What I Learned on Sunday

I learned to spin short fibres with Diane on Sunday.

Never have I ever thought that I would be able to spin short fibres like cashmere and camel in the way that I did o Sunday. I also never knew how rewarding it would be to learn the long draw. It's like magic, even more magic than any spinning I've ever accomplished. Seriously, it was just, take your lump of fibre, get the twist in, and then pullllllll...... and lo! Beautiful, fluffy, even singles. After all this time spinning short draw, inching and squinching along, this is like retirement. Nice and easy and so worth all the hard work of spinning well using short draw.

Wanna see?

I hope the photo is clear enough, but you can see that we spun different things throughout the class. At the bottom of the bobbin is a superfine merino, which we spun from the fold. You can see my early attempts being rather big and uneven, and then getting nice and even, and also approaching a good fineness.

The next fibre you can see, which is a pale coffee-brown, is camel. That was also spun from the fold and had much shorter fibres than the merino.

The pale beige-y coloured fibre is cashmere. We learned to make punis with the cashmere, and we also spun it straight, without the need for folding or making punis, because cashmere is so short that the fibres don't really align themselves and easily catch one another.

Finally at the very top, bright white with a bit of brown, is cotton. Cotton's interesting to spin, because it doesn't behave in quite the same way as animal fibres. You can pull out lumps a lot further in cotton than in the other fibres, because its twist lock* tends to lie to you.

I think I like spinning the cotton, but as Diane said, it kinda has to be good cotton. The little bit of brown on the bobbin? Not nice cotton. Didn't like it.

I was really pleased with myself, having learned something new in spinning. I want to spin so badly today, being my day off, but I can't. I have to study poetry and think about my poetry assignment instead. Poop.

Oh well. The week is yet long.

*I learned that 'twist lock' is when you have enough twist that the fibres won't come apart when you're trying to fix lumps in your single. You would have to unroll or untwist your single just enough to 'unlock' the twist and allow the fibres to pull away again, thus evening out the single. This term was coined by the awesome Abby, so none of us really take credit for it. Go visit her blog, though, because she's awesome and knows more about spinning than... well, lots of people.

Trailwalker 2009 - Update

You might notice that the neat little widget in my sidebar has changed.

This is because there was a bit of confusion on our part and we'd ended up with two separate fundraising sites, one associated with Just Giving, and the other - more directly - with Trailwalker 2009.

We should have linked you to the latter. Our bad.

Rest assured that whatever funds we have raised up to that point are ensured by Just Giving so they will still count towards our total, therefore nothing has been lost.

We're sorry for any confusion - if you have any further questions please don't hesitate to leave a comment and I will get back to you.

They're Multiplying, and an FO

On Sunday Team Geek - minus Chantelle, who was on holiday - went on our first training walk. A few days before that, it had occured to me that while my slouchy hat was fine and luscious and lovely, it probably would not stand up to the cold we've been having lately, especially out in the open countryside.

So four days before the walk, I cast on another Habitat.

Pattern: Habitat by Jared Flood
Yarn: Malabrigo Worsted in Lorro Barranquero
Needles: 4mm and 5mm on 80cm cable

I've got used to the cables by now, and I'm even reading the chart different to when I made it the first time. It went much more quickly, which was good.

This is the first time I've knitted with Malabrigo and man, is it ever soft and cushy. It's very, very, very buttery to knit with. I can't believe I waited this long to knit with it.

The hat, I think, came out a little shorter than the one I made for Daddy, but it fits me fine and that's what counts.

Of course, I found out on Sunday that after about half an hour's walking you get warm enough that you don't need a hat. But hey, we live and learn, and I got a random hat out of that.

The trouble with casting on the hat was that it kinda broke my really good streak of sticking to only one project. I was trying very hard to remain somewhat monogamous, but it all kind of fell apart.

I finished the first of the Karenina socks from last year's Socktopus Sock Club and already started the cuff of the second, but for whatever reason I felt like I couldn't concentrate on it. I was getting fidgety, not having anything to knit and yet too braindead to knit, so Nick told me to cast on something that required very little brain.

So I started another stripey Noro Scarf. And that was fine. So I had braindead knitting. Excellent.

And then I had a difficult day at work and needed to cheer myself up, so I cast on the Om Shanti bed socks, which is this year's first pair of Socktopus club socks.

And then I felt the need to make something for Lindsay's birthday.

I couldn't really help it; the colours had her name all over them.

*sigh*. And it was all going so very well...

Snow Day

Unlike most times when it snows in London, this time something properly kicked in. I was already thrilled over Christmas that we had the coldest, driest Christmas. And I loved that early January was sharp and cold and dry, without the damp and wet and horribleness.

Then last night, the snow happened. Real big fat snow. Lots of real big fat snow.

I was so enamoured by the big fat snow that I didn't want to go to bed, because I was so sure that it would be all gone by morning, like it always is in London.

I was wrong. When Nick got up to go to work this morning, it looked like this:

I was amazed at all the snow. It looked so deep and dry. Not the usual wet sloppy stuff.

And the fact that the wind built this snowbank on our windowsill. I was loathe to even crack the window open, I didn't want to disturb it.

As it turned out, about 15 minutes after he left the house, Nick rang me to say he was coming back as no trains were running. When he got back and we checked the tubes, the buses, any other rail services... there were none. We'd lost the Jubilee Line on our end, and there were no buses or trains that could take him into the City.

So, he made us both hot chocolate, got in contact with work a few times, made himself a bowl of hot porridge, played some Fallout 3, and then:

This alone is worth the snow day. All cuddled in, him napping and - when I was sitting there knitting - holding my feet.

Eventually I declared that we really ought to head out to the supermarket to get stuff for the week before it got too cold or the snow got worse. It was pretty 50/50; the snow came and went but only ever went for no more than half an hour at any time. And when it was heavy the flakes were as big as my thumb.

So we set out, but not before we went to investigate the car.

Poor car. It kinda looks cold, all entrenched like that. I love perfect, unspoilt snow like this.

And some people had even more snow than this on their cars. Some were even driving them with this much snow on their cars.

So we trudged out into the streets of New Cross, all muffled and white and sludgy where the cars had been through. The kids were all off school so there was a lot of random snow-related mischief.

More awake and prepared. The promise of food does wonders.

This is one of the streets near where we live, when the snow was starting to pick up again. Typically, ten minutes after we set off, and ten minutes before we got to Sainsbury's.

This was good snow. Not the wet slush I'm used to seeing. It was powdery and light and went crunch under your feet and packed into a damned good snowball. Before today I'd never made a snowball that would stick to a wall when I threw it. Before today I'd never seen so much snow in my life. And London hadn't seen this much snow in 18 years.

Oh, I caused so much trouble.

Um... run away!

Yes, not long after this photo, Nick took his revenge and I walked home with bits of snowball dribbling down into the back of my jeans. The smarmy git has damned good aim. And those big hands pack a mean snowball.

I have to admit that I'm a little worried about how both of us are getting into work tomorrow, because it's still snowing out, so I guess we'll have to see.

My first ever real snow day. Wow.