#i accidentally messed up a skein of yarn and need to finish it before it tangles again

[mushroomsie224]

Wanted to write but my hands were occupied so I explained the plot of my wip into my voice recorder app. Got sidetracked a lot trying to explain things.

[sleepyfan-blog]

Plans

fandom: IBVS by @onebizarrekai

characters and pairing : Drew Jovel, Nevin Jovel, Edward Quinton, Barry Price, Christopher Jackson, Isaac Beamer, Nedwarvin

warnings: none

summary: Drew, Barry, Chris and Isaac plot to get Nevin and Edward to get along better. 

tags list: @anxiety-is-married-to-depression @angelofthehalfmoon @trainwreck-of-skeletons @hisame-amadashi​ @therandomskelekey

"You want me to knit a what?" Edward asked, frowning a little bit at his childhood friend as he tried to understand just where the hell this was trying to go.

"A sweater! Come soon, I know that you knit things, and that you're really good at it. Do it for me... Please?" Barry asked.

"Okay... Fine. Whatever. You better get me the-" Edward grumbled, sulking a little bit. Enough yarn to knit a sweater was more than what most people thought would be "Give me the dimensions of the sweater you want me to make."

"Great! Here's the pattern I want you to use, and that should be enough yarn to last you for the whole sweater." Barry responded with a bright grin, pulling out a small booklet, turned to a specific page, as well as a big bag, filled to the brim with black, red, and cyan yarn.

"Cool. I'll tell you when it's finished." The self-proclaimed school king responded, pulling out the first skein of yarn and getting to work as the two of them started to study together for their history test- a lot of dates and times that they needed to learn.

~

Three months later, Edward came up to his best friend, carrying a cardboard box "Hey, uh... You know that thing you asked me to make? It's in here. I just finished it last night."

"Great, now come with me." Barry responded, a bright grin appearing on his face as he drags his friend through one of the tunnels, into his lair. The rest of the Supernatural Investigations Club is waiting for him, though Nevin looks as confused as he feels at the moment.

Drew pushes his brother right next to Edward and asks with a bright, sweet smile on his face "Would Nev, Ed... Please close your eyes and raise your arms over your head for slow count of thirty, please?"

If Barry or Isaac asked them to do that - or even Chris, who was also glaring at them from Edward's throne - they would have demanded to know why... But they knew that they could trust Drew to make sure that the other three didn't do too much weird crap to the two of them. "Okay." They responded at the same time, complying with the request.

There was an odd rustling sound from beside and next to both of them, and Error had a suspicion as to just what was going on. "... twenty nine... Thirty..." He called out, resigned.

Drew clapped his hands together before gesturing at the both of them, and the large sweater that they were trapped together in "This is your get-along sweatshirt. You two are going to be stuck in that until you figure out how to get along."

"But we have classes. Different classes..." Nevin started, staring at his brother - how could his own flesh and blood betray him like this! The handsome prick was such an asshole and deserved more than one punch to his stupidly handsome face.

"It's a half-day, remember? And we all have the last class as study hall, so it's not like anyone is going to go looking for us." Drew reminded his brother with a grin "And Grandma's not going to be home until late tomorrow."

"And I already told Ed's parents that he was going to be having a sleep-over with me and a few of his friends, so guess where we're crashing tonight~!" Barry smirked, leaning against a wall and humming a little, very much pleased with himself.

"And don't even think about trying to destroy that sweater, either of you. I've used my Ability on it, to make sure that it stays on the both of you, no matter what." Isaac chimed in. "We all walk home, so it's not like we have to take the bus."

Error glared darkly at these traitors, folding his arms over his chest- and jostling the emo Nightmare "Oh come on! this is childish!" Entirely accidentally he jostled the other. It wasn't as if feeling the other's body heat next to him felt nice or sent a flutter through his chest or anything like that...

"No, what's childish is your two's refusal to get along! We went through glittery, pastel hell three separate times... And things would have ended so much faster if the two of you got along and actually trusted each other!" Cross growled, glaring darkly at the both of them. "Why we're cursed with a bunch of wacky-ass bullshit on a weekly basis that we have to race to solve, I don't know. But we... All of us... Have to trust and care for each other, or we'll fail and things'll get worse."

