abiknits

Luna Moth, Plummy Plum

2008-02-24T23:05:00.000-08:00

I've finished the knitting partr of the Luna Moth shawl... here it is in all its unblocked glory... I think it's going to be really pretty once I've had a chance to pin it out and block it.

It was a fun knit - took me forever to get the lace pattern down properly in my brain. No way I could work on it without the pattern with me.

I'm sure there are plenty of mistakes in there - but I we'll see how noticable they are once it's been blocked.

The other knitting that has taken up my time lately is the second version of my Plummy sweater. I'm still bummed about the washing accident that it went through. Got a huge whack o' knitting done on it to start with, but then was just so weirded out by knitting the same thing twice (not something I'm used to) the perpetual deja vu' was totally wigging out my little brain, so took a quick break by knitting the shawl.

As I was knitting it became obvious that there wouldn't be enough yarn to finish, and the fact that the sleeves didn't quite match (colourwise) on the first one really bothered me - it shouldn't so much - but it's just a "thing" you know - symmetry and all... Unmatching sleeves really bugged me. So this time it got to the knitting point, where I knew that the sleeves would have to be added soon, so I went ahead and spun up more of the yarn for the sleeves. This is a 260 yard skein that is totally reserved for the sleeves.

The weather has been storming all weekend.

I missed getting outside and going for a walk or anything. But it was a good weekend. Just cleaned up the house, finished the first sleeve of Plummy, and am almost finished spinning the Drake Mallard on my spindle...

Life's a beach sometimes

2008-02-10T23:13:00.000-08:00

We went on a lovely hike today - drove out to the Tennessee Valley trails in Mill Valley, and hiked in to the ocean. It's a really beautiful hike, and it was a beautiful day. The BBE has lived here in Marin for about 20 years, and never gone to this beach - even though it's probably the closest one to his house.

We covered probably about 4 miles today - good exercise. None of the trails were too steep, but there were some nice rolling hills.

Once you get to the actual beach it's just a small little cove, with some really cool rock formations. Nothing real fancy - a little stream flowing out to the sea.

Definitely t-shirt weather though...

I took my Spinner's Choice spindle with me, and spun during the walk. This is just some mystery wool that I picked up at the Spindles & Flyers swap meeting. No idea what the wool is - probably a cormo or something like that. I love the colors of the dye job, and have taken to calling it Mallard Drake - don't ask me why. Though it does tickle me.

My Luna Moth shawl is continuing apace - I'm getting really close to the end now I think. I think that I will have enough yarn to see me through to the end of the prescribed ending row, and if that is the case will finish it there. If I'm wrong, then I'll spin up the rest of the merino (I spied a bit left over from the same dye job the other day, and try to get another full repeat out of it. I think it's getting big enough - but bigger than that is always good in my eyes (Hey, I like my shawls big - what can I say?).

I've finished spinning the yarn for the sleeves on my Plummy Take II that has been taking a break. It was way too weird doing the exact same project twice in a row, that I had to start the shawl. Plus I've gotten to the point where sleeve adding is definitely becoming necessary, and was too nervous about not having enough yarn for the sleeves - so I spun that up - it's drying right now - no pics though - it's dark here!

Until next time...

Handspun Luna Moth

2008-01-29T20:34:00.000-08:00

So I shared some new laceweight that was totally unplanned. Just trying to clear off some bobbins.

It's funny - sometimes I spin with a specific project in mind, sometimes I spin just because I want to try a new fiber, with no real idea of what I will end up doing with it. Sometimes I spin, and just end up with way more on one bobbin than another - too much to andean ply the remainder to itself... I do a lot of yarn that is one or two plies of one fiber, and another ply of something really scrummy like Optim or silk, which ends up getting spun very fine, and I end up misjudging how much I need, and have way more of scrummy fiber than I needed...

I have 9 bobbins for my Joy, and ended up with maybe 2 that I could use. 7 bobbins with bits and bobs of fiber on it... Not to mention that I have scads (20+) of spindled singles that I spin just for spinning sakes, even with no idea of what I will end up plying it up with.

I had probably a half a bobbin of finely spun merino that I'd dyed in a pink/lavender colorway. I had a roll of silk that I knew would work really nicely, ran out of that pretty quickly, then found another spindle of silk, ran out of that too - so I grabbed some optim that I'd spun on another bobbin, some more spindle spun optim, and then just some wool that I'd spindle spun. Whew! Leftover yarn!

It came out really pretty though! I haven't had a shawl to work on in a while, so I've been browsing the shawl patterns on Ravelry (I'm abiknits there too), tried to start a Veil of Isis which just didn't want to cooperate, and finally settled on the Luna Moth shawl from Elann.

I'm really pleased with it! Here's a close up of the stitch pattern in all it's unblocked glory... I have about 750 yards of this stuff. I plan on knitting till I run out yarn. We'll see how big that will become.

Anyway - that's it for this time.

I haven't been walking around so much just lately taking pretty pictures.

The weather here has been awful just lately, but we did go on a walk weekend before last down near the bay - nothing too exciting, but a nice little walk nonetheless. Here's a quick shot that I took that day

Till next time - have fun!

Mongold spindle for sale on E-bay...

2008-01-19T12:45:00.000-08:00

So, I've been threatening to post this spindle up on e-bay for years now... and I finally went and did it! It's the first time I've ever actually posted anything on e-bay. I've been buying on it for years, but this is the first time I've sold anything. It's kind of fun!

The listing is here if you're interested.

It's my Mongold spindle. I bought it when I still lived in England, and was just starting to spin. It had great reviews, and everybody loved it. This was right about the time that he stopped making them. I needed it for my plying spindle, as I didn't have a wheel yet. Now, I really don't use it, and it's just sitting there in my collection gathering dust most of the time. It really is a very nice spindle, I tend to prefer my spindles in the 1-1.5 oz range, and this one is almost 3 ozs. It's great for plying, but I do all my plying on the wheels, and it's also been wonderful for teaching both of my sisters to spin on. I gave them something else to take home with them to practice on.

It truly is indestructible. So amazingly sturdy. The hook has never ever bent, or wobbled on me - it spins and spins, the workmanship is just amazing! And of course it has the laser etching on the top, which is totally unique to each spindle.

The reason? Well, the my car needs to be smogged and registered, so I just need the money. The auction is up on Monday - I hope it finds a really good home!

In other news... I'm on a mission to stay organised this year. I don't really make "resolutions" per se. But I have started keeping a notebook where I list everything that I've been doing, how much of it I've done, and it helps to keep me motivated, and on track.

So far this month I've done a lot of work on my Plummy Plum (version2).

It feels so strange to be working on the same sweater (basically) that I just finished! I do wonder about my sanity at times.

And the part that is worrying me? I measured my gauge the other day, and unless I was doing something terribly wrong it looks like the gauge has gone from 4.25 sts/in to 5 sts/in.... This would be absolutely fine, because I thought the first version could be a squidge smaller - So, I went ahead and cast on 10 stitches fewer on this version to make up for the fact that I wanted it to be a bit smaller.... Now it looks like it's going to be a lot smaller. Luckily ribbing is very stretchy, and I really don't feel like knitting this thing three times. Two is bad enough as it is. So I will soldier on, and if it really is too small for me - I reckon it will fit my sister!

I'm at the point where I need to start thinking about adding sleeves, but I'm really starting to think that I won't have enough yarn, so I've been spinning more... I am almost finished spinning the Romney/silk, and just have to find the rest of the Optim that I dyed.

Finding anything in my house right now is an adventure in itself, I just have so much stuff in my little place, and so few places to put that stuff... Three of us living in less than 600 square feet - all of us with stuff. I can only put up so many shelves.

But at least this way I figure that the sleeves will match a bit better yarnwise than they did with the first version.

I've also plied up almost 1,000 yards of new yarn!

The first skein is 750 yards, and about 120 grams of laceweight. Here it is in it's pre-soaked, craptastic camera flash shot.

I've been on a mission to clear off some of my bobbins. I have 9 for my Joy, and three for my Skipper, and somehow I was working with 2 empty Joy bobbins, and one empty Skipper bobbin. Plus there are all the UPS rolls with little bits of spindle spun singles waiting to be matched up with the perfect fiber... With that I was able to clear off 3 bobbins and two or three label rolls. I can't wait to start a shawl with this yarn! One ply is a merino that I dyed in pink and purples, the other ply goes from a couple of colorways of silk, to Optim, and then to a BFL that I dyed with natural dyes a long time ago. It's going to make a lovely shawl, and hopefully is soaking while I type this.

The other yarn is more Optim that I dyed back in May.... Wow, that long ago?!? Really? Where does the time go... Anyway, I had a bobbin with one of the rovings on it, and just had to spin up another bobbin, and ply it.... Another craptastic nonaturallight shot of this stuff. I ended up with 230 yards and about 3 ounces of this. It's the third skein of this yarn that I've done, just have to finish off one more round. I was able to clear off another bobbin doing this.

So, I've been busy, I've been productive. It might all go horribly wrong, but it's going.

Disasters abound!

2008-01-14T01:30:00.000-08:00

Storms - lots of storms in this neck of the woods.

Luckily we are all warm, safe and dry. Tree sized branches did come down in my yard during the night - but luckily that was the worst that I've had to deal with.

I ended up going in to work last Saturday to answer phones, I do work for a landscaping company, and our tree care department gets an awful lot of calls right after a storm like we just had.

The bigger disaster in my mind was that my Plummy Plum from the last post... Well - it ended up in the laundry. It wasn't exactly my fault - I got to the laundry area and found that the neighbor had put my wet clothes into the dryer already, so I put the money in and went home. When I went to go fold the laundry, this was what I found.

It fits Gwen though! And she likes it!

I'm a bit bummed... But I think I have enough yarn to make another one, and knitting has commenced. I'm just about done with the bottom ribbing, and will be making a few minor adjustments from the original, but I think that will just give me an opportunity to make a few tweaks - less increases on the sleeves, slightly smaller in the body, and carry the V-neck all the way up into the raglan decreases. It will be lovely. Fingers crossed that I can make it with the yarn that I have left.

One nice thing about handspun, is that I can make more if needs be - though I don't have any more of one of the fibers. But I do have more of the rambo/silk blend and the optim. I'll just use two plies of the r/s and one ply of the optim, and it will be a bit more blue up towards the top, but should work out ok.

And here's my little bit of knitting completed last year. I did a lot of spinning, and a lot of dyeing - not so many knitting projects completed, but I'm pleased with everything on this little mosaic, and that's all that really counts, right? Plus 3/4ths of them were made out of handspun - that's something to pat myself on the back for. Pat. Pat.

How Plummy!

2007-12-27T13:26:00.000-08:00

Another project finished! Just in time for the new year! I'm calling it my Plummy Top.

I started it on the trip to Yosemite on Thanksgiving day weekend.

I just did a gauge swatch, and cast on the proper number of stitches to fit me around the bottom. Knit a 3x2 rib for a looooong time! Then I decreased within the purl portions all the way around, evenly spaced. Switched over to stockinette, and increased back out to my original number of stitches - and knit for a while more. I marked a couple of stitches directly under where the girls reside, and did a couple of of double increases just in that area. Joined the sleeves to the body, and did a standard v-neck, by knitting back and forth. Decreasing every other row on the outside of a little 1x1 rib that I used on the neck.

When I was done, I was done - all I had to do was weave in 2 yarn tales - and put it on!

I'm pleased! I'm very pleased actually... It fits wonderfully!

Here's a pic of the back

A lot of the shaping was total ballpark guesstimate on my part - but it all worked out perfectly, and fits really really well, and it's flattering!

Christmas was pretty good round at abiabode - not too much going on. I basically tried to make sure that Boo got enough stuff. Ended up driving the daughter all over creation and back on Christmas day - didn't get my bread in the oven until much later than I wanted to...

I cooked a prime rib, roast potatoes, butternut squash, green beans, with braided egg bread, and for dessert an apple, blackberry custardy tart thingy, which was ok, an experiment more than anything. Of course that meant that I got to whip the whipped cream by hand - at least I got my exercise that day!

Oh - I have big news! Really big news!

My Azalea shawl (there's a partial pic of it at the top of the blog there) - handdyed, and handspun, handknit by me - is not hanging over my bed at the moment. It's in Colorado right now. It won't be back until March.

Why is the Azalea shawl in Colorado?

Well... It's being photographed by the most lovely people at Interweave that publish Spin Out! Isn't that the most exciting thing!?!? I was e-mailed out of the blue by the editor asking if she could feature it in the Readers Gallery. I didn't even have to submit it or anything! She saw it on Flickr, and requested that I send it to her. So I did. Keep your eyes out when the Spring issue of SO comes out.

Other exciting (maybe) news... The BBE and I are trying to work things out. Still a lot of problems - but I'm trying, and he's trying. I'm feeling a bit unhopeful about the whole thing today - but that could well change tomorrow. We'll see.

Anyway - one more shot of the Plummy Top

Until next time... I'm working on a hat for the BBE's birthday using size silly small needles, out of some 4 ply wool - just plain grey, but I'm going to try to go for something a bit technical this time. I'll post pics as soon as I get some.

Yosemite

2007-11-28T23:03:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving weekend was so nice! I actually got to go someplace!

Wow - went to South Lake Tahoe,

Mammoth,

and then Yosemite, coming in through the back way. I'd never been before, and it really seemed necessary!

I took a ton of pictures - and spent an awful lot of time in the car... There was a lot of driving! Luckily I was able to sit in the passenger's seat a lot of the time, and even started a project out of the plumpy plum yarn that I spun up not too long ago. No pictures yet - but they will be forthcoming...

So yeah - this post has been in "edit" mode for a few days now, and I think I'm just going to post it up, even though there isn't too much more information...

Weirdness abounds!

2007-11-09T11:41:00.000-08:00

Yeah, so the last couple of weeks have been pretty darn hectic. Work is hectic; Dating is hectic; The universe has been throwing me curve balls all over the place; Progress on projects of any sort has been pretty non-existant and yet, I'm still plugging away.

I started a Veil of Isis shawl in my Abby Batt yarn, just got through the first chart, and when I went to work on it yesterday - well, somehow it was no longer on the needles... D'oh! So I started swatching my plumpy plum yarn instead.

No progress really there.

I've decided to go ahead and list a couple of things on e-bay - I have a Mongold spindle that I never use. These are highly sought after and collectible spindles. I bought it years ago from Scottish Fibres when I still lived in England. It's a full sized one, with the etching that is the trademark of these lovely spindles. They are quite literally indestructible. Though I haven't used it enough to do any damage to it. I think in the 7 years that I've had it I've used it to ply one skein, and probably spun up half a cop worth of singles. The whorl is nice and big, so you can fit a lot of yardage on this puppy - it's a perfect plying spindle, but I usually use my wheels for plying.

The other thing that I'm putting up for sale is Knitting Lace by Susanna Lewis... I bought it new in London, and have never really used it.

The reason I'm putting up these rare finds? I got the car that I was talking about a few posts back! I'm making payments on it, and need the extra income.

I keep meaning to get some of the Optim that I imported dyed and put up on Etsy - maybe this weekend? Except of course, I have to reorganize my entire Monstrosity of Stash...

I got home last night. Boo had been home sick all day, he had decided to go ahead and move the yarn that I have in the living room, and replace it with the desk which used to be in my room.... Now, the yarn that I have in the living room is not all the yarn that I have (not by any means). But it did occupy the corner of the living room in a big way! So I got home last night, and saw that something was decidedly different. It took me a minute to figure it out - but there was my desk (sans the shelves that sit on top of it), in the corner - between the couches. My desk chair was in there too. But there is no room to actually pull the chair out, you know, to maybe sit in it or something?

