Kitten on a Hot Tin Roof
The temperature in Fredericton today was roughly equivalent to the temperature on the surface of the sun. With the humidex, it was 43° Celsius. (Without, it was 32°, but you can’t discount the humidity. It makes you feel like you are in a container of syrup all day.) All winter, when we were surrounded by feet of snow, people tried to placate me by saying, “Fredericton is really nice in the summer.” Well. Ahem.
Forty-three degrees is not nice. Forty-three degrees is demons poking you with pitchforks.
Naturally, I am playing with wool lately. Because I am not a masochist or anything.
I am participating in the Tour de Fleece, since I bought a beginner’s spinning kit from Susan’s Spinning Bunny two years ago and had never once used my spindle. This is not the Tour de Fleece mentioned on Yarn Harlot; there are actually two Tours de Fleece (assuming that is the correct plural). But this one has a Ravelry group and a better blog button.
This is two ounces of blue-green Wensleydale wool top that I am assaulting with my top-whorl spindle. I am using the ADHD learn-to-spin method, which is as follows: “With four different books in front of you (Spinning in the Old Way, Teach Yourself Visually Handspinning, Spin to Knit, and Spin It), randomly look at stuff in each of them, pick up spindle and woolly bits and make stuff up as you go along, then look randomly at books again whenever the fact that making stuff up isn’t working actually starts to bother you.”
The challenge that I set myself for the Tour de Fleece is to finally use my spindle for the first time and to make some damn yarn already. I have now finally used my spindle for the first time, and technically I have made some damn yarn already, too, but I have made very, very little yarn so far, and I’m going to keep on keepin’ on and try to spin a little bit every day the tour rides. It would be nice if I finished these two ounces, but I’m not going to bother setting that as a goal because I’m a very slow knitter, so I’m probably a slow spinner, too, and I don’t want to set a goal that I’m doomed to fail. Even if it’s a goal that everybody else could achieve with no problem at all.
Does anybody remember my African violet, Sparkly Fairy Princess? Well, she’s in bloom and very gorgeous right now.
She has a new friend, too, a cactus named Spike, although I don’t have any pictures of him.
July 10th, 2008 at 7:43 am
The humidity kills me. 32 C is fine. 32 C + humidity is not. I was almost in tears when I got to Pilates yesterday. Argh.
Good luck with your spinning! That is some GORGEOUS fibre!
July 10th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Ugh, I hate days that hot. They make me not want to do anything but lie down, surrounded by ice packs.
I really need to learn how to spin. I’ve got a spindle, I’ve got two 50 gram braids of really awesome yarn, but I haven’t touched them except to, well, fondle them. I’m afraid of messing up such beautiful and soft yarn!
Maybe I should find some cheap fleece and practice on that, so I don’t feel like I’ll be wasting quality product with my inevitable beginner’s mistakes.
July 10th, 2008 at 9:56 am
All winter, when we were surrounded by feet of snow, people tried to placate me by saying, “Fredericton is really nice in the summer.”
Hahahahahaha.
I love that. People whine in the winter that it’s too cold and say they can’t wait for summer, then whine in the summer that it’s too hot.
Personally? I’d rather skip the heat. I can’t function when it’s that hot–it was similar temperature in Moncton yesterday. I nearly fried.