be SAD with me...

there are some conversations you should never be having. but, here we are. 

me: oh, good! the balcony door appears to be unfrozen today, so i can finally get a few shots in the snow of that yarn i just spent the weekend spinning in a desperate attempt at hanging on to some thread of sanity amidst all this gloom and misery you call a country. 

him: okay, but make sure you hurry up and do that... before the Arctic Rain starts.

seriously!

so, i wrapped myself up in my favorite fleecy blanket, and went silently out into the (slightly less) gloom and cold. i considered weeping, but tears would just freeze. 

how much do i love this man, you ask?

yes! 

so, i took my photos.

those tracks in the snow belong to Norbert. we have lunch together some days. like i said... stuff should not be happening. but, here we are.

then i went back indoors, to reexamine (yet again) every single decision i have ever made in my entire existence.

craziest part is... i keep commenting about how mild this Winter is, relatively speaking. sure, we had TWO ice storms last week, but they did not even bother closing the schools or anything. so, really... no big deal, right? i mean... we have not had a single Polar Vortex yet. that is when the locals become concerned. until then... it is just me here... alone... losing my mind one gray, sunless day at a time. 

did i mention that we had like ten days of anything resembling "sunshine" for the entire month of January? madness.

so, please.... come be SAD with me, as i endeavor on a month of daily posts (which i am already regretting). there will be a lot of complaining about the absence of joy that is Winter in Montreal, but (mostly) it will be me documenting the random nonsense i do in the name of Sanity. 

insane by association...

i broke a tooth while eating popcorn one day last week. this is not a misguided plea for any kind of sympathy. i just need you to understand the insanity that passes for normal in our home.

so... i woke up the next day to find the animator grinning from ear-to-ear, and i instantly knew that something was wrong.

him: i made an appointment for you to go to the dentist.

me: since when are you making appointments for me? aren't you the one who usually makes me do that sort of thing because you hate talking on the phone? 

him: yeh, but i made it for you anyway...

me: ... because you know i'd probably put off doing it myself for as long as i can.

him: something like that. oh, and i also made an appointment to take Titty to the vet. i did that first.

Titty (Titania, aka "Mama Kitty"), the oldest of our three two cats, has cancer. i will weep about that some other day. for now, we are trying to make her life as comfortable and enjoyable as possible in the time she has left. 

so... he called the vet before the dentist.

him: the receptionist asked if it was an emergency with Titty. is she eating? is she throwing up? or if she is meowing a lot like she might be in pain. i told her, she's eating. not throwing up. and no, she's not meowing or anything.

me: uhm... okay.

him: so then i called the dentist, and the receptionist asked how you chipped your tooth. i said eating popcorn. she asked if it's bleeding. i said no. then she asked if it's an emergency, if you're experiencing any pain...

me: and...?

him: so i said, "no, she's not meowing or anything".

so now i get to look forward to entering the dentist's office with the receptionist already convinced that i might be insane by association. 

speaking of insane associations...

mom called me one day, about a month or so ago. i was deeply concerned from "hello". 

mom: N—, i have to tell you something, and i don't want you to get upset.

me: okay...? [already dreading whatever she will say next]

mom: the plants are coming up in the garden.

then i turned toward the nearest window, and gazed out into the third (or fourth... i lost count at some point) snowstorm over the span of that week. 

i bring this up last bit up because it is currently the last day of April—Spring having officially begun more than a month ago—and we had a snowstorm as recently as a last week. but, apparently, this insanity is what i signed up for. 

it has been a while since my last post. i draw a firm line at keeping this space on the lighter side of life (dying cats get a pass for sheer sadness factor). i kept writing draft after draft, but i always hesitated when it came time to hit "publish". it is really hard to keep a lighthearted focus on the absurd side of life when so much of it feels anything but these days. still, i figured i would send up a smoke signal of sorts to say that i am still here. 

so... hello again!

i lost my crafting mojo for a while, but it seems to be back in (almost) full force. i considered doing a week month of daily short posts to try to document some of the stuff i have made over the past year... or two. however, committing to that will require an even larger dose of 'jo. 

there is one pretty cool thing that happened recently that has definitely added to the urge to get back to my crafty activities. 

