This is Why I Need 34 Hour Days

...well, one of the many reasons why...


Yes. Empty Bobbins. I must remedy that. Unfortunately, there is that human weakness of needing to sleep. Maybe I should consider focusing my energies on bending the time/space continuum first and then everything else.

After a week of sanding and staining (and sanding and staining and varnishing and sanding) and finishing - she's finally ready to go! I was so antsy to get her set up that it was almost torturous waiting between coats to dry and having to layer on yet another coat. By Sunday morning I had some spare time because I was up so flippin' early (details to come later) so I was able to sit down and assemble her. It only took me about 15 minutes to put her together. Ironically, I only managed something like 10 minutes of actual spinning this weekend. And now she sits... waiting patiently...

Gratuitous shot just because I think she's pretty.

Make: S75 Double Treadle - Louet
Details: stained in "Varathane - Walnut" - I used the gel stain (which I highly recommend - super easy and not that messy) - finished in Varathane - Diamond Polyurethane semi gloss.

Sisterhood of Crafts with Vices

I had a crafty retreat this past weekend with a few girlfriends. No structure. Just lots of food, movies, girly chatter, and sangria fueling our inspiration. I rearranged my basement workshop and absolutely loved having people over using the space. I normally spend my weekends working on some project or another, so it was awesome having these quirky gals over for the company. I was joined on Friday night by blogless Heather, Inge, Sue and blogless Laura.

Unfortunately, I didn't get the camera out fast enough to capture Friday night's orgy of crafting and eating. I was too excited. From what I recall, I was speaking in exclamation points all night and it was one giant Show 'N Tell. As I was laying out the smorgasboard of food, Inge made sangria. Hello! I think it needs to become a dietary staple around here.

For the most part, I just fluttered around checking things out. There were scrapbooking magazines to flip through, cool gadgets and doo-dads to inspect and lots of catching up with people. It was therapeutic just being able to share, trade ideas, laugh and talk. The girls discovered my 1" button press early on and it got a steady workout during the night. About the only thing I really accomplished was turning a heel on a sock and part of this secret project for later. I almost squeezed my brains through my ears trying to get these blown up:



Nori had no idea why I was doing this, or really, WHAT I was doing... and it kept freaking her out. Balloons are evidently yet another thing on her black list of "EXTREME DANGER. FIGHT OR FLIGHT".



On Saturday, the group dwindled down to just me, Inge and Heather. I was completely overstimulated, as Heather pointed out, and didn't get much sleep...but WHO CARES? I didn't get out of my pajamas until it was time for dinner. After a monster breakfast, I decided my brains could handle additional trauma and spent the rest of the weekend staining my new toy. Inge and Heather would periodically call out to ensure that I hadn't passed out from inhaling all the toxic fumes. (Sneak peek!! I'm almost done!!!)



Inge was a power house scrapbooking ninja and was really close to accomplishing her goal of 20 scrapbook pages. Here she is working on a starbucks travel mug insert. Super cute! Besides the importance of sangria and bellinis in our daily life, Inge also imparted this bit of wisdom: "Everything looks better with a little glitter." Very key. In turn, Inge discovered hot water bottles at 3am.



Heather finished a whack of cards which were her goal for the weekend. (Sorry, H! I didn't get a picture of them!) We finally got ourselves mobilized on Saturday night and headed to the mall for some dinner. The shopping got thrown in at the last minute while we waited for our table at Milestones. The girls tried on some clothes and shoes while I embraced my inner "crotchety old lady" and tried to restrain myself from laying the smack down on some teenagers. In cahoots with Heather, Inge's hubby, discovered where we were going for dinner and ordered us a bottle of wine to celebrate Inge's birthday. We also ordered a round of bellinis to start us off which almost finished me off for the rest of the evening due to the overwhelming brain freeze I suffered after my first enthusiastic slurp.

And as for R...he was a saint as usual. After everybody left, we had this enlightening conversation:

R: Do you know what the most expensive thing is about having a bunch of girls over?

