Monday, May 14, 2007
Sorry for the long radio silence, but there just hasn't been much to write about. Life is the usual, some good, some bad, some ugly (but mostly good). We're starting to enjoy the privileges of summer. Lots of grilling out, the basil has been planted and I've brought my sandals out. Hip, hip, hooray for sandals! I tacked an extra day onto my Memorial Day weekend, so I have a four day weekend coming up that I'm really looking forward to. Taste of Cincinnati, a street festival where you can sample food from many of the restaurants in the Cincinnati area, is that weekend, and Mark has the entire four days off as well, so that will be awesome. One or the other of us is working every single day of the week, so it's rare to have a whole day together. Four in a row will be a real treat. I've been assigned two more books at work, bringing my count up to five, and two of those books are knitting books, so yay! I also just did a heavy edit of the first book I was assigned and I think my managing editor was really impressed, so I'm very happy about that. I get to go to TNNA, CHA, and Knitter's Connection, all in June, so work couldn't be better (unless they paid me more to work less, that is). Fiber-wise life is, well... sucky. I've been working on the scarf, and that is going well, if slowly. I've got over a foot done and it's looking pretty dang good, if I do say so myself. And I do.
 This is the last picture I'll post of it for awhile, seeing that it's outgrown my bobbing lace pillow, which is my most convenient quick blocking surface. I might post a "halfway there" picture, but we'll see. With more of it there, I don't notice the stripes quite as much, so I'm happier with it now than last time I posted. The suckiness comes in because I am STILL trying to pick the fiber for my next spinning project. I'm about to tear my hair out (and maybe spin that!). I thought I had settled on a fiber, but it seems to be cursed. It's a pure bombyx silk, and the spinning was great. It was so smooth, beautiful and easy. And the yarn I got was sooooo fine. After knitting with the bombyx, the yarn for Fleurette seems like rope. But, as wonderful as the fiber was to spin, the bombyx yarn is CURSED. I cannot knit it! I am doing sampling to determine how I want to spin this - 2 ply, 3 ply, or chain ply. And I cannot knit the freakin' samples! I'm pretty experienced at knitting lace and I've gotten adept at catching my mistakes. But every time I try to knit this yarn (5 times so far) I screw it up royally. It's making me feel like a real idiot! I'm not attempting complicated patterns, here. I've tried Horseshoes and Ostrich Plumes, both extremely simple patterns, and both patterns result in total failure. It is completely ridiculous and I am so frustrated. I'm torn between just putting the fiber back in the stash, moving on and coming back to it another time (this would be the sane thing to do) or just keep trying until I stamp that @!#^%#$ into the ground (this would be my crazy OCD type-A side talking). Or option 3, take it all out into the woods, bury it and chant holy words over the grave to rid the world of its evil influence. If you never hear from me again, you'll know that the silk won. Via con queso.
# posted by Jenni @ 5/14/2007 10:31:00 PM
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