$114 Bike Ride

So, today as I biked to work for only the second time this year, I was pondering that this is probably only the fourth time that I’ve biked to work since getting Stella (I can’t remember if I took her three times last year or two…so I’m going with two).  So if you consider that I spent about $800 on her including accessories (helmet and side-saddle bag), this would be the 7th time I used her, so it’s about $114 for this ride.  But I console myself that tonight will take my rides down to$100.  However, if you speculate the value of riding past the multi-million dollar homes that skirt the river valley, and then that I bike through that valley which makes those homes worth so much, one may consider that worth it.  Although, I think to really make it a valuable trip, I should get a fishing pole and a fish basket so I can utilise the river too…

I’m hoping it doesn’t rain on Monday so my morning ride would be $88.88 and my evening ride $80.  I can’t bike to work tomorrow as I’ll be leaving mid-day to head over to the Muttart Conservatory to help celebrate its reopening after it had some pretty extensive remodeling done to it.  I’m taking my spinning wheel and various plant fibres to show that plants aren’t just for eating or smelling or looking at.  I’m probably also going to bring my Level 1 dye book to show that they can be used as dyeing materials as well, and a friend and fellow spinner may be joining me as well, which will be really nice.  Hopefully I’ll get an opportunity to wander around and take some photos while I’m there!

Dyeing to do This

Last week I attended Level 4 of the Olds College Master Spinner Program.  I heart yarn school!  It’s so awesome to meet other fibre addicts from all walks of life and to inspire and be inspired.  It was a busy but fulfilling time.

Here are my samples of the yarns we dyed with acid dyes as a group.  We all had to provide yarns (which we preferably spun) of a certain length and amount of skeins for each project.  We dyed our skeins in plastic baggies so that we could use one dye-pot and didn’t have to continue to reheat!  So efficient!  My skeins were 2-ply of one mohair singles with one Wensleydale wool singles, and the dyes we used were primary colours and it was the way we mixed them that created the varied colours.

Colour Wheel.  We were divided into 4 groups for this one, and we were each assigned 3 colours.  My group’s colours were blue, blue green and green:

Percentage Dyes.  Two groups for this one.  My group was in charge of green.  Percentage pertained to amount of dye per weight of fibre.  From left to right for each dye we did 0.1%, 0.25%, 0.5% and 1%:

Ombre Dyeing.  This is where the skeins are all put in the same dye bath but were removed after certain lengths of time to create variations in saturation.  From bottom to top, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes and 30 minutes.  We may have to redo this one however as the gradiants were too slight:

Injection Dyeing.  The top skein had been wound really tightly and folded on itself to create a snug spiral which I wound my syringes of dye around.  I wound the bottom skein around my thumb to create a tight little center pull ball, and then I gently injected dyes around the outside.  When I unwound the ball to return to skein form, I was delighted to find that the inside barely received any dye while the outside looked like confetti:

I didn’t get a lot of pictures while at Fibre Week because my camera spasmed and said I had an E18.  So yesterday, after looking around the internet and then calling the jerkface guy at my former favourite camera shop who told me I should just get a new one no matter how I felt about my lens, I tried taking it apart but couldn’t get one screw out, whacked it a couple times on my ironing table, returned the screws, batteries and memory card to their rightful positions, turned it on and it worked again!  E18 in Canon cameras means that the lens has either gotten something in its gears or it’s dislodged somehow.  I love how sometimes all you need to fix something is give it a good whack!

‘Sup?

It’s been awhile…I have no real reason.  Well, maybe I do; I haven’t finished any projects lately so I haven’t had a lot to share.

To tie you over, here are some of my favourite pictures I’ve taken lately.

I went fishing with my dad on the day before his birthday, and we found a new-to-us lake called Phyllis Lake.  It’s a campsite and lake and we had one of our most successful fishing trips ever!  I even caught (and released) well more than five fish including rainbow trouts, perch and suckers (yucky suckers).  But my favourite part was watching the birds.

Lazy bald eagle.  One of the other fishermen said that the eagles were lazy as they would wait for the osprey to catch a fish and then they’d go after the osprey and steal it from them!  And then I saw it happen!  Dirty bugger.

Industrious osprey.  They were very busy catching meals for themselves and others.

Last night when I came home from work I saw a much-pierced young man on a bicycle doing something on a Telus box in front of my parking lot with a wicked grin.  I’m not sure if he was the artist or just taking a picture but when I saw what it was he was so devilishly admiring I had to get a picture (the signature was added on to the photo, it’s not on the box, I’m too straight laced to make graffiti).  If you’ve been reading this blog (and it’s preceding blogs) for awhile, you’d know that I admire graffiti (with the exception of simple tagging; I like colour or well stylized stuff), and this little stenciled piece was a delight to me.

