On Knitting Socks

Yes, I am finally knitting socks. It's been said that any knitter worth her salt simply must be able to knit socks. I am not sure if I agree, but hey, they will say anything to drive you to do something before which you'd normally have to smoke a joint to get the gumption to do!

I tried to knit socks over a year ago, and ended up casting on a total of three times, getting the stitches twisted on my DPN's every single time. I gave up. Of course, I should mention that I was sitting in a smelly Blazer in the middle of winter, trying like anything not to inhale as much exhaust as I knew I was. But that's beside the point.

I put that ball of sock yarn away, thinking that "another time will be better". Since then, I've taken a gander at sock patterns here and there, got the concept of sock shaping down in my brain, and still didn't think enough of it to pull that ball of sock yarn out again and give it another go. I don't know what prompted me to do so this time, but I had success!

Knitting a sock is a whole lot like building a house, I've decided. Shaping as you go, decreasing, short rows, changes in stich patterns for different areas of the sock; well, it all makes me feel very intelligent. When I turned my first heel and saw the little pocket it made, I was floored that I had done such a cool thing.

The teeny tiny size 1 needles should have put me off, at least a little. But I was actually excited. They feel delicate in my hands. This tiny yarn, when knit with these tiny needles, is actually dense and lush. There will be no other sock quite like this one...with the exception of the second sock, which in a perfect world should match it, in some way, shape, or form (but I'm not holding my breath).

So, I've come to see the vast appeal of sock knitting. I am understanding the incredible addiction that knitters feel for this nifty little project, and I am determined not to succomb to the obsession. A pair of socks here and there is fine. But carrying a pair-in-progress with me everywhere I go is a bit over the top. Or is it? They are the perfect portable project, if you don't mind showing off what it's like to knit with porcupine-like needles sticking out in every direction. Or if you don't mind odd looks and stares from people who actually realize that, yes, you ARE knitting a SOCK. I can read their minds. "Is this chick crazy? Why doesn't she just go to Wal-Mart and BUY her socks? She's crazier than a bag of hammers...."

Fact is, what do these people think we did before Hanes and Fruit of the Loom? I doubt they'd ever stopped to think about it. Knitting socks seems to be yet another way a person can link up to the past. Just like spinning, weaving, and a myriad of other seemingly dying arts (thankfully not so much anymore), knitting a sock takes me to a place in the past where a husband would wait patiently for his new pair of socks that his wife was knitting by the fireside. And that first time he pulled them on, he smiled. Because there was nothing like the feel of a new hand-knitted sock on his hairy 'ole pioneer foot. And there still isn't anything like that feeling. In this age of moisture-wicking socks and high-tech fabrics, we've lost that simple, heavenly feeling of the hand-knit sock. Such a shame.

My socks are a blend of wool, bamboo, and nylon. Still a far cry from the simple, scratchy wool that our fore-mothers knit with, but hey, that was a long time ago, and advances have to be made, right? But if you really want that simple, scratchy wool, you can still have it. You'd better have the 'ole pioneer foot to go with it, though.

So, here's to the humble, hand-knit sock. I'm going to love these. And I'm sure I'm going to join the ranks of all the other sock-knitters who have an obsession for these little architechtural wonders. I needed another hobby like a hole in the head. Thank goodness that it's still just.....knitting!

On My Lack of Blogging...and George

I know it's been months. I KNOW. What have I been doing?

Well, I've taken a detour. In September, I decided it was time to "date" again. Not that I needed to, really. I just decided that it would be fun, and I wanted to. To make a very long story short, I am now seeing an interesting man who I think is just marvelous. Trouble is, he's extremely guarded, and I don't believe for one second that he should be dating at all. My work is cut out for me...I need to escape from my feelings for him before I get really hurt badly. And that's not an easy thing for me to do.

I firmly believe that as emotionally guarded and detatched as he is, he needs someone just as much the exact opposite as him to love him. I am not sure if he would agree, but these kinds of people never see what they really need. They can only see what they don't want.

I care about him deeply. The loss would definetely be his if I walked away, but I am the only one that would feel the pain. Just to be fair, I will say that he has been straightforward and upfront with me from the very beginning. He wanted to "have fun", and of course, so did I. It's a known fact that men can "have fun" WAY longer than women can, and so here I am, wondering where the "fun" is going to backfire on my heart.

Why am I so wrapped up in this man? Many reasons. He's got my respect, for one HUGE thing. He's a PhD associate professor, an expert in his field in the USA and Europe, a musician, and a writer. He plays piano with the notes flowing from his fingers, and singing with him at the piano is nothing short of magic for me. I keep thinking it's the music most of all, but it's more. I love watching him think...watching the process, his face, his eyes. He is a brilliant man, and I love his smile, his laugh, and his quirkiness. He is the "fuddy professor", and I adore it.