"Okay, captain doom and gloom, we'll work on getting along better." Nevin grumbled back, trying to pull away from Edward, huffing a little "Pull out the touchy-feely games and shit. Do trust falls - Edward first. But let us out of the damned sweater."

"No." Isaac, Barry, Chris and Drew said at the same time "We won't let you out of the sweater until you two can prove that you can genuinely get along."

Wow. They were really serious about this. Nevin, who could sense their feelings about this, let out a quiet sigh and shrugged "Fine. If that asshole will cooperate with this... Mess... So will I."

Edward blinked a little- Nevin gave up first? Huh. Or maybe Nev had a plan up his sleeve - he wouldn't put it past the other. He was pretty crafty. "Agreed... So... Now what?"

"We wait for school to end, and the six of us will head over to Drew and Nevin's place for a slumber party. And by that, I mean we catch up on homework and try to work out where the next bit of trouble is most likely going to come from." Chris growled, his eyes flashing a little with determination. Everyone else agreed, and they settled into the lair to wait.

~

"Would you quit trying to run, you giant asshole! We're still stuck in the same sweater!" Nevin hissed, stumbling a little bit as he leans against Edward, trying his best to keep up with the other's much wider stride - the other was at least a foot taller than he was.

"Hey! It's not my fault that you're short as hell." Edward grumbled, shortening his steps a little bit so that the other would be able to catch up.

The others were up ahead, and Nevin muttered under his breath "This calls for vengeance."

"Against those scheming assholes? Absolutely. Do you have something in mind?" Edward asked, raising an eyebrow at the other.

A wicked smirk appeared on Nightmare's face, and he nodded a little, motioning for the other to stop, motioning him to bend down. "Come here and I'll whisper it to you."

With only a moment's hesitation - as that smirk never boded well for whoever was on the end of Nevin's displeasure, Edward complied. After all - the other did come up with some of the best plans in the group in their year or so of working together against the forces of Weirdness. "... Okay?"

Nevin went up on his tiptoes, cupping his mouth with a hand as he whispered to the other what his plan was, his eyes dancing with mischief and determination.

Edward sucked in a deep breath, his eyes widening a little, before he whispered softly back "Are... Are you sure that will work?"

"They know that you're bi and I'm gay... So..." Nevin pointed out with a small grin “And it would qualify as us getting along… So… You in?”

Nightmare’s plan to… To… A light blush warmed Edward’s cheeks at the thought, and he wondered if… But no. This was just to get revenge on the others, right? Nothing more. His heart sank a little at that, but he agreed, a mischievous smirk appearing on his face as he answered earnestly “Sure, let’s go for it. But not like immediately, or they might get suspicious.”

“Of course. We’ll wait a couple of hours before going for it.” Nevin agreed, nodding seriously, his eyes alight with mischief.

~

Drew stared in utter surprise at the sight before him. He closed his eyes, pinched himself very hard, and when the pain registered, it proved to him that he probably wasn’t dreaming. He supposed that he should be happy for his brother but he really didn’t want to see the other doing that with someone in their living room. “I SAID THAT YOU SHOULD MAKE UP WITH EDWARD, NOT MAKE OUT WITH HIM!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs, startling the kissing pair of teenagers apart slightly and causing Barry, Isaac and Chris to come barrelling into the room at top speed.

Nevin rolled his eyes, flipping the four of them off before he tugged Edward in closer again, continuing the kiss for another minute or two before grumbling “Did you have to screech out our eardrums, Drew? What the hell was that about?” Both Nevin and Edward were blushing - as was everyone else.

“I… So… Wh-what the hell? Why were you making out with him? Unless…” Drew’s eyes light up, and  a mischievous smirk appears on his face “You admitted to Edward that one of the reasons you were antagonizing him so much was because you wanted his attention~!”

“I… N… S-Stop… Stop right th-there!” Nevin stuttered, the blush on his face darkening further “I swear to everything we hold dear if you finish that sentence I will end you Drew.”

