I forgot to mention, I had a haircut the other day. It’s gone from half way down my back (a few months ago it was all the way down my back, but then I had about a foot chopped off) to this:
Category: Photo album
9: Finished skeins – no.2
And here’s my second finished skein of yarn:
As you can see from the collage picture, the original fibre was turquoise, navy, and red. I rather like the way the colours blended, both in the spinning and plying process, to give a blue-purple final yarn (with bits of red). The fibre is Limegreenjelly BFL … and I don’t know the name of the colour. Anybody have any suggestions what I could call the finished yarn?
It was a lovely yarn to spin with – not as soft as the merino I’m using now, of course, but I think that was good since I was trying to spin it a little thicker, and since I’m still learning. It came out bulky weight once plied, by the way. The one in the last post is aran weight. The meino should be lighter weight – perhaps DK after plying?
8: Finished skeins – no.1
Still working on the bipolar post (I should stop faffing, really), and I’ve also realised that I seem to somehow be a post behind. So, here are a couple in quick sucession. I haven’t posted on here yet about the yarn I’ve spun, and since now is a good a time as ever… here is My First Yarn:
This fibre (Forest Fibres Corriedale Top) came with the starter pack I got with my drop spindle, but this is spun on the spinning wheel. I spun about 50g of the navy and 50g of the turquoise, then plied the two colours together. Ta-daa!
7: Merino soffffft
I’m still working on the bipolar topic post, so I though that this half hour I’d show you what I’m currently spinning. Well, not currently, since I’m typing right now, but you know what I mean ;-)
I am, by the way, very much a beginning spinner, so my results aren’t fabulous, but the whole two skeins I’ve produced so far are nice enough, and definitely usable. Which is the point, right? The fibre I’m spinning now is really really lovely, so I hope I don’t make any horrible messes with it. It’s 100% merino from Limegreenjelly in “Take Me Out”, and it’s really beautiful – see:
Charcoal, hot pink, deep jade green, and flashes of purple. Yum!
5: D’oh, reboot!
Well…. bother. It looks like I have to restart my browser. It’s all gone a bit wonky. Back shortly, I hope! Have a picture of the weather to keep you going:
On Giving In Gracefully
So, back in March I made some bloggy resolutions about what I intended to do for weekly posting goals. Obviously, I haven’t kept those up… and then I started feeling like I was in catch-up mode all the time with myself, and oh noes, panic!! Which is bad, since this blog isn’t supposed to be a duty! Therefore, I have Made A Decision: I’m giving myself permission to “give up”. In actual fact what that means is that I’m going to forget about Project 365 this year, since taking the photos already wasn’t working out – maybe I can go again another year, but I’ll see how it goes. I’m still going to do the Friday 5 whenever I feel like it, but not necessarily every week. I am going to try to post more about knitting and spinning and things in general. This way, it’s more of an adjustment of my goals to something more realistic, rather than really giving up.
Another thing that I’ve decided to let go of is taking strict part of the Sock Knitter’s Pentathlon ’09. I haven’t been knitting very fast this year, and I’d ended up knitting nothing but those socks and still not finishing them. It all got a bit too much like hard work! So even though I love the patterns for the first two socks, and I really like the look of the third one which has recently been released, I’m not going to start #3. I do intend to finish the first two socks, but not as my most immediate projects. Instead I’m going to go back to my other knitting works in progress and try to get those finished off. They’d been pushed back while I was knitting just socks. That’s meant that I’ve now almost finished the shawl I’ve been making for Emily (I’m casting off at the moment, but that’s deadly boring so I’m just doing a few stitches at a time then putting it down again *g*). And I’m really looking forward to picking up the projects I’ve been neglecting and making some real progress on them. Hooray! I don’t even feel like starting something new, because my old projects are almost like new ones by now.
