If this is Wednesday, I must be..

Dear blog,

I miss you very much. I am very lonely here in front of the computer with my browser closed and my “you’ve got mail” sound turned off so that I cannot be pulled into the world of other knitters. This is probably best since I’m existing on a really stupid amount of coffee (like…I can feel my hair growing) and chocolate (thanks Emma!) and slowly coming to believe that I’m going to meet the March 1st deadline with room to spare (should be at least 20 minutes of leeway, though I may only think that because of the sleep deprivation.) I did take a break yesterday to work a little on the yarn for Joe’s Gansey.

Effort

I couldn’t face Cassie again with nothing. It’s all Gansey all the time with that chick. I don’t care if it is her birthday… I can’t take the pressure. This is about 176 metres of three ply yarn (rethinking that 3-ply decision, let me tell you.) this means that I have, since beginning the gansey gambol, spent about 10 hours washing fleece, 12 hours flick carding, carding and drumcarding it, maybe 3 hours pulling it into roving and then….then I started spinning. Each full bobbin takes 2 hours, three bobbins make about 250 metres, so I’ve probably spent, what…12 hours spinning, and then about 3 hours plying (I’m not adding the time spent untangling the singles from the lazy kate because I forgot to tension it, thus ensuring that the very first time I gave the wheel a really good turn and by extension, the kate a good yank, that the kate spewed three strands of singles into an enormous glob of tangled curly crap on the floor. We are not counting that, because I’m trying to forget what a dumbass I am.)

Total time spent…about 40 hours, for slightly more than 500 metres of yarn. Since I have calculated (though mathematics has always been a trial for me….) that a gansey for Joe will take at least (AT LEAST) 1800 metres – Well. Lets not discuss it any further. Suffice it to say that if there is anyone who doubts my love for the man, this aughta shut their yap.

In other news, I have finished the mittens for Tupper. (Yes. I know. They were Christmas mittens and I have clearly delayed and procrastinated until I should be ashamed. I am.)

Tupdone

and…since I’ve learned that you can’t check these things too many times:

Check

Laurie’s back tomorrow with her dye-o-rama. (Get it? diorama? Like in school? Those little boxes with the pictures in them that you have to do for book reports? C’mon. Mine was “My friend flicka”.)

38 thoughts on “If this is Wednesday, I must be..

  1. The mittens look AMAZING!!!
    Just think a week from today the deadline will have passed, you’ll have met it & you’ll be relaxing.

  2. Take a deep breath, and just STOP counting how long this gansey takes you. Are you trying to put a number on your love for Joe? I’m only pressuring you in a friendly way. Because I care.

  3. Dioramas! Mine was on Patty Smith’s Doll. In fourth grade.
    How come adults don’t get to do dioramas for work projects?
    ps – Tupper’s mittens look grand. 🙂

  4. The aqueducts of Rome in 6th grade. I think I got a B. My sixth grade teacher was really good at knowing that I did the project the day before it was due.

  5. We miss you too Steph. If love could be measured in metres of spun yarn…well, your love for Joe seems to have no end. Sorry, don’t hit me.
    The mittens for Tupper look like they were worth the wait; hey, a right AND a left-they’re priceless. And I made it all the way through 17 years of school and never had to do a diorama. Wow.

  6. Never underestimate the importance of (procrastinating) taking breaks when you’re a slave to the deadline. I begin every writing project with a few games of solitaire on the computer as well as some knitting. Then stare at the blank screen for a while, then more knitting. . . it helps me focus.
    Assuming focus means the same as avoid.

  7. Cassie and I realized we shared a birthday! I do suspect I started celebrating mine considerably before she started celebrating hers, but we won’t discuss that. She has an awesome picture of the Gates up today.
    Tupper is lucky. And it looks like he won’t have to have reconstructive surgery to wear them. 😛

  8. We’ve missed you! Good luck with the deadline, I’m sure you will make it. Also, way to go with the Tupper mittens. I still think there might be something in my theory of the MSF mittens wanting more (more more more!) money and refusing to be done until we match their demand. (Hmm, that would mean all your mitten suffering would be our fault, the readers’ I mean… Scary thought!)

  9. Mine was of two Peruvian kids in their natural habitat. Did you know that Peru was a cardboard box? They were crudely sewn from a light cocoa-colored scrap material. They had no necks to speak of. I tried to make clothes, but got fed up and just dressed them in bandaids. No one in New Hampshire has ever been to Peru, so how do they know that’s not what Peruvians wear when the National Geographic cameras are put away?!
    My husband only wants children so he has a reason to make dioramas again. I can only assume his were fantastic and proportional and highly detailed with working lights and populated by a race of tiny people he bred in his spare time. He was one of “those” kids.

  10. When I am doing my schoolwork, I have to turn off email, bloglines, and basically all of the browswer windows to get any work done… it is so difficult!
    The mittens look amazing, Steph!

  11. In fifth grade I made a diorama of an Alaskan with an Indian doll (wearing very little), an upside-down ice bucket (for the igloo) and a horse with a hang tag on it that said “walrus”. It was a Classic.

