Mea Culpa

I must confess.  I have committed a grave act that haunts me day and night.  I bought this sweater...

...which looks the picture of innocence.  But don't let looks deceive you.  This little sweater is...THE DIVIL!

You see, I am trying to reduce my carbon footprint.  I know that I am only one little person, but if I can reduce my dependency on petrochemicals and teach others to follow my example, I will feel that I have made an impact.  So, to that end, I have begun to walk to the grocery store and the post office, I have eliminated single-use plastic shopping bags from the household, I carry my own cup to Starbucks, I buy bulk groceries when I can to reduce the packaging waste...I do what I can.  But my big, soap-box rant-inspiring,
save-the planet action is to avoid clothing and textile products made from petrochemicals.

You know their names.  Polyester.  Nylon.  Acrylic.  Polyamide.  And the dreaded poly-vinyl-chloride.

Oh, they've gotten sneaky, these petro-textiles.  They hide behind names like "micro-fibre".  Spandex has snuck into the blue jean supply chain.  Petrochemicals are now being used to coat natural fibres, like wool -and cotton, to make them "shrink-proof" and "wrinkle-free".

But I see them out there, lurking.  I read the labels, and I put that super-sexy little top back on the rack because I don't trust those sneaky petro-textiles one bit.

Now, I live in an petrochemical community.  Fort McMurray is the home of the Oilsands, and we have a lot of debate about the rightness and the wrongness of the methods of extraction used around here, and the environmental impact.  Greenpeace shows up every now and then and rails about the dangers of "dirty oil".  All those activists, dressed in their acrylic fleece vests and Spandex pants, rappelling down nylon ropes to hang a vinyl banner protesting the extraction of oil from the ground were clearly not paying much attention to what that oil is being used for.

And nothing burns my biscuits like the animal-rights activists who protest the shearing of sheep by telling us that there are plenty of man-made alternatives, like polar-fleece and polyester, that do no harm to animals.  Tell that to the dolphins and sea turtles of the Gulf Coast.

All this talk about the dangers of oil extraction, and the ever-looming threat of peak oil, and we are wearing the stuff on our backs.  We are sitting on it.  We are walking on it.  We are carrying our groceries home in it.  We are wrapping our newborn babies in it.  Oil is everywhere.  (It really is!  Check out this list, which is actually pretty entertaining, to find out some of the other places petroleum products are used.  My favorite is pole vaulter poles!)

So, instead of wasting it on clothing, that can be made out of renewable resources like linen, cotton, wool, and even wood pulp, let's save our oil for driving our vehicles and heating our homes.  The supply will last longer, and development could slow down and take the time to be kinder to our environment.

Whew!  Soapbox rant over.  Now back to the sweater.

I will preface the conclusion of my tale with the defense that I was in a hurry, on my way to meet someone.  I saw the sweater in a store window and popped in to look at it.  It had a lovely hand, crisp, yet soft, like cotton.  And it was on sale for a price I couldn't resist.  So, I tossed it on the cashier's counter, then popped it into my re-usable cloth shopping bag and dashed to my appointment.  As the evening cooled, I pulled out my lovely new sweater and wore it.  Then I wore it the next day, loving the cuddly feel and the warmth it provided.  The sweater wound up in the laundry basket eventually, where it languished until yesterday.  As I sorted my laundry, I debated whether to put the sweater into a regular wash or the gentle cycle.  With trepidation, I checked the tag to see if there were any sneaky petro-fibres lurking that might require particular care.  And that is when the bombshell hit.

The label read 100% ACRYLIC!

I hang my head in shame.

But I'll probably wear the sweater anyway.  'Cuz it's a really nice sweater.

Mea Culpa.

A Whole Lotta Nothin'

That's what's been going on round here for the past few days.  Oh, stuff has been happening...laundry, food shopping, weeding, dog walking,..you know, stuff.  I've been slowly redecorating our bedroom, which is long overdue, but that is a work-in-progress.  Steve and I celebrated our 28th anniversary last week  We have been to Edmonton a couple of times.  But really nothing blog-worthy.

I seem to be unable to blog regularly for two really good reasons either nothing is going on, like now, or too much is going on.  My life just seems to be like that.  I suppose I should work on my pacing.

