Lazy Knitter Syndrome

Ay caramba! It's now midway through November, a little over a month until Christmas, and I haven't made significant progress toward getting my gifts done. Especially that damn blanket or Rob's vest. And don't get me started on the girls' dresses, which will now make their debut sometime next spring. Here I thought I was in a zone and getting everything done, but I'm not sure if that's going to happen. I may not even have enough yarn to get the blanket done, so I'm a little panicked right now.

Maybe it's inertia - I don't want to find out if I don't have enough yarn, only to know for certain that I don't, then I'll have to run up to Boulder to Shuttles and get some more Manos, if they have all the colors I need. With Niki's dress, she now may be too big to wear it...and I really don't want to start again.

I'm actually home sick today from my half-day at the school, but am I knitting like a crazy person?

Nope. I'm doing my freelance copywriting work and trying to get my self-marketing efforts off the ground. It would be nice to have some writing clients help fund my yarn addiction for a change :-)

I do knit, but I'm only getting little things done. Maybe if I'm up to it, I can get something accomplished this afternoon and evening, while watching Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddown, Jon Stewart and/or Stephen Colbert.

Spinning Wheel, Spinning Round

About a month ago over six weeks, I took a yarn spinning class a month ago and had a blast. Maggie Casey, the co-owner of Shuttles, Spindles and Skeins in Boulder and the author of a terrific book, Start Spinning, was the instructor. And I don't think I could've learned from anyone better.

We got to first learn on a spindle, then on a wheel. Over the course of the class time, we washed, teased, and combed raw sheep fleece to make into wool yarn. The last class was devoted to dyeing the yarn we made with natural dyes. As cool as that was, the colors were a little too muted and earthy for me. But here they are:



These were some of my more "instructive" attempts at spinning and plying:



When I finally got good enough, I bought some dyed roving and spun and plied these skeins, which are likely going to be knit up into a shrug someday (not bad, huh?):



And here's what I'm working on now with a spindle:



I thought about buying a wheel, especially the Lendrum I first worked with or the Schacht Ladybug, but it was just going to be another rabbit hole I'd get caught in. Needless to say, my knitting projects suffered greatly and little got done.

But now I can see why people love yarn spinning - now I do too!