I never would have thunk it.

Well, it has been a snakes on a plane kind of weekend here at the Mount Olympus of chickendom. Saturday started with my weekly date with the needle guy. My left shoulder was acting up big time (post migraine, 2 lost days of my life) and I decided to tell my TCM doc about it in case he had a suggestion to help ease the pain. Well, all I can say is that even if I hadn't been an acupuncture convert before, which I was, I would be now because the man whipped out some Chinese magic or something, and next thing you know I was fixed. Fixed! No pain, nothing. Freakin amazing. And you know what he did? One needle. In my right ankle. For my left shoulder. Magic, I tell you! I don't understand, I just believe.

So now I am ready to use my nifty new spindle at the demo for the Fayetteville Library that was scheduled that afternoon with my SCA group. Here is a lovely picture of me all rentarded:

That's me in the middle. Do you see the spindle? No, you don't. And do you know why? Because it rained, cats and dogs, and then the ground steamed gently for a good long while after that. Somehow it never occured to me that wool was hair and that the same weather that would cause a bad hair day would bring about a bad wool day, but there it is. I did try to spin, but the roving was sticky and kept frizzing out in my hands. I mean blow out kit frizz. Almost like static electricity would do, only more soggy and less shocky. So I packed up the spindle and the wool until a friendlier atmosphere could be found, and joined the rest of the ladies under the dayshade-become-sweat lodge while our men fetched us cool drinks and ice cream. Not so medieval, the ice cream, but very very welcome.

From there we headed off to Grantville, to have dinner with an old friend who opened a pizza restaurant there.

This is Nick Sasso, who along with his wife Kim owns Nick's Pizza Stop which has the best pizza I have eaten since I moved to Atlanta 13 years ago. No joke. I would make the drive again for more of that, and the dessert we had of fried brownies, bananas foster and cheesecake would bring peace to the world if we can just work out the distribution plan...

So no spinning, and very little knitting, no exciting impromptu knitblogger meetups like last Sunday when I met Mouse, Jane and Sandy in person at Knitch, but deep fried desserts have their own charm, I can assure you.

There is plenty of knitting in the future, though, as I have a date with Amtrak next week, and all the fixings for a 22+ hour knitting extravaganza. Look for train knitting reports to come. And next time you're in Grantville Georgia, head over to Main Street for some great pizza, and tell Nick hi for me.

Fox in the henhouse.

Todays' plans were all cancelled by 11am and I found myself with a free day. Knitch, the new LYS on the block is about 3 blocks away from my TCM practitioner's office, so that was the first stop in my newly liberated schedule. It is a really wonderful place, and like last week I went right after acupuncture, which leaves me really woozy for a few hours after. That must be why I found myself leaving the shop an hour later armed for a brand new battle. At least that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Don't ask me how this happened. I am not a spinner. At least this morning I wasn't. Now, though, I think I just might be. Plus, there is something delightfully perverse in being a chickengoddess and spinning on a spindle named the Fox. Actually there's a really good reason why this happened. Next weekend I am helping with a demo for a library down in Fayetteville. Their summer reading program has adopted a medieval theme this year and the SCA group I belong to agreed to do a demo for them. I had originally planned to knit in the round, which is perfectly medieval, but it is too freaking hot to have a bunch of wool in my lap. I also thought that knitting would be mighty boring for kids to watch, but spinning (even bad beginner spinning) would be more interesting, and I could let kids try it too. Anyway, I am having fun practicing and I can see where I might like to take a spinning class at some point.

So that brought me to lunchtime, after which I picked up the old Fair Isle Sampler Hat and went to town. Made a good bit of progress and man, I am loving the colorwork.

Wish I had a few more days like today, but alas, I must return to my regularly scheduled insanity. It was fun while it lasted, though.

Where is time going?

Wow, time flies when you are being worked to death (but the paychecks look pretty good.)

Here's the update of my status. Frustrated, but not too badly. Work is taking a huge toll. We are growing the business and so have 2 new facilities to service. At the same time we have lost 3 employees, gained 2 (that math says that May will be rough too) and had lots of people out due to family emergencies. When you work for a company with less than 20 employees, that sort of stuff is devastating.

