spaazliciousFriday, July 22, 2005
sweaty, sweaty, sweaty, sweaty, sweaty, sweaty...
Add my complaints to the pile of "It's HOT"s out there. It seems very stupid of me to have this heat-creating computer all fired up and going, but hey, "stupid" is a theme I celebrate.
Good, now that we've got the weather out of the way...
++++Drama in the Laundry Room++++
If I didn't already know Mandy's Zak rocks, I know it now. He provided an answer to the spider Q with a site cite, just in case I thought he was talking out of his ass. It is a "a female spider of the family Pholcidae (who is carrying her egg sac)" indeed.
I love it when the internet and people with better search engine skills provide answers to life's tough questions. Especially since she seems to have stashed the eggs somewhere, so I'd have no clear answers to provide otherwise. She and a slightly smaller, weedier-looking spider (her mate I'm assuming) have set up a new web between my washer and the wall. In the path to the detergent unfortunately, so they'll have to be moved as I can remember to not walk right through their web for only so long. And I'd hate to orphan an egg sac so young. Especially since they eat other bigger, badder spiders like black widows and (I'm hoping) brown recluses.
There was a (suspected) brown recluse and egg sac in our shower window last month. I sprayed her with simple green until she stopped moving, and she waited until I was rinsing the shampoo from my hair before flinging her dying body at me. I shrieked like a cub scout and hosed her down the drain.
Where she waits again. And plots.
++++Spinning++++
No matter what anybody says, you can get five ounces on a Lendrum bobbin. It's just not a very good idea (it makes treadling a little bit harder, and the take gets less smooth):
I only pushed it so far because this was my last of four bobbins of the mainly blue-sort of green pound of BFL for my fake Noro for a Butterfly. Still, I gave up and put the less than an ounce
(it looks like more because it's fluffed on the seat cushion) on the one other bobbin of it I hadn't skeined up yet.
Next up, the mostly green-sort of blue other pound of BFL.
As fake Noro, my yarn kind of fails because
1)the colours aren't as bright
2)the differences between the colours isn't very dramatic
3)it's spun thick and thin --and while Noro has its slubs, mine are on purpose and the variety in thickness is a bit wider because I still find that more interesting to work with and I like the way it looks.
I also left out the vm, the sericin, and the scratchiness of Noro. Hopefully, the pronenesss to pilling too, but I think with a single it'll be up to me to knit it a little tighter to avoid it. The fibers are relatively long and the amount of twist is relatively high, but I wanted it to be somewhat bouncy and soft, so we'll see.
I suppose I should worry about the biasing it will do, but...meh. Vamos a ver (we will see).
Four skeins, total of one pound, approximately 908 yards which according to this handy chart just puts it into worsted weight. Roughly 57 yards per ounce means 100.32 yards per 50g versus Noro Silk Garden's 110yds/50g, which means I'm off by 10yds/50g which could be a big deal over the whole of the project, but I'm happy because I actually wanted to make it a little heavier as I'm a slightly loose knitter and wanted a slightly tighter knit for anti-pilling purposes. Of course, it's counting chicks before they hatch since I haven't even swatched a sample. Right now this is how I feel about swatching.
Anyway, here's the four waiting to have their twist steam set. Waiting until it's less than 300ºC.
You can tell the difference in the first skeins spun (the outer) because 1) they've relaxed and puffed out after having been off the bobbin for a while 2) they're darker because the first part of the roving was darker.
++++Knitting++++
I'd been knitting a bit here and there on the Tivoli T while I read the new Harry Potter. But not so much since, because, well, I think I enjoy spinning more, even when it's this hot.
++++Other Stuff++++
I was talking to my brother (last week?) and he and the Doog were at a street festival in Anchorage and he was having a great time listening to this Australian one man band guy.
"Rudd? I think that's his name," my brother said.
And then when I browse around the NPR site to find something interesting to listen to while doin' stuff, I find this. And he is fun. I love me some didgeridoodly-dandiness.
I also saw this news story about the police chasing down a guy wearing a heavy coat despite the heat and, well, do you think this witness Mark Whitby reads a lot of lurid fiction? Bolding mine:
C'mon, is it because he's British? Not "chased" but hotly pursued, presumed, not "thought" or "guessed", plainclothes, not undercover, "officers" not cops (or bobbies, do they still say "bobbies"?) half-tripped , not "stumbled" or just plain "tripped"? And what's with wielding? When was the last time you saw that word outside porn or pulp? I'm not even going to go into that last bit, but damn, he counted the shots and framed some serious "cops as bad guys" language in there. This guy isn't some shocked and over-excited witness, he's worked out how he's going to tell his story and (if he was an American I'd bet a pinky toe [why not? they've become chubby with age anyway]) to whom he's going to sell it. Anyway, it struck me as odd. Maybe because I'm reading LeHane's Mystic River and the word choice/plausibility factor pops up there. Or maybe I've succumbed to some stereotypical American paranoid xenophobia. Who knows? (Who cares?)
P.S. I feel like I'm somehow ripping off Too Much Wool with the spider posts. Click the link to see a much freakier looking spider. We have some spiders around here that look kind of like that, and I saw one down by the laundry room last night. When I went to take a pic though, it was gone, probably hiding from the heat like I should have been. I thought I'd check on the lovebirds and found that the smaller weedy-looking spider has been replaced by this fatass (fat-ab):
I wonder if the smaller one ran off or was eaten?
|
Good, now that we've got the weather out of the way...