  12. WOW! Congratulations on the Tupper mittens and gansey business!!(anything that takes more than 20 hours to make is a business) The mittens are beautiful! I love the color and the symmetry. Gorgeous. Trade you a deadline for a dreaded birthday?

  13. You can make it. You have plenty of chocolate stashed away in the house. The girls and Joe have not found that last stash of good chocolate. And if you make the deadline, I am thinking of a surpirse for you for right after I attend my favorite fiber festival. And I know that you love presents!

  14. At least it’s still cold enough here for Christmas mittens, sigh.
    What’s with all this “turning off browsers and email so you can get work done”? How do you all not give in to the temptation to turn them back ON??? (Like I’m doing right now).

  15. Yayyy you beat the mittens! It’s an omen… you will beat the deadline too.. whatever this deadline is for, I’ve not been reading your blog long enough to figure that out.

  16. Uncle Tupper’s mittens are gorgeous. Will he have to put the second one on his foot to make it match the first one perfectly?

  17. OK, you’re looking at the gansey spinning project the wrong way. It’s not how little you have done, it’s how much!! You have 500 meters done. That’s MORE THAN a quarter of the way there! Plus I’m betting that you washed all the fleece at once, so you don’t have to do that again. Not sure if you did all the carding at once, but you have a drum carder now, so that won’t take as long. So really, all that’s left is the peaceful, relaxing spinning. Become one with your wheel, the yarn appears.
    Ommmm. 😉

  18. Just because I don’t think Paris Hilton is quoted ever in the land of knitbloggers, I’m going to do it. Those mittens are hot. Let’s not explore the reasons I am familiar with Paris speak, nor why I feel compelled to follow suit. Let’s just say I have a young child, and I will watch anything on TV after she goes to bed. The results of your spinning? Hot.

  19. Tuppers is a lucky man indeed.
    And wouldn’t buying yarn have been much quicker for Joe’s gansey? Just sayin’
    Go Deadline!
    ~nod

  20. Diorama, diorama, once I made a diorama
    Half a rama, twice a rama, diorama RA!
    muuuuahahaHAHAHAHaaaa….

  21. Tupper’s mittens look great. Of course the thumbs are in the right places–the universe couldn’t possibly be THAT cruel.
    Ah, the diorama. We made apple-head dolls to go in ours in fifth grade. (If you’re from mennonite country, you know the kind I mean-a whole apple peeled, dried, and with peppercorn eyes.) Only I used a mutsu apple, which was enormous. To my shame, my applehead doll had a disproportionately beach-ball like noggin.

  22. I made my grade-school diorama of a prehistoric scene. Even back then I was skimming (skipping) directions and thought I was supposed to make a “dinorama”.
    I guess some things never change…

  23. We’ve missed you, Steph. It’s unfortunate that Laurie is blogless, because I must say I am smitten with her and her mad skills.
    I LOVE Tupper’s mittens. I cannot recall if you have done so before, but I’d like to know the details of them (when your life is FAR less hectic) Because I seriously want a pair.And I must Say, you really do love Joe. You should have heard me complain when I made the hubby A measely pair of socks.

  24. Just one question… did you actually check that Tupper doesn’t actually have two right hands such that the first “pair” of mits you knitted would actually have worked? 😀

  25. The mittens are in time for St. Patrick’s Day, though. And today is Chinese Lantern Day according to my calendar……

  26. Hi, Stephanie–What is it about caring for someone that makes us hurdle herculean heroic-type tasks? I couldn’t make my mother just a nice quilt in my quilting days; no, it had to be a Lone Star heirloom quilt–which she never got, once I started having kids. Or my husband, for whom I’m making a sweater now in its third year? I think he would like a couple of nice everyday sweaters, but I wanted to make something special. So he’s still sweaterless.
    I did learn from a great quilting teacher that not every project is meant to be better than the last, that there’s more fun and productivity in trying out simple things. . . .just still haven’t learned it yet I guess.

  27. Hi Stephanie… I was just checking to see if you received the RAOK I emailed you on Tuesday. Check you BULK/JUNQUE box, too.
    Noreen

  28. The mittens for uncle Tupper are lovely and I bet he thinks so too. Good vibes are sent across the pond for you to finish the bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb on time! (Of course you will, but we’re cheering you along)

  29. Dioramas weren’t part of my UK-based education: Our school was more into miniature gardens in shoe boxes…
    Jae said “Dioramas! Mine was on Patty Smith’s Doll. In fourth grade.
    How come adults don’t get to do dioramas for work projects?”
    Well I did! When I used to design Craft Kits, I developed one called Get Set Egyptian Adventure. Check out http://www.mailorderexpress.com/hasbro/hasbroshopgames.html and scroll down to the bottom. Perhaps it was my inner child who was always denied the joy of diorama-making at school!
    ps Tupper mittens are LUSH.

  30. For a guild project about twenty years ago we kept spinning diaries and figured out how long we were spending making a specific project. Mine was a Cormo lace scarf and I was really bummed because it took so long. However, two decades later I’m still wearing the scarf and it’s still beautiful, cuddly, and warm. Think of how many years of warmth your sweater will give to Joe!

Comments are closed.