I looked in my room, and this is what I saw. OMG! I was so upset! Yarn everywhere, all over the floor. All the contents of the desk strewn onto my bed. I just don't even know where to start to get this all sorted out. I think everything is just going to have to go back the way it was, because we can't figure out another configuration for the furniture in the living room that will handle the desk as well.

I'd been wanting to rearrange, and reorganise the yarn - but was so daunted (it's a huge job) that I haven't gotten started on it yet. Now it looks like I'm going to have to.

So I got home, and I yelled at him - took a shower - got out, yelled some more... Cancelled the date that I was supposed to go out on, cried for a minute - and then passed out on the couch.

And the dating thing? Being single is really not fun for me! But I've been out with some interesting people - there was a NASA engineer (a bona fide rocket scientist!), a painting contractor, a contractor who specialises in remodeling and updating Victorians in the City. A film maker, and even my ex-cousin-in-law!!! Which was a totally random happening! We were both pretty freaked out when he discovered the connection (as you can imagine!) The ex-cousin-in-law is my English ex-husbands first cousin - I pretty much figured it out as soon as I saw his first e-mail. He was named after their grandfather.... Turns out he lives less than 4 blocks from my house. What are the freaking odds!?!?!?

The BBE and I were talking there for a bit, but that all went horribly wrong... right now I'm feeling really disgusted with him, which is taking up way too much space in my head... but I know that things weren't going anywhere, and I know that I'm better off where I'm at. It's just very difficult! But I'm getting through it.

I have a nice walk planned for later today, which I'm really looking forward to... First I have to go to my mom's house. She's moving to Arizona in a couple of weeks, and getting rid of a lot of stuff. I need stuff.... She has nice stuff. This whole thing has been really hard too. My mom and I aren't really very close, even though she lives about 2 miles from me, we don't see each other, or talk very often. Now she's moving far away.

So yeah, things are a bit stressful for me just lately. I just keep showing up for work, which is going pretty well, the gal that was on maternity leave is back, so now I'm just doing my own job, instead of both of our jobs... I'm just trying to put one foot in front of the other, and see where things go. That's the hardest part about all of this - I really don't like the limbo feeling, I never have. Not having a framework of a relationship (no matter how limiting) is something that I am just not used to. But that doesn't mean that I'm just going to settle for just anything. I know what I want, and I will know when I find it.

Sigh....

Another No Gauge Swatch Top

2007-10-06T14:53:00.000-07:00

So I've got another FO! Whoo Hoo! I actually finished it a couple of weeks ago, but just wasn't able to get around to posting any pictures of it. I finally got my son to take some pictures of me in it. That was interesting. He took a whole bunch of pictures, and when I went to look at them in the camera, they were all head shots! Dude, I need pictures of the top!. So back out we went, and he got a whole bunch of headless shots. I don't know about you, but I just like to be able to see who is wearing the stuff that I look at online. Finally he started taking pictures of the right area, but by that time, the light was about gone, and most of them came out blurry. D'oh - I'll train him up right eventually.

So without further ado. Here you go

A head shot

A headless shot...

And one that didn't come out too blurry. Of course I think they're terrible pictures of me, but at least they show that I've made some progress.

If anyone's interested - this is the pattern on the Left sidebar over there, I just used SWT Phoenix (a soysilk tape) in a pretty variegated blue/purple colourway. Added a 5 rounds of half double crochets around the neck and the bottom, instead of the lace pattern in the original, and voila! A new original top - designed by me! =)

In my last post I wrote that the BBE and I were growing apart, and it just got to the point where I decided to break it off with him a couple of weeks ago. So, I'm single again - and not so sure about how I feel about it. I'm sort of putting myself out there a bit, and have had a few "coffee dates" now. No big deal, one that I really liked and am planning on seeing again next week. We'll see how it all goes. I'm feeling pretty discombobulated by it all, and haven't got any exciting new projects to write about. I want to start something new, but just haven't been motivated to do any actual work yet. I'll get there though.

Last weekend was my company picnic at Marine World. I tried to get the Boo to go with me, but he couldn't be bothered to get out of bed, so I went solo. I had a great time though! There were no lines on any of the roller coasters, so we got to go on a couple of them right in a row. We saw the Killer Whale exhibit, went on roller coasters, the butterfly house was amazing... I got some good pics!

Ethereal Chevron - Put a fork in er.

2007-09-13T18:53:00.000-07:00

Whew...

So the last couple of days has seen me dive into a pile of books... I read the Deathly Hallows on Sunday, a good finish to the series, very satisfying. Monday I read a book called Spindle's End. Go figure! It was very good, a novel - but a take on the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale, and Tuesday I read one of the many Dragon Lance volumes - not a series that I've gotten into too much yet, but definitely see myself reading more. But last night I definitely just needed some air - three books in three days, does funny things to my brain! I managed to clean up one corner of my room, and do some dishes - but that's about all the energy I could muster.

Anyway... I have an FO!! Whoo Hoo and a yippeee... I finished weaving in the ends at lunch time today,= and I think that it could actually benefit from a blocking (which I might get around to at some point, maybe after I've finished the F&F Comfort Shawl properly. If one has to crawl around on the floor pinning out sodden wool, one might as well make a party of it right?)

Anyway I wove in the ends today at lunch. I got home to an empty house (but a swept sidewalk) so I asked my lovely new neighbor to take some shots of me. I think she did a pretty good job. I lent her the Spindle's End book, as a thank you.

This is yet another handdyed, handspun sweater.

The yarn itself is a three ply. Two plies of CVM, (that's California Variegated Mutant to non-sheepy people) and a ply of silk. All dyed in blues and greens.

It's not exactly my design, it's a Rick Mondragon bias knit jobby from Knitters.

I did some modifications though - the sleeves being the most obvious. I'm still on the fence about the length - but I didn't think it would look quite right with full sleeves. I am still kind of envisioning a longer belled sleeve. But I was a bit worried about having enough yarn to do the sleeves, so I kept em tight and not too long. Turns out (of course!) that I have plenty of yarn! Enough for at least another sleeve - but that would be silly. I only have two arms, so these two sleeves should really be sufficient, I should think.

I'm supposed to be going camping with the BBE and some of his family this weekend, so I wanted to be sure to get this post out there, and I still have laundry to do - not to mention the fact that I desperately need to empty up some bobbins on my Joy, which I'm planning on taking with me. We're not going far away from home, but just getting away for the weekend. I'm not looking forward to it so much. We haven't been spending nearly as much time together as we were. Nobody's fault really, we're just both stressed out, and I'm not feeling very sociable.

But I'll leave you with a pretty picture of a white rose that I took at a friends wedding not too long ago...

I woke up this morning...

2007-09-06T23:36:00.000-07:00

When I walked out of the house, there was a really weird light, and as I walked out from under the trees, There was more and more of a red glow. Just strange as all get out. I was thinking to myself, "what in the world??!??". Finally when I caught sight of the rising sun I was totally blown away! There have been some fires in the area recently. Just kind of happens around here, this time of year. No rain all summer long, and everything is ready to go up like tinder.

Anyway - the sun didn't look like the sun.... It looked like the moon! But a bright RED moon. Like it was on fire itself or something. Very strange. Of course I took a picture. And of course, you really can't see the effect on my little camera (great for closeups - not so great for landscape photos, and it doesn't do well with weird light).

I was thinking that you know, if we were all back in the dark ages or something - we'd be up in arms and thinking that world was going to end, or our sun god was sick, and be doing funny dances, and rituals and ceremonies. Seemed like a bad omen kind of a day.

Anyway, work wasn't so bad. I got there without too much hassle (even though the world had this strange red thing going on this morning).

I found out tonight that I don't actually have jury duty tomorrow. Yay, for a day off! I know I could still go in - but I've gotten myself all psyched up for not going to work, and having two three day weekends in a row. So, I'm just not going in tomorrow. I have a big project due on Monday, so I got the bulk of that out of the way today, no worries for getting it out on time, and I'm caught up on all the other things that tend to creep up on me, and pile up. So yeah, I'm good to stay home!

Last night I plied up the Abby Batt. I got about 834 yards and just a smidge shy of 6 ozs. That's about 2200 yards per pound - a light fingering weight, or a heavy lace weight. Nice! Now I just have to find a pattern for it. I've really been enjoying the batts that I've been spinning up lately. I'm mostly a worsted type spinner (pulling bits of fiber out with my forward hand) as opposed to a woolen type spinner (pulling the fiber source back and letting the twist hold it all together). There are definitely a lot of things to be said for woolen style spinning! I notice that my wrist hurts a lot less on my pulling, or forward hand, that's for sure!

And here's a close up, just cuz I can :-)

So yeah, I'm really looking forward to my long weekend. I'm really happy that I'm sitting on my couch writing this. I'm almost on top of my bills, I have projects are going fairly well at the moment, and I have time to do what I want for a couple of days. Yay! Have a great weekend everyone!

Guess where I am??

2007-09-02T20:52:00.000-07:00

In my bed! Blogging from home! Wow - what a freakin concept!! Can we get a whoo hoo?

I finally got some internets to come in at my house, it was a pain! It made my head hurt. It involved going out and buying a new wireless card for my laptop. But I finally got there :-)

I really hope that this will make it much easier to update this here bloggy thing, well yeah, duh! It better.

Another thing to celebrate is the long weekend! Boy did I need a bit of a breather. There have been a few times over the last few days where I seriously thought my head was going to explode. I'm also taking next Friday off as well. I was called for Jury Duty, and I'm hoping that I don't have to go in. But regardless, I'm taking the day off! I haven't had a day off since I started at the place, so I figure they are not expecting me to come in, I let them know about it weeks ago. And I'm just letting them know that regardless if I do get called in, I will not be in the office. I have enough PTO time that it won't be a problem.

Anyway... On to prettiness! Two posts ago I showed 800 yards of 3 ply that I'm calling plummy plum. I definitely want a long sleeved something out of it, so I went ahead and spun up some more of the three bobbins... Same fiber, though the silk/wool that I handdyed was very different even though I dyed it in the same batch - I did it with the coffee can dyeing method, where different parts of the roving can come out looking very different. Anyway - this batch came out with 644 yards of the three ply. Between the two skeins, I definitely have enough to make whatever type project I want!!

I really like doing three plies for knitting. It has enough grist to be able to knit with a 4 to 4.5 mm needle, which is a perfect size for the way I knit. I can knit for hours with size 6US needles, give me some 8 mm needles, and though the fabric grows pretty quickly, I find myself getting tired very quickly.

Another nice thing about 3 plies is that I can just use my Joy to ply onto the Skipper. I put two bobbins on the "onboard lazy kate" and leave the third up on the flyer, put it someplace off to the side, and then spend many hours plying onto the Skipper.

I love spinning outside in my courtyard in the summertime. I get neighbors stopping by to say hi, and see what I'm working on. It's been hat here, so outside is good.

Now that I have a couple of my Joy bobbins empty I was able to get to a long awaited fiber that I got from Abby Franquemont after reading her excellent post about what goes into blending a tweed batt. It's been a long time since I've spun any heathered yarn, and I'm loving it!

Here are the batts before spinning.

And here they are on the bobbin. It's coming out pretty fine, and taking a long time to spin. But it's going to be gorgeous when it's all done! I'm thinking that this will definitely grow up to be a shawl.

Anyway - that's it for this installment! More soon :-)

Update, and almost FO's

2007-08-22T20:00:00.000-07:00

Here's my version of Sarah Bradberry's F&F Comfort Shawl. It's not exactly done yet - though it is bound off.

First I guess the stats are in order. This is a lace weight handspun yarn. One ply of optim, the other of Soy Silk. It's very soft and has a lovely drape and sheen to it.

I dyed the soysilk - but those colors are a bit muted in the yarn itself - the optim is what carries the show. It was sent to me by Helena of the etsy shop thegoodsheep.etsy.com... Apparently she did not enjoy the optim as much as I do, and asked if I'd like some that she had. Some dyed, some plain - and it's gorgeous! It's always so nice to spin stuff that someone else did the dyeing on! Don't get me wrong - I love dyeing my own fiber and spinning from it. But it's nice to get someone else's vision once in a while, if that makes sense.

Anyway - there is a fairly large problem with the shawl as it is. I knit until I was almost out of yarn, and then decided to bind off at a friend's wedding barbecue (not the reception, that was the night before). I was anxious to get it bound off, and just did it on automatic pilot.

See how wide it is? See how the bottom is just pulling in and puckering up like that? Yep - far too tight on the bind off. It's an easy fix - just have to pull that out, and then plan on getting a crochet hook with the yarn that I have left over (I probably could have gotten a few more rows in), and then crocheting off the stitches with lots of chains to give it some room to breathe. I think it will be lovely when it's finally all done and blocked. At the moment it's crumpled up somewhere in my room waiting for me to get around to doing something with it.

I'm also spinning up some silk on one of my handspindles (yeah, I know - nothing new there) But it's silk! And it's sooo pretty! Look - Shiny!

This is stuff that I dyed a while ago - there's a ton of newly dyed rovings at my house, just haven't had a chance to take pics of it yet. I know my oldest wants to see pics of what I did with the Romney/silk blend that he got me for my birthday - I'll get to it! I'm just tired.

I took these pictures two nights ago. I had to get all my gear out of my car. I got a flat tire on my way home from work, which was a bit scary, but not too bad. Was able to make it to a gas station - had the car jacked up and was starting on the lug nuts while I was waiting for the BBE to come rescue me.

We got the road donut on my car, and he drove me back to the shop, where I transferred everything into a loaner that I'm driving until we can find a used tire for the car. But to be honest - it will be very difficult to get back into the old car after driving around in a solid safe feeling car with power windows, air conditioning, and a Stick!! I'm madly trying to think of how in the world I'd be able to afford a new (to me) car at the moment.

The Ethereal jacket is coming along slowly, but progress has been made. I'm working on the first sleeve, and am probably about a third of the way there on that one. Just another sleeve and a blocking session (crawling around on the floor with sodden wool - whoo baby - party at Abi's house!)

Have fun till next time! :-)

Oh - and the Boo - started school today - he's a senior in high school this year... How can it be possible?????

Look! I'm posting!

2007-08-18T12:27:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, sorry for the long absence! I've just been busier than a one legged man in an @$$ kicking contest. Work has been so hectic it's just not even funny! Most nights I get home and just collapse. There has been some spinning, and some knitting. Not hardly any picture taking though. I've just been exhausted! I'm doing my job, and most of the duties of a lovely lady who went away to go have a gorgeous little baby boy. So I get to work, hit the decks running, and don't stop until it's time to go home. It seems that the work is coming in faster than I can get it done, and I'm seriously feeling like I'm just barely keeping my head above water. And then there is the fact that I just haven't been sleeping enough. Most days it seems that I'm operating on about 4-5 hours of sleep - sometimes more, usually less. And it's been taking a toll.

Anyway - here is some of the stuff that I've been working on just lately...I said there has been spinning, and I can even prove it - here's 800 yards of handspun. It's a three ply yarn, and what happens when you take three different fibers, spin them up separately, and ply them all together.

The fiber on the top is a silk/wool blend that I got from my friend Leah of Yarn or a Tale. The roving was listed as seconds, and a great deal, so I bought a bunch of it, and dyed most of it. Not the easiest stuff to spin, some really short fibers in there - but it's added the plumpest ply to the mix.

