Trenchwork

I’m still buried, so you’re liable to see sporadic posts for a bit yet.  And I’m dreaming of a vacation in sunlight and warmth . . . When I caught the bus just after 7 this morning, it was still  dark.  The only salvation is that we—for the moment—have a bit of snow on the ground, and it makes the difference between pitch dark and just dark.  The university building is largely glass, however, which means that while you have “street lamps” on the main corridors, all the internal light seems to be sucked out into an external emptiness—which just makes it feel even darker.  It’s impossible to not feel as if you are in the building at midnight, and if you happen to be there before the place gets busy, that feeling is emphasized in a major way.

I want sunshine, and more than 6 hours of half-light daylight.

DH now has his vacation schedule, which means that I can now figure out when the next stateside trip will be, and in the midst of work when I should—really really should—be entirely focused on student writings, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Lee Ann Smith, and Charles Chesnutt, I find myself drifting off into summery, sunshiney thoughts, checking plane fares, and daydreaming about fibery fun.

I had hoped to be able to coordinate the trip with one of the major fiber festivals stateside, but that’s impossible.  There simply are none in the places where I’ll be at the time I’ll be there, and I won’t say how much I envy those stateside friends and spinners/knitters who have the opportunity to go.  I’m determined to make it to one eventually, but clearly that’s not going to happen this year.  So I’m half planning to make a detour via a brother and The Woolery on the way into the country just so I can ooh and ahh and goggle and add to my wish list other fibery things from a full sized fiber shop.

I’ve also realized I’ll be stateside for a month before DH arrives,  totally free from work for a change, and with no students—and no wheel.  A spindle, of course, but no wheel.  And I cannot travel with my Rose, nor the training-purposes Babe.

You do know where this is going, eh?

(photo blatantly borrowed from http://louet.com/spinning_weaving/victoria.shtml )

That’s the Louet Victoria.  It’s the only wheel I’ve found which does what I want to do and still fits within international carryon luggage size restrictions.  Have I bought it yet?  No.  Am I planning to?  At the moment, yes.  Particularly since I could arrive in Atlanta, pick it up, spin to my heart’s content in the two months I’m there, and bring it back for use with group meetings and travel here.  I want a portable wheel, but there’s no sense in buying one which is too big to be a carryon, and I refuse to check a wheel—partly because I need the space for other stuff.  You  know, clothes, fiber, chocolate chips, fiber, toiletries, fiber  . . .

And looking ahead to that wonderful month of no work and all play, I’ve reserved a Romney/Montadale fleece from SkyLines Farm so I’d have something to play with.  Specifically, Dottie, thanks to Melissa’s help in choosing.  And there are a number of others which I simply love to look at—rich, variegated colors and beautiful crimp—but let’s conquer the world one fleece at a time, shall we?

In the meantime, I’m working on turning my corner of Norway into a spinning zone.  Saturday’s intro to spindles and spinning brought back 1 established spinner, 1 learner from the previous meeting, and three new spinners.  That makes 6 new spinners, if we keep them all.  Since I’ve already heard from three and know they’re in the market for wheels (before the spindles have even gotten cold!), I think we’re on our way. 

2 February, Saturday a week, will be the first open-house regular spinning meeting, held at the local school. I’ve no clue whether to expect 1 or 10, but one must start somewhere.

In the meantime, I’ve found this:

(photo borrowed from bookchair.com )

It’s a Book Chair.  It’s the best book stand I’ve ever found.  It sits level, is sturdy, and holds a book open without a lot of straps or fidgeting, or allowing the book to shift and twist.

The best part?  I’ve found I can spin and read at the same time with it.  Admittedly I’ve only tried it for a page or two, but since I tend to spin by feel as much as by sight, I don’t have to watch the fiber in the same way I must when I knit.  So those books and texts which I have to plow through before I can talk to students next week?  They’ll be accompanied by the quiet hum of the Rose.

Actually, I’m rather pleased with myself.

Finally, a Beta. Some of you know that I’m rather sensitive to wools. Generally speaking, I only handle the fine wools. But one of the Spunky Eclectic fiber club fibers was a package of Lincoln which had been sitting in the stash. One evening when I could read and write no more, I pulled it out and span it.

The colors aren’t quite true here; they’re actually nearly Eastery in real life. And the spinning is impossibly  irregular.  The fiber was just too hard to handle (literally; not difficult, but hard) for me to do it justice, and since I wanted the learning experience, I span it anyway even though I knew it would be a mess.  It’s fairly even, but is unevenly spun, is horribly unevely plied, and it’s not something I can ever use.

I did learn a few things, though.  First, the shine of that fiber is incredible.  It’s easy to forget that pure wool can glisten.  And, of course, the tighter it’s spun, the smoother the surface and the more the light reflects—the shinier it is.  It did NOT like being spun woolen.  I tried that at first, thinking that it would soften it a bit.  Wrong.  Wrong wrong.  It ended up both fluffy and prickly in those places.  Spinning it worsted smoothed the ends into the singles and gave a smoother yarn, and increased the shine.

I haven’t even bothered to measure twists or wraps on this one.  For the eight ounces, there are 97 yards.  That’s as specific as it gets this time.  And since I cannot bear to handle it, I’ve gifted it away to a friend’s sister-in-law who happens to be an artist and who might have a use for it, even if she just uses it to tie up a few veggie plants.