns. Now that I am into the body of the sweater, I can knit a little more mindlessly, so I don't have to closet myself away and mutter "Can't anyone see I'm counting?"
The rest of March is shaping up to be busy, busy, busy, but I figure that if I could survive the past two weeks, I can deal with just about anything. And I suspect I shall have to.