The fiber in the middle is some of my own handdyed Optim which adds a lovely bit of softness. Have I mentioned that I love to spin Optim?

And the fiber on the bottom is a lovely silk/rambo batt that I picked up off of e-bay from Crystal Creek Fibers. I became acquainted with her fiber right before my birthday, a box came in the mail, with Fiber written on the outside! It was actually addressed to my daughter, but I knew it had to be for me :-) Turned out my oldest son had sent me about a ton of raw angora, and a lovely silk/rambo roving that I can't wait to get started on spinning, with a Hippity Pappity B'duthduth day note in it. Then I saw this batt on e-bay, and knew I wanted more. It's gorgeous stuff to spin! A huge 10 oz batt of lovely rambo silkiness. Mmmmmmmm.

I'm calling the yarn Plumpy Plum, I have 800 yards of it in this one skein - I'm spinning more because I want a nice long sleeved sweater or jacket out of it. Definitely next to skin soft, so am thinking more sweater. I've been wanting to try a saddle shoulder type pullover from EZ - or maybe another Box the Compass...

And I've been knitting too! I started the Chevron Shadows Vest from the latest issue of Knitters magazine. I'm using my own handspun - the Ethereal that I spun up last January... My notes tell me that it's 10 ozs - 1050 yards of three ply yarn - two plies of handdyed CVM (need to get some more of that!) and one ply of handdyed silk.

Here's the front in all of it's unblocked glory....

And here's the back. I knit the vest as the pattern dictated, but found that the side panels needed to be a lot wider -

so I took the three needle bindoff out, and created a nice little Mod U for the underarms. It gives a really nice effect in the underarm area I think. Not that anyone will see it too much. But it's definitely a nice little detail - very gansey-esque little gusset type detail.

Oh, yeah, I decided to put sleeves on it too. I'm really hoping I have enough yarn. I think I do. But it might be a close call. If necessary though I can always do a 3/4 length sleeve. We'll just have to see how that works out.

Other than work being crazy busy all day every day, and not getting enough sleep, and being exhausted a lot of the time, things have been fine. The kids are fine, we have one kitten left that we've decided to keep, the other two went to good homes, where they are happy. The one we kept is the lightest one.

Anyway - I guess that's it for this installment. I guess something is better than nothing right?

New button...

2007-06-17T11:57:00.000-07:00

I got an e-mail on Friday from a company called Shared Book, who is trying to put together a little program to be able to print your blog into a book format... I was naturally a bit suspicious, but thought it sounded like a cool idea, so e-mailed them back ( just to make sure it wasn't totally spam), received a reply which sounded reasonable enough, and went ahead and uploaded the Shared Book widget thingy that's referred to over there on the left sidebar. I tried it yesterday, just got a bunch of error messages - which I passed along to the company developing said widget. It's under development, and the software guys are in Israel.

I got up this morning, the widget is gone. I think that the unveiling is supposed to be very very soon, and hope that they are all up burning the midnight oil - drinking lots of coffee and getting it up and running. I wasn't really expecting much - I'm an "alpha" user (meaning that I'm the first batch of people even trying this thing). Beta should be launched in a week or two. I just have to say that I was really honored that they chose my blog to use for the alpha user testing. I was told that the criteria was a nice mix of text and pictures. Which I have to say, I think I've got going on over here.

Anyway - sorry I've been so quiet. Just been totally over the top busy with the new job... Haven't really gotten much knitting that I want to show off together just recently.

The Krista Tee: I think it might just need sleeves and a good blocking - but I'm disappointed (more with just how it works on my general body type, and hoping I could get away with doing it without sleeves than anything else).

I've also decided to frog the start of the Handsome Triangle shawl, I have decided that I really don't like lace patterns which are considered "true lace" - patterning on each side. I need that purl back row for my sanity. I also really don't like the 4 stitch spine. I will instead turn the yarn into the F&F Comfort Shawl from www.knitting-and.com

The Rosebud's Request is still where I last showed it, though I have spun up another 8th of the yarn needed. I'm still not so sure if I don't need to rip out the work that I have done already and do it in the biggest size, or if it will just work out. I'm also really not looking forward to doing the rest of the Rosebud's (fiddly things!) that I might just go ahead and rip anyway!

And I've got umpteen spindles going - or at least it seems like it - a chinchilla blend on my Spindlers Choice; Optim on my Copper Moose American Beauty; Handdyed soysilk on my other Copper Moose American Beauty; silk wook blend on the little Linum; Oh, and some April Blizzard from Abby Franquemont on my Emily spindle. This is unusual for me, for while I am no stranger to having umpteen projects on the needles, I usually only have one carry-around spindle to take with me and work on.

I'm still feeling scattered and a bit out of sorts, the new job is getting to a point where I almost feel like I know what I'm doing most of the time - but two weeks ago, got pushed off onto other bigger projects, which meant that there was a couple of days there, where I just couldn't get any of my regular work done. Now I'm finally feeling like I've cleared the backlog, and hopefully will be able to just stay on top of things as they come in. But whew - it's been hard!

The kittens are getting awfully big - and very cute!

Forrester Linum spindle

2007-06-07T00:04:00.001-07:00

Forrester Linum spindle, originally uploaded by abiknits.

Isn't it pretty? It was a gift from my friend Monika over at Smoking Hot Needles, thanks Monika! I love it. She also sent the blue roving, a gorgeous wool/silk blend that I'm loving. Wonder how she knew I'd like that color? ;-)

Anyway - it's my birthday on Friday, June 8th - I'll be hitting another decade mark... Wow - how did that happen? I couldn't possibly be old enough to be 40 - could I? Mind boggling really.

Work has been kicking my a$$ just recently - way too much to do, and too little time to do it in. Scary really - but it's going well.

Other than that - I'm tired - I'm exhausted, and I'm going to get to bed - just wanted to be sure to post a picture of my most recent spindle. All the more special because it was sent from a friend, and really unexpected.

Productivity!

2007-05-24T21:49:00.001-07:00

Yay - I've been busy! I like it when I feel like I'm actually getting something done. Really - and it's been a while since I've felt like that...

Progress has been made on Rosebud's Request... I've spun up the yarn for the back - I still have to get started on spinning the other half of the rovings for the front. But there's a lot of knitting yet to be done on the back, so I'm okay for the moment.

This is definitely one of those patterns that you need some good quiet time to sit and knit. I've been marking up the pattern, ticking off the rows as I complete them. I've done as much on the first half of the back as I could, without having the next skein of yarn yet. That's spun and ready to start the second half of the back, but I also started another project!

This is the Krista Tee from White Lies Designs. I found Joan McGowan Michael's book at Borders last weekend, and bought it - there aren't that many patterns in there that I'll probably knit, but they sure are pretty! I've been wondering what to do with this yarn anyway - it's the Kid Merino/Mohair that I named Bubble Yummy. I think this is the nicest yarn that I've ever worked with. The nicest fiber for sure! It's sooooo soft. I'm loving it so far. I changed the pattern as written to knitting it in the round, and am not 100% sure about the fit - didn't even do a gauge swatch (gasp! I'm actually usually pretty good about that one). But if I have to pull it all out to knit again, I don't think you'll hear me complaining too much.

I started it because I didn't have the the next skein of yarn for Rosebud's Request spun up yet, and y'all know - I needed something to keep me busy. I started this at lunchtime two days ago, and am about 7 or 8 inches up the body (oh my!). I've been picking it up at every opportunity and knocking out a few rows. Adds up fast! Plus I'm using 4.25mm needles, which is bigger than I'm used to using.

Oh - and the book itself? It does have some beautiful designs in it! But one thing that I've always loved about JMM's designs is that they are wonderful for real women - and real women's curves. This book? Almost all of the models are really thin, not tremendously voluptuous in any sense of the word... I can't be the only one that was a bit disappointed with that. But I've been really absent from the blogosphere just lately, with work and not having internet at home... I honestly just haven't had any time to do any surfing around to see what everyone's up to. I miss my bloggy friends - and if I haven't commented on your new beautiful creations, it's not because I don't care - I just haven't even seen them!

I'm really looking forward to the three day weekend... I'm really kind of hoping that I can get both of these done with all the time off - any bets as to whether or not I'll succeed? Yeah, well, nevermind - a knitter can dream right?

Anyway - I shall leave you with this last bit of prettiness, it's just an anenome that I snapped on one of my lunch time walks.Oh, and my latest doofus maneuver? I left my wallet at home last night. Today was payday, and I couldn't spend anything - no wallet - no plastic - no ID - no cash. Luckily one of the girls let me borrow a bit of money till tomorrow so I was able to get myself some necessities (mmmm coffee!).

Two posts in two days?

2007-05-20T22:01:00.000-07:00

So I've started the knitting portion of Rosebud's Request... Am reserving judgment so far. But definitely have to say that I am so happy that I'm not doing the pattern as written! I swear every other single friggin row, it's "cut yarn".... I do not want to have to deal with all those ends. Oh my goodness me, no! But the yarn gradations are a bit more subtle than even I had imagined. I've finished the first back half. Not entirely sure if it's going to be big enough or if I need to print out the directions for two sizes bigger than I would need if I was knitting to gauge before I leave.

And of course I'm nowhere near done with the spinning part of this particular piece - this is just the first skein, which I've knit up into the first rings of blueness - so the top starts of with lots of chestnut, then blue. Not nearly as many stripes as I'd envisioned, and the yarn is not a DK weight. But it is soft and pretty! I do like the drape, just might have to rip out the first bit and do it again bigger, which isn't so bad really!

So did I get a picture of what I have accomplished so far? No - my daughter called and needed a ride home from a town about 50 miles north of here, so I hopped in the car, and went and got her. But before I left I was able to get lots of cute kitty pics! I think this one is my favorite!

Of course, I do like this one of all three of the kittens

And then there's this one

I was also able to go running around outside for a bit after taking yarny pictures, and was actually able to get some really amazing shots of bees gathering pollen from the local California Poppy's, our State Flower.... I have a hard time with insect shots with my camera, they usually come out blurry, but for some reason today they came out great.

Rosebud's Request...

2007-05-18T20:55:00.000-07:00

In my last post I had found this top - it's Rosebud's Request from the current Knit N Style, not a magazine that I buy all the time, but sometimes there are some good patterns in it - like this one! It's free online right now, so I've printed it out, and am in serious want! I've been thinking about what to make it out of, and I have commercial stuff in my stash that would work (several variations there). But in thinking about it, thought that handspun would probably do the trick nicely. I've mentioned that I have some Optim in stock that I'm planning on dyeing and putting up on-line at some point. I know - I really need to - I've just been awfully busy, and am just starting to feel like I'm getting back into my routines.

So anyhow - I looked at the pattern construction - basically it's constructed in 4 pieces - all starting at the corners and working up. I don't think that I want to bother with cutting the yarn all the time, and want to simplify things a bit - so I came up with a Plan - a Very Cunning Plan if I do say so myself (well it will be if it works anyway!)

What if I dyed 8 lengths of roving side by side in stripes, and then spun them in the same order? Could I get the stripes to line up? Could I get all 4 pieces to match? If I don't will it be a total disaster? I think it's going to work, and it's going to be fine. I took a long long length of roving out of my Optim stash... found the halfway point, and broke it there, repeated this a couple of times until I had 8 matching lengths of roving of about 6-7 feet in length.

I laid all 8 lengths of roving side-by-side on my counter top - as you can probably see - I had to go all the way over the top of the stove too!! I put down a wide piece of freezer paper, and then a long piece of tin foil - I left the roll connected so that I could just fold the tin foil over the top of the roving.

I then proceeded to mix up dyes - I started with a dye called gunmetal, really a nice grey-blue... I placed some wide stripes towards the left end of the rovings - then I mixed up some chestnut dye and poured those in between - I tried to get the gunmetal stripes more on the left than on the right, so that the stripes kind of mirror what you see in the actual pattern. I also left just a bit of the roving plain. Not too pre-planned or anything, I just mixed up the dyes and poured them out where I thought they'd look nice. I also mixed some scarlet in with the chestnut in a couple of places, just to give it a bit more pop, and I mixed some lilac to put in with the gunmetal... Just playing, and liking what I was seeing was the key.

After I was happy with the dyeing, I covered the top with tinfoil as well. I double rolled all the edges making a really long packet of roving, which I put on a couple of cookie sheets and threw in the oven which I had pre-heated to 200 degrees fahrenheit. I've read a couple of places that dye strikes at 180 degrees (F), and wanted to make sure that the dye took, but didn't want to scorch it either - I figured 200 degreees should be about safe. I baked my roving for, oh I don't know - probably about 45 minutes. Took it out of the oven to make sure that the liquid in the packet had no color left... There was still a bit of dye showing through, but I took the packets out and just let them sit in the hot tinfoil until they'd cooled down. That did the trick, and all the dye took, leaving me with clear water when I went to drain the rovings in the colander.

Here's what I ended up with. I love the colors! I love the browny chestnut against the gunmetal blue... I love the little bit of white. I love the shine and glow of the optim. It's going to be beautiful. I hope!

One slight problem is that I have a hard time spinning the Optim to a thicker consistency. (well, I have problems spinning just about anything bigger than a fingering weight!). I really thought about dyeing another 4 lengths of roving to match - but know that's just not going to work. Then I thought about Navajo plying each roving - but that's a silly idea. I mean, the whole point of dyeing like this was to try to get 4 skeins with stripes that somewhat match up!

I've been starting each roving from the chestnut side - trying to remember to spin thicker, and have finished the first skein, and although I was really worried that it wasn't going to be a nice DK weight - the Optim floofed quite a lot after I'd soaked it to set the twist, and then abused it a bit. It's all balled up and ready to get started. There are parts of the skein that are more of a sport weight - but I think it will all be alright in the end. I've decided to knit the large size, which is just a bit larger than I'd prefer just to be on the safe side.

One reason that I'm using my handspun for this pattern, is that it doesn't make so much sense to do original designs in handspun, if I want to flog the patterns for them. I really need to start doing more designing for commercial yarns. But then again, it can be really tricky to get everything to match up in a handspun that you want to knit a commercial pattern with. What a conundrum!

Oh, my three little kittens are getting bigger! They've opened their eyes now, and are starting to get to be a bit more playful. Two of them have developed grey faces, ears and tails. Only one is still all white. But boy they sure are cute!

No longer top secret...

2007-05-06T18:27:00.000-07:00

So I've had this top secret project that I've been working on, and haven't blogged about. I wanted to try to submit it to Knitty - I started it before Christmas of last year, and though I've worked on it quite a lot, it wasn't ready until now. I had to re-do the top part of it four times to get it to where I was happy with it.

1st attempt: Body way too short.
2nd attempt: I don't even know, but somehow my calculations were way off for the sleeves/neck opening, and the whole thing was very wonky... Not good....
3rd attempt: I hadn't cast on enough stitches for the sleeve openings, and it almost worked, but not quite.
4th attempt: Finally!

I really like this type of pattern: Cast on for the body and knit in 2x2 rib with a lace panel in the center, framed by 4 purl stitches. Knit until the body is long enough (really!) and then bind off for the underarms - on the next row, cast on enough stitches to go over the arms, and then mark the corners where the raglan style decreases go... Decrease on each side of the markers every other row, and bind off the lot. I literally had two ends to weave in at the end, and I was done!