i won a thing!

i left a comment on a You Tube video, which entered me into a raffle from Ewethful Fiber Farm and Mill... and i WON!!! 

this is honestly one of the two (or three) knitting-related channels i keep up with these days. the mill owner/operator Kim is a lovely person, and her YT videos offers glimpses into their life on the farm (which includes the family grass seed business and a menagerie of ridiculous animals). she also gives us regular behind the scene tours of the production process. it never stops being fascinating to see piles of dirty wool being turned into clean, beautiful yarn.

she sources fiber from small farms in her area, and she often has wool from breeds of sheep beyond the ones that get used for most things (Merino, Corriedale, Cormo, BFL, and those other "regulars"). i have been making an effort to seek out new (to me) breeds when purchasing fleeces over the past couple-few years, so i was especially drawn to the eclectic blends of fibers Kim utilizes. 

the original prize on offer included mohair, but that was more than my allergies can handle, so i asked Kim to substitute something (mohair-free) in a natural, dark color that i could blend together with some of the (closet-full of) white fleece waiting to be spun. i received a blend of Alpaca and Shetland wool (from one of Kim's own sheep named Drilla). 

i opted for un-spun fiber, so it arrived as a long rope (called roving, for the uninitiated who have made it this far). 

i found the beginning of the roving, and it was sooo tempting to start spinning away. however, i will stick to the original plan. this will become part of a lovely, heathery handspun yarn... someday. thank you so much for the generous gift, Kim (and Drilla). 

i only "eh" in jest...

i climbed out of bed unapologetically late today to find that it had rained while i was asleep. this was a most welcome sight, as Eastern Canada is in the grips of a sweltering heat-wave. the rain brought a brief respite, prompting the appearance of some much-needed pollinators who have been mostly laying low over the past week.

the animator caught a shot of a butterfly resting on a rain-drenched squash leaf in this year's balcony garden project... which he promptly turned into a jigsaw puzzle.

there was some dispute regarding the use of said image.

me: i'm gonna put that picture in my blog post.
him: did you ask for my permission to use it?
me: did you ask for my permission to use my camera?
him: [silence]
me: exactly! my camera. my photo. 
him: but i took it.
me: good luck proving that.

there has also been a spike in the number of wildfires across Quebec, which makes sense with all this heat. however, forestry experts have identified an additional, wholly-unexpected factor that is contributing to there being twice as many forest fires as usual at this time of the year.

you guessed it...it's the covid!

people are stuck at home, with little by way of distraction/entertainment, so the great outdoors presents itself as an attractive destination for anyone seeking to escape the confinement (while maintaining the common sense avoidance of other human beings). as a result, a lot more of them than usual are coming to the same dangerous conclusion.

"let's go camping, eh?"

now, i feel a need to pause here for a moment to address anyone who may have read that last sentence, and are now concerned that i may have gone native. i assure you that no such thing has occurred. i could not stop sounding like i spent most of my life in New York City, no matter how hard i might try. that quintessentially Canadian noise only ever escapes my face when i am joking about the place. trust me... i only "eh" in jest.

where was i again?

oh, yes... more people going camping, which means more irresponsible campfires, which means more forest fires. so now there is one more thing to worry about in what is already shaping up to be the most stress-inducing year in recorded history.

speaking of stress...

'twould seem i am doing a particularly bad job at keeping mine in check of late. i actually found myself on the receiving end of a bit of (wholly professional) medical advice that is unlike any i have encountered before. "you need to calm the hell down," he said. so now i can add that the list of things to (try not to) stress about. good grief!

i began my quest for calm by harassing a farmer about some sheep, and eventually purchasing a couple fleeces from the good people over at Kinnaird Farm. yes, i did recently get two fleeces (from a different farm). however, i really wanted some naturally-colored grey/black wool, so i convinced myself that this purchase was totally justified.

the only disappointment was that i could not go pick them up in person, as a visit to a sheep farm would definitely have knocked my stress levels down a few notches. the animator was prepared to turn the drive into a fun day trip. however, i am taking the whole 'common sense avoidance of other human beings' thing most seriously, so i ended up having the fleeces shipped to me... and the box sat unopened in a corner for several days.

