I spun them up (please keep in mind that I had a ridiculously busy February, March & April, so this is pretty much a rehash of the last few months) and they ended up like this:

I wheel spun them, and Navaho Plied them.  The CVM was a bit fussy. I liked handling them, but in hindsight I kind of wish I’d spun them on one of my spindles instead.

I didn’t have enough for a cowl, and not enough for anything bigger, but I wanted something I could wear, since, after all, they were dyed for me by a very special young man. So, I made (another) Caliometry. As usual, I cast on 100 stitches instead of 120. Here’s the final result:

At even 100 stitches, its a bit big for my head, so I may end up redoing it at about 80 stitches, but I’ll probably wait until its time to drag out ye olde hats again. I’m so slow, and I really hate redoing stuff. Plus, it does look adorable when I have my hair up.

Its super messy and horribly plied, but I still kind of like it – more for the texture than anything else. It’s one of those things I keep looking at going, THIS IS SO UGLY, when I made it, but now that its done, I kind of like it.

Yarn School is one of those magical places that is hard to explain – its part camp, its part farm, its part learning experience and its part retreat. Meals are at odd times, some of the days get really long, between the waking up early (I *always* wake up early) and late nights, and since its Kansas in spring, the weather is iffy, but the food is amazing, the people are awesome, and there is fiber everywhere. Plus, there are chickens, sheep and Georgie, the adorable dog.

This year I was in an awesome room with a big fluffy bed. My roomates were hilarious. There were copious batts made – I brought some of my own stuff, which I’ll show more in depth later, and also used the fiber bar and participated in “crazy batt” making (when everyone brings something, divides it up among those playing, and we all card the same stuff).  I dyed four things that did not, entirely, suck. There was a pink sheep pinata full of candy and adult beverages and fiber samples. There were visits to the sheep out back, and bunny friends who came to visit. There were also tons of in jokes which I won’t bore people with (inside jokes are only funny to those who were there, and besides, what happens at Yarn School stays at Yarn School).

And then there was The Haul:

There were many, many batts (some of which, as mentioned above, came from stuff of mine from home), the four things I dyed (all named after the women of Futurama), my wheel bonus Hello Yarn (“Billows”), the braid I won at door prizes, the goody bag (Hello Yarn Spring 2013 colorway in Wheat, Lillian yarn from Dirty Water Dyeworks, a teeeeny batt from EntingFibercraft, a project bag, some awesome Hello Yarn tags, postcards from Cupcake Ranch and an adorable notepad), plus soap someone bought me for doing them a favor, another Hello Yarn (purchased) and the Cupcake Ranch CSA (2 pounds of various Cupcake Ranch fiber). Also, I bought a spindle, but I can’t find my instagram picture of it.

As I spin them up, I’ll do a little look at what I did and why I did it (with the dyed fiber & the batts). I also plan a little review of both the Dirty Water Dyeworks yarn & Enting Fibercrafts mini-batt.

Overall, to me, Yarn School is a time for me to play, be myself and no worry about being the wierdest one in the room because I have fiber stuck to my pants.

I did some stash clearing out, and the yarn I no longer want is now on its way to her. With it? Is this little doohicky:

It’s a cowl that I made out of yarn that I made when I went to Yarn School. The fiber is from Hello Yarn (Fruit & Cakes) and was amazeballs. I spindle spun it, plied it on the fly (a thing where you ply the yarn shortly after you spin the single) and then it sat and sat and sat on my shelf. Then a few weeks ago, I decided that not only was I going to get rid of a lot of my commercial spun stash, but I would also use up my handspun.

While I was making it, I knew she would be the perfect person for it, because the colors are Not Really Me. But they are Betsy, so I hope she enjoys it.

(PS – Bets, I only wore it for the pictures. PROMISE.)

