Handspun

Here is about 235 yards of the blue-purple handspun I was talking about. I need to see if I can find out what the fiber is specifically (it's wool, but not sure what kind or if it's a blend). I am working on Christmas Item #2 and I may make another out of this stuff. We shall see....

I finally used my yardage meter!

Advent

There Should be More Four-Day Weekends

This is great. It's only Saturday and I'm almost completely relaxed.

I grabbed a mocha on Thursday with a friend, who bought me some Peets Winter Solstice tea as a Thanksmas gift. Such a pretty tin, and I love the spicy black tea.

Gave up on Christmas item #2 and am thinking I maybe will never knit lace, even though I'd like to. I've cast on something I think {knock wood!!} will be quick and will work out OK. If it does, I may make another with the blue-purple handspun I mentioned the other day. I've also been spending too much time goofing off online when I should be knitting or doing a hundred other things. Like trying to figure out my sewing machine. I did a little bit earlier, then became discouraged and took a break. It's hard to see all the little bobbin and needle parts, and I am soooo not handy!

And now I'm off to the 5 PM quiet Mass, and back to knit and listen to a Prairie Home Companion. I know, the excitement is palpable!

Unbloggables

There are some. Simultaneously I have a couple of difficult situations going on -- nothing life-threatening, but one just makes me wistful and the other is requiring that I be dignified in an undignified position. I am channeling my inner Nineteenth Century British Heroine for that one. I do wear my hair up most of the time...

Here are some spinning pics. The first is my Mazurka and the second is what I'm spinning on it. (Yes, I do have the loose end of the fiber twisted around the tension key -- if I let it hang too low between spinning sessions a cat is likely to have at it.)


The closer-up pic I took of the yarn didn't turn out so well. We'll see how this goes when it all gets spun and plied. I have a pound of the Corriedale so I hope to have a bit of yarn at the end of it! I have not been overly successful at very-fine spinning, so I usually end up with one big hank of something and that's it. I have a pretty purple-blue yarn that falls into that category and I know not what it should grow up to be.... I do have some more of that, unspun, so I can add to that and then figure it out. I don't know if it's even enough for something like mitts, but maybe, especially if I fulled them.

I'm glad to be getting back into fiber. It's interesting and creative and comforting all at once!

Tuesday in Thanksgiving Week

Things a bit iffy on the emotional front. I am going into autopilot mode, just not thinking, when I can help it.

On a happier note, I was reading some spinning stuff online and brought my Mazurka over to my spinning (knitting, reading) chair. Poor thing... when I do spin, I usually use my Lendrum ST. But I found some Corriedale and have been happily alternating spinning that up on the Mazurka with working on the second Christmas item (about which I must say: Lifelines are your friends!).

My Mazurka is unstained, with a clear finish, unlike the one in the photo, and my Lendrum isn't double treadle. (It was basically made for me by Mr. Lendrum, as neither my vendor nor Lendrum had STs in stock at the time and I didn't want the DT, so my vendor ordered one made specifically. I always thought it was neat that the company is small enough for that, and that this wheel was mine from its very beginnings.) Photos later, in any case. It's funny... so many spinners seem to have Lendrums but although many others have Kromskis, hardly anyone seems to have a Mazurka. But that was my first wheel; fell absolutely in love with it, and it's very reasonably priced.

Tomorrow after work I am going to

a) make myself a stiff drink
b) knit for awhile before drink hits
c) spin after that
d) watch Rachel Maddow
e) sleep

And I'm off to do "e" right now as well!

LotteryLotteryLotteryLottery

Can't say much, but although work has been tolerable of late, there are rumors and realities that could make me end up in the psych ward.

I've just had a nice stiff drink and feel somewhat better.

I'm trying to think of it as offering up my professional suffering. God knows I need to atone for all sorts of things. It's just that, sans job, I'd also be sans roof, so I have to pray it doesn't get that bad. Also, I've been kind of enjoying a break from the overwhelming anxiety that has plagued me off and on since 1991. It's baaaaaack.

