A Century of Sickness (or so it feels)

Hello.

Yes, hello.  I've been sick for a very long time.  My suffering was not life-threatening, but it was constant and it took all of my energy.  I'd rather not get into details, but I've recently found treatment that has helped, and, for the first time in a very long time, I feel like I can live again.  It's... amazing.

While I was at my worst, which was all winter up until late June, I laid around in bed and withdrew from the world.  I missed emails and phone calls, and I know that many good things passed me by.  I managed to build up a good stack of regrets, and I bet there are more regrets that I don't even know about.  (I missed Black Sheep and the Hood River workshop!)  If you were trying to contact me during that time, please try again, now that I'm back in the world of the living.

Now life is beginning to roll along, and me with it, and big changes are happening.  In late September, I will be moving to Eugene to pursue a degree at University of Oregon in Folklore and Fiber Arts.  (What??!)  I'm leaving my job of five years, as well as the home I've shared for 3 1/2 years.  I am justly terrified and exhilarated.  I'm hoping to make some pin money from Etsy and craft fairs so that I can keep feeding my animal friends.  I don't know what will happen with the rabbits; for now, my ex will be taking care of them, as the likelihood of finding digs that allow farm animals is pretty low given my income level.  I've been spinning, but not really teaching, which makes me a little bit sad.  I'm also currently at PSU doing immersion Spanish courses and working full time, which, predictably, culminated in me getting a terrible cold for the last 4 days and missing 3 days of class and work.

In BIG fiber news, I finally got a great drum carder for commercial batt production.  It's a gently-used Fancy Kitty Big Tom, and I love it.  I made myself some batts and have spun most of them on the Ouellet, and they're delicious.  The fine carding cloth does a great job blending.  I'm not generally a fan of batts that aren't all that blended, and I'm finding it easy to control how well this carder blends because it has a separate control for the licker-in and the swift, so I can change the ratio for different effects and different types of fiber.  For example, if I have lamb locks with super cute little ringlets on the tips, as longwool lambs do, and I want to preserve the curls in the finished batt, I can slow down the swift and let it take them up without stretching them out too much.  I put two batts in the Etsy shop tonight; it was hard to list them instead of keeping them for myself!

Suri Alpaca, BFL, Silk, Firestar

Angora Rabbit (Bienvenu), Shetland, Silk, Firestar

I also started making darned purty stitch markers.  If you like knowing where you are in your lace knitting and not crying into your cobweb shawl as you frog it and curse the day that you learned to knit, you should check them out.