Saturday, May 24, 2008

melancholy

today i got a couple of hours to myself with no little monsters to look after. it was very nice to get a break as we don't have anyone who watches our kids for us... NO ONE. sure, i may get out of the house without a monster on the rare occasion, but the hubby is at home with them, and vice versa. so as anyone with kids can imagine, i get a little run down. not that i'm saying i don't love my kids or anything, you get used to it, really. but being in my OWN house with time to myself, it never happens and it was nice.

the first thing i ABSOLUTELY had to do was take a shower, these hot texas days are really kicking my ass. but after that, the rest of my time was spent in front of my spinning wheel! :)

but then what was supposed to be my happy time, turned into me being depressed about not having time to devote to my spinning. my etsy store has only four yarns left, the latest being the super kid mohair yarn, and that was FOREVER ago. i wanna be one of those AMAZING spinners that grace the message boards with their beautiful work every week. it's so inspirational. and they have like, 5 new yarns a week, and that's only what they've finished, not counting the yarn on the bobbin still and all the prep work it takes, and i'm thinking, seriously, HOW DO THEY DO IT?!?! i want to be that productive! i want to spin that much! that's what really gets me down, i just want to be able to put that many skeins out at a time. and people say it will get better as the kids get older, and i know it will. hell, my son will be enrolling in pre-k this august. it's only three hours a day, but it's still "he's going to school" and then my other half is thinking "what's going to happen when DOES go? what will i do?" i don't even want to think about him going full time and then when my daughter goes to school? god, the way this economy is going, by the time they are in school, i'll probably have to get TWO damn jobs!

which, thank god, brings me to my next topic, no more wallowing and lamenting.

the economy in today's day and age, is a direct link to the earth, in my opinion. i get physically ill every time i hear about the gas prices going up. i may not be the most educated about what goes on in the world today, and the things that are the biggest factors in the literal disintegration of our planet, but i know enough to be scared, and i know enough to realize that it's happening. and i think everybody does, politicians and the us government may not WANT to say it's happening, but they know it is. and it is devastating to know that virtually NOTHING is being put into action to try and help the situation. i literally can't even think about most days because i always end up just feeling helpless, like there's nothing I can do to help out. i mean, i turn the light out when i leave a room, we've switched to those energy saving light bulbs, but come on!!! that's not helping all that much.


on to the point:i didn't mention this on the blog yet, but a while back, i ordered some ugly batts from high prairie fibers, now i'm aware that most people are not going to know what an ugly batt is, check the link. these monsters are AWESOME!!!! A FULL POUND of left over and orphan fibers, carded into ONE GINORMI BATT!!! this being my first experience with these phenomenas, i didn't really know what to expect, but i'd heard great things! being a little late to get in on the newest batch, there were some slim pickins *the "pretty colors" go first, COME ON PEOPLE, THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE U-G-L-Y!!!* so i very excitedly snatched up two grayish looking batts.


these are the most foreboding batts EVER!!

but when i opened the box they came in, two bags stuffed full of fiber came spewing forth at me. upon inspection, these batts have every type of fiber anyone could dream to have on hand, coarse, hairy salt-and-pepper-style wool, down-type brown wool, every-color-in-between wool, white-as-snow alpaca! you literally never what's next, with each draft you discover something new! it's the ultimate, edge-of-your-seat spinning kind of batt!




the batt on the right of the 1st picture: this is the more mellow of the two


but the one that spoke to me instantaneously was the left one, it is sprinkled and striped in flame red, grass green, some shade of tanish-yellow, primary blue, and some pure white. i knew what it was.... it was the earth dieing. it is her swan song. i felt the pull to spin some right then and there, no plan, just spinning. i pulled off a hand-sized chunk, and watched with the amazement of a child, the colors flow through my hands like the wind coursing through the grand canyon, like the wide open plains of east texas,like the sun barely kissing a sleeping baby on the cheek, like the crashing and violent waves of a tsunami, like far away land soaked with the blood of men, dieing in vain. and so, this yarn is my statement.

this is a great cross-section of the earth's destruction batt, although it doesn't have that much teal in it, only on this one side. it has much more green

this is a great cross-section of the colors, you can see the green, bright blue and the tan/sandy colors better here

this will be the first yarn from this batt of a planned series.

2 comments:

Talia Christine said...

I just ordered 2 ugly batts as well! I spun one skein so far and plied the yarn together. It has such warm earth colours it's full of such fabulous texture! The finished product is really neat and would fabulous mittens. I spun about 2 inches into the batt and... there is SO MUCH MORE LEFT!!!!! I'm really very pleased with them.

misfitknits said...

omg, i finished plying the first yarn last night, and i thought i would MAYBE get a skein and a half, oh no i got two FULL skeins off that bad boy!!! and it seems like i've hardly made a DENT in the batt! amazing!!