handmade drop spindles

I am getting into spinning my own yarn. I have one drop spindle that I bought from etsy. I have since bought more roving and my spindle is getting full. I've been looking online for ways to make drop spindles since money is tight and I don't want to but 5 more. Also, I'm and instant gratification person. There are all kinds of tutorials for making CD spindles, but where the hell do I find a rubber grommet? Even if I did go to a hardware store I wouldn't know where to begin to look. So I looked at my spindle from etsy and thought that there had to be a cheap way to mimic that. I looked around craft stores and had some ideas in my head when I did see the perfect solution! I think it ended up costing me close to $5 to make 4 drop spindles and I would just need to buy another $3 bag of wheel to make another 4. So, here is what I did. (I got the wooden supplies at Hobby Lobby - and they were on sale!!!! The cup hooks I got at WalMart)



I found a bag of wooden toy wheels in many sizes and I picked the largest size.




The hole size was 3/8 inch so I bought a bag of 12 inch long dowels 3/8 inch diameter.



I bought a package of the smallest cuphooks I could find.



I decided to make top whorl spindles. My husband drilled a small hole at one end of the dowel and screwed the cup hook in.




I slid the wheel up the dowel towards the top. Since it slid pretty easily I wrapped some scotch taped around the dowel a few times where I wanted the wheel to stay. It works great. I haven't used a top whorl before, so I sometimes have a little trouble with the yarn not wanting to twist around the hook after I wind it around the shaft and start spinning again. But it was cheap, easy and fast!

depressing

I just woke up (well, an hour ago). I woke up and noticed that Tom wasn't in bed; he was downstairs flipping through channels because he had woken up earlier. I told him he could come upstairs and do that. So, now I'm awake and can't get back to sleep and he's getting back to sleep. Guess I should have taken one of my sleeping pills, but I was feeling tired. I should know better.....

My point. I'm making my usual rounds on the computer/internet and I'm reading a thread on a message board I sometimes read. I'm shocked, saddened, helpless, I don't know what else. I guess part of it is I want to help and I can't and another part is I know how she feels. A girl is depressed and has her first appointment with a counselor. She's taking her best friend with her because she's scared. Sadly, she already "knows" they can't do anything to help her. I've been there before and I know it's not true. She's made a suicide plan. She has a date in mind and everything. I've felt like that, but never made plans. She even knows how to work the system - don't tell the doctor and you won't get admitted. If you do get admitted, play good girl so you get dismissed soon.

I wish I knew what to say to her, but having been in a similar place I know that most of what people say will just piss her off. When someone is depressed and planning suicide you can't say "I know how you feel" because you don't. Maybe you think you do, but you don't. You can't tell them what to do. Nothing pisses anyone off more than being told what to do. "You'd feel better if you got out." You may have good intentions, but it may just be going in one ear and out the other. I remember one time I was depressed getting advice from people and just wanting to tell them to shut the hell up because they had no idea. None. People think they are helping, but most of the time they are not. That's the sad truth. What helps is going to the person, physically, and spending time, doing nothing if that's what it takes. Offer to go out. Don't push. Stay in, rent a movie, whatever, but show your support without being pushy or bossy. Someone who is depressed needs to know that they are loved. One thing that helps me the most, because I retreat to the bedroom, is for my husband to just lay down in bed with me; hug me. Don't ask what's wrong because a lot of times, someone who is depressed doesn't know what's wrong. I just wish there was something I could say to her. Some of the moderators of the group have taken care of her, if you will. I hope she'll be OK.

knitting update

I've been working on a few things lately. A February Lady Sweater. I love it, but I'm getting a little bored with the lace pattern. I guess this is the perfect example of why I can't knit just one thing at a time. If I could, I'd have it done soon.


To take a break from the sweater, I started knitting Adeline a pair of ruffle socks with the leftover sock yarn from socks I made Izzy last year.


I'm also getting ready to make a twirly skirt for Isabel for her birthday. Since I'm using smaller yarn than what the pattern calls for and I'll be using smaller needles, I may need to knit an even larger size than I was planning. As it was, I thought it was going to be big for her. Oh well, it has a drawstring waist, so it will last her a long time!

My friend, Laura, taught me how to use my drop spindle and I've started spinning with that. Here is a picture from the first day I used it (the green stuff is what I spun). I've spun more since then and it's getting easier!


A little off topic, I went to fat fighters today -- not my usual meeting -- and one of my knitting friends was there. I'm so glad because she helped me get a little more motivated. Up till last week I missed 4 weeks. In the 4 weeks I didn't go, I gained 1.8 pounds. Last week I gained 0.2. Erg. So, we talked about a lot of things and I felt a lot better. It's been hard for me to find a good meeting time since I started my new job and have a new schedule. I think I'll go to these meetings now since my friend goes and it won't interfere with daytime sleep time. I have also signed up for a 5K in July and I want to do another on with my sister in May; I just need to find someone to work for me!

wicked step-mother

That's all I have to say. Oh...and I don't think they make mother's day cards that say that.

facebook

Is Facebook a popularity contest? It seems to me that it is. I thought it was great, at first, finding old friends. Then I started to realize that all of these friends weren't necessarily interested in getting, keeping or staying in touch with me. So why the friend request? Is it a contest to see who dies with the most friends? It frustrates me to have more than 100 friends and 10 of them actually send me meaningful notes, messages or whatever. I'm considering deleting people from my "friends" list. Keep family members, people I'm fans of, people in my group (you know who you are), people who truly are friends. And what's with the high school games? "I'm not going to answer your friend request." "I'm going to completely block you from my profile or even asking to be my friend." Come on. High school was 20 years ago. Get over it.