him: you're not gonna open your package?
me: nope!
him: i thought you were so excited to get your fleece.
me: i am.
him: so why don't you open it?
me: the covid. 
him: i see.

it was like every gift-giving holiday rolled into one when i finally broke the seal on that box.

then i broke the vacuum seal on the biggest ziploc bag i have ever seen, and stood there in awe as the fiber expanded. everyone is entitled to their brand of crazy, and i totally embrace mine.

first there was Frosty, a North Country Cheviot/Blue-faced Leicester/Romney/Rideau Arcott cross. i have never worked with purebred Romney or Rideau Arcott wool, but i can see the definite influence in the cross. Frosty is a "hogget", which means a sheep that is in its second year. the term can also apply to the wool and the meat from the animal. yes, i do take my hobby very seriously.

i laid Frosty's fleece out (tip-side up) on a painting tarp that i commandeered for this very purpose. ten points if you spot the ridiculous cat. that is Cordy. she will show up again... and again.

i grabbed a few locks from different parts of the fleece. this one should have been called "Jacob", on account of the coat of many colors. it is insane that all of this came from the same sheep.

next came Blackie. this one is a NCC-BFL cross, and the fleece is finer and more springy than Frosty's. as with most naturally "black" sheep, the color of the wool is actually a super-dark, greyish brown.

i was trying to get a shot with my dark-grey kitty Philly for comparison, but she was more interested in running around like a lunatic.

i forgot to get a photo of Blackie's fleece opened out on the tarp, so i had to pause composing this post to do so (cut-side up this time) .

i took fewer samples from this one, as there was less variation across the whole thing. it is a mostly-uniform dark color with a tweedy patch that left me wondering if this sheep might be related to Don King. [disclaimer for legal purposes: i am in no way suggesting that Don King has engaged in any activity that might have resulted in his DNA being part of a sheep's lineage.]

as per usual, i grabbed some hot, soapy water...

and gave the sample fibers a wash, keeping them covered to maintain the heat in the water. the yogurt containers from last time have already gone into the recycling, so i am using takeout containers this time around... if you need all the details.

those greyscale colors really come alive after a wash. Frosty is on the top row, and Blackie is on the bottom. i really love those silvery-grey sections of Frosty's fleece. it would be nice to find a whole fleece that color.

i decided to wash Frosty's fleece first. i want to keep the locks intact, so i have been carefully laying them out in plastic mesh baskets that i keep for this very purpose, and washing them one basket at a time.

yes, it does take longer than if i divided the fleece in a couple-few batches and washed it like that, but there is something indescribably calming about sitting cross-legged on the floor, carefully organizing chunks of dirty wool into neat rows. that calm was, after all, the point of this whole thing.

unfortunately, Cordy (the Little One of our furry trio) keeps hanging around, trying to eat bits of the wool, and keeping her out of trouble is definitely cutting into the relaxing part of this exercise. try explaining to a cat that the doctor says you need to "calm the hell down". she is as troublesome as she is adorable.

i tied pieces of bird netting to a collapsible laundry rack to make a two-tiered wool-drying rack.

i would have added a third layer of netting to the bottom of the rack, but this setup doubles as a cat trap, so that would have been a very most terribly bad idea. she is seriously my favorite cat.

i want to fill the bathtub with this stuff, and dive in head-first. it is so lovely!

you can see the difference between the tips (left) and the cut-end (right) of the fiber. i wonder if this was the first time Frosty got a haircut. [addendum: the farmer said Frosty also had a haircut last year.]

i am about halfway done with this fleece, then i will move on to washing Blackie's. hopefully my poor cat will survive the over-stimulation.

there has also been quite a bit of spinning in between playing with dirty wool. i mentioned back in April that i had started spinning up the fiber i bought at last Summer's Twist Fibre Festival. [naturally, said festival is cancelled this year... which was another excuse for buying two more fleeces.] that got pushed to the side for a while, but i want to free up the wheel to start spinning all the fleece i have been accumulating of late.

i have two full jumbo bobbins so far, with about half a bobbin's worth of that fiber left to go, which should (hopefully) be enough for a simple sweater of some sort for self.

