Crossing Over to the Dark Side....

And not because of the cookies.

A lot has been going on in my life lately, most of it just messy. Lets see....

I've not made much progress beyond Clue 4 of the shawl.

I've made almost two fingertip less gloves--the second is still OTN, but almost done.

I made a hat and a pair of fingerless mitts for mom, which i didn't take pictures of before i gave away.

I haven't done much spinning lately; been too busy with other stuff, sadly. But i did get a picture of my spindle and some roving!

I've begun learning/self-teaching myself how to crochet.

And that, my friends, is the Dark Side. The one with the hook.

I had tried to learn crochet before; friends telling me "oh, it's sooo easy!", people on the Internet reassuring me that "it's easy", all the books and websites I'd been reading about it proclaiming "it's easy!" Well, ladies and gentlemen, it is most certainly not easy. at least, not for me. I find crochet to be very frustrating, even though I'm beginning to understand it better. I can't quite say that i like it yet, but that sense of triumph at making the simplest of squares--that was a very satisfying feeling.

I posted my triumph, tentatively pondering if i was actually "doing it right"--i know well enough that there is more than one way to hook a stitch, but the end result needs to look a certain way for it to be called crochet.

By the time i succeeded in making my little square, my eyes were incapable of focusing properly, my blood pressure had spiked, and i had come quite close to either impaling my innocent boyfriend (well, he was poking me with an afghan hook at the time), or hurling the miscreant, misbehaving hook in my hand, with which i was struggling to make the simplest of chains, and the simplest of stitches, through our very expensive television.

But, i showed my little square to the world, and so far, everyone who has seen it has said "yes, that is crochet." So I'm doing something right.

And then tonight, the phone calls and IMs began. Nothing to do with crafting, mind you, just my insane family deciding to reach out to me, and to one another, after a year. It's coming upon the anniversary of my grandfather's funeral, you see, and apparently they are all waxing sentimental about that. I'm just bugging out. I was already planning on holding a Samhain ritual, and making a point of remembering and honoring him and his spirit, but i don't know if I'm actually ready to go visit his grave yet. It's one thing to commune with his memory, another to visit his corpse.

I'm....going to go take up the hook again, and play with some variegated yarn, and try and lower my stress and blood pressure levels. And figure out how to read crochet the way i learned how to read knitting.

Spinning!

So! (been insanely busy with work, and then a vacation, and now back to insanely busy at work--been neglecting the interwebs)

I went to the Common Ground Fair this past week, and had a blast--soo many hippies! So much cool stuff! My boyfriend/fiance/thing bought a giant jar of pure organic unfiltered honey, and he's been plotting what to do with it. It's the most honey I've ever seen in my life, and we aren't really sure how much is there. Just that it is a lot of honey. And will probably be made into something delicious and alcoholic.

I meanwhile got to coo at some alpacas (they were very cute, but shy), petted a fuzzy goat--i think it was an angora, based on the curliness of the hair, and the softness of it's coat in general--and he looks like a picture of an angora. Tooled through the Maine Market, the various animal pens (saw some huge oxen, lovely horses, and some really funny-looking poultry), and of course, the Fiber Tent.

I wanted, but did not find any lace weight while tooling around (it likely was there, but i was just so overwhelmed with the soft yummy yarns i didn't spot it), and while i was sorely tempted by some angora-blend bunny-yarn, i actually did not buy any yarn. Instead, i announced my desires to learn how to spin, and bought a spindle (a Tom Forrester top-whorl), and 9.5 ounces of roving total. Right around two ounces of 100% Romney wool in a hand-dyed red, and 7 and a half ounces of a 70%-30% blend of Romney and mohair. The larger ball of roving was the most god-awful, hideous shade of Mountain Dew green imaginable (and it is named Mountain Dew), so of course, i had to buy it. *lol*

Meanwhile, the boyfriend managed to mortify and clear the fiber tent in about 5 minutes flat--we were looking at some yarn, and he was complaining about being hungry. He noticed that one of the farms had pictures of the sheep that the yarn came from, along with the animal's name. Fiber art stuff isn't really his idea of a fun time anyway, so in addition to being hungry, he was bored. So, he looks at a picture of one of the sheep, and says very loudly, "hmm, Herbert here is looking mighty tasty--i think he'll be my lunch." Another shopper immediately turned to us, aghast, "You shouldn't say stuff like that! I'm a vegetarian!" which just left a huge opening for him to continue. He grabbed a hold of a friend who was with us (and who happens to be short), and proclaimed her his twin sister, who is a vegetarian, and "look what happened to her!" Vegetarian shopper's jaw dropped, and we moved on to the next fiber layout, laughing.

Then he asks if cat hair can be spun as I'm looking at spindles--and immediately everyone within earshot turned and said, quite loudly, "YES!"--we were all amused, and he decided a cat-yarn sweater is probably a bad idea. Particularly since he has a mild allergy to cats.

Heh. So, spinning. I started with the red roving, and as i had absolutely no clue what i was doing, i started spinning the roving straight, without drafting at all, so i wound up with a single that was very thick, slubby, and loose. Then, thanks to YouTube, i learned about drafting, and also an article i found about hand-spinning with a top-whorl spindle, I've been creating thinner, more even, more finely twisted (but still full of slubs) singles.

At any rate, I've been enjoying myself, and hopefully will have some pictures to show soon.