Avebury Wool & Cha-Chas

Phix's Curiosity: what sparks my interest

Watch this space to see what's sparked my interest this week.  A random grab bag of delights!

Cars. I'm realizing the car I have is ~15 years old. I'm not getting a new one, not yet, but realistically, considering car life spans, I'm starting to think about what's next in the eventuality that's approaching.  Here's my dilemma.  I would like to get a hybrid for all the reasons. Except. I also have a strong preference for standard/manual shift. So I go back and forth with myself.  Fuel efficiency. Ability to do compression/jump starts. Fuel efficiency. Getting to manually shift gears. I dunno. It will be interesting to see which entirely pragmatic (to me) reason wins out when the time comes. In the meantime, I'm going to continue driving my current little car.  
  

Medusa's Garden

When you need every one and everything around you to just stop.

Someone on Facebook posted an tweet from Sin’Baku Ceasar that says,

"My therapist taught me to interrupt my anxious thinking with thoughts like: “What if things work out” and “What if all my hard work pays off?” 

So I’m passing that on to you wherever you are, whatever you’re leaving, or whomever you’re becoming." 

I'm kind of in love with this idea right now. I have only a few hours of having pondered this, but I'm looking forward to seeing how this works. :)
 

Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads

What I'm up to with fiber and possibly how mythology and stories all tie together.

So I've been working on this scarf.  It's now well over 200 stitches across which means *commitment* any time I sit down to do a row.  I need to count the stitches I'm at. I... sort of lost count and the stitches ended up way off from where they should have been, so I've spent the last couple evenings frogging back six (very long) rows.  Like you do.  I re-knit my first row last night, but now I need to recount the stitches.  Even just counting the stitches is a commitment! So much commitment, so little time!  I love how in this photo, one end of it seems to be escaping like a surly craft octopus.  

On the spinning front, a friend of mine went to the UK last summer and while she was there, gathered some wool from the fields in Avebury, near Stonehenge.  She wanted to know if I'd spin it and, yes, of course I'd love that!  So while we were in Portland last weekend, we got together, had fabulous tea at the tea caboose, and arranged for a wool handoff. 

To the right is the wool before being washed (and the bits of branches and grass I've picked out of the wool).  Before being washed, it ended up being just under an ounce of wool. I'm very curious to find out what came out in the wash too!  Depending on how much dirt and lanolin there is, it can end up being nearly half the weight.  I *think* I didn't lose a full half in weight but I'm only partway through the spin, so we'll see.

After picking the grass out, I washed it three or four times, plus a rinse - I was quite pleased with how it cleaned up.  I once bought a raw fleece, the whole thing, and it took me way longer to get it cleaned up... but then, there was a lot more of it too, so as a spinner I like says, "We're all on a journey here..." 😜 

You can sort of see how brown the water is in the wash corner of the image! Gross, but not as bad as I had feared. Lower left, after it was dried, then lower right is after I carded it.  The nature of this wool is that it's turning out to be a bit of a rustic spin. The condition of wool picked out of the heath is less than optimal.  There are more nebs (little short pieces) thanI had initially anticipated would still be in the wool after carding, so I'm picking them out as I spin since they cause funny little lumps.  It's like... lumpy gravy, honestly - everything is going along nice and smooth and then there's a little lump... Is to be expected.  

This time was the first time I took it from the brushes and instead of making a rolag (a rolled batt), I ran it all through a diz and made roving out of it! That was fun.  For my diz, I used a humble washer from the hardware junk drawer and tada! Lovely roving all set to go!  It's all spinning up quite nicely & I'm looking forward to seeing how it plies and what the final yarn will look like!  So stay tuned for pictures of that next time maybe! 
 

Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life 

Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.

