I’m pretty sure that I burned out on the crochet. I was feeling pretty good about it – Lucy left a comment saying that it takes her about 4 minutes to do a hole (I like to think that she’s not weaving in the ends) and instead of that being demoralizing, I was galvanized. I know it’s taking me 10 minutes longer per hole, but do you see what it means? It means there’s room for improvement, so II sat down, turned on my timer, went as fast as I could (turning things into a sport is sometimes distractingly fun) and when I was done I looked at the timer. 13 minutes. STILL 13 minutes. Before I could think something foul about Lucy (which is totally not fair, she’s lovely – it’s not her fault she’s annoyingly skilled) I decided to put it down. Walk away. I’ll look at it later or tomorrow or maybe I’m totally not thinking through how unique and beautiful this scarf could be with one only one end done. Eh? Think of that?
In the meantime, it’s Tuesday, and I made a vow to spin this Tuesday, and most of them between now and the rally, because I’d like to come up with prizes for Karmic Balancing Gifts this year, and I think they could be my handspun, if I can keep up the pace.
In case you weren’t around last year (or lots of years before that) when I fundraise, I give out Karmic Balancing Gifts. If you contribute, your name goes in for a draw (if you want it to) and you might get something nice. I know some people would call these prizes, but I know for a fact that you guys donate because you’re awesome, not because you might get a prize and that means that these little presents are just that. Gifts – you do something nice, and then something nice happens to you, you get a warm and lovely glow, knowing that because you’re you the world is a better place, and then whammo – maybe a little yarn shows up.
The year before last I knit a few things and spun a few things, and I auctioned them off. This raised a ton of money for the Bike Rally. I did hear back from a few of you that you wished that this stuff hadn’t gone to the highest bidder, that you wished that you had a chance to get my handspun, or some beautiful knitted thing even if you could only afford to donate $5, and you know what, those people were right. A $5 donation is just as worthy as any other, karma-wise, and the only thing that should matter is that you gave as much as you were able, so this year I’m going to (mostly) level the playing field, and I’m going to start by drawing the first name tomorrow. I spun this gorgeous Fiber Optic braid last year,
and I turned it into this beautiful gradient yarn.
I can’t guarantee the yardage, but it’s about 200 metres of very pretty fingering/dk yarn. It’s not perfect, because it was spun by me, but it is a thing to behold, and you can behold it in your very own house if I pick your name out of the hat.
How do you get your name in the hat? You donate to someone on our little team, and then after you do, you send an email to me (stephanie@yarnharlot.ca) with “enter me” in the subject line, and YOUR ADDRESS and NAME in the body. (It’s a good idea to let me know in the email if you want to be considered for spinning gifts. It comes up.)
If you’re feeling the mojo, and you’d like to give a gift, send me an email with “good karma” in the subject line, and I’ll get back to you. This year (to try and avoid how overwhelming this task was last year – you all are so generous I could barely manage, a delightful problem I’d like not to repeat) I’m going to have you mail your gift straight to the person who it’s intended for – so you’ll email me a picture and a description, and where you’re willing to mail to, and when I pull a name I’ll email you the particulars. That way we save on postage by the gift only making one trip, and things don’t get complicated at my house and post office, as I pick things up only to mail them off again. I don’t mind the work to do this, but I want to do it well.
How to donate? That’s the easy part. You think about what you can afford to give, and then you donate it to someone on our little team of friends and family willing to get on their bikes and ride 600+ kilometres, Toronto to Montreal. The team’s in flux right now, not everyone is ready to start their fundraising (you wouldn’t believe how hard it is for a young person to make this commitment. This is a commitment that’s expensive every way you can think of it. Time. Money. Energy. The spirit is willing, but the realities suck) so for today I’m going to link you to the part of the family team that’s ready.
Stephanie (that’s me. I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be.)
Jen (she was born ready)
Ken (he’s the reason that we have to be ready at all. Instigator.)
Amanda (My eldest daughter, who’s not sure she’s ready but is going anyway)
Pato (our “adopted” son – so ready he’s cheerful about it.)
Knitters, all of us. (Although really, Amanda and Pato would tell you they only knit in emergencies.) Make a donation if you’re able, send an email (you don’t have to forward the receipt or tell us how much it was for. That’s your business) and know that our gratitude is wide and tall and gives us almost as much joy as the look on the organizers faces as they try to reconcile knitters with what’s happening to the totals – it freaks them out every time.
Now, I’m off to cuddle up with my wheel and get another handspun gift ready.
Anybody like seaglass green?
Apparently not the cat.
She’ll make sure I pull a name tomorrow. She’s very stern.
PS. It’s been about 300 days since I fell off my bike. You have no idea how happy that makes me, even though it does wreck my mum’s brilliant but slightly cruel idea of having me solicit donations per bruise.