So, this afternoon, here I sit on my patio, in the sun, blogging about having nothing to blog about. 

Of course, I am spinning...

...this yummy silk blend, handpainted by Barb at Luscious Luxuries.  The beverage in the picture is Ribena and soda, cool and refreshing on a day like today.

And I'm watching my garden grow...

...as lazy bumble bees and butterflies poke around the blossoms on the scarlet runner beans and rather cheeky little finches dart in and out of my cat-infested yard.

Even Molly seems to have caught the summer ennui...

...watching the birds from a little fort she has built from an up-ended garden gnome under a spruce tree.

I know things are going to get busy around here really soon.  They always do.  But, for now, I'm just going to enjoy doing a whole lotta nothin'.

To Olds and Back Again

Yes, I know Fibre Week ended over a week ago.  But you should know by now that you are dealing with a delinquent blogger.  And a lot is going on, besides the making of string.

Like my new website http://www.michelleboydspins.com/.  Who knew writing lines and lines of code and learning FTP protocols would take so much time.  But there you have it.  Good-bye, June.  Go ahead and check it out, if you haven't already.

And then there is the garden.  This time of year brings out the horticulturalist in me.  I plant pretty flowers, and though I don't specifically grow a dyer's garden, I do harvest a lot of nifty colors all summer long.  And veggies.  My childhood was filled with fresh garden veggies all summer long.  I had decided to turn the wee plot in my back yard into a veggie garden with peas, onions, beets, beans, corn and carrots all carefully lined up in pretty rows.  My cats, however, had different ideas, and now I spend a lot of time discovering new plants where other plants should have been.  And weeding.

And then, of course, there was Fibre Week.  Every year, I enjoy this event more and more.  And this year topped them all.  Not only was there fabulous enrollment in the workshop program (which makes me, as the coordinator, look pretty good!), but a record number of entries in the fleece shows, enormous community support, and fabulous weather.  Who could ask for anything more?  (Okay, edible food in the cafeteria would be nice...)

My favorite thing about Fibre Week, however, is the people.  Some of my very best friends in the world are people that I have met at Fibre Week.  And I keep meeting more and more wonderful people and adding to that list of friends.  People who play with fibre are the very best kind of people.  They are kind and generous and adventurous and hilarious.  They are smart and loyal and just seem to be happier than the rest of humanity. 

We gathered for classes...

...like this one with Sharon Costello.  Look a them working away!
We gathered for speakers and for the fashion show...

...hosted by yours truly, which is why there are no photos of the awesome garments we saw!

We gathered for potluck dinner...

We welcomed new spinners...

And new-to-fibre-arts-in-general folk...

I managed to find myself room mates with three of the most remarkable fibre folk I have yet to meet:  Joan Ruane, Sharon Costello, and Cat Bordhi.  Talk about a nexus of fibre brilliance.  All three of these women are remarkable human beings and very gifted in their fields, and I got to sit in and converse with them each evening.  Sheer bliss!

Then, I got to meet the Master Spinner Level 3 Class of 2010.  I could not have had a better group if I had gone out and handpicked from the entire spinning population.  Smart, funny, and fearless, these nine women soaked up all that I had to give and came back for more each day.  And one of them actually said that she loved tpi and would never spin without it again!  My work here is done...

...MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Okay, there was a little bit of stash enhancement done, too.  Seriously, where else are you going to find cashmere,  and cashmere blended with alpaca, and quiviut blended with bison, merino, and silk?  Oh, and a wee bit of handpainted merino yarn from Ellie at Rabbitworks Fibre Studio.   And a little handpainted silk.  And that Viking Santa spindle that I picked up at the Silent Auction.  And the Dukhobor flax tools.  And...you get the picture...

Yep, that's worth a thousand words.  And several hundred dollars.  It's a darn good thing they pay me to go to Fibre Week, but, apparently, most of that money gets left there!

So, all in all, I had a wonderful time, came home broke and brain-dead, then turned around and went back to Edmonton for medical appointments.  This weekend is finally a chance to try and recover.

And make some string.

Goodness knows, there's some fibre around!