Arranging a life... I find that when my anxiety spins up, I get caught in a bit of a catch-22.  As my anxiety spins up, I spend more time focusing on work, as I spend more time focusing on work, it spins my anxiety up further, and then it all sort of winds around itself and climbs into not great headspace.  These last couple of weeks, I've been too late at work. In some ways, it is nice to get the quiet time to focus after everyone has left, and on the other hand, leaving work later than 8 is... not who I aspire to be as a person anymore.  

I have always sort of done this, and am learning that acknowledging both parts and then working to find & deal with the underlying source of the anxiety is about the only way that works to resolve things. I'm part way there.  Some of the uncertainty that's causing my anxiety right now is, I think, mostly out of my hands - I can do what I can but ultimately que sera sera. 

That's not a comfortable place to be, but it seems like so much of life is hurry up and wait, work really hard and hope it pays off... all things will resolve themselves in time.  In the meantime, one small step in the right direction at a time will take one miles.  And like they say, one step forward and two steps back is a cha-cha...
 
With love, and structure, and organization, and curiosity - may Ariadne's ball of yarn guide you through the labyrinth safely until next time!

--Susan

Progress Takes Time

“Stories are medicine. I have been taken with stories since I heard my first. They have such power; they do not require that we do, be, act, anything -- we need only listen.” 
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Phix's Curiosity: what sparks my interest

Watch this space to see what's sparked my interest this week.  A random grab bag of delights!

Honestly? Work. My day job. How do we create a content management system that is easy to use and gets people to the "bites" of information they need when they need them with as minimal sifting through massive papers as possible?  We've gotten to the article level or the chapter level, but how do we get to the observation/insight level? Within the article how do we quickly and efficiently access the core takeaways?  What are the parameters, what makes the content *good*, what makes it not only easy to read, but easy to create?  Etc. So many etcs!
  

Medusa's Garden

When you need every one and everything around you to just stop.

And there's the flip side - I had a momentary lapse of brain in a meeting this week. Just, I looked at the words I'd put on a power point slide and... I knew what all of the words individually meant and for the life of me, I had no idea nor could I even fake trying to explain what they meant.  Not my best moment. And it left me pretty shaky for the next 24 hours.  I did manage to salvage things a bit, going to the next line, nope, ok, I know what the last two lines mean so I guess I'm going to work my way up from the bottom of the slide but... kinda damage done by that point.  

That said, the Universe seemed to also step in and say, hey, you're alright, here's three really nice compliments, one from a peer of the skip-level boss that he shared with me and the new boss, one directly from the skip-level boss, and one from a co-worker whose opinion I value. 

I only had five minutes in the presentation and I think it felt like an eternity but really wasn't. I think the big thing is that even if the whole thing threw me off for 24 hours - that feeling of being off kilter and thrown for a loop does come to an end. There was a period of my life where I felt perpetually somewhat off-kilter (and actively undermined), so to realize something like this has a recovery time frame now is pretty significant progress.  And 24 hours seems like a long recovery time, but - progress takes time so counting this as a small victory.
 

Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads

What I'm up to with fiber and possibly how mythology and stories all tie together.

I'm knitting.  And seriously considering buying a drum carder.  I think it's less a matter of if it's going to happen than when.  I think it might be soon. Just.  For reasons.  

I did start spinning up the latest merino-bamboo.  It's very soft. And very pretty.  I will have 4 ounces of it and no idea what to do with it. It will come to me in time.  It always does!
 

Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life 

Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.

Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world.
All things break. And all things can be mended.
Not with time, as they say, but with intention.
So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally.
The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.

— L. R. Knost

 
With love, and structure, and organization, and curiosity - may Ariadne's ball of yarn guide you through the labyrinth safely until next time!

--Susan

Diversification and Keeping Busy

Phix's Curiosity: what sparks my interest

Watch this space to see what's sparked my interest this week.  A random grab bag of delights!

Apparently this week, being busy is what has kept my interest. Started out by helping a friend update her passwords, clean up her website, and set up a new website after she decided to stop working with the guy she was paying monthly to help keep her site current... Or "current" - there were quite a few things requiring updates when I got to it, certainly nothing had been done "monthly". 

