Knee Slapper

I was sent a joke that cracked me up. I'm going to print it here though I don't usually do that but there is a story behind my posting this joke here and I'll tell you all about it after you read this.

Tap on the Shoulder  

A true story from the pages of the Manchester Evening Times . . .

Last Wednesday a passenger in a taxi heading for Salford station leaned
over to ask the driver a question and gently tapped him on the shoulder to
get his attention.
The driver screamed, lost control of the cab, nearly hit a bus, drove up
over the curb and stopped just inches from a large plate window.
For a few moments everything was silent in the cab. Then, the shaking
driver said "are you OK? I'm so sorry, but you scared the daylights out of
me."
The badly shaken passenger apologized to the driver and said, "I didn't
realize that a mere tap on the shoulder would startle someone so badly."
The driver replied, "No, no, I'm the one who is sorry, it's entirely my
fault. Today is my very first day driving a cab.
I've been driving a hearse for 25 years." 

You may have already heard this joke but it struck me so funny because the first guy that I ever went out with, long before I met Teapot,  drove a hearse for his father's funeral home!

LOLOLOLOLOL it just cracked me up.

I Took Sunday Off

I really did. Usually I spend Sunday catching up on all the things during the week that I didn't do. But not yesterday.  Teapot had report cards to finish at school and so he was gone all afternoon. The Daughters were busy finishing assignments that needed to be done for today, as a result, I found myself at loose ends. So I finally decided to ball up those skeins of yarn that I had dyed during the retreat at Blueberry. This got me thinking about that Counterpane pattern in the last issue of Piecework. I had been planning on knitting that counterpane with the yarn that I had dyed and I had spent a week looking for the darn magazine that I had gotten just after Christmas. I still can't find it but a good friend in FSJ had copied the pattern for me so that I wouldn't have to keep being frustrated while looking for it. Eventually I will find the magazine but for now I have the photo copy. So I started knitting and this is what I've go so far...

I am working my way up through the colours. So far it is looking just as I had hoped.

So I need to back up a bit and talk about this a little. The 150 hour project for the level 4 of the MSP is looming over me and so I had decided quite some time ago what I wanted to do. I wanted to knit this...

in a blend of Cashmere, Merino, and Silk. But I want to use percentage dyeing in order to make the petals in the pattern look like actual flowers... in order to do this I need to carry the colours from pale lemon yellow to darker peach, with gradual changes in the colours as I work up the petal pattern. I will be using percentage dyeing, blending fibres, and Cashmere which was one of our new fibres we learned about this year. It is important to use the knowledge you've gained in these types of projects and this suits the criteria fairly well.

Now what does this have to do with a counterpane pattern in the Piecework magazine?  Well, I got the brilliant idea that if I needed to dye my wool I would not want to blow it and spoil a whole bunch of my hard won hand spun Cashmere blended yarn if the dyeing didn't work. So I ordered some Gems yarn which is a merino, lace weight yarn sold by Louet.... and while I was at the Blueberry I had a little test try of my dye. I do realize that a Cashmere/merino/Silk will take the dye differently but it is better to test with this first before I commit myself to colours that might be wrong.

When I finished dyeing this yarn I had a bunch of fibre that was useless for my 150 hour project but quite lovely to be used in a project... so since the counterpane pattern has a leaf motif in it I thought I would give it a try and see how it looks using the methods I will be using for my 150 hour project.

That's what I did yesterday.

I needed a day to sit on my arse and do nothing other than watch my needles click away, feel the sunshine on my face after a week of snow, and listen to CBC. It was a lovely afternoon.

Saturday was bad and good all at the same time. I almost died but I had a great spindling class. Having almost died, it meant all the more that Sunday was appreciated fully.

Dieing was not something I wanted to do, so I didn't do it, but it almost wasn't up to me. I left Saturday morning on roads that were less than spring-like (that's an understatement) for my class of spindling students in FSJ.  I was traveling along about 20 kms less than the speed limit, and about halfway there, when a driver in a car coming toward me, decided that her side of the road was not good enough and so crossed over to mine.  She obviously was busy talking to her companion and either didn't see me or thought that her SUV was bigger than mine and would have a better chance in a head on collision. She did not move over till the last possible moment. We missed but it was by about three or four feet at most. It was horrifically scary. She swerved at the last minute when she finally decided to put her eyes back on the road and not on whoever was distracting her..... and I thought she might end up in a ditch but she didn't and I was able to carry on unscathed.... Still my knuckles from that point forward were extremely white and my teeth will all need to be resurfaced since they were grinding the rest of the way there.  I hate winter driving and avoid whenever I can.