Your Mum has a wicked good sense of humor! Spin like the wind, my dear, and later you can do one crochet hole. One a day, and before you need the scarf, it will be all done.
The one end is amazing. But ya know, rifling through projects on Ravelry, apparently there is the option to BO designated stitches and CO same number on next pass, eliminating need for crochet. “Cept you don’t get the neat contrast color. Just sayin’.
If you added in the contrast color to cast off, then used it to to cast on again in the next row, you could create a contrast effect, even if not identical.
Holy cow, between the cat and the sea glass amazingness, you are in the company of great beauty, bruises or not! Thank you for sharing such beautiful and inspiring pictures so consistently. I still look at your mug&sock foggy Port Ludlow morning pic again and again.
Not that it particularly matters, but you should know that the link to sponsor you goes to Ken’s page. The link to sponsor Ken also goes to Ken’s page. I think Ken is going to beat you silly in fundraising if this remains the case!
Thanks Holly! I fixed it.
I’m in. Because it’s a good cause, and the team is doing all the hard stuff. Thank you, team. Off to find my credit card.
I don’t think you should worry about speed…even though I know you are a very speedy knitter.
I spent 2 hours ‘setting in a sleeve’ last night. Went to bed with not a single sleeve set in, and tried not to cry. I’ve done this before. I can only blame it on a strange sleeve cap shape that is totally the fault of the pattern and has nothing to do with me.
I’m a pretty slow knitter…I’m dealing with it. You are lovely.
Millie is gorgeous and so is that seaglass green
And Millie doesn’t like the seaglass green because it competes with the color of her lovely eyes!
(Still, Millie, you’re beautiful! The YH needs to learn which colors show off your eyes to their best, then knit things in those colors that you could “model”.)
Well darlin, there’s your solution: not only could you leave one end uncrocheted, you could actually make it a creative artistic choice. Put on some knitterly edging thingy (I have never mastered this but surely you have), or (only slightly more work), rip back that end and just knit it plain. So unique! So purposeful! So ….. knitted. Damn it.
Hmmm….what would constitute a knitting emergency? Enquiring minds, and all that.
Really? Thirteen minutes? Does this bear some relationship to the falling-off-the-bike essay?
Also — Slacker.
I thought the same thing! Surely 13 is not the best number for you Steph!
Ride safely, friends. And thank you for all you do.
I think you may have lost track of how long a minute is. Ask a swimmer to tell you how long it took them (months, years?) to shave a full minute off of swimming the 1000m or 500m freestyle. Or a runner how much training it took to run a 5k one full minute faster than their previous best time. Go and hold your least favorite yoga pose or a screaming hysterical baby for one minute.
Then congratulate yourself for doing the new thing a full minute faster than you did only days ago.
Or be the one standing on the OUTSIDE of the toilet door.
I have two cats that could be your cat’s relations. I’m jealous of your ability to photograph yours.
Hey spinning could be considered a form of rally training – both use your legs.
I’m almost broke, but being able to give a little to the Bike Rally makes me feel rich and is my little bit to say thanks for the wonderfulness that is your blog!
I think it should be worth extra donation money to get bonus Millie hair spun into the yarn 😀
Someone really needs to invent a combination bicycle/spinning wheel. Then you could spin while you exercise. I’m sure I’d exercise more if it didn’t cut into my craft time. (Or so I like to tell myself.)
Ha, ha, ha, ha…. when you mentioned that you were going to spin each Tuesday until the Rally I thought you were doing more training… as in Spinning at a Gym… on a bike… LOL
Every year I wait for the bike rally to come around. It’s the best cause I donate to. May the universe continue to bless you with fall free bike riding and the ability to spin like the wind, cause I’m in love with that sea glass green! 😉
Millie IS beautiful. Reminds me of my Sylvester – ow, ow OW, 60+ years ago.
I love Lucy’s scarf – as one commenter said, one hole at a time and it will be done, done, done!
I was planning to tell you that you’re a bigger woman than me about doing the crocheting. But now I just want to cheer you on!
This is the way I move forward in seaming my sweaters. I negotiate with myself and say that I only have to do 1-hour in this upcoming session. But then I settle in and I often go beyond the minimum time.
It works for me!
P.S. Millie is full of attitude, right? I wouldn’t want to encounter her at night in a proverbial ally in my hometown of Philly.
If it makes you feel any better…it took me 8 minutes to knit 108 sts of ribbing for my uncle’s sock cuff. 8 minutes! And I had 96 rows to do! If not distracted, I could speed up to 6 minutes a row. I can really empathize with you & the feeling of shame.
I love to crochet (especially lace!), but we have a very tumultuous relationship. Again, can totally empathize. You’re awesome for taking on such an adventurous & beautiful scarf! You can do it. 🙂 Go buy some chocolate & red wine.
