Wednesday, May 27, 2009

The best time for me to spin is during the daylight hours. My wheel sits in my front window and I like having the natural daylight to work with. It's easier to see what I'm doing. I think one day I'll buy one of those nice craft lights but for now, I like spinning in the sunshine (or the grey watery light of a rainy day). I come home from work each day and after I've caught up with Peter Kevin and we've talked about our day and what we're having for dinner, I sit down with the wheel and spin. This is some purple trainwreck. I plied the first two bobbins and I like it quite a bit. It makes the rough spots of the day seem to smooth out to sit and let the fiber move softly through my fingers.


I make sure to spend some time each evening working on Em's sweater. I'm at the point where it's just stockinette stitch for several inches and then two inches of ribbing. I work on it until my hands cramp up and then I find something with a lighter weight yarn which is easier on my hands. And I have help! That's Hobbes making himself comfortable on top of the bag that contains the yarn for the sweater. For some reason he likes to lie on my project bags. It doesn't matter which one I'm working on, he finds it and plops down on top of it. As long as he moves when I need the yarn, it's ok with me. I can share. And he's so cute.




I have to get to the craft store and buy a basket to put together my stuff for the raffle at Em's beef 'n beer. I have been trying to get there every day this week but haven't felt like fighting the rush hour traffic. I'm running out of time! Tomorrow for sure....




I was reading one of the forums on ravelry today regarding the Sock Summit that Stephanie Pearl McPhee and her friend Tina are planning. The list of classes and teachers sounds amazing and I was sorry it was all the way across the country. 3,000 miles was a little far for me to travel just to attend a sock conference. I was hoping it would be successful so that maybe there would be another one and maybe it would be a little closer to home. But there were a lot of angry people. It seems that the server went down and people couldn't sign up for the classes they wanted. And then the site said the classes were full but they weren't because of the server crash. I think it was inevitable because of the sheer numbers of people trying to sign up but some of the people on ravelry were really angry and talking about boycotting the organizers and teachers and all of their products. I'm not sure what people were expecting. This kind of thing happens frequently when a desired event opens up for registration. And no amount of testing can prevent it. It's too bad but it's not the end of the world. To hear some of these people talk, it sounds like they'll never be the same. I feel bad that they were disappointed but there are never any guarantees in these kind of things. Maybe it's easy for me to be sanguine about it because I was not planning to go anyway. I might be more upset if I had tried to get into some classes.




So, what do you think? How far would you go and how much would you pay to attend a class taught by Cat Bordhi, Barbara Walker (yes, THE Barbara Walker) or Stephanie Pearl McPhee? If money were no object, I might fly cross country but with the way things are going now, it's just not feasible. (and I really don't like to fly)




Our weather is at that tough stage where there is a 20 degree difference between the morning and the afternoon so it's hard to dress. At least the a/c isn't on in the building. Yet.


17 comments:

roxie said...

I envy you your natural light. Spin on!

I'm sorry to hear people are being so emotional about the summit. Being poor sports about it is no way to encourage people to go to the hideous work of organizing another one.

Taphophile said...

Oh Donna Lee, your purple train wreck is a delight! Seriously, though, some people need to get some perspective on the Sock Summit thing. It's knitting class for crying out loud!

Louiz said...

I tempted for a while at the National Archives here in the UK. Just at the time when they put the 1901 census records online. I was just a temp, hired to data entry stuff, and drafted in to test the server response. Despite everything they did, it crashed. 5 minutes into 2001. and repeated as soon as they got it working again for the next 2 weeks or so. They got it "working" by replacing the entire network of servers. The animosity towards the non governmental organisation who messed up by underestimating demand was staggering. But in some ways its the same thing - the people who supply the servers underestimate the demand, especially in areas deemed to be niche interests (like family history was then, and knitting is still deemed to be by most people), and the determination of the target market to try and connect *as soon as it opens*, which is I think the main thing that overloads the servers.

Ahem. Sorry, that's one of my pet peeves - a new service will *always* be overloaded by unanticipated demand, doubly so if it is a "niche" interest. And the server people are all astonished that their provision for traffic wasn't enough for something so *boring* as [fill in the blank].

Bezzie said...

Lovely spinning--the purple is totally droolworthy!

I'll be honest, I don't really care for Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, nor do I really care for Cat Bordhi. I'm sure they're lovely people but I just don't "get" their mass appeal. I couldn't travel to the west coast for that. But to be fair, I wouldn't travel to the west coast for ANYTHING. That's too close to home, why bother going that far and not taking the slight jog north?

Bells said...

oh your purple trainwreck all spun up is looking so good!