So, the quagmire of emotions that he isn't able to feel is all over me. Because I can feel them all, no problem. And it's very dangerous.

I've decided to throw myself back into my work. Every indication has told me to do this all along, and I've trudged my way through, agreeing completely, but not being able to separate my thoughts from George in order to buckle down and get things done. This isn't healthy for me, and I have to knock it off. I am suffering, my resources are suffering, and why? It's ridiculous.

Working is good for me; it always has been. But in the back of my mind is this:

Counting Down the Days...

I simply cannot believe the summer is almost at the end. It seems like it never really came, come to think about it. The weather only got hot a handful of days, and a majority of those days, I was in the hospital, so I missed it all. Sheesh.

The kids will all be back in school next week. I can hardly get over it. I am a bit nervous as to how transportation will go; three kids in three different schools. I can get Rehanna and Conner to school, but Alex will have to be dragged along, only to come home and have a 45-minute-wait until his bus picks him up. I really hate dragging him out of bed for all that, but, as a single mom, this is what has to be done. Last year I had the wonderful blessing of respite care coming for an hour in the morning to stay with Alex, but she ended up getting herself fired after I found nude pictures of her on one of our computers. (sigh). I didn't mind her using the computer, but this was the kids' computer, and apparently those chats she was having online must've been pretty heated! I tried not to imagine what Conner would have said had he accidentally opened that folder of photos, which sat proudly on the desktop, bearing her name!!! What am I, a magnet for these people? I swear...

So anyway, I lost my "morning helper". Pfft. Yeeeaaah.

So, what have I been up to? Well, besides getting ready for the back to school rush, I have been working more hours at work, and there will be more to come. I have piles and piles of $150 jeans to hem. And after this weekend, there will be even more.

I've also be itching to knit something...anything! Every since my last shawl had to get dropped because I (gulp) ran out of yarn, I've not wanted to start anything else. All I have to do is just order another ball of the stupid yarn. Not hard. But I can't being myself to just order one ball of yarn from KnitPicks. It's just not done. KnitPicks orders always must be at least $50. It's an unwritten law. Now of course, there's like $300 I could spend there. But it just isn't the right time for that.

However, I came across this pattern today on Rav:

Now, I have like over 1000 yards of new handspun that I recently finished up. It is screaming to be this shawl. I swore I didn't want to make another shawl. I really wanted to do a sweater, even the one I've been designing. But nooooo. This pattern had to come along and change all that. Maybe if I at least get that last ball of yarn ordered for my other shawl, I will feel better about starting this one. Good logic? Maybe!

That's all for now...I know, terribly exciting, no?

Never Give Away Your Fat Pants...

I don't care how big they are. You will need them again, trust me.

I have two main pairs of fat pants. The biggest are black (of course) and made out of stretch terry knit (of course!). The second are some too-big blue jeans. Last Thursday I was very grateful for both pairs.

I hadn't been feeling good, and thought for sure that if I could just go to the bathroom, all would be well. You know how that story goes. Well, the bathroom was not my friend. I went to Wal-mart, school shopping for the kids with my mother, and thought to hit the pharmacy area to find some sort of medicine. I knew I had laxatives at home. So, I bought some anti-diarrheal. Figured I'd approach the problem from both sides, right? By now, the entire front of my torso was either stabbing in pain, or was so sore from being in pain that I could neither stand up straight or walk very fast. Walking, in fact, was a feat.

So I vowed that if it wasn't better by thursday morning, I would go to emergency. Well, it wasn't any better after a long sleepless night, and I went in. How I drove there, I have no idea. All I can recall about getting there was that someone saw me outside my car and brought me a wheelchair. I was standing there, clutching the car door, wondering how the hell I was gonna get from "A" to "B". But hey, if I keeled over in the parking lot of the emergency room I couldn't possibly be in a better place, right?

Long story short, I really had this thing all figured out before I went to the hospital. This was a kidney stone. HAD to be. I had all the right symptoms. I felt very positive that the doc would give me some pain meds, nicely tell me that I had to wait it out, pass the stone, and life would go on. Follow up with your doctor, miss. So I thought.

But my fave emergency room doc, Dr. Zuckerman (yes, just like the famous pig), sat down and informed me that "Ms. Benac, well...your a mess..." That was not a cool thing to hear. Turns out that something was possibly wrong with my gall bladder, I had an acute case of diverticulitis, and on top of everything, an ovarian cyst the size of a golf ball. When he told me they were going to keep me for "a couple days" I simply looked at him and said "WHAT???"

You see, this was NOT part of the whole kidney stone diagnosis I had done on myself. Damn.

So, in I went, and I was not happy. The Michigan Fiber Fest was in two days. I'd never be able to go. All of my saving and planning, down the tubes. What a total bummer.