In other news, I bought one of those Smooth Away kits that you see on TV. It's like a little hand held buffer that is supposed to rub the hair off your legs (or wherever). I bought it when I was at Walgreens today because I was curious to find out if it worked or not. The little buffing pad that is supposed to rub the hair off is so not rough that I thought "yeah, right". Well, it does work for short hair (as it says in the instructions). An added bonus is that it exfoliates while it removes those hairs. And no nicks! Totally impressed and surprised. But do I need to buy a whole new kit when the pads run out?

random thoughts

I don't know why but I seem to be ultra-sensitive, overly emotional lately. Maybe it's hormones. Maybe it's stress from the accident setting in. I have no idea. Little things (maybe they are little) are getting to me. I think a lot about things that probably aren't a big deal.

Last night was a sad night at work. What could be considered a "typical" night, but a little on the more sad than usual side. I cried on the way home. Then I thought, for the first time, "can I really hack it?" I love my job. I'm good at my job. But I can't get emotional every night.

I am worried about my knitting projects. Crazy, right? I usually have a few going at once because I get bored. Let's just pretend that each project would take a week to get done. If I have 4 projects going at once, it would take about 4 weeks to get each one done, right? If I did them one at a time it would take one week to get each one done. Much faster. Why can't I do that? And of course not all projects are going to take a week to finish. Eh. I'm working on a sweater that I need to get done - or mostly done - for class by Monday. I already screwed up the lace pattern, so I'm taking out the first row of it. Not helping any. And I have 2 pairs of socks going and another one I want to start. What else? Oh, another sweater I started a year ago. I have yarn for two other - no, 3 other - sweaters. See, if I just finished them, I'd get them done faster than messing with one for a while, then the other for a while, then one for a while. Can I change my ways?

Is it normal to be pretty much a loner? Probably not. I'm not very good at keeping friends, or they aren't very good at keeping me. However that goes. I've gotten to the point where I don't care very much anymore. If you aren't going to try to keep in touch with me, I'm not going to spend my time trying and trying to stay in touch with you. Why? If you don't value our relationship enough to put as much into it as I am, then it must not be that important.

The dogs barking all the freaking time is driving me up the freaking wall! I love them to death, but do they have to bark at every little noise! When someone breaks in, then bark!

Tom bought me a drop spindle for our anniversary. It came with 2 small chunks of roving and a lot of this beautiful emerald green roving. I'm too afraid to touch it because I'm just sure I'll screw it up.

OK, this concludes my negative blog for the day. Thanks for reading all the way through, if you could handle it!

sick of the snow

I am officially done with snow. I've had enough. I drove my husband's truck to work the night of April 3rd because it was snowing. Driving home the morning of April 4th was fine until I started getting closer to home and the highway started getting worse. I started to slow down because the truck started to slip a little bit off and on. People still drive like assholes and fly right past you though; you can never go fast enough. Oh, that makes me so crazy! That's what I hate most about driving in the snow! I had just passed a state trooper who was walking into the median to flag a car that a driven off into it. Probably a quarter of a mile later a small truck, like a delivery truck or rental truck flew past me and my truck was sliding on the ice and just started spinning. It spun across the lanes of northbound I-25 and then went into the median, slammed into the median, which is like a ditch, so it slammed into the bottom, the kept going and slid back down where it stopped at the bottom. Those couple of seconds I thought all kinds of things. Like: am I going to die? Am I going to get hurt? Where am I? I remember saying "Oh my god!" When the truck finally stopped I just sat there shaking. I wasn't sure what to do. I couldn't find the hazard lights, which I thought would help someone find me. I remembered the state trooper was just down the road and thought he would probably be by any minute. I couldn't find my cell phone. I didn't know if I should call 911 or not. I finally found the cell phone and called my husband. He thought I was joking at first but then after I sounded serious enough and told him again, he believed me. He was going to come out and get me, then the State Patrol showed up and told him not to. He said there was minor body damage and we could get the truck out of there. (Are you kidding me?) He picked up part of the bumper that broke off and threw it in the back of the truck, told me to put it into 4 wheel drive and he'd tell me when the traffic was clear and to gun it. After several tries and about 10 minutes it actually worked. Once I got the truck back on the highway, though, I was no longer facing home and I realized the alignment was completely off and did not want to get off at the next exit, get back on the highway, go another 8 miles home, when I could get off the exit and drive the broken truck less than a mile to Tom's parent's house. So I called Tom and he met me there. The truck and I suffered minor damages (hopefully). The bumper is broken and hopefully it's only the alignment and it can be fixed. I am sore all over. Good thing I was wearing a seat belt! Smart girls wear seat belts! Now, if I could get a bumper sticker that says "get off my ass, go around me" or something like that and if other people would quit driving like assholes in the snow, that might help a little!

Now I need to file my accident report online.....