Jananas

I was doing a small destash recently and came across an entire bag of hand spun yarn that I’d totally forgot about. Seriously, how do you forget about 10 skeins of yarn?

Since my yarn is proving to be popular at Wise Daughters and they have several knitting and crochet workshops coming up, I thought I’d restock. This bag of lovely, lovely yarn is going to be dropped off with Mary in the next day or two. It includes singles, two ply, three ply. It includes sparkles and colour and even one gigantic skein of 440 meters of two ply sqooshiness.

Sometime earlier this year a friend of mine told me about Yarn School. There aren’t a lot of spinning workshops/classes around, so I knew that I was going to have to travel in order to learn more.  Yarn School sounded awesome and came highly recommended, so I signed up as soon as registrations opened.

I was pretty proud of myself – I spent 15 hours traveling to get there (mostly killing time in airports, stupid lack of direct flights!) and went on my own trusting that a mutual love of spinning and all things fiber would help me make friends quickly.

The entire experience was awesome. It was like sleepover camp for adult ladies (with a glass of wine with dinner!). Nikol is a fabulous cook (even if lunch/dinner are a little late). The school is awesome – getting to set up a giant circle of wheels in the gym and getting to co-opt the science lab for dying fiber. We got to eat fresh eggs from Nikol’s chickens, visit with her sheep, see alpacas and even angora bunnies!

I dyed 2lbs of fiber – BFL, Wool, Merino, and a Superwash (not sure what the order is above). I love the first two, I’m not totally sold on the brown/yellow in the third, and the fourth is just… NEON. It was meant to be a colour study of gradients using Chartreuse… but, it obviously just came out looking like a neon safety sign. I’m planning on overdying it, but I’m still waiting for some inspiration.

The gym was awesome with all of our fiber hung up above the balcony to dry. Each dye lab had 15 people x 4 braids of 8 oz. each (or 2lbs). That’s a lot of fiber. What’s sort of scary is that we all came home with way more than that! I bought 6oz of alpaca, 2 x 4oz of a colour way dyed by Adrian from Hello Yarn, some angora, lots of firestar/angelina in bright colours, and several batts that I carded myself. In fact, I had so much fiber that I had trouble closing my suitcase on the way home and Jason couldn’t even hold it all. Even though, I showed restraint.

I learned how to Navajo Ply – my lovely neighbour Ashley taught me. I normally don’t like plying, but this method overcomes all of the reasons why I dislike plying, is fun, and looks cool to boot. In fact I love it so much that I haven’t been able to stop.

The top skein is 4oz of a special Yarn School Hello Yarn colour way spun up as a worsted single. The bottom row is all Navajo Ply. The far left is 4oz of Sweet Georgio rovings. Next is a mix of Hello Yarn scraps and a special Yarn School colour way. After that is a batt I carded while there that is a crazy mix of: wool, mohair, bamboo, silk, angelino, nylon, and merino – it is sparkly! Next is 2oz of tricolour alpaca. After that is a lofty 3-ply that I dyed myself in pinks, blues, lilac, and purples. And hiding up in the corner is a tiny skein that I practiced on when I was learning to Navajo Ply.

In all, I had an amazing time hanging out with a group of women who love spinning as much as I do. I missed it from the moment I walked out the front door and am already scheming how to go back next year (fingers crossed!).

Wise Daughters Craft Market presents

IT’S MY YARN PARTY (AND I’LL BUY IF I WANT TO)

Fri, Oct 15, 8 pm, $15

Yarns told by some of Toronto’s best storytellers, co-presented with FOOL (Festival of Oral Literatures)

Sat, Oct 16, 10 – 6

Yarn fair extraordinaire showcasing work by local spinners and knit/textile designers Spinning demonstrations at 2 and 4 pm (including one by yours truly!)

Sun, Oct 17, 10 – 6

Specialty knitting classes

10:30 – 12:30 Gloria Williams – Fingerless Gloves

Fingerless gloves make great gifts!  If you can knit and purl, you’ll love this project.

Materials: 1 skein of handspun yarn, set of 4 or 5 double pointed needles, 5mm.