It is also spring, which means grass starts needing to be cut and the pond is breaking dormancy. It also means chickens will be here soon. Oh yeah, and the cats are shedding. I have eight cats. My living room floor becomes like unto a vast plain with herds of dust buffalo and fur tumbleweeds everywhere. There is no vaccuuming frequently enough. Ya just gotta let it go, or else you become neurotic and burn out the vaccuum.

So, knitting has been in fits and starts, and sometimes not at all. I have learned that I do not like knitting with distractions. At all. I mean beyond the normal background distractions of regular knitting at home. Cats jumping on you or falling asleep on top of the yarn, phone ringing, etc. The Husband and I went to an SCA event last weekend where I planned to knit all day on the turkish stockings. I have never been so distracted in my life. I probably got less than an inch done and screwed it up. I have had no desire at the end of an extra long work day with an hour and a half commute home through Braves traffic to even attempt to knit for the 14 minutes I have left before I fall asleep standing up. The days are longer and longer - you'd think there would at least be an illusion of having more time.

I did however, get in some undyed Opal for the Dye-o-rama swap, and bought some commercial acid dyes and Kool Aid for experimentation purposes (yes, in my copious free time I am going to dye yarn). And the chickens will be here sometime this month. And I am fairly certain knitting will occur eventually. I have to admit, though, that the thought of summer in the south with a lapfull of wool is not very appealing.

Chickens!!!!

One thing still works...

Colorwork. For some reason, while I can't knit plain stockinette in a single color, I have made a bit of progress with the turkish stocking. Can't explain it, but there it is. I did realize that trying to knit the stocking toe up and learn colorwork at the same time was self defeating, and since I think I can produce the same sock knitting it from the top down, I'm going to go with my strengths and do it backwards. I am pretty happy with my slow progress...

Now, the book, which really supposes you know a hell of a lot more about sock knitting that I do, says the original sock has a "hybrid" heel. I have no earthly idea what that is, and I am not sure it is even something that can be done properly if you knit the sock any way but toe up, so I'm going out on a limb with an inserted heel, which I hope will preserve the sillhouette of the sock. Wow, I almost sound like I know what I'm talking about! Anyway, I have a ways to go before I get anywhere near the heel, so there's plenty of time to figure it out. I'm pretty proud to have figured out a couple of errors in the chart in the book (even though it's pretty obvious, still, I could have been unconscious about it) and I like the way it is looking. Mostly I like it because it is the only one of my current attempts at knitting that hasn't self destructed on me. And I've got gauge spot on with 1s. Wheee!

Turkish Stockings for a Persian Lady

After wrestling with two lace projects to the point of complete frustration I decided it was time to cast on for the Turkish stockings anyway, so that's how my weekend came to a close. After reading the instructions for a toe up socks and trying with great success to do a wrapped cast on on size 6 dpns and worsted weight yarn, I switched to the Satakieli and size 0's and I discovered something. For some reason I can't translate the same movements to the tiny needles and yarn and have it work right. I don't know why, but I tried and tried, and it kept on looking wrong. So in the interest of my not flying into a frustration induced psychotic rage after a weekend of ripping and reknitting lace, I decided to cast on the leg stitches and get cracking on the chart to get gauge and practice colorwork. Talk about your instant gratification!

Gauge seems right, now I have to check measurements on the recipient and master the toe up thing on the tiny needles. I think color work is so much fun that even this little bit has been a sufficient break to calm my nerves. Which is a good thing, let me tell you.

Lately I see this phrase showing up on more and more blogs - "work is kicking my butt". Well, I am jumping on that bandwagon for sure. I have two weeks of hell coming up on me, and if I disappear from blogland I am probably in the hospital recovering from a stroke. Seriously, I have no idea if there will be anything left of me for knitting by the end of the day, but I'll check in a few times so you know I haven't had a nervous breakdown. Or maybe I'll just blog about having one. We'll see.

It's Saturday. There's yarn. Somebody stop me!!!

Yes, yes, yes, I am sticking to my plan, but somehow my stash keeps growing. As do the projects I want to do. My latest acquisition - Satakieli from the nice ladies at Schoolhouse Press.

And the socks I will be making from it. This is going to be a trade item. I will be getting a costume from one of my best friends who is one hell of a seamstress. Still, I am not casting on till March. Or maybe later this evening. I don't know. I said I would only finish pieces through February. Well, this is Finnish. Close enough for me. La, la, la, la.......