The yarn is some of my own handspun... It started off life as a couple of lovely merino/tencel rovings that I picked up at Lambtown last year. One a pretty rose color, the other a nice peach. I decided to throw in a bit of orange to the mix, and dyed up some more merino tencel. Plied all three together into a 10oz skein, and realised that I had made a terrible terrible mistake. The orange was truly eye searing, and with the other two subtle colors there was an awful lot of clashing going on. So I threw the whole skein into a dye bath with red, and came up with a very respectable skein of yarn (10 ozs worth even!). I blogged about the whole adventure last year here and here:

So we had our little photo shoot out in the bright and the wind... It's hot here today! Then we went for a little walk along the railroad tracks. I was asking the BBE if you could get to Larkspur Landing by just walking that way. No - but we could go take a look... So we started walking and ended up going over these old, old traintracks that are way high up in the air. They were actually used to film part of one of the Dirty Harry movies - I guess he jumps off the train tracks onto a bus or something. But that's where I was. Me. With my not so tremendously wonderful sense of balance, and my fear of heights. Pretty clever eh? Though I think it's a very good thing for me to get out of my comfort level, and not let my fear of heights restrict what I can and can't do... I took this picture after we'd gotten about half way down the tracks... And of course, we had to get back somehow, and the only way was over these puppies!

On the way we saw a goose that I think was hatching on it's nest. I probably wouldn't even have noticed it (being all concerned with not falling through the tracks and breaking my neck!) if it hadn't started hissing.

We walked as far as we could go - there's a draw bridge, that is currently up - so couldn't go all the way to Larkspur, just like the BBE had said. But we were rewarded with a beautiful view of the channel going through Larkspur Landing, and out into the bay... If you look closely at the bottom of the picture, you can see our shadows on top of the railroad bridge.

Oh, and I've been surfing around a lot lately, looking for patterns, and ran across this beautiful corset called Rosebud's Request... Has anyone else made it? Is there a KAL going on for it? It's just gorgeous - and I want one - probably out of my handspun.

Kittens!

2007-04-29T23:51:00.000-07:00

My eternally skitzy kitty Ember finally - finally - had her first litter of kittens. I noticed that she was lookin quite definitely on the wow - she's stout all of a sudden kind of way when we were painting last month. I've always said that I wanted her to have one litter, and then get her spayed. Well, we've had her for 4 years, and she finally sprogged out.

Last weekend she had the kittens on the top shelf of my closet, where I keep my sweaters - on cashmere, no less! Luckily it was cashmere that I'd found at a thrift store, and didn't wear so much. But cashmere! My kitty does have good taste. She only had three babies. She's not so big herself, so that's not so surprising... But the funny thing is that they are all white - all three of them - pure white. Not a spot, not a stripe, just white.

A couple of days after she had them she moved them into the bottom tier of one of my Fangst units (Fangst's are those big tubes that you can get at Ikea and are great for yarn.

Sigh... You'd think she was doing this just to upset me - but the kittens, they are all so cute. And so white! All white... Weirdest thing, there haven't been any white cats nosing around - she most certainly isn't white - and all three of the babies are just purely white...

See?

I have to say it's awfully nice to have kittens around, they are so cute! I'm sure I will be thinking that it is maybe not so nice when they start getting around the house a bit more. But at least there's only three of them... And of course it just makes it so hard to name them, or keep track of which one is which! I'm thinking Huey Dewey and Louie... The BBE is thinking Larry Curly and Mo.

Other than that - I'm still feeling pretty badly out of sync with myself, and my crafting stuff... Starting two new jobs in two months seems to have thrown me for a bit of a loop. I'm not sure if it's because I just haven't been really excited or motivated about a project for a while, or if it's just because I'm really feeling the need to get acclimated to my new surroundings. I really like my new job - but there's more of a commute, the start time is slightly earlier, and I'm doing a lot of new stuff. But I haven't been exercising as much lately either (which of course, could be contributing to my general feeling of discombobulation).

There has been a bit of spinning though. I finished off another bobbin of the kid merino/mohair blend that I got from Leah at a Yarn or a Tale. It is lovely stuff! I'm liking spinning it, but all the white is always a bit of a challenge. I'm thinking that one more ply would be a nice thing, silk probably - but I haven't gotten it yet. I could just ply the two together and have enough for another shawl... but then again, knitting with all that white... we'll see if I actually get anything done with it at all - specially with my track record at the moment.

So I also started spinning some colorful stuff that I dyed a while back, blues and purples on one bobbin - mystery wool (I bought it at the guild swap meet, and never found out what the breed was). And the other purples and pinks in a superfine merino. I've finished off the second bobbin, but wanted to do a third ply again, I am sure I had some of the darker roving left over. Really almost positive. I've asked the kids - told them that if they did happen to throw it away, I'd really like to know, just so I could stop looking for it. But they denied getting rid of it. I think I'm just crazy, though I could well have spun it all up to start with. Spent an hour - (while the Shield was on even!) searching high and low - no sign of it. So I'm trying to decide what to do with these two bobbins too, just ply them as is, or dye something to go with? I'd dearly like to get a silky bit in there too.

I just keep flipping back and forth between projects - nothing to get my teeth into - don't want to do anything that I've already got on the needles... I think I'm officially in a knitting slump. Hope it doesn't last too much longer.

In brighter news - I won a hot $52 from the lottery today! Whoo Hoo - Took the BBE out to dinner with it.

He was lovely to me today - I had a couple of spindles that the hooks had broken off on. He fixed them up, good as new, and found a couple of other spindle possibilities to turn into actual spindles - one just a toy wheel - another a plastic stirrer thingy that I found before it got thrown away that looked like a perfect candidate for a spindle. We just used cuphooks from the hardware store, and voila - my spindle collection is looking quite respectable again.

Until next time.

Much ado about not much

2007-04-20T20:12:00.000-07:00

Whew - life has been busy and hectic lately! The new job is going well... But boy, I sure hate starting new jobs! There's a lot that I've learned, and a lot that I've got to learn, and a few rookie fumbles along the way. This is the main reason I stayed at the last place as long as I did. I really really didn't want to have to learn another job. I am happy to report that I do like where I'm at, and I really hope to be able to stay there for a very long time.

But yeah, I've been busy, my poor brain is on overload most of the time. I really don't have anything but pretty pictures to show off. There's a little bit of spinning to show off, the front and back plackets of my newest No Gauge Swatch Top are ready to knit together.... I have another top that I totally flubbed the armhole/neckband on, which I need to rip and redo. But no pictures of anything handy at the moment.

One of my big problems right now is that the minute I get to anything even slightly complicated, or needing a modicum of time to concentrate, I just stall out totally. My poor brain just can't seem to do the most simple calculations. If I was clever I'd be working on socks, or my OCLC, or something else that I can do with my hands on auto-pilot. But I guess I'm obviously just not that clever, most nights I get home and collapse on the couch, and watch HGTV almost exclusively. I'm hoping this trend will not last much longer!

Here's a great example of what happens to me when I'm on brain overload...

Last night at work I had a bagillion things to get together for a meeting in the East Bay, and my desk had explodimificated. I also had to cancel 3 Nextel accounts for employees who had been let go. And my daughter called twice to ask me what I was doing about dinner!

How did I do? Well, I got most of the stuff that I needed for the meeting. I e-mailed the notifications in, and I made some semblance of order at my desk. I got out to the car with a laptop bag, a projector, various and sundry chargers, cables, cords, and plans. I even had my Mapquest printout to get me to the meeting. I had the handouts for the meeting. I thought, isn't there something else that I need to go inside for? Nah, I've got it.

I stopped at the grocery store on my way home, as I do almost every single night, and realised I'd left my purse behind. D'oh! Not much this gal can do without her purse, and just the $8 in her pocket. I know that it's just too late to go back to the office and get the purse, I don't have keys, and knew there was no way anyone else was there. So, called the BBE and asked if I could borrow some cash for the night (and I hate borrowing money from the BBE!). Had to drive to his house, pick it up - go back to the grocery store, and the drug store too now, because my everyday makeup all lives in my purse too.

So anyway - get to the meeting this morning, early enough to get everything set up, but have no help in getting an unfamiliar projector/sound system set up. But we managed to get it working, (while the meeting was going on) but I managed to get through the meeting fairly well...

Get back to the office, and my boss has her Nextel on my desk with a note that says it doesn't work. Oh crikey. Turns out that I asked to have her unit suspended last night. One of the employees that had been let go had the same last name and is one line away from her in the database. Whoopsee! and D'oh! Friggin eck batman. Thank goodness it's Friday!

I will be so happy when I've got a better handle on all this. Man I really hate starting new jobs.

Anyway - on a happier note - we've gotten our courtyard presentable for the nicer weather (though it's supposed to rain here all weekend). I'm really looking forward to getting my wheel out there and sitting outside spinning.This was taken from my front door - the door you see on the other side of the courtyard is one of my neighbor's back door. Where I live is pretty much communal outside space, and it's just really nice to have my area cleaned up and looking kind of pretty for a minute.

Happy Easter!

2007-04-08T21:49:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter everyone! Hope everyone had a lovely day. We didn't do anything at my house to observe anything - just had an amazingly lazy weekend. I've been spinning the purple and blue roving from the last post on my Joy. Almost done with it, and probably would be done with it, but I've found that too much worsted spinning does cause some issues with my wrist, so am trying to take it easy.

I've also got some pics of the Merino/Kid Mohair that I've been spinning. I haven't been able to face spinning up another bobbin of white fiber just yet, so am playing with the colorful stuff for now.

Pretty, and soft! But not so exciting to spin.

I got it in a cloud prep, and don't want to dye it and then have to comb the whole mass. So figured I'd spin it up white. I'm thinking of maybe spinning up another bobbin of this, and then maybe a bobbin of plain silk (more white!) and plying them all together, or maybe just spinning another bobbin of this and then making another lace shawl.

When I went to go out and photograph the Merino/Silk, I found this amazing group of fungi living on a log out in front of my house. It's almost velvety looking, but my biggest question is whether or not these could be used for dyeing. I know that fungus can be used for some pretty cool colors... I should probably just gather it up and try it out, but I'm not sure if it would need a special mordant or not? I have alum, and vinegar. And can get my hands on other things - but not so sure if I could get some good colors out of this stuff in the first place.

I've been knitting as well... Another version of my No Gauge Swatch top - link to the free pattern on the left sidebar. This time I'm doing just a one color version (well, variegated). This is done in Phoenix Soy Silk 100% soy silk from SWT. I love working with it. But have not been too impressed with the amount of knots in the yarn so far. I'll just weave in the ends, and it will be fine.

I have so many other cool things to show, it's been great having my camera back! I got this deer the day after I had the camera in my hands. They are so tame where I live! They just will come right up into my courtyard and eat everything that they can get their mouths around.

And the other really pretty one that I got was this lovely bearded iris up by the Main House.
And with that - I have to sign off, it's been decided that we need to leave to grab a bite to eat - like right now! I really get annoyed by being rushed through these blog posts, especially when I've had so few opportunities to actually get anything up here lately. So much more, but stay tuned.

BTW - two weeks into the new job, and I'm love, love, loving it!

We're getting put back together

2007-03-29T19:30:00.000-07:00

There's still a lot that I need and want to change in the living room, but I promised pictures... so here goes.

I took these last night, and the flash kinda did funny things with the colors - it looks more blue in these pics than it really is.

These are the shelves that the boys put up. I'm far from done with these - but it makes a nice solution for my daughter's computer (thank goodness for flat screen monitors)... I still want to buy or find some nice, pretty storage boxes to throw junk and clutter into - but it's a start. I've also found a bunch of blue vases at a thrift store near my work that I really think I'm going to pick up for cheap, and put up in this area as well...

I still can't believe how nicely the bathroom door came out - I painted it! And it's not totally wonky - don't even ask me how I managed it, it wasn't easy, and I'm still not even sure.

Here's the door to my room, I'm really going to get a new dresser in the place of the one on the right as soon as I can. It's not ideal - but it's the only place I can figure out where to put Boo's clothes for now.

You can see the top of my Joy sticking up in the bottom of the picture - I just have my roving draped over the flyer - I dyed it a while ago, and just realised it's superwash merino! Thank goodness for this blog - I don't know how in the world I'd keep track of my projects without it!

OK - what's next? Oh the windows came out nice too. I have to razor blade the extra paint off the windows still, but that's pretty easy, and won't take too long. I wanted to make sure that everything was really set nicely before I did that - it would totally suck to take any paint off the actual frame by mistake!

You can see my Wings o'the Moth shawl nicely draped on the back of the couch. Nice to just be able to pull it off and snuggle with it when I get cold. To the right are my Fangst (that's what Ikea calls them anyway) I have 4 of these puppies hanging up in that corner, just about filled to bursting - so full that they have tie wraps holding them together, the velcro straps that they came with just can't take the weight.

And last but not least - this is basically the view when you walk in the living room. The other couch just has a denim slip cover, and my Comfort Shawl draped over it. Darn kid threw his shirt on the couch when I wasn't paying attention. That was such a big reason that I started this whole adventure, but on the whole, it is so much better than it was. The candles on the coffee table look a bit messy - but they're not really. The Coke can, well, that's just par for the course at my house. It's small. It's funky. It's mine, and I actually really like it here.

I finally did it.

2007-03-27T22:04:00.000-07:00

We painted my living room last weekend. Wow - what a lot of work! I'd forgotten just how much work it really was... I have a lot of trim, and panel doors that I wanted to do two-tone. Not to mention that the BBE had sprained his ankle really badly a couple of days before.

I went to Home Depot on Friday night and picked out the paint colors.

Two gallons of the second green on the card for the walls

One gallon of the lightest green for the ceiling

And the blue that my thumb is resting on for the trim, I bought a gallon just to be on the safe side - remember, I have a lot of trim.

I told you I was going to do my living room the same colors as so much of my work, and my blog template.

Saturday morning we started clearing the room. Of course I didn't think to grab the camera until the room was partly cleared... But this does give you some idea of how bad it was.

This was taken from the front doorway. In the left corner you can see where the door next door was put in - they tore out a closet to get to that area for the door - oh, about 3 years ago. I waited for a very long time for the landlord to make it right, but he finally said that he didn't really want to do anything to my place until he could come and redo the whole entire place. And I've been talking about getting it painted for a very very long time, but couldn't really afford to do it, and it was just sooo much work.

Lately though, the kids have been treating my place like a closet - just come home, dump stuff, and leave again. Been driving me nuts. I figured that I needed to really make a statement - draw my lines in the sand, and make a stand. So I bought paint. Worked my butt off for two straight days! 12 hours both days. Oh my back!

I had a few moments of panic, and many second thoughts about my color choices throughout the experience. The unremitting greenness of it all, was a bit overwhelming until I started getting the trim color on. Thank the gourds for my lovely wonderful boyfriend - he worked with me throughout it all. Stevie helped for hours and hours on Saturday - and back to work on Sunday. Gwen? Well, not so much. She'd show up, do a little bit - and then leave again. She says it's because her boyfriend didn't like how my boyfriend was going about doing things. Alpha males.

Anyway - here you can see the front of the living room. My front door didn't get painted at all - it's metal, and I couldn't see having to prime it, and do a bunch of work on it - I also thought that some white accents in the room would work out OK. I have my Netflix envelopes on the door, so I don't forget to grab them on the way out - metal doors are nice that way - a handful of strong magnets, and you're good.

These are the doors to the bathroom and Stevie's room. For some reason the trim on Boo's door just starts right at the wall - for some reason that freaks me the heck out.

