Julie's Blog

Yup, our garaged got robbed. People suck.

I just had an oddly Jaws-like moment of looking at the little sample of tailspun Lincoln longwool yarn I spun, looking at the crochet hook in my hand and thinking to myself in a doomsday voice, “I’m going to need a bigger hook.”

Tailspun yarn is HARD. It involved spinning a core of yarn and laying individual, intact locks of wool against the yarn with the tip hanging out, and letting the “tail” of the lock spin into the yarn, thus making a yarn with lots of long strands hanging out of it. My “tails” are several inches long, and that’s making for an extremely thick and furry yarn. Which is hard to spin anyway, because it’s slow, and keeps getting caught in the flyer of my wheel. But the effect is very cool. I’m going to spend part of today determining if I in fact need a bigger hook, or if I simply ought to go after a smaller yarn-shark.

I love all things geeky. I love science and nature and how frakking amazing our world really is. I love the word frak. Before this turns into a Discovery commercial, let me explain why I say all this. It’s easy to talk about what you hate. It’s easy to go off on a rant, to notice what’s wrong and complain. But if to bitch is human, then to squee is divine. I think the sheer unbelievable awesomeness of our world is cause for celebration every single day. We’re better off now than we have ever been, and if you need proof of that, read history and get some perspective. We have medical care, we are finding out more about ourselves and our world than was ever possible, and perhaps more than anything else, we are actively trying to be the best we can be, both individually and as a society. We might flop on our faces in the wet concrete on a regular basis, but it’s the fact that we’re even striving to better ourselves that is remarkable. And it gets better every day. I really believe that.

So complain all you want about the government, about greed and malice and pain and bitterness and bigotry. Me, I’m going to look for the unprecedented concern humanity has for the needy, the extraordinary advances in science and technology, the joy of sharing creativity in ways that have never been possible before, and the love we strive to show each other, in spite of everything.

In the immortal words of the XKCD, the future’s pretty cool. And here’s Wil Wheaton saying it, along with Neil Gaiman saying he loves mysteries, and a lot of other people doing some very interesting things.

Today I clipped Lavender for the first time. Lavender Yarnbringer, for those of you who do not know her, is a gray lionhead cross I got from the Humane Society about a month ago. She is much woolier than most lionheads, which made me think I could spin some of her fur. An introduction to a fiber animal, since I wouldn’t HAVE to shear her if I decided this was not for me after all. So far, it’s working well. She likes to be groomed and is a real sweetheart. I didn’t get much wool this time because I was too afraid of cutting her with the scissors. With more practice I’ll get more from her. This time I got about a tenth of an ounce. C’mon, Lav, that’s like $.50 worth! Grow more wool! There is a possibility I’ll get a chocolate tort in April. We will see …

For the Ravelympics, I’ve whittled my ambitions down a bit:
Fleece to FO Event: Lincoln wool creamsicle window dragon
Hat: Amelia Earhart hat, using ecru merino/angora and brown llama

And that will be all for now. We’ll see what else strikes my fancy between now and then.

It’s official – Neil Gaiman is writing an episode of Doctor Who. I love it when my loves love each other. (What a sentence of love that was. I’m on cold meds now so bear with me.) There’s this big ball of creative energy out there that seems to cross-pollinate within itself so often, and I so want to be a part of it. Comics and crafting, Gaiman and Wheaton, Felicia Day and The Yarn Harlot … They inspire such a desire to CREATE in me! For real, how much awesome is there in this picture? Ok so I haven’t seen evidence of, say, The Yarn Harlot knitting Neil Gaiman a Doctor Who scarf. That kind of Small Worldness might just make me explode.

So it’s good that today I am going to teach a drop spindle class, even if I’m not making any money for it, and even if I’m going to be sick while I do it, because I will be the one inspiring. I will be able to give other people the opportunity to, in the immortal words of The Wheaton, “get excited and make things.” And that’s important to me, so important. I might not have a career, I might be the perpetual little sister of the world, but dammit, I can make shit, and I’m going to help you make shit too.

Finished watching Season Three of “The Guild.” It was sheer awesomeness. Every little loop came back around and was so deliciously story-shaped. Clara whips the hell out of me – I want her to get some come-uppance for hurting her family, but I don’t know if that will happen or not. We will see. Zaboo’s stock is rising after breaking up with Riley, aka Crazy Bitch. That is someone who needs to learn what being a dom is really all about. Rae, sic ’em! And strangely enough, Bladezz has really grown on me. He might be a vain goof, but he really is just a kid still, and he conducts himself as well as he can under kinda rough circumstances. I saw a few instances where he even played the straight man in the Guild, which fleshed him out a bit. Plus, now whenever I hear someone bitching about changes, all I can think of is Bladezz crying “I just want things to go back to the way they were!” And that’s a greatness.