oh, and there was also a calendar at the bottom of the box of fleeces, and it is filled (naturally) with photos of happy sheep. one of those days was my birthday. it was total rubbish. perhaps i will get around to celebrating it some other day when life is slightly less insane.

it seems to be raining again. i am going to resume sitting cross-legged on the floor, playing with dirty fleece, with at least one cat close at hand to keep me company. i would not have it any other way.

best rabbit hole ever...

i am sat up in bed, watching nonsense on You Tube and eating floor-Oreos. hopefully i will do a better job of holding on to the opened pack next time around... hopefully.

it is Monday evening as i start writing this, and i am already waiting for this week to be done. last week was an especially rubbish one around here, and the weekend left me expecting that we were in for more of the same. i called my mother on Sunday, and my greeting to her was a dour, but apt one. "we are still alive. happy Mother's Day."

in that spirit of celebrating the tiny victories in life—including life itself—i present to you a tiny glimpse into the randomness that has brought some measure of joy to my corner of the Universe of late. 

we pulled a couple steaks out of the freezer and made a special meal one random day... just because.

these smashed potatoes have become his favorite dish of the moment. i boil whole potatoes (red potatoes in this case, as that is what we had on hand) in super-salty water, then smashed them lightly, and drizzled on a mixture of olive oil, melted butter, salt, black pepper, and a generous helping of crushed garlic. they go into a 425°F oven on a parchment-lined baking sheet until they are toasty around the edges, after which i turn on the broiler for the last couple-few minutes. i added a sprinkling of freshly-grated Parmesan cheese and shoved them back under the broiler for the last minute. not gonna lie... they are really tasty. he likes the leftovers served up with sour cream, so we make extra for the next day. so ridiculously good!

speaking of ridiculous... i woke up one day last week to find a new box in the entryway to our apartment, which currently serves as the 'quarantine area' for all incoming items.

me: was this here before?
him: uhm... no.
me: is this an 'unauthorized purchase'?
him: uhm... possibly.
me: what did you buy now?
him: it's a Master of the Universe. you like them. 
me: open 'er up.

after the absurdity of life of late, he can buy whatever nonsense he wants. so... welcome, Skeletor.

may you find peace among the countless other homages to a never-ending childhood that are already occupying our home. trust me... that is only a tiny fraction of the insanity in the studio. whatever makes him happy.

he hangs on to the boxes with interesting artwork, so this one was a definite keeper.

as i see it, we are all allowed our own brand of insanity. which reminds me...

i washed those two fleeces i talked about last time. this usually requires a lot of room to spread all that wool out to dry, but that would be asking for trouble in a home with three bored cats. so i divided the fiber into several batches that could be dried out of paw-reach, and washed them over the course of a week or so.

i separated out the 'best bits' from each fleece and took special care to try to wash them while maintaining the lock formations of the fiber, like this bag of cleaned BFL/NCC mule fiber. [i explained what that means in the previous post.]

i love the variation in the fiber from this one fleece. it is hard to believe that all of this came from the same sheep.

i did the same thing with the purebred BFL fleece.

this may look like a tangly mess, but i can easily separate the locks, which will help when it comes time to prep the fiber for spinning.

there is enough 'best bits' from the mule fiber for a generous sweater's worth of yarn, so i am storing all of that in a recycling bag until i decide what it will become. the BFL was a much smaller fleece, so those 'best bits' are living for now in one of the shopping bags that was sent along with my box of wool.

as for the mucky bits of both fleeces, they were washed in a less-organized fashion, using some plastic strainers and mesh baskets that i keep exclusively for use with fiber-related things.

i am going to need to open a few chakras before i can begin to tackle prepping this stuff for spinning. however, in all this madness, i welcome that challenge.

there were some impressively-long sections of the BFL fleece. i am actually considering getting one of their longer fleeces next year... should we last that long.

i am making progress on the summery top featuring my first ever batch of hand-dyed cotton-based yarn (which i spoke about two posts ago). i am taking all sorts of license in re-interpreting the designer's instructions... because i can. the top should be finished by this weekend, unless i get distracted by some other... hey, is that a butterfly???

oh, and i am still carrying those damn socks (from a few post ago) from room-to-room, although i must admit to having added not a single stitch to that project in over a week.