So I decided to dye with food coloring.  I’d done it before, and had just over-dyed some alpaca I got at yarn school, but hadn’t made the leap to multi-hued color yet (the over dye was just red over three-toned alpaca).  I decided to let him play, so I chose the color, showed him the kind-of pattern I wanted and let him have it. We nuked the locks in the microwave, and here is the result (a few of the locks drying on a plate):

I then played around with a few different ways to prep them, and decided to just flick card those suckers and stick ‘em in a box (a box that once held my wedding cards. So I suppose it means good things for the yarns?):

I’m not really one for progress photos, so right now I”m spinning them up. We’ll see what the result is.  We DID have a difference of opinion at one point, and so there is a lot more green than I had anticipated.

I don’t usually make hats, because me and hats don’t get along so well (I have an inability to remember that hats can stretch). However, the boy asked me for one, and I had that yarn from Christmas that I made, and I wanted to make a project I’d actually use, rather than one sitting around the house gathering dust.

I’ve actually started a new ongoing project – one in which I actually use my handspun.  I don’t want to buy yarn, but I’ve been treating my handspun like its the most precious precious that every precioused, and so it just sits around, gathering dust (I really don’t like to dust).  Last week I took 4 different yarns I made, figured out their weights and how much I had, and found patterns on Ravelry that I liked. And so, I have started working on those.  One of them is almost done, and will be going to a dear friend of mine who reads here, so I won’t show it off until she gets it in her little paws. It’s a surrrrpise.

Blue BFL, Yarn School 2012

So for Christmas, I spun it up, plied it and made it into a Baktus. I have a picture, but its flattering to the scarf and not to my mom, and she’ll kill me if I post it to the internet. So instead, I’ll show you the yarn I made from the leftover fiber:

I carded it into rolags – only afterward I realized that for BFL, even processed BFL, that might not be such a hot idea. Spun woolen and navaho plied. Still like how it turned out:

Then, I got a new Shotzee spindle for Christmas (because Mr. Prala finally has learned I really want spinning toys for Christmas) and I made this:

From one of the batts I had at Yarn School. Because my office is a mess, its totally sitting on a Christmas pot holder.  There was carbonized bamboo mixed in, and I have decides that I am not a fan of carbonized bamboo. It doesn’t draft nicely at all, and made for a slubby yarn, but I have a feeling this is destined for either a colorful boy hat, or Caliometry, because its just bright enough to be fun, slubs aside.

I also made some mittens that, after my first wearing, I realize I hate and are going in the “take apart” bin. That, or I need to find someone with really round palms and short fingers to pawn them off on.

That being said, I did sit down and write out some things I’d like to focus on for the new year (thanks to reading, though not fully participating, in Radvent).  They aren’t resolutions – just things to be mindful of as I move through 2013.  I put them in my new calendar so I can look at them often.

1 – Family & Friends First – I have a horrible tendency to drop everything when work calls, but the same cannot be true for my family & my friends. As a small business owner, work has maybe a larger focus of my life than other people I know. I don’t have a 9-5 job, and I have to pay attention to it in ways that others don’t. But one of the reasons I went off on my own was so that my time could be my own in ways it wasn’t when I worked for someone else. So part of this is making sure I take advantage of my unique situation, and put my family & friends first when I can.

2 – Analog over digital – I spend a lot of time online. A lot of my online time is really wasted time – reading blogs, reading the comments of blogs, and looking at junk I really don’t need.  I used to justify it by trying to say it was for my job (which takes place online) but in reality its not and I’m not kidding anyone but me. I pretty much just want to be mindful of when I’m online and what I’m doing, rather than just mindlessly reading about Justin Bieber’s dating situation.*

3 – Doing over Thing-ing – I really like getting stuff.  Not typical stuff – I don’t walk into Target and spend $100 on makeup, I don’t hoard books like I used to.  But I really like buying stuff, thinking about buying stuff and obsessing over when I’m going to get said stuff. (Let’s be clear – it usually involves yarn).  This year, I’d really like to buy less, think about what I need more and focus on actually doing stuff (i.e., making stuff) than sitting online and looking at pictures of stuff other people have.

