Best deal ever

So I've started my spinning expedition (pictures later...too lazy) and it's going pretty well. I read and read and then went to A Tangled Skein's monthly Sit n Spin, where I felt both part of the community and an outsider at the same time. Some would knit in between spinning and talk knitting terms, but then all of a sudden I would hear strange words like "draft" etc and would have to look them up briefly in the dictionary in my head. I sat there quiet for a while spinning nervously, as I hadn't manipulated roving around a spindle in about a year. I felt like a novice knitter. Whenever I made a mistake like a break in the yarn I felt like stopping and putting up my hands and saying "ahhh I made a mistake," fully expecting a spinning aficionado to come to my rescue, much like my students do with me. But I didn't, I kept on chugging quietly at the end of the table, occasionally watching others' rhythmic movements making yarn. I also listened to them totally supporting Jay and dissing Conan and thought...am I the only representative here from my generation?

A woman my age entered with her wheel, carried by her boyfriend, and parked it next to me. She wore this beautiful sweater that she had handknit, and which everyone fawned over, and whose pattern I have since bought and added to my queue. It's #396. It was around that time that I made a mistake and someone asked me how long I'd been spinning. I looked at my invisible watch and answered sarcastically, "how long have we been sitting here?" They were shocked not because of my quality of work, but because starting to spin is such a momentous occasion for a person, much like knitting is.

It was an overall successful night. I got some tidbits of advice without feeling that I pushed someone into a free lesson, which I wanted to avoid doing (the drop-spinning teacher was there). My new friend with the wheel let me try hers, but it was too overwhelming at the time. I'll try again at MDSW.

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I have been inspired all month by craftzine's Make Space for Crafting theme. I decided to embark on the brilliant idea to use one of those cylindrical wine bottle gift boxes to hold my spindle and fiber. I thought Michael's would be a great place to look since I saw them there before and thought, "why the h e double hockeysticks would I ever need that?" Well now I do. I went there on Saturday morning, passing the Christmas merchandise in those metal cage bins outside; crap that they were practically paying people to take home. I circled the store 4 times trying to find those dang wine gift boxes and none could be found. I thought looking near the 1000 shoebox photo boxes would have been a good idea. Nope.

And then...



I remembered a Christmas item I had seen outside. An ugly wine giftbox that had a plush reindeer head glued on, as well as arms. I hurried outside and saw that they were only 49 cents! Jackpot! I grabbed two.

Here is a picture of the transformation from wretched to chic:

Yay :)