Day 17: Round up

So, I've been doing this for seventeen days, and I thought I'd step back and see what I think of it, and (if you're interested in telling me) what you're thinking of it.

First, thank you guys for leaving comments!  I've responded to the ones where I know your email address, but I can't, alas, respond when I don't.  (As before, if you are interested in that kind of conversational comment style, you can tell me your email address at knittinglinguistATgmailDOTcom, replacing the AT and the DOT as appropriate, of course.)  A few quick responses:

- Laine - a hairku!!  dude, thank you for that! my whole family and I thought that was awesome :)
- greenmtngirl - thank you for the kind words on the intent/impact post, I'm glad it seemed useful; I'd love to know more about your nonprofit
- Elizabeth, Jean Marie, TK, Portia, Allison, Willow, and Polly - thank you all for saying hi and encouraging the magpie theme; and especially, thank you for sticking with the vagaries of this particular blog, I'm really glad you're here.

Second, it's an interesting experience to have made this commitment to write something every day.  I wake up full of ideas, and my day only gives me more.  But I often find that, as with so many other things, my day gets away from me, and a few times I've hit the end of the day and found myself almost doing what I usually do with things like this (physical therapy exercises, I'm looking at you): thinking, ah well, I'll do better tomorrow.  In this case, though, the commitment to put something up here is an additional motivator.  I don't know if that motivation will fail at some point - it will be interesting to see how it goes over time.   (An unintended consequence of thinking about posts I could write is that what I refer to in my meditation practice as "narrator mind" is strengthened.  This is a phenomenon to observe; I'm sure I'll write about it at some point.)

Third, it's also interesting to see what themes come up for me most often.  I'm working on developing useful labels/categories/metadata.  It seems to me that there are posts and ideas that fall together in my mind, and if I can find the right label, it will help to collect them - and maybe even help me to see themes and connections that I didn't notice at the outset, but that arise as this project continues.  This is a sort of interesting unintended consequence, to begin to refine my understanding of my own lenses and areas of attention.  These labels seem to fall at different levels, too (I'm not sure that's a clear way to put it...).  So, for example, one is interconnection, which is rather philosophical, not to say metaphysical.  Another is a sort of observation of how my mind works (like the swimming laps one), and another is curiosity/fact-finding (soon you will all know more than you wanted about which strokes burn more calories, for example).  Those are much more concrete than the interconnection thing.  And, of course, there's the Venn diagram of themes; social justice and interconnection appear together, and mindfulness overlaps with both of those.  Only seventeen posts in, it's hard to tell what might happen, but, as I said, it's an intriguing (to me) outcome of this project.  Who knew metadata would become its own theme?

So I guess all of this is to say that, reflecting on the last few weeks, I see some of the shape of what I might learn from doing this, and also the shape of the challenges the project will offer me.  (I think I should keep rereading that post I wrote on swimming laps, because when I think about how many more days there are left to go, it's intimidating and tempting to let myself off the hook by quitting now; when I think about tomorrow's post, or one more week of posts, it's less overwhelming.)  The semester approaches; that will be a significant challenge for me.  Another is whether and to what degree I want to take risks with my writing here.  I posted a few narrative/descriptive type pieces in the period of my off-again on-again writing; it felt risky, but also like something I'd like to challenge myself to do more often.  So that, too, will be interesting to observe - what do I end up "using" this for?

In any case, here I am.  It's a beautiful day, and the sun is shining where I am.  I hope each of you has at least a bit of brightness in your day, too.

Taking care of business

That's what I'm starting to feel like I need to do. I spent some time this morning deleting and filing email, which always makes me feel like I've got things more under control. I also am working to get dates and plans put into my calendar (my external brain; without it, my life would be even more chaotic than it already is!). I also have some business to catch up on here on the blog.

First, I have to share with you one of the things that came in a lovely holiday package from Stella (there were a number of fun things, but this one has captured my imagination).
Look at that gorgeous fiber! I can't wait to spin it up; my long-draw is finally starting to get marginally better, and merino this lovely just calls to be spun up into a light, warm, soft, fluffy yarn. I adore the colors. Stella was aiming at finally finding me the kestral-colored fiber I've been desiring; I think that what she got here are the California hills in the fall at sunset, which is perhaps even better. Thank you, Stella!

Stella also just posted about a lovely pattern that she wrote last year; I was lucky enough to get to test-knit it, with wonderful results.
It's a little ballet wrap (which can be knitted with beads and sleeves; you should go see her version - it's wonderful; she also has a contest going to name the pattern, and the winner gets two skeins of one of my favorite sock yarns ever, so maybe I shouldn't be telling you about this...). I love this so much, I am tempted to knit one for myself, using the largest size and heavier yarn (this is two laceweight yarns held together).
I highly recommend this pattern, if this is the sort of thing you, or a young dancer of your acquaintance, might like. What I particularly love about this wrap is the fact that it takes advantage of everything that knitting has to offer in the way of construction, everything that makes knitting unique relative to working with, say, woven fabric. The shape of this garment is constructed as it is knitted, in one piece, rather than being worked into it later with seams. It's clever, but not so clever that it's annoying; it uses the flexibility that is available through knitting, rather than doing odd things simply for the sake of doing them differently. It's what knitting should be, and I wish I could think of garments three-dimensionally like this myself. I may not be able to, but I certainly can appreciate the results when someone else does!
So, apparently, can Younger Daughter.
I knitted this last February; I don't have a project page for it on Ravelry yet, but I'll try to get to that soon (more business).

