Tomorrow!

At this time tomorrow, I will be at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival! As any of you who read my blog last year this time, this is even better than Christmas for me! And this year, after expecting to not have any money at all to spend on it, I will have more than usual!

One of the major things I want to make sure to check out is the new Majacraft Serenity Wheel. It's being introduced at this year's festival! Here's the schedule, if you want to find out more about it. They haven't leaked any photos, and people who saw it at their spinning camp have been sworn to secrecy, but they have shown some of the yarn that has been spun on it. As you can see, if you click on the "yarn" link, it's been developed to spin art yarns and novelties, and I am going nuts with suspense about it! From what I can tell, all of the Majacraft wheels have the potential to spin art yarns, so I can't imagine what they've done to make it even better!

The other major thing I want to look for this year is kniting bags. I don't know why I've gotten on that kick this year, but for some unexplained reason, I have.

Which probably means that I'll find something wonderful that I've never seen before, and once I've seen it will realize that I can't live without it! That's the way it usually works.

Holly and I have also decided that we're going to take lots of photos this year. He camera just broke (actually, the battery in it broke), so I'm lending her my tiny, carry-it-all-the-time camera (which is older, and has a lower resolution) and I'm going to use my super-duper, fabulous camera. I want to replace my old camera with this:

It has a 4X optical zoom, and most cameras only have a 3X zoom. I like the zoom control, too. It's very responsive, and easy to zoom to right where you want it! It also takes the same memory card as the better camera I have. One of the reasons I like it is because it takes AA batteries. That makes it just a little more bulky, but much easier to deal with. You can buy rechargeable AA batteries (and I already have some, plus a recharger), but if you absolutely use up all your batteries, you can buy new ones anywhere. I once went to Pennsic with batteries in my camera, and took one photo, and the batteries died. The camp store had AA batteries for sale, but the camera took esoteric camera batteries that were not available within 100 miles. I know because I spent hours of my time there driving around looking for the right batteries instead of enjoying Pennsic! I took a grand total of one photo at Pennsic that year, and don't ever intend to repeat that!

So, all this is what I'm concentrating on, not some of the other, less happy parts of this post.

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When it comes to the less happy parts of the post, that happened yesterday.

I got to see the results of the CT scan yesterday. It was amazing, and also not really very good news.

The doctor explained (as was pretty self evident) that the lighter parts of the scan showed more thickness or density on the image of my head. He showed me my left ear, which is OK (aside from the fact that it can't really hear well). You could see my outer ear, and the structure inside. It looked just like one of those inner ear illustrations.

Then he showed me my left ear. You could see my outer ear, and then, right inside, there is a big white blob. The bone right inside my outer ear has gone berserk and just grown solid. No wonder I can't hear out of it!

He said that there's an operation they can do which is classified as an exploratory operation. He said they might or might not be able to fix it, but that no matter how the operation turns out, people with Paget's usually have the bone grow back even more aggressively, and wind up with an even worse problem than they started with. He didn't recommend the operation.

He also noted that some sinuses and other parts of the inside of my skull have warped and grown in odd directions.

In other words, it's a strange and twisted place inside my head. Actually, it was strange before I got Paget's, but that's a whole other story.

He said the same thing the other doctor said, which is that I really need to see someone who knows about Paget's and has treated it. He said a rheumatologist would be a good idea. He recommended that I call John's Hopkins and ask for a recommendation from them. He said that they would almost certainly know of a good doctor for me.

Paget's is rare enough that most doctors have never treated a case. I almost said that most doctors have never seen a case, but that's probably not true. I had probably at least 20 doctors comment on my alkaline phosphatase test (which indicated I have Paget's, although it can indicate other things) without having a clue what they were looking at. So, doctors actually see it, they just don't recognize or treat it!

The ENT doctor that I went to also doesn't do hearing aids, so I have to go do something about that myself. I'm thinking of going back to the VA Hospital in DC for that.

I may ask them about Paget's treatment. I won't take them up on it if they still have that same idiot doctor I saw about it before. He didn't seem to want to prescribe anything for me unless it would cause really BAD side effects, but he was happier about prescribing something that would be lethal.

I can't really do anything about this over the weekend, so I'm going to forget about it over the weekend and do something about it on Monday. It's depressing me, and I want to forget it and have fun this weekend.

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There will be a new Doctor Who on BBC in America on Saturday evening! Plus the usual schedule for tonight and the weekend. Enjoy! I'm too distracted by other things to really pay attention to all this, although I set my DVR to record everything I want to see.

I hope your weekend is as fun as mine is going to be!

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Oh, I nearly forgot! I saw this wonderful knitting pattern today, and wanted to pass it along!

