spaazliciousThursday, September 01, 2005
Woo-hoo! and lots of chatter.
Remember, way back when I was employed and I mentioned I was in love with someone I worked with? Well, because Nick is an understanding and patient man, he's allowed me to bring this object of my affection into our home:
I love everything about this dog but his silly name: Snowball. retch.
He's a total goofball, who doesn't look much like a greyhound at all but has the tattoos anyway.
La Mesa hasn't changed its doglaws, and we are still renters, so he's "just" a foster, but he'll probably be with us for a long time, because he's not your "typical greyhound" that your "typical adopter" will be seeking (like Jasper) and I love love love him, so his leash may have to be pried from my snot&tear-stained-tissue-filled hand when the time comes.
Or not.
His farts are pretty rank. ;p
So, another natural disaster has occurred and it is truly awful and has displaced many people. The links to give are everywhere. So this month for giving to any one but a Katrina-related cause is probably out, but if you are like me there is a different charity each month and you give what you can afford (it's my karma-savings program) and I was hoping to mention that Heifer.org has a matching grant opportunity with a deadline of October 25th.
So, mark it on your calendar please, and if anyone out there happens to have some spare cash to give please consider doing so. I love matching gifts, because "doubling your money" is a great feeling.
And if you're local to the Southern California area, the Greyhound Adoption Center is having a birthday party fundraiser which should be fun.
Look in the dictionary, and next to the word "boring," you'll find:
Thankfully, the solution(s) resided in the teeny cupboard above our fridge:
1,050 metres of laceweight from that four ounce bobbin ( I don't know what the weight really is, I just know I got too damn bored to keep on with it well before the bobbin was full) plus a big fatty skein made from most of the leftovers of the dog-savaged BFL from which I made the laceweight stuff.
I'm going to make cabled yarns from six of the seven skeins, to see what the different effects might come from the different ways of plying the S twist yarns together. SSZ, SZS, and SZZ. (meaning S twist singles, plied whatever direction, plied back in whatever direction from two ends of the first whatever direction ball) Might be interesting. Juno asked about making a cabled yarn and since when I first read about making a cabled yarn I could have sworn the directions were different than the ones I found online I figured I'd play around.
So I'm going to see if you can get to Cabletown via three different roads (long as you're driving the S twist car, I was too lazy to fll a bobbin with Z twist single. Though I suppose I should, I read in Spin Span Spun that Z twist yarns are considered good luck, or good in warding off evil.)
Tussah silk isn't really my favourite thing. But I have some, and I dyed it up to spin it fine for plying with something else, and I was just wondering:
"How do I get my dyed Tussah roving to end the dyeing process looking like these when I'm done?" I don't mean the colourways, I mean the fluffy lushness of the shine. Mine always come out looking like crushed crepe.
Also, that wasn't the original link I wanted to post, there's a site out there that has handpainted tussah rovings that they photograph in a sort of fiber butterfly, but I couldn't find them again, but their photos REALLY shine and look lovely and lush.
If anyone can read my mind and knows who I'm talking about, please forward the link. Quite lovely. But so's the "silkworker" site, plus very informative.
Anyway, my silk rovings never seem so lush. Even after a lot of "popping" (drafting and fluffing) the fiber, it still feels "meh." And produces an inelastic unsoft single with kind of a begrudging shine. And my dyed tussah roving looks like clown brain matter:
While we were staying at my Mom's, Bush Jr. was in town. (I wondered what all that honking was about until I turned on the news and saw "LIVE" and a ton of protestors on the street ["Protest Warriors" who essentially protest the protestors who protest against the war] where my mother lives. So that's what all that honking was about. Lovely.)
I took a TON of photos of his rockstar entourage --about twenty-five vehicles, not including the marked police escort vehicles, definitely exceeding the local speed limit and backing up traffic on the main road for almost a half hour while the road was closed so they'd be the only traffic on the route. Which makes sense: it would be a bummer to lose the Coronado-San Diego Bay Bridge just because some dumbass thought killing the President would actually solve anything--but this is the only photo I kept from that session. I was going to post something something snarky about politics and puppet presidents, but decided I'd stick with what makes me happy to see and think about:
Here's Belu, wondering what the big deal is:
If you've been reading this blog for a long time, you might remember when we went to Oaxaca and Chiapas.
We "did" Oaxaca on our own, but Chiapas with Eric Mindling and a group.
Eric has a South Coast of Oaxaca trip coming up in November that still had a couple of spots left the last I heard. Eric puts together nice trips, you stay in nice places (but not so plush you feel guilty and disconnected) and the groups and activities are fun. The days are full of activities, but there are free periods to use however you wish and there's not much rushing (it's Mexico, after all) and some good food with regularity.