If I didn't already know Mandy's Zak rocks, I know it now. He provided an answer to the spider Q with a site cite, just in case I thought he was talking out of his ass. It is a "a female spider of the family Pholcidae (who is carrying her egg sac)" indeed.
I love it when the internet and people with better search engine skills provide answers to life's tough questions. Especially since she seems to have stashed the eggs somewhere, so I'd have no clear answers to provide otherwise. She and a slightly smaller, weedier-looking spider (her mate I'm assuming) have set up a new web between my washer and the wall. In the path to the detergent unfortunately, so they'll have to be moved as I can remember to not walk right through their web for only so long. And I'd hate to orphan an egg sac so young. Especially since they eat other bigger, badder spiders like black widows and (I'm hoping) brown recluses.
There was a (suspected) brown recluse and egg sac in our shower window last month. I sprayed her with simple green until she stopped moving, and she waited until I was rinsing the shampoo from my hair before flinging her dying body at me. I shrieked like a cub scout and hosed her down the drain.
Where she waits again. And plots.
No matter what anybody says, you can get five ounces on a Lendrum bobbin. It's just not a very good idea (it makes treadling a little bit harder, and the take gets less smooth):
I only pushed it so far because this was my last of four bobbins of the mainly blue-sort of green pound of BFL for my fake Noro for a Butterfly. Still, I gave up and put the less than an ounce
(it looks like more because it's fluffed on the seat cushion) on the one other bobbin of it I hadn't skeined up yet.
Next up, the mostly green-sort of blue other pound of BFL.
As fake Noro, my yarn kind of fails because
1)the colours aren't as bright
2)the differences between the colours isn't very dramatic
3)it's spun thick and thin --and while Noro has its slubs, mine are on purpose and the variety in thickness is a bit wider because I still find that more interesting to work with and I like the way it looks.
I also left out the vm, the sericin, and the scratchiness of Noro. Hopefully, the pronenesss to pilling too, but I think with a single it'll be up to me to knit it a little tighter to avoid it. The fibers are relatively long and the amount of twist is relatively high, but I wanted it to be somewhat bouncy and soft, so we'll see.
I suppose I should worry about the biasing it will do, but...meh. Vamos a ver (we will see).
Four skeins, total of one pound, approximately 908 yards which according to this handy chart just puts it into worsted weight. Roughly 57 yards per ounce means 100.32 yards per 50g versus Noro Silk Garden's 110yds/50g, which means I'm off by 10yds/50g which could be a big deal over the whole of the project, but I'm happy because I actually wanted to make it a little heavier as I'm a slightly loose knitter and wanted a slightly tighter knit for anti-pilling purposes. Of course, it's counting chicks before they hatch since I haven't even swatched a sample. Right now this is how I feel about swatching.
Anyway, here's the four waiting to have their twist steam set. Waiting until it's less than 300ºC.
You can tell the difference in the first skeins spun (the outer) because 1) they've relaxed and puffed out after having been off the bobbin for a while 2) they're darker because the first part of the roving was darker.
I'd been knitting a bit here and there on the Tivoli T while I read the new Harry Potter. But not so much since, because, well, I think I enjoy spinning more, even when it's this hot.
I was talking to my brother (last week?) and he and the Doog were at a street festival in Anchorage and he was having a great time listening to this Australian one man band guy.
"Rudd? I think that's his name," my brother said.
And then when I browse around the NPR site to find something interesting to listen to while doin' stuff, I find this. And he is fun. I love me some didgeridoodly-dandiness.
I also saw this news story about the police chasing down a guy wearing a heavy coat despite the heat and, well, do you think this witness Mark Whitby reads a lot of lurid fiction? Bolding mine:
"He was hotly pursued by what I presumed were three plainclothes police officers. One of them was wielding a black handgun. He half-tripped as he run into the carriage, they pushed him to the floor and basically unloaded five shots into him."
C'mon, is it because he's British? Not "chased" but hotly pursued, presumed, not "thought" or "guessed", plainclothes, not undercover, "officers" not cops (or bobbies, do they still say "bobbies"?) half-tripped , not "stumbled" or just plain "tripped"? And what's with wielding? When was the last time you saw that word outside porn or pulp? I'm not even going to go into that last bit, but damn, he counted the shots and framed some serious "cops as bad guys" language in there. This guy isn't some shocked and over-excited witness, he's worked out how he's going to tell his story and (if he was an American I'd bet a pinky toe [why not? they've become chubby with age anyway]) to whom he's going to sell it. Anyway, it struck me as odd. Maybe because I'm reading LeHane's Mystic River and the word choice/plausibility factor pops up there. Or maybe I've succumbed to some stereotypical American paranoid xenophobia. Who knows? (Who cares?)
P.S. I feel like I'm somehow ripping off Too Much Wool with the spider posts. Click the link to see a much freakier looking spider. We have some spiders around here that look kind of like that, and I saw one down by the laundry room last night. When I went to take a pic though, it was gone, probably hiding from the heat like I should have been. I thought I'd check on the lovebirds and found that the smaller weedy-looking spider has been replaced by this fatass (fat-ab):
I wonder if the smaller one ran off or was eaten?
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