Planned Purlhood

than a lace knitter with equipment failure

I was knitting right along on the border of my latest shawl when the sodding Knit Picks cable comes flying out of the metal fitting and drops a good 30+ stitches.

This could be the last straw for Knit Picks products. There’s a reason they’re inexpensive.

There could have been so many witty post titles I could have used, such as “How I Shacked Up with a Nearly Complete Stranger for Three Nights”, or “OMG Fangirl”, or “Fiberholic Exhibits Restraint in the Presence of Too Much Fiber”.

Rabbitch and I had decided we were going to go to Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival this year.  Originally we had planned to have a vendor’s booth, but when those plans fell through (no room at the Inn), we decided to just go and Have Fun.  Of course, having a pre-paid hotel room booked helped in the decision process.

So, after working a 60-hour week (actually, it came out to 70 hours if one counts my commute), I staggered out of bed Friday afternoon, “packed” my bag and stumbled out the door.  Portland is normally a 3.5 hour drive, 4 with potty breaks.  It took me no less than six hours to get to Wilsonville due to Portland Rush Hour traffic.  Honestly, I think if I had the money, I would have flown.  $150 round-trip airfare would have been a small price to pay for not having my bladder trying to explode on me while stuck on the I-5 interchange.  Even then, I managed to beat Rabbitch to the hotel (she was slammed with Seattle traffic).  The kindly folks took pity on me after Rabbitch called to ask them to let me in the room.  I was able to get some Decent Coffee and a wee kip before meeting her.  I was rumpled and exhausted and a bit unstead on my pins, but I wil never forget her crossing the parking lot laden with wine, fruit, cheese, and about 3lbs of roving (she calls it a bribe) for me.  We settled in to the evening with aforementioned repast.  I think we got to bed about 1am (we’re both night owls, so getting up “early” can be interesting at best).

Morning came, breakfast was had.  I discovered that I packed rather poorly.  The only shirt I had was the one I was wearing when I got there.  The jeans I chose were on their way to being too big; by the end of Saturday I was desperately trying NOT to have a wardrobe malfunction.  We went to Target hoping for some inexpensive basic clothing.  Wow, total fail.  Never shopping at Target again.  Not a single pair of trousers or jeans to fit me (they were either too short, way too short, too small, or too large), and the tops were sleazy at best.  I picked up a basic t-shirt in the men’s department and called it good.

We finally made it to the Clackamas County Fairgrounds at around 1pm. We went into the animal barn first.  Not five minutes and we found some lovely alpaca 2nds (neck wool) for $5 a bag.  Score!  I haven’t worked with alpaca much, and since I’m finding commercially processed top a bit of a disappointment (there are exceptions to this), working from raw product has been the way to go lately.

We wander some more amongst the sheep & goats & alpacas.  Oohing and aahing over the longwool breeds.  They had Lincolns, Wensleydales, Leicesters of all sorts, and Gotlands.  OMG, the Gotlands.  Massive silver curled rams.  Simply gorgeous.  There were Ouessant sheep which were pixie like compared to the 300lb Ram in the neighboring pen.  Spirited & sweet shetlands; a few even from the flock where my Shetland fleeces were obtained.  One of the shetland ewes REALLY loved having her jaw scratched.  I think I stood there for five minutes giving her lots of  love while she chewed her cud.   Navajo Churro and Jacob were well represented as well.  I was able to meet the Shepherdess from Kenleigh Acres from whose “Chevelle” produced my beloved lilac Jacob fleece.  It was really wonderful to meet the other people on the end of splendid transactions.

Typical alpaca pose:   food hanging out of mouth.

Big Romney Ram

Wee little Ouessant sheep

Another big Ram – this one’s a Gotland Cross (IIRC)

Then, my phone rang.  It was Franklin Habit.

I’m totally NOT joking.  See, Rabbitch & Franklin are friends.   I squeaked and handed the phone to Rabbitch.

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around with Franklin and Kristin Spurkland.  Kristin is a lovely knitwear designer from the Portland area.  Her most recent book is “The Knitting Man(ual)”  I think I may have to get a copy, since I live with a Man who likes handknits.  Seems appropriate!

We sat and knat and spun and had a wonderful time.  I met up with one of my local knitting group friends (Hi Linda!) and I was sucessfull in locating a Kundert Spindle for her.  They are my hands-down favorite affordable spinning tool, and I wanted her to start out right, and for less than a tank of gas.

I didn’t do a whole lot of shopping.  There were only a few things on my list:  Lisa Souza, a full sized Jenkin’s Turkish Spindle, some brown corriedale top, and a fringe twister.  The last on the list can wait, as it’s pretty low-priority.  I’m probably going to pick one up in advance of the Holiday Weaving I have in mind.