I’m also thinking about giving in using Coppermine for my photo album software. Yes, I’ve been using it for years on this site, so it seemed like a more sensible decision to keep using it and integrate it with WP rather than migrate to something else. But there’s a good photo album plugin for WP, and the integration plugin for Coppermine doesn’t do precisely what I want it to do – it’s a great plugin, and it’s probably perfect for everyone else… but I’m picky! Also, I do have to do some tweaking of the source code every time it updates because of the way I have my Coppermine set up, and… well, in the long run it might just be easier to change to using something more integrated with WP. It’ll mean not having to theme Coppermine to match WP, too. I’m going to ponder it a while more, but I expect I will change over.
Why am I mentioning this, when no-one but me cares? Because it kind of fits the theme of the rest of this post: I’ve been hanging on to some things that I should have gracefully given in on a while back. Letting go and making a few small changes will make things easier. Note to self: change is good, and giving up on something doesn’t necessarily equate to failure. There we go, that’s my deep personal insight for the day. Now I shall stop rambling, let go of this post and send it into the big wide world (= hit the publish button)! TTFN.
Spin spin spin
Today is 4th July, which means it’s the start of the Tour de France for this year, and therefore also the Tour de Fleece. (I understand the date also has some link with Americans blowing up aliens with fireworks, but I’m not really sure about that.) And what that means is spinning along every day that the Tour de France is on. I’ve joined up to the Ravelry Group for it – this is my first time, which puts me on the Rookie team and I’m also in Team Jelly Legs, which Jo set up. That’s appropriate in more ways than one, as spinning every day will no doubt give me jelly legs, and I’m going to be using fibre from her etsy shop, Limegreenjelly.
This is the fibre I’ve started with:
It’s Blue Faced Leicester, and it feels absolutely lovely to spin with. I shall post progress photos when I have them. And do what I said I would yesterday and give some updates on what I’ve been up to in general!
Project 365, 22nd March – 4th April
I meant to post these weekly, but I’ve gone and slipped up already. So here are another two week’s worth of Project 365 photos. They’re also up at Flickr in my Project 365 ’09-10 set and in the Project 365 album for this year in the photo album here (you can see the great-big full size versions there). This time I’m going to put the medium-size pics up here rather than the thumbnails and put some comments in as well. Ideally I want the medium pics to link to pop-ups of the full size versions, but the plugin I’m using to integrate the blog with the photo album is being a bit temperamental about that. But with a bit of luck that’s what I’ll get. Here we go:
Continue reading “Project 365, 22nd March – 4th April”
Project 365, attempt no.2!
Well, I was going to do the Friday 5, but I’m getting a 500 error from the site, so I’ll have to try again later. And in the mean time, I’ll post something else I’ve been meaning to get to – my Project 365 photos. This is my second attempt at this – stuff got in the way so I tailed off last year and didn’t finish it properly. So, here I go again. [Click through to see the rest of this]
Well, I was going to do the Friday 5, but I’m getting a 500 error from the site, so I’ll have to try again later. And in the mean time, I’ll post something else I’ve been meaning to get to – my Project 365 photos. This is my second attempt at this – stuff got in the way so I tailed off last year and didn’t finish it properly. So, here I go again. These are the first two week’s worth, but they’re also up at Flickr in my Project 365 ’09-10 set and in the Project 365 album for this year in the photo album here (you can see the great-big full size versions there). The next few days of photos are up in those places, too. I’ll do another post of them on the blog when I have a full week’s worth, then keep posting weekly thereafter. I hope!!
Anyway, because I’m posting two week’s of pics, I’m doing these as thumbnails. I’m not sure whether to keep on going like that, or to post the medium size and have the pic titles and some exposition below them, like I did last year. Thoughts, anyone?
