In past years, my blogiversaries zoomed by without a nod. This summer, I am stepping back and taking stock of where I am in my fiber life, so it seems appropriate to recognize the beginning (and first incarnation) of my fiber arts blog. I am actively destashing and trying to be more realistic about what I will and will not knit and spin. I am using my precious yarn dollars to support our community and its causes instead of adding to my stash.
Like me, my blog has moved twice in the past five years, and the blog moves coincided almost exactly with the physical moves. In 2002, D and I were living in a tiny one bedroom apartment in one of MIT's married student dormitories; I used my student Athena account to host the blog. I had just purchased my first fleece at one of Claudia's early gatherings. D still planned to pursue a PhD in engineering. Most of my stash and stuff was in storage. I was deep in thesis procrastination.
If you had asked me back then where I would be in 5 years, I would probably have answered supporting D while he finishes graduate school. If he left MIT for grad school, I would probably have snagged a database consulting gig; if not, I would still be working in academic IT. I would never have imagined D working at a big law firm and me working in software sales. Looking backwards, I can see the turns that led us to Washington, DC, and our current life, but my self of 5 years ago would never have imagined that path.
For posterity, here is my first post and an update on the fleece I was working on back in July 2002:
It's a blog!
I'm so excited. I've been washing fleece today. I'm flicking open the locks, soaking them in my kitchen sink, rinsing, and drying them. This romney fleece cleans up to bright white with a bit of yellowing at the tips that disappears into roving and yarn. I'm looking forward to starting to spin it when my new wheel arrives later this week.
Sunday, July 21, 2002 1:14:00
Here is the current state of that fleece:
1.
2. 
3. 
- The locks I washed in the tiny kitchen sink in our MIT apartment, flicked, and pulled into roving. 250 grams ready for the drum carder.
- Eventually, I realized that processing fleece in the tiny apartment was a little impractical. I sent the rest of it out to be washed, carded, and pin drafted. 400 grams of beautiful ready to spin roving.
- 180 meters of handspun Romney from the processed roving.
Sinking my hands into all that lovely Romney-ness to take pictures has me itching to spin the rest of the roving and drumcard the rest of the locks. If I can match the existing handspun, the remaining 650 grams of fiber should yield a little more than 1000 meters of yarn. In total, I will have 1200 meters of 2 ply DK to light worsted weight yarn to knit into a lovely cardigan for myself—perhaps Ariann or a lengthened CeCe. I do plan to dye the finished yarn before knitting since my white clothes never stay white for very long. Now I'm excited to finish spinning my first fleece and knit something with that handspun.
I suspect that my self of 5 years ago would see that fleece on my back or in a bin of yarn. I think it is time to turn that vision into reality and make some space in a fiber bin.