Wheel

I’m not sure that anything could top yesterday’s post. Who wouldn’t love that Guinea Pig? (My husband has adopted him as a mascot, but I’m sure no one needed to know that.)

I was going to title this post something like “help, please” but I realized that I do way too much of that begging for help thing. Especially if it is information that I seek (kinda embarrassing with me being a librarian and all). This time, however, the fire burns within me and I am in serious need of enabling direction.

I need a wheel.

My list of justifications include:

1. I have a Rubbermaid bin of fiber, and the spindle isn’t burning through it so fast.
2. I have about a pound of prepared alpaca fiber I got for an embarrassingly low price. The spindle is intimidated.
3. Spinning is therapy (I dare any spinner to argue that)
4. My husband actually said, “Do you want a wheel for your birthday?”

Do I need to go on? I thought not.

What I would like to know is how those spinners out there found their first wheel. Did you try out a bunch at a store? (And if said store is in CT, dude, let me know) At a festival? A guild meeting? Did a pusher friend get you started?

I have a serious itch to spin (no, Eskimo, not the kind that cream can help), and I don’t know where to start. I beg thee for direction.

Advertisement

Read Full Post »

I can’t make this stuff up

I needed a laugh today, and thought you might, too.

(Click to enlarge)

Read Full Post »

No bunnies were hurt in the making of this post

There has been very little knitting to report of late from the Cygknit household. Sunday night, I knit my first hat for the Dulaan Project. It may fit a small doll. Hat 2 is on the needles, and appears that it may fit a real live human. If this is the case, I shall post pictures. In related news, it appears that no one else knows if washing greasy wool will make it less scratchy. I don’t feel so bad.

I went back to work yesterday, eager to track down and tackle some normalcy. Ummm, maybe not the best idea. Sometimes, heavy lifting and librarianship aren’t so distantly related. Sadly, I had somehow not heard the nurse mention that I shouldn’t lift things and found myself delirious from pain. It does, however, help with cranky patrons. Today has been much better, due in part to being in an (actually) interesting training all afternoon–across the street from my house. Yup, I am located quite close to one of the places that the State does workshops for Librarians. I ate lunch outside (more on that later; trust me, it has interest) and then walked down my driveway to class. Now if I only worked there…

A Bunny update:

Since the knitting has been paltry, I thought I would share a bunny story (I know at least 2 people who read this that are suckers for bunnies. This is for you guys).

So last night, the wild rabbit was out, eating goodies (weeds) from the lawn. Olive, who is usually hidden away napping at the dinner hour was actual up and wandering about. She saw the bunny and raced to the screen door, pawing at it like a dog wanting out. I explained that we don’t chase bunnies, and picked her up so that she would stop whacking the door could see better.

The bunny hopped a few feet past our view just as I realized that fat cats constitute heavy lifting, and I let her down. She raced to the french doors, (which the landlords have screened for summer) only to see that the bunny was just feet away. Much butt-wiggling and mewing ensued. I again assured her that we in this house do not chase bunnies.

Feeling that my little lecture had worked, I sat down with got sucked into the vortex of the laptop. A few minutes later: rrrriiiiiiiiiiip.

The cat had popped through the screen and was dashing after the bunny. I was not amused.

Mr. Cygknit was touched that the rabbit had escaped, and (I believe) giggled at Olive as she sat in the remains of the Lily of the Vally patch, wondering “Where did it go?” He even, in a fit of good feeling, said that the Little Nut Brown Hare (as he calls it) could eat the bean seedling outside our makeshift fence, if it wanted. Do I need to tell you that we have no bean seedlings left?

Score:

Nut Brown Hare: 1
Olive: 0

Read Full Post »

Some help, please?

At some point in the recent Vicodin-induced haze I was accepted into the Knitting Blogs webring (Yay!). Rather than freak out at the huge spike in hits on the blog here, I decided to ask all those passing through for a little advice. And you folks that are always here for me? You chime in, too, you hear?

Perhaps you remember the woolly windfall a few weeks ago, where I was gifted with a bin full of Maine wool? After receiving a suggestion from Sharon G. (sadly, Blogger shared no information on her) that the Dulaan Project needs wool warm stuff, I emailed Ryan to see if they still were accepting. And they are! The reports of them refocusing on other needs was true at the time, but apparently the response was so great they’re keeping it open for another year or so.

Still with me? The question is this: Some of the wool is scratchy, so I won’t use that for next-to-the-skin stuff. All of the wool, though, (now that I use it) is greasy. Now, this isn’t a bad thing–my hands are soft now–but I was wondering if I washed it, would the scratchy go away? All the wool smells strongly of sheep, so I was going to toss it in some warm soapy water, anyhow.

Any thoughts?

Read Full Post »

Some reasons

Some reasons why Vicodin and knitting are not mutually compatible:

1. It is possible that your ability to make good color choices can be affected.

2. Lace, even easy lace, can be a bit of a challenge.

(It may not look like it, but I took Netter’s advice and Eskimo’s encouragement and went from memory. It was quite exciting.)

3. Ankle socks, in 100% cotton, (worsted weight, no less) seem like a supremely good idea.

4. The fourth time you attempt to kitchener the same toe should be a clue to wait until you’re not high on painkillers.

I have noticed how easily amused I have become.

