First and foremost, I'm still working on writing curriculum. Well, you and I both know that I'm really procrastinating more than actually working on it, or it would be done by now. Why do we have to reinvent the wheel? And the format in which we're supposed to do it makes very little sense to me. Bah -- I just need to buckle down & do it.
On the fiber front, as I was perusing blogs the other day, I found a link at the wonderful TECHknitting blog to a series of tutorials called Fit to Flatter on the stash, knit, repeat blog. Spent the rest of that day and part of the next reading the series (which has 3 more installments to come) and looking at the sweater patterns she recommended for my body type, adding to my Ravelry queue, editing others out of my queue ("what was I thinking?"). This expanded into adding to my Ravelry stash (I haven't added pics, so it's not really fun to look at, but I love how Ravelry links stash to queue -- sometimes I forget which yarn is for which project).
Then I went yarn shopping. Yikes. I found yarn in wishlists or abandoned in shopping carts (online) that I have no idea what I was going to make with it. So I started another list on my Palm Centro (phone) to help me remember. And (sound a trumpet, or something) I didn't buy anything! Go, me! Instead, I pulled out a cotton tank that I started last summer and worked on it. Old pic, as I'm too lazy to take a new one, and I did just 8 rounds (1 repeat) on it the other day.
And, because I don't have enough else going on, I also joined the Tour de Fleece on Ravelry. My poor spinning wheel had gone upstairs when we set up the Christmas tree in December, and hadn't been heard from since. I brought it down, dusted it, oiled it, and then tried to see if I could remember how to spin (like falling off a bike? Just get back on!). I am working on some very soft, lovely feeling but visually not exciting dark blue-faced Leicester. I don't remember what I was going to do with it, what size I'm trying to spin it. I'm just going with whatever I get.
Catastrophic equipment failure ended my first evening's spinning. The cotter pin that secures the attachment of the footman to the treadle worked itself out (or maybe it was missing when I started, and the treadle yoke pin -- I'm having to look in the manual to get the correct names for these parts -- just took that long to work itself out). My handy son found a cotter pin, and put things back together, but I was done for the night. The next day, I found 2 white plastic washers on the floor that obviously should have been included when we put it back together. Had to consult the manual to figure out exactly where they went, but finally got the wheel back together. It does have a rather annoying squeak if I'm spinning slowly. I think it's where the leather part of the footman rubs against the treadle yoke, and the only way I can figure to make it stop is to spin faster.
I'm not keeping up with the Tour very well (either the spinning or the actual bike race that inspired it). I have spun about 50g of my fiber in two sessions. I thought I might actually spin daily and improve my techniques.
Pics (now that I have located the camera so I can get the files onto the computer):
Where I was at the start, and where I am now, about 50g spun
I am very glad I took the "before" picture. I can see progress in the pics, which wasn't as obvious in person.
Have a great day/week/month. I'll try to show up here a little more often.
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