P.S  I am scheduled to teach a class in spinning flax out at Gibson's Landing, but it is in danger of cancellation due to low enrollment.  If you will be in the vicinity of the Sunshine Coast around August 21 and want to find out how fun and friendly flax can be, go to http://www.gibsonslandingfibrearts.com and register a.s.a.p.! 

Bliss

bliss (blis) n. 1. great happiness, perfect joy

 

Not so very long ago, I was a stay-at-home mom with small children and a husband who worked weird hours.  Like many women in that position, I watched a lot of Oprah.  There was one hour set aside in every day to sit and knit and listen to somebody talk about something, anything, besides Barney The Purple Dinosaur.  And Oprah kept telling me to "find my bliss."

Well, at the time, my bliss consisted of finding two matching socks in a load of laundry, or someone actually flushing the toilet after they used it, so I really couldn't figure out what Oprah was talking about.  But it sounded good.

As my children got a little older and started school, I had more free time to knit.  Then I learned to spin. 

At first, it was hard.  I couldn't make the spindle do what I wanted it to do and my yarns were over-twisted and lumpy.  But I really wanted to do this, so I kept practicing, and pretty soon I was making a smooth yarn that was actually usable.  Then I started the Master Spinner Program and found out how much I didn't know.  Back to square one, with lots of practice and lots of frustration.  If someone had asked me then if I had found my bliss, I probably would have punched them in the throat.

I managed to struggle through the hundreds of sample skeins that we were assigned at school, and I must admit, there was little to no joy in spinning for me during those years.  I fought the idea of specific tpi for a specific use.  I hated counting those treadles!  It was Serious Work.  No fun at all.  Joyless.  But, I was determined to be a Master.  I made specific skeins out of specific fibres, whether I wanted to or not.  When I wasn't making assigned skeins, I was practicing my drafting.  I took workshops whenever I could afford to.  I worked and worked to be a good spinner.

Then one day, I sat down to spin.  And I was a good spinner.  I still had a couple of levels left in the Master Spinner Program, but I knew what I was doing and I could handle it.  I really enjoyed spinning to a specific tpi for my in-depth study.  I really enjoyed spinning.  Period.

Then I broke my wrist.  I was in and out of casts for the larger part of a year after that, and I learned something.  Spinning was the thing that made me complete.  I have been blessed with a wonderful husband,  three beautiful, clever, healthy children, a home, and a good life.  But spinning was mine alone.  The thing that made me, well, feel like me.

I had found my bliss.

Since then, I have been teaching spinning on a fairly regular basis.  This gives me an excuse to continue spinning, but it also gives me an opportunity to share that thing that brings me such joy with others.  I have seen others struggle the way I did, and I can offer a way around that thing that is blocking their bliss.

I am a member of a far-flung community of string lovers.  We gather every now and then, such as at the HWSDA's conference in Edmonton a couple of weeks ago.  When we gather, the bliss is multiplied.  It's good to know that playing with string affects others as deeply as it does me.  And sometimes, there is an unexpected bonus.  Like these two lovely young people...

Laura and Daniel were not members of the HWSDA.  They attend the college where the conference was held,  but Laura has always loved the idea of spinning.  Her mother was a spinner and Laura did not appreciate it until she moved away from home, and was asking a lot of questions.  So we sat her down and gave her a quick lesson.   Daniel wanted to try, too, so we got him going on another wheel.  Soon, both of them where spinning a fair-to-middlin' yarn.  Look at the expressions on their faces.  Pure joy at their accomplishments.

Bliss.

I will also confess that a glass or two of wine has been known to contribute to my bliss.  Which leads me to this photo from that conference...

...wine under lock and key.  In case your computer's resolution is preventing you from reading the sign, here is a close-up.

Bwahahahaha!  Apparently. they know us too well!  And they are taunting us!  "Look inside", indeed!

So, now I'm preparing for another Fibre Week.  I will be teaching Level 3 once again, inflicting tpi stress upon another class.  I try very hard to remember my own anxiety about those very specific skeins when I teach this level.  And I remember the day I said "ah-ha!" and it ceased to be work.  And I try to share how the struggle to learn proper technical skills actually set me free to spin.  Spinning the right yarn for the right job ceased to be Serious Work.

And became Bliss.

