mostly roving, partly stars

I'm losing my miiiiiiiind

I got all the Meijer stuff done, and I paid rent, but the package is still missing, and I didn't find the stuff I wanted at Joann's (or at Target). It's looking like I might not be able to find the kind of decorative cardboard wine tube I'd seen there before (apparently they're seasonal???) and I'll have to higher-effort hack a spindle case out of a shipping tube or something. And find dropper bottles somewhere, altho that's not urgent.

but the missing package is super super duper stressing me out-enough that this whole rant probably ought to be vent thread material tbh :/

 

Okay, breathing. So far I have:

• gotten all Meijer things
• paid rent
• done as much package tracking as I can for now
• made new plan for spindle case
• poked Science Boy
• sent new budget email & transferred savings

I need to:

• make namasu
• spin (manx, polwarth, maybe wind off Finn & start new/better cop?)
• knit (glove, sweater, shawl)
• get tag number for carwash subscription so I can call and cancel tomorrow
• actually reapply for IDR
• unpack from trip
• maybe just get the crockpot soaking myself???

 

Namasu made! Really living up to my "it's a slice of life anime up in here" tag when I'm cheerfully chopping daikon in a swooshy skirt in my tiny kitchen in the big city, humming along to my music, with my cat occassionaly popping in to tell me what's going on outside the windows. Romanticizing my life like a Ghibli movie is really one of the best ways to deal with things I just... can't deal with.

 

Actually this just crossed my FB dash earlier-

 

Goooob morning! I have coffee, bacon, kitty cuddles, and a hopeful update on my missing package!



Turns out there was a substitute carrier for the past two days, as I suspected the most likely outcome is that I was just mistakenly not given a key to the parcel locker, and my regular carrier will be checking for the key and the package today - so unless the key got given to one of my neighbors by accident AND they took the package even though it doesn't have their name on it & contains only spinning fiber (not high value to most people), I'm probably getting my package today!

 

My package of fiber did show up! It was rather anticlimactic after all that stress.

Also for some reason I feel self conscious about putting it in a selfie thread or makeup thread or w/e, but I felt SUPER CUTE today! So here's my face

Spoiler: face

 

Today is all about getting ready for YarnCon tomorrow!

• Errands (refer to shopping list)
• Final assessment - do I need to do laundry?
• Make carry sling for spindle case
• Pack
• Take downtime! Store spoons ahead!

 

I am home from YarnCon, I am incredibly happy about how well that went (first time doing a road trip with friends since some of the more disastrous experiences with H-R), and I'm sitting on the couch surrounded by a little over 2 1/2 pounds of fiber. I also netted a book about growing flax & processing it into linen fiber, two new spindles, and an 8-oz skein of yarn I absolutely didn't mean to get but was sweet-talked into (it's like exactly my kind of color, and the seller offered a hefty discount). I will take nicer photos & talk more about my experience later probably, but for now I'm gonna keep browsing leftover car snacks & relax & dye more yarn (I was very inspired by all the indie dyers there, and have had the dyepot going almost since I walked in the door)

 

• Laundry
• Package? (second package in a row they've flubbed, wtf is going on with my local office all of a sudden)
• Copy character sheets
• Build test npc
• Record unboxing
• Make Secret Project package & deliver

 

I did... laundry. Also yarn dyeing. None of those other things yet :/

Also, note to self- just because your hands are doing good enough to do laundry & dye yarn & cook doesn't mean they're doing good enough to do all those things on the same day. I hope Kai comes home with spoons left over bc I am not making dinner at this point, and we can't eat the yarn even if it's been in the crockpot all afternoon. I guess if all else fails, we have chicken nuggets.

 

MY PACKAGE IS FINALLY HERE!

Next question - is it worth doing an unboxing video again? Pros: attention, more bids for connection w/online fiber community, fun project for the afternoon to distract me. Cons: spoons, currently having a (well-managed) migraine, currently have a very needy cat climbing all over my arms and making me typo (although he'll hopefully calm down and be less of a factor after a bit.)

 

Maybe wait to open it, then do an unboxing video tomorrow? That way you’d have spoons and hopefully be less migraine-y! Dunno if that’s an option or not, but yeah.

 

I could in fact do that... But then I'd have to wait to see what's in the box!

I'm going to at least wait until Kai is home from work, because then she can distract cats, and eating dinner will reduce the spoon loss rate.

Really the big spoon cost of video making is that I still get super self conscious & anxious about it, but I want to practice my video content skills. And if I try to treat it like a more casual thing, I will hopefully spend less spoons AND make more natural video.

 

In the meantime, I have a backlog of Other Yarn News I wanted to share!

YarnCon was utterly amazing. I was not at the right place for any of the classes/workshops, so I can't speak to the quality of those or how that whole system was run, but the variety of booths was GREAT, the expertise & friendliness of all the indie fiber artists was GREAT, I have so many business cards I still need to go through and follow on various social media, and I got so. much. stuff.