[group:c:s=1][thumb:1093:l][thumb:1094:l][thumb:1096:l][thumb:1095:l][thumb:1097:l][thumb:1098:l][thumb:1103:l][thumb:1099:l][thumb:1100:l][thumb:1107:l][thumb:1101:l][thumb:1102:l][thumb:1105:l][thumb:1104:l][/group]
PS – I think I’m going to give up on using Live+Press for crossposting to LJ for now… there are two main problems with it for me. The first is an actual bug which should be fixed with the next release (though I don’t know when that is) – if I save a draft post in the WP posting interface, it posts it to LJ, which means I keep accidentally posting half-done entries. And also, I’m not sure if this is related, but I have to re-select the “No Synch” option (the only way to get round the early posting) every time I open the draft: it’s not saving that option, and it won’t default to it either. That wasn’t the second issue though – that is an actual feature of the plugin. I have no way to stop it from crossposting tags into LJ. Which I do in LJXP, even though it has far fewer features otherwise. Oh well, no being able to choose my userpics and moods from here, then. I may change back later, we’ll see how it goes.
On different voices
Did you know that people have two (at least) voices? “Chest” voice and “head” voice*. I guess most people only use one most of the time, or don’t notice when they switch from one to the other. Mainly, it’s your chest voice that you use for speech. When you sing, you’re much more likely to leap from one to the other, particularly when there’s a large difference from one pitch to the next. A lot of singing training is to do with getting those different sounds to be consistent with one another. Not to have an obvious bridge moment where you suddenly go into high-squeaky mode or back down into your lower register. If you’ve ever played a wind instrument you’ll know what I mean: it’s much the same thing. It’s got to be smooth and without any odd swoops or jags or squeaks.
Anyway! The point is, right now I have very little chest voice. Speaking is all over the place. There are definitely swoops and jags and squeaks. Unless I deliberately pitch my voice into my head register. Singing, needless to say (particularly since I’m a soprano), is perfectly do-able. Not great-sounding for some things, but do-able. I went to Christingle service at my Mum’s church, and she was most surprised. I’m not going to talk in my head register, though, because it makes me sound about five! I’ll get by – I feel pretty much ok, I just sound croaky.
Huh, that was a sudden swerve into music geeking, wasn’t it? Um. Have a Christingle:
HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!
* This isn’t breath support: that’s another thing. Which comes from the diaphragm and… oh never mind ;-) I’ll shut up!
Project 365 #9, Days 68-82: 17th – 31st March
Back to the catching up! Here are days 68 to 82 of my Project 365 photos. If you want to see all the photos so far, click on the Project 365 category link, or check out the Project 365 folder in the photo album. Or for the most up-to-date version, try my Flickr set.
On to the pics (click them for the full sized versions):
Continue reading “Project 365 #9, Days 68-82: 17th – 31st March”
Project 365 #8, Days 52-67: 1st – 16th March
Stiiiiiiiill catching up: here are days 52 to 67 of my Project 365 photos – the first half of March. I’m going to post them in chunks of half a month at a time until I get caught up, now. If you want to see all the photos so far, click on the Project 365 category link, or check out the Project 365 folder in the photo album. Or for the most up-to-date version, try my Flickr set.
On to the pics (click them for the full sized versions):
Continue reading “Project 365 #8, Days 52-67: 1st – 16th March”
Alive, alive-oh
D’oh, I zoned out for a while there. I wish that would stop happening. My next psych appt isn’t until July, either. It was s’posed to be April or early May, but it got put back. :-/ Still, I can phone them if need be, so it’s not that bad.
Anyway, I haven’t been completely unproductive (read: asleep) over the last few weeks. I’ve been reading (I keep meaning to write reviews… I really will do that. Eventually), and knitting, which I shall talk about a bit more in a moment, and doing a bit of work on a fannish website project with Sann. And over the last couple of days I’ve been gradually putting some knitting / crochet books and some more yarn up for sale on eBay. I might even get the non-knitting things I have to clear out up there, if I can get around to taking photos and working out postage. I need a better pair of scales!
Actually, talking of scales, I may or may not have lost weight recently, but I have been eating more healthily. And without having to think about it too hard, either – it’s becoming more of a habit, which is really good. As well as that, I’m going to start doing more exercise again. I had meant to before, but I as part of the whole zoning out thing I was mainly stuck indoors. However, this morning I’m planning to either go for a walk in the park if I can get hold of Ally in time, or go to aquafit and then either the gym or just stay in the pool for a swim. I’ve got to get back into a routine where I’ve got something to get going for in the morning, and having something that I need to leave the house for is better. Otherwise I’m likely to faff around at the computer in my pyjamas until lunchtime! Quite possibly doing something productive, but still – I need that routine of being really “up and about”, and being actually dressed is part of that.
