so i haven’t been updating as frequently as i normally do, and we’ll get to the reasons behind that later, but i wanted to post some stuff.

first, i got my spinning wheel a couple of weeks ago — yay! — and it’s way, way, way faster than using my drop spindle! i’ve spun several skeins worth of 2-ply yarn. my drafting’s getting better, more even, but still these skeins are pretty thick-and-thin. oh well. i’ll get better. i plied together a skein saturday morning and then ran it off on the swift into a skein. then i made a critical error in judgement: i hung it up where the cat could get it.

yeah. he apparently pulled it down and then dug around in it. i’m not sure why. he leaves my yarn alone 99% of the time, he hasn’t gotten into my roving… but this skein he thought needed to be punished. fortunately i found him before he really got going, but still, i spent over an hour detangling it and i’ve still only got like 1/2 to 2/3 of it done. and the new skein is going to be full of splices, since i keep having to cut it. blah. sigh. 150-some meters of yarn, probably five hours of work, taken down by the cat in less than five minutes. sigh. and then i have to show you this too. i got started making clogs from the fiber trends pattern. here’s the first one, almost complete (i haven’t finished the second sole). (to give you an idea of scale, that blue thing it’s lying on top of is the pattern, an 8.5 x 11″ sheet of paper — that’s a women’s medium size, and it’s got to be at least 14 inches long! it’s HUGE!) this would have taken me a lot less time if i hadn’t had to rip out the entire insole, twice!! the first time, i was probably about 7 rows from the end, and realized i had gotten off-center and i had too many stitches on the needles. the second time i was probably 10 or 11 rows from the end, and had just a couple more stitches on the needle, so i tried to rip back only until where the mistake was, but i couldn’t really find it, so i gave up and ripped back the entire way. argh. finally, i got it all the way done. which is good, because i was really getting a little cranky about the entire situation. it’s not that hard of a pattern to justify so much confusion… actually, i think i just lost track of which lines i was on, so the third time i was really anal about keeping track and counting stitches obsessively, so that worked out. i hope future clogs will only take me a few hours each, instead of a few hours times three! and finally, i cast on for my second stripey sock. i’m going to go drag that around with me to try knitting on the subway, since today’s an early day. normally i really like the idea of knitting on the subway, in theory, but it all depends on what time of day i’m commuting because i have to be working the 6 or 7AM shift just to be reasonably assured i can get a seat; if i’m working the 9:30 shift i’m lucky if i can squish onto the train at all as by the time it gets to division it’s often already packed with standing commuters. it’s one of those situations where, like, “dear CTA: i recognize that your advice to standing passengers to not lean on the doors is probably wise, but really, you’re not giving me much of a choice here when you run trains every 15 minutes during rush hour. i’m lucky the damn doors haven’t ever closed on my bag. sincerely, sabrina.” anyways, today it’ll be important to have time-killing knitting with me even when not on the subway, as the plan is to go by the post office after work, as i got a pink slip in my mailbox the other day informing me that there’s a parcel waiting for me! perhaps it might be a … secret-pal shaped parcel? i hope so! i’m so excited! if it’s, like, a box of checks, i may demand the post office people take it back and give me something better. :)