I did the bathroom door - all 5 panels - all cut in by hand. I will put my hand up right now and say that I seriously suck at painting. Kind of funny when you think of how much time I spend dyeing and knitting and spinning, all very repetitive activities. Knitting a sweater can seem like a marathon project, with all kinds of trials and tribulations. Of course I usually decide that I hate the color when I'm halfway through my project. Just like I did with the living room. I'm always very glad when I carry on, and finish even though I think and know in my heart that it's all going to be a disaster. Usually it's all fine, and good - but we are our own worst critics.

After that bathroom door, and all those damn straight lines, and the slow painstaking mistake ridden adventure with the bathroom door, I decided to go ahead and have a bit of fun - so I went a bit artistic on my bedroom door, which has no panelling. I had thought I was going to go blue, everyone else thought green would be theway to go. So I compromised. It was fun - basically I just painted the door green, then dipped some saran wrap in the blue paint and started scrubbing it on. I worked fast, and stopped at just the right time. It actually looks a lot cooler in real life than in the pictures. But I'm happy with it!

So yeah - the furniture all made it back in the house before the rain hit, and last night I hung pictures. We also put up new shelves - and I managed to get three whole pieces of furniture out of the room in the process. It was all busting at the seams - and now it's so much more restful, peaceful, calm - and best of all... Clean!

Finished pics in the next installment.

Oh - and the new job? Fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love it so far - even though I feel like a total idiot, and I have no idea what I'm doing yet. Everyone is really nice, and I'm thinking that I'm going to be there for a very long time.

Whew - here's a quickie

2007-03-22T00:42:00.000-07:00

Wow - things have been busy! Got my camera back on Monday - unpacked it, and put batteries in to charge, and promptly fell asleep for three hours. Too late to take any pics, totally lost the light.

Tuesday - Went home, took some pics - did some laundry, and took care of dinner etc... Decided not to come over to the BBE's house to get on the net because Boo had work in the morning.

Tonight - it's late and I want to get to bed, but I have pictures, and I want to post the prettiness! It's taken me f o r e v e r to get everything ready and loaded up, had to re-load Flickr uploader, and I'm working from my new to me laptop (thanks baby!). Problem is, this laptop seriously needs more RAM to handle the load that uploading my pictures takes.

I had to take the BBE to the hospital earlier, he fell at work today, right onto his ankle, about 4 feet and twisted it pretty badly. I thought for sure that it was broken from the pain that he was in earlier. But of course he wouldn't let me stop and go get a wheelchair, had to hop into the hospital. X-rays, splints, crutches, and drugs have all happened, and now it's just up to a bit of time to let him heal. He does not do very well with being helpless, that's for sure!

Anyway - on to the main event. Pictures! Yay!

Here's the Optim that I've been spinning on my cutout spindle for months now.

Just a plain ole 2 ply, about 295 yards total. Very fine, and very pretty I love Optim!

And here's the wheelspun Optim that I plied with soy silk to make the Handsome Triangle shawl from Victorian Knitted Lace. This was sent to me by Helena of The Good Sheep over on Etsy. She did a beautiful job on the dyeing, and I love the colors. I wanted enough yarn to make a decent sized project, so I took the optim and plied it with some Soy Silk singles that I'd spun up well over a year ago - maybe 2, it had been hanging around on a bobbin waiting for me to get some inspiration - and it finally struck.

I'm so bummed that the "during" pics of me spinning it, and the skeined yarn were still in my camera when it got stolen! But here it is in it's happy little yarn cake - and here it is in the beginning of the project.

As far as the job situation goes - I gave my notice at the job that I actually have (seems funny to call it the old job, when I've only been there a month!). I start the new new job on Monday. Just waiting to hear if they want me in at 8 or 9 Monday morning.

As I was leaving work, the boss asked me - "So, what's wrong with you?" Erm - nothing's wrong with me! I just prefer to work in a nice, friendly, happy environment. I basically just told him that it was too stressful an environment for me to be in and be happy. So yeah, big deep breaths and happiness all round.

Oh, and I've decided that I'm definitely - finally going to paint the living room this weekend. Rounding up the troops to get started Friday night after work. I'll take before and after pics - though I might be a bit embarrassed at the before pics, it's bad at the moment. I've been there for 5 years, and the place hadn't been painted in lord knows how long before I moved in. Just so you know.

Anyway - really this was supposed to be quick! I need to get to bed. Just a shot of Mt Tam as I was leaving the BBE's house the other morning with my new camera!

Another Job Interview!!

2007-03-16T15:40:00.000-07:00

Just got back from the interview at the landscaping company.... I will hear back for sure on Monday morning, but it really looks like I've got it - I'll still be getting more money than at the old job, and it sounds like fun! Lots of different hats, almost a transitional type position, but definitely one that I can put my mark on, and just be happy at!!

Y'all have no idea the sense of happiness and joy that I am feeling right now... Oh, it's wonderful!

I haven't been real happy in my work environment for so long, and this really really seems like it's perfect for me - loads of different hats, very focused on customer service, keeping track of people - wow.... I'm just so doing a happy dance right now. I'll be giving my two weeks notice soon.

OK - they just called and said that I definitely have the job - it's at the lower end of the rate that I would have been happy with - but there's a lot of good benefits - profit sharing, 401k, bonuses, insurance - the whole cha cha.

I'm happy! I'm so happy - it's good. Now I just have to let the other people know that I'm leaving - boy am I not looking forward to that! But like I said in my interview, it's a lot like dating - you go out with someone, and you're just really not that interested -even though they are! Doesn't mean you spend the rest of your life with that person - it means you get out, and make it as clean and easy as possible.

Anyway - there's more news (I got a shipment of Optim in and will be selling it soon - but I'm saving that for another post, and some decent pictures)....

Happy dance
Happy dance
Happy dance

Delays

2007-03-15T09:10:00.000-07:00

I just got an e-mail that they've shipped my camera. I'm a bit upset. I paid for it last Friday, received a message on Monday that they had not received payment, so called the company - and was told that my payment had gone through and that it should ship that day. I even paid extra to get 2nd day shipping so I could get back to taking pictures as quickly as possible. Well. Now it's Thursday. And 2nd day shipping means that I won't get my camera until next Monday! D'oh!

The BBE has a camera that he's happy to let me borrow - but I don't like his camera. I want my camera. I want it like now! As my father always used to say patience is a virtue. But geeze I mean, the whole point of paying extra for expedited shipping is kind of null and void if they hold on to my order for days and days. What's wrong with some people? They were really nice on the phone.

In other news, I finally got a new desktop at my house. I've been putting off changing out my old dinosaur for a long time just because my ex-husband did some tricky things with Unix based programs that I find really useful, and it's a pita to swap those. Not to mention the fact that there's a lot of music on the old machine, that I was worried about swapping. Luckily the BBE has a couple of mondo huge external hard drives, so we just copied everything the other night, and uploaded it onto the new system. Of course I don't have internet at home right now, though that's something that I'm definitely looking into updating as soon as possible too.

My poor BBE - he's been so wonderful, finding me a new system, trying to get it all loaded up with the programs that I want. The problem is that by the time I'm done with work, I really don't want to deal with anything computer related at all. My head just hurts, and I don't feel like I can deal with any more. So I get a bit snappish. I don't like being snappish. It's not something that I'm doing on purpose, and I know it's hard for those around me.

Quandry

2007-03-09T13:18:00.000-08:00

Wow - so I just posted and talked about getting a raise (yippeee!)

Right after I did that I got a call from another company that I had interviewed for before I'd taken this job. They called me after I'd started here and offered me the position, which I had to turn down. I was told that if things didn't work out to let them know. And to be honest, I wasn't real happy, and thought, oh great - I've gone and gotten myself another job that I don't like!

So I e-mailed the gal at the other company on Monday morning to say that I didn't think things were working out here, and if they're happy with the person that they do have in the position that I interviewed for, then that's all good, and have a nice day, kinda thing. Well, I didn't hear anything back until just about 10 minutes ago, so thought that particular avenue was a dead end.

They have filled the position that I interviewed for, but they liked me so much that they want to find something for me. I have another interview next Friday with her and her boss. Crikey - when it rains it pours. But this is a good rain.

I really really liked the atmosphere at that place - I mean, it was an immediate, I love the vibe here kind of thing. This place... Well, there's only four of us here - and I really like the other employee, but the boss and his wife - erm, they tend to fight. A lot. And he's very high strung, and not very good with his communication skills. There's more work here than we can handle, and that's it - just the four of us, and I am happy that the money is good, but I'm working at a salary rate, and putting in quite a few extra hours... not as many as the other two guys, but still.

So, I have another interview scheduled for next Friday, and I'm going to go. At least see what they're offering, and what's going on. I don't even know for sure if I will end up with another offer - but it doesn't hurt to explore your options right?

Nobody is even around for me to talk to at this point, the BBE is on scaffolding, Gwen has her cell phone turned off, my mom isn't around... but I have at least until next Friday to think about it all anyway, right? See how things go... I'd hate to feel like I was leaving these people in the lurch - they really do need somebody good - but then again, do I want to be in this environment for the foreseeable future? I don't know - Kind of exciting - but man! After I heard about the raise and how happy they are with me - the owner actually called me after work to thank me for doing such a good job a couple of nights ago (blew my socks off, that did). And wanting to raise my rate after 3 weeks.... My head is just spinning.

TGIF!

2007-03-09T11:55:00.000-08:00

Whoo Hoo! It's Friday! I get off early today. Finally got my first paycheck, which was as I expected. But as it was handed to me I was told that the next one was going to be even better, they're happy with me, and are giving me a raise already! Whoo Hoo! And let's just throw in a yippee for good measure.

I ordered a replacement camera last night - have to go deposit the money into my account before I can finalise the transaction, but it's the exact same as the one I had before. A Fuji Finepix E550, which I was happy with, and used to. It's also not one that's brand spanking new out there on the market, so I was able to find it on e-bay for cheap! About 1/2 what I paid a year ago. In some ways I'm a bit bummed that I'm not getting a different fancy schmancy bling bling camera - but this one has such bang for the buck, that I've decided to stay with it. Not a bad recommendation for a point and shoot right?

And other big news around my house. Both Gwen and Boo have joined me in the ranks of the employed. Gwen's working at the local hardware store as a cashier, and Boo finally started work with my brother on a job site where they're building 6 new houses not far from home, he's working as a laborer. Not bad! Now I'm trying to convince them that they should each pick out one night a week to be in charge of dinner. Somehow they don't think it's entirely fair. I pointed out that if they each had one night, and the BBE took a night, I'm still providing dinner 4 nights a week, what's not fair about that? I don't care if it's takeout, or frozen food or what. But the nightly dinner-go-round where I shop and plan and prepare and cook all the meals tends to get just a little old after a while. And it would give me more time to work on my own projects. Projects are good!

Though I don't feel that I've been tremendously productive just lately - there's the Handsome Triangle shawl that I'm working on - going nicely, though I really don't like the 4 stitch spine down the middle, but it's started like that, and I feel that it would look funny if I didn't carry it through all the way now. And there are a couple little wobbles in the beginning, that I've decided are just going to stay - it's kind of like when you start at a new job, and aren't entirely sure how things are supposed to work, and then as you start to figure it all out you look back and think - oh shit! I didn't want to do it like that! But it all works out in the end, and it's fine. So the shawl is mirroring what's going on in my life right now, and that's just fine with me - it's going to be beautiful when it's done. I sure wish I could show it off! Soon though, very soon.

Otherwise - things are going well. Just trying to adjust to more hours than I'm used to - and trying to wrap my poor little brain around all the stuff that I'm learning, but I'm learning a lot and it's fine. One of my first big tasks is to count all the windows and doors on a set of architectural plans for a 300 unit project, which covers two separate buildings and has about 16 different types of units in it. Ouch. But it's a lot like looking at knitting patterns, and fairly obvious, except when there's errors in the write up of the plans. Ouch. But it's fine, really it's fine. Today I'm counting bathrooms.

Anyway - I guess that's it for this installment, I'm sure looking forward to the weekend, and hopefully getting some work done on a few things.
And just because I don't like posting without any pictures, I'm recycling this swallowtail butterfly that I captured last year. It's just one of my favorites.

Definite Difficulties.

2007-03-05T13:20:00.000-08:00

I'm 99.9% sure that my camera was stolen out of my car last week. I remember having it, and taking it to work with me - and I very stupidly left it on the front seat when I went to run to the grocery store at lunch time. I very rarely lock the doors on my car - mostly because I have door issues. The front drivers side door and the back door on the other side of the car don't open from the outside (I know, what a pain!). Anyway, usually I just leave the window rolled down a bit so I can get in fairly easily, and I think someone got my camera. (picture a big pouty face here). I mean - I don't drive a fancy car - and anything that's in it, is usually only valuable to me. My camera usually lives in my bag. What was I thinking?!?

I was all set to go put in a blog entry about my beauteous new yarn - one ply handdyed optim that was sent to me by Helena of the Good Sheep over on Etsy. Seems she and the optim just didn't get along that well, and she asked if I'd like it. Like it? It's like my very favorite fiber to spin, practically! (well, I do have a lot of favorites - but Optim is right up there at the very tippy top of the list, no kidding).

The other ply is some soy silk that I had spun up ages and ages ago - with no real purpose in mind. I started it off with some greenish soy silk, and finished off the bobbin with pink... And then I had more optim than soy silk, so just plied some of that back on itself. I ended up with 744 yards of prettiness that I dutifully took pictures of, but didn't have a chance to upload before the disappearance of the camera.

I so miss it! I use my camera just about every day - and this time of year? The plum trees and the daffodils and the irises and and and... all blooming. The weather has been gorgeous the last couple of days.... and and and, no camera. Whatta Pain!

I find that it makes such a tremendous difference in just my every day life - I see the world in a totally different way than before I had the digital camera. It's just amazing to me, I wish I could describe it a bit better - but it's seeing the little bits of beauty all around me - even some really run down areas can have beautiful little plants, or blossoms that if you choose to focus on just that - you have captured some true beauty. Amazing, but oh, so hard to describe. I love the picture a day idea. I didn't join or anything, just because I know how difficult it is for me right now to get any quality computer time - but it's something that I'd highly recommend to anyone - take your digital camera out on a walk with you. Find your macro setting. Use it. Don't just take pictures of your yarn - but look around at your surroundings with an eye to finding something amazing, something that you wouldn't even notice if you didn't have your camera with you.

That is my challenge.

Oh, and the yarn that I just finished? Already cast on for a shawl from Victorian Lace. The variations in color that I ended up with just screamed for it - I haven't found a pic online that I can share - but if you have the book, it's the big triangle shawl towards the beginning - pictured in a lovely coral red silk, this version is very definitely multicolored, self-striping as can only be gotten by spinning it yourself.

Anyway - I'll be able to order a new camera at the end of the week, and hopefully have some prettiness to show in the next installment.

Pictures - new shelves - yay!

2007-02-20T18:13:00.000-08:00

So I took some pictures last night after I got home - here's the new shelves in my room that I posted about a couple of days ago. I'm just so happy with them! My paperbacks had been hanging out on the side of my dresser for years now - and tended to fall over, I was even able to clear some room on that bookshelf for more knitting books!! Not that I tend to buy so many any more, and the books that are cramming the shelves at Borders these days, really just don't inspire me so much.

And yeah - that's my handdyed, handspun variation of the Azalea shawl hanging up over my bed. I told you I was going to do that - but never posted a picture or anything (till now, of course).

So the new job - busy - thrown in at the deep end. It will be interesting though, and I'm picking things up pretty quickly (after 2 days). I'm being paid a salary, which means no over time, and I worked an 11 hour day yesterday - but got out of there while the getting was good right at 5:00 tonight.

