So, being the utterly anal knitter that I am, I was all packed for Yarn School an entire week before I left. I was so prepared it wasn't even funny. I had my no-thinking knitting project (square number 2 from my itty bitty sockyarn blanket) for knitting while talking, I had my moderate thinking knitting project in a nice pair of 3x1 ribbed socks. I had an intricate thinking knitting project in case I totally didn't get spinning and had to find something to get lost in (never made it out of the bag). I had shorts for if it was hot, a sweater and FOUR pair of wool socks in case it got cold (it really didn't). I had magazines, books, yarn for selling at the yarn shop & swap. I had my camera, battery charger, snacks in case I didn't like the food (I really REALLY did) and even brought a bunch of extra bags for the extra goodies I'd be bringing home.
The only thing I forgot? I realized it at about 12:30am the first night. UNDERWEAR. Yes, I had NO underwear. Cripes almighty. Now that might be a cute, funny thing if the pair I was wearing was even slightly hang-in-public-worthy. Nope. Blue, so old and worn that the elastic was hanging out in bits and there were HOLES and quite possibly the ugliest pair of granny panties I've ever owned. Rags in my house are in better shape. Nice start, huh?
SO, not sure how to ask an almost total stranger if I could bum a pair of panties, and Harveville possessing only one shop that sold 3.2 beer but no undies (I checked, you never can tell what you'll find in a small town stop2shop), I was left with two alternatives... learn to spin while going commando or wash the undies and find a discrete spot to hang them dry. Yeah, I was freaked out enough about being able to spin without just falling over (which almost happened at one point) that the idea of doing that in a more natural state? Not gonna happen. SO, there I am at 1am, washing my ugly undies in the sink with shampoo. I even dropped them on the floor once when someone came in for a night-time trip to the commode and surprised me. After rewashing and wringing them out, I went wandering around the elementary school looking for a place to hang the ugly undies to dry. You'd think there'd be more places, wouldn't you? I finally found a side door handle that was hidden behind a ping pong table. As I'm leaning waaaaaay over to hang them up, I look up and see two ladies looking at me like WTF is she doing? So I lean in an even stranger angle and say, "pretty sky tonight, huh?" and run back to my room. Next morning the undies are still a bit damp, but packing a hair dryer (SEE how well I packed?) I quickly took care of business.
So, Friday and Saturday night let's just say "rinse and repeat." Sure I could have driven myself to Topeka to find a wal-mart, but that would be losing precious fiber creating time. No freaking way.
After hearing the story and laughing her ass off, Teri told me she would have driven me out some underwear. Man, that's the sign of a good friend. I'd drive you underwear too!
ALL photos were taken with me WEARING my undies. No worries.
My very first ball of yarn. Made from a gorgeous corriedale dyed by the amazing Adrienne from Hello Yarn. Is it wrong to want to buy even more fiber when I have no spinning wheel?
Closeup of my alpaca yarn that I still haven't put away. It's sitting by my bed. Waiting patiently to become something amazingly soft to wear around my neck. Maybe a cowl?
My before and after pics of the thick/thin singles I spun to create a big ass felted bag. Wish me luck.
And finally some of the most beautiful yarn I own. I dyed some heavenly cormo wool gifted to me from Chery, who is also the one that encouraged me to learn to spin! I'm so very pleased at the depth of colors of the red oranges and rust oranges and ooooooohhhhhhh I have to pick a really good project for this stuff!
Oh, and I didn't just dye pretty stuff, oh no! Nearing the end of the extra dye session, it was about 215 degrees in the science lab, roasters were roasting. Crockpots were crockpotting, women were SWEATING. I was getting hot and cranky. Instead of using the dyes I'd mixed to make four sets of fibers of each of my favorite colors, I decided FUXX IT I'll just put them all together in one big batch. Yeah. It would've been cool if I'd dyed it so that there were long bits of each color, but I was in FUXX IT mode, so dumped it all in. SO, whenever I get a wheel and get ready to spin, I'll be spinning a whole lot of short bits of colors. Each color is lovely individually. Together they make my eyelids twitch.
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