A reasonable day

I'm going to be curmudgeonly, and not pitch it any higher than that. Lots of mates there, but not enough time to speak to them, some interesting visitors but with some irritations, too much going on so no time to spin.....I'm just never satisfied, I know!

I think I may have been a tad rude to two of the visitors. Two women, one a machine knitter (does lovely stuff, from the evidence of the photos and the garment that her friend was wearing) who have visited Turkmenistan and want to work with some women there to set up some sort of textile business. But they started out saying they wanted to take in knitting machines, because that was what one of them knew, and that they needed to get the women spinning on wheels, not spindles, to improve their yarn. "Oh, really?" says I. "Why?" Pete jumped at the "improve the yarn" bit as well, and started defending spindles, and I let off some steam about working within the existing textile tradition and not trying to bolt on something external. OK, I actually do agree that things cannot and should not necessarily be set in concrete, but it sounded a little to me as is they were falling in to the trap of being two enthusiastic westerners who could see "better" ways of doing things. They were asking about natural dyes as well - I mentioned Dobag, but I'm not sure they had heard of it, and certainly didn't know all that much about natural dyes and dyeing...they got the two bob lecture......

I could think of all sorts of things that I would want to ask, find out, consider, to find a viable product that would reflect their skills and heritage but still be marketable - wherever. Oh, all sorts of things. Oh, dear, I seem to have an entrepreneurial streak in me after all!

Had to spend some time not being rude to a guild member who I cannot stand at any price and who decided today for whatever reason that I was her new best friend. Serve me right for always being courteous to her. fortunately, several people picked up my sotto voce distress flares, and ran interference, distracted her/me. I survived. And also managed not to be rude to another one who I don't dislike but find supersuprauberDULL. Not putting up Christmas decorations, forsooth! How mean spirited, bah humbug-ish, &etc. (Never been guilty of that meself, noo, not I....)

Combed three mini-rovings of Babe and spun them, twirled the spindle a little, and that was IT. Time to go sit downstairs over a nice cup of tea and knit some, spin some.

gw