The rest of the day turned out well except I was so uptight driving home that I had a serious case of white knuckle syndrome again and every vehicle that came toward me meant that I was slowing down to about 40 kms on a 90 kms road... I'm sure I ticked off every driver who had the misfortune of catching up behind me.... because every one who did passed with frustration in their moves, and all the ones who were coming toward me looked at me like I was some kind of strange weirdo that shouldn't have a drivers license. But all is well, that ends well. I'm home and I'm safe.

As for my spindlers... it went well except that my two newbies didn't show up, so I was teaching a class of students who at least had some experience. They all went away with smiles on their faces and yarn to practice on till next week. It was a real privilege to teach them. Here they are learning how to card rolags after having spun pencil rovings of various grist.

MJ learning how to card properly... she's charging the card.

MA also learning the same thing.

DS is learning how to flick card locks.

NC had two drop spindles that she worked with. This one had no hook and was a bit of a challenge. But she did really well.

And this lady is another of the Master Spinning Program and needs no help spindling... she's there to help if I need it.

We all went for lunch afterwards and had a lovely time. Next week I will go back and teach them plying techniques and how to choose a spindle based on fibre and weight of yarn that they want to spin. I also told them I would show them support spindling... hopefully to wet their appetite for another course at a later time.

I'm off to shower and spin flax... finally.

Oh What I Can Do With My Head

I've been sucked into a cartoon.

It ain't easy being green...

"Ahhhh... My head's exploding."

I always wondered what it was like to be a fish.

Cyclops maybe?

Didn't I see this in a cartoon one time?!

I can't take it anymore maybe I should just pull my head in like a turtle.

Surprise! 2 heads. Oh there's just too much of me.

I think I was in one of Picasso's dreams. Or maybe it was Salvadore Dali.

Hm... If I really looked like this I'd have to go kill myself.

Didn't Helena Bonham Carter look like this recently in Alice in Wonderland? I think I should go pluck my eyebrows.

Brian Mulroney syndrome.

Angelina Jolie's lips just wouldn't work on me.

Ok.. that's just freaky.

Help!!! I look like a shark. Hmm... I wonder if I have all the teeth too.

The evil one. I just need the horns... oh sorry they're there you can't see them but I can feel them. Mwa ha ha!

Ah... thanks girls I'm back to normal now... well, better than a putty head anyway.

Panic Ville

Ok so this morning I'm in Panic Ville. I kept waking in the middle of the night last night and thinking about things to come... and things that should have come and time and how it slips past in a never ending eddy making you worry about missed deadlines. 

Upcoming events include a spindling course that I am teaching to several members of my guild. They are paying for this course (and no I don't get paid for this : (  because it is a fundraiser for the guild). It is the first time that I will actually teach a proper workshop so I have been getting ready for this with worry in my heart and anticipation in my mind. For the last few days I have been getting together photo copies and fibre. I have been preparing for any number and types of spindles showing up in my class and it has been no small task. I prepped fibre for two days so that all my students would be on the same page. From pencil rovings for beginning so that they don't have to draft or with a minimal amount of drafting to batts and rolags I've got it all. The rolags were the worse. I spent hours forming rolags from Polworth wool I had dyed a while ago and I ended up with a blister on the inside of my finger. (That doesn't mean that I'm carding wrong it just means that I have no thumb on my right hand and a blister formed when I was carding from holding the handle between my first and second finger. Yes I was gentle and no the teeth of the cards did not touch or dig in and yes I was like a bird.... I did it right.) Anywhy when I had prepped all my student's fibre this is what I had...

This picture doesn't have all the fibre I prepped but it had lovely colour so I had to add it here.

This picture has all the fibre I prepped.

Meanwhile I have spun lots of cotton but I still don't have enough for the level5 requirements. I am about 30 yards short. This is what I have....