1:00 – 3:00 Jana Reid – Ear Flap Hat (hey, that’s ME!)

Keep your ears warm and the cold Canadian winter out with this original cosy hat pattern.

Must know how to knit, purl, increase and decrease.

Materials: min 140 m handspun yarn, a set of double pointed needles, 16″ circular in 4 – 5 mm.

3:30 – 5:30 Rosa Tarle – The Kink in your Yarn

Keep the kink in your yarn and knit it…Learn how to wind handspun energized singles and maintain the active twist while you knit!  Scarf pattern included, other creations for this unique bias knitting technique will also be shared.  Must know how to knit and purl.

Materials: a skein of handspun energized yarn, 4 – 5 mm needles.

Each class $10, all three $25 Yarn must be purchased at Wise Daughters in advance www.wisedaughters.com 3079B Dundas St. W.

The cat is out of the bag. Jason & I are engaged. It wasn’t really a surprise. We’ve been together for three years and have spent lots of time over the last while talking about weddings and equally fun things like immigration. Jason had even vocalized that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. (cue inner girl going Squeee!)

It was this weird in between space where we knew it was going to happen eventually, but I wasn’t able to be excited/start planning. Traditional gender roles would have us believe that as the woman I was supposed to just sit back and wait. And wait. And wait until someone else made a decision for me and for us. It was a position that made me feel powerless and weak and frustrated.

The only reason I felt that way though was because I’d allowed myself to discount a totally viable option. I bought into the limitations of traditional gender roles. I didn’t have to wait because I had the power to ask too.

So yes, I asked Jason to marry me. We were tucked into bed talking one evening and I just had to. The question was sitting in my mouth, taking up space and weighing me down. I knew that if I didn’t ask, I’d focus on it and drive myself crazy. So I asked and he said yes.

And because I’m me, I then asked if I could wear a ring that I adore. My father gave my mother this ring years and years ago. Its an opal surrounded by little diamonds. Its the only ring that I’ve ever liked wearing (this doesn’t mean that I’ll always wear it though because I’m really not a jewelry sort of girl) and in my head its always been a left hand ring finger sort of ring.

Now, for ring pron.

I’d wanted my arm pits to be tattooed for a while (as in years). I think that they are a strange combination between stealth and highly visible/unusual. Really, I wanted to be able to say that my armpits smell like roses. Except that I dislike the way tattooed roses look, so I went with daffodils instead.

We did the first one about a month ago. It healed up really well when you consider how much movement there is in the area and the fact that the two sides of fresh tattoo rubbed against one another when my arm was down. There are some minor touch ups and I’d like to add some more yellow to it, but I was so stoked.

Having it done sucked. The first two hours weren’t bad and the third hour was almost unbearable. I convinced myself that I could sit through 2 more minutes, just 2 more minutes for an entire hour. But it was done and now I could relax. Ha! Healing it was pretty brutal as well. I was so wiped out that I slept for 13 hours the next evening. Moving my arm, dressing, stretching all made it sore. And given that I’m right handed and this was my right armpit it meant that just about everything made it sore. Luckily I heal pretty fast, so the small layer of scab was off in 5 days. Then it was just waiting for the scar tissue to open up so that I could stretch fully again.

Last night I went back to get my second one done. I was pretty nervous because I knew what I was in for. Thankfully Jason came with me to hold my hand and provide moral support.

My artist also used new machines this time. They are neumas. They are super quiet, so I wasn’t fighting the stress of the sound of the machine as well as the pain of being tattooed.

I like this picture, because normally you don’t see people look quite so happy and full of smiles when they are getting their armpits tattooed. Yup, this is about how a I roll.

This is the final piece. The glare is from the last layer of ointment prior to being bandaged up. Its also still fairly red/pink because of irritation. We’ll grab photos of the healed piece in a few weeks for you so you can see the final result.

I can now proudly rock floral armpit tattoos. Its nice to have both done so that I feel balanced again. I really like these pieces. And I really like that most people don’t realize that I have them. Its like my own little joke that the world isn’t in on.