Don't worry if you don't speak Spanish, once you get down to Puerto Escondido and meet up with the group you don't have to know a single word if you don't want to (¡pero qué lástima si eso es la verdad!) and getting to P.E. is fairly easy. And while I always thought I was never one for "group tours," we were definitely able to see and do things we would not have been able to arrange or been comfortable doing on our own.
I'd love to go, but Nick's vacay starts right after it ends, so, "oh well."
Anyway, if you're intrigued, check his tours out at his Traditions Mexico pages.
Sigh, I love Mexico, and these trips are an easy way to learn a lot about the country, the people, and the arts in a very short and comfortable time.
I have an Imagestation album of our Oaxaca and Chiapas trip, feel free to peruse it. If you don't already have an imagestation album just type "dogsweater" as the login and password.
Here's a table of contents, in case you are on dial-up and wish to utilise the "index" feature:
Oaxaca City 1-34,
Huatulco and traveling via air back to Oaxaca City 35-47,
Back in Oaxaca City: Art gallery and Monte Álban & San Martín Tilcajete 48-86,
Chiapas pics/group tour pics begin: Palenque 87-143,
Agua Clara 144-154,
villages in Chiapas 155-170,
Chincultic and the Hacienda Santa Maria 171-189,
Chamula's graveyard and a day in Tenejapa (weaving) 190-214,
San Cristóbal (my absolute favourite city in Mexico so far, stay and eat at El Paraiso) 215-222,
around San Andres (wasn't a good idea to take pics in the town, but it was fun. We went on market day and the smells made my stomach churn. I bought six balls of unlabeled acrylic yarn for the sheer hell of it, and for thirty pesos [like $2.80] and there was a woman selling spindles but I did not buy any) 223-225,
a master at net bag making demonstrates getting the ixtle fiber from the maguey leaf 226-236, and the last pics from our group tour.
We went back to Mexico City after that for a day and took 2 not so great pics of Mexico City's Museum of Anthropology's exhibit of Mayan textiles, which Chip Morris helped put together but was uncredited for and the cool fountain they have in the center of their building, 238-240. I could spend days in that museum.
I haven't posted one of these in a while but I saw it on Christine's blog and I had to take it. Hooray! I'm syphilis! I always knew it! I have eaten the brains of rulers and peasants!
Which Horrible Affliction are you?
A Rum and Monkey disease.
|
I love everything about this dog but his silly name: Snowball. retch.
He's a total goofball, who doesn't look much like a greyhound at all but has the tattoos anyway.
La Mesa hasn't changed its doglaws, and we are still renters, so he's "just" a foster, but he'll probably be with us for a long time, because he's not your "typical greyhound" that your "typical adopter" will be seeking (like Jasper) and I love love love him, so his leash may have to be pried from my snot&tear-stained-tissue-filled hand when the time comes.
Or not.
His farts are pretty rank. ;p
Charitable Giving
So, another natural disaster has occurred and it is truly awful and has displaced many people. The links to give are everywhere. So this month for giving to any one but a Katrina-related cause is probably out, but if you are like me there is a different charity each month and you give what you can afford (it's my karma-savings program) and I was hoping to mention that Heifer.org has a matching grant opportunity with a deadline of October 25th.
So, mark it on your calendar please, and if anyone out there happens to have some spare cash to give please consider doing so. I love matching gifts, because "doubling your money" is a great feeling.
And if you're local to the Southern California area, the Greyhound Adoption Center is having a birthday party fundraiser which should be fun.
Yarniness
Look in the dictionary, and next to the word "boring," you'll find:
Thankfully, the solution(s) resided in the teeny cupboard above our fridge:
1,050 metres of laceweight from that four ounce bobbin ( I don't know what the weight really is, I just know I got too damn bored to keep on with it well before the bobbin was full) plus a big fatty skein made from most of the leftovers of the dog-savaged BFL from which I made the laceweight stuff.
I'm going to make cabled yarns from six of the seven skeins, to see what the different effects might come from the different ways of plying the S twist yarns together. SSZ, SZS, and SZZ. (meaning S twist singles, plied whatever direction, plied back in whatever direction from two ends of the first whatever direction ball) Might be interesting. Juno asked about making a cabled yarn and since when I first read about making a cabled yarn I could have sworn the directions were different than the ones I found online I figured I'd play around.
So I'm going to see if you can get to Cabletown via three different roads (long as you're driving the S twist car, I was too lazy to fll a bobbin with Z twist single. Though I suppose I should, I read in Spin Span Spun that Z twist yarns are considered good luck, or good in warding off evil.)