Oh, and I don't get paid till the 9th of March - so there goes my bright idea to go out and buy a drumcarder right away - but I'll be doing that on my first paycheck, or maybe my second depending.

Oh - and this morning, my 2nd day at work, I got all dressed in black - black jeans, black long sleeved knit shirt, black leather jacket.... Thinking that my new black shoes were in my bag that I schlep back and forth from the BBE's house... Got all the way to work.... And the shoes were not in the bag. They're at the BBE's house. I'd worn brown shoes (cute! But brown) with my all black office - but what was I going to do? Be late for my second day because I'm such a doofus that I don't have the right shoes with me? Or just not say anything about it, and hope the guys don't notice (they are guys). Well. I played it off, and came directly to the BBE's house after work to make sure that I had my black shoes with me for tomorrow.

And then my daughter called me at lunchtime - she's temping this week, and wasn't feeling well - and the people that she's working with - they're talking about sports... and she's feeling nauseous.... and they won't stop talking about sports..... So I just told her that she could finish out the day, and do it for the short term. I don't know if I ever mentioned on my blog about the all sports all the time at my last job... It was football, baseball, basketball, college included - the spreads, the players, the coaches, non-stop all day every day. Just thinking about it makes me want to scream. So far at the new job? Nobody has said word one about anything sports related, except to mention that playing golf is a big passion for one of my bosses. That I can handle. No blow by blows, no critiques of whether this player is worth that much money - no second guessing what the coaches did. Whew.

Anyway - I've not been knitting so much, but have been doing a bit of spinning, sadly no pictures. I tried to start a new bobbin on my Skipper last night, but not being so used to actually spinning on the bobbin led wheel was giving me a lot of broken singles and frustration - but I won't be giving up.

Oh, yeah I was talking about my shelves. You can see that there's still lots of room, and I'm sure that this will evolve (or just get messy) but on the top shelf I have some of my bigger fiction books, that I haven't read yet. A random vase, and a candle.

On the second shelf I have all of my extra bobbins and a couple of books.

The third shelf is just trashy fiction paperbacks that I like to read.

4th shelf, well - it's got stuff - extra dpn's and crochet hooks, and chatchke's.

The shelf below that has my handcards and combs.

And at the bottom is my niddy noddy.

Not bad for a freecycled little bookshelf, and otherwise unused space eh?

Darn, no pictures

2007-02-18T22:42:00.000-08:00

I've been telling the BBE that I need some shelves built (in the worst way really) for a very long time now. A couple of weekends ago, we picked up some free bookshelves courtesy of Freecycle, or Craigslist - Gwen got a really pretty wicker shelf unit for her clothes, and there was a DVD holder and a small veneer bookshelf as well. With Gwen living back at my house now, storage space is really at a premium! (If you read my blog at all, you probably know that my place is less than 600 sq feet. But we're comfy and cozy, and I have the BBE's place to come back to as a bolt hole.

Anyway - yeah, so I have an old doorway in my bedroom that isn't used. It goes into the kitchen, but there's a bookshelf on the other side of that door. The doorwell in my room is nice and deep, and I've always thought that having some shelves in there would be right handy! Well - we took apart the little bookshelf that I had gotten for free, and cut it to size, and voila - I now have 5 shelves in my room, where before I had a hoky hanging shoe organiser to stuff stuff into.

There were some unfinished bits and pieces that were visible, and I wasn't too happy about - so I grabbed some little mosaic glass tiles that I've had hanging around for a couple of years, and just glued them along all the exposed edges. Spent some time putting my paperback up, and it's a great place to throw my niddy noddy, all my extra bobbins and storage rolls, and books, and little chatchkes. I love it! I so love it, it's not funny. I promise I'll get some pictures when I get home tomorrow night after work - the room itself still needs a lot of attention, but any little bit of extra space is such a godsend for me, especially since Gwen moved in. I swear my little place is just bulging at the seams - and there is almost no place left to put anything.

Oh yeah, the new job - tomorrow! Yikes! Damn I'm nervous. At the interview the owner/president asked if I was comfortable wearing jeans, and if needs be getting my hands a bit dirty. Which I don't - but now I'm thinking, should I wear jeans on my first day? Probably... But will that give off a bad impression? I've got some darn cute jeans that I just bought today - went to Ross, Levi's on sale for 9.99. Or should I wear trousers? I have options, and I guess I'll just wait till tomorrow to figure it out. One thing is for sure - sensible shoes!

Anyway... Just wanted to post, I love my new shelves - and I start my new job tomorrow. I'm remembering to take deep breaths, and will try to act like I know what I'm doing when I get there. Of course, I do know a lot - but every place is different, and does things in different ways. Hopefully it won't take me too long to figure it all out.

New Job!!

2007-02-16T17:05:00.000-08:00

So Whoo Hoo - I start a new job on Monday - yep, I know it's President's Day, but not everyone gets it off. I'm excited. And happy! One of the reasons I've not been posting so much lately is that I quit my job a couple of weeks ago. Felt great - like a huge weight had been lifted off of me. I didn't talk too much about my last job, but it wasn't one where I'd ever really been tremendously happy. But you know, I'm a single mom, and I have to work... So I was really trying to stay positive and busy, and not let panic take over, but I don't do so well with that kind of stress, and also tend to isolate, and not want to talk to people, or really let them know how I am.

I'm pretty impressed with myself though - I ended up getting 5 interviews, out of about 9 resume's that I sent out.

This last interview today pays a lot better, is a lot more flexible and really might be pretty stressful, (sounds like they really need someone to get them all organised). But at the end of the day more money is a great thing. The last job the pay was not very good, and I was getting pretty tired of having to stress most months about getting the landlord his rent check. Not that it was ever to a point where I didn't know how I would manage - but definitely - putting off a lot of things because the rent was coming due.

Not too bad - a hot two weeks out of work, and I'm back in the saddle again. I'm happy, but nervous at the same time. Starting a new job is always stressful. One of the main reasons I stayed at the last place as long as I did. I was there almost two and a half years, and stayed because basically I knew the ropes and could do the job - but was never very happy or fulfilled with it.

Anyway - I just had to share - I'm happy and it's good.

Just a shot of a pretty sunset at the Club, where I live.

Ribwarmer and Ribbed Socks

2007-02-13T18:21:00.001-08:00

So I was needing a quick, easy project - just for you know - my own mental health. Most of my projects tend to be pretty big, and not too many are just mindless knitting. A skein of yarn that I spun up last October had been screaming at me for a while, it just kept telling me it would make a lovely little Ribwarmer (one of the projects in Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Workshop). So I balled up the yarn and started knitting. It took me a hot two and a half days to get it done.

And here she is on... Bolero's are just so "in" right now - and I swear I'm not one who pays much attention to what's hot this season... But I've done a couple of these (years ago - way before blogging) and I thought sure - why not? I'm also pretty pleased with the whole working out thing, and noticing some difference in my waistline.

It's surprising how much warmth this teeny tiny little thing actually provides, and it's comfy, and handspun.

As you can probably see from the pic of the front of the Ribwarmer (up at the top of the page) I still have a lot of yarn left over - I started off with 8 ozs, and maybe used half of that. I'm thinking maybe some long fingerless gloves to go with? Maybe? Or would that just look weird? Oh, I don't know - I do know that I love the color gradations in the yarn itself, and it really fit the bill as far as knitting something quick and mostly mindless.

I've also closed up the moth holes in my No Sleeves in Your Pi - or I guess I should just call it a Pi shawl now. I still haven't figured out where I'm going to block it, so no pictures of that yet.

I've also finally finished the Socks O' Shame... I still can't believe that it took me so long to actually finish these suckers. You know how most people are pretty good with the first sock, and then go oh - shiny, pretty new pattern/sock yarn that must get knit up now. Well, I'm kinda the opposite. I start a sock, and it takes forever, then I finally get around to the second sock, and it just trucks right along, and I'm done in no time. I am not kidding when I say that I started the first sock about 2 years ago - would work on it here and there, not much. I'd carry it around with me, just in case I had an odd moment, I guess I just haven't had many odd moments over the last couple of years. The second sock was started about a month or so ago, I haven't been working on it exclusively or anything, but it's done! As you can see they're just really basic 2x2 rib socks - knit out of Sockotta on size 0 needles. I can't remember where I saw the idea, but some lovely blogger mentioned that she really liked to demarcate the toe shaping with a row of purl stitches right before the toe shaping. I wasn't so sure with the first sock, but I carried it on with the second sock, and think I'll be using it again.

Anyway - that's it for this installment - I'll try to not have so much time elapse until the next one - there have been technical difficulties.

Finally Switched!! Whoo Hoo

2007-01-28T17:40:00.001-08:00

They've finally switched everyone over from the Old Blogger...So, as you can probably see, figuring out how to get everything switched over - lots of tweaking, and I even managed to get a picture up into my header - only problem? I'd really like to have it stretched all the way across the top - anyone have any ideas on that? I think I'd need to upload it at a certain pixel size, or something and then not check the "shrink to fit" box... But I'm not too sure how to go about doing that - or what size would be optimal - sure would be nice if there was a "stretch to fit" box. Any hints or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Another idea I'm kicking around is to maybe have a montage type pic in the header... I can put something together and save it as a jpeg - still not so sure about what size it wants to be though.

Also if anything looks really funky, could someone let me know? I look at my Blog in Firefox most of the time, though I did notice that the border on the right of the main posts is not showing up in IE... No idea how to fix that - and to be honest, I don't think that's a big problem, just looks a bit wonky, oh well! But it's coming along nicely - just have to update my links and my web rings, and hopefully figure out if it's possible to have a better header picture - any know-how and I will be eternally grateful!

In other news - well, it's been a nice quiet weekend - the BBE took me out for sushi last night - I got to get all gussied for him, which is always fun. I just spent the day yesterday basically tidying up my house. Having Gwen move in, well - things get cluttered up awfully fast. Plus I've just been feeling kind of tired and overwhelmed just lately - work hasn't been easy, looks like going on-line might just be a big fat hairy deal for a while, so going through some major withdrawals with that.

My Socks of Shame are almost done - just finishing up the toe on the Second Sock. I still just can't believe that I started these almost two years ago.

Bad news on blocking the Pi shawl - I noticed something has been munching on it - and there are some holes that are definitely going to need to be repaired. Should be an adventure anyway - I guess that's what I get for letting it sit in the pile next to my dresser for so long. It won't be easy to match the yarns in the spaces where the holes are either - but luckily there are so many different fibers and textures going on throughout the whole piece that I think I can manage to spin up some little bits of something to make it match. I hope.

And here's just a little pretty that I shot on my walk the other day. Between the walking and the Pilates - I'm definitely feeling a lot thinner and more fit - I like it (so does the BBE)

Thanks!

Pictures of Progress (Pi - and Log Cabins)

2007-01-23T19:46:00.000-08:00

I promised pictures of the No Sleeves in Your Pi in my last post.

To recap - this is a project I started, well over 5 years ago when I still lived in England, and was just starting to feel like I could do this spinning stuff. I spindle spun the body of the whole thing - on lollypop spindles no less, (though the outside border is wheel-spun BFL). All done very early on in my spinning career. Using everything that I could get my hands on - the only criteria being that it was all done in naturally colored fibers. I was in that stage of ordering little bits and bobs of just about everything I could get my hands on. I was also just spinning those bits as they came, and as my mood dictated - very whimsical and fun spinning - start a spindle with angora and silk, go through camel down, and end up with mohair or BFL, or shetland or something else altogether. Ply it together with another spindle of mixed together willy-nilly fibers and end up with a true work of art.

It was great fun - why don't I spin more like this anymore??? I should do. This was a great project for me at the time.

I am not exaggerating when I say that I worked on it for about 2 months straight. I remember thinking that the spinning took a lot longer than the knitting. Spin up two bitty spindlefuls - ply it together, set the twist and wait for it to dry so I could knit it into the shawl. I picked out stitch patterns, and then came to California on vacation - I hadn't been home in nearly 3 years at that point - and brought it with me to work on, especially as a momento - I was really hoping to have it done before I came out. Well - that trip ended up in me deciding that I just couldn't live in the UK anymore - my whole soul was screaming at me as the plane landed back at Heathrow... So I made the very difficult decision of asking for a divorce, and moved back to California the following May. Jumped without a parachute. Big time. But I'm glad I did, though I can't say there are no regrets. It's so hard to move country! I miss a lot of the friends I made - and I especially miss my oldest son who decided to stay there, but it's good to be home.

Right - well, the Sleeves part of the Sleeves in Your Pi just wasn't panning out, so I ripped those out, and just kitchenered the stitches backtogether. I'm so happy to have it done and dusted off - though it still needs to be blocked - I wanted to show you how pretty it is.

Also up in this post - more promised pictures - I've been working on my Off Centre Log Cabin as well - there's still a long way to go... but I'm a third of the way done. There's a full kilo of yarn in the 12 blocks that are finished.

It's being knit on size stupid needles (3.25mm) so I really have no idea when I'll be done, but I can say there's still plenty of yarn in my DK weight cotton stash to finish it off, so no worries there. There's a lot of Patons Cotton DK - some Elann Luna - Rowan Cotton Glace and Handknit Cotton DK - Jaeger Aqua - Wendy Cotton DK - basically a bunch of cotton DK that I picked up when I lived in the UK - most of my stash is pretty basic wools and cottons that I bought while living over there, I had it all shipped back to me as packing material.... And I have to say that out of everything that I did bring home with me - the stash took up the bulk of what I had shipped. I'd have a whole big box full of yarn, and a pottery salad bowl.

Anyway - Don't have time to post more right now - as always so much I want to talk about - so little time. I am kinda pleased with myself for keeping up with a couple of the goals that I set for myself at the beginning of the year (posting more - and finishing off some of these darn UFO's!)

You know it's going to be one of those days...

2007-01-22T18:27:00.000-08:00

When you walk into your office and one co-worker is sitting and reading the newspaper, and the boss is just sitting there with his head in his hands. It's just going to be bad. Really bad.

We were dead in the water for most of the day. Computers were down - totally down. Some sort of virus or worm or something. The problems started last week, and they've been working on it... My whole department kept coming up totally clean on any scans, whoohoo!! I've been well trained because they did not have any virus software on our computers! None - nothing - nada - zip. But we can't do anything without the network, and they couldn't reboot the network or the server until every.single.machine had been rescanned, and rebooted.

Anyway I did as much as I could do without a computer, and then I got to sit and knit... At work! Oh.my.gosh.... That never happens, I mean I knit or I spin on my lunch break, but that's it.

So the Socks of Shame have been worked on a bit. I had the Second Sock'o 1/2 through the heel flap - and was able to finish that off, turn the heel pick up my gusset stitches and voila - almost a half a sock - and I could knit at work! Whoo hoo.

Of course we paid for it later - couldn't even start to bill out todays orders until after three. The UPS system was down too, so in order to make sure that our orders got out - we handwrote the tags. Everyone else left (I'm the last one in at my job - so the last one out, and get to make sure everything is done and taken care of before I leave). Of course the system came back on-line right before our sexy UPS driver got there, and I was able to scramble and get everything done. And then of course - I had two last minute orders - which meant driving to UPS to drop those off after work. Whew! I'm still feeling a bit frazzled!

