Whew - back to your regularly scheduled blogging

Wow - I've been busy! Really busy! Like busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest! My project looks like it's about done now (whew!) It was bigger than we anticipated, and the gremlins they would act up - but I strong-armed the little suckers into submission.

So yeah, working my regular job - going to the BBE's house and working on my client's documents - I haven't had a day off since Labor Day, and I think I made it home before 11 one night last week! Whoo hoo! I've also been on call for the regular gig this weekend, luckily (touch wood) no emergencies have come up! Just one call looking for a different division. Back to work tomorrow, and then fingers (and toes and hair follicles) crossed I'll get some time off next weekend.

The BBE is off in Colorado looking for a business of some sort. He said in Buena Vista they had a show on about the local activities, and there was a piece about the local spinners. "Baby! Those are my people!" We'll see if anything comes of all this - but maybe moving out of the Bay Area is in the cards (Big maybe!).

OK - so what have I been up to (besides my eyeballs, in work)? Well, I started a cardigan on the trip up to Tahoe, out of my handspun Caramel Swirl yarn - it's a 4 ply, fawn alpaca/tussah silk/camel down/wool=angora blend. Knitting up on size 4mm needles - getting about 5 sts/in. I think I mentioned that I'm going to try to wrangle a saddle shouldered cardigan ala EZ's workshop out of it. I looked at the Knitters Workshop last night, and the directions are very pithy - even for EZ, so it might just end up being a raglan - we'll see. I'm getting to the point where I really need to start the sleeves - I don't know if you can tell from the pic that there's some waist shaping going on at the moment, I'm on the increases.

On the Big Wheel (my lovely Skipper)- I've been spinning up some brown striped mill ends from the folks at The Sheep Shed Studio - great bargain!

Nice roving - I'm liking it, and thinking of another jacket out of it. Can you tell my thoughts are turning to fall? Also, it's usually kept at some type of arctic temperature in my department - my supervisor thinks it's too hot if it hits 70! So I'm always always wearing layers anyway. Plus here in the SF bay area you can travel 10 miles, and have a temperature change of 15 degrees! Not kidding - it's all about the microclimates around here. So a jumper or a jacket is a necessary thing to have at all times.






On my Joy, I'm spinning up the BFL that I dyed in my last big dyeing frenzy. For this bobbin I went ahead and filled 'er up because I know that I'm going to ply onto one of the lovely huge bobbins on my Skipper. I also just spun this batch straight from the roving - little to no predrafting or any of that malarky, so I have really long colour repeats As you can see from the picture, it looks all blue - but believe me, there's greens under that top layer. I think that for the second bobbin I'm going to go ahead and split the roving up into thin strips to get short repeats of the blues and greens and see what happens when I ply it altogether. I don't think I have enough for three bobbins, wonder what I'll do if I try a 3ply?

It should be fun in any case!

And last, but most certainly not least - my Emily spindle with the Optim roving. Another result of my last dyeing frenzy. Again, just spinning straight from the roving - very little predrafting (hey, I'm too busy trying to watch where I go, it's my walking at lunchtime project)

I bought the Optim from the gal that edits Spindlicity at the Lambtown festival a couple of months ago. Her shop is called Chameleon Colorworks, and she sells some gorgeous colorways if you don't want to go through the work of dyeing it yourself, or are just happy to spin up another person's colorway. Of course there's naturally colored fiber available too.

Whew - well, there's my stuff updated - there's more - so much more! I've been getting fiber in the mail from some pretty random places - wait till you see what Jamie, and Heather and Megan have sent me!

Oh, and then there's a whole big story about how my bank account got wiped out last week by someone in Russia making ATM withdrawals!?!?!? Scared the bejeesus outta me - and meant that my son went without dinner that night - but it's all fixed now, and the bank credited back all the money that was taken - and the overdraft charges, and and and... so all's well that ends well. But that was just a wee bit stressful!

Anyway - more stuff later - I have to get home and get dinner and try to get some time in for myself before I start another new week!

Have fun!!