Shards of my ego?
Cecilia and I were emailing back and forth about how terrific Judith McKenzie's class was. She dubbed it "Mother McKenzie's Spinning Religion Epiphany Retreat." Wish I'd saved the rest of the emails, but the horse was quite dead by the time we were done with it... I could name this yarn all sorts of fancy stuff, but I think Shards is quite elegant and simple and can mean whatever you want it to. Plus, it has a nice story to it, too.
This is the Shards yarn before I applied Judith's "yarn abuse" -- alternating hot and cold baths, with plenty of vigorous agitation. It ends with being whapped against a chair a few times. I kid you not.
This is after being blocked. Judith deserves to do the "I told you so dance," it works so well.
Omen? What can I say. He's a very strange cat. Ginger is very concerned, but Rex just tries to ignore it.
Gotta brainstorm on this...
What do you do when you want to brainstorm and the brain is nowhere to be found? (No, it's not up the wazoo. I checked.)
You make a note of it on the blog, and try to get back to it some day.
There's an entry on the
Make blog about using an open-source programmable chip for crafts.
Quoting:
On a more practical level, you may just want to make your crafts more fun, interesting, and interactive by introducing some lights, motion, sound, or simple sensors. Stuffed toys can become glowing night-lights or cat-chasing robots, fibers can carry currents to make smart clothes, accessories, you name it. (end of quote)
And then they show some plushie steaks that are "irradiated sirloin night lights." Glow-in-the-dark meat. hmmm.
But this has possibilities. I just can't think of *what* a sweater could be... but imagine Vogue Knitting with a sweater pattern that includes coding for -- what? Lace holes that would get bigger so the sweater would adjust to ambient temperature?
What if the Paris fashion runways got ahold of this technology? Spinning necklines? Hats that shoo away flying insects?
hmm. This needs more thought.
Once I have a brain again.
Spinning again
Yesterday was the pits, work stress, medical stress (had to reschedule the GYN appointment-- suffice it to say that Auntie Flo is behaving like Auntie Niagara, hope that's not TMI!)... all in all, the frame of mind to start something new.
So I started spinning on the Shards batt! This is Judith's term for all the bits and pieces left on the floor at the end of class. Cecilia took the white bits, I took the colored. I put just a bit of grey on the carder first- here's what we got.
The blander side was from the grey I put on the carder first.
Then, I just rolled it up side-to-side like a jellyroll, so I could spin from the end. By drafting from the end of the jellyroll batt, I can somewhat control how long a color run goes.
Here's the shot of the bobbin-in-progress:
OK, this really needs explanation!! My ex-husband, who I have named His Royal Hiebert, found a black cat under a dumpster on a Friday afternoon. He thought it was a good omen, therefore the cat's name. (by the way, I ended up with the cat, so draw your own conclusions.)
Omen is loud and obnoxious, but he seems to like being held upside down. Sometimes he gets more than he bargained for.
Other times, he just likes to hang out. Please note the ears, and the back legs - he really does like this!