Feh.

I've been fighting with Christmas Item #2. I changed from alpaca to linen (yes, really, and it will make sense when you get to see pictures). The linen likes to try to jump off the needles. And I've been having stitch count issues. Gahr!

Here, have some pictures. The first is of my cat very interested in a Ravelry thread. The second is the platter of nibbles I made for my friend who does the cat mani/pedis. A bowl of cornichons in the middle (mmm... still some in fridge) surrounded by naan topped with either a tomato/artichoke spread or garlic pesto, toasted pine nuts, and asiago. I guess it's not that pretty but I thought it quite delicious.

Big Deal to Me

I am knitting something vaguely lacy. OK, it's actual lace, but very simple. AND I AM NOT SCREWING IT UP. I did make one mistake, but I fixed it and didn't have to rip. There's a little strand of yarn that's going over something it shouldn't be, but it's one strand in a whole item, and there's no hole or laddering and I'm FINE with that!

Just back from Mass (music made my skin hurt; I am going to the 5 PM Saturday Mass after next week when I'm a lector on Sunday; 5 PM music is not much better but is at least choirless and less obtrusive) and Trader Joe's. A friend is coming over to give the kitties a mani/pedi Tuesday and I'm feeding him. I'm not really cooking; it's more a Parisian-style buy-it-from-the-charcuterie type of mini-meal, consisting of some toasted naan with a selection of TJ's spreads (a bruschetta spread, an artichoke spread, and another that is escaping me and I'm loo lazy to get up to look at), some cornichons, and some baklava for sweetness. I also didn't make the Riesling from scratch. ;-) I should run get some cheese to shave on top of the naan, now I think of it. Oops.

I feel slightly guilty for the pre-made-ness of it all, but it's not like I'm ordering Domino's or bringing home KFC. (Both of which I quite happily eat, though.) I'm at least making bottom-line decisions and assembling (well, not the baklava). I have a feeling this probably doesn't need real justification, though, eh?

Stuff

Home with a sore throat today. :-( I want to nip it in the bud before it becomes the annual Voice Loss. Bah.

I finished one of my two Christmas knitting items last night -- yeah! Can't picture, though it is on Ravelry if you're over there. I know it looks so easy (and it was) but it's definitely a bang-for-your-effort-buck item. It doesn't photograph all that stunningly, but it's very pretty in person, and has a lovely squishiness to it.

Onto finishing item 2, which I really need to get booking on.

I had a parish council meeting last night, which was interesting on many levels. (On a superficial level, I've decided when I have to bring refreshments, it's going to be a loaf of challah, some cheese, and some brownies from the King Arthur flour package.) One thing I have been struggling with at my parish is the mediocre liturgy. It's not heretical, it's not horrific, there is nothing shocking going on there. But if this were an Episcopal Church, it would be waaaaaaaaaaaay low church, and I am such a high-church person. On top of that, our music is so bad I want to cry (although there are no tambourines a la the Cathedral!). All very 70s & 80s vapidity in the hymn and Mass setting department. I confess my lack of charity -- and I will say that some things we sing would be fine at a Cursillo, a retreat, at a church camp or BBQ. But not for Mass!

Yet, I feel a responsibility. I have until the summer of 2011 to serve out my term. My parish is going through a financial rough spot, and losing parishioners would only make it worse. It's possible there would be a new choir director someday with better music, or the pastor we receive when this one retires may be more liturgically conservative.

I don't know quite what to do. For now I'm trying to think of it the same way St. Therese of Lisieux dealt with the nearby nun who clicked her rosary during prayer. I'm going to make the bad music and indifferent liturgy part of my prayer, and also part of my penance. Because Lord knows I have seven zillion things to do penance for.

It's comforting that there are many very nice people in this parish, and that even if the Mass is not so fab, it's done in an arching, beautiful, very traditional church, not someplace that looks like a gym or auditorium.

