the quacking fiber addict

ka‧ra‧o‧ke  /ˌkæriˈoʊki/ [kar-ee-oh-kee]
–noun
an act of singing along to a music video, esp. one from which the original vocals have been electronically eliminated.
[Origin: 1985–1990; Japan = kara empty + oke orchestra]

Sometimes (quite frequently, if I'm honest) I wonder what on Earth fiber & yarn companies are thinking (okay, smoking) when they name their wares. Why would a company name a yarn "Geisha"? Are they going to name another one "Courtesian"? Tonight, in particular, I'm wondering why they would name a perfectly lovely yarn/ roving "karaoke"?

It doesn't sing.

And it's not drunk, either.

Which are the two parameters of karaoke in my experience. I'm not being snarky (I swear!), just curious. It's a bit perplexing, if you think about it. Seriously. Try and wrap your mind around the concept.

Or, wait, brainwave... maybe I'm supposed to sing off-key when I work with it? That could be it.

You might guess that I started in on my Karaoke "Mermaid" top again. I finally strapped some steel to my vertebrae this evening and got out another fat-cored bobbin:


This all took place after I sat for two hours (again) slowly picking open Shawn's 1st fleece. That makes for 4 hours total, and for very little noticeable progress. This fleece is enormous. I finally realized how gigantic it is today when I saw that it just barely fit in an oversized Kohl's shopping bag.

It is THAT large.

I think it may actually weigh more than the sheep it came from.

But, I shall continue to spend 2 hours a day picking it. And, maybe, sometime in the distant (very distant) future I will have the whole thing picked and vegetable-matter free and ready to spin. Possibly by the time I'm 80. If I don't get sick of it (again) and shove it into (read: underneath) my stash (also, again). Anything's possible at this point.

I also feel that I must report that I am going to have to pull a Bush and ignore the Geneva Conventions. The baby camel down singles have not done as ordered and require further encouragement of the violent persuasion. It's the washboard and bathtub for them.

Other than that, nothing much has happened today. It's raining nicely - which made for nice background noise while I sat on the floor, working on Shawn's fleece. Oh! I remembered what I wanted to report. I think I have found a new trick for washing fleeces. I tried, on a lark, using some Clorox 2 (the one for colours) with Tide on both fleeces and they both came out clean much faster than previous experiments in fleece scouring.

If anyone wants to try it and report back, that'd rock. While I wait for someone's feedback on that front, I guess I'll go back to the salt mines (the living room floor and a gigantic fleece).