And if you’re interested in personal stuff, I’m here to let you know I’m trying to lose weight.  This past year has been tough on me for reasons unknown and I gained about 15 lbs.  If you pay attention to BMI stuff, I’ve stepped over my proper BMI line and headed into obesity, which is such an alarming word.  Anyway, I’m really interested in losing my muffin top; but not so much my bust.  And maybe my thunder thighs, but you know, whatever.  So I’ve been working with Spark People, and if my neurotic scale can be trusted, I’ve lost 5 lbs in the last two weeks by monitoring my diet and exercising a lot more than I typically do.

According to my often lying scale, I’m currently at the weight I was in high school.  This is where I rant about BMI and all of that.  I weigh what I weighed in high school, but I am about 2″ thicker in the waist (and probably elsewhere).  BMI doesn’t seem to take into account that muscle weighs more than fat.  Being a farm kid, I was curvy but built (you don’t want to know what I was lifting to make me so buff), but now that I’m a costumer, that muscle has degraded.  So really, I’m trying to be more musculer and toned.  Anyway, that’s my rant.

How’s life in your world?

Waugh!

I’m going to the Edmonton Folk Festival!  Woot!  I was flirting with the notion of heading to the Calgary one; they’ve got Gomez going there and I’ve been a fan for some time, and Esthero and Sarah Harmer will be there too, but mostly I wanted to see Iron & Wine and he’s coming to Edmonton!

I also got the Wednesday night ticket, through which I will see Sarah McLachlan!

The artists I am most looking forward to seeing are Jill Barber (check out the dress she’s got on in her bio!), Neko Case, Iron and Wine (who is far more than his cover on the Garden State Soundtrack…), Old Man Luedecke, Danny Michel, and Souljah Fyah (who I once saw when I first moved into E-town and loved them).  I’m also interested in seeing Kathleen Edwards, Eivør (they’re from the Faroe Islands and there’s some knitting tradition there, although I don’t know how much knitting the artists of this group do), and I’m hopeful that I’ll enjoy Great Lake Swimmers live because I haven’t fallen in love with them on CD.  And I’ll be very un-Canadian and probably try to shy away from Joel Plaskett; I used to like him, but now his voice grates on my nerves something fierce.

The coolest thing about the Folk Fest is the workshops.  They have all of these mini-stages set up throughout the grounds and most of the artists don’t just do shows on the main stage, many of them collaborate on the workshops, so you get a really interesting intimate setting with them.  Oh my heart. The other cool thing about the workshops is you get to know and love some of the more obscure artsists.

There will of course be knitting, and potentially spinning, in public.

And as I was writing this post, my copy of Iron & Wine’s Around the Well arrived in the mail!

Waugh!

Beast

10 years ago, I was listening to the local “hard rock” radio station constantly.  It was playing in my office and in my car.  I didn’t like female vocalists, and the angrier the better.

If you had told me that within five years I would stop listening to that station I would have laughed.  But I did.  I couldn’t stand the repetitive nature of the playlists, and I grew weary of the completely sensless banter that spewed forth every five minutes after a song or two.

So I moved my dial to the furthest left on the dial where the local university radio station lived.

And if I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have heard of nor appreciated the female vocalist that fronts a hip hop group like Beast.  Here’s their MySpace link.  Her voice is like a cool glass of chocolate milk or plush velvet; deep and rich.  I can’t tell you how much I adore her vocals, and the mix is fantastic.  If you’re not intrigued by my little paragraph of praise, just let me tell you that the female vocalist was a vocalist on Les Triplettes de Belleville.  Enough said.

Frustrated

Remember how excited I was that we were ahead of the game for once at work?  We opened with a few minor hiccups and things were grand; I had a great weekend on Tuesday and Wednesday but on Thursday morning things fell through…I got into the shop to find it was “harmlessly” vandalised.  10 lbs of fire extinguisher was let off in our kitchen, most specifically into our fridge and microwave.

I would never have realised all of the work that has to go into cleaning up something like this.  There are 11 or so years of my clutter in the office that has to be dusted off and put into boxes until the cleaning crew can come in and vacuum and wash down the walls (the powder reached my station which was very far from the kitchen).  All of our food had to be tossed.  We are sending out all of the clothes and any of the fabric that wasn’t in the closets to be cleaned; the remaining chemicals aren’t necessarily harmful but they are irritants and I have to wear a mask when I’m up there or I lose my voice.  We have to wait for the machines to be professionally cleaned out because we don’t want the dust to mix with the oils in the machines and gum them up.  We had to dust off the plants and move them into the greenhouse to recover, and I’m waiting for the office to be cleaned so that I can clean the fish-tank because the cleaning will kick up the dust again.

