Roller Ball Derby

My son had a bright idea this week. He thought putting a small rubber marble ball into a balloon might be cool. So Dad helped him blow up the balloon with the ball inside. Then they hit the balloon back and forth to see what happened. 

The coolest thing. The ball revolved around the inside of the balloon independently of the movement of the balloon. Kind of like roller derby skaters going round and round. 

My personal analogy this week was that the ball was my brain inside my balloon of a skull. Twirling around and around, faster and crazier. I guess I felt a little overwhelmed by this week’s tasks. 

Among other things, I’ve been working on our tax return. Yuck. It’s not hard, just tedious and time consuming. 

I felt pressure every day to write last week’s blog post until I finally forgave myself for not being super-person. So, I skipped a week.

I’ve also been preparing materials for a class I’m teaching in spinning on a tahkli, a supported spindle. That has been fun.

I’ve made more than 300 punis in the last 2 weeks. A puni is a skinny roll of short fine fiber. In this case, yak down, camel down and cotton. I’ve been using my cotton handcards and have gotten quite proficient at making a neat puni. I sit with my ‘friends’ on Grey’s Anatomy (love Roku internet TV) and make my little cigar shaped rolls of fiber.

And while poking around for pictures to post I came across this one from several years ago. 

My son spinning! Look how intent he is looking at and holding the fiber. A spinner in the making for sure.

Now, at 5 years old, he no longer holds fiber to spin. Instead he treadles and works the footman on my spinning wheel to turn it as fast as he can while steering the pirate ship in his imagination.

Bags of Stuff

I laughed at myself Saturday morning. 

I was preparing for my guild meeting with Saturday Spinners. The program was reporting on our UFOs (UnFinished Objects) and blending fiber on drum carders. 

I gathered my stuff and put everything in separate bags.

• fiber to drum card
• the bag holding treasurer responsibilities
• extra bag of miscellaneous fiber to play with
• my UFO & show & tell items
• my knitting bag
• camel fiber & hand cards for making punis

I stood in my entry way looking at 6 bags of stuff. None of them heavy, just bulky. The stuff was divided by category so I could find things easily during the meeting. 

I started to laugh when I envisioned loading up my arms with so many bags.

Work in the fiber arts is full of fiber and equipment. And when we have workshops and meetings we have to bring our STUFF. 

Our stuff turns out to be a myriad of tools, yarn and fiber. We also take stuff with us just in case we don’t feel like working on what we are supposed to.

So I had 6 bags lined up on the floor for a 2 hour meeting. I laughed some more. 

I knew that I was not going to be able to actually use items from all 6 bags. So I got rid of the bag of miscellaneous fiber and stuffed the small bag of knitting into another. I got down to four bags. Much more manageable.

Here is what I carded on a Pat Green drum carder - beige CVM (California Variegated Mutant) fiber base with dyed mohair locks in red/yellow/orange colorway from La Llama Farm. I ran it through the drum carder twice to get more color blended. 

I gave the finished batt to my mother. She said it would match up with some other fiber she had ready for spinning. I have lots of both fibers left to blend more if she needs it.

Drum carding was very fun. 

To top the morning off, it was pouring rain. Which meant, in addition to holding 4 bags of stuff, I also had to manage an umbrella...

Is Perfection Possible?

At what point are we satisfied with our finished product? When do we attain perfection? Is perfection possible? Or is perfection defined by what we are satisfied with?

I spent time this week knitting my second sleeve for the Central Park Hoodie. After I finished the cuff ribbing, I moved onto the cable pattern and increase part of the sleeve. I knit two rows before realizing I’d made a mistake. So I frogged the two rows and started over. Then I knit 5 more rows in pattern before realizing I had not changed to larger needles. 

I paused. I frowned at the piece of sleeve. 

I frogged again down to the ribbing. At that point, I put the sleeve down for the rest of the evening because I obviously wasn’t paying close enough attention to the directions. I assumed that I had the pattern memorized and could just whip out the sleeve in no time. Not. 

The next day I reread the directions, changed to larger needles and worked the pattern correctly.

Sometimes when I make a mistake I wonder who will notice. If I don’t say anything, is it really a mistake? Does it really show? 

I ask myself these questions almost every time I find an error in a project. And there usually is one. Do I rip it out now? Do I unweave 20 rows of weft? What if I drop a stitch in the frogging?

When I find an error, whether or not I fix it is usually determined by the following factors:

• Will anyone notice?
• How far down is the mistake?
• Is the project finished?
• Is it for me, a gift or for sale?
• Will I notice?

That last question is usually the most important for me. I do not considered myself a perfectionist, but I do like very neat work. Is that perfection? I doubt it. But if I think I will notice that error every time I put on that scarf or sweater, then I always take the time to fix the error. It is worth the time in the long run. 

Errors are part of the process of making things. We are human after all. I’m not sure we can attain perfection, but we can get close enough to be satisfied. 

Especially when we work with our hands.

Got Stuff Done

This week I,

• Cast-off the first sleeve for my Central Park Hoodie and cast-on for the second one.

• I decided to knit a tall folding collar for the hoodie instead of the hood (a decision is a completed step in doing). 

• Led a craft hour for a group of five mommies while the kids played in the living room. We crocheted and ate yummy cake and baked potatoes.

• Got to show off my rug sample from the Collingwood workshop (see blog posts Twilling Around Part 1 & 2).

• Prepped materials for a beginning spinning wheel class I’m teaching on Sunday at COLORS 91711 in Claremont, CA.

• Submitted my SOAR (Spin Off Autumn Retreat) 2012 scholarship application.

Got more done than I thought...