Spinning - the horror and the joy

I woke up on Saturday morning and thought "I want to spin today". This was unexpected - I don't think I've spun since July last year, when spinning was making my shoulder hurt. While I now know what I need to do with my posture to make sure I don't get sore, I never got back to it. My wheel sat in the living room with a half completed project, just waiting for me to be ready.

So, on Saturday morning I picked up my wheel, moved it to the "dining room" so I would have somewhere to put my drinks and started spinning. And on spinning my second little puff of fibre I found a clump of evidence of insect life. I threw out the contaminated patch and put the fibre and the Joji Pampa bag I was storing it in, in the oven for half an hour. While that was happening I walked back past where my spinning wheel has been sitting and there were tiny white maggot on the floor. MAGGOTS. It was horrifying, but I cleaned it all up and hopefully that was the source of the moth problem. We've been fighting the moths for a while, and on Friday I moth-bombed the bedroom, but we never found any more evidence like cases or webbing.

After I got the fibre and bag out of the oven - both of which survived, I really enjoyed spinning. It was soothing a restful. Willow hadn't seen spinning before - she only came to live with us in December. And then on Sunday afternoon she climbed onto my lap and sat there for quite a long time. She doesn't often sit on our laps, so this was quite a treat!

I finished all the fibre for this project. I've popped the two bobbins in the freezer, in case there are still viable moth eggs. Once I've plied it I will soak it in very hot water for a bit, just for double insurance.

Comments

Linky Wednesday - the one with the pause

In meditation it's said that the pause between the in breath and the out breath is a gap, a space to rest. Well, I'm in that in-between space for reading, listening and knitting. This is a random photo of a highlight of my week - I filled up my lolly jar. These are just supermarket party mix. During the lockdowns, we sources a great pick-and-mix delivery service, but at some point they started sending from the UK, which is a bit silly. Rachey messaged me a new one she found, and I impulsed purchased a kilo of mixed lollies, and then she sent me a link to the biggest lolly shop in Melbourne, which also delivers sweets by the kilogram, so i think I'm sorted for the rest of the year! In reading I've just finished The Beckoning Lady by Margery Allingham . It's the second last book in the Summer of Mystery, and I have to admit, having now read nine Margery Allingham books, that they are OK. I wouldn't have read them if they were not connected to this club, but on...

Why Andrea Mowry, why? (A rant and a rather nice finished object)

As mentioned, prior to our hiking trip I suddenly, and rather randomly, decided to knit Andrea Morwy's Traveler Shell . It's basically an open fronted rectangle in a knit purl pattern. The pattern is FOURTEEN pages long. Why is the pattern 14 pages long? Because, instead of explaining the ten row repeat and then putting the shaping on top of that (e.g. decrease while continuing to knit in pattern), she writes out the entire ten row knit purl sequence every time something changes. Additionally, most of the time she starts with even number being the right side and wrong numbers being the right side,which is just plain odd. It's confusing and it's like she wants to keep you looking at the pattern for every row, rathe than following the very intuitive stitch pattern, which I had memorised after one repeat. The instructions for the band just say 'pick up x number of stitches'. No ratios, no acjnowledgement that different bits of the band have different ratios. Afte...

Geogradiant MKAL Part 1 - that was unexpected (spoilers)

Stephen West released the first MKAL clue on Thursday night. I started knitting it without looking at spoilers. When I got up on Friday he had sent through an "alternative" clue one. I then went and had a look at the spoiler thread to try to work out what was going on. Which was that some people thought the pattern looked like a "German hate symbol". I knit on anyway, since I was half-way through. Then he took down the original clue, replacing it with a mitred square in garter stitch. The Ravelry forums and Instagram are a complete shit-show, even though Rav is being moderated. It's been a bit disheartening, having something that is usually quite light and fun weighed down with all this. I admire Stephen's quick and sensitive response to this drama. I also feel that anything can look like anything if you squint. To me this looks like a Celtic knot. I think mine is pretty, and I'll knit on through all crises.

What I made, by Sharon

Search This Blog