Off the needles and Onto the wheel

Off the needles:
Baby sweater finished! Does not fit her yet, which is good. I had visions of producing a sweater which baby had outgrown because I wasn't knitting fast enough!
This pattern was not written very clearly. I think all the instructions were there, but I often had to read them a few times to decipher what it is they were telling me to do next. And then I don't read very closely sometimes, so I had to rip out half the first sleeve because I had missed where I was supposed to decrease once at each end of the row, not at the beginning of every row.
This biggest problem was that the pattern called for a straight knit row every fourth row. Could I remember that???? No no no. Rip rip rip.
I am pleased with the result though and this was the first time I had used self striping yarn. Very pretty, and easier than working in multiple yarns the whole way through (a la Kaffe Fasset, except usually not nearly as beautiful!).
I am making another sweater next, same pattern, for my cousin's friend's baby. There will be no knit row every fourth row! This should make it knit up faster (again before baby is too big for sweater!).

On the wheel
Glorious pink, red, burgundy, brown merino roving for a **project** for a **family member**. Grandma is spinning up a few balls which I will dye a nice solid plum colour. This is the soft wool from the meadery still. I will knit one row plum and one row of my variegated for a subdued stripy look. That is the plan anyway. And the front of the project will be a pretty lacy pattern. I haven't decided what yet. Am contemplating the Grecian Urn stitch or something similar since the wool isn't really lace, and it is simply for a pretty pattern.

That is all the news for now...

Celebrations and a little dancing on the roof

There are now officially 4 possible celebration times in the next 4 months. Only one has been confirmed.

1. Today- Thesis HAS BEEN ACCEPTED for submission to Grad Studies. That is right, negative CM said she would sign! My changes were sufficient, she is happy and satisfied I am ready to defend. BIG sigh of relief. This means we can celebrate today, and hope all goes well to celebrate the next three milestones.
2. Defense Day (September, date TBA). If all goes well, you can call me Dr. C. after this day. Touch wood.
3. Final submission day (probably only a little celebration). When the thesis is completely finished, and handed in Oct. 13 with all corrections.
4. Graduation Day (November, date TBA).

There are many hurdles ahead, don't worry, I haven't forgotten yesterday's angst. I am just glad another one has been cleared.

Nurturing Ritual

Bear with the details for a moment:
My two good and long-time friends from elementary school are W.C. and E. Their moms are J. and L. respectively. Mine is C. Just as W.C., E., and I are all friends, so are all our mothers.

A few weeks ago we learned that J. had been diagnosed with breast cancer. This morning she underwent surgery and had a mastectomy. W.C. sent a lovely email out prior to the surgery asking the following:

"Hello all! I am writing to you to invite you to participate in a healing ritual I am doing  for my mom. As you probably know, my mom is going in for a mastectomy on August 10. Breasts are a symbol of nurturing, and since my mom has made nurturing others a lifelong focus both in her personal and professional life, I propose a ritual with nurturing my mom as the focus!
The ritual goes like this:
Cake (the really good substancey part of the ritual)
Think of something you loooove to do as a way to nurture yourself in body, mind, or spirit. This can be as elaborate, lengthy and expensive or as simple, succinct and money-free as you prefer, so long as it is an activity/treat that makes you feel warm and fuzzy and it connects you with your God/ the Universe/ yourself.

Do this activity for yourself on August 10 (or near to then, but actual day is preferred).  Once you have reached that place of peace and strength, think of how nurtured you feel in that moment, think of my mom, and say (out loud or in your head):  'All this good for J., too.'"

******************************************
Dear J.

Today we (W.C.,  E.,  L.,  C., and me) all met at ReBar to have lunch. There was a chair for you in spirit! We were most definitely thinking of you. We talked of breast cancer and W.C. told us about the book you had both read.

We decided we have not done this nearly enough- lunch with us three girls and our moms! So once you are well again we vowed we MUST do this again with all of us.

The ritual is described below, but look at the lovely soup that arrived (above)! So thoughtfully and appropriately decorated with a with a pink heart!

Here was our ritual:
CAKE! Well 4 of them, which we justified because we all shared... The NURTURING! 5 best friends having lunch together at a healthy and delicious restaurant. Laughter. Warm thoughts to you.

And finally,
ALL THIS GOOD FOR J., TOO.

Get well, see you at our lunch soon!

Biggest Fear (Academic Post)

My biggest fear is that I am going to be a Dr. Mediocre. Or that I am writing the **Mediocre Dissertation**.