It was a confusing time, to say the least. I waited to hear from doctors what on earth was happening with my body. Friday evening, I got up yet again to go pee, fed up with the damned IV and all the fluid it pumped through me. Of course, I had no complaints about the pain meds and antibiotics it also delivered! But sheesh, I was peeing like every half an hour. It was getting old. I had just gone, and the nurses arrived with a sheepish smile on their faces. "Do you think you could pee in a cup for us?" I wanted to snarl. But I was kind. It was only a matter of time before I could go again, anyway. The nurse said "well, it's just standard pre-op procedure, you know, they have to have a urine samp-...."

"Excuse me??" I said. "Back up a minute...did you say PRE-OP????" WHAT OPERATION?

The nurses got wide-eyed and looked at each other. "You mean, no one told you?" they asked. "Well, oh...we can't say anything else! The doctor hasn't been here?"

Noooo, no doc had come. No one except a charge nurse who had informed me that I couldn't eat anything because I might be having more "tests" that evening. Right as my dinner was being placed in front of me, it was wisked away. Buggers. But somehow the "test" had become surgery. and I had no idea for what. Well, soon I found out that they wanted to remove the ovarian cyst, and I was fine with that. Just wish I would've known. That would have been nice. I was in the hospital for a total of five days. I couldn't read, had no internet other than on my phone, and could do nothing but just lay there. It was worse than prison.

So, I now have two neat little incisions. One in my belly button, and one about three inches below it, each about one inch long. They are healing up very well. they glued them shut. Just amazing.

My fat pants have a place of honor in my life. When my tummy swelled up and hurt after surgery, my fat pants were there, in all their non-binding love for me. I'm doing fine now, and all my buddies and customers online were sending all the well-wishes they could muster. I felt them, guys! I really did! Thank you soooooo much!! You all made the pain and bitterness of missing the Fiber Fest a little easier to handle. Now it's back to life as I know it...

On Spiders and Tourette's Ticks...

Yes, such is the scourge of living by the lake. Shoreline spiders are just part of life. I have decided, though, that I actually prefer the bigger spiders over the hundreds of teeny, tiny ones that I turn my head and see all the time. Drives me nuts. The bigger ones you SEE, they startle you, you reach for the swatter, and BAM, they are dead. The little ones you squint and see, much to your alarm, that there are webs all over the place where, twenty minutes ago, there were none. Little freakin' buggers. Not to mention the outside of my house, which looks like a blender full of spider-crud barfed everywhere.

On another note, I finally found a bag for this enormous new computer I have. I have not been able to find anything that would fit a 17" laptop PC. I wanted something cool. Something different. I ran across this company called Isis Dei. Now, not only was the name cool...named after my favorite Goddess...but their products are awesome. This is the one I got:

Doncha just love the Isis statues all over it??! And this was not expensive either...amazing! I really wanted to make one, out of some cool Amy Butler fabric or something like that, but I couldn't find the high-density foam that would provide the protection I wanted. So, I figured I would have to spend $60 to $80 for a nice bag. But...not so! this one was less than thirty bucks!

Conner's been tick, tick, ticking away lately, like a time bomb. I always worry when I see him go off on a flinching, wincing, jerking, outburst-ing spree. Makes me wonder if he is worried about something, thinking about something in particular that is making him stressed. I know that his hormones are RULING his body right now, and probably that has a lot to do with it. But I worry. Being autistic is hard enough...add to that a bunch of uncontrolled jerking and loud vocalizing, and you have a recipe for a kid who just doesn't fit in. It makes me sad, but it also makes him so special. I love him so darned much.
On another note...I am gearing up for the Michigan fiber Fest! I am SO excited! I've got my new bags ready for storing the fleeces I get, and I have two payments put down on my drum carder. Eight more to go! I don't think I will have a ton of money to spend there, but I don't usually. I have two more dyeing opportunities to raise money for my little trip to Allegan, MI. However, I am getting my new 33-qt canner today from UPS! This means I can steam 12 packets at a time, which means I can put more up in my shop when I update. Yay!

Well, I am off. I have to work today, blech. But staying up late is taking it's toll. I wanna go back to bed. Instead, I should get on the bike and spin for a while. Like that's gonna happen??!!

Gearing Up...

What have I been doing? Well, lots of work...and I am loving it! With the launching of my ArtFire shop, I've gotten some wonderful orders, and they've kept me really, really busy. I've been encouraging my ladies to look through my "sold items" on Etsy, too...just about anything there can be dyed again. Where would I be without my recipes, eh?!

