Not as busy and happier for it...
Reposted from woolwytch.com
The Diva's dance intensive workshop is done, and now it's just M-F with one to two classes a day vs M-F with two to three classes a day... less driving and it's giving me time to work on more spinning. I still haven't figured out the espinner for reverse, but am going to hold off on doing plying for a bit anyhow. I have a nibble on the HitchHiker, and if it works out and I can figure out what I'm selling it for then I'll have the expense of the espinner covered at least. In the mean time I'm spinning like a fool and putting the new spinner through it's paces. I've gotten about a mile of yarn spun and will need to get another swift soon to be able to put it into skeins properly so it can be measured and dyed.
I have to get my craft room cleaned up - it's a mess right now as it's become a storage room from hell. I have a dance costume to make for the Diva, as well as setting up space for drying yarn and getting a general workshop in order. I have a carpeted floor in there and am considering getting some roll out carpets to lay atop for a couple of reasons, protecting the base carpet, insulation in the winter - the flooring really ins't that well insulated in that room and it's open to the elements in a bit of a garage/shed underneath and gets down right frigid there in the winter. Of course the weather is perfect for doing that today but I feel like crud due to allergies so I'm going to let the benedryl take me away for a while before I go back to anything productive.
Then - probably back to spinning so I can get through the rest of this bump of Ramboullet and cake it up to let the twist set. I find that when I've caked it to set, I have better control anyhow when it's being plied. I still have so many bags of wool to spin that are just waiting for me, not to mention the dyed superwash that it's almost a little intimidating and makes the spinning for relaxation not as relaxing as it should be. Once I get through the custom order then I'll be good.
The best thing I've discovered is I can read while spinning thanks to my Nook, who'd have thought that Ebooks could be so fantastic? I'm not as big a fan of audio books, as I prefer to be able to put my own stamp on the voices of the characters vs someone else version of them.
I have read over 13 books in less than a month, and as I can get my hands on them, I plan on reading many many more - currently I'm in a Jim Butcher phase having read all the Diana Gabaldon I had in my e-reader. The Gutenberg Project is a fantastic site filled with free ebooks, and I'm finding some of the Science Fiction I read when the library was just a tiny tiny closet of the community center in Black Canyon City, Arizona as a teen... Once I get done with the Dresden novels by Butcher, I'll be starting of course with Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper.
I fell in love with the series when I was a kid, and the town I lived in at that time was predominately a retirement town, so my options for escape were limited. I chose into books and have never regretted it. I am delighted that I can pass this love to my children, and that I've found texts that I can read to Calvin and the Diva that encourage that love as well.