At the moment, this fear has resurfaced because of a difficult situation with a committee member (CM). I loved the committee member archetypes Happy Ending has written about, but I will refrain from putting this member in one of those categories until after the defense (in 2 months). At the moment, the effect of this negative CM is to make me feel like all the work I have done is: 1) unscientific, 2) pointless (irrelevant), and 3) written very badly. Whether or not this CM actually thinks this or not, the comments on my thesis have made me feel certain that this must be the case. Of course, the other 3 CM's do not agree, but having that one extremely negative feedback feeds the worms in my brain!

Furthermore the negative CM may in fact prevent me from defending in Sept. which means I won't graduate in Nov. Sigh. Kind of stressful since I have one post doc position already lined up, and another possibility closer to home in the works. Can't have a post doc position without those three letters after your name, PhD.

In the evenings when my brain is full and my neck is hurting from sitting at my computer madly typing I have been spinning AND knitting. Oh my. My Honey came home one night to find me madly spinning this wool. I was not to be interrupted since I was taking out my frustrations spawned by negative CM on the spinning wheel! The resulting yarn is kind of pretty though. Baby sweater is almost finished- yay! Maybe baby Pippa won't be walking before the sweater is finished (she is 4 weeks now :)).

Back to writing my abstract. Otherwise I am finished! I have even made all negative CM's requested changes! Please please let me defend in Sept!

PhD Procrastination, unfortunately no wool in sight

Two of my crazy friends have been going on an email rant today. You know, where you send back and forth emails that get increasingly insane/funny which helps you pass the day. So I had to contribute with this picture. Mahone (dog #1) is finishing my PhD edits! 9 more days until submission to grad studies. Then a 6 week wait until defense. Go Mahone!

Warning: Wool in Progress

Where I am at:
Mostly moved into house
Mostly finished PhD
Mostly making (a little) money

So...Time to get back to the wool! The past 24 hours have resulted in the dying of 3 different things.
First, I experimented with madder for the first time to dye some lovely white/brown wool Grandma spun up for me last weekend. Madder dye comes from the root of the madder plant and, according to my leaflet from Maiwa, was supposed to yield a Turkey Red. I envisioned this to be more red than the resulting orange colour. I was able to tone it down slightly by adding 2 tsp of cutch right to the dyebath. Cutch is apparently the resinous extract of several different woods. I am pleased with the result, especially the nice shimmer in the orange/rust colour.
The wool is pretty special too. Grandma picked out the brown sheep last summer from a farm on Saltspring Island here in BC. She spun and knit up the wool as a sweater for my sea adventuring cousin. He, and now the sweater, sail on the ship Pacific Grace as part of the S.A.L.T.S. program out of Victoria. The white wool comes from a recent adventure of Grandma's to the Tugwell Creek Honeyfarm and Meadery. Yummmmm. Sorry, mead not included :) This really is wool with a story to tell!

Next! This skein, once spun, is definitely going to be called ocean. I could not have achieved these colours if I have tried. I was aiming for greens, and got more blues, but that is ok! I have already spun some wool in similar colours and I will ply the two together. Beauty. The merino roving is dyed using acid dyes, and a mixture of blue and yellow to produce the range in greens, blues, and lemon yellow.
Ever canoed or kayaked on the westcoast on a hot, still summer day, gliding amonst the seaweed? These are the colours of the ocean as you peer down from your boat to the bottom of the sea.
You can see, from my bobbin, that I gave up on the hemp (temporarily) in favour of the ocean green roving. The hemp is just, well, needy. I have to pay attention to it every second because of the short short fibres. I'll be back, just a temporary diversion.


And finally, I dyed this lovely skein this morning. Purple is my favourite colour, and this one turned out to be quite a calm lavendar purple. On another dyeing day, I had dyed roving with logwood, and spun it up. I then plied it with plain white. This washed out the light purple colour, so I overdyed the whole thing again this morning with a strong dye bath of logwood. Because this is all merino, it is super soft too! Although she doesn't have as much of a "past" as the other skein dyed with madder, she still has character.

That is what I have been doing on my brief time off. In-laws arrive today to see our new place. Feels like summer out, and this girl is happy.

So I can prove I am currently knitting! Here is the baby sweater I am making for my friend's new wee Pippa who arrived on the 8th. I thought a baby sweater would go faster than it is. This is the first sleeve though, and the front and back are finished, so I guess I am getting there.

What a bunch of hullabaloo in my life. We moved- bought a house in Duncan. What a lovely place, and it still hasn't sunk in that I am a home owner. There are boxes everywhere, we don't yet have curtains, and it will remain this way for awhile yet.

I am finishing my dissertation for submission to my committee as we speak. It has to get done in the next few days or else I won't graduate in November!

I started a new job last week, and then quit today. Sigh. Bosses are very unhappy, probably because I can't accurately tell them why I am leaving. Here is the low down (why is it easier to announce it to the public?).