____________________

it is roughly twenty-four hours later and i am pleased to say that i have fallen down a rabbit hole that began with the Betty Boop classic "Minnie the Moocher", and has resulted in the past couple-few hours being spent watching segments of swing music/dancing from a truly impressive list of old movies. between the likes of the Nicholas Brothers, Cab Calloway, and Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, i have hummed, snapped my fingers, and tapped my toes enough to chase away most of the gloom that i feared would cloud the next few days of my life.

best rabbit hole ever!!!

i wrapped up my evening by returning to where it started... with good music and classic animation. this time, it was the Warner Bros classic "Three Little Bops". [the only video i could find that includes the whole piece was this one from Vimeo. and, yes... the video quality sucks.]

then my favorite animator walked in.

him: are you listing to the "Three Little Bops"?
me: yep. been listening to it on repeat for the last twenty minutes or so.
him: i was listening to that just yesterday.

then i smiled. it is nice to be reminded that our insanity intersects every once in a while.

[insert all the jokes here]...

somewhere near the end of an otherwise unremarkable dream, i found myself in a theater-like space where a performance of some sort was getting ready to take place. the house-lights dimmed and a group of men walked into the midst of the crowd, dragging behind them a large tarp that resembled a heavy burlap fabric. they stopped moving when the reached the center of the gathering, then they turned and walked away, leaving the mass on the floor.

it was at this point that i noticed what looked like large silkworm cocoons scattered among the folds and ripples of the burlap. each one was wrapped, like a silk cocoon, in heavy ropes that were colored in intense shades of fuchsia. one end of each rope had been left unraveled, leading back into the dark shadows from which the tarp had been dragged. they suddenly went taut, like an unseen hand had gathered them up and started tugging at them from inside the darkness.

slowly, the spiral of colored rope enclosing each of the cocoons began to unravel, just like a long strand of silk being unwound from its cocoon. as each rope came to an end, figures began to emerge from the center of the cocoons. each figure took a nearly-imperceptible bow, like his or her part in the performance had come to an end, before turning and walking off into the dark shadow.

until only one cocoon remained.

it was the largest one, and the spiral of rope that encircled it had been unraveling even slower than the rest. the few lights that had illuminated the makeshift performance space on the mass of burlap faded, and we were left with our collected attention and one remaining half-dimmed spotlight focused on the still-unraveling cocoon.

the last few wraps of the colored rope were slowly pulled away, and the heads of everyone present turned briefly to follow as it too disappeared into the darkness, before turning back to the object that was left behind.

it was a glass-like shell, the same size and shape of the large cocoon, and there was a faint glow on the inside illuminating what appeared at this point to be the body of a child. but the shell broke, and out of it emerged a young woman. she seemed at first to be naked, but she began reaching into the darkness surrounding her, and pulling from it one brightly-colored piece of fabric after another with which she adorned herself.

she was clothed in layer upon layer of rich silks, dyed in the most intense shades of colors like teal, and orange and gold. each new layer was arranged in such a fashion that the ones below it shone through, and the figure of the woman, and the spectacle of her presence there on that stage... in the midst of all that unknowing shadow... increased in majesty until it was a near-otherworldly sight to behold.

then i woke up.
_____________

my two wool fleeces arrived in Monday's mail, and i was super-excited to get my hands on them... after which i washed said hands... twice. i grabbed a quick sample from each bag, and spent some time in a state of deep contemplation.