The Fiber Optic skein is GORGEOUS. If you don’t mind my asking, how exactly do you get such wonderful gradient results? I spin a braid like that and get less than stellar (not crap, but close) barber-pole stuff. Even with chain plying.
All the crochet has given you brain damage. Handspun shouldn’t be perfect, that’s its whole beauty. Thems that wants perfect should stick with mill spun. Thems that wants character go to handspun or get selves a wheel!
I won some wonderful yarn last year, so I will forego putting my name in the “hat” when I donate. But your good karma has followed me all year and I thank you and the riders for the opportunity to support such a good cause. Best wishes for a safe, happy ride!
You know what Lucy thinks is 4 minutes may not actually be 4 minutes, I’ve taken to putting myself on a timer trying to quit spending so much time online I was surprised at how fast time went. I was intrigued when I looked at her book and she said she could make holes in knitting without casting off and casting on, considering what you’re going through with the crochet perhaps casting off and casting on is not a bad thing ;-D yes yes I know the thrill of the new innovation.
The Seaglass is lovely I have a thing for Aqua. Does the non approving cat have a name? Haven’t seen the cat on your blog in some time.
I love the cat! And the sea green isn’t bad.
You inspire me to get out the wheel today. The weather is beautiful in Bangkok this morning and I am sitting in my living room enjoying the breeze blowing through. I don’t have beautiful sea glass green to spin, but I’m sure I can pull out something I’ll enjoy.
Considering I’ve only started practicing my spinning in earnest in the past few months, that looks gorgeous and consistent to me.
Think about your biking: first you fell off a lot, then you managed to keep going, and you’re improving all the time. You may not quite be where you want to be with the spinning, but isn’t it amazing that you preserved the gradient effect you like so much? I’m impressed.
I remember you mentioning Megan and Sam are also participating this year. Do they have links to sponsor them yet?
I totally love what you’re doing here! The cat, the crochet, the bike ride. Awesome. When I get home from work (on lunch break-I promise!) I’m totally finding a couple of skeins to donate as a karmic balancing gift. I take my hat off to you and bow to your (the whole team) awesomeness.
You inspire me to be a better person.. just by being yourself. As for the crochet, and the 13 minutes, I think Lucy’s fibbing. Just sayin’.
What do Cats know??
Everything worth knowing if you ask them. This from a proud mom of two of the demons.
How about soliciting donations per crocheted hole? 😉
You are lucky that your cat is this uninterested in your roving. My particular wool-thief would have that whole bundle in her little fangs, dragging it off to her attempted kitty stash (we catch her before she gets that far), in the time it took you to snap that photo. That yarn is beautiful, I bet the seaglass stuff will be too, and good luck to all of you!
that seaglass green is gorgeous and reminds me of the ocean….. and it matches the cat 🙂
Hi: I made a donation to you last evening but it sounds like it may have been directed to the wrong rider. It was $15 but all that I can afford at the moment. Are you able to get these transferred back to your name?
Hi Stephanie, 13 mins is a marked improvement! Well done. I should say that my 4 mins per hole was achieved under optimal conditions of the yarn and hook and (more importantly) having survived the Emperor’s New Vest with some 400 holes. (I am unable to give you the exact figure here as I am on the road and the Vest pattern I have deemed unworthy of conversion to a digital pattern.) The vest is quite a challenge, but uses about 50% of the yarn you would use for an in-tact vest. You either can have time and no money or v.v.
However, the time consuming nature of these holes lends huge appeal the efficient and beautiful type of Holes used in my new eBook A Little Book of BIG Holes for Hand-knitters! These Holes are elegant, speedy and have no crochet!
http://www.spiderflex.com – worth every cent!
In with a donation, and wishing upon a star for that green loveliness to be turned into yarn and sent my way (or the gradient, or anything or nothing. Happy to help the cause, but wouldn’t it be grand to knit with yarn spun by the Yarn Harlot herself!).
As my mother used to say….the faster I go, the behinder I get!
You are working for a very worthy cause. But I choose to donate to Tricoteuses/Médecins sans frontières instead.
Dear Steph,
Could you please tell us a little more about some of the members of your bike team. I noticed some of them don’t have any money raised yet and I wanted to help them out.
The sea glass is like spring pasture grass as clouds and sun pass over, turning fields into rippling seas of various colors of green and blue. With that alluring color, I’d be dumping anything olive green or winterish for sure.
You did a great job on spinning that gradient. I wish I could spin like that.
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Sea glass green is my favorite color – that’s beautiful!
I need a little tech support to donate – my bank thinks I’m committing fraud whenever I try to donate on the canadian charity page. Is there another way I can donate?
The sea glass is beautiful! (and your mom is funny!)
Hallo! Cool site, I reckon you are nearly as into singing as me! I’ve been learning to sing by using YouTube. It works! My roomies have stopped bitching about my singing in the toilet now!