Confounded and Confusticated

First of all let’s find out if blogger is still suffering from that little personality defect that showed up yesterday…more brewfest pictures anyone?

Yes, that is exactly what it appears to be, a man with taps for arms and a pretzle bowl for a head. Nothing says "microbrewed beer" like drinking out of an armpit. And here's Jiggy, I'm not sure if she's holding up the tent pole, or if the tent pole is holding her...perhaps both, but look at that smile!

And apparently blooger is still being a booger, because the other ones won't upload properly.

So, I was doing a little fiber surfing yesterday, (because I have so much crap to do that it seems insurmountable and I do stupid things like waste time looking at fiber on line that I have no intention of buying, nay, tell the truth Ragnar, no money with which to purchase) and I came upon an “easy to spin” flax that “requires no wetting.” Huh? Wetting? No one ever said anything to me about wetting. What does the confused spinner do when she needs to know? Google of course, and this is what Google taught me: apparently linen, being a plant fiber, has cellulose, which is naturally sticky when it’s wet. Also, because of how flax grows or some shite, it naturally tends to twist to the left…yeah, that’s right, counter-clockwise. Who knew this? Why did no one tell me? (fun fact for the next time you need to trot out some fiber related trivia, linen used to be spun in cellars because of the damp…fun job huh?)

So I tried spinning a little linen last night (still in a clockwise direction because I’m most of the way through this bobbin, and I’m not entirely committed to this fancy shmancy counter clockwise spinning) with a cup of water that I periodically dipped my fingers in, and the yarn did seem to be turning out smoother, but who can tell really? So now I have a conundrum. I started with two pounds of linen, and one of them is almost entirely spun up into sort of fuzzy, much thicker than my usual, but all in all fine seeming linen rope. So. Now that I know about this crazy counter-clockwise and damp method of spinning linen, do I proceed along my merry way and fuck up the second pound as well so that I have two pounds of linen rope with are essentially the same, or do I follow the advice of that preeminent spinning authority Google, and try it counter clockwise and with sticky fingers? What’s a girl to do? Also consider that I haven’t decided yet what I’m going to do with all this linen rope once I’m done with it. My initial thought was that I would weave something out of it, but my only loom is a little tabletop jobbie which could probably make a strip about 4 inches wide…maybe, and I was thinking more like “shirt.” When one is weaving is it especially strange to have say your warp thread be rather thicker and fuzzier than your weft thread? What’s a pirate to do?

Ragnar…who is sort of wishing that she didn’t just assume that she knows what she’s doing all the time.