avoidance crafting

I got news earlier this week that a friend of mine passed away. I am trying to process it all right now. I need to do a bit more work within myself first before I can get it down my arms and out my fingers. I'm not quite ready to type about it just yet. The whole thing has just got me....well, it's got me a lot of things.

One of the things it has me feeling is the craft impulse.

She was crafty. Very. The artistic kind of crafty. I think what is happening with me is that I am keeping myself crafty-busy (in a mindful sort of way) in her honor. Today I knit a bit more on the comfort shawl I posted about yesterday, and then today I went a bit bananas on that fiber I showed, that I was spinning up on the spindle.

I finished spinning the singles....

I plied them together & wound it into a skein....




....and right now I'm dyeing it.

using this method, and Wilton's (a food paste normally used to tint cake icing). Burgundy.

It been interesting working on this project while in this emotional state. This is not my first handspun yarn (it's my second), but it might prove to be the first one that ever gets knitted up into something. This is the first spinning I've done all alone, in solitude, all by my wee little self (the first skein was done in a class). It is also the first time I have ever dyed anything, too. I'm not sure what possessed me to take my very first usable handspun and throw it into a dyepot without having a fricking idea what I was doing, but whatever. I have a hunch it's going to look just lovely, though. I can't wait to see what it looks like when it's dry.

It's been a good creative process the past couple of days, and I like to think she'd approve.
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