I'm really proud of my cotton skeins. They look awesome.

So why am I in Panic Ville?  Level 4.  It has been on hold all week. I was supposed to have the flax and Lopi samples done by the 1st of March but that has not happened. I have been up to my ears with all this other stuff. But now that I've got the cotton spun and I have to wait until my cotton order arrives before I can spin more I have a little more time on my hands.  Today I have to do a little work on my spindle course that I will be teaching tomorrow and then it is time to catch up on write ups for my level 4 homework. So that means that once again I have to wait until Sunday before I cane get back to spinning flax. Line flax.  5 samples using various methods and then on to the 2 Lopi samples. That will put me behind a whole week. Argh!

When I get in Panic Ville I do have a tendency to go on a bit so excuse me for that today BECAUSE I'M DEFINITELY IN PANIC VILLE.

(,) vs (...)

Daughter #1 has been writing. She says she is writing a book. She is on page 75. Daughter #1 thinks that she is some kind of aficionado on writing skills. (har har har)! I've read what she writes and while for a fifteen year old she does very well, her spelling is atrocious and her punctuation is even worse. So I found it rather hilarious when she came along yesterday and had a look over my shoulder at what I happened to be writing at the time and gave me a few hints.  I admit, I am not the best writer in the world and there is a lot for me to learn. I find that keeping this blog really helps me learn more about writing.  My sentence structure leaves a lot to be desired and God knows my spelling is periodically pathetic, still I had to laugh when Daughter #1 said that I should stop using so many (...) and put in (,)  instead. I turned my head and gave her a look that must have said, "Who the heck are you to be criticizing your elders?" (Take note, I said "elders" and not "betters"). She then told me that (...) has a tendency to make me seem like I fell asleep mid sentence.  My reaction went something like this: "!!!!????"

You see it had never occurred to me that (...) would appear to make me look older. Falling asleep mid sentence is something that people who hardly know if their in the world or out do.  I think of myself as fairly alert... I don't have Narcolepsy or anything. I always considered (...) to be a pause in thinking with a slight change of direction in thinking too. So I had a think about this off and on all day... as a matter of a fact, I had a think about it a lot even at night which means, that I over slept this morning and had a big rush job getting breakfast on the table for Teapot and the girls.  I think what is happening is that I have now become so fast at typing that (...) is an opportunity for my brain to catch up with my hands. I know that makes me sound like I type really fast... but generally, I don't type fast, especially when it comes to copying text.  When I am typing my thoughts, my typing skills over the last 8 years, since we purchased our first computer, has gotten faster than my hand writing. That means that lots of times I'm not thinking about my hands at all, just typing the thoughts as they come to me.  (...) gives my brain a chance to catch up.

Daughter #1 also said that (...) might make me sound like I forgot what I was about to say.  This too seems to make me sound like I'm incoherent. I totally disagree with that. (...) is a way of pausing and turning ones sentence slightly. (,) gives the writer a natural pause in a sentence and doesn't change the direction of the sentence at all... but (...) changes the direction of the sentence and gives the reader an indication that a new idea is forming as a result of the previous one.

For example...
I always thought that my Daughters would love me and give me respect... but I now realize that all Daughters are put on the face of the earth to challenge you and make you wonder if you are a nutcase.

The (...) turns the sentence and gives the reader an indication that the result of the sentence is changing somehow.  This is different from the (,). The (,) is used thus:

Daughter #1 challenged my brain today, by suggesting that I might be using punctuation in a particularly wrong way.

So you be the judge... Do I use (...) wrongly or does it add to my writing in a uniquely helpful way?

I bow to the force of popular culture... (,) vs (...)!

I'm Sick Of This Cold... Period

-27 again this morning and too cold to go out. I think I will hibernate today and spin cotton. Yes I'm still spinning cotton. When I finished I had 276 yards of plied cotton. I then spent a good hour digging through every bit of this that and the other thing looking for small samples of cotton that I had gotten at workshops in order to come up with enough to finish the cotton spinning today. I spun about half last night and will spin the other half this morning and hopefully have enough to finish all my cotton skeins that I will for the level 5 course supplies. I have ordered cotton and a new Tahkli and some Schacht Cotton cards....