Work is always busy - changes ahoy, like you do in the enterprise world. I think it brings quite a bit of welcome opportunity with it, and I'm curious to see what it brings. 

And just generally, after things feeling sort of stuck for a while, they are now starting to move and I think it will be getting busier before it slows down. Which is great for the curious, as there will be all sorts of new things to explore. :)  
  

Medusa's Garden

When you need every one and everything around you to just stop.

That said - when things get really busy - it's important to take some time out to breathe and just be too.  Right now it's looking like my rest and relaxation will be good, but not tending so much to my introvert.  Which means I need to get a little more serious than I have been lately about carving out time to meditate, to set aside external obligations in order to tend to internal obligations. Now - to also take my own advice!  
 

Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads

What I'm up to with fiber and possibly how mythology and stories all tie together.

I am part way through a scarf.  I have reached the point where a row... is a *commitment*.  Knitters know what I mean by that.  I'm one of those knitters who, when I'm adding/decreasing, needs to count each row to verify I added/decreased the right number ofstitches and when I get above about 50, I find I have to count a couple of times.  

Are there any numbers or sets of numbers you miss?  For whatever reason, I often start getting mixed up around the high 70s - sometimes I forget the 80s entirely... I think my brain just gets bored of counting and loses interest.  Someday maybe it will figure out that I'm going to count until I get a reasonable semblance of what I was trying to get to... 

In other news, I plied the ounce of silk hankies I'd been spinning. I used a spindle to spin it up and... Sometimes I have good intentions to ply on the spindle too, especially if I'm doing a Navajo ply (triple ply by creating continuous loops), but... just.  Give me a wheel to ply. 


 

Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life 

Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.

In terms of arranging a life, I've been thinking about the need to evaluate and re-evaluate and take new approaches on things.  It's easy sometimes to get trapped in a cycle of working with the same people, in the same way, for years.  This leads to a comfort in approach, but also familiarity that doesn't lend itself well to 'beginner's mind'. 

There is something to be said for diversification. As Heinlein said, "Specialization is for insects." We should be able to do many things - work across many circles - have many interests. It keeps ones' practices fresh, and also helps keep perspective on what's going on elsewhere.   
 
With love, and structure, and organization, and curiosity - may Ariadne's ball of yarn guide you through the labyrinth safely until next time!

--Susan

For Warping and Waulking

Phix's Curiosity: what sparks my interest

Watch this space to see what's sparked my interest this week.  A random grab bag of delights!

Heh. Honestly a big chunk of what I've been curious about this week is stashed a little later in the missive for reasons that will become apparent. :)  

For now, a quote from Carl Sagan on libraries:

The library connects us with the insight and knowledge, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all our history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species.  

Medusa's Garden

When you need every one and everything around you to just stop.

This week.  This week is going so fast.  This month is going so fast. This year is going so fast...  That's how it goes though... In the midst of it all, 'self care' is coming to mind. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, self care is a benefit of having community to pick up the slack while takes the space to do the care.  Self care is a privilege.  This week one of the things I've been trying to do is create space for others to do some self care - going to lunch with them, simply listening, commiserating/empathizing.  It's a form of self care to create this space as well - by creating it for others, I also create it for myself via reciprocity. 
 

Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads

What I'm up to with fiber and possibly how mythology and stories all tie together.

Knitting, knitting, knitting.  A little spinning, knitting... When I have time.  I'm at the point in the wrap that I'm working on that a row is a very long time indeed and progress seems eternally slow despite the fact that I've knit quite a lot ( a hazard when one is up to ~149 stitches & adding on 12+ more each row).  When rows get long, progress feels invisible.  So besides that, I've also ratholed a few times in the Carmina Gadelica - a couple of volumes of old prayers, chants, stories, and whatnot pulled together at the turn of the 1900s from Ireland, Scotland (and maybe Wales?).  In any case, I've been scouring it for the weaving, spinning, and like topics.  For a lot of reasons, often mythologies focus on agriculture (gotta eat!), but tucked in there almost as important despite the second billing is the clothes production, which is how we end up with little bits and bites like this (translated from Scots Gaelic):

THURSDAY of beneficence,
For warping and waulking,
An hundred and fifty strands there shall be
To number.