Edward cleared his throat awkwardly “I… He… We kinda… Just sort of kissed. But I… I do like you a lot, Nevin. You’re smart and strong and handsome.”

“I...Uhm…” Nevin was blushing really darkly now, and seemed to take a little bit to process this information “I really like you too. You’re infuriatingly handsome and I want to kiss your cute face.”

The self-proclaimed school king nodded, very darkly blushing as well “Please… uhm… Please do kiss me again.” They started kissing again, and their four closest friends all left the room, Drew giggling a little bit.

He was so glad that his plans for Ed and Nev came to fruition. Now, all he had to do was to make sure that the rest of his plans came together, and thing might be fixed this time and stay that way.

[waldenweave]

This past weekend was full of unexpected things. I did not know there were going to be house guests, but breakfast out was really nice! We went to a local café on a farm down the road from us. The building is a strawbale construction, a simple design, with rustic decor. The food is tasty and plentiful. And the owners know my friends (of course). During the course of chatting with the owners, I happened to look out one of the side windows and noticed a walnut tree laden with nuts, so at an appropriate moment in the conversation, I changed topics and asked about their tree. Would it be possible to collect some of the walnuts I had seen on the ground? I wanted to make a dye. Of course! was the answer. The one tree I had seen turned out to be part of four trees. I was given a small paper bag and after we’d finished, I went outside and around the corner to the walnuts. And lo! there I saw so many walnuts. In fact, I’d never seen so many walnuts, and I wanted all of them. However, not knowing how many I’d actually need to making dye, I happily filled my paper bag and asked if I could come back if I needed more. The owners were more than happy to oblige. I can come get as many as I like. Woohoo!

(Sadly, I did not get a picture of the trees.)

I counted them – about 60. But I had to toss a few that ended up being full of worms.

I must say, black walnuts smell delightful. The hulls have a sort of earthy citrusy fragrance that makes me so happy. I can’t quite adequately explain it.

The hulls will also stain your hands brown like crazy. We got home, and I put the rest of my day’s plans aside for a few hours so I could peel the hulls from the nuts – the hulls are used for making dye. The shells are too, but if I’m going to use the shells, I want to save the nutmeats, so I spent time separating everything into two buckets.

Nuts in the left bucket. Hulls in the right.

Most of the instructions I found online made it seem like getting the nut out of the hull was really hard and that I needed to drive over them, whack them with the claw of a hammer, or find a mallet and whack them until they yielded the nut. None of that was necessary. I got a steak knife and just ran the blade around each walnut, neatly dividing the hull into two hemispheres. Then a twist released one hemisphere, and if it didn’t, then one more cut to divide a hemisphere in two did the trick. It was a bit reminiscent of pitting all those peaches I canned a while ago.

So, the staining. Because black walnut hulls have so much tannin in them, they stain things pretty permanently – the tannin is the mordant. Cloth, skin, any natural fiber…brown. All the sources I found online told me to wear heavy rubber gloves. I didn’t have any, but I did have some disposable food service gloves at hand.

Yeah. So, all this brown? Still got through, and my forefinger and thumb are a bit brown.

I got them all hulled! But what to do with them then? Most instructions say to simmer them for an hour or so, but I do not want to have an accident in the house and stain the kitchen. It is not my kitchen after all. So, I’m trying what I think is a far more likely historical recipe (even though I have no proof at all): I’m soaking the hulls in that bucket in water for a couple of weeks. Then I’ll strain everything and maybe might see if I can find an outdoor cooking arrangement so I can simmer it and kill any mold that might have formed. Or not. Maybe I’ll put some in quart sized mason jars for later.

This dye is also apparently an excellent wood stain! I loves me a multitasking thing I can make! So, after a little experimentation with some wood scraps and some research, I may do any final prep and put some in jars for my woodworking friends. (And I am filing this knowledge away for later when I want to build bookcases for whatever house I end up with!)

