there’s good karma, and then there’s this.

I remember, very clearly, a time a couple of years back when a few of my favourite knitting bloggers suddenly began to post about spinning. “Spinning,” I said to myself, “That’s ridiculous. It takes forever, and you could just buy yarn. What a useless skill.”

By last summer, the idea of spinning had at least grown on me. I sort of thought it might be fun to learn how to drop spindle. Like, just to see how spinning worked. And it was kind of awesome. But I wasn’t going to get a wheel or anything.

Except that, about three weeks ago, I got a text from a good friend of mine. We have knitting in common, and she knows that I’ve been learning to spin, and as luck would have it, her mom has been trying to get a relative’s spinning wheel out of her basement for a few years now. She wanted to know if I would be interested in it.

So, yeah. I lucked into a free wheel.

I am absolutely giddy with excitement, but to be honest, I am a little terrified of this thing. There are lots of moving parts, and I have been assured that it is a complete working wheel, but I do not understand how someone could make that thing spin yarn. Laura promised that she’d come over and show me how it works, and I’m sure it’ll be less frightening after that.

there are so many boxes, the cat doesn’t know which one to hide in first.

I’m moving this week – while school is still in session. This seemed like a really good idea when I planned it (in March), but in fact it was a terrible idea and I’m very sorry and I’ll never, ever do it again. I do have new knitting, but the odds of me getting it photographed to show you guys are pretty slim (which is a shame, because my new pink socks are looking awesome).

I do have some photos that I realize I’ve yet to blog, though, so I thought I’d share that with you all.

Socks!

I knit these with leftovers from Dad’s Christmas socks, and my glitter socks, both in Dream in Color sock yarns. The put-up for these yarns is truly excellent, and amount of each skein that I had left over after knitting a pair of socks was truly impressive – so impressive that I managed to knit myself a whole pair of socks from them. (Even if they are a little shorter than I like my socks)

See you all from my new apartment, kids.

i know you want (pop) you want (dance) you want (rock and roll)

It’s starting to look like winter!

This is, honestly, my favourite kind of weather – there’s something about getting all dressed up in warm, fuzzy clothing and being able to think to myself, ha ha, weather, I win that’s satisfying in a way I can’t quite articulate.

It’s also a reasonable excuse to take some time inside, to organize my life (my apartment needed cleaning in the worst way), and make things. For instance, I got a chance to play with my new Christmas present, finally. I got a sewing machine, which is something I’ve been thinking about for a long, long while, and I managed to turn this

Into this:

It definitely took me an embarrassing amount of time, and I’m sure in a few months my inability to cut or sew a straight line will seem painfully obvious, but whatever. The thrill of look, guys, I made this! has yet to wear off, so far.

Song of the Entry: DJ Earworm – United State of Pop 2009 (Blame It on the Pop) (Listen)