I like to work for myself. The few days I was there were so frustrating to me. Everyone is unhappy, there are management problems, and I hate walking in to that. Never mind they don't have the software or hardware I need to do my spatial analysis. And no work, so I was bored for the 3 days I was there. On day 3 boss # 1 walks in and suggests if I want to go home to put my house in order that would be ok because they don't have work for me for 3 weeks. And get this, I still feel like apologizing, blaming myself for this whole mess. Arghhh, the scientific/academic world can be a pain in the a**.

And yes, I have been waffling for a few weeks, since I caught a wiff of these types of problems upon earlier visits to the office. The University pulled through though and I am so lucky to have a postdoc position now which will get me through somewhat. Now I have to go practice that independence and find work. Somebody?

The wool has suffered what with move, job upheaval, and dissertation deadlines. I am spinning the hemp, but it is slow going because of the short fibres. Maybe this is why I am feeling more insane than usual though???? Correlation here?

These two blogs have landed on my doorstep- they must have known I needed them :) (as my witchy friend would say).
http://sciencewoman.blogspot.com/
http://science-professor.blogspot.com/

Off to walk the doggies before S. gets home from his day in the field.

The poncho

For P.'s birthday this year (our birthdays are 4 days apart and we are both Aries so we have to celebrate each year) I knit her this poncho. Doesn't she look great in it? Ah but she had a head :)

The yarn is an acrylic that I picked up along with the pattern on the yarn label. Two rectangles sewed together. I needed something fast, fun, stylish and washable and this was it. I think it worked out. I want one for winter (hint hint P.).

P. is learning to knit. Ironically, a month before her birthday I mentioned I was starting to make her present. She said she was making mine too. And surprise she knit me this fabulous scarf! It is just the colours I love, I was very pleased.

For our birthdays we met at a lodge at Lac Des Roches in the mountains between 100 Mile House and Kamloops. The idea was that we would each drive half way and spend the Easter long weekend, and yes the husbands, who are also good buds, were coming along too. Great idea, but it was not spring there yet! Yikes. SNOW! In mid April. Not my cup of tea being from the coast.

The other problem was that the lodge, where we were paying $200 a night during off season, was disgustingly dirty. Awful! And I have been a housekeeper in hotels and lodges, so I know what should be passable. This was not. Not to mention that we arrived at 5 pm, 50 kms from the nearest store to find that we couldn't drink the water. I think that the lodge owner should have mentioned this, yes? But perhaps I am picky.

Ah well, we hunkered down in the company of good friends, and drank the last of the tequila brought back from Arizona. And made our own fun!

There ya go. Knitting, tequila, and friends all in one post. Very nice!

First attempt spinning with hemp

One of my friends is obsessed with hemp. She did her master's thesis on it she is so obsessed. And being a kind and generous soul, my wardrobe, and that of the dogs' is filled with hemp items. T-shirts, bag, shawl, collar (that is the dogs).

I have been on the look out for some hemp to spin up and make her some nifty socks out of. There are places that sell spun hemp, but I just have not got around to ordering because it requires phoning which is all too much work these days, if I can't order online.

BUT. Yesterday in Duncan, where the honey and I will possibly be moving, I insisted that we stop at the Loom in Whippletree Junction. What a place! Filled to the ceiling with yarn, and in a back corner bags and bags of wonderful spinning fibre! Mom and I walked in to hear a young man thanking the woman for the hemp. Ha! Too cooool! So I had to buy 200 grams.

It is hemp noil, not at all link the fibrous brown rope like string you so often see. I have never spun cotton, but that is what it looks like- cotton.

Now the only problem is that I did not get the required mordant to dye the hemp with natural dyes- I need iron and I only have alum. If the hemp gets spun before I get the iron I may dye the yarn with the commercial dyes, but since my friend is a natural kind of person this just seems wrong. I guess I better get to Granville Island before we move and pick up the iron from Maiwa!

And, darn, but I am currently spinnning a lovely merino roving I dyed with logwood, so I can't start the hemp right away. I need more bobbins but they are in storage. Forces me to finish though, which Georgia Nicols, astrologer extraordinaire in Victoria says, is the problem with us Aries!

Speaking of not finishing, the move to Duncan is now up in the air. Seems the problem is that this almost-PhD is getting picky about working conditions. Life satisfaction vs earning money. Oh crap. Sacrificed my sanity for getting this disseration out, and now kinda was hoping for a job that made it all worth it. Picky picky.

And speaking of disseration, since the honey is out golfing I was supposed to be finishing Chapter 3 instead of spinning and blogging, so I had better get back to it!

This is a test post. I don't know why, but I thought you had to pay for blogger, so I chose to start on Yahoo 360. Not fun. Couldn't add any sidebar links, like for the Science Knits webring. So instead of working on my PhD I am setting up a new blog :) I am trying to change template, so that is it for this entry!