I’ve got a couple of white skeins of two ply yarn I’ve spun – one skein I really have to run through the wheel again to give it some extra twist. And I have so much more white (Down breeds blend) that could be dyed with local black walnut dye handmade by me. The dyeing process itself is apparently super easy. You simply put the yarn or cloth in the dye and leave it there until it’s brown. If simmering it, I think you simmer for something like 30 mins to 1 hour. I will likely try just soaking it for a day and see what happens. (I do have to look into some sort of outdoor cooking equipment, though…)

I was also thinking of dyeing some bamboo rayon yarn and/or cotton yarn for weaving cloth or towels or something. Because why not?

But, don’t you need more walnuts for dyeing all that stuff? I hear you ask. It turns out, everyone seems to agree that you only need 12-15 walnuts per gallon of water. For just the hulls. So I have 4 gallons of the stuff. That’s a LOT of dye. Even 2 gallons is a lot if some of the water is supposed to be lost in cooking it. I am planning on also getting the shells, which apparently yield a darker brown. (Of course, that may not work, but I will try.)

I filled up the bucket with the hulls with water. I’ve set it in the garage with a piece of wood on top to soak for a while. The bucket with the nuts got filled with water, and I started scrubbing the remaining hull gunk off. I had read that the gunk could rot and mold and make a mess, but most importantly, it would dye your hands dark brown. I don’t feel like walking around with dark brown hands and having to explain that I have been playing with dye everywhere I go, so I elected to scrub. The two floaters were thrown away – I suspect if they float, there’s probably a problem with them.

I got about half scrubbed before I ran out of time and energy. So I drained out the water, put a tiny bit in so the ones that were left were only barely covered, and set those in the garage too to wait until I have some time to resume scrubbing. I’m hoping the soak will help to soften up the remaining gunk.

The real work to this project is going to be actually cracking the nuts. A quick read about black walnuts online seems to show that I’ll need to use a vice as a regular nut cracker will not do it at all. Woo.

Excuse the messy counter – my first attempt at waffle production!

I also found an as-yet-unused, brand-new-in-the-box, three-year-old electric waffle iron in the house! Of course I tried making waffles. This is the first time I’ve tried making waffles. It was an adventure.

I thought I’d double the recipe, because ultimately, I wanted waffles in the freezer that could be toasted in the toaster for near-instant waffle goodness. But then I accidentally put in twice the amount of butter for a doubled recipe, which meant I either had to throw everything away and start over, or end up with a quadrupled recipe. I went for the quadrupaling.

We have a LOT of waffles in the freezer. The house guests tried the waffles the next morning in the toaster, and declared them delicious. Successful experiment! I think the recipe needs tweaking – it needs a little sugar, and the optional cornmeal actually sounds good, so I might try that. And they were a little dense, probably because I didn’t whisk the egg whites nearly has much as the recipe said I ought, so maybe I’ll try that next, but with some cream of tartar to help things along a bit. So many tweaks. Or I could try another recipe.

In weaving news, I have a crazy idea involving 60/2 silk and some very fine baby alpaca and an overshot pattern. First, I want to make myself something beautiful, but it occurred to me that I could sell one, and the pricetag would be fairly high – this would be a very time-consuming project with excellent and expensive materials. The bulk of the cost would reflect the labor involved. I wonder if I could sell one or two (or three?), because then I could buy a cello. It looks like that experiment has been successful enough that I’m close to outgrowing the cello I rent. Do you guys have any thoughts on this? Advice? Suggestions? Is this an idea worth pursuing?

(I can rent a viola da gamba, it turns out, and it is affordable. I kind of hope that I don’t love it as much as I think I will, because there are almost not enough hours in the day for adequate practice…)

  This past weekend was full of unexpected things. I did not know there were going to be house guests, but breakfast out was really nice!

[waldenweave]

Well, I have moved house.

After my diagnosis and ensuing freak-out, I immediately started making arrangements to move in with friends because they offered and I knew I’d need help taking care of myself after surgery.* I asked other friends for moving help, and so many people showed up. It took most of the day, but we managed to get the last bits packed up, everything put into a moving truck, drove to my new place, unpacked the truck, and then had pizza and ice cream. I am so grateful, I can hardly even think about it without crying. So now, I live in a beautiful house with air conditioning, a happy little dog, functional plumbing that never needs fixing (though I could do it if I needed to), a sun room, internet access, and a nice big yard. My belongings are packed up neatly in labelled bins and stacked on shelving in the (very dry) basement. There is no mold anywhere. I want to give everyone lovely handmade things, and be the most useful person I can be.

