More Yarn!

Though it took a day later than I thought, I have pictures for you.

This one’s more accurate to the colour, though I used the magic of Photoshop to try and fix the other as well.

These skeins are the same size as the first batch. I have yet to measure and find out the yardage or weight of them though.


I made yarn!

I actually meant to post this before Reading Week, but in the midst of packing and such it just didn’t get done as planned. Anyway, I made yarn. In the last six weeks I’ve been taking a spinning class in order to improve my technique and to expand on what I’ve taught myself. The benefit to doing it is they let you borrow one of their wheels for the duration of the course. I don’t like this particular wheel much, but it has taught me what to look for and what to avoid in the one I get for myself.

So far I’ve made these:

yarn small

The two on the outside are Crown Mountain Farms superwash roving in the Ain’t No Mountain High Enough colourway. It’s been two-plied into sock yarn. I really love this stuff. I finished some more sock yarn in Wild Thing over Reading Week and should have pictures of it later today. I also ordered a couple more colours that should arrive tomorrow.

The middle-right yarn was some roving we were given to mess with in class. I have no idea what it is. Wool, definitely, but beyond that I have no clue. It’s been navajo-plied, my first attempt, and that seemed to go really well. This yarn runs from lace-weight to worsted, since the green was an incredibly thin single, the white was slightly larger, and the blue was even thicker than that.

thin small

The middle-left yarn is a mixture of a whole bunch of fibres. We were learning to use hand carders and could pick from lots of stuff to blend. It has several different kinds of wool, mohair, and corn silk. Maybe some other things but those are what I remember.

The middle one was the first that I spun on the wheel. It’s wool again, but rather coarse. I brought it home with me and the cats confiscated it, so whether or not it gets found will dictate what it can be made into. My cats like eating things that resemble string.


I Had An Adventure

My computer has been making this weird buzzing sound pretty much since I got it but I’d been putting off doing anything about it, after the mess that resulted whenever I tried to get Dell to fix anything.

Turns out that was silly and I could have fixed this in November with no problems. I called Apple last Thursday and was only on the phone with them for 5 minutes (as opposed to the hour+ that happened with Dell every time) and they believed what I said and thought that it was my screen inverter being the problem.

I found out all I had to do was bring my computer in to any of the places around that sell them and they could fix it there. Sweet! At first I was going to bring it to UW since that’s closest but their tech guy isn’t around as much as the one at Carbon Computing is. So I dropped it off there.

After taking a look at it Dale (the really nice repair guy) called me and said that he can’t get it to make the stupid noise, but that half of the backlights on my screen were dead. I didn’t realize there was something that major wrong with the screen, but it explained a lot. My screen had always looked kinda dark since I got it, but I thought that was normal since people had said these screens had a tendency to be unevenly lit. Whoops.

So not only did they replace my screen, but the cables and inverter and anything else that might have been messing with my screen. Since I picked up the computer yesterday there’s been no more weird noises and the screen just looks so much BETTER. It’s scary how bad it was in comparison. Dell had taught me to accept crap as the usual way of things. *sigh*

This week I also bought one of those orange iPod Shuffle’s from the Apple Store. It’s so cute and works wonderfully. I had to go pick it up today since it was originally sent to the depot in Guelph and the Purolator guy has tried to deliver it since Wednesday with no luck.

I don’t know what’s up with that. For some reason he couldn’t figure out how to buzz up here or something, since he said he was here on Wednesday and didn’t know the number. It’s the same as the apartment number and they are clearly labelled! They apparently called here at 7am yesterday and woke Katie up, and she told them that the buzzer is the same.

That didn’t help, since the guy tried again and said he couldn’t figure it out. So I called Purolator myself and explained (while trying not to sound angry at the apparently simple people that work there). Instead of trying again today they gave up and dropped it off last night at the Purolator place by Conestoga Mall.

The whole thing just seemed so stupid. I honestly don’t think the guy actually found this place, since he claims to have buzzed but I have the tracking to know around what time and people were here. Hell, three of the four of us were here both times he claims he buzzed. I don’t know what to think. I’m just glad my iPod didn’t end up lost as a result of this.


Sleep is Good.

I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately. I’ll either end up going to bed really late or getting up early and not being able to get back to sleep. Yesterday was the worst. I woke up at 4am and couldn’t get back to sleep. When Dean left for work at 6am I tried again, and had just fallen asleep after 7am when my sister called. I might have been able to sleep after that but she was on the phone until almost 10am and I had to be at the library after that. *sigh*