Vacating

As of 7:30 p.m. on May 3, I officially started my long-awaited vacation and I won't go back to work until So far, it's been wonderful, although not necessarily restful. I completed Maggie Casey's two-day Learn to Spin class yesterday. It was wonderful and I learned so much. I'm not a bad spinner but my drafting repertoire was limited and hampered my ability to spin different fiber preparations. I think my drafting technique was a cross between the long backwards draw and the short forward draw. Now I know how to do both properly, although the forward short draw was a bit of a challenge, kind of like patting your head while rubbing your tummy.

At one point in class yesterday, I felt like I was fighting with my wheel...the spinning became difficult. Maggie replaced the existing drive band with a lighter one and that made a huge difference. Who knew? Suddenly, spinning top and combed fibers became much easier.

And the piece de resistance...I learned how to do a chained ply (and when to do it). I had read instructions and looked at illustrations and they didn't make any sense. But seeing the technique demonstrated made all the difference in the world. I'll probably practice on leftover singles. Ha! And then maybe I'll actually knit some of my hand-spun. That would be a first.

The biggest benefit from taking Maggie's class is that now I have the confidence to spin any fiber without fearing that I'll ruin it. That's a giant step forward for me.

Knitting Progress
Not much knitting going on lately. I've realized that if I want to knit every day, I'm going to have to approach my knitting (and spinning) like I do exercise: first thing in the morning. I have great intentions to knit every evening after work, but by the time I get home at night and eat dinner, it's time to go to bed. I'm not particularly thrilled with staying up after feeding the cats at 5:00 a.m. but I think that's what it's going to take.

I'm almost to the first sleeve on Corinne. But with Squam just a mere three weeks away, I need to increase my knitting time by a lot, or else I'm not going to have a new sweater to wear.

As far as the stealth project is concerned, I haven't even finished swatching for it. That's bad; I'm behind before I've even started.

Maryland Sheep and Wool
Tomorrow I'm meeting a friend at MD$W. My initial goal was to just hang out with her and vicariously enjoy her purchases. But I'm beginning to feel the siren call of the fleeces and yarns. And spinning wheels. I do need a new threading hook so I might look for a pretty one. And buttons...I need some buttons for Corinne. I also realized that my body doesn't like spinning all day on a single treadle wheel, so after Gina goes home, I might sample different wheels. And no, a new spinning wheel is not going to follow me home. I need to make sure that I'm actually going to be spinning enough to make the investment. And I want to make sure that I buy the right wheel. Does anyone have any recommendations for a double treadle wheel?

In closing, here's Bosco doing one of his three favorite things:

The other two? Eating and hunting for voles.

Have a great weekend and happy knitting!

Breathe

The end of my second day without working is coming to a close and I'm so sad. It's amazing how much stuff you can get done without work getting in the way. In short, it was a blissfully productive weekend:

• I started breathing again
• And my jaws started to unclench
• I cleaned the house...all of it
• The dust buffalo herd is now manageable
• I vacuumed up enough cat hair to make a litter of kittens
• I did laundry
• I even folded it and put it away
• Not sure that I'll be able to find my clothes now
• The cats got some good walks this weekend
• It's amazing how much fun a cat can have with a dead vole
• Bosco's quite the hunter
• There was knitting, but not as much as I would have liked

I started the Corinne cardigan from the current issue of Knitty today. I was blithely knitting along, chatting with my mother-in-law, and promptly hit a snag. "Knit to 1st marker; turn. Knit across" Hmmm...do I simply turn and knit back and won't that make a wonky stitch? Do I slip the first stitch? Do I wrap and turn and knit back? I'm now in experiment mode. I slipped the stitch for the first pattern repeat. I'm turning and knitting back on the second pattern repeat. If I don't like how either looks, I might add wrap-and-turn to the mix. But I think just turning and knitting back is the way to go. I tend to overthink the knitting a little lot and that never fails to get me in trouble.

I'm on the verge of starting another project, this one being a stealth project. Suffice it to say that come July, working on that project will be miserable. I did not choose wisely for summer knitting.

That's it for now.

Happy knitting!