[pro tip: you can usually tell which end of raw fleece was close to the sheep. it is the cleaner bit with the blunt ends.]

this fiber was purchased from the good people over at Fusilier Sheep Company, a family farm in Saskatchewan. the sample on the left comes from a Blue-Faced Leicester sheep named "Georgia". BFL sheep have relatively-fine (soft) wool which tends to grow in tight coils... she says, stroking her own crown of tight coils. you can almost see why they are my absolute favorite breed. BFL wool is soft enough for next-to-skin wearing (unless you are me, naturally), and the impressive length of the fibers makes for an enjoyable spinning experience.

then there is the other sample. this one comes from a mule named "27". in sheep terms, a "mule" is a cross between a BFL and a hill/mountain sheep breed (North Country Cheviot, in this case). NCC sheep produce more wool than BFL sheep, but the BFL brings a significant amount of softness and length to the mix. you get the best of both worlds with these crossbreeds.

speaking of length...

i selected two fleeces with fibers in the range of four inches (which is pretty impressive for wool on the softer end of the scale), but they were far from the longest ones the farm had on offer. some of their mule fleeces had fibers in the eight-to-nine-inch range. i would not know what to do with such a thing. [insert all the jokes here.]

i wanted to do a quick wash with the two samples, so that i have a sense of how much work will be required to get all that fiber prepped for spinning. this is a scaled down version of what i do when washing a whole fleece, and it is not meant to be any sort of how-to guide on fleece washing, so consider yourselves warned.

the three things you want to get rid of when washing a fleece are dirt/sand, grease (specifically, the lanolin that makes a sheep's wool relatively waterproof), and VM (all the tiny bits of vegetable matter that accumulates in greasy, sticky wool... because sheep will insist on behaving like outdoor animals).

the first two things are easy to get rid of. all it takes is hot water with a bit of soap. they sell all sorts of fancy wool-washes for this sort of thing, but i am a firm believer in Dawn dish detergent. that is the stuff they use to clean animals that foolishly wander into the path of oil spills. for this tiny bit of wool, i put two drops into about two cups of the hottest water my tap produces.

in goes the wool...

and within seconds, a creamy substance forms on the surface. that is the detergent mixing with the lanolin and rising to the top.

while the grease rises to the top, the dirt/sand sinks to the bottom. this was after about a minute of soaking in hot, soapy water with zero agitation of any sort.

i covered the container to keep the water from cooling off too much while the wool soaked. that is a repurposed yogurt container, if you really need to know all the details. it was black cherry flavor... my favorite.

roughly fifteen minutes later, and it was ready for a quick rinse.

just reach under the mass of fiber in the water, and scoop it up (those speckly bits are VM)...

and into the clean water it goes.

all that dirt and grease is left behind. [random aside: the lanolin in skin and hair care products is recovered from the commercial wool washing process.]

all that sand came from those tiny samples, so imagine how much there must be in two sheep worth of wool.

if you look closer, you can see all the bits of plant material still mixed in with the (now) cleaned fiber. that stuff does not dissolve in soapy water, and it is too light to sink to the bottom of the wash container, so it will be dealt with later when the fiber is being prepped for spinning.

the fiber is still wet at this point, but it is so clean. this part always makes me smile.

i usually let the fiber soak in the rinse water for a bit  and follow it up with a second rinse when washing large amounts of fleece, but a quick dip in the rinse water was more than enough for such a tiny sample.

i left it to dry for an hour or two.

those lovely coils in the BFL sprang to life.

him: it looks like a doll's hair.

then i spent the next few minutes explaining to him that curly wool of this kind is frequently used for things like doll's hair (like this totally creepy selection of doll's wigs) or for making the beard (and hair) for Santa Claus figurines. yes... he is a very lucky man to be constantly subjected to this caliber of totally useless information.

as for the last problem... the bits of VM... most of that will fall out as the fiber is combed or run through a drum carder prior to spinning. even just opening up the fibers a bit can allow most of that debris to fall out, as was the case for the mule fiber sample.

this fiber is free of tangles and second cuts (short bits from a second pass of the shears). i could take this to my spinning wheel without any further prep necessary.

even the tight coils of the BFL fiber opened right up with very little effort. i have encountered BFL fiber in the past that was so tightly coiled, i had to sit down with a fiber brush, and carefully detangle the whole mess... she says, once again stroking her mane of many tangles.

i had originally planned on only purchasing one fleece this Spring, as i was hoping to get some more fiber for spinning at this summer's Twist Fibre Festival. however, said event has been (understandably) cancelled, so i decided to do my part and support a small business by getting a second fleece. when you think about it, that was actually rather altruistic and selfless of me.

that's my story, and i'm sticking to it.