And that’s it. Oh, there are a few more that are super personal, about anxiety and parenting, that I’m not going to share, but overall, its just some things to think about (for me) in 2013.

This Gal Seriously Hates Resolutions

*Yes. Really.

I love blogs. I love message boards. It’s part of my day job, so liking them is both a symptom of my job and the reason I like what I do.  For my day job, I read a lot of financial blogs, mom blogs, and related message boards.  I can’t avoid reading those, because again, day job. However, over the years I’ve cultivated a series of extracurricular blogs that I read for enjoyment.  My daily reading list got really bloated this summer, when I was on the treadmill about 60 minutes every day*.

Over the past year, several of the communities that I participate in had some really ugly stuff happen – insults and trolls, harassment and name calling. It got very ugly, and still is.  Some of the blogs I read were caught up in the mess, and by virtue of the fact that I read certain authors and the comments, I found myself reading all of it. I also found myself defaulting to gossip or entertainment blogs that did nothing for me in the overall picture. I felt  lazy for reading them, and often read retreads of past subjects or gossip blogs instead of what I wanted to be reading – things that contributed to my bank of knowledge, either personally (science and sci fi and spinning and knitting) or professionally (marketing and business ownership and social media and mentorship).

Late in the summer I audited my reading list, cutting out the sites that make me feel crappy.  Taking the crappy sites off my reader makes me feel a bit better, but even more than that is seeking out positive sites that affirm what I want to learn and know about.  Here are 4 sites in each of my favorite categories (ladystuff, yarn stuff, sci fi stuff, science stuff) that I added to my reader this year  that I’ve found give me a positive outlook rather than a crappy outlook:

• Beauty Redefined – Perfect for anyone struggling with body image. I just discovered this site, but their Holiday Survival Guide is a must read.
• Spin Artiste – Arlene does a great job of profiling different artists – from the established to the emerging – and bringing them together under one roof.
• Tor.com – Once just one of the SF&F blogs I read, it has become the SF&F blogs I read.  While they the official blog of one publisher, they do a great job of provoking insightful rereads with some incredible talent (Jo Walton on Patrick Rothfuss? Don’t mind if I do!) and cover some fascinating subjects.
• The Odds Must Be Crazy – Excellent look at weird occurrences in every day life (with statistical analysis). You’d think the words “statistical analysis” would make it boring, but instead it is great, great reading.

Taking some of my crappier reading choices hasn’t made me quit them altogether – though I look at them a lot less now.  Having smart choices in my reader, though, is kind of like having smarter choices in my refrigerator – its easier to choose wisely when you’ve got good stuff to choose from.
*There’s a post coming about this.

The older I get, the more I realize I have no idea what I’m doing. I look back on stuff I’ve said a month ago, a year ago or even ten years ago and just want to say “Corrie, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING WHEN YOU SAID/WROTE/BELIEVED THAT?”  Despite that, and maybe thankfully, as I’ve gotten older I have gotten way more comfortable with the fact that learning is a process, and knowing is relatively finite.  That being said, there is one thing that I have come to “know” this year that I wanted to capture.

I actually really like myself.

This has not been easy.

I’ve spent much of the last 36 years not liking what I was wearing, what I saw in the mirror, what I was doing for work, where I was living, who my friends were, who my friends weren’t, what I was doing, what I wasn’t doing, what books I was reading, what books I wasn’t reading, what I was watching, what I was eating (what I wasn’t NOT eating), etc.  It was never good enough.  I was never good enough, and THAT my friends, is an easy ticket on the ride to crazytown.  I went there, and it sucked.

Over the past few years, I’ve started to become more conscious of stepping off the treadmill of “I should be better.” I’m working on recognizing what messages I accept from myself about myself.

This isn’t to say that I’ve stopped having the inner dialogue that says “You need to lose five pounds” or  “You should be doing X with your professional life.” Those statements will probably always be there, but I’ve become better at recognizing when I’m buying into those statements.

So what I know? Is that this:

Is just fine.