Blue thread, very fine,
Two of white by its side,
And scarlet by the side
Of the madder.

There's a-whole-'nother chant that breaks down the pattern by which length-wise striping is laid out:

THRUMS nor odds of thread
My hand never kept, nor shall keep,

Every colour in the bow of the shower
Has gone through my fingers beneath the cross,

White and black, red and madder,
Green, dark grey, and scarlet,

Blue, and roan, and colour of the sheep,
And never a particle of cloth was wanting.

I beseech calm Bride the generous,
I beseech mild Mary the loving,
I beseech Christ Jesu the humane,
That I may not die without them,
That I may not die without them.

And this being the turn of the last century, interspersed with the chants, etc, there are more details and explanations and whatnot that is all very interesting to the likes of me.  Down the rabbit hole!
 

Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life 

Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.

I was pondering this earlier this week. My brain automatically jumped from, l have something later on today" to "ok, what can I do to be productive between now and then?" Which translates for me into "how can I make myself useful, be of value...." And honestly, I resent tying value to productivity/usefulness. It implies the moments of stillness, of quiet observation and reflection, of going inward and thinking, of joy in doing that is not necessarily focused on outcome, daydreaming... that these things, and other things like them, are without value and I disagree. As I get older, more and more I think about what it means not to not tie value to what one can (or is allowed to) produce.

Yes yes yes, we all have to get stuff done, but assigning value and comparison of apples and oranges and... sometimes it's ok to watch the dang squirrels in the maple jumping from limb to limb, trying to remember where their nut stash is.  
 

With love, and structure, and organization, and curiosity - may Ariadne's ball of yarn guide you through the labyrinth safely until next time!

--Susan

Parts Unknown

“One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” -- Henry Miller

Phix's Curiosity: what sparks my interest

Watch this space to see what's sparked my interest this week.  A random grab bag of delights!

So M2 has a homework assignment for her health class to set a goal to do something.  Her goal is to learn more about calligraphy, so she set up a five week lesson plan for herself and we sit down most nights and do some calligraphy together.  That's been fun.  It's always interesting to see how the ink flows through different nibs, and how the ink reacts with different types of paper, as well as the eternal question - am I going to remember which letter I am trying to create!  Sometimes I get caught up in the motion of the letters that I make nonsense letters. 

One of the things that we plan on doing is some illumination.  One of the things that a lot of people don't know is that while monks get all the credit for writing up books prior to the invention of the Gutenberg press, way earlier, St. Brigid in Ireland had started a school of art (and also metalwork) that was renowned for its teaching of lettering and illuminations. I love that it was a woman who set the school up... If I'm not careful, I can totally rabbit-hole on looking at old manuscripts, I mean -check it out... Stuff like this is utterly fascinating to me.  

That said, when we were in Ireland a few years ago, we had the opportunity to see the Trinity College Library's exhibit of the Book of Kells.  The exhibit was really well done.  And... honestly, I like looking at the digital repro of the Book of Kells on my iPad more than seeing the book in person.  Because of its age and fragility, it's in a glass case, there are swarms of people around it, and after the brilliance of the exhibit, it's underwhelming.  In terms of looking at manuscripts (even ones in glass cases!), I found theChester Beatty Libraryin Dublin actually way more accessible and interesting (and free!).  Don't get me wrong - I'd go back and look at either exhibit, just if I'm going to look at manuscripts, I'd go to Chester Beatty to look at the manuscripts and enjoy the exhibits from both the Chester Beatty Library and the Trinity College Library... and enjoy the Book of Kells on my iPad (also available from theTrinity College Library's digital repository since y'all don't have my iPad...). :D
  

Medusa's Garden

When you need every one and everything around you to just stop.