Going roughly counterclockwise from the book on the left, there's:

• A book on how to grow your own flax and process it into linen (extra uses of flax byproducts included). Bought at the Apothefaery booth.
• A beautiful little Russian spindle! I hadn't tried support spinning yet - my first experiments today were def wonky, but very fun. Bought at the booth that I think was named "Griffin's Hoard" - it's a Spanish Peacock spindle, but from what I gathered, the maker of these spindles has since passed, and they were selling off old inventory and some of his stashed handspun.
• A pack of to-die-for gorgeous green-dyed Teeswater locks. These are honestly just going in a pretty bowl to stare at for a few months until I decide what I'm doing with them, they're that pretty. Bought at the Apothefaery booth.
• A little pack of pretty dyed silk hankies. Bought at the Apothefaery booth.
• A 4oz braid of polwarth/silk blend (a blend I've heard highly recommended and have been dying to try) - colorway "Cider Donuts." Bought at the Hopkins Fiber Studio booth.
• A medium-weight drop spindle with a sunflower whorl. It spins super long, I'm quite happy. I am embarrassed that I forgot which booth it came from, though.
• A 4oz braid of BFL/bamboo blend (intriguing! new! turns out to be utterly delightful to spin, the bamboo has a wonderful lightening effect) - colorway "Royal Treatment." Bought at the Fiber Addiction booth.
• An 8oz skein of worsted weight merino/silk singles yarn I was sweet-talked into buying even though I didn't mean to buy yarn - it's a great color for me, and I did get offered a pretty hefty discount. Colorway "Gingerbread." Bought at the Yarn Hollow booth.
• A 4oz bag of undyed (natural brown) Tasmanian Comeback - I had to grab it, it's a fiber cross I'd never heard of before! It feels a lot like the Manx Loaghtan I've been adoring lately. Bought at the Hopkins Fiber Studio booth.
• A 4oz braid of undyed (natural white) Falkland wool - again, a new variety to me. So incredibly MUCH for a 4oz braid, this is gonna make some amazing knitting yarn with the amount of body it has. Bought at the Yarn Geek booth.
• A 4oz bag of undyed (natural grey) Romney wool - from a reserve champion fleece! It feels amazing and I'm really excited to try it. Bought at the 2 Guys Yarn Company booth.

It's also worth noting that I had such an amazing time because I packed my Sperg Support Kit well, took breaks, and had really super duper supportive friends who were willing to get a hotel even if that wouldn't have technically been necessary - since we were only doing Saturday at the con, we could have done a day trip. They said they had way more fun taking things slow, though, and it was an amazing friends roadtrip (the nicest, most uncomplicated, least stressful friends roadtrip IN MY LIFE) in addition to a great con!

Once I got home, I was bursting with inspiration for color, and as mentioned above started working on yarn dyeing. I still don't have any new colors nailed down in yarn - the reds are proving challenging to get the nuance right, and we're developing quite the pile of very pretty not-quite-right red yarns that will probably turn into a gradient-like project at some point. But, in the process of trying to nail down nuance, I did a Me and made inspiration boards for each of the colorways that are from the older Irish color words - the ones I'm doing subtle multi-hue kettle dyes for rather than low-immersion tonal dyes for like the modern/more-artificial-color "green," "orange," "purple," and "pink."

Spoiler: many lorg colorway inspo photos

 

That sounds like a great time!! And packing a Sperg Support Kit is ALWAYS a good idea at cons. (Should prolly figure mine out for Fanime, now that I think about it...)

EDIT: What do you keep in your kit, btw?

 

This is the first con I've tested my kit at - before its just been for medium-to-large house parties! I usually carry:

• Fully charged phone, and a charging cord or charged external battery depending on projected outlet availability
• Most comfortable set of earbuds
• A comfy knit hat and/or fingerless gloves, depending on temps
• A large shawl, if I'm not wearing one with my outfit
• Two different small handcrafts (usually a littler knitting project & one of my small spindles)
• Preload good comforting ebooks or fic onto the phone
• Two or three different kinds of snacks
• Bottled beverage (water, lemonade, or best of all, raspberry iced tea)
• (sometimes) little stuffed bunny toy
• Dice (good for stimming & also for hacking executive function re:decision making)
• Religious/hearth-connecting things (either my charged hearthstone, a bratach Bríd, or both) to connect to Home Energy

This all fits in my big knitting tote, but can get kind of heavy. In a pinch, phone +earbuds +comforting knit thing can carry me through, but I was a girl scout sperg raised by spergs and I like to Be Prepared.

 

I’ll definitely keep the snacks/bottled drinks thing in mind! That’s always an issue for me at cons.

FWIW, mine is basically:

• Necessities (phone + charging cable/brick + power bank, chargers for other shit I have on me, wallet, cosplay makeup if it’s something I might need to reapply such as lipstick or whatever, etc.)
• Piece of my childhood blankie (good smells and comfort yessss) and sometimes a small plushie or two
• My Switch and 3DS
• My Kindle
• My sketchbook and pens and such
• My nice headphones
• Backup headphones/earbuds in case I need to recharge the nice ones midday
• Something that smells good—I often will bring this perfume I like and a sachet of lavender, good smells calm me down!
• Tarot cards (card-shuffling is a good stim!)

 

So I recorded the video last night, but I didn't get captions done until this morning!



Gonna go crosspost this in the fiber arts thread now and hope I'm not being rude by posting too much in a row there :/

 

Goooooob morning. I'm surprisingly less stiff/sore than i expected after accidentally hyper focusing on the Russian spindle last night, but I should probably take it easy on the spinning regardless. Which is fine, since I have a mountain of knitting to do. Oh, and doing my heckign OT stretches since this is what they're for, duh.

Hopefully today I don't experience weird afternoon mood dump, and I retain spoons for date night!