Left My Heart in San Francisco

They came.  They Knitted.  Their Hats were Mad.  Here are the Bridge Knitting Guild of beautiful San Francisco, CA, working furiously on their self-designed hats.  

Know what I love about knitters?  They are always doing something beautiful, even when they aren't trying to.  This is the setup one of my students gave himself to design a motif with.  No one could fail with colors like that; and the matching pencils to draw with...pure magic.  The resulting hat was, too.

After class, we toured the Castro neighborhood, where I took in the sights (and smells!).

Here is my best friend's Best Friend.  Her name is Lilly, and she is one rock star poochie.

I got a spinning lesson, and I'm pleased to report that both my string and my nerves held together.  Sorry, Knitting: you have to move over and make room for my new love: Making Yarn.  It is so much fun that I am in danger of giving up sleep to make more time for it.

Then I went home, where my sweet little family were waiting for me, as well as my own spinning wheel, with whom I now am friends.

I decorated it with a favorite passage.  You can do the same if you visit here They had never made a spinning wheel quote before, but I think it looks great!
 

Wouldn't Wanna Bug Ya

Tomorrow I'm off to beautiful San Francisco to combine several of my favorite activities:  Knitting Class, Visiting Friends, Drinking Wine.  Probably not in that exact order.  Here is a funny little hat I made to demonstrate several techniques that I will be teaching.  I am crazy for ladybugs!  I've long wanted to make a ladybug-something, but it's a motif that seems to get knitted by other designers pretty often, so I have not indulged until now.  Lindsay picked out the colors, and made immediate plans to wear it next winter.  I don't need a better reason than that, but using it for my class was an added incentive to get it done.  I hereby assert that hats are a more perfect knitting project than socks because you only have to make ONE.  I love them unreasonably.

There are large plans afoot for the weekend:  Carson and I are going to do a self-guided fiber crawl, upon which I cannot wait to report.  He promises that I can be taught to operate a spinning wheel, and I'm going to help him fire up his very own website (which the knitting world very much needs - wait till you see what he has to teach us!).  Oh, and the Bridge Knitting Guild and I are gonna bust out 14 hats, give or take.  Ambitious plans for 48 little hours, no? I can't wait to see what goes on!
 

Charmed, I'm Sure

Friday was a banner day.  My 39th 25th birthday present arrived with grand fanfare.  The smallies called me on my mobile as I sat in traffic on the way home from the office:  "Mom!  A BIG BOX came on a brown truck!"  "How big is it?" I asked  "Cam!  Get the measuring tape - Mom wants to know how big it is!"  Sounds of measurements being taken by children.  My excitement mounts.  Traffic stubbornly declines to move.  "It's 27 inches high and 20 inches wide.  Who's Lendrum?"  My knuckles whiten on the wheel and I will the traffic logjam to release with all the power of my being...
Nothing.  I fantasize about the moment when I will greet my wheel.  MY wheel.  Love the sound of that.

An hour later, the smallies and I bust open the box.  As thrilled as I am to meet the new wheel, I never anticipated how much my kids would like it.  They treadle for as long as I will let them, lulled to relaxation by the gentle motion.  So far they are much better spinners than I am.  When I treadle, I am also attempting to add fiber to the process.  This has yet to result in anything resembling yarn. 

I never have spun on a wheel.  Any wheel.  I only last week managed my spindle. But true to form, I signed up for a class with the venerable Judith MacKenzie McCuin, hoping I can learn to make a continuous thread in time, and only then began casting about for a wheel to purchase.  Turns out you're supposed to try out wheels before you buy one.  Turns out there are all different kinds, and if you buy one without trying it first you might not like it.  But how am I supposed to do that?  There isn't anywhere to see wheels within 80 miles of my house.  And if there were, wouldn't I be unequipped to judge equipment that I cannot operate?  So just as with motorcycles and books in languages I cannot read and lots of other things I get excited to discover, I picked one that seems right, and that's the one I'll learn on.  This reverse strategy has served me well in the past, so who am I to start questioning it now?  Besides, as difficult as it is to get a wheel sometimes (whaddya mean, six-month wait?), I felt I should leap first and look later when this one presented itself.  Thanks Morgaine! 

I'm visiting my pal Carson this weekend, who spins on the very same brand.  Hopefully he can teach me a thing or two, though at the moment, I have my doubts.  I can't believe how hard it is to make string out of fluff.

In the meantime, I'm just playing with my wonderful machine.  The wood feels like satin and it makes the most lovely swishing sounds.  I'm dreaming of the day it will whisper its secrets to me...