adventures in fiber and/or being a second term senior

it was gorgeous out this weekend, so I went for a long walk....and ended up at the yarn store. never fear, though: i had a mission and left with only fifteen dollars worth of yarn. i wanted to teach myself to knit actual proper Continental and English, rather than the way I currently knit, which is the kind of knitting you teach an eight year old. (given that i was about that old when I learned to knit, that's not exactly surprising.) not that's there's anything inherently better about 'proper' knitting, but i wanted to give them a try to see if they would be faster. which meant i needed to find some small projects that wouldn't matter if my gauge wandered wildly, which meant dishcloths, which meant i needed dish cotton. i got a handful of balls in a variety of colors that all looked good together in the balls, with the idea of eventually having a set of dishcloths that didn't all match exactly but still looked like they went together. sadly, this is not the case once they are knitted up, but whatever. (i also bought a crochet hook, with the eventual plan of learning some basic crochet skills. dish cotton is cheap and i have kind of a lot of it now and there's only so many dishcloths i can stand to knit.)

i also am working on a project proposal for my technology in history class. i am going to look at how the technological innovations of the industrial revolution impacted the prestige of various steps of textile production, focusing on Bradford in the eighteenth century. (it sounds more impressive when it's written out like that - it's a lot of "spinning: women's work! weaving: MANLY WORK!") so now i am trying to decide if i can learn to handspin and consider it studying. (incidentally, if you spin or know someone who does, and there are like, things i absolutely must know before learning to spin, lemme know, because otherwise i will present myself at the other yarn shop and pretty much say 'teach me to spin!' and hope that works out.)

(this is the same class that got the paper entitled "it's the racism, stupid" last week. this is also the class that mentioned that in discussion this week, we are going to compare factors in the fall of the roman empire to modern-day societies, which gets me all excited about which contrary and difficult position i can adopt in order to disagree with people, because i am that sort of asshole. right now, i think i'm going with "the roman empire: what do you mean, 'fell'?", but i'm open to suggestions. which is to say, this is the class in which i am channeling all of my second term senior, do i really have to work and why, rebellious urges. my only regret is that they want to talk about the fall of the roman empire and not the fall of the roman republic, because i can pretty much deliver a lecture on the fall of the republic off the top of my head and talking about the fall of the empire requires preparation. these are the useful skills i have learned in college.)