Wednesday, July 1, 2009

When the zombie apocalypse comes, I'll spin yarn for sweaters.

A box from Ashford came today, which was pretty exciting. My first birthday present of the year, from New Zealand, no less!


All assembly required. They make the parts, and you get a nice Ikea-esque instruction manual, no words, just pictures. I expected this, though, and with my newly civilianized schedule, I had all afternoon to work.


The cats were just hoping this meant we ordered them a new box to play in.


A couple billion hours later, most of which were spent trying to figure out how to get the hole lined up in the handle for the wheel pin (answer: turn the wheel around), I had an Ashford Traditional wheel. Very exciting! I've been eyeballing wheels since last November, and been looking forward to getting this for months, ever since my mom asked me if I would use a wheel if they got one for me. And now, here it is, all the pieces are in order, everything is where it should be, I have practically a whole sheep in my knitting room waiting to be spun...

So I went to the library. I went to the store. I called my mom. I played a computer game. I ate dinner. I checked the snail mail. The wheel might as well have been a cactus. I walked around it. I sat down in front of it. I pushed the treadle a little. I got up. There was a spider I had trapped under a glass that I wanted to show S (I'm a little like a cat, I find these gross, creepy things and I save them for him until he comes home). I swear this thing had fangs that were so big you could have milked it like a rattlesnake. Instead of spinning, I slid a piece of cardboard under the glass and took the spider outside to be free. What is wrong with me?!? I hate spiders! The only reason I didn't immediately obliterate that one was because it was too freakishly buck-toothed not to show at least one other person. I stopped just short of doing my math homework. I had to face this thing. Just sit down and spin. People do this every day, they have been for hundreds, thousands of years.

So I gathered my supplies and my courage, and I started. Well, I kind of started. The yarn wouldn't go on the bobbin. I fiddled, I twisted, I pulled, I turned, I talked to the wheel. Didn't help. I sat back and asked myself what would Brian Boitano do? I went online. All the stuff they suggested was stuff I'd already messed with. What was I doing wrong? I thought about getting some ice cream. I thought about getting a rum and coke. I changed my search criteria on google. And BAM, there it was. Too much twist in your wool. Too much twist, the bobbin won't take it up, and you'll sit there accumulating twist in your wool until the tension creates a black hole in the universe and we all blink out of existence. It's not good for anyone. Once I got past that, I made this:

It's a yarn-like substance. I wouldn't knit with that. It's kind of ugly, there's no consistency in size, and it keeps breaking in places. But it's okay, because it's got twist, it's on the bobbin, it's wool, and I FREAKING MADE YARN. Sort of.

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