Back to the knitting, anyhow. Let’s see… looking back at those goals I set myself at the beginning of May, I’m afraid I still haven’t finished Mum’s present (I’m going to go and do some work on that in just a mo!). But as I said, I did finish the baby bootees, and I’ve also finished my second pair of socks – the Berlin Muster pattern – for the Sock Knitter’s Pentathlon. I hit my personal targets as well: I wanted to finish in the first 100, and to improve my sock knitting time. Which I did: I finished as number 68, on 23rd May, so it took me exactly 3 weeks to knit them, doing an average of an hour or two a day. :-) Since then, as well as Mum’s pressie I’ve been working on my Fireworks socks, and I’ve now finished the first one after a bit of a hiccup with the garter stitch toe the first go around (it ended up about twice as long as it should have been!). The second one of those is cast on and I’ll now be slowly making my way down the leg whenever I want to work on a project that requires very little concentration for the most part. I don’t have any pictures of that just yet, anyway, but I do have some of the finished objects. Want to see?….
Project 365 #7, Days 45-51: 23rd – 29th Feb
Still catching up! Here’s the rest of February: days 45 to 51 of my Project 365 photos. If you want to see all the photos so far, click on the Project 365 category link, or check out the Project 365 folder in the photo album.
On to the pics (click them for the full sized versions):
Continue reading “Project 365 #7, Days 45-51: 23rd – 29th Feb”
Rebel rebel
My second pair of socks for the Pentathlon is underway. For this one, I think the main challenge is in the preparation (there was confusion over which translated version of the pattern and which chart was most accurate), and since it’s a 16 row lace pattern where the stitch count increases and decreases a couple of times, you have to keep your mind on what you’re doing. I’m not finding it too much of a problem though. Not mindless telly knitting, but fine for watching something where I don’t want to have my eyes glued to the screen the whole time and so can keep count.
However, I have rebelled a little ;-) The pattern recommends using solid or semi-solid colours, and I… have not. I was going to: I said in my last post that I was intending to use a solid red. But the lace pattern is a leafy sort of thing, and I just didn’t want to make it in red. It would probably look lovely in the Yarn Yard September Club yarn:
…. but much as I think that yarn is beautiful, if I make yet another pair of green socks right now I might lose the will to live. ;-) So that one was out.
Then I thought, well, it’s a really pretty pattern. (In fact, if ever a pattern said “knit me in pastel pink!” to me, it’s this pattern, but that’s never going to happen. Sorry pink, but I’ll never wear you. Ever.) It’s lace, but I’m not sure that a multi yarn would obscure the pattern completely. And the Yarn Yard Feb 08 ‘Art Deco’ club yarn is really really pretty: light blue, chocolate powder brown, cream, pale yellow, a hint of soft green. Really springlike. And I could use the minty blue-green contrast skein for the cuff, toes, and maybe the heels. So, that’s what I’ve cast on with. And I was right, this yarn is really pretty. However, so far I’m not entirely sure if it’s knitting up as a pretty lacy sock, or a small woolly pizza. Below is a photo of the cuff and first lace repeat. Any thoughts, anybody:
Anyway, here are the project stats as they stand at the moment:
Pattern: Berlin Muster by Kristin Benecken [Ravlink]
Yarn: The Yarn Yard Bonny (previously Sock) in Art Deco (Feburary 08 Sock Club yarn)
Needles: 2.5mm DPNs
Ravelry Project Page: Pentathlon Pair #2
If I do decide to change the yarn, I’ll definitely stay with Yarn Yard Bonny as it’s just perfect for the project, and I think I’d either go for the solid bright blue from the November club yarn or persuade myself that three pairs of green socks in five months would be fine, and use the above August one. I’m hoping that the Art Deco will work out alright, though. Not least because I’ve set myself the goal of coming in within the first 100 this time…