BSG 2009

Saturday's jaunt to the annual Black Sheep Gathering was graced with perfect weather in my eyes: overcast but not rainy, warm but not too warm. The drive to Eugene went well and part of the way was reminiscent of road trips with my parents. Past Salem my public radio station, OPB, switches gradually from the FM station in Portland to the AM stations in Corvallis and Eugene, so the clear fidelity of KOPB 91.5 FM switched over to the fuzzy fidelity of KOAC 550 AM, complete with the buzzing when passing under high voltage power lines. So after a trip laced with the news and Car Talk, I arrived at the Lane County Fairgrounds.

The small brown sheep above are Babydolls. One farm brought one of their Jacob rams with the four horns. Interesting fleece, hey? The goats are Angoras and at the time I was there they were doing some judging. Two of the Angoras were tiny guys and their bleats were reminiscent of a cranky baby.

The marketplace was full of people looking for bargains and the unusual. I found all sorts of different fibers available including yak, bison, qiviut, casein, and maize. I came with a few items on my wishlist in addition to the task of picking up fleeces from Fantasy Fibers and talking with Nathan Lee of the WooLee Winder company about a winder for my Joy. It was tough not going through the bargain stacks of the vendors because the economic downturn has made vendors put discounts on items to bring in customers. By the time I reached StitchJones' tent to spend time spinning and drawing the curious to peruse her wares, I had found a number of goodies.

Snowy white angora bunny/Merino roving and Romeldale pindrafted roving.

Handdyed Corriedale roving

Handdyed Optim from Chameleon Colorworks

The Icelandic fleeces that I sent out to Fantasy Fibers.

The black Alpaca.

Merino top from StitchJones and the singles I spun while at her booth. The singles are tiny and drew a number of people to watch me spin on my Joy.

Hither and yon

Saturday was World Wide Knit in Public Day, an event that brings out knitters from their inner circles out into public areas to knit with fellow fiberistes. Over the course of the last week I heard about two other events besides the two I knew about: the Hollywood Farmer's Market (right around the corner!) and lunch at Casa Del Matador. The ones I knew of were at Pioneer Courthouse Square hosted by Teaknit Melissa and at the Glenn and Viola Walters Cultural Arts Center in Hillsboro hosted by Tami of pnwbookgirl. I had an appointment to meet with Melissa to drop off squares for a love blanket for Witt's partner Gary, then I was off to Hillsboro to meet up with my westside posse.

When I arrived in Hillsboro, I realized I didn't have the map I had printed out nor the address of the place. Having never been there before, I was clueless as to what to look for. I knew of it as the Hillsboro Cultural Arts Center but didn't realize until I finally arrived (thanks to my buddies' gentle coaching me through downtown Hillsboro traffic) that all my assumptions about its appearance and the name were all wrong. But it was worth it.

There were knitters.

And yarn.

And spinners.

And more yarn.

Did I mention knitters?

I came home with a book of baby knits and a lovely skein of peacock green sock yarn from Frog Creek Fibers well as finished bobbins of the Dicentra merino silk. I didn't get there in time to get a goody bag but it was fun to watch the door prizes go out to the knitters.

Thirty again?

Last Wednesday I went out for the evening with Dan and his friends to celebrate his birthday. I got to meet some of his friends and feast at La Buca. He got a lovely box of loot and many birthday wishes. It made him very happy, like a kid at Christmas. The gals at knit night missed me, but it was such a delight to see him with his goodies.

Monday was my birthday and the biggest surprise was the number of email messages from Facebook and the lists wishing me happy birthday. It was delightful and heart-tickling to see such affection from this community I've become a part of. Thank you! I ended the day with dinner with my pinochle buddies (except Reid who was busy recording a CD with the PGMC) and Dan. He went to Knit Purl and raided their ShiBui sock yarn, coming back with skeins in beautiful colors reminiscent of a beach by a deep blue lake. Combined with the bagful of chocolate from Linda and iTunes from Reid and Cristina it capped a lovely birthday.

