Waaah! My new car won't be here until August, and the old one is pitching hissy fits. The air conditioner isn't working, and I have grave doubts about the engine cooling fan as well. Thankfully, I'm renting a minivan for my upcoming visit to the family so that I can carry both the dog crates and the load'o'crap I'm supposed to transport homewards. That stuff is mostly nearly-new hand-me-downs for my friends who have twins.
I did get another eighth of the shawl edging done this morning while watching the end of The Gangs of New York. The outlook for warping is not good, though. I might be able to thread the towels, but it's just too 'ot and 'orrible to hop up and down beaming the warp.
Stasia asked about a bio page. I'm not really comfortable with that, so here's a brief outline. My grandmother taught me the basics of knitting when I was 6. Since she knit all sorts of things without patterns, I absorbed the invaluable fact that you can make your own. I knitted intermittently up until college, at which point I dove in seriously and knitted through more than a few classes. A few years later, a co-worker taught me how to spin, and a year or two after that, I bought a table loom and taught myself to weave. That was more than 15 years ago. Currently, I live with two floor looms and lust after a house big enough for five of them. I've never taken a course in knitting, spinning or weaving and probably never will - I can go so much faster on my own. But then I make my living in computers and have never taken a computer course either. I should tattoo RTFM on my forehead.
The dog rescue was an accident. After the last of my elderly cats died, the house was empty, but I wasn't ready for another cat. My sister had a Keeshond, whose fuzz I had spun and whose personality was sweet. On the theory that if it's going to shed, it might as well shed spinnable fiber, I started researching breeders. Cookie came home (as an adult) shortly thereafter, and two years later, I volunteered to foster a rescue. That was Bear, who became a permanent resident and is now 12. Over the years, eight or nine other Keeshonden have stayed here for varying lengths of time and moved on to good permanent homes. There was a brief nightmarish time when four dogs were in residence, which is no mean feat in a 900 square foot house and which left me a tiny path around the crates in the bedroom. Because both Cookie and Bear have health issues now, I'm not fostering anymore, but I still make Keesmere stuff for the KSRF auctions.