Kvetch, kvetch. Standard disclaimer: I know those who like these kinds of Masses are almost certainly better people, better Christians, better Catholics, than I am.

Off to knit and stop being so curmudgeonly!

Misplaced Guilt

I always feel guilty when I don't answer the phone.

Maybe it's because I have spent much of my life waiting for the phone to ring/waiting for the mail carrier to arrive/checking my email, but only recently have I decided that if I don't feel like talking, I don't have to pick the phone up. If it's an emergency, they will leave a message and I will call them back.

Since I spend all my working hours in a loud office and with frequent calls from the public (some of which astound me), sometimes when 4:30 rolls around, I don't want to see or hear another human being. I'm an introvert who craves solitude and quiet, and 40 hours a week is spent in an environment that's almost the complete antithesis of that. If my job were 100% customer service it would be worse, but it's bad enough.

This weekend I am knitting, rearranging cupboards, reading Ravelry forums, planning on baking tomorrow, and enjoying peace and quiet. But I feel guilty for not picking up when the phone rings, even though intellectually I know there's no requirement to answer.

What's a Bummer

...is that I can only knit so much before my hands get tired. Even though I've had carpal tunnel surgery on my right hand, it still gets painful and tingly sometimes, and though I've had trigger-finger surgery on both my thumbs, my left one was getting stiff and cranky again recently.

Canna be havin' that.

I use my left hand at work for my mouse and my 10-key, and I do tend to use my left hand for a lot of things. I can't use my laptop pad-thing with my left hand for some reason, though, or not very well, and I knit English, which tends to use more right-hand power. (I knit with one color in each hand when I do stranded knitting, and I do notice that Continental is slightly easier on my hand, but it doesn't feel as natural to me at all.)

And besides all that... my nose is cold!

Small Victories

One of which was getting to Friday! :-D

I was working on one of my Christmas items and I knit a knot (I know...). Then I decided to tink it back and cut it out, but when I came to that stitch it got all screwed up. I'm so far along that my heart fell to think of ripping, since usually I can't fix things very well. But I tinked slowly back a row and a half, and -- it worked!

Whew.

I hit Trader Joe's on the way home. They have sacks of individually wrapped chicken breasts now. I bought a bag and put it in the freezer. I was musing on it in line -- are we really so much busier nowadays, that such things are needed? Do I, a single urban woman, have less time than an old-fashioned farm housewife with a passel of children? Probably not, although some of her time would have been apportioned strictly to the feeding of said passel. But it is harder, in a way, to feed just one person well. Not more expensive, of course, but more difficult to make sure things don't go bad, to find recipes that either feed just one or will work for leftovers, and to get the impetus to mess up a bunch of pots and pans just for me! (Nor do I have any live-in sous chefs or dishwashers.)

Hence, individually wrapped chicken breasts.

The erstwhile friend to whom I emailed the apology has not said a word nor acted any differently when our paths have crossed -- I am still completely invisible. This person is not one I would have ever pegged for a drama queen, for someone who would carry a grudge, or anything like that. And to act this way and not even tell me what I've done... it's really amazing to me. I know people are like that; I just really didn't think they were -- they've always seemed calm and sensible and reasonable. I have to admit I'm deeply hurt and saddened by it, but I've tried, and there's obviously nothing I can do.

I hate this sort of thing.

Alas.

So, anyway -- I turned the heat on for the first time on Wednesday morning, and I might have to turn it on a bit tonight. But first, I'm going to try socks and a shawl. I hate paying PG&E! I should go wrap up and get back to the knitting. This weekend I want to try to rearrange my kitchen cupboards, knit like a mad thing, maybe make some jam, and make another batch of challah. Mmm. Bread....

Never Apply This Product in a Moving Vehicle

...says the packaging on my new liquid eyeliner.

Oooooooookay. Thanks for the tip.

OH, THANK GOD

Sat with a drink and my knitting and gritted teeth and an upset stomach, which slowly turned into butterflies, which culminated in tears and a very loud whoop to go with the shrieking in my neighborhood.