Sockage

The Evil Sock Genius has begun his KAL on his Arch-Villain socks. I've jumped aboard but will be jumping back and forth between these and the Shaula sock from Anna Zilboorg's Socks for Sandals and Clogs (seen here on Tricofolk), a commission. I have toes so far for the AV's and am halfway through a toe on the Shaula.

As I say when faced with a challenge, it'll be interesting.

FO!

The man socks are done with a yard to spare. I have to say I was a little worried that I would run out on sock #2 but even though I didn't split the skein into two balls to make sure I had an even amount of yarn or knitted two at the same time I managed to knit both socks. You're probably wondering why. Honey, they're for size 12 man feet.

Gentleman Socks Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock Mediumweight Colorway Raven Haida Garter Rib toe up flap heel

Speaking of socks . . .

Yarmando, the Evil Sock Genius, is hard at work in his laboratory coming up with The Perfect Sock. He's looking for a few minions to join the knitalong he's hosting for testing some instructions. Now that I have the man socks completed I can join him in his pursuit. Who knows what improvements I may discover for my vanilla sock pattern.

A breath of summer

May typically is the month of transition around here. The temperatures rise, the rain eases back, and the gardens explode in a parade of blooms and green growth. I have some daylilies that have seeded themselves under one side of the stairs of my front porch. Their stalks create walls of greenery that my cat Sammy loves to sit between and watch the world.

I mentioned last week that the Summer of Spinning challenge had begun. At work, I've been busy with a handspindle. The fiber is merino in shades of orange that I had picked up at Black Sheep Gathering last year. I dub it the canteloupe. I'm spinning up a fingering weight on a 21 gmhandspindle that I then transfer onto quills for future plying.

This week I finished spinning the singles of the first 4 ozs of Dicentra Designs Merino/Silk Eowyn and started the second 4 ozs. The first I split in half lengthwise and spun each section of color the length of the pieces with each half on a bobbin. The second hank has been broken up into its component colors with each color being spun up into long color streams. This will be plied with the singles made from the first 4 ozs. I'm looking forward to seing how this turns out.

Good love

It's Memorial Day weekend and an opportunity to take care of things around the house. One of the biggest chores is gathering up the yarn and fiber I've pulled out and had lying around the house. I had a fair amount and needed to sort it out and put it away in my fiber room. One item that was full of yarn was a floor basket which after it was emptied was Buster's object of curiosity.When I'd take a break from the cleaning, I'd do some spinning or check my email. At one point I had the TV on and my feet up. Maisie seized the opportunity for some kittylove and I gave her plenty.

Summer of Spinning 2009

Saturday I started on my spinning for the summer. I'm participating in David Daniel's Summer of Spinning 2009 challenge to spin up as much of my stash as possible. I have a handspindle at the office and my wheels at home to produce as much yardage as I can. I'll be noting my finished yardage here. For more info, click on the button on the sidebar.

Sad news

I just heard that Witt Pratt, a good friend from the GLBT Knit list and wonderful sweet man, passed away last night. My thoughts are with Gary and his family. Whipknee will be greatly missed by many.

Clearing my throat

A couple of weeks ago I ran out of my anti-depressant medication. At the time cash was a little low, so I held off having it refilled. During that time, I thought "What would happen if I didn't have it refilled? I went on it because of my hormones and stress. My hormones are settled and the stress is not as high." My symptoms are mild: mood swings, mild depression, some anxiety. Stress heightens these to where my interactions with others are affected. When I went on the meds I was going through a very stressful time at the office where I would come home and cry. Monthly I would have days where it took little to turn me into psychobitch. The meds made the emotional roller coaster smoother and for a while it appeared I would have to be on them for the rest of my life. My partial hysterectomy changed things for the better. It was followed a year later with my changing job roles. I stayed on my meds like a good kid.

