Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Spinning up trouble

I wasn't sure this would work out, but I am done! By which I mean, done spinning and plying the raw material for the twined mitts I want to cast on, on Friday.

There is still a lot of prep left to do with it but I'm feeling optimistic because last Saturday, things looked pretty awful on the Making Deadline front and I still got to this better place.

Behold:


This is the fiber I had left to go, plus the spun singles I had pulled back trying to figure out where was the end that broke off while I was spinning, plus what remained on the spindle, when disaster started to strike.  I have never ever had this happen before, but I've also never spun mohair so finely before - when the thread breaks, the halo is so intense and the fiber so grabby, you just can't find where the loose end is!

And that was a problem for more than the usual reasons.  Specifically:

I was at the cottage.

The out-of-lake temperature was a little warmer than I enjoy.

The birds were singing.

The sun was shining.

All my friends were in the lake swimming and snorkling...


and I was in the living room, longing to be outside and spinning as fast as I could go.

The same problem happened at least twice more while I got more and more frantic but in the end I was able to swim for about ten minutes before supper.  Yay!

And after supper I celebrated with a picture of the very last ball of spun fiber for the mitts.


In the background is the hammock I didn't get to enjoy.  In fact I haven't been in that hammock once this summer.  I probably need to relax more.


The next day we drove to Ottawa, where I did not get to see Karen, which is very annoying because I also missed Karen last time, but I have hope it won't happen again that I am too busy for playtime, because Karen is fab and spins so much better than I do, such that I learn something new every time I see her.

On the way to not see Karen, the sky was pretty cloudy, and there was a long debate about a particular cloud that could be interpreted to be an old man, a dog, a bear or Jay Leno.  I personally felt it looked exactly like a contented sheep, but didn't think to take a picture until the wind had blurred the edges into a contented Impressionist sheep.  Still.  Passing resemblance?


Heading back to the cottage later by a route my cousin recommended, there were also a lot of clouds but Oh. Golly.  Who cared?  The scenery was aMAzing.  I mean, I've lived in Ontario most of my life, and I know we have trees, but I don't think I've ever been on a road where it's trees as far as you can see and, oh, by the way, a ridge of more trees off ahead of you as well, for nearly two hours.  With just an occasional break for marshland.


I know this is a terrible picture but it's the best of the twelve I took and honestly, isn't it amazing?  All I could think about was the settlers who came to this part of the world hoping for a better life and actually did pull off homesteads.  And what I was thinking was, how???

Makes my spinning problem seem pretty slight by comparison.


By the way, those are the new car print pillows up there on the pine bench.  this is what they look like on the new sofa that doesn't match anything:


I love them.so much.  Just... not really enough to want to sit in with them when I could be out swimming instead.

Hope you've had a great few days doing everything you want to be doing instead - see you tomorrow!

* * * * *

ps, you really wanted more pictures of the forest highway, right?




1 comment:

Renik said...

Beautiful countryside! Firstly, I wanted to write that I can see such forested areas in the place where I live, and there are forests too but not for nearly two hours of driving. It's wonderful! ;)