This little bunny has been solely responsible for decimating most of our garden. Isn’t it cute, though?? He/she was just two feet from the porch doors and I would have given anything for it to hang around longer (except Chucky’s beans. He’s a bit cranky about it eating the beans.) I thought of you, Knitterbunny.

Thanks for all the good wishes, all of you. I’m still trying to catch up with all my email. Thankfully, it is back to the regularly scheduled kitting and blogging for me.

Read Full Post »

We’re sorry…

…but your regularly scheduled blog has been temporarily disconnected. Please try your call again in a few days.

My apologies for the lack of blogging the last few days, and most likely the next two. I had a wee surgery yesterday, and all icky feelings about it aside: they have given me Vicodin. Vicodin. Not sure what the next few days will be like. After sleeping the anesthesia off for the last seven hours I’m ready to pop the first one, but I kinda feel like Alice dropping into a rabbit hole.

It is probably a good idea to hold off on the knitting during this time, isn’t it?

Read Full Post »

Book Review

Aside from a few book reports in middle grades, I have not ever done a book review. I read plenty of them, they’re essential to that purchasing part of my job (have I mentioned that I get to buy lots of books with other people’s money? Best part of being a Librarian.) But book reviews haven’t blipped my radar.

Since I started knitting, I’ve mostly given up reading. Well, yes, there is an obsession happening, but a few years ago I stopped being able to read for pleasure. For a person who, as a child, did everything with a book in hand (especially folding clothes), this has been hard. Awful. My eyes do this funny thing when I read for pleasure (read=for hours on end), and I end up having, after just a few books, to go to the eye doctor and get new glasses. Knitting, however, doesn’t stress my eyes, and I can (with good lighting) knit ’till I pass out.

Where’s that book review I promised?

I stayed up until I finished it last night (late!), even though I had to be up earlier than ususal. I dreamed of sheep. Sheep testicles, that is. Read this, if you get a minute, and all will be explained.

You know what? I don’t know how to do a book review. This is what I can tell you though:

1. Sheep are way more fun than I thought they would be, and lambs are small and bouncy.
2. I’m pretty sure I would freak about easy lambing, and a prolapsed sheep uterus would render me a vegetable.
3. It is entirely possible that sheep may be too smart for me.
4. I still want this farm thing, bad.
5. Not sure I could handle a sheep-for-meat farm. I’m a chicken.
6. Speaking of chickens, I didn’t know they had bellybuttons, or that chicken nookie would be so darn funny.

I could keep going, but I’ll spare you. Llamas, ducks, coyotes and women’s underwear. The author has a blog (yay!).

Excuse me, I’ll be off in the corner dreaming of having a farm.

Read Full Post »

Blue

Today’s post was going to be about an ankle sock I cast on last night. Let me just say now, for the record: A gauge swatch for a sock is not a stupid idea. No matter how much so it may seem. Trust me on this, ok?

How about some Project Spectrum-ness?

A wee bit of blue in the leftover bowl yarn display:

Our dairy set of dishes:

In Mr. Cygknit’s kosher home growing up, anything in the kitchen colored blue or green was only to be used for dairy (milk, cheese, etc) or parve (fish, eggs, veggies). If you were having a meat meal (red or chicken, even with parve stuff), you used red or yellow dishes. Everything, from the designs on the plates to the sponges and towels by the sink followed these color coordinating rules. When we were trying to figure out what to register for, (my lord, what a pain that was) we fell in love with these blues. We eat a lot of dairy meals now.

Being the only person who doesn’t own the Mason Dixon book, I have to design my own washcloths (rather, warshcloths–I have plenty of Southern in me):

A little blue never hurt no one.

Read Full Post »

Hey Pop,

Happy Father’s Day. It was good to talk to you today. After I hung up, I looked at the phone and saw we had talked for seven seconds short of fifteen minutes. Not that long ago it was just three or four.

I don’t know what to say to you, and I sure don’t know what to buy for you. Something practical. Something important. But not too much. That card I bought for Father’s Day in 2003? It is still on my desk. All those words are good and solid and what I really want to say…but can’t. After all this time, its still akward, isn’t it.

So I thought and thought of something practical (so you’d use it), of something inexpensive (so you wouldn’t fuss at my “extravagent ways”), of something you might, maybe, like.

I thought, maybe, that since you still have on the wall that awful picture I painted when I was 10, you might like them.

Read Full Post »

Copycat

I have nothing to post about. My dad’s second sock (for Father’s Day) isn’t done yet, and HAD to be mailed today to make it by Saturday. Whoops. I have a paper due tomorrow that I haven’t started.

Not very exciting stuff, I say.

So, many thanks to Jess for posting a wee meme:

Take a look around you. Apart from your computer and its peripherals, and your computer desk/table/milk crate and chair, what, in order of their physical closeness, are the five things nearest to you right now?

1. Spine labels for a set of Shakespeare DVDs
2. A spool of stickers that proclaim “7 Day Loan”
3. A set of Shakespeare DVDs
4. A protractor
5. Cassette 4 of “The Hours” (returned solo)

A librarian’s job IS exciting, isn’t it?

Your turn, in comments here or on your blog 🙂

And Jess? Don’t tempt me with toe-up lessons, or I may show up on your bear-ridden doorstep.

Read Full Post »