I got meet Lisa Souza AND pick up two bumps of some gorgeous SW BFL in “Chaparrel”

Sunday was pretty low-key.  My breakfast made a hasty exit about 30 minutes after ingesting, and the last two days was catching up with me.  Sciatica’s a bitch, let me tell you.  I found the brown corriedale at Crown Mountain Fibers.  It’ll be blended with some handpainted corrie.  Think of it as “cutting” the good stuff with filler.  The filler is just as nice, but just not flaming orange.

I seemed to take many pictures of goats.  This fellow has had his picture splattered all over the internet by OFFF attendees.  It’s kind of funny seeing all his pics around.

This fellow was so beautiful, I would love to have fiber goats some day (it would be another life, as I bought property inside city limits…)  Or perhaps just some goats I can visit often.

I leave you with one of my favorite pictures from the weekend:  Franklin testing out some glass knitting needles w/ handspun.  Probably doesn’t get much better than that!

Ok, so Safeway put their ripstop nylon reusable shopping bags on clearance last month for $0.25 each.  Naturally, I picked up a few.  They fold up small and actually can hold 20+ lb worth of stuff, unlike the bags that most other places sell which aren’t woven nor very small.  It saved me from spending $30 on Baggu bags.

Fast forward to today, at Albertson’s.  The bitch ringing up my FOOD actually had the nerve to say “You want me to use that? It’s from Safeway!”.

It was all I could do to not say “F*ck you!” and walk out.  Trust me, I was sorely tempted.

I’m trying to save what’s left of humanity’s chance to survive for the next 100 years, so who the f*ck cares what word is stitched on my grocery bag?!

I just spent the better part of ten hours driving.  To Portland and back.  For those who don’t know me, I’m just shy of 6′ tall and drive a 2007 Ford Focus.  I’m all legs, and thusly, the drivers seating is a bit cramped.  Combine wearing the wrong shoes (i.e. the professional clogs with 2″ heels) and not being able to extend my right foot for hours on end…we be sore.

Anywho, John is off to Charlotte to visit his family for the Holiday That Occurs Next Week.  My family?  Eh, no official invite as of yet for local feasting.

So, for the next ten nights, I have the place to myself and I can cook Whatever I Darn Well Please.  Hee!  Oh, and there will be knitting, spinning, and weaving done.  ‘Nuff said.  At least I got him to pick out the yarn for his next pair of socks.  I guess the Spud King socks have been worn enough times to warrant needing “more socks” knit by his Witch.

In yarn-related news, there has been one skein finished since the last post.  Completely spindle spun & plied.  I got the entire ~4oz on to the plying spindle.  This made for a very heavy spindle and my palm is still a bit tender from rolling that sucker.

"Chinook"

The fiber is 100% Targhee from Mountain Colors in their “Chinook” colorway.  Standard 3-ply, 220 yards, 103 grams, DK weight.  Singles were spun on a 0.9 oz Greensleeves Maureen’s Mjolinor and plied on a 3 oz Schacht Hi-Lo spindle.  I doubt I’ll ever buy Targhee again.  Spinning this just confirmed my abiding love for medium & long wool breeds.  Targhee is a fine wool and extremely sproingy and has a hand unlike most I’ve spun.  It’ll probably be on my list of “don’t want to spin, but like to knit or weave with”.  Alpaca, angora, and mohair are already there.

It took FedEx and Dick Blick one HUGE box and 9 days to get a tin of 24 Inktense pencils and a pad of 9×12 paper to get from Illinois to Pendleton. That includes the 4 days where it was “lost” between Portland and here. Completely mystifying.

However, the pencils are nom nom nom. I shall have fun with them despite being a near-complete art neophyte.

Oh, and Dick Blick? Pull your head out of your collective asses, please. It does NOT take TWO a 24 x 18 x 8″ box to ship two pencil sets and a pad of paper. I’m sure the environment and your customers (via your high shipping rates) would appreciate it, as well. When UPS says it will take x number of days to ship a box? They mean it. Fed Ex seems to be a bit lax in that department. I’ve seen stuff come over from Japan faster than this.

Ok, enough ranting, I’ve gotta get ready for work.

About 0200 this morning, I noticed it was still snowing and noted that the drive home was going to be somewhat harrowing once I hit the 1000 foot elevation mark. See, work is at about 600 feet above sea level and home is about 1600 ft. Give or take a hill. Sure enough, the last 3 miles into Pendleton took a few days or weeks off the end of my life. Bumper to bumper traffic on packed snow & ice at 10 to 15 miles an hour. With hazard lights flashing. And fog.