Time

Have you noticed that time is diminishing, or am I imagining things?

Nope, I'm pretty sure time is getting smaller.

I mean, I thought I had a whole month to spend spinning and prepping for workshops.  I thought I'd get some knitting done, and keep up with the old blog.  I had great plans to do some baking, and stay on top of the laundry.  There was going to be time to hang out with friends, and have date nights with Steve.

My math isn't great, but I always thought that there were about 30 days or so each month, give or take February.  There are 24 hours in each of those days, or so we've been told.  That's 720 hours a month.  Even if you account for sleeping, which is something I haven't been doing lately,  there should still be 480 usable hours every day.  That's 28,800 minutes.  That's a lot of time.

So where did it all go?

In 28,800 minutes, I should have spun miles of singles.  I should have knit three sweaters and two pairs of socks.  I should have blogged at least once a week.  There should be stacks of pristine laundry everywhere, and freshly-baked muffins galore.  Friends and spouses should have been seen, and coffee consumed in their presence.

Instead,  I have just finished plying the Merino/silk that has been languishing on the wheel since before Christmas.  And I have half a sock knitted.  That's about what I've got to show for the last 3 weeks.

And I do not understand this, because I have been in the studio most days.  Working at the wheel.  Knitting,

Oh sure, there was the day I dug compost into the garden.  But the two achey days afterwards were spent spinning.  For hours.  And yet, so little to show for the time spent.  Where did all that time go, if not into mile after productive mile of string?

So, the only thing I can come up with is that time is shrinking.  A minute just isn't what it used to be.

That't my excuse, and I'm sticking to it.

Five Short Stories About Last Week

I once again find myself a delinquent blogger.  And for no good reason, except to say that the past week or so have been...well, odd.  Many things have happened, some good, some not good, most of them just time-consuming.  Just things that happen.  Here are a few of them.

1.  Insomnia
Ever since coming home from Vancouver, I have had trouble turning off the brain at bedtime.  So many great ideas, yarns and patterns, new techniques.   The logical solution seemed to be to go with the flow, which meant that I stayed up until 2 or 3 in the morning spinning, knitting, sketching or whatever else struck my fancy.  I made some nice sock yarn...

...from some lovely Superwash Merino/nylon blend fibre from River's Edge Fiber Arts.  I picked the fibre up while I was in Arizona and just decided that I had to spin it one night.  The colors are amazing and they works well together to create a wide stripe pattern, but there is not as much yardage as I might have hoped.  It is my standard 3-ply sock yarn, about 18 wpi, but there are two skeins of only 125 yard each out of the 4 oz. of fibre.  Yet to be knitted up, but I'm thinking it's time to explore a toe-up technique.

There are other yarns, and other projects, most of which are in some state of semi-completion.  Where they will probably stay for a while, because the inevitable result of 3 weeks of 4 hours of sleep is, yes, you guessed it, exhaustion.

Naps and early bedtimes have been the order of the day for the past few days now.  Hopefully, balance will be achieved soon and life can settle down.

2. More Yarn
There has been other spinning going on, and two major projects started back in the January lull are caught up.  Or, at least, one is done.  The other is still waiting for plying. 

But I can show off the finished one...

...my Monet-inspired cable.  Spun woolen and fine, plied, then cabled to make the most of the color play in the fabulous Romney/Merino blend rovings from Lynne Anderson and West Coast Fibres.  The finished yarn came out at about 3 tpi and 12 wpi.  I loved it so much that, as soon as the skeins were dry, I was knitting.  I am free-styling a garter stitch vest/sweater, choosing the next step as I go.  A couple of those insomnia evenings were spent working out the front button placket, and the obsessive knitting continues...

3.  Plumbing Disaster 2:  The Revenge of the Airlock
You may recall that we had a plumbing crisis back in January.  It was not a happy time, and a great deal of time and money was consumed in solving this crisis and restoring functioning toilets to the Old Homestead.  And, of course, there was the little problem of the rain of sewage into the downstairs bathroom.  Pipes were plumbed, vents were cleared, toilets resealed, and all was well.