Do you folks remember that I had ordered cotton cards from the Howard Brush company last year and that I had gotten them in the mail and was waiting to open them on Christmas morning?  Yeah, well I got a terrible shock when I opened them and discovered that they were wool combs and not cotton combs... I sent them back and got a refund. I was so ticked off that I decided to wait and think about the cotton cards. Boy am I glad I did. I talked to Joan Ruane (Joan is like the cotton queen) about the damn things and found out that she hates the Howard Brush cotton cards. So it is a good thing that I didn't get them. I just ordered the Schacht ones and though they are just too unwieldy, Teapot has said that he will cut them down for me and adjust them to the size I want. I don't know why I didn't think of that before.

Speaking of Schacht... they have a new wheel on the market...

It is called the Sidekick

OMG (I just have to be modern and use this stupid acronym) it is the neatest little wheel... I think I am just going to have to give this wheel a try.  I think I might like it almost or maybe even as much as I like my Majacraft Gem.

My toesies are still freezing. This sunroom really needs some flooring as the subflooring is bitterly cold. I can't wait till spring and we get time and money for the flooring. Brr!

Still looking at cars...

This is the one that I want...

but this is a close second.

In the end they probably both will be sold before we get a chance to get serious about either one.

I'm off to spin cotton and hope that I can get enough to finish this wee project.... because I'm really wanting to get back to the level 4 homework. Hmm... : (

Hope your day is toastie warm.

Computer Buddies and Cars, and Cotton

My computer buddies, who I call Spiro and Jiro looking on the very cold weather... brrr!

We are looking at second hand cars... our truck has over 200,000 kms and we are starting to feel that it might not be as reliable any more. So we are looking around at a variety of different vehicles.  One of them is right here in our own backyard. But the price is a little higher than we would like and it is a bare bones car with nothing... nodda... nar ting at'all... So we have started doing a little research on other vehicles. Hmm... it is a hard decision.

While I hate the thoughts of taking on another vehicle... it means more gas consumption... we are not able to sell our truck considering that it is the vehicle that hauls our water.  But it is old and it is getting to the point where we don't trust it anymore.  What a dilemma. We are looking at several different vehicles. A 2009 PT Cruiser that we will have to drive quite far to buy... A Ford Focus ZX3 that is a little older and we are not sure about that. A Nissan Versa.... also not sure because it is farther away and the one that is closest to us is a Pontiac Vibe and it is two doors down from our house. But it is a manual transmission... Teapot and I have not driven standard for twenty something years. EERK! I'm afraid that I might stall out constantly or slam into something that I shouldn't slam into. Teapot is obviously not sure either because he downloaded instructions on how to drive a standard and has been reading them for the last few nights. EERK!  Stand by and I'll let you know how this goes.

-35 degrees C this morning.... brrr! The sheep are huddled.... The Alpacas are huddled....and Honeydew and Mishka are huddled... I haven't been up to check on the lamb this morning but hopefully she's huddled with her mom.  Even the horse is standing quietly with her blanket on her. All around the air is crisp, cold, and clear. I'm thinking about socks.... cause my toesies are cold this morning and that is a rare occurance.

Cotton spinning is coming along nicely but I'm not quite finished. I have a little more work to do this morning.  Last night I stayed up till 11:00 p.m. and spun away while everyone else headed off to bed... while doing so, I listened to CBC Radio and a show called Ideas. It was really interesting to hear. If you are into Podcasts you can go here to read more about it and download the Podcast... the guest speaker is French thinker Rene Girard and he is talking about his philosophy of man and how we are intrinsically competitive and how we try to overcome that and base society and our values on religion. He uses history and literature as a way of proving his theory. Awesome program... I have questions about it but I can see how he came to his theory... still I wonder why some people opt to not live in society and go off on their own... I would love to sit down with him and have a conversation about it. It is rather worrying if you believe it but as with most theories of human behaviour you can come to a belief of your own and completely negate everything he says... I call this the "Stick-your-head-in-the-sand-syndrome."

I'll leave you this morning with a picture of my cotton....

I am off to ply this cotton... and hopefully I have 450 yards... then on to line flax.