Soooo, yeahhhh, I missed last week's newsletter.  I had The Best intentions of writing it before I ran off to a retreat in the Santa Cruz mountains last week and... it... sorta... didn't... happen... Oops!  By the time I realized I'd forgotten, I was outside of range of any consistent-ish data/Wi-Fi access and it just wasn't going to happen.  Sometimes one has to let go of what we thought we were going to accomplish. 

I'm not a traveler by nature - certainly not two trips so close back to back, but slowly I'm learning. The most brilliant thing I've learned in the last couple years is that when I go somewhere that I take a 'recovery' or 'settling back in' day when I return home to do a slow 're-entry'.  This helps so much to give me a chance to shift gears and prepare for reality to kick in again. 
 

Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads

What I'm up to with fiber and possibly how mythology and stories all tie together.

One of the lovely things about the retreat was (incidentally) connecting with other people who knit and do stuff with yarn. I love the different ways in which we do things, and the little tips that cross across our practices as we knit away.  I'm looking forward to seeing what sorts of inspiration and patterns I end up with.  :)
 

Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life 

Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.

Reflecting on the last few weeks, and organizing a life, even though it was a lot of travel back to back, I wouldn't trade any of it in.  In fact, it makes me wish that I had more opportunity to travel for the fun of it.  There's something delightful and freeing about seeing new things and especially when you get to settle in somewhere beautiful with people who turn out to be birds of a feather.  It would be totally different if I had to travel for work.  That's not the kind of travelI'm after, but the joy in being able to release the worries of 'have to' and let time take it's merry time and everything works out just fine?  Such a delight!

All of which to say, in organizing a life, make time for joyful travel. Make time to step away from the routine and the mundane, and allow yourself to be transported in time and space to new places, people, and experiences.  Make a point of it.  It's good for the soul!
 
With love, and structure, and organization, and curiosity - may Ariadne's ball of yarn guide you through the labyrinth safely until next time!

--Susan

Intentions

People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within. ― Ursula K. Le Guin

Phix's Curiosity: what sparks my interest

Watch this space to see what's sparked my interest this week.  A random grab bag of delights!

This week I've been thinking about intention.  As in 'to do something with intention.' I sat in on a lovely class this past weekend where we talked about setting intentions, and we had this realization that people tend to confuse intention and expectation.  The difference is intention is done with discernment (this is the process I will mindfully apply), while expectation entails judgment and outcome-focused (did I get the thing I wanted). I think a lot of people confuse the two.  So I've been sitting with that thought and turning it over and around in my head.

We also talked about how creating space in which to do things requires saying 'no' to some other things - or as one participant mentioned, it's not really so much that you're saying no to all the things pressing in on your time as it is that you're saying "YES!" to the creation of the time and space you're wanting in your life. I think that's really important to remember.  We're making choices all day every day, and we're responsible for the choices we make.  The process of making choices means that we have to make a yes/no call - why not make it what you need in your world?
  

Medusa's Garden

When you need every one and everything around you to just stop.

It was a week like I haven't had in a while this week. I am at the tail end of 4x10 hour days - intentionally.  It means I can take tomorrow off without using one of my scarce vacation days (more about that next week!). In the short term, it means days felt accomplished because I had an extra two hours at work in which to get things done which yay!  It also means I feel like I got some stuff done in the quiet of not being interrupted a bunch after everyone else had gone home. So, back to intention and saying yes to creating focus space in which to work on priorities, that would be a very good thing....

