Saturday, November 1, 2008

It's Caturday!!

In honor of Caturday, I share pictures of my Emmy-cat:

She contemplates helping with the ironing...

 

...but decides to nap instead. It was a tough decision.

 

I don't like to iron either, so I can't blame her.

On the knitting front, I'm trying to finish several projects at once, and that obviously doesn't work well. I joined the "One Day a Week for UFOs" group on Ravelry, and I've decided Wednesday is the day to work on the Jo Sharp cabled cardigan. I've managed to finish the first sleeve, and have the ribbing and a couple of inches of the pattern done on the second sleeve. At this rate, though, I think I need another day for that particular UFO!

Remember this picture?


I never told you what it was. It was a cliffhanger, but given my sporadic blogging attempts, that was clearly a Fail. But one commenter did ask if it is an angora blend. Nope. It's 50% merino, 50% Tencel, and it's probably one of the most gorgeous rovings I've ever seen. I got this at Woolgathering from Carol Larsen at River's Edge Weaving Studio, and I believe Carol dyed and blended this herself. I snagged the last three rovings, so I have nine ounces to play with.

The thing is, what should I do with it? It's almost too beautiful to spin. I'm afraid that I'll somehow lose the lusciousness of the roving if I spin it. And what to do with nine ounces? The most obvious thing is to spin it fine for a shawl. Or I could do fingering weight for a scarf, but I'm afraid that neither of those options will do justice to this roving. Should I ply it, or will that make it muddy, and cause it to lose its unique shades? I'm in a quandary. Most of the time, I have a good idea of what I'll do with fiber when I buy it, but this has me stymied. It's so beautiful I'm afraid to touch it! And because it's a one-of-a-kind dye job, I can't get more. Help me! Don't let this wonderful lusciousness be wasted!

Things are changing in my life (well, when are they not? That's true for us all.) My hours at work have gone down even further, and given the state of my health, I'm not going to be able to go out and get a 9-to-5, or even a 1-to-4 job right now. So I'm contemplating doing handpainted and hand-dyed roving and yarn for my etsy.com shop (which has had nothing in it for the last couple of years, since I took out the sole eyelash scarf I had listed. There were only about a zillion other fashion scarves for sale at the time.) I certainly don't expect to get rich, but I have a dollar amount I need to make per month to maintain our existing budget, and I think it's doable. So I'm going to get my dye station set up in the basement and give it a go. Any suggestions for yarn, fiber, and dye suppliers are more than welcome (even though I would technically be setting up in competition with those who are in the know. Oh well.)

Speaking of health, that last med is an Epic Fail. (I so love the "Fail" concept. It says so much with just a word or two!) It's heinously expensive, so I don't want to pay for it in the first place, and it has nasty side effects beyond the zombie-inducing ones. So I'm weaning myself off that before I use up all the samples, and starting over again. And I'm going to call another doctor on Monday, who is a fibromyalgia specialist. It's time to try something else.

It took a few weeks after the "dry" Hurricane Ike went through for us to get our yard cleaned up and the tree cut down. But it was finally accomplished with the help of friends and relatives. And overseeing it all, the Rugrat:

 

She did a wonderful job of directing everyone, then took the time to do a little dog whispering.


What would we do without her?

So that's the latest from chez Spingirl.  I think I'll go cast on some li'l pink socks.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi there! I found your blog by clicking on my interest "ballet." And then I saw you knit, among many other things. What a busy lady! Anyhow, the pic of your cat sleeping on the ironing board "helping" you is funny. So like a cat!

Daniele said...

Love Emmy! She seems like a big kitty too.

As for the roving, check out www.melonheadknitwear.com. Carmen makes all kinds of stuff with rovings in the "large" stage. Or, you could try splitting the roving into color groups. It is beautiful.... I'm sure anything you make with it will be wonderful.

I hope you can get to finally feeling better. Fibromyalgia really sucks. I've heard that some people have luck with acupuncture, although that scares me a little (pins and everything, ya know?).

Take care of yourself sweetie! I've been missing you!