The ending of the meds was an opportunity to take stock of what my body is able to handle. Going cold turkey is a risky proposition with the potential of creating mental mayhem. That didn't occur to me until I mentioned it in my tweets and got responses with those warnings. By the time I got the warnings, however, I was already a couple of days off the meds and committed to my experiment.

I can say that my experiment did not create any major problems. The most radical change was a manic period where my creative energies exploded into a whole new take on a world I've been writing about since high school. It was during that time that I tackled my kitchen's mess. I was joyful and my senses were sharpened. For a while it was going well. Then one day one of the cats was doing something normal and I snapped at her because it was distracting me from what I was doing. A couple of other incidents happened at work during a stressful time that made me realize that I still needed the meds if I was to be able to act appropriately. With my job I had to be diplomatic and able to manage my time well. If I wasn't able to handle quick changes of priority it would create problems. So I called in my refill. To make the return not so radical, I halved the dosage and so far that is working for me. If that's what it takes, then all the better. I see my doc later this month and will discuss this with him.

Sunriver in October

Some things are serendipitous. One of the things I wanted to do this year was attend the Spin Off Autumn Retreat (SOAR) which was going to be at Sunriver Oregon. I applied for a scholarship but didn't get one, so was not sure if I would be able to go at all. But looking at my finances it worked out that I could go for at least the retreat portion. I worked out my rooming situation and chose my classes. So the last weekend of October I will be off to my first SOAR. With me will be folks that have been to SOAR before so I'm really pumped about this.

New Toys

Another thing fell into place this week. I've been hankering for an updated PDA that would be able to access the Internet via wifi. For a while I'd been eyeing the iPhone, but the prospect of having another bill for a function I would rarely use was not attractive. I could have opted for a BlackBerry but that also involved a monthly charge. Where I live there are many free wifi hotspots I could access so I was more interested in something that could pick up the hotspots. Well, a week and a half ago I spotted a PDA for sale in the company newsletter. It was an HP iPAC Pocket PC h4350, which isn't as popular but as it turned out had everything that I wanted. Even though it was originally built in 2003 it had many functions that work well here for the model was a high end item at the time. My researching found new ones retailing at over $400 and this was for $125. So I leapt at the opportunity and so far have been well rewarded. The wifi connection isn't working properly and I'm waiting for a synchronization cord to arrive so that I can update the software to try to fix that, but I am a happy happy camper. How much joy did this generate? For the first two days I had my iPAQ I didn't knit a stitch. That didn't last long. I couldn't find a case for it, so I made one that will protect it from the bumps of everyday use. The flower pattern's from Selbuvotter glove Annemor #15; the case pattern is my own.

To the homeless man scrounging for food in the trash bin

What do your voices say to you? You with your beat up straw hat, drooping greasy clothes and eyes hidden in uncut brows You crouch beaten by your illness that drove you to the pavement What do your voices say to you? Frail yet resilient, a son to a mother now nameless You are feared for your unpredictability Feral, wary, desperately hungry. You feed from the meals of the fatted calves of the city What do your voices say to you about me? Mine say don't give him money there are shelters Don't give him money -- he'll spend it on drugs. I watch you pick the lettuce bits from a plastic box as I carry my sandwich. I have money. You have none. Now you have money. I don't watch you spend the money. I'm not your police. You're a human being deserving some dignity. I hope the voices told you I was okay.

Beyond Routine

I like my routines. In the morning I get up, turn on the stereo to listen to NPR news, do my ablutions, feed the cats, let them outside, dress for work, skim my email, let the cats back in, then go to work. I arrive at work half an hour before I start, fetch my breakfast from the cafe, then return to my desk to read blogs before I start my shift. There have been times when a change to my routine affected me (waking up late, being asked to start early at the last minute). I would feel shattered and recovering from that would take longer than the actual routine itself. I've gotten better over time, but I still like my routines. Part of it is being single and not answering to another.

The weekdays have their structure. The weekend has its own. But unlike the weekdays where work demands that I maintain a strict structure, the weekends are much more flexible. If I have no obligations planned, I can take a weekend and go do things at the drop of a hat. Aurora was one of those weekends. This weekend was too.

