Meet George.

This is George. He is my very first ball of handspun yarn. I am immensely proud of him.

I hope that he will now leave me alone so that I can actually get some knitting done.

Progress, regress, and progress in the wrong direction

The past few days have seemed to move very, very slowly, but at the same time it's incredible to me that the week is almost over.

I made some progress on WIPped into Shape Month. The first thing I did was finish the Boring Socks:

...which turned out to be a little short. I'm hoping they'll grow a little when they hit the water, but the last item I knit with this yarn (my HP house sweater) didn't grow at all. When it comes to knitting, I live in a near-permanent state of denial. Despite the sizing issues, this counts as my first finished object for the month.

I continued this trend by putting sleeves on the A-squared cardi. It was a big hit at the SnB last night; everyone got a chance to fondle the soft, soft alpaca and angora. I finished the second sleeve, but just barely: it was knitter vs. yarn in a race to the finish before I ran totally out. I have just enough of the main color left over to seam the underarms. Today I added the button bands, including my first ever buttonhole, which I'm not all that impressed with. There must be a neater way to make a buttonhole than cast off, cast on. At any rate, all that's left is to weave in the multitude of ends and add a button, so this cardi is very close to being finished.

I might have accomplished more on my WIP month goals except for a minor distraction that turned into a major time-suck: spinning. Now, I want to make clear at the outset that this was not my fault. I could have continued knitting happily all month were it not for Alice the Enabler, her drop spindle, and her English angora. (My idea of paradise now consists of rolling around naked in a pile of English angora. ...What?)

After Alice pushed her crack- er, spinning, on me last night, I remembered how much fun spinning was. And I remembered my drop spindle, and I remembered that big bag of lamb's wool in the seaweed-y colors, and three hours later:

A whole lot of single. My spinning is actually pretty consistent now, not thick and slubby like it was when I started. At some point, I'm going to have to figure out how to ply all this single, though, which is when I'll find out just how uneven my tension is. Ah, well. I'm learning a lot as I go.

And finally, some actual, practical, non-fiber progress. I had my first real interview with a Wycliffe rep yesterday! I'm starting the application process and taking my first real steps toward membership. It was exciting to sit down and look at plans and timelines and feel like my life was actually going somewhere.

The only real setback this week is, once again, this blasted cough I caught. It's back, it's mean, it's ugly, and this time it's actually starting to be painful. Warning to everyone: I'm back on the narcotics for the time being, drugged to the gills, falling asleep at completely inappropriate times, and with no filters between brain and mouth. Should be exciting.

Hymn in three parts

Part One: Reduce

It was the day for getting rid of things. I was ruthless. I was getting rid of t-shirts not just because they didn't fit or had holes but just because I do not need ten t-shirts. I don't.

I took out two garbage bags of clothes. I didn't even stop to count the things inside, because getting rid of a number was not the goal any more. (Plus I was afraid that in the process of counting I would rethink some of my purges.) The goal was not getting rid of things; it was just to have what I need, and no more.

I took the piles of clothes out, and when I was done, I walked in to my closet and sighed, "Thank God for the things I do not have!" And I meant it with all my heart.

Thank God that the poor will have their clothes back. Thank God that my mind is free from the deadly attachment I had to those souvenir shirts. Thank God that I am, for a moment, sure of myself without the support of my things.

Part Two: Reuse

What's a financially strapped would-be spinner to do? It hardly seemed like the right time for me to start up a new, potentially expensive hobby. I did not have a spinning wheel, a drop spindle, or even the correct supplies to make a drop spindle out of an old CD. More significantly, I did not have any fiber to spin.

Which is when I remembered the cheap little pillow, whose stuffing was trickling out of several growing holes.

When I want to do something, I do it. I don't let a little thing like being broke stop me.

Spindle? Leftover piece of dowel rod, plastic lid from a tub of oats, old CD, super glue. Fiber? Polyester stuffing- impossible to comb, incredibly short draw, dingy white. It's like spinning rainclouds. (And if I could do that, by the way, I'd have plenty of fiber, and those clouds would do more good than they are sitting in the sky pretending to think about raining.)

The results could charitably be described as slubby. Actually, they could charitably be described as yarn. But it's something. At least I'm not ruining good fiber on my first sad attempts. If I can spin this, I can spin anything. (My own hair is next on the list. From short draw to loooooong draw in one fell swoop. I promise, no one will get my knitted hair as a present.)

Part Three: Rethink

I hate patriotic "hymns". Hearing them in church makes me want to vomit spectacularly, all over the "hymn"-writer's shoes. I heard this week (maybe from Bruce Ware) that there are four major world religions: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Americanism. I concur, with tears.

But then I discovered a hymn in our old Cold War-era hymnal that made me rethink the "patriotic" hymn, from a guy who must have known the best and the worst of this country.

Thou Judge by whom each empire fell,
When pride of power o'ercame it,
Convict us now, if we rebel,
Our nation judge, and shame it.
In each sharp crisis, Lord, appear,
Forgive, and show our duty clear:
To serve thee by repentance.

Search, Lord, our spirits in thy sight,
In best and worst reveal us;
Shed on our souls a blaze of light,
And judge, that thou may'st heal us.
The present be our judgement day,
When all our lack thou dost survey:
Show us ourselves and save us.

Lo, fearing nought we come to thee,
Though by our fault confounded;
Though selfish, mean, and base we be,
Thy justice is unbounded:
So large, it nought but love requires,
And, judging, pardons, frees, inspires.
Deliver us from evil!

-Percy Dearmer, 1867-1936