elanya

I'm tired, so this will eb brief. but it will *be*!

I finished a fic! Technically I 'finished' it yesterday, but I did some revision today and I think it is better for it. I'll post tomorrow, as it is for a tumblr 'event' (Voltron!). It's even smut! I hadn't written anything since August, and nothing smutty since April, I guess. It feels longer :o

I did some more dyeing, finishing up with my walnuts. I now have the stuff for dad's scarf, and I can wind that and warp my loom as soon as the darker skein is finished drying. I think I might have made the skein that is supposed to be lighter a little *too* dark, and it may lose contrast in some places.... hopefully it sill still look good as a houndstooh. I also dyed a skein for socks, which turned out a lovely dark golden brown. I know the pattern I want to use if I can get ahold of it....

And tonight I went to a local friend's graduation party - she is now a doctor of philosophy too (history)! It was cool, though I think I almost completely failed to interact with people I didn't already know. I ate many (too many) snacks, and am stuff very full. But it was nice to go out. I still have such complicated feelings about my own degree. She is doing a much better job on following up/following through, and I wish he luck making her career!

....is tomorrow, wooh!

We're giving public tours of work. And by 'we' I mean me, because I'm the only one who currently works there who can do it.

The ED at the museum sent around a schedule which had me doing 2 tours between 10 and 4, and that seemed reasonable.... but the one that got send out has *four* tours, which is too many, and I never got to see that one. I basically have a 15 min break between them, assuming the don't go over time (I won't have to say as much about the scanning since the museum has coopted that, which I wasn't actually consulted about, really, but whatever.) Anyway, I did volunteer but I would much rather be at the larp event this weekend and it doesn't seem likely that I will get a ride out there afterwards, assuming I even am still keep on that after like 4 hours straight of talking to strangers :p

I did some dyeing tonight for dad's scarf but I'm not super sure about it. a: I didn't mordant because I was under the impression that with walnut it isn't super necessary. b: I didn't leave it as long as I might because one of my dye batches smelled *really* gross (made from moldy walnuts. The one from the walnuts from last year smelled pretty good, actually!) And the yarn did *not* take up the dye well at all. And the old bath was much more exhausted than I thought. Still, I have a light brown and a pale brown and they will still probably make a nice contrast. I just don't know if dad will wear them I guess I'll see what it looks like when it is dry.

I might go right to bed, but I did want to try spinning a little bit each day, for practice and to build up my hand strength. So maybe I'll do that for a bit, and then bed.

FTR: the thing at work *is* really broken, but I didn't have time to try and fix the 3D printer.

Craft night!

I scoured the yarn for a Christmas scarf for my dad.... gonna dye it and then weave a houndstooth scarf.

Then because I read a thing on tumblr about fibercraft and magic, I decided to break out my drop spindle I'm really bad at it still but I made some progress and am understanding predrafting better, so I may get there yet!

now time for a shower and bed.

Tomorrow I get to find out if something at work is really broken or not. I hope not! But probably yes. I might also get to take apart the 3d printer on my own though!

....I almost signed off on this as though it were an email @_@

Cheers ;p

I did dyeing things! Finally!

I prepped goldenrod, black eyes susans, and queen anne's lce. We'll see how those are looking tomorrow or maybe Sunday.

And then I decided I would try and overdye an older skein (In The Flesh - a reaaaaally pale pink form copper beech) with avocado pitsm since they apparenly give a pretty pale pink as well.

Well that went weird, because it turned out a vwry yellow pnk for me. So now it looks *seriously* like a flesh tone. I'll have to see how it loks in natural light tomorrow and when it is dry.

I also go a bunch of knitting on a baby kimono done today too wooh! But I stayed up too late doing it. Boo.

Today was a suuuuper busy day in the end.

I went down town around noon to pick up some bras I'd ordered, and didn't make it home until almost 6! then after dinner I went out and picked a bunch of mulberries - tomorrow I'm hoping to get my yarn split and re-mordanted, and then I can mash up the berries for dye! I'll probably need more than I have (hough I have close to 2 pounds) because mostly what I have learned with these things is that it takes a *lot* of dyestuffs. Anyway, after that, Nary got here, yay!

Tomorrow is the 150th anniversary of Canada's confederation, but there are some legit reasons not to necessarily just jump right into celebrating, but take a moment to reflect about how we got here, what came before, and what kinds of improvements nd chances we need to work towards. Which I have been trying to at least think about, though downtown today was mostly Canada 150 stuff. I helped with the VR at the work booth for a bit, and watched a raptor (bird) educational display with the kids and took them to get their faces painted. I also bought the stuff to make nanaimo bars, so that has to happen tomorrow too! busy busy....

I had been doing well on my posting streak... ahh well!

I even thought about posting yesterday, and then didn't -_- In my defense, I got distracted reading tons and tons of excellent jukebox fics! I always wind up writing more for this than I expected, and this year was no different, though I'll wait for reveals to be more specific. There are a lot of really excellent stories and art though - go read around!

All three (!) of the fics I received were excellent, and I'll try and elaborate on that some tomorrow. Today was mostly reading both Jukebox and also Kai Ashante Wilson's novella The Devil in America on the TOR site, which is excellent, but do heed the warning.

Also Dyeing! I got my second mordanting done on the linen and the cotton. The linned I'm going to dry and set aside for now, but the cotton is going into the cherry. I drained the liquid out of the container it has been sitting in, and simmered the park in fresh water. I'll strain that and the other liquid back into the container tomorrow, and then I'm going to leave the cotton yarn in that bucket for a few days to a week to sit out in the sun and bake :D Annnnnd since it is cotton and I can iron mordant it, I am going to make up some mordant to do that with so I can experiment with that later too :D I'm super excited!

But for now, sleep - night all!

I'm in bed already whoops.

Wererogue's bike got stolen last night, boo. It was a shitty bike but he used it a lot.

I slept poorly and thus late, but I did some writing and some dyeing prep, so I can dye some stuff tomorrow. Read more of the Centres/Quinlan Vos book... It is good but you know they are doomed to failure so it's a bit sad.

Well, after my last post, I got an email asking me to come for bilingualism testing for a job I applied for back in March. This is basically a weeding phase, but I'm confident I can pass it. Then maybe a real interview, eventually. The job is pretty much exactly what I was telling morbane that I wanted, but it is in Ottawa so I'd have to move. I already have tons of friends who live there, though, so that's cool.

The other thing that happened after my last post is that my laptop's issues came to more if a head. It can't find my desktop and some of its other important files... I have backed up all the things not previously backed up, I think, and am running more off a flash drive. None of the installed files are working, whee! I have a new machine coming on Friday. Thanks back to school sales!

And finally today I began my first forays into natural dyeing, and have some plain unbleached cotton sitting in a pot of tanniny water pre-alum mordanting, and I have a bunch of jars of dyestuffs to test out! I'm thinking of making a pillow or something. From my test scraps :)