Demo derby & MDS&W

I know Maryland Sheep & Wool was a couple weeks back, but things have been hectic here and I have a few blogs worth of posts to catch up on. So bear with me over the next few days while I get it together.
The first weekend in May was very busy. On the 4th my friend Dave was competing in a Demo

Derby up at the Pagoda Motorcycle club track. My favorite reason for going is that Dave can't drive to save his life. He even managed to clothesline himself on one of the inner wall barriers.
So Saturday was a fun in the sun with mild drinking involved.

Sunday we drove down to Maryland sheep and Wool. My forthcoming Rome trip made my budget even tighter than usual. I ended up with only half of a fleece and enough Queensland Sugar Rush to make a cami. I really love this green and it was a bit ironic that it almost exactly matches the color of the cami I made to go to Rome and that was never seen again after the airline permanently lost my luggage.

I washed the fleece several times before I left for Rome, but it was not completely dry so I didn't have the opportunity to start carding until yesterday, worked on it for 2 hours and it feels like I didn't make a dent. this is gonna take a while.

Fleecy fleece

Puffy little rolags

Tomorrow we discuss Rome.

Finishing Up

This semester has been long...so very long and today is the last day of actual coursework. I have an Italian final this morning and to finish about five minutes of a presentation that I will be giving when I go to Italy next week and that is it. I will be done as an undergrad!

So I've been doing a little fibery business, not much and nothing complicated, mind you. My brain can't take complicated right now.

I finished the Holden Shawlete, still need to weave in all the ends, but it is essentially done. I'm working on some plain vanilla socks in some gorgeous yarn as my on the go project.

Over the weekend I spun and plied this bit of loveliness that I picked up at Rhinebeck last fall. I think I know what it wants to be, but for now that's a secret.

This past weekend I also procured a full set of stained glass supplies, a simplicity serger, and a singer knitting machine model 700 with ribber attachment. All gratis! So I've been resisting playing with all that in order to complete things for the semester. Responsibilities....blah.

The next few days are filled with fun and responsibility. Tomorrow is my friends Demolition Derby. Lets hope all his wheels stay on this time. Sunday is Maryland Sheep and Wool. Will I see any of you there? Monday is work, Italy prep list, and visit MIL before her surgery. Tuesday and most of Wednesday is for packing and cleaning and then our flight leaves at 6:15 that night. 7 days in Rome is gonna be lovely and hectic and I'm gonna be exhausted.

If I get a chance I'll blog while I'm there.

An for all you Whovians out there I built a Tardis for a class project. It exploded! Epic!

Inevitability

It really is the way of things that whenever you think something is going to go smoothly it staggers along like your mate who got too drunk at the bar and insists on singing karaoke half naked instead of packing it in for the night.

This was me with designing the iPad version of my book. The actual design part, piece of cake, but the getting it to load properly was a whole different animal. For those of you who don't know how an iBook is assembled I'll give you a brief rundown. First you create a Folio, then add articles to it. Sounds simple, right? Well, it is. Except when the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite refuses to load anything, including identical files which it had managed to upload earlier. Adobe InDesign also has the brilliant feature of letting you edit files that are already in a document and relinking to the changed bits. Not so much with the DPS, it just ignored those changes and went right on it's merry way........and I just had a thought. There was Solar flair activity last night interrupting electronics. *FACEPALM*
I knew that, I wanted to go out and watch the Aura Borialis which virtually never can be seen over Pennsylvania and I was so focused on getting this done that I forgot all about it! And instead staggered through a night of immense frustration because I just wanted to get this thing done.

That moment of stupidity over, here is the book. Or as much as I can show you since I still have to research my publishing options and decide what to do with it.

I'm also finally knitting something that isn't designed by me for the first time since probably around late October. It's a Holden Shawlette in some Just Our Yarn that I got at my first Maryland Sheep and Wool, so sometime in the last decade. It's almost done, just need to do the lace, which shouldn't take that long. Famous last words.

When your thesis advisor has a meltdown

So for the past three months I have been making great progress on my thesis project. Designed 7 patterns, made samples out of everything, some in hand spun yarn, got really nice photos and laid everything out in a book. I even made life casts of my hands and feet so I could mount everything to the wall. After a recent department review from which I got an email saying that showing the garments "cheapened" my graphic design work and that I was to relegate my showing to a book on a shelf......boring! Not to mention all the work this project was, over 200 hours to date. Now at my University it is not required that I exhibit to complete my degree, so when my adviser gave me pretty much the same speech from the email he'd sent me I told him that I'd rather not exhibit. That is when he LOST IT, just went off like a Roman Candle, screaming at me about how that was just fine and that it solved all his problems. I didn't know a student who is really passionate about their work and getting it done, in fact a lot more ambitiously than other students was a problem. Then after freaking out at me he had me escorted out by security after I'd already gone back to the room where we normally have class. I hadn't raised my voice at him and had tried to continue to have a civil discourse, but that was too much for him. I have never in my life seen such unprofessional behavior from a teacher. I immediately reported him to the department head and had a meeting with the Dean of Arts and Sciences the next day just so I had all my bases covered. The only resolution I have to this point is that this person is no longer my adviser and I will be working with the head of the department for the rest of the semester. As of right now I'm still not exhibiting, which is sad. I was looking forward to it and my work would have looked great, a lot of people are still trying to talk me into showing, but a mediocre showing of my work is not worth it to me. Hopefully some or all the patterns will be out soon, I'm going to look into publishers or go the independent self selling route. Either way there are a lot of beautiful new patterns coming from me soon.

Just a little spring

Close Call

When designing a large project with handspun and you only have this much left at the end all you feel is relief.

Coming along

I really haven't had much in the way of knitting material to post since my thesis project began, everything has to be kept on the down low in order for me to eventually publish it, but by May hopefully I'll be able to post on a regular basis again.

Thesis aside, life has been very hectic. Though this coming week is spring break I have picked up work for 4 days and have training for another job on Thursday. I found out a few weeks ago that I was one class shy of an Art History minor so I've been jumping through the administrative hoops of getting paperwork done so that I can take that last class back at Montco so it will cost less and I won't have as far to commute over the summer. I have my portfolio review at Philadelphia University next Tuesday and that's the last thing I have to do with them before I find out if I'm accepted, then the whole process of figuring out how to pay for it begins. Also, there have been issues with the last student loan I needed to complete my BFA, first it was dealing with Sallie Mae (don't if you can avoid it, they are horrid) and then my financial aide adviser who must have gotten her degree from a correspondence course.

I'm just looking forward to the end of this semester and a much needed week in Rome (for a Baroque art history course). Hopefully the Conclave will be over by then or we won't get to see the Sistine chapel, which, though not Baroque, is on our itinerary. It should be, but Conclaves have lasted up to 3 years, so you never know. The last time I was in Rome I didn't get to see the Sistine chapel because it had already closed for the day by the time we got there and since we were only in Rome one day we didn't have another opportunity. Once we get back from break we'll get our itinerary for the trip and I can start scouting out other fun things to do in free time.

A Little Splurging...

...never hurt anyone. 2 skeins of Madelinetosh Pashmina for one of my thesis projects...yummy!