In other business, I've been wanting to be more consistent about my spinning time. I love spinning when I do spin, but it's not something that I do every day, or even every week. It's something I tend to save up for when I have a whole day, which is rather ridiculous. Janel Laidman (she of the sock club that I appear to have joined, oops; that makes two, since I also rejoined the Rockin' Sock club this year) has decided to do a spinning stash-down this year, based on Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's self-imposed sock club idea. In Janel's version (all the rules are here), you make a monthly goal for spinning, post that goal somewhere (that would be here that I am posting it), then each month show the fiber and the spun yarn. I am making my monthly goals very small, mainly because while I do find the time to spin reasonable amounts of fiber in spurts (for example, spinning that big bump of BFL from Briar Rose that became a sweater), I don't spin consistenly, fifteen minutes here and fifteen minutes there, and I'd like to try to motivate myself to do that.

So my goal: to spin between 2-4 ounces each month, working my way through the smaller bits and bobs of fiber that I've picked up at various festivals.

My hope is both that this will make me spin more consistenly, and also that it'll help me to keep up with the spinning that I need to do if I'm going to feed Older Daughter's dyeing habit.

With that in mind, I sat down yesterday and spun the two ounces of silk/cashmere that I bought at the fiber festival in October.
I spun this fiber long-draw, both because I still want to get a better handle on the technique, and because at my spinning class in Ohio last spring, the teacher said something about the fact that the way one spins a fiber blend like this (a blend of short fibers like cashmere and long fibers like silk) can bring out the characteristics of one or the other fiber. I tend to spin something like this worsted, which brings out the characteristics of the silk (smooth, shiny, dense). This time, spinning woolen brought out the characteristics of the cashmere (light, fluffy, SOFT).

I ended up with about 230 yards of this loveliness.
I love the colors, and I can't wait to knit it up.
The plan is for it to become the Lune Shawl (the small version); I already have the pattern. And even though this means that I met my January goal, I'm going to haul out the two little packets of suri alpaca I also got at that festival, and put them near the wheel so I can keep going and aim for that four ounces.

On a final business note (because this post is FAR too long for me to start talking about New Year's thoughts and goals), I am experimenting with taking the word verification step out of the commenting process. I know that for some people, any typing at all is an exercise in endurance and discomfort, so adding to it doesn't help. I promptly got a spam comment this morning, but only one, so I'm going to see how it goes. I'd like to keep it off - one less step to commenting is great - so I'll keep my fingers crossed that the spam stays within reason (is any spam reasonable? a question for the ages). Happy New Year!

My apologies

Or: Further evidence that I am not as smart as I would like to think I am.

So. Several weeks ago a friend of mine asked me whether I got an email every time someone put a comment on the blog. I said, why no I don't. I wonder if that's even possible?

Having the inquiring mind that I do, I hied myself off to Blogger and found out that yes indeedy, I can in fact receive an email whenever someone leaves a comment. This has been wonderful in so many ways. I don't spend nearly so much time pitifully hitting refresh on blogger in the vain hope that someone has left me a comment, for example. Also, when I respond to what people write, their comments are right there, in black and white, to remind me of what they've said (yes, I do have a short attention span, apparently). Finally (and here's the point we're going to have to come back to) it meant that I didn't have to search out each commenter's email address in my email program or on their blog; I could just merrily hit reply and send off my well-thought-out words of wisdom.

Or so I thought.

Turns out, though, not so much. In fact, it turns out (if my informal polling of a few people today bears out across the board) that very few of you have been getting any of my responses to your comments ever since I so intelligently (note the tone of irony there) started responding to the comments I was getting through email. Have I mentioned that I am not always so smart? More evidence of this appears on a regular basis.

Mea culpa.

Thank you all for so patiently continuing to leave me thoughtful and funny and sympathetic comments, in spite of the fact that those same comments are, from your perspective, disappearing into a giant black hole. Please know that I did, in fact, respond to each and every one of them, but that I am not going to go back through my sent mail for the past several weeks to find and resend my messages. (I hope you understand.)

I am, however, going to start doing things a little differently around here chez Knitting Linguist. So you should start hearing from me again soon (unless you tell me that you prefer the Black Hole method, in which case, I'll read your comments merrily and save you the extra in-box input; just let me know).

Meanwhile, we're all staying home tonight to watch the debate (Older Daughter's request), whilst knitting on the second Cheryl sock (which does indeed mean that the first one is finished; pictures soon). And to celebrate having made it through the midpoint of the week. Do I hear mojito?