Until last Tuesday.  When the bubbles began in the toilet again.  Plumbers were called, and as we waited, the rain of sewage began to fall.  Nothing was found to be wrong, but the seal on the upstairs toilet had let loose again, resulting in the removal of said toilet and the resealing of the pipe.  Steve did this job, and may I just state here that there is something about plumbing that turns my relatively calm, intelligent, and gentle husband into some sort of surly, cursing, rampaging member of the rhinoceros family.  It was not pretty.

So, toilet back in place and everything clear.  Flush.  Glub, glub, glub.  The bubbles are back.  The call is in to the condo management company to get somebody out here to check our sewer connection, but they don't seem to think it is a priority.  Or, more likely, they know that there are expensive major repairs to the sewer line in our row of townhouses and are trying to avoid them.

Care and caution are being exercised by all who use toilets in the household until somebody, somewhere, decides what to do.

4.  Brace Yourself!
Or, more appropriately, I have braced myself.  I finally got to see the doctor I had asked to see five years ago when I first fell and hurt my knee.  He took one look at it and told me exactly what I had known all along.  There is torn cartilage and a damaged ligament destabilizing the knee, which is aggravating otherwise mild arthritis and making me a cranky old cripple before my time.  There will be surgery to repair the cartilage and rebuild the ligament in my not-too-distant future, but a fresh MRI is needed first.  Even with a priority status, that means a 3-6 week wait.

So, what to do in the meantime?  Wear a brace.  But not just any brace.  No, siree...

...the Uber-Brace!  Yes, 11 inches of Neoprene, Velcro and steel, designed to keep that knee bending in the one direction that it's supposed to.  And after only 48 hours of wearing this baby, I am walking the dog, going up and down stairs, and taking only half the painkillers I previously took to sleep at night!

I'm not too sure how I will feel about having this Behemoth on my leg when it gets to be a little warmer around here, but I'm so happy to be able to climb stairs and get up from a chair without a grunt of pain that I will just have to find a way to adjust.

5.  Goats Across Canada
If you can find a copy of the March/April issue of Goats Across Canada magazine, check out Page 26.  I will gladly autograph your copy!

So that's just a little sampler of the stuff that has been going on around here.  There has been gardening, and snow, and a spin-in, and baking, and nights out, and spinning, and knitting.  There have been trips to the grocery store, visits to Canadian Tire, and appointments galore.  There has been life.  Just life.

I'm So Excited...

...and I just can't hide it!  I'm about to lose control and I think I like it.

Yep, The Pointer Sisters really summed up my mood today.  It's been a really exciting week around here.  Really!

On Sunday, I hosted the first Wood Buffalo Spin-in for the growing local spinning community.  It was such a hit that we're doing it again in about 10 days.  There were 5 spinners in my tiny little living room, spinning and talking and eating goodies and just having fun.  I'm so excited that this group has gathered together, and that we will be doing it again soon.  (Though, sadly, Robin has left us to go home to Australia.  I'm sure she will still spin with us in spirit!)

On Tuesday, the excitement was in the form of a nasty injury.  I broke my toe, tripping over the track on the sliding patio door.  I was trying to take my spinning wheel out onto the patio to take advantage of the fabulous weather, and, bang!  My poor wee toe never saw it coming.  Things are healing up, with my toe a spectacular variagated range of purples and greens.  It only hurts when I dance.

Which is a bit of a problem, because I have been breaking into spontaneous dance for the last 20 hours or so.  Ever since I received an email from Amy Clarke Moore, editor of Spin-Off Magazine.

Yours truly has been awarded a FULL SCHOLARSHIP to attend SOAR 2010!

Big excitement, indeed.

So that high-pitched squealing noise you have been hearing since last night is just me, realizing that I AM GOING TO SOAR.  Then bursting into dance.  Then screaming because my toe hurts.  And then squealing again, because sore toe or not, I AM GOING TO SOAR!

Sooner or later, I'm sure I will settle down.  Probably when I realize that I can only take
one of the amazing workshops.  I have no idea how I will choose. Putting each workshop description on  a wall and throwing darts seems too blunt.  Reading the correct workshop in chicken entrails seems a little, well, icky.  Logically working through the list to choose something that will be interesting and challenging for me seems like a plan, but logic escapes me right now.

I'm so excited....I'M GOING TO SOAR!