Miscellaneous: August 2005 Archives
My mystery box got a new friend today, courtesy of the very nice people at Copper Moose The plot thickens...
P.S. The kindness of the community has helped Emma and Oliver with the first of the items he needs to stay in motion. Read all about the progress here. I am always impressed by the generosity of this crafty community.
I know, I know -- two posts in a day, how unusual for the Keyboard Biologist. But this one's important. If you only read one today, make sure this is the one.
When I first got into blogging (my three year blog-iversary is almost here, if you consider my first very lame post an entry) and got myself situated in the ring, I was incredibly fortunate to land right next to Emma. She emailed me to introduce herself as my blog neighbor and as I did more and more knitting, she was always leaving a note of encouragement to spur me on to try new things and feel good about what I had accomplished. If you travelled around the ring enough, you realized that she was doing that for many more people than me. There is almost nothing more precious to receive than the gift of someone's time. And Emma has always been generous to me and to many others with her time and her inspirational good wishes.
She also has been known, for numerous random acts of kindness, long before there was a blog ring to support the activity. I will never forget the thrill of opening up a package from Emma that contained two skeins of wonderful Opal sock yarn to encourage me to not be afraid of socks. What kind of person sends gifts to someone she has never met just to be kind and encouraging? Even my husband was touched. And he got a great pair of socks out of it!
Emma and her beautiful son Oliver are facing the challenge of finding him the right equipment as he grows and strives to become more independent and mobile. I consider Emma to be an important part of my community and life and I'd like to encourage you, if you have the means, to consider helping this lovely and generous knitter and friend. Just click the button below or in my side bar.
What this box of goodies is all about?
I had fun yesterday reading both the sympathetic comments with regards to the klutz aspect of my life and the possible suggestions for how to make something for John out of the blue/green Cormo and silk.
Socks are an interesting thought, but I have a feeling that my wonderful hubster would just wear right through them. He's not very gentle on his socks -- which is to say, if he loves a pair, he will love them to death. He will wear them all over the house and wear them constantly. I have a feeling that the cormo/silk combination would not hold up to his love and devotion. Not to mention the fact that I might accidentally felt them in the wash. But that does bring up an interesting point... are there fiber sources out there that contain superwash wool and a bit of nylon for strength. Or is this something that the intrepid handspinner has to blend herself?
The fingerless mitt idea could be an interesting one. Unfortunately, I've only got about 4 oz of the blue/green roving (and some of it went to an earlier spinning attempt) so I'm not sure there's enough for a scarf. I thought about trying to finally give him the head band he's been asking for, but then the washability problem rears it's ugly head again.
Moral of this story... when buying wonderful fibers, be sure to figure out how many ounces are likely to be required for a reasonable size project.
And to answer Marti, who wondered if I did all this on a drop spindle, the answer is "yes". I'm still not wheel enabled. I actually like the rhythm of working with the drop spindle, and now that I've had some time to get the basics down, I'm thinking that I need to go back and see if I can't figure out how to convince my fingers to spin something that's bigger than lace weight.