I saved the best for last, of course. Sid is my love. The way she glanced around like a nervous bunny then ate some kind of cracker? I had to watch that several times! I love her so much. And Fawkes, aka WilWheatoninaKilt, is such a fantastic character. I mean, sure, he’s kind of a jerk, but he’s educated, he has principles (even if I disagree with those principles) and he’s in a fucking kilt. The man has geek cred just pouring out his ears. I just want to, I don’t know, roll around on him. It’s not even a sexual thing. No really, it’s not! It’s like when a cat rubs its face on you to express how it thinks you’re worthy, and wants you to smell like that cat so no other cat marks you.

Or … something like that.

I JUST LIKE WIL WHEATON OK?

I finally got the Lincoln x Leicester wool all washed, dried, weighed and bagged. I am not sure if you need a Ravelry account to see this (so if you do not and the link works, please tell me so I can edit this and look all professional and shit.) Here are links, regardless.

http://www.ravelry.com/people/foxish/stash/lincoln-x-leicester-brown-wool
http://www.ravelry.com/people/foxish/stash/natural-lincoln-and-leicester-wool

Also – husky felts! I got a felting tool today, so while we were at my brother’s house I grabbed a handful of fur off his shedding husky and fiddled with it. A short while later I had a felt egg made of husky fur. I declared it a husky egg, which would shortly hatch a husky. My husband called me weird. Ha, he hasn’t seen anything yet.

The Plan, by the way, that this leads to: a volunteer effort to help rescues for huskies, malamutes, samoyeds and other spitz-type dogs. I figure the fosters can collect the dog’s fur as they groom them, send the fur to me, I can spin it / felt it / make it into stuff, sell it on Ravelry and Etsy, and donate the profits back to the rescue. I mean, it’s taking something the rescue already has – fur – donating a little time and effort, and getting back money for the dogs! Sounds like a win-win to me.

I’m going to start using Twitter. My name on there is bexlynx. That is all.

Oh wait – not really all. Because I can’t shut up today, apparently. I heard this somewhere, and am now repeating it; not original material, I’m afraid … Someday there will be one great social networking site, a combination of Youtube, Facebook and Twitter, and it will be called YouTwitFace.

Yesterday I worked on a story for Circlet Press’ urban faeries call for submissions. I’m pleased with it so far. I like the characters (creepy faerie and grouchy college student) and I especially like the setting (graveyard). It’s interesting how little parts of my life work their way into fiction. The graveyard in question is Faulkenberry Cemetery in Groesbeck, TX, where many of my relatives on my mother’s side are buried. We only ever go to Groesbeck for funerals, so it has become The City of the Dead in my mind. In fact, the cemetery, the funeral home, the restaurant we go to after funerals and my family’s old homestead are the only places I know in that town.

I like that cemetery, strangely enough. It is heavily shaded with oaks, pecans and other nice trees. There are forests on two sides and pastures on the other two sides. There are cows in the pasture and a stock tank. The oldest graves are from about 150 years ago. My grandfather, great-grandmother, great aunt and uncle and aunt are all buried there. There may be more. It occurs to me now I don’t know if my other great aunts and uncles are buried there … I’ve got to find that out. I’ve considered buying a plot there just so I can be sure of being buried there too. And then getting a tombstone made and put up there so it can go ahead and weather nicely before I’m actually dead. With a great creepy inscription … going to have to come up with something good.

So it was odd to write a story set in that cemetery, especially a faerie story for Circlet, but it was nice to write in a setting so familiar, with so many associations. In the immortal words of Connor McManus, I’m strangely comfortable with it.

I have been doing a lot of wool processing for the Ravelympics. I’ve washed 5 pounds of Lincoln/Leicester and Blue Faced Leicester wool; dyed, carded and drafted 3 ounces of Pygora; and spun up the rest of my Jacob wool. I’m working on a prayer shawl for Dawn, the director of the boys’ MDO, who has cancer. I just hope I can finish it quickly.

I need to clip the bunny. Need scissors.

Also, I am watching “The Guild” at last. We just started the third season, and I am torn between Felicia Day and Wil Wheaton. They are both so impossibly awesome … How could I possibly choose?