Oh - I hadn't mentioned. I finished off the Pi Shawl over the weekend. (And a very nice weekend it was indeed.) I just finished ripping out the vestiges of the sleeves, and kitchenered them up. Still needs blocking... I think I'm going to do that at the BF's house - he has one of those Papasan chairs that I think would make a terrific frame for a circular shawl, not quite sure if it will be big enough, (the chair - not the shawl) but I'll give it a go.

We went out and played pool last night for the first time in ages. Really shouldn't wait that long between sessions. Boy am I rusty! But I did win one game, (and didn't lose the others by too much either) and that made me happy.

The weather today was beautiful - I went for my walk, knit on my socks. It was around 70 degrees, and the bay just looked like glass, it was so calm and still.

Oh - and one last thing regarding my laundry situation. I really don't mind doing laundry when I have a washer and dryer in the house... (which I just don't at the moment - haven't done for almost 5 years now)

But honestly I don't mind doing it - I don't mind folding it... Putting it away, well, I'm better about that than I used to be.

But when doing laundry means sorting it all - gathering it all - loading it all into the car - taking it to the laundrymat - trying to find quarters because the change machines there are invariably broken. Basically spending hours of my day off being tied to taking stuff out of the washer and putting it in the dryer, so you can make sure to be there, so your clothes don't get nicked... And it's very close to freezing outside? New clothes were definitely the way to go that time. Wish I could afford to do more of that :-)

Oh, and let's not forget that the last time I actually went to the laundrymat - (on my extra day off no less), they decided to do work on the water mains outside the place I went. Before one of my washers had finished it's cycle - one of the big ones that you can't open until it's finished. 7 hours later my laundry was done. So I guess I've been avoiding it a bit, and had a lot built up.

I really need to get pics of the Off Center Log Cabin (in it's 1/3 done state) and the Pi shawl, hopefully done and blocked before too long. Stay tuned!

An hour of ripping

2007-01-17T19:19:00.000-08:00

Yep - at least an hour of ripping out the sleeves on my Pi Shawl last night - and all I ended up with was this! There's a lot of angora in this part of the shawl, and it's been sitting for 5+ years. I know you feel my pain - but I do want to get this done - and I am determined!

Might just take a few nights of rip fest though.

And I guess you can tell I was actually able to go on my walk today, it was slightly warmer - and I had warm, lined pants on. I stopped off at Ross last night, and bought myself some new clothes - The boss was expected today, and I really really need to do laundry - was dreading doing it in the cold last night (not having a washer and dryer is such a pain sometimes!) so I took the easy way out! So bad, I know! But I do like Ross - I shop the clearance rack - and you really have to look - but I came away with three pairs of nice slacks for work (two pair lined - which is good because it's always freezing in my department). Two pairs of comfy sweats, a 6pack of socks, and two comfy shirts for bumming around the house, and I spent less than $60. I do like a bargain! Makes me kind of wonder... Maybe I should just stop doing laundry altogether - I mean clothes are pretty cheap these days. My ex-husband once came up with an idea of a whole social structure just based on laundry. He was stoned at the time though. But just think about - the very structure of society based on how often you do your laundry. Can you afford to just buy clothes because you can't be bothered to wash them? Or because your boss is coming into town, and you really want to look your best... Well - I certainly couldn't afford to just live like that - but you know, it's tempting.

So yeah - my walk today. On the way down to the bay I saw these. Someone is spraypainting my name with arrows on the street?!? I'm sure it's something standard that they do - not some weird stalker thing or anything like that... But I just thought it was really weird that my name is painted on the street where I walk as often as I can! And the arrows? Well, I never know which direction I'm going in anyway.

I also saw this great grey heron - isn't he just spectacular?

Ethereal

2007-01-16T16:44:00.000-08:00

I managed to get some pictures of the CVM/silk yarn all finished and ready to knit... Of course I can't cast anything on until I finish at least one WIP - so I think I'm going to go home tonight, kitchener up the sleeves on my Pi Shawl and call it good. Thanks for the comments folks - they really do help!

So here she is all 1,050 yards (10 ozs, in one skein). I wish I'd gotten at least one shot of it with something where you could get an idea of the scale of the monstrosity of it all... but I do love it! The skein was soaked in steaming hot water, and treated none to gently, which felted up the CVM strands in a really nice way... I love how this shot on one of the pathways near my work shows the glints of the silk throughout.

Here's a close up shot so you see the juxtaposition of the fulled CVM with the shiny goodness of the silk - mmmmm silk. I still have half a bobbin of the silk singles, and am trying to think what I can ply with it.

I finally cast on for my Second Sock of Shame - I can't even find many pics of the first one - just a bog standard 2x2 ribbed Sockotta sock in the Jeans colorway... Nothing fancy or exciting - nice socks, but I started them 2 years ago now. Damn, I don't understand what has taken me so long to finish the darn things!

I also finished block #12 of my Off-Centre Log Cabin that I started last year. I should be able to get some nice pics to show if I remember to bring them to work with me so I can take pictures during daylight hours - outside of my office... I've done it before - just lined them up on one of the many lawns in this industrial/office park type area where I work - not the ideal setting for taking pictures of knitting, but what else can I do?

It's been so freaking cold here! This morning there was once again ice everywhere on the way to work. Now I fully understand that it's January, and it's a lot colder in a lot of other places - but we just don't get freezing temperatures here very often. Add to that there's no moisture in the air, and I go around wearing my coat and a scarf and three sweaters all day every day - and get zapped every three minutes - static electricity is annoying!

Anyway, hope everyone is staying warm out there!

UFOing along...

2007-01-14T18:59:00.000-08:00

I finally finished plying the CVM and silk that I showed on my Joy the other day.

I ended up almost filling up one of my Schippertj bobbins - for a grand total of 10ozs (really this time!) and 1050 yards of three ply goodness. This is definitely the closest I've gotten to filling up one of these monstrous sized bobbins. I sure do love having this wheel!

It's hanging up to dry even as I type this. I have taken to calling it ethereal - I love the light spots of the undyed cvm in the whole thing. It was a pleasure to spin!

I'm in a space right now where I just haven't been knitting much over the last couple of weeks. Don't know why really.... Projects ongoing that just aren't exciting me too much right now I guess. The BBE wants a Jayne hat, but in green. Plans are ongoing for that.

I really really want to get a dent made in that damn WIP list over on the right on my sidebar... I took pictures of the Sleeves in your Pi shawl that I started way way back when I still lived in England. I worked on that for about 2 months straight - I mean, everyday - I wasn't working at the time, and had a lot of time back then. I only used natural coloured fibers - there's a lot of Blue Faced Leicester, some mohair, a lot of angora grey and white, silk, camel down, some shetland, and some Falkland Islands wool. All early spindle spun, and boy it sure did take some time.

I would spindle two spindlefulls (on my lollipop - toy wheel - spindle no less) and then ply, and set twist and then knit. This was from an old Knitters magazine pattern based on EZ's Pi shawl - there's a lot of pinwheel sweaters out there now that is basically the same idea - you knit a circular shawl leaving an opening for sleeves, and then knit the sleeves. Well I definitely got that far. But I wasn't happy with how the sleeves had decidedly different stripey bits going down them, I lost track of the lace pattern on one of the sleeves, can't find the book that I got the lace pattern from to begin with, and just basically lost interest in it.

Over the last couple of months I've gone ahead and ripped out most of what I had done with the sleeves, thinking to start them again - but now I'm wondering if I should just forego the whole Sleeves in Your Pi idea, kitchener the sleeve holes together and call it done. What would you do?

I don't really see myself wearing it as a circular shawl - but I don't have any circular shawls to say that I don't like to wear them.... I do see myself wearing it as a SIYP though, but I'm not so sure what I'll do, I'd probably need to spin up more yarn to go with it that's for sure. Any ideas or helpful hints are always appreciated!

I've been tagged

2007-01-11T13:17:00.000-08:00

OK - so I've been tagged by Janet... Believe it or not, it's a first for me. I've never been tagged before - just lucky I guess.

So hmmm - 6 weird things about me - not that easy to come up with really, I don't have many OCD type issues, but there are a few that come to mind:

I do not eat Chinese food if I don't have chopsticks - it's just not right. I have been known to grab a couple of pens and use the backs of them instead.
I can not jump hurdles. Not for the life of me.
It took me about 4 summers to be able actually dive into a pool of water - and I've always been very comfortable swimming.
I have broken the same toe 3 times. I also broke the two toes right next to it at one point. Those are the only bones I've ever broken.
I am really not fond of watermelon. I do, however, like brussel sprouts and spinach.
My eyes were blue when I was younger. Now they've developed a lot of hazel type highlights that make them more green or yellow, but very difficult to describe. I've actually had to turn to someone and ask them what color they thought my eyes were when filling out my drivers license application.

Wow - I made 6!
THE RULES: Each player of this game starts with the ‘6 weird things about you.’ People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave a comment that says ‘you are tagged’ in their comments and tell them to read your blog.”

Not sure if I'm going to go tag six people or not - stay tuned.

Oh - and the vegetables from the last post? Well, over the last couple of weeks I've been doing my normal routine of going to the grocery store on the way home from work to pick up dinner supplies. Three times in a row I've gone to get something that I know I bought, and there is absolutely no sign of it. Weirdest thing ever. The BBE said, that it was obviously the kids scarfing up the food before I had a chance to cook it up. But I'm missing a giant yam! And an acorn squash, and a 2 pound brick of cheese, and some mushrooms. The cheese, maybe. But the yam, the mushrooms, and the squash? Not a chance that the kids would scarf that! Just weird - Not all of this stuff was supposedly bought at the same time either - so I'm doing it on a regular basis.

Obviously it is the gremlins. Or maybe I just wasn't paying attention putting all my stuff from the checkout line into the basket. The other night... I did my normal grocery shop, thinking - OK ab, Make sure you get everything in the cart after you've gone through the checkout. Yep, nothing left sitting there - no extra bags or anything. I got it all home, and guess what? I was missing a head of lettuce. We had cucumber, tomato and avocado salad that night. And it was good too! With a little honey mustard vinagraitte. Mmmm - must do that again. Not buy lettuce and not get to eat it. Just not buy the lettuce.

Anyway - enough weird and rambling things from me - I'm outta here! Have fun y'all - and don't forget your vegetables.

That time of the year

2007-01-10T18:23:00.000-08:00

Knitting completed in 2006

Yep - everyone else is doing it - but I thought it would be nice to look at the knitting that I've accomplished over the last year. There didn't seem to be as much as I thought there would, but then again - projects that just crashed and burned and were ripped won't be shown. Of course the baby blanket that I made for my Zaney little nephew still hasn't seen a photo op either.

Looking back - I guess I just ended up spending an awful lot of time behind the spinning wheel. Boy, did I make a lot of yarn! No idea of the totals of course (note to self - remember to update stash spreadsheet with new yarn that I've spun, even if I can't get all the yarn in the house on there, I should be able to keep that updated!).

For 2007 I would really like to get more knitting accomplished. That is a goal. Have I been knitting lately? Well - no, not really. Ran into a snag on the top secret project, and need to rip. And I don't have any new projects started. I'd so love to start a new project, but look over to your right - you see that list? The WIP list. I have stuff on that list that has been there since the inception of this blog (or as soon as I figured out how to add stuff in the sidebar anyway). And even worse? A lot of that stuff has been OTN for at least 5 years now.

Yep - that is not a typo. I hang my head in shame. I have a confession to make. I am much better at starting projects than I am at finishing them. It's true. Shameful, and guilt provoking (well, not too much guilt really - starting a new project would be equivalent to, oh I don't know - eating a whole thing of Ben and Jerry's in a sitting, very enjoyable - but slightly naughty).

So yeah - next assignment is to get pics of all of those projects, and then work out some type of workable plan for getting some of those done, dusted and finished off.

And in other news - I've been walking the last couple of days - but the big thing? I found some Pilates DVD's and have been trying to do a workout every day. My daughter and I have been having great fun doing it together. You should see us - we aren't very clear on the whole concept of left and right, so we constantly get it wrong and end up bumping into each other. We are getting better at it though. And I have definitely noticed a difference in the belly department. Good stuff, if you get a chance to try it - please do! Very good for focus. A lot of breathing, not too strenuous - but very hard work at the same time. My triceps are still a bit sore, and lord knows that at my age - my triceps need work.

Also, my BBE surprised me the other night with this... I know it's a crappy picture. But basically he went onto my Flickr account and found bunches of photographs that I've taken, collaged them, printed it all out and made the frame. He's been helping his sister do a bunch of stuff around her place - she's redecorating. One of the projects has been new blinds. With some of the leftovers he put together this little frame for me. I've been talking about how I want to blow up some of my pretty pictures, and get them framed, and he just up and did a little project for me. I'm kinda lucky I guess. He's pretty nice to me.

So I've finished off one spindleful of the Optim that I've been spinning on my lunchtime walks - need to do another.

On my Joy I'm almost done spinning the silk that I'm going to ply with the CVM from the last post.

No knitting progress to report.

Oh, and the next post - disappearing vegetables!

Some pictures!

2007-01-02T00:47:00.000-08:00

So I was able to get some pictures today of the Stuff that I'm currently spinning - no go on the baby blanket I'm afraid... Soon though.

Oh - and we had a wonderful New Year's Eve - the Best Boyfriend Ever took me OUT - dancing even! Most of the time I got to dance on me own - but he actually got out on the dance floor for a few songs with me. A total First. He's the guy who doesn't dance. Very wonderful and romantic indeed... And to be honest - while my boyfriend is a really really good, steady, easy-going nice man. He's really NOT good at the romance department. Says it makes him feel all squeamish and mucky inside. I have to admit, there has been a bit of ~~nagging~~ encouragement in that direction on my part. He's fulfilled his quota for the time being - until, of course Valentine's day.

Anyway. Back to the pictures - What first? I guess the Pink Silk Bubble Yummy... Since I went on about what a PITA it was to Navajo ply two bobbins together (6 ply yarn) in my last post. It doesn't look that bad in this picture, but trust me - there are areas that are snarled and snarfed up within the skein - I figure I'll just deal with them when I'm knitting it up.

And here they are together.... Hard to tell how they'll both knit up - but I'm really hoping that I can make this work in some sort of project.

I've filled up two bobbins of the 8ozs of CVM - And have the silk going on a third bobbin. Am currently trying to decide whether or not to spin up two bobbins of the silk (I do have enough) to make a 4ply. The CVM seems awful fine, and I'd like to make something that won't take a lifetime to knit up... 3ply might just work out ok though.

And in other news. A couple of posts ago I was wondering whether the scarf I gave my mom for Christmas last year was in a state good enough to take pictures of.... Sadly, while we were gathered at my Grandmother's house she came to me with the announcement that she had bad news. She had lent it to my step-sister, to go out to dinner with a friend. My stepsister accidently left it at the restaurant. Mom went back to see if anyone had turned it in, but it was gone. Sigh - it was spindle spun too - very pretty silk/wool blends in two different greeney colourways. I knit it up into a multidirectional scarf - and now will probably never get a picture of it. Though I do live in a really nice little town. I am sure that if I see it around town, the person who scored it would give it back. I sure hope they are enjoying it. I know for a fact that they have no idea how much work went into it. Oh well... So she informed me that I get to make another scarf for her. I'm planning on either the yarn left over from the Wings o'the Moth shawl - or the Red Hat yarn that I did in Ingeo.

Anyway - got to get to bed, it's late, and I'm being paged.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Back in the saddle.

2006-12-30T17:02:00.000-08:00

Yeah, so I've been really crap about updating this here bloggy thing - and I've been totally crap about taking pictures of the stuff that I've been working on lately.

