The Cat's Out of the Bag

Now that school is back in session, and I've been forced to put away my beloved jeans, I am in full-on maternity clothes. Yesterday, I was wearing maternity khakis with a top salvaged from my normal wardrobe. Today, I am going the Full Maternity, with pants and a top. Yes, the bump has grown, and it should be quite obvious to students and faculty that I am pregnant.

Of course, they've all known for a while, but now I'm starting to look like it. This is a big step--and to be honest, it makes me nervous. Soon, strangers at Borders and Target will know as well. I will have the international pregnancy sign--a bump and an empire-waisted top flowing gracefully over it.

I have really enjoyed the bit of secrecy my slow-showing allowed me to have--the fact that I knew it, but that person checking me out had no idea. In my top today, most people will have a clue. The questions will start--"When are you due?" "Is it a boy or girl?" "Are you excited?"--and, horror upon horrors, I may also be getting close to the belly-rubbing stage.

Shudder. As a private, not very touchy-feely person, I would really love to skip that phase. But it's coming, oh, I know it's coming. And I know I'll survive. I'll survive this whole new experience, and the reward is pretty dang awesome.

(Oh, and on a maternity pants note, I feel like I'm wearing sweatpants to school, only they are sweatpants that look like dressy pants. It is pretty awesome to have dispensed with buttons and zippers. Why can't they make these pants for non-pregnant women?)

An Exercise in Futility

This post is a bit late after the event, but better late than never, right? In October and November, I went to a spinning class with my knitting group. In case, like my husband, you assumed we were taking up a new form of exercise, I will clarify that we were spinning yarn.

You start with this--some nice sheepswool, cleaned, processed, and drafted into a chunk of fleece.

You then try to put it on a spinning wheel. This is the wheel I had the best luck with, an Ashford Traditional. Hopefully, you're thinking of Sleeping Beauty now, although it is a bit different. What you can't see is my right foot, trying to smoothly pump the treadle to maintain a continuous speed, without any speed-ups or slow-downs.

I wasn't great at spinning. What you see above is my best tiny little ball of yarn--and it isn't great. My yarn is uneven, either just barely spun or overspun. I'm not a natural, and I don't know if our instructor knew quite what to do with me. My biggest struggle involved getting the yarn to feed in and wrap around the bobbin, which apparently means my problem was tension. No one ever showed my how to adjust the tension on my wheel, so that made it hard.

Still, it was fun to try. I need to figure out some way to display my "beautiful" balls of yarn. Mr. Cool is relieved that he doesn't have to drop a chunk of change on a new wheel. Maybe I'll have to try with a spindle . . .