A Happy Fuzzy Blog

Sweet

Watch this.

Make yarn, not war.

Ever since I wrote how I felt that if everyone would spin we'd have world peace, I've been thinking about that more.  Sure, I'm probably naive, as always, but I don't think I'd want to be any other way.  Spinning makes me happy.  It makes me feel peaceful.  It calms me.  So, what if everyone in the world felt like that?  Surely there would be less violence, wouldn't there?  Surely fewer people would start wars and fewer people would support wars.  If more people in the world just weren't violent people, surely the world would be more peaceful, wouldn't it? 

So my brain got stuck on this idea, because that's the kind of brain I have.  And I ended up adding a new section to my CafePress store.

Buttons, stickers, magnets, and shirts.  I'll send the proceeds to Knitters Without Borders. 

I think I'll go spin now.

Yo, spinners!

Now, don't all faint.  Not only am I posting twice in one day instead of letting three weeks go by, but I'm actually posting to announce a shop update.  No, really.

Wool top.  This one is "Tropical Fruit series: extra mango."  There's more.  Go check it out.  Buy some so I can afford to buy some jeans that aren't falling off.  'K, thanks.

[Non-spinners, I'm still working on getting on getting yarn to come out the way I want with my new dyeing method.  I dyed some last weekend, and...well, we'll just call those skeins "research and development."  But I'm spinning some great yarn for the shop!]

Yes!

Dude! Andy Weir is resuming Casey & Andy!  Thank you thank you thank you thank you!

Hey, you know what?

I figured something out.  If I wait until I have time to take photos of everything I want to show you that I'm talking about, it's going to be another month between posts again.  So while throwing a bunch of words at you with no pictures isn't as much fun, for me or for you, it's probably better than blogging so infrequently that you all start wondering if you should send out a search party to look for me.

So, you know the sweater I've been working on?  The one whose sleeve in progress I showed you and then said, "Though now that I look at it, the sleeve looks like a lot of fabric.  Hmm."? I frogged the sleeve again.  Twice.  My problem is, wait, make that part of my problem is, I just don't know what size I am.  I mean my body image hasn't caught up with reality.  I made a lot of sweaters that fit well when I weighed 265 lbs.  Then I lost a lot of weight.  Then I lost more weight.  And then I started knitting this sweater.  And now I get to the other part of the problem, which is I've lost more weight since I started the sweater.  So it's going to be a bit looser than I had planned. But it'll still fit better than any of my other sweaters.  Once I get the sleeves right anyway.

See, my problem is I'm having a hard time getting it through my head that smaller body doesn't just mean smaller circumference torso, it also means smaller circumference arms.  Duh.  I need to make narrower sleeves.  I thought I was, but it didn't work out that way.  I think I just look at numbers that they possibly should be and think that can't possibly be right so I make them bigger.

I'm really not used to my body being this size.  I weigh 171 lbs now. This is the smallest I've ever been in my adult life.  Other people who've lost a lot of weight, how long did it take your body image to catch up to reality?

The good news is this yarn holds up to frogging amazingly well.

I'm just frustrated, I guess.  I mean, it's not like I'm in danger of becoming underweight or anything, so my weight loss isn't a bad thing.  It's just that my body is a stranger to me.  It kind of freaks me out.  And I've been working on this sweater for so long, it feels like I really should be finished by now.

But I got a lot done on it today.  Amy was at AADL today being her cool self.  I didn't think to take any pictures (I was getting a bit of a headache because I went too long without eating), so you'll just have to take my word that I was there.  Because you know, it takes so much effort to get to AADL, what with it being right across the street from the bus station and all, I might be making it up about going.  Um.  Yeah.  Anyway, I got about 3 1/2 hours of knitting done.  Amy is funny and talks very fast.  She was talking about No Sheep for You, and while I love my wool, I was interested in hearing about the properties of the other fibers and yarns.

One thing that occurred to me later was, if a person has a soy allergy, i.e., they react when they eat it, would they also react if they worked with or wore soy fiber?  Or is the allergen destroyed during processing?  The same thing with the other fibers made from food for that matter.  I just thought of soy because I've developed an allergy to it, but she mentioned fibers made from corn and milk.

Anyway, like I said, I love my wool, and I've been dyeing up a storm.  I've got a pile of wool top on my table that I just want to roll around in or eat or something.  I guess it wouldn't really be so good to eat.  Kinda hairy.  But the colors are so pretty.  It looks like it would taste good.  I should have it for sale in  the shop soon. 

I started spinning the top I dyed a few weeks ago.  It is so nice!  It's so easy to predraft!  It's so easy to spin!  I'm in love!  I'm gushing, I know, but sometimes my wool makes me so happy, I feel like if only everyone in the world would spin, we'd have world peace.  I am a dork.