On the other, it's really pushing my 'ooh, remember burnout!?' buttons. So. I'm glad I did it and I'd do it again for something like this, but wow, I am really not interested in letting work stuff slide to this being a regular occurrence. On the sort of upside, as a contractor at the moment, I'm on a contract that's 40 hours, no overtime, so, that's actually been (mostly) good for my self-discipline.  
 

Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads

What I'm up to with fiber and possibly how mythology and stories all tie together.

Knitty-knitty.  I'm still looking for a pattern for my red and black yarn that goes with my family's red and black flannel shirts....Time to hit up Ravelry.  My weaving project is moving along, a little slower than I'd thought it might but, as it goes! No particularly good pictures of progress this time, alas!
 

Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life 

Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.

So coming back to intention - using intention to say yes to creating the spaces in one's life - for each thing a place. Time's going to pass regardless but it's like snails and turtles - they move surprisingly quickly.  You turn away for a moment and when you turn back, they are not where you expect them.  They're focused on what they're doing and where they're going and one foot in front of the other, bit by bit, off they go!   Moving slowly, with intention, will get you where you're going much more quickly than moving quickly, flailing about and ineffectively every time. 
 
With love, and structure, and organization, and curiosity - may Ariadne's ball of yarn guide you through the labyrinth safely until next time!

--Susan

Knitting And Spinning Olympics

“Anyway, it doesn't matter how much, how often, or how closely you keep an eye on things because you can't control it. Sometimes things and people just go. Just like that.” 
― Cecelia Ahern

Phix's Curiosity: what sparks my interest

Watch this space to see what's sparked my interest this week.  A random grab bag of delights!

Been watching the Olympics this week.  I don't really follow sports, but I always seem to get sucked into the Olympics. There's just something about people doing what they love at the top of their form that is really engaging to watch in a way that I don't get from professional sports, but I'm not so engaged in any particular sport enough to follow them year over year.  There's something about the pageantry of the proceedings as well.  
  

Medusa's Garden

When you need every one and everything around you to just stop.

2018 is really gearing up.  I think at this point I'm looking towards the end of April for a moment to slow down and catch my breath.  In the meantime, the name of the game is finding moments in between everything going on in order to recenter, regroup, and find that calm in the eye of the storm.  Gonna be checking in with my breath a lot, I think! :)
 

Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads

What I'm up to with fiber and possibly how mythology and stories all tie together.

I'm... being ridiculous. I have three different projects going on right now and eyeing this beautiful new roving that I want to dig into! This is a merino-bamboo blend and so very very soft!  I love this color combination too.  The colorway is called 'Golden Dawn' and the pinks and goldens and streaks of red really nail the colors that dawns can bring.  I mean, or so I'd assume knowing what sunsets look like! 😜

Then there's the silk hankies and a new spindle. I always say I'll never do silk hankies again and somehow every three years, I forget why I said that and buy more... and then I remember why I swear I won't buy anymore.  It's maybe not quite *that* bad - it forces me out of the easy long draw that I find so comfortable. With silk hankies I usually end up mostly pre-drafting each of them so that I have a half chance of getting a semi-consistent size.  And semi-consistent is about as close as I get with these, pretty much working in laceweight with them.  I love this new spindle - it's beautifully balanced, spins forever, and is a gorgeous delight to work with. I'll still probably do the plying on the wheel - it just goes more smoothly and I have a wheel at hand. Some day I ought to get a lazy kate for spindles... In the meantime, I think this will get a Navajo ply (basically a single thread, chained/looped to make a triple ply) & we'll see how I deal with getting it off the spindle. Maybe this calls for an unorthodox use of the swift... I've got a ways to go so plenty of time to ponder!

Still working on a knitting project *and* a weaving project. No new pictures of those though - sometimes it just seems like it looks sort of the same at this stage of things. 
 

Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life 

Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.

Yes. This is coming out late!  I totally spaced that this was waiting to be written until I was going to bed last night and it dawned on me... Oh!  Today was Thursday!  