I haven't seen the sock summit discussion but I think i will avoid tracking it down - thanks for the heads up. I could do without that level of angst!

I would travel across the country for it. In an ideal (ie fantasy) world I'd fly to America for it.

catsmum said...

Love that yarn on the niddynoddy - just my colours!
and thanks for the heads up about the TwistCollective article.

amy said...

I think the level of animosity is absolutely disgusting. I would love to be able to attend, but money never even came into it--I have a nursing baby. End of story, I won't be traveling cross-country by myself or taking ANY knitting classes ANYWHERE. I hope maybe someday in the future I can go to at least ONE fun fiber event. I'd love to go to Squam Lake, too, which is much, much closer to home but still impossible with the nursling (who is BITING MY ARM right now, and it HURTS!! Silly teeth).

However. To bitch and fling vitriol like some people did is absolutely disgusting and speaks of an amazing sense of entitlement. Just because there is a forum in which one can air all one's grievances doesn't mean one SHOULD. Hmm, all those concerts I didn't dial quickly enough to get tickets for... perhaps I should have blamed the organizers personally? It's just ridiculous.

Julie said...

I agree completely on the Sock Summit. 3K miles is a little far to go, even if I could worship at the feet of Barbara Walker and Meg Swansen. And of course the entire registration mess was the fault of the IT department of the convention center, so if the knitters want to get mad that's who they should be e-mailing and calling. (They were warned. They deserve some hostile phone calls.)

Love what you're doing with the wool. Thinking about it, I don't think I've ever spun it before, myself. I love it! Maybe I should get to work on my own.

Geek Knitter said...

Ironically, Sock Summit is happening less than two hours north of my home, but I never planned to go because my entire clan of in-laws is going to be here for the week. Although it would be wonderful to take a class from Barbara Wailker.

As for the vitriol in the forums, all I could do was roll my eyes. A bunch of unhappy people with absolutely no technical experience whatsoever and an open place to display their pique. Spare me.

It would have cost the organizers tens of thousands to get a system in place which could have handled that many simultaneous connection attempts, and even then there would be no guarantees. I'm sorry that people were disappointed, but sometimes these things happen.

Alwen said...

Oh, the spinning is lovely! Last year was big on purples for me. This year seems to be blues. Perfect.

I love the shot of Hobbes. And it sounds like I didn't miss a thing, missing the whole Sock Summit brouhaha.

Galad said...

I had been seriously considering attending the Sock Summit since it is on my side of the country. I opted to knit more socks at home and visit my grandson again this summer.

The uproar isn't justified in my mind. Stephanie was up front on her blog about the challenges with the IT and responded quickly when there were issues.

My impression is that this might be a one time event due to the huge amount of work. A lot of negativity just might convince the organizers to drop it.

Love the purple train wreck colors!

Jeanne said...

Love the spinning - and what a nice thing to spin after work everyday!

I wouldn't fly to the west coast for a knitting even - but I'd love it if it came here! I don't understand anger and boycotting - people really get crazy sometimes!

Sheepish Annie said...

I guess it's normal for people to spout off when they are angry or disappointed. But I surely do wish they'd take a minute and think before they just go and post it for all eternity. Mistakes happen to everyone. I'm sure that I would like a little forgiveness on my worst days. I like to think I'm pretty good about giving it. At least I hope I am...

teabird said...

If I had money and time, I'd travel far to listen to Barbara Wallker, especially if I thought it was just a little, teeny bit possible that she'd talk about her Other books.

As far as the uproar - for heaven's sakes - if banks and schools have IT problems, do they get their knickers in such twists? It's just SOCKS. (Is that heresy? Oops.)

DrK said...

i contemplated flying across the world for sock summit. you would think people might have some gratitude for having all these amazing knitting things on your doorstep. in lieu of that, we are thinking of organising our own! love those purple trainwreck colours.

Rose Red said...

I would definitely travel to the other side of the world to attend Sock Summit, if I could. Honestly, (some) people in the US don't realise how lucky they are in terms of access to fabulous designers, yarns and LYS's. Anyway, onto better things - your yarn looks fabulous - luminous!! glad you are able to get some spinning time in!

Dianne said...

I would love to go to Sock Summit. I don't fly either, so looked into driving (that's a loooong way from New Jersey) and Amtrak (really, really expensive). As if I could go, anyway. Add up the cost of travel, the registration, and the hotel, and it's just not a possibility for me.

As far as the uproar over Sock Summit registration, it's just pathetic. It must be nice to have nothing else going on in your life to worry about other than what sock class you can or cannot take. Sheesh.

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