But hey, nothing wrong with being a dork, right?

Oh, you want an update of what I've been doing?

Yeah, I thought so.  I haven't been a very good blogger lately.  I've been doing stuff, but not showing you.  What fun is that?

So.  It's Show and Tell Day here at Acme Acres.  First off, I finished my punk grrl socks.  They rock, as they should.

Now that the bus socks are finished, the former desk sock has now moved into bus sock rotation.  I really like the way the two color stripeyness is doing its thang here.

And I just cast on for another desk sock, giving Tigers on estrogen another go.  It just wasn't meant to be a Jaywalker (way too tight unless I wanted to use 12,000 stitches per round, more or less), but I've used this yarn in another colorway with Anne Hanson's Smokin' socks, and they fit great (with just 72 stitches per round), so I'm using that again, and isn't it tigery?!

I'm making progress on the sweater, though since I'm designing it the progress isn't entirely forward.  Heh.

I finished the ribbing on the bottom and along one front edge (I figured I would wait until I have buttons to do the other side's edge so I don't make the buttonholes too large or too small).  Then I decided the ribbing at the bottom edge really pulls in too much and I needed to do it over. I was kind of ribbinged out by then though, so I decided to do the sleeves first and come back to the ribbing.  So I picked up the stitches for the first sleeve and worked in the round toward the wrist until it was about half done and tried it on, and decided that I didn't like the way it was hanging, and the angle of decrease was too slow.  So I frogged back to the pickup row, then did short rows, then continued in the round decreasing every 5th row instead of every 6th.

This whole project has been kind of a two steps forward one step back thing, but I think it might work this time.  Though now that I look at it, the sleeve looks like a lot of fabric.  Hmm.

I've finished spinning the yarn for the Cobblestone cardigan, washed it, and it's hanging to dry.

I think it's my new special friend.

I'm spinning some yarn to make a scarf because my old scarf is kind of ratty and it's fucking cold here and I'm so sick of winter PLEASE SOMEBODY MAKE IT STOP!!!



Aaaaannnddd...I dyed some wool!  No, really!  Look!

You know what's really cool?  I dyed all of that in one dyepot, all together.  It was totally mad science, which is the funnest kind of art. I swear, I was yelling "Mad!" during the process, which tells you I was inspired, and also that I was just totally obsessing on the mad science concept but that's Shaenon's fault.  Heh heh heh.

Since it's still experimental (because it is mad science, after all), I'm still figuring out how much dye I should use, and that would be, uh, less than I actually used.  This had a lot of excess dye molecules.  I rinsed it several times and dye was still coming out, and I didn't want to rinse it too much more because I didn't want to felt it.  Right now it's beautiful -- no felting at all, so I'm going to spin it and then wash the yarn some more to get the rest of the excess dye out.  I need to do some more dyeing (hee hee, more mad science!) and experiment until I get some fiber than rinses clear before I can sell it as fiber.

Hmm, what else to tell you about?  Oh, yeah.  I seem to have developed an allergy to soy.  Isn't that just a kick in the head?  I had found some stuff with tofu in it that I had grown rather fond of, and a soy-based salad dressing that was rather good on my veggie sandwich, and I've been forced to face the reality that every time I eat any of it, before I'm even finished, my lips and surrounding area feel weird, like everything is about to turn red and swollen and itchy.  It lasts a little while and then returns to normal, though the little while has been getting a little longer, and the affected area has been getting a little larger.  I guess I need to just stop eating it.  I went an entire week without it, and then had some of the dressing on my sandwich to see how I would react, and yeah, it was pretty clear that my body doesn't want this stuff in it. Crap.  So ok, no more soy.  I've been finding plenty of other things to eat.  Like I can put hummus on my sandwich instead of salad dressing.

People keep asking me how the vegan thing is going.  Aside from the soy allergy, it's going great.  I've been trying a lot of new foods, and I've actually lost 15 pounds since I went vegan, despite eating till I'm stuffed and eating whatever I want.  The key is to only want to eat healthy food, not crap.  (Newest thing I've discovered: baked sweet potato with non-hydrogenated margarine, salt, pepper, and chives.  It's yummy!)

My problem now is I need to buy some clothes because the ones I'm wearing are too loose in ways that are driving me nuts.  I don't mind shirts being loose.  That's fine.  But when my bra isn't the right size, it's annoying as hell.  And when my pants are a size too big, it drives me nuts.  Have I mentioned one or 5347 times that I hate shopping?  I can just never find what I need, so it feels like a complete waste of time and a wretched chore.  There are so many things I'd rather be doing with my time, like knitting, or spinning, or dyeing wool.  Even shopping online is frustrating because I don't know what size I am anymore, and sizes are totally inconsistent from one brand to another.  Urgh.