It’s very strange living with people again – I’ve lived alone for at least a decade, so this is taking some getting used to, but I’m getting there.

The friends I moved in with insisted I set up my big loom, and the sun room was the obvious spot (they said). So, poor me, I get to work in pretty amazing light! I managed to get a warp measured and on two or three weeks ago, but I have no had a lot of time to throw the shuttle.

Firstly, I wanted to do a particular overshot pattern I had woven before, so checked my notes for how many ends per inch were needed so I could measure out the warp properly. I ended up measuring out more yarn, then realized once I had the warp wound on the back beam that I’d been looking at notes for a pattern I hadn’t woven before. So I threaded the heddles for this new pattern, sleyed the reed, and tied on. Excited to start throwing the shuttles, I looked up the pattern in the pattern book, wrote down the treadling on a sticky note to put on the beater, and started in weaving. And the resulting cloth did not look like the pictures in the book. It took me a few days, walking by the loom and thinking about it (I do not have nearly as much time at the loom now), but I realized I’d written down the treadling pattern wrong. So I’m weaving an overshot pattern that I didn’t intend in a way that the book it came from didn’t intend: I made it up. It’s completely accidental, and it works, which I think is pretty lucky? Behold:

So, I was not wild about it at first, but by the time I was halfway through this towel, I decided I really liked the pattern and have tentative plans to mark this one down for a wool scarf. Actually, the subsequent towel, once I had written the correct treadling pattern down, is coming out pretty nicely too, and might also have to be a scarf:

The diagonal lines are my favourite part. However, it is perhaps important to note that this pattern is being woven upside down and I am too tired to change the tie-up now.

The beat in that pattern is a little wonky (the diagonal lines are not perfectly straight), but hey, I am wildly out of practice.

Gratuitous dog pictures:

That’s Marley. She’s adorable. She chews on almost everything. I do love her, but really hope she starts chewing only on her toys and bones. And not clothing, skeins of yarn, or pillows.

My orchids apparently love this new place. I noticed new shoots on most of them about a week after I’ve moved in. This one is working on flowers!

This could be a white one? We’ll find out soon!

I am listening to different music in an attempt to Broaden My Horizons. Currently, I’ve got Smetana (in the photo above) and Bartok (not pictured). I rescued a really pretty geranium that was on sale at one of the local garden shops – I have a small hope of revamping the front garden by the walk at this house. It’s a mess right now, full of weeds and grass. I’ve got to find a turning fork and wait for a day when it’s not eleventy billion degrees out with All The Humidity. The stones in the third-from-the-left picture are ones I bought years ago with the intention of making a drop spindle that I could also disassemble and wear: the whorl as a necklace and the stick in my hair. I think that is back on the list. The coffee, oh the coffee. This coffee was advertised as being “espresso roast” on the package. Sigh. Needless to say, it is not espresso roast and was not even drunk.

My making list is full right now: I neeeeeeed to finish G’s jeans, make the adjustments to J’s pants pattern and make a couple pairs of those, finish the weaving project, measure out the warp for the bamboo blanket project for L, finish the photos of L’s art, finish spinning the blue merino (so I can clean off the bobbins and start spinning one of the fleeces I got at Balky Farm back in May), and I need to practice cello way more than I am now. That last one is a different kind of making, but making nonetheless. One day I want to be able to make beautiful music, and that’s going to take many more years of practice.

Happy Wednesday!

      *So, there was some awkwardness with the house I was living in as well (<– very understated). In short, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Ever. Sometimes those ‘free’ lunches are more expensive than just paying for a regular lunch.

Moving along with friends Well, I have moved house. After my diagnosis and ensuing freak-out, I immediately started making arrangements to move in with friends because they offered and I knew I'd need help taking care of myself after surgery.* I asked other friends for moving help, and…