Friday I had a business trip to Salem. As part of my kit I included a knitting project: a pair of socks. It got a few kidding remarks but I'm used to that, and being able to knit on the drive down (I was pooling with three others) made the time go by quickly. At lunch we went out and as a matter of course I took my knitting, which I worked on as we waited for our pizzas. I dropped my bag of knitting into my handbag when the food arrived, but apparently I didn't drop it securely as when we left for home that afternoon I found it wasn't in my handbag. It was too late to go back. A phone call later confirmed that I had left the knitting at the pizzeria.

If you're a knitter, you know what it means to lose a project. Some things you think, "Meh, it's part of the risk." Some things aren't recoverable, like projects left on the bus or plane. But this project had two Addi Lace needles and Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock. Not a cheap thing to replace. Plus I knew where it was. I could have contacted folks from Confluence to go pick it up but then they would have had to either mail it to me or try to send it north with a Portland member -- something I felt was too much for me to ask. I opted to go fetch it myself.

Now the fun. When I posted to the Knitbloggers I was going to Salem to fetch my knitting, one of my buddies asked if I was going to the spinning going on at the Mission Mill Museum. Apparently there's a monthly meeting there that I wasn't aware of. I had originally planned to spend the day in Portland then head down in the late afternoon as the pizzeria didn't open until 5 pm. With this though I had the opportunity to meet some other folks who love to spin. They started at 10 am, so I figured I'd go down and play it by ear.

The ladies in the spinning circle were very friendly and as it turned out included Helen, with whom I had had a previous encounter at the Super Bowl weekend knitting party a year ago. While I was there I plied some merino/alpaca/silk blend that Susan of Abstract Fibers gave me for making a sample for her. Further conversation with Helen included an invitation to join her and her fellow knitters at the Blue Pepper. As the spinning group came to a conclusion at 2 pm and I was in need of a place to linger further in Salem, I went to the Blue Pepper. There I not only made my acquaintance with members of the Salem Ravelry group but also renewed my acquaintance with a lady (whose name unfortunately escapes me) I had known through my visits to Unraveled Yarns in Vancouver. I also met a local dyer, Stephania, who had come to drop off some fiber for some of the Ravelers and came away with some lovely Australian merino superwash top. At last the time came and I fetched my errant sock from Christo's Pizzeria and returned to Portland.

Your comments

Thank you everyone for your comments on the Queen Anne's Lace shawl. I truly enjoyed knitting the shawl and am glad that it came out so stunning. Ted wrote: " Is this the design by MMario? I've been thinking of doing it. What yarn are you using for it?" Yes it is the one by MMario. I knitted it out of 8 skeins of Elsebeth Lavold's Silky Wool.

Tallguy asked: "Where are you going to wear it so you can show off your skills?" It's my shawl for fiber events and summer evenings. It's perfect for places that have just a chill in the air.

Tychoish commented: "I heard you talking about this on the list and I was like "meh, a shawl, feh" because that's how I respond to all shawls. And then I was stumbling across the internet, minding my own business and *wham* amazing shawl. It's so cool. I want to make one now!" LOL! That'll teach ya! ;)

Onward

The needles and the wheels have not been idle. I started plying some laceweight merino/alpaca/silk that Susan of Abstract Fibers and a couple of hours of spinning last Wednesday came up with 100 yards of pretty yarn. I hope to finish up the rest this weekend when I go south to Salem to visit the spinning group meeting at the Mission Mill Museum and fetch some knitting I left behind at a pizzeria I visited for lunch while down in Salem on business. It wasn't the lacework edging as that's too complex and slippery. It's a pair of socks on Addi Lace needles that I've been working on that were perfect for such a jaunt. You can imagine my annoyance when I found I had dropped them, and as I wasn't the driver I couldn't go back to fetch them. I will get them back and start churning them out.

Nitey night.