Upon discovering Colourlovers.com a couple months ago, I am finally getting into it. For anyone who puts colors together, for any reason, this site is worth it's weight in gold! (If you are typing it in manually instead of following the link, please note the British spelling of the word "colour"). Dyeing up new colorways is always exciting for me. Will they come out like I saw them in my head? Will the colors all run together and make MUD?? Or something beautiful?? These are a bunch of new colorways, going to the Etsy shop tonight:

Sometime I HATE what the rovings look like when I take them out of the steaming pots. It puts me in a really foul mood. Just ask my daughter! But somehow, as they dry overnight, they take on a new life, and almost a new appearance to my eye.

One thing I know for sure...with all these orders, I desperately need another 33-qt canning pot with rack. I'm just gonna have to spring for one. I can't find one on freecycle or Craigslist. Seems like everyone is hanging onto their mom's big pot! I thought for sure I'd be able to find one, but maybe more and more people are discoving the appeal of canning and preserving. Not a bad thing in this day and age...

And now that I've finished spinning Jackie-the Alpacie, I've been throwing all sorts of wool onto the wheel! i just finished spinning up the first of three bundles of roving that I got from the Red Barn Farm from eBay. What LOVELY wool! And the price was amazing! It came out to be like $1.87 per ounce! Here's the original combed top, called "Emerald Purple":

And here is the spun yarn...380 yards from 4 oz. After soaking and finishing, it should come up to be a heavy fingering or DK weight:

And here's some other spinning, too. the beige one is a free fiber sample from Carol at Sheep Shed. The delicious green is from a pound of alpaca/wool roving that I got in Davisburg at the Alpaca Show in May, and the large skein is my very own colorway "Little Traverse Bay"...a gorgeous merino that spun up like a dreeeaam:

Little Traverse has some really interesting colors that seems to flow out of it as I spun...colors that I intend on dyeing up into beautiful colorway. Where the dark red and teal blended, a beautiful plum color came up, and mixed with the touches of toffee, it was just beautiful. I don't know if I can sell this one. Just don't know!

Coming in just a couple weeks is the Michigan Fiber Fest! This will be my first time going, and I can't wait to see so many of my Michigan buddies from Rav. Plus, this will be my first time buying fresh fleeces that I intend to take home and process completely myself. I bought two fleeces in Maine, but left them there with a processor, as I don't think that my fellow airplane passengers would have appreciated the smell of a sheep barnyard on the flight! The fleeces wouldn't have fit in the luggage compartment anyway...although I think I could have stuffed them up there. That's a sure-fire way to get a compartment all to yourself, huh??!! "Oh, sorry about yout suitcase, sir...no biggie, that's just a little bit of sheep poop. What's you're problem??"

And by September, I should have my drum carder!! I have put one in layway, and I'm so excited! I can't wait to be able to blend fibers and colors into beautiful, subtle creations. Here's the one I am getting:

It's not just about having another product to sell. It's about seeing how my colors mix and interact, and adjusting accordingly. It's about being one step closer to the process of spinning, and/or felting. Applying color to fiber is simple enough. But those colors blend visually as you spin, and unexpected things can happen. This drum carder is going to be SUCH an asset to me!

Okay, I'm off! The daughter wants to go to the state park (Sterling) for me to take nice photos of her for her MySpace. There might even be a nice pic or two of the both of us!

Some Beefs on my Way Out the Door...

Okay, so everyone has to just GRIPE sometimes, right? And yes, I know...if these are my biggest problems of my week, I'll be doing GREAT. I know. I know....

1. On the way to the post office my A/C fan dies. AGAIN. Just had it fixed last week. How hot is it today? 90 degrees. Yuppers. And now I have to dash off to the eye doctor. There's gonna be some sweaty eyes for her to look at...

2. Shipping charges. Now I have a REALY BIG beef here. I ordered yarn from a company. They pull the cones off the shelf, throw them in a box, and slap a label on. 4 Lbs. OVER TEN DOLLARS for UPS shipping. Second scenario: I order 13 Lbs of wool that has to be pulled out, WEIGHED, packaged in plastic, and put in a box to ship. And this is for EACH TYPE of wool ordered. Package is about 14 pounds total...cost? About $14. Now you tell me...WHY does the 4 pounds thrown into a box cost over TEN BUCKS? And the distance for shipping, by the way, is about the SAME. Next scenario: A piece of software from Jo-Ann.com. Literally, a CD case. $9.95 for shipping. Are you kidding?? Shipping is always a bone of contention. I know, as a seller, that I have to cover way more than just the cost of shipping itself. There are the boxes and bags to cover, and other stuff. But come on, get REAL.

3. You know my spinning stool that I endured immense stupidity to get? I hate it. HATE IT. I'm going to Ikea to get one. What am I gonna do with this? I dunno. Put it in the closet for extra dinner seating. For all the dinners I don't cook. Yeah.

4. That's all!