Friday bullets - October 15, 2021

We'll jump right in.

• Yesterday was H.'s 19th birthday. We'll celebrate tomorrow when most people can be here. Does it sound as crazy to as it does me that H. is 19?
• Aster is blowing her summer coat. There is hair all over the house. This is not your average, everyday husky fluff, this is huge tufts of hair that comes out in clumps. Aster is not looking her best at moment. She looks rather like one of the poultry outside at molting time. 
• For school today, I had a documentary planned about engineering in Ancient Carthage since we will be reading about the Punic Wars next week. It is part of a multi-DVD set that I bought. After they were done with the one about Carthage I was begged that they be able to watch the ones about the Aztecs and the Mayans. My children watch documentaries for fun.
• As I was working in the studio the other day, H. comes wandering in and watches me for a moment. Then she wanders around the room a bit. After a while she tells me, "You have many, many projects. You need more time to do the many, many projects." Yes, my darling girl, you couldn't be more correct. On both counts.
• We finished Journey to the Center of the Earth. Everyone agreed that the ending was inconceivable. Even more inconceivable than the rest of the book. The character of Hans had us all fascinated. I said he acted as a human deus ex machina, being the one responsible for saving the other characters over and over and over. G.'s over personal theory was that he was actually a Norse god in disguise. Her theory actually makes as much sense as the rest of the story.
• On their camping trip last weekend, many children were very excited by the camp store at the campground where they were staying. Y. bought me a present.

Aren't they cute? They're little owl salt and pepper shakers. They look particularly nice on the table with the fall centerpiece.

• K. has moved away from drawing all Star Wars all the time and moved into drawing faces. He is finding them a little more challenging, so doesn't have anything that he wants to share yet. But, when he decides to conquer something, he works diligently. I have no doubt that in not too long, there will be pretty credible drawings of faces to show you.
• Everyone this fall has an individual project they are supposed to be working on. This is what G. and L. naturally do, so they do it naturally. K. is finding it challenging. Y. has been extremely organized about it. She has created a schedule, figured out her reading, and designed projects to go along with her reading. She did bird watching last weekend because that was what she had assigned for herself. In the coming weeks, J. is going to help her build a bird house because that is what is on her schedule. If you have ever read Surviving the Applewhites (which, if you haven't, you really should), Y. is extremely similar to the character E. D. in the book. 
• I am reminded by Amazon that I am supposed to remind everyone that the links I include are affiliate links. If you happen to purchase anything through the links, I get a few cents. Jeff Bezos gets a lot. Can you tell that I truly don't care if you purchase through the links? I put them there so you can read about the book... and then put it on hold at your local library. But now I have informed you. 
• (This last is all about spinning, so if that is not your thing, you can stop here and not miss anything.) I spent some time this afternoon spinning really ugly yarn. This is due to several things, not the least of which is my need to try all the things at once. So what did I try today? Well, first, I decided to get out my drum carder and see what I could do with it. 

Last weekend, when the house was quiet, I spent quite a bit of time looking at spinning videos, some of which involved fiber preparation on a drum carder. I was inspired.) The trouble is, my stash of wool is not overly large, so there aren't a lot of options to play with when creating bats on the drum carder. This seemed like another good way to use the never ending pink wool.

So I used some of that as well as some of the wool from the yarn I showed you last time. It ended up being... underwhelming.

It's hard to see in the photo, but it is actually a very light lavender. So light, it can also look like a totally non-descript color. I'm not in love with it, which made it the perfect thing to use to get my skills back for my Ashford spinning wheel. 

This is not the wheel I have been using recently, and I knew it was going to take a bit to feel comfortable with it. The biggest differences are that it is a single treadle and there are just a lot more things to adjust. Once I figure it all out each time, I love it. It is actually easier than my other wheel.

This is a Louet wheel, and it is the one I learned on. It is actually rather tricky to spin on because the take-up (how fast the spun yarn is collected onto the bobbin) isn't really adjustable and I'm always fighting it a little bit. 

So, once I got the adjustments made and remembered (again) how to treadle a single treadle wheel, I was in business. (It always takes me about ten minutes to figure out how to keep the wheel moving. The first few tries always seem impossible to get the wheel to go in a full circle.) Eventually I was able to spin that uninspiring roving.

But wait, I also decided I was going to try to spin thicker yarn as well. Sometimes it worked. This isn't actually too bad and is a DK weight yarn.

It's a little uneven, but some practice will sort that out. But then there were places like this.

That's just a mess. Like, is it even spun? Just bad.

This is how much yarn I got from the fiber I prepared on the drum carder. It probably could have held more fiber than I put on it, but it turned out so ugly that I'm glad I didn't waste more on it. G., who was turning the handle, was a little disappointed that she couldn't keep working.

That's a small niddy-noddy. It's maybe 12 inches long?

And there were some parts that weren't hideous.

The finished skein of indeterminate color and totally inconsistent spinning. I'm not even going to wash this because I'm pretty sure it's not usable. It was the practice I needed, however, so it served its purpose.