And, while I'm thinking of it, I am looking for a copy of a knitting stitch called net stitch. I own a copy of one of the Walker stitch library books (it's the charted book, in the uncharted section in the back) that has it in, but can't find the book (it's around here somewhere), and I was hoping that somebody out there, reading my blog might have a clue where to look. I don't really want to spend money on another copy of a book that's that expensive, especially when I already own it, and I was wondering if it was published elsewhere. I haven't been able to find it on the internet.

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Addition:

I found a photo of the new Majacraft wheel! It doesn't show much, but at least it's a photo.

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Another Addition:

When I found the photo, I put it up there, but I just now really looked at it. It looks like it's double drive! and it looks like you can change the ratios between the flyer and bobbin! instead of having one long drive wheel to drive both the flyer and bobbin, there appears to be a separate drive band for each! I've never seen such a thing on a spinning wheel before! I had a Schacht Matchless wheel, so I've tried double drive and I like it. It helps you spin yarn that is much more consistent. But the possibilities of having the flyer and bobbin driven separately, with choice of ratios is mind boggling! I haven't even seen one in person, and I'm already amazed and impressed!

A Dozen Days Until the Sheep and Wool Festival!

I'm all excited about the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, which will be the first full weekend in May (always), and is the largest thing of it's kind in the United States! This year it will be on May 1 and 2, and we'll be going on the first.

This year, the big draw for me is that the Majacraft people will be unveiling their new wheel, called Serenity (another Firefly fan was responsible for this), which was designed specifically for spinning "art yarns." I can't wait to see it, and see how it works, and what makes it special! Here is a photo of some of the yarns that have already been spun on a Serenity:

This photo is from the Majacraft blog, which you can find and read at the above links. I'm showing the photo because I want you to go look at it on their blog. It's an incentive.

This year, I may have some money coming to me, but if it doesn't arrive by the end of the month, I'll be going without any money. There will be a lot of things I can later buy over the internet, but there will be a lot of things I'll have to miss out on if I have to go with no money.

Here's a couple of photos of their Rose wheel, which is the one I have:

Holly went to a knitting retreat this past weekend, and she was telling me about one of the women who was there and spun on what she thought was a Rose wheel all weekend. She said she wasn't sure and would tell me the next time she saw my wheel, so I thought I'd put photos of the wheel up so she could see them.

Money or not, I'm still getting excited about the Sheep and Wool Festival!

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I have actually been doing some knitting, but what I've been knitting is gifts for others, so you won't be seeing photos of them here for a while. Sorry!

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There's a rerun on Chuck and The Big Bang Theory tonight, but a brand, spanking, new episode of Castle. No Ghost Whisperer on SyFy, though because they're doing their "miniseries" month. It'll be back on Monday nights eventually, at least once in a while.

Tomorrow night, as usual, there will be a new Lost and V!

Wednesday is an evening to spend watching what you recorded on your TiVo, DVR or VHS.

I hope you're having a terrific start to your week!

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Addition:

The apartment place I live in promised that the people would be coming out today to turn on the air conditioning. They say it takes a whole 8 hours for them to do this, but it's now 6:30, and it usually goes on around 4 or 5 when they actually do it, and it's 80 degrees in here, so it's obvious they haven't done it.

It's cool outside, so that's not a problem. The problem is that the windows are open and there's a fan blowing in not only cool air, but all the pollen, too! My health can't stand this!

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Another Addition:

Get your fix of cute little lambs here!

Happy Palm Sunday

Today, SyFy is showing a lot of the Merlin series.

If you're looking for the authentic story of Arthur, this is not the place to find it! The costumes are only vaguely Medieval, the castle is from about 900 years after Arthur's time, and there are characters in the series with the names of people in the Arthur saga, but they're not anything like the originals. Examples include Guenivere, who became queen, and was not a servant; Merlin, who was enough older than Arthur that he saved Arthur right after he was born, and was not younger than Arthur, and so on.

Some of the stories are very good and do embrace Medieval ideas and principles, but some of the stories are squarely based on 20th and 21st century ideals and viewpoints.

I won't even mention the clothing, some of which seems authentic, but some comes from eras more like 1500 years in Arthur's future.

He's called "The Once and Future King," so maybe this is someone's idea of what might have happened if he came back 900 years later than his time.

Some of the stories are entertaining, though.

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My copy of Spin-Off Magazine appeared in my mailbox today!

You can see a preview of it here.

There was information about spinning heavy singles that are soft and (reasonably) balanced.

There was also an article about a spinning wheel maker with a company name of Spinolution. I've seen at least one of their wheels at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, but haven't really sat down and tried one. They actually treadle well, even though the treadle mechanism looks so odd. They have a new wheel out called the Hopper Travel Wheel, and it is small! Even if you don't watch the video at that link, you can see the woman's arms in the photo and get an idea of how small it is. It was intended not only to be small and a travel wheel, but also to be used to create art yarns, hence, the very slow speeds available, although it can spin pretty fast, too. I haven't tried it yet (it's just out), but it seems a little pricy.

