Cider Moon- Paradise Bay

Contrary to the very orange-ness of my blog (and the room in which I am working, but that will have to be a discussion for another day), I generally go for rich, dark, complex colors. This 4+ oz. of “Paradise Bay” Australian wool from Cider Moon, however, caught my eye. Granted, part of the attraction was that it was in my hands at my LYS and I had a gift certificate (thanks love!). But the real attraction here was in the spinning.

And it was fabulous.

Plying is generally my favorite part anyway, and this fiber did not disappoint. It was thrilling––there is no other word for it––to watch these colors twirl into one another. I simply split the roving into two unequal halves (the unequal part was not on purpose) and spun away, with the goal of an uneven, chunky 2-ply.

Here are my little poofs in their natural habitat, where they will be displayed until the next spinning outing, or until I hang some proper shelving in this office! (You know, it is strange that I’m posting a picture of my bookcase, considering I just remembered that last night I kept dreaming that it was falling over. I think it was a metaphor for being overwhelmed with school more than a blog prophecy, though).

Wasn’t it Stravinsky…

…who said that nothing is more frightening than a blank sheet of paper?

In any case, I’m a blogger now, and you deserve to know why. I’ve been pondering this decision for, let’s see, two years now. I tend to make decisions at about that rate, which is one reason why I’ve hesitated to do this.

But, now I did!

A large part of the reason was for the journal element: what am I knitting/spinning/listening to/thinking about these days?

For example, today I am thinking about Charles Ives and “The Unanswered Question.” A bit of that music was used with particular profundity in the movie Wit with Emma Thompson. A great movie, that, in every way. Almost made me, the heartless wonder, tear up in a few spots (almost). Maybe the resident was a bit overdone, but really not to a distorting degree. The tension between knowledge vs. people is one I feel every day, but understand less and less.