I haven't been happy about a presidential election since before I was married, and I've been divorced for four years.

I also dropped a stitch, but managed to unearth a skinny crochet hook and, I think, save it unobtrusively. Whew.

Now I am doing the dishes and having a bath. I'm taking tomorrow morning off... I guess I don't have to now, since I don't need to stay up late for returns or drink myself into a consolation stupor. But what's not to like about getting up at 10:30 instead of 6:40?

Waiting for It to Be Over

I cannot wait until this election is over. It looks good, but... argh! I will crash into such despair tomorrow night if it all goes pear-shaped. I'm glad I'm on the West Coast so by the time I leave work at 4:30, we'll already have some idea of things.

Talked to a relative whose husband is a (vocal) Republican. Well, he's vocal about everything, so this is not a surprise. While I have friends who are Republican and I've even dated a couple, they're not of the passionate/in your face/shouting at the TV persuasion, and I cannot imagine being married to someone who was. Nor can I imagine why someone who was would want to be married to a Democrat... if nothing else, my ex-husband and I voted alike. Well, except for the time that he voted for this sad outsider for mayor, because he didn't want the guy's family to be the only people who voted for him. That was sweet. He was a bit more on the conservative Democrat side when we met, but by the time we split up we were on the same political wavelength (at least I did this service for the country!). I can't imagine the tension of living with someone who was not only at the other end of the political spectrum, but wild about it. She said they don't ever talk politics in their house, which seems... I don't know. Hiding your true feelings at work or someplace like that is one thing, but in your own home? It would be hard for me.

In any case, I'm a bit of a nervous wreck and just can't wait til we know, one way or the other.

I've been knitting like crazy (for me) but feel like I'll never finish in time for Christmas. Man, I wish I knit faster! Those folks who, three weeks before Rhinebeck, say, "Hmm, think I'll knit myself a cardigan to wear there," are beyond my comprehension. To me, that's akin to saying, "I think I will build a house from the cellar up with only my hands and a hammer and finish before Thanksgiving."

The friend to whom I sent the exploratory email/apology has not acknowledged it in any way. I do check my email more frequently than most people I know, and I also said in the email that I didn't expect a response. I may never know if the email got read; I may never know what I (completely inadvertantly) did. Alas.

Going to retire to the bath, have some hot vanilla milk and then ensconce myself in bed with said knitting. Tomorrow is going to be a long day.

Courtesy of the Secrets of Jesuit Breadmaking

Small oven = half baking sheets= squished challah.

Maybe should have left it in a little while longer, for browner top, but:

I devoured several large hunks almost before it was handle-able.

Easy recipe! Highly recommend Br. Rick Curry's book.

My Lovely Assistants

Blocking guardians.



Blocking guardians asleep on the job.

One Down, Two to Go

I finished the cabled coffee cuffs for my co-workers. (Say that five times fast.) I still have Item A and Item B for family to work on; I'm thinking of the cuffs as one knitting project. They're blocking right now, giving the cats something interesting to crawl on (the blocking board) and to sniff (the cuffs).

I sent an exploratory email to a friend who seems to have inexplicably stopped speaking to me. Honestly I don't know what I did, and I'm not expecting a response, but I feel a sense of relief in having finally said something.

It poured with rain earlier today, which was nice. I ran some errands, which rinsed the car off quite nicely.

Tomorrow afternoon I'm going to try my hand at making challah; a simple-sounding recipe from my Jesuit breadmaking book. I also need to make the frosting for the espresso brownies I'm taking to a friend's on election night (will make the brownies Monday night). I am so nervous about the election. I know if I were a Republican I'd be depressed and hopeless right now, so since I'm not one I take heart in that. But anything can (and sometimes does) happen, and it could all go to hell in a handbasket in nothing flat. I will just be so glad when it's over.

Now I need to go fetch the laundry I think someone just took out of the dryer, and get cracking on the rest of the Christmas knitting.