Part of organizing a life is the recognition that at times there are things that will just slide because... that's just how it is. Not much slides in my life.  Once a mentor of mine reminded me that it's ok to not be perfect All The Time because it lets other people know you're human.  So... this week I'm human.  The go-go-go-go that will be with me until later in April means we may see me being more human for a bit, but y'know what?  That's ok. If a newsletter slides, a newsletter slides and I promise to get to it! 
 
With love, and structure, and organization, and curiosity - may Ariadne's ball of yarn guide you through the labyrinth safely until next time!

--Susan

Fiber & Projects, Ahoy!

“The pages afforded glimpses into my soul where I'd hidden it, behind masks of paper and ink.” 
― Rachel L. Schade

Phix's Curiosity: what sparks my interest

Watch this space to see what's sparked my interest this week.  A random grab bag of delights!

So the team that presents theMastering Leadership coursethat I took a number of years ago is opening up this next round to prior participants to retake for free.  I'm... sorely tempted to take it again. FREE, people! When I took it the first time, it was dawning on me that I had some significant social (and situational) anxiety stuff that I needed to take to a mental health professional. While the class was amazing, I also had a bunch of stuff I wanted to revisit after doing some of the anxiety work. I think the anxiety work will always be ongoing, but I have a better handle on a useful tool set and a solid therapist, and since they're offering... I know they've also refined their content and gotten new certifications which will no doubt contribute to the class. AND - this time it's in the afternoon instead of horrible o'clock in the morning! :D

I also feel like I need to get a game plan together for the next 15 or 20 or however long I'm going to have to stay in the workforce.  Which is a semi-related piece that's associated with this.  
  

Medusa's Garden

When you need every one and everything around you to just stop.

We need the gun violence to stop. Seriously. 
 

Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads

What I'm up to with fiber and possibly how mythology and stories all tie together.

Onward!  I have wrapped up the red and black Romney - it looks fabulous & I ended up with just shy of 350 yards of it.  Now I'm looking for the right pattern for it. 

Which means I started new yarn!  This one is a merino-alpaca blend.  Back to the super soft stuff. :)  And, actually, I got another new spindle for reasons (shush, I can stop when I want to!) - and for some unknown reason I thought it would be a good idea to do silk hankies on those.  I am remembering why silk hankies are sort of a pain to spin, regardless of spinning device... Is good practice to shake things up every once in a while though...



I also started a new weaving project.  I got the warp set up on Monday, but probably won't have time to get it actually on the loom until sometime this weekend... on the upside, the weekend is almost here. :)

I'd say of the three pictures here, the one where the yarn is on the swift (that weird round merry-go-round contraption) is probably the most true to color.  The bottom right is the warp setup & I was trying to capture some of the color variant that went into what is mostly a light blue yarn. I love this yarn color, though, as is often the case, it's not really a color I'd wear much of.

Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life 

Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.

Sometimes I need to sit and write in my journal.  I actually need to do it more often than I get around to, but it's an excellent way for me to try to make sense of what's going on around me.  Or at least do a brain dump and get some cathartic release from looking at it all on the page in front of me.  

When I was in college, I used to buy books on journaling. Prompts and questions and suggestions, recommendations, and open spaces.  Those can be useful, but so much of what I need to get out is... brain dump.  The dumb stuff that is building a rut in my brain.  Or the things I'm really worried about. Or something else that I'm trying to pick apart and figure out.  

It's weird to look back at what I remembered to write about and what I didn't.  Sometimes I regret not having captured everything when I go back to look.  I remember clearly some moments - I SEE YOU - and then when I go back to see what it was because surely I would have written about that... I didn't.  Isn't that the way of it though? Momentary-ish catharsis, I guess.  But maybe it's time to start digging out some of those old books on journaling and see what comes to me thirty-or-whatever years on. 
 
With love, and structure, and organization, and curiosity - may Ariadne's ball of yarn guide you through the labyrinth safely until next time!

--Susan