Fibre as a drug?
I've been thinking more and more that fibre really is a drug. I know there are lots of 'crack silk haze' jokes around the blogosphere, but I've begun to seriously think that this is certainly, at some level, true for me.
For a start - fibre really f***s my body up. I would not have had such bad RSI in 2006 to the extent that I was essentially crippled for most of the year without fibre, and would not now be in a state of 'pain management' if I gave it up totally.
I'm trying not to think of what my joints will be like in the future - I think I'm depending on scientific breakthroughs occurring within my lifetime (and sooner rather than later ;) ).
And I certainly have the addiction that obsession brings. Thankfully I've learnt my lession over SABLE (Stash Acquirement Beyond Life Expectancy) in the past with a different obsession (which proved to be a rather nice money-spinner on ebay over the past couple of years as I got rid ;) ), so I do deliberately attempt to not go overboard with fibre purchases.
But I do think I get withdrawal symptoms. Or rather, that working with fibre relaxes me to the extent that most other things don't tend to. Case in point: I have been working 7 days a week, all hours that I'm not sleeping (yes; I've been overdoing it), over the past month or so. I admit, I have been a tad stressed. The closest I've got to knitting was looking at buttons for my Fairly Easy, and taking my Swallowtail to university on Friday, knitting 8 stitches, then tinking them and putting it away as although my 'free time' is Friday afternoon when I help run a common room, there's slightly too much chatting going on to be in the complicated P5tog lace knitting mindset.
This week has been less stressful: importantly, I realised that I can't do everything, that I'm trying to do way too much, and to cut down. And I also made time (admittedly at the expense of other things which I hope won't turn round and bite me) for spinning. I spun 3 bobbins up over the weekend - one on Friday, one on Saturday and one yesterday.
I feel so relaxed! Importantly - although I let things slide over the weekend to spin instead, I don't feel ridiculously worried now that I 'wasted' that time and will never catch up (which I did last weekend when we went to the cinema and I cried on the way there that I was wasting valuable reading time and the world was quite clearly going to end).
I've been working with some fibre from Woolfest, it's very pretty:
I don't know what it's going to be. I made absolutely no attempt to pay much attention to my spinning - as long as it wasn't too thick or too thin and was holding together. It's definitely got a loooooot of slubs in, but I wasn't aiming for consistency. I initially thought it could be singles, but after filling one bobbin I realised I still had about 75g left (out of about 100g), so I'm going to go for two skeins of 2 ply I think.
Let's just say, I'm aiming for a surprise ;)
For a start - fibre really f***s my body up. I would not have had such bad RSI in 2006 to the extent that I was essentially crippled for most of the year without fibre, and would not now be in a state of 'pain management' if I gave it up totally.
I'm trying not to think of what my joints will be like in the future - I think I'm depending on scientific breakthroughs occurring within my lifetime (and sooner rather than later ;) ).
And I certainly have the addiction that obsession brings. Thankfully I've learnt my lession over SABLE (Stash Acquirement Beyond Life Expectancy) in the past with a different obsession (which proved to be a rather nice money-spinner on ebay over the past couple of years as I got rid ;) ), so I do deliberately attempt to not go overboard with fibre purchases.
But I do think I get withdrawal symptoms. Or rather, that working with fibre relaxes me to the extent that most other things don't tend to. Case in point: I have been working 7 days a week, all hours that I'm not sleeping (yes; I've been overdoing it), over the past month or so. I admit, I have been a tad stressed. The closest I've got to knitting was looking at buttons for my Fairly Easy, and taking my Swallowtail to university on Friday, knitting 8 stitches, then tinking them and putting it away as although my 'free time' is Friday afternoon when I help run a common room, there's slightly too much chatting going on to be in the complicated P5tog lace knitting mindset.
This week has been less stressful: importantly, I realised that I can't do everything, that I'm trying to do way too much, and to cut down. And I also made time (admittedly at the expense of other things which I hope won't turn round and bite me) for spinning. I spun 3 bobbins up over the weekend - one on Friday, one on Saturday and one yesterday.
I feel so relaxed! Importantly - although I let things slide over the weekend to spin instead, I don't feel ridiculously worried now that I 'wasted' that time and will never catch up (which I did last weekend when we went to the cinema and I cried on the way there that I was wasting valuable reading time and the world was quite clearly going to end).
I've been working with some fibre from Woolfest, it's very pretty:
I don't know what it's going to be. I made absolutely no attempt to pay much attention to my spinning - as long as it wasn't too thick or too thin and was holding together. It's definitely got a loooooot of slubs in, but I wasn't aiming for consistency. I initially thought it could be singles, but after filling one bobbin I realised I still had about 75g left (out of about 100g), so I'm going to go for two skeins of 2 ply I think.
Let's just say, I'm aiming for a surprise ;)
Labels: FairlyEasy, Spinning, SwallowtailShawl
posted by TheKnittingBee at 8:25 am
2 Comments:
Ooooh, lovely spinning! I love the colors!
Ahem. Yes, I am also a fiber addict, to the point of getting distracted by pictures of the stuff. But for me, I know it comes with my profession. As a rule, librarians in technical services tend to be obsessive-compulsive. It's a job requirement, really. It allows us to pay very close attention to detail.
In my case, it also makes my yarn closet overflow and my wrists hurt from time to time.
I tend to go through phases where I become obesessed with a subject, learn EVERYTHINGYOUCANKNOW about it (ok, everything you can learn by reading about it) and then more or less move on. Many of my obsessions have been at least textile oriented so I feel like it is all part of one BIG obsession (maybe?) and that makes it somehow okay. I keep typing stuff, this is way too long, maybe I'll write a post about it on my blog :-) Good to see you posting I was just thinking today that I wondered how you were doing!
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