There will be another wheel that was created just for spinning art yarns that will be unveiled at the Sheep and Wool Festival, too, and it's by Majacraft. They're not telling, or showing anybody anything about it before then, though. Somebody there is a Firefly fan, and they've named it Serenity, too! They have talked about some of the yarns you can spin on it, though, and showed them on their blog. I can't wait to see it!

Hope you're having a fabulous weekend!

More Tour de Fleece

I haven't been doing much for the Tour de Fleece, but I didn't set myself a very difficult goal, either. I have been doing a bit of spinning, although not as regularly as I'd like. But I'm starting to get back into the swing of things.

After a look around today, I found a total of four regular (plastic) bobbins for my Majacraft Rose wheel. I had one, and bought one at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, and found two more today. 

I am spinning my current project on the baby bobbins, and I've discovered that I don't like the fact that the center of the bobbin is so thin. No matter how much I back off on the Scotch tension, when I first start on an empty bobbin, the choice is between tug-of-war or no intake onto the bobbin at all. Once I ply the current batch on the baby bobbins, I'm going to see if I can find something to make the center section a bit thicker. I was looking at the photo of the baby bobbins in the link I provided above, and it looks like the updated bobbins have a thicker center, so that probably won't be a problem with the new ones.

While on the Majacraft site, looking at the baby bobbins and their improvements, I found another improvement. Majacraft has out a spindle that works with their wheels, and even has a bobbin that works with it.

Photos tomorrow.

As I said, I seem to be picking up speed, volume, and interest on this spinning project for le Tour de Fleece. While finding the bobbins, I found some pretty roving, some wool (in a soft blue and other colors), some wool and Tencel (in a very soft light and very dark green), and some pastel multicolored silk (really beautiful stuff). 

I was reading over the article in the Spring issue of Spin-Off about wrapped yarn. The woman in the article uses cotton crochet thread for a core, but it strikes me that wooly nylon might be a better core, and I'm thinking about trying that. If you're not familiar with wooly nylon, the photos at that link won't give you a clue. It's nylon thread, suitable for sewing (on a sewing machine or serger) with. When under tension, it looks like regular thread. But when the tension is released, it bulks up a bit, and looks remarkably like wool (hence the name). It's strong, and has elasticity that's very similar to wool. If you're interested, check it out in a fabric store.

I'm getting down to the end on the triangular shawl I'm knitting in Knit Pick's Telemark (royal heather). The royal heather color looks darker in person than I anticipated from both the printed and on-line swatches.

After ordering this yarn and knitting with it, I realize that Knit Picks doesn't really carry any sport weight yarn. Telemark is listed as a sport weight, but I'm finding it isn't really.

If you look at the yardage for their worsted yarns, they average around 110 yards for 50 grams. Skip to their DK weight yarns, and you get more like 160 yards for 50 grams. DK is thinner than worsted, so the finer yarn yields more yardage. So, you would naturally expect the sport weight yarns to have even more yardage per 50 grams. 

Wrong. Telemark is listed at 103 yards. I thought that was a typo, and that there was actually more yardage, since it's even finer than DK. So, I ordered the amount of yarn by weight, expecting to have a generous amount of yardage, but I think that what they did was take their worsted weight yarn and just give it more twist to make it thinner (and shorter). The yardage they claim is probably correct, and the shawl is turning out kind of skimpy. It's also stiff, being over-spun/plyed, scratchier than a more softly spun yarn would be, and still really worsted weight. I usually use a size 6 needle with sport weight, and get 6 stitches per inch, but a size 6 needle was giving me something that would stop bullets with this yarn. I had to go up to a size 8, and the resulting fabric is still stiff. I'm hoping that blocking will cure it, but I'm not happy about blocking because it isn't necessary with this pattern (my simple triangular shawl pattern).

Oh, well. Photos real soon now.

Doctor Who on Friday evening was outstanding! The episode they showed was Turn Left. I hope you got to see it, but I won't discuss it in case you didn't, except to say that Rose was back, and it's starting to build up to the season finale.

My granddaughter, Malaia, is moving to Baltimore tomorrow, and I'm really excited about it. Her aunt, Heather, is very upset that she's moving away from Toledo.

Oh, and John corrected me on my post about him yesterday. He will be at the National Cartoonist's Society Booth #1307 at Comic Con, and "I'll be hanging out there off and on when I'm at the con. Laura is tagging along with a big HD camera and is going to videotape the panel and stuff for me to use on the DVDs." 

Laura is my friend from so far back it's hard to remember. She's the reason I have a computer to blog on instead of my phone. She's been at a lot of the SF Cons I've gone to, and worked on one of the movies I worked on. I cannot wait to hear about it all!

I hope you're all having a great weekend!