Fiber Question
Tussah silk isn't really my favourite thing. But I have some, and I dyed it up to spin it fine for plying with something else, and I was just wondering:
"How do I get my dyed Tussah roving to end the dyeing process looking like these when I'm done?" I don't mean the colourways, I mean the fluffy lushness of the shine. Mine always come out looking like crushed crepe.
Also, that wasn't the original link I wanted to post, there's a site out there that has handpainted tussah rovings that they photograph in a sort of fiber butterfly, but I couldn't find them again, but their photos REALLY shine and look lovely and lush.
If anyone can read my mind and knows who I'm talking about, please forward the link. Quite lovely. But so's the "silkworker" site, plus very informative.
Anyway, my silk rovings never seem so lush. Even after a lot of "popping" (drafting and fluffing) the fiber, it still feels "meh." And produces an inelastic unsoft single with kind of a begrudging shine. And my dyed tussah roving looks like clown brain matter:
Gratuitous photo
While we were staying at my Mom's, Bush Jr. was in town. (I wondered what all that honking was about until I turned on the news and saw "LIVE" and a ton of protestors on the street ["Protest Warriors" who essentially protest the protestors who protest against the war] where my mother lives. So that's what all that honking was about. Lovely.)
I took a TON of photos of his rockstar entourage --about twenty-five vehicles, not including the marked police escort vehicles, definitely exceeding the local speed limit and backing up traffic on the main road for almost a half hour while the road was closed so they'd be the only traffic on the route. Which makes sense: it would be a bummer to lose the Coronado-San Diego Bay Bridge just because some dumbass thought killing the President would actually solve anything--but this is the only photo I kept from that session. I was going to post something something snarky about politics and puppet presidents, but decided I'd stick with what makes me happy to see and think about:
Here's Belu, wondering what the big deal is:
Fiber-related Travel
If you've been reading this blog for a long time, you might remember when we went to Oaxaca and Chiapas.
We "did" Oaxaca on our own, but Chiapas with Eric Mindling and a group.
Eric has a South Coast of Oaxaca trip coming up in November that still had a couple of spots left the last I heard. Eric puts together nice trips, you stay in nice places (but not so plush you feel guilty and disconnected) and the groups and activities are fun. The days are full of activities, but there are free periods to use however you wish and there's not much rushing (it's Mexico, after all) and some good food with regularity.
Don't worry if you don't speak Spanish, once you get down to Puerto Escondido and meet up with the group you don't have to know a single word if you don't want to (¡pero qué lástima si eso es la verdad!) and getting to P.E. is fairly easy. And while I always thought I was never one for "group tours," we were definitely able to see and do things we would not have been able to arrange or been comfortable doing on our own.
I'd love to go, but Nick's vacay starts right after it ends, so, "oh well."
Anyway, if you're intrigued, check his tours out at his Traditions Mexico pages.
Sigh, I love Mexico, and these trips are an easy way to learn a lot about the country, the people, and the arts in a very short and comfortable time.
I have an Imagestation album of our Oaxaca and Chiapas trip, feel free to peruse it. If you don't already have an imagestation album just type "dogsweater" as the login and password.
Here's a table of contents, in case you are on dial-up and wish to utilise the "index" feature:
Oaxaca City 1-34,
Huatulco and traveling via air back to Oaxaca City 35-47,
Back in Oaxaca City: Art gallery and Monte Álban & San Martín Tilcajete 48-86,
Chiapas pics/group tour pics begin: Palenque 87-143,
Agua Clara 144-154,
villages in Chiapas 155-170,
Chincultic and the Hacienda Santa Maria 171-189,
Chamula's graveyard and a day in Tenejapa (weaving) 190-214,
San Cristóbal (my absolute favourite city in Mexico so far, stay and eat at El Paraiso) 215-222,
around San Andres (wasn't a good idea to take pics in the town, but it was fun. We went on market day and the smells made my stomach churn. I bought six balls of unlabeled acrylic yarn for the sheer hell of it, and for thirty pesos [like $2.80] and there was a woman selling spindles but I did not buy any) 223-225,
a master at net bag making demonstrates getting the ixtle fiber from the maguey leaf 226-236, and the last pics from our group tour.
We went back to Mexico City after that for a day and took 2 not so great pics of Mexico City's Museum of Anthropology's exhibit of Mayan textiles, which Chip Morris helped put together but was uncredited for and the cool fountain they have in the center of their building, 238-240. I could spend days in that museum.
Random
I haven't posted one of these in a while but I saw it on Christine's blog and I had to take it. Hooray! I'm syphilis! I always knew it! I have eaten the brains of rulers and peasants!
Which Horrible Affliction are you?
A Rum and Monkey disease.
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