N: No, what?

R: Toilet paper.

When I first moved in with R, he once tactfully asked me how many squares of toilet paper I used because he couldn't believe how fast we were (read: I was) going through his TP stash. Up until that point, it never occurred to me to count. I think I said "4".

As R has also pointed out many times now... I lied.

If you can't find something to worry about - Stress about this.

I've discovered my OCD. It's not cleaning (*insert pause for audible snort*- y'all know it'll never be cleaning), it's not popping bubble wrap, it's not even knitting "just one more row". Evidently, it's warping my loom.

Technically, it's threading heddles and sleying reeds. And yes... it is as violent as it sounds. To my eyes. They better invent a seeing-eye dog who can do this for me when I'm 80. However, this isn't the cause for concern. (I've spent hours squinting at ginormous budget spreadsheets at work and did more damage to my eyes in two years than in four years of undergrad. This is nothing.) After a few hours fussing with the warp; trying to get the tension even - simultaneously trying to figure out how this loom works - I was ready to thread the heddles.

It only took me a few hours to go from this:


To this:


Yessiree! That's over 400 threads! One through each of those little metal loops in a specific order according to pattern. After I was about halfway over, I realized I was left heavy. And nope, wasn't worried about that either. I just figured out how to remove the extra heddles on the left side of the loom on each of the harnesses. Probably wasn't supposed to do it that way, but oh well. Call me smug.

Once the threads were through the heddles, each and every one of them had to go through one of these little spaces in the reed. I had a special hook that would catch the thread and help me pull it through. My OCD? I couldn't just do one thread and leave it. Nope. I was compelled to sit there and keep going until my bladder was making major threats about emptying itself on the spot and my blood sugar dropped to the point where my hands were shaking and I couldn't effectively use them to thread anymore.

Seriously, I was so obsessed with doing this over the weekend, I completely neglected everything. If it weren't for R having people over, I probably wouldn't have bathed my person either. I stumbled into the netherworld of warping looms and I LOVED it. Thankfully, R understood and just let me WALLOW in it. He helped me when I needed another pair of hands. He walked Nori without me. He celebrated my successes and listened when I needed to think out loud. This couldn't have happened without him.

My beginner class was fantastic and everything she showed me how to do on a table loom, translated into how I would work a floor loom. But there are still significant differences that I needed to figure out by myself. All in all, I'm happy I didn't end up with the world's largest knot on my hands. But that wasn't the worrisome part either.


On Monday, my sister and I had this conversation over our blackberry's.

Mel: Mom and dad were SO worried that you bought yourself a loom. For some reason. They're so weird. haha

N: What? What did they say?

Mel: Nothing. They just asked about whether that loom was YOURS and if you bought one. In that stupid, panicked way of theirs.

N: I don't get it.

Mel: Yeah, maybe that's just their natural panicked faces.

Now really, what could they possibly come up with to freak out about? They already know I'm living in sin and they've got their coping mechanism in place for that. What else is there?

Just for fun - and to make sure my parents KNEW what a "loom" actually was and what it was FOR... I sent them a picture of it and all my dad said was:

"It is neat. Did you set it up?"

OY.

On an unrelated note, this is how the spinning went! My first skein!

My craft area smells like barn

Part of my spinning class homework was taking home a hunk of raw fleece in a bag and wash it.

The former sheep of my current fleece seems to have liked to:

a) poop
b) roll in mud
c) roll in hay
d) all of the above

Hands DOWN this is the least fun part of spinning.

I would take a picture of it soaking but I don't want to make anybody puke.

Excuse me, while I go gag.

Neurons firing too rapidly for my body to respond

Right hand trying to pinch the wool. Left hand trying to supply the wool. Right hand forgetting to pinch.

Crap.

Right foot trying to keep the wheel going. Left foot trying to help the right foot, but succeeding only in completely opposing it.

Crap.

Oh yeah.... I TOTALLY suck at this....



....but wow, it's addicting.