It could have been worse though; there was no theft, no injuries, and any damage, with the exception of the food (and maybe the fridge and microwave), is reparable.  But there are a few people who will be without costumes until everything comes back from the dry-cleaners and the launderers.  Yesterday was the first day I wasn’t sarcastic about it and I didn’t go home depressed and angry as I had for the previous few days.  But I’d like my office back.

However, there are some positive things to come out of this; we’ve had a lot of help and some of the staff have even come in on their own time to help clean up, and we now have an opportunity to declutter which we wouldn’t typically be able to do in the beginning of the season.  But “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!”

Yet Another Drive-By

I sneezed this morning and my ribcage didn’t hurt!  Hooray for my new chiropractor and huzzah for the stretches he gave me!

Due to a great team and a larger collection than ever, I’m able to take some time off this weekend.  My Godmother’s sister passed away this week so I’m heading to the memorial in Red Deer tomorrow, and then staying over night to hang out a bit for Mothers’ Day.  In previous years, in the two or three weeks leading up to opening (May 17th this year), there would have been no way that I could have taken these luxuries; the last two years my parents have brought my Grandmother up to Edmonton for Mothers’ Day lunch so I could go back to work immediately afterwards.

I’ll still likely have to put in a few more 12-hour days, but nothing like previous years.  So far I haven’t felt that it would be best if I had a bed in my office.  Yay!

Another of Those Random Posts

1.  I have come to the conclusion that one shouldn’t go past the age of thirty.  The warranties expire once you reach that age.  This year (my 32nd) I have had two colds, the second of which refuses to let go.  And on Wednesday night while watching an episode of the first season of Mad Men (so freaking good!), I was sitting kind of scrunched up on my loveseat and I coughed, and something happened to my ribcage that is painful and not good.  I thought I sprained it and I even went into a bit of shock.  It’s getting better, and it forced me to find a chiropractic clinic in Edmonton (I hadn’t previously because the last chiropractor I tried in town gave me that ick feeling).

2.  I have a new chiropractor!  My friends recommended him and he’s awesome, and it turns out he does accupuncture as well, so if I ever feel brave enough to go that route, I already trust the guy doing it.  He told me that he would really like it if I became his patient, and he wouldn’t be hurt if I continued to see my old chiropractor (I have an attachment to my old chiropractor since I used to work for him).  So technically, I have two chiropractors.

3.  I finished a Baby Surprise Jacket in February for the boy who turned out to be my Godson.  I don’t remember the needle size, but I spun the yarn out of fibre I bought here and the buttons were from Ewe Asked For It.  I also don’t remember what gauge the yarn was.  Whatever, it was a fun spin, a fun knit, and it’s ended up being for a fun boy!  One of my parents took the photo because I finished it at night and it was too dark to get a decent photo and sent it home with my Mom the next morning.  And now I’m looking at the photo and it looks like I put the buttons on the wrong side!  I’ve been a costumer for 13 years, you’d think I’d know the correct side to do that.  Shh.  Don’t tell my friends.

4.  I have some photos from the crazy snowstorm we had on March 22nd, 2009.  One is of the snow on my car, the other is me doing my first attempt at snow-shoeing.  I fell down a couple of times, and I ran out of breath very quickly, but I had an awesome time doing it.

Holy!

My last post was nearly a month ago.

I haven’t much to say at the moment, just letting every one know that I’m still alive.  I went home for the Easter long weekend and came down with the worst cold ever (we thought I had Strep throat but although I had a swab taken, I’ve not heard from any doctors, so apparently I didn’t).  I call it THE MOTHERCOLD.  It took me down.  I missed five days of work, and I stayed at my parents’ home for a total of 10 days in which I fundamentally slept and coughed and sweated.

There were celebrations while I was down there though; my mother turned 65 and officially retired, and I became a godmother to my friends’ third son!

And I’ve barely crafted this month.  Nothing to show for it anyway.  I picked up crocheting my blanket again, but I really should be working on my homework anyway.

That’s life in a nutshell.  Oh, except that I’m pretty much addicted to the new Metric album, Fantasies.  You gotta love a band that has a Theremin.

My Music List for 2008

A friend of mine has his friends send him lists of their favourite albums each year; this year I decided to embroider mine by hand.