I get safely off the freeway and up the hill to where I get stuck four blocks from home. The road hadn’t been graveled yet (since it was about 0630 by this time) . My poor little car handles frozen precipitation like an Arabian horse in Siberia. Just no go. I need to invest in snow tires. (Not like I put $600+ a month into that little fart between the auto loan, insurance, and fuel). Just what I need – more auto related-expenses. Shite.

Anywho, I get my wee blue beast from Ford turned around and skid/slide into a safe parking spot on level ground. I then hoof it up the hill in treadless shoes, no hat, and 4″ of wet snow. Uh yah. Me no like.

Two hours later, I’m finally breathing normally (hey, lets have an asthmatic attack from the 30° air and exertion of climbing a steep hill for 15 minutes) and pass out.

My dear beloved took the “please let me sleep” request the night before a little too literally, as he didn’t wake me up when it was apparent that I was oversleeping past my 1500 alarm clock. What I meant was, “please don’t turn the bedroom light on and yell and scream at your computer at 1100″.

With good road conditions, I need to leave the house at 5pm. I woke up at 4:48pm. Scrambled like crazy into somewhat presentable clothes, don’t bother to brush my hair, call co-worker to tell him I might be a tad late. Johnny gives me a box of hot pockets and frozen taco rolls (great nutrition tonight, lemme tell ya) for food, and I trudge back down the hill to my car at 1705.

1708, I dump a 24 oz soda in the footwell of my car after blazing through drive through for caffeine and carbohydrates.

The 33 mile stretch of interstate between work and home was blissfully dry and free of fog.

Shortly after my shift starts, a customer calls to inform that they lost their security key card and are unable to lock their facility. Many phone calls and some hours later, the Forces That Be finally get the doors locked remotely. This probably involved many levels of encrypted passwords and servers and hair pulling.

I finally get to eat my sammich I made the night before, only to find that it’s half frozen. Oh, and there’s blisters on my heels from my Uber Boots (the ones that are waterproof, with heavy traction, and make me stand over 6 feet tall). Beats falling on my ass in the snow, I guess.

The good news? The three books I ordered for my birthday arrived, along with a 2nd hand Jordana Paige bag from Destash. I hadn’t realise how brown the bag would be, but dang, it holds a lot of stuff.

Knitting front:

I’m in denial about foot covering knitting. Am currently 6.5″ into the garment that covers the foot, aka “The Item that Shall Not Be Named”. Using Trekking XXL 100 on 2.25 mm, at 10 sts per inch, for a size 13 foot. Uhm. Yah. Going to use a new (to me) tutorial for high instep footses. Wish me luck.

The boyfriend sweater may truly be jinxed. The knitting software I have LIES. The math is totally fucked up, even I know that 120 + (8 * 15) + (8 * 11) does NOT equal 340. Of course, I am STUPID and trusted the pattern, only to find after 6 hours of knitting that the pattern is worthless. Errors everywhere. Said 3″ of knitting got pitched across the room. Literally.

Fifty dishcloths later, I’m a bit sick of knitting dishcloths. I can’t even bring myself to give them to anyone…I’m that sick of dishcloths. Knit ones, that is. Weaving with non-mercerized worsted weight cotton remains to be seen.

It’s sn*wing in Round Up City.

Yick.

I’m getting stuff shipped from Japan faster than I am getting a certain Priority Box filled with yummy fiber from Ohio.

Definitely perplexing.   Woe!

I know I’m coming to this a year late, but WTF?!

CDC guidelines tell physicians to treat ALL females between menarche and menopause as “pre-pregnant”.

Oh, FUCK no.

In related news, I’m looking for a girlie bits doc that ISN’T afraid of zero or negative population growth.  Bloody HELL.

If you haven’t guessed by now, I’m Barren By Choice.  It’s got nothing to do with Pro-Life/Pro-Choice.  They are MY ovaries, you can martyr me if you want, but there’s no way I’m podding a hellspawn unless it’s an Act of God (and that’s what it would take, too).

HMPH.

You know what really gets my goat?  Sock yarn companies that protest that you can get one PAIR of socks out of ONE skein of yarn.

Just.  Bite me.

Who the hell are they kidding anyway?

Rawr.

Ok, yes, I have large feet for a female, but they aren’t any bigger than the average male foot – why should us folks with “normal” feet sizes suffer the bitter defeat of having to pay twice as much for “good” sock yarn? $40 for a pair of socks?  I think NOT!

Then again, I guess I do wear more ankle socks than crew length, but STILL!!!

Pardon me now, I’m gonna go roll around nekkid in my Malabrigo.  Hmph.