I spun up the rest of the Bubble Yummy silk, I ended up Navajo plying the two bobbins together to end up with a 6 ply 100% silk yarn... With lots of tangles and snarls. D'oh! I don't like Navajo plying very much to start with - but I had two full bobbins, and I needed some serious grist to it so I could use it with the original Bubble Yummy yarn. I ended up with 190 yards which will knit up nicely with the 3 ply that I made earlier, and hopefully be enough to make myself something purty.

I also did the last minute, oh shit - must knit presents for everyone... starting the Thursday before Christmas (Yeah, I know - remember I am crap!). Anyway, I ended up starting a Log Cabin baby blanket for my adorable nephew Zane. I hadn't made him one, and have been feeling guilty about it. Christmas just does bring up all kinds of guilt issues for me - there's always so much that I want to do, and feel like I should do - but I don't have the time or the energy or the money to do everything that I want to do, so what ends up happening is that not much at all actually gets done. This turns itself into a vicious cycle. I wish more than anything that I could just take to my bed, until it's all over - I have contemplated doing some sort of religious conversion just to get out of Christmas - but I'm not much for organised religion in the first place, and really not much for knocking on the doors of complete strangers. Basically I do end up getting through it - but it's a bit like bad sex.... Just lay back and think of Scotland.

The blanket got done, and I did not get one picture of it. Not.one. What was I thinking? How could I have not gotten the picture. It's really not so difficult - my brother's house is only a five minute walk from my house, and have I gotten over there since? No. Sigh - oh well - I will get one soon and post it up here.

I ended up using commercial superwash wool for the baby blanket, and I realised that I have not knit with commercial yarn in some time now. It was not nearly as satisfying, that's for sure. I've been in on a conversation with some other spinners about how we as the creators only see all the imperfections, and are much harder on our own work than any one else would ever be. But at the end of the day that's what I really love about knitting with my handspun - it has character.

So anyway. It was a very quiet, low-key Christmas around Abi Abode. I did get a new (to me) couch thanks to Craigslist. I just love it! I could live on this couch - it is so comfy and cozy. Totally covered in denim, and like a comfortable pair of nicely worn in jeans. And yes, that is my Wings o'the Moth shawl covering the back. And yes, that is me spinning on my Joy. Pretty much my normal posture while spinning. I like to lounge baby. I also really like the Single Treadle, couldn't get this comfy if I had to have both feet working the peddles all the time....

I've been working on the CVM that I dyed in blues and greens on my last big dye day. It wants to spin up extremely fine - and there's 8 ozs of it. It's taking me days to just fill one bobbin. I'm planning on spinning up a bobbin of blue and green silk to ply with it.... Should be loverly! And hopefully a bit more substantial as a three ply. If I just did it up as a two ply it would only be good as a shawl, and this stuff is definitely next-to-skin soft.

Other big news around AbiAbode is that my daughter is moving back in with me. I've written before about how tiny my place is, but luckily there is crawl space above the entire length of my two studio apartments, and she can store most of her stuff up there. It will be cramped, and crowded, but we will make it work. It's awfully nice having her around though. She's getting settled in nicely, and trying to figure out what she wants to do as far as work and school.

And the last big item... My Christmas present from the BBE - sorry, I just have to show it off. I love it! I've always wanted emeralds. It's a Promise Ring, and something to show that my guy has "marked his territory". I still need to take it in to get sized, I have some skinny fingers, and it's a bit too big. But I don't want to give it up.

Anyway - I guess that's about it for this installment. One of my goals for the New Year is to make sure to update this thing on a more regular basis. There have been conversations about getting internet on again at my house, which will definitely make things a bit easier.

Handspun hat

2006-12-10T13:29:00.000-08:00

The BBE went out and bought himself a cheap little ACKrylic beanie last weekend. It was not flattering, it felt awful, and honestly - the Best Boyfriend Ever wearing a cheap-o acrylic hat?? Obviously I couldn't have that.

So I grabbed a couple of leftover bits and bobs of some spindlespun stuff and started knitting. I had a 3.5mm 16" needle. I figured I would get about 5sts/inch with the yarn... So I cast on 100 stitches and knit in 2x2 rib with some green silk/wool blend that I spindle spun last year, and used most of to knit a MD scarf for my mom. That reminds me - I never did get a pic of that project. It was nice too - wonder if it's in piccable form at the minute.

Anyway. I knew that I wouldn't have enough of the green to knit the whole hat out of, so I threw in some stripes of some blue which was the border on my Comfort shawl, I didn't even have enough of that for the entire hat, so I threw in some other wool/silk blend. Knit for about 7" total, and then did an easy k2tog for a decrease 10 times. (Knit 2 together knit 9 all the way around) knit another row plain - k2tog, knit 8 - knit one round plain - continue on in this fashion with the decreases being one stitch closer together every other round, until you have a couple of stitches left on the needles. Break the yarn and thread through the open loops on the top of the hat, and weave in ends.

It only took me a couple of days to knit it up. Probably could have finished it sooner, but I let it sit for a day or so because I just couldn't be bothered to find another needle of the same size. For some reason I wanted to do the two circs method - Though I quickly decided that dpn's are so much easier for me - and once I switched over it was done in no time.

But the funny thing is - it doesn't quite work on him - it looks great on me! But him? Not so much - so it looks like I'll get to knit another hat as soon as I get home. Another problem is that I think I pretty much used up my whole stash of "spun up masculine type yarn, that would work for a hat" on this one. Oh well, it's not like I don't have commercial yarn that would work nicely as well. We're talking about a Jayne hat. And of course he has been bugging me for a while to make him a Rock Star hat - you know, like the old beer can hats - but with RockStar cans... and dreads, and it has to be orange and purple. Sigh.

I also spun up all the silk that I dyed in the Bubble Yummy colourway. I ended up Navajo plying it with two strands held together to make a 6 ply yarn. I really don't like Navajo plying much, and there was a fair amount of swearing - and the yarn itself has some weirdnesses to it where it started to all go horribly wrong, and I just let the wrongness stay in the yarn because it was way too fiddly and hard to pull the silk out again. Sigh. I like the grist though, and it should work well in conjunction with the kid merino/silk yarn featured in my last post. Though I also have to say - that turned out to be closer to 8.5 ozs than 10 - which makes me feel a lot better about the yardage!

No pics of the silk - it's sitting on my niddy noddy at home - I ended up with 190 yards or so, and like I say, it will meld in nicely with the other stuff that I spun - now what to turn it all into? Lord only knows.

In other news - I've been toying with the idea of taking the 4 days after Christmas off.... I have quite a lot of vacation time built up, but I don't like to spend it (probably why I have so much built up?) Anyway - after I got sick a couple of weeks ago, and had to use 24 hours of PTO - I thought there was no way that I should use up more for "just" me time. Well, I started to talk it over with the BBE. He asked me what I would do with all that time off (if I take 4 days - it means that I have 10 days off in a row!!) I said - "Whatever the hell I want!" And that pretty much decided it for me - I haven't had any time off since a 4 day weekend for my b-day way back in June. I guess I really need it because after the paperwork had been filled out, and handed in - I seriously felt like a huge weight had been lifted off of me. I was all smiles for the rest of the day - and I'm just so happy, and in such a good mood, it boggles the mind. So YAY for time off! I just hope I don't spend the entire time playing solitaire, like I did yesterday - so insidious and evil!

Bubble Yummy

2006-12-03T15:44:00.000-08:00

So it's been a little while since my last post. I've been working on a top secret project - and can't post about that -this is the first time I've had a project that I can't blog - and it's really really no fun! It's been going along swimmingly - and then somehow I messed up part of the pattern - a really easy pattern - but mistakes have been made, which of course means frogging. I hate frogging! But once I get back to where I screwed up, it should just be a matter of an evening or two's knitting.

But spinning that I can share has progressed as well... I've finished plying up these three bobbins. The two bobbins on the outside are kid merino, I've showed you those before... In the center is the Tussah silk that I dyed in a similar colourway, but different dye bath. I've really enjoyed this project so far. The colours are so pretty together, and the fibers are so scrummy! It's just been such a pleasurable spin!
I plied all three bobbins together onto my Schippertje wheel (I just call her Skipper) and ended up with 540 yards of 3 ply goodness. It ended up being closer to 10 ozs. I still have almost half of the bobbin of tussah silk left over. That silk, man - it just does go a looong way!

Here you can see that there's actually even room left on the bobbin, with 10 ozs all plied up. I do love my Skipper! It was after dark by the time that I took this picture, so you'll have to forgive the flash picture. I really wanted to get this all skeined up, and see how much yardage I ended up with. I've been having some issues with her though. The piece of wood that is under the hinge for the front part of the treadle just has 4 little double pins to hold it to the treadle. Last night I had to reattach it - again - for the 4th time. I've even tried gluing it - but then again, I had one of the boys do it before. Maybe this time I managed to fix it properly - I'm sure hoping I have!

So yeah - 540 yards. Not nearly as much as I'd expected to get. I know a lot of you are saying - wow - that's a lot! But remember the yarn I spun for my Wings o'the Moth? I had two full Joy bobbins which gave me 1170 yards! I spun this stuff fairly fine, hoping for some good yardage, and ended up with less than half of that... Puzzling isn't it?

So I have enough of this yarn to make a good size scarf - or maybe (maybe) a bolero type vest, but I want a full fledged sweater out of it, so I've decided to spin up the rest of the Tussah silk (I still have about 6 ozs left) as a three ply, and then combine that into a project with this yarn. Which I've taken to calling Bubble Yummy. I haven't soaked it and set the twist yet. I'm expecting it to bloom quite a bit, and am planning on abusing the poor yarn to help that process along. But here it is, in it's unbloomed, unset, unabused glory.
I really wish y'all could reach through the monitor to touch it - it's just so soft and buttery! I wore it wrapped around my neck like a scarf last night, oh man! It's really not a good scarfy type color though - so will continue spinning on the silk. I was really hoping to get started on the CVM that I dyed, but no such luck. Soon though - I'm really looking forward to the soft halo of the kid merino blend against the silk yarns... doesn't that just sound like a marriage made in heaven? No idea what sort of pattern I'll use - but I want it to be something really feminine and girly.

In other news... I didn't get the job that I interviewed for. Can't say I'm not disappointed, but at the end of the day, nothing has changed. I still have a job - and it's OK - I'm not real happy there, but I do know what I'm doing, and where everything is - which I really hate about starting a new job all over again. So things workwise stay the same.

I got a quite a few comments about my daughter having turned 20 last week... I know - I don't feel old enough for that. People are usually surprised when I tell them how old I am - and then when they find out I've got three kids... and how old they are - well I guess I've gotten kind of used to it. I did start off far too young, I was married to my first husband way back in 1983.

The funny thing is - my daughter is my middle child. My oldest son will be 23 tomorrow. He still lives in England, with his other half, and their children. Yep - that's right I'm a grandma... I don't get to spend time with the grandbabies because they are just too darn far away - and that's a really hard thing for me to deal with - I do love the baby loving... But they're doing well, and the kids are fine and healthy, and apparently just smart as anything... So anyway - Happy Birthday Donny - you mom misses you and loves you very very much!

And of course I still have the Boo living with me - he's 16, but pretty easy to get along with most of the time. He gets mad at me because I have too much yarn, and fluff, and I should use up what I have before getting any more... Not that his opinion stops me or anything. He's just started a new home study program, and looks like he'll do really well there. He's also looking at getting his first job, working with my brother doing construction, which will be very good for him.

So - yeah - family update aside... I'm also spinning some more of the Optim that I just dyed on this sweet little cutout spindle. I love that you can see the cop building up through the heart cutouts, and it's a lot of fun to spin on. Very light, but with some rim weight. This is two days worth of spin - very fine laceweight. It will probably go into a project with the other Optim that I dyed and spun.

Until next time... Have fun!

More dyeing, more spinning - too many decisions

2006-11-25T12:35:00.000-08:00

We had a very nice Thanksgiving. First we went to my mom's house for turkey and ham and all the fixings. There was even some of my son's pheasant that my brother had cooked up in the dutch oven. There were a lot of people there (I think 15 or 16 of us), and my mom's house is pretty tiny - but a good time was had by all. There were even babies to cuddle with! This is my nephew Zane - he just had his first birthday, and is walking very unsteadily on his own.

Then we went to the BBE's nephew's house, they'd already eaten - but there was plenty of dessert left by the time we got there.

It was a beautiful sunny morning on Thursday so I was able to get pictures of all the fibers that I dyed last weekend. I've already spun up the 8 ozs of Kid Merino (it's easier than typing kid mohair/merino blend).

I've got half a bobbin full of the tussah silk pictured here (last time you saw it - it looked like brains!) that I'm planning on plying with it. I still haven't decided if I'm going to do a 3 or 4 ply yarn. I guess it just depends on how much patience I can muster up. I love the two fibers together! Also, the kid merino is so soft and wonderful - I don't want to lost that in the yarn. But then again, I'm not sure what I will do with the 4 ozs of the tussah silk if I don't incorporate it all into one yarn... decisions.

On the right is 8 ozs of a superwash merino that I'm thinking will look nice plied with the mystery wool (probably about another 8 ozs) that I picked up at the Spindles and Flyers guild meeting and also got thrown in the dye pot last weekend. Or it might just become something on it's own (more decisions) But it sure is fun! I do love dyeing and playing with fiber!

The Mystery fiber is very spongy, and sproingy - whatever it's going to be, I'm sure it will be fun to spin. I don't normally like spongy sproingy roving - but I think I will like this stuff.

Next up we have 8 ozs of CVM that I dyed in a blue/green colourway. I dyed this in a tall vase - poured some green in the bottom - stuffed roving in - poured some blue on top of that - and just kept layering and pouring in alternating colors of dye. 8 ozs of wool was probably way too much to put into this size of a vase - so there are a lot of areas which didn't take the dye - but I really like that you can still see the natural oatmeal color within the roving. I am really looking forward to spinning this up - it might just be the next in my queue after the kid merino/silk stuff is plied up. I might just throw some silk that I dyed up in my last dye day (at the end of August)

Let's see... I also dyed some more Optim - mmmm Optim! It is just such a wonderful fiber - If you ever see any just touch it - you will have to take some home with you. I didn't try to match the Optim that I've already spun. But think that they might just have to end up in the same project together... at least I know I should have enough yarn to do something with.

I did go ahead and swatch the Optim that I spindle spun - even went so far as to knit the first couple of inches, to maybe make it into a design for a top that I've got kicking around in my head (and even scribbled out on paper). But decided that this particular yarn wasn't exactly right for that particular pattern. I decided that the tomato red merino/tencel blend would work nicely though so I've started knitting a new top for myself - but am thinking that I want to try to submit it somewhere, so probably won't be showing it off. I know - how boring! Not fun - but a lot of places do not want ot have had the design showed off anywhere else if they're going to take on the pattern.

Seems like there should be more than this to show everyone - but I just can't leave off this post without this picture of the kid merino on the bobbins - it's just kind of phartsy - and y'all know how I like my pretty pictures!

I'm so enjoying not having to go to work! The BBE just asked me if it was Sunday - nope! It's still Saturday :-) Whoo Hoo!

I'm planning on going out to lunch and shopping with my daughter in just a bit - she just had her 20th birthday! And we haven't really had a chance to celebrate yet, so that will be nice. We're planning on going to lunch, and then shopping for shoes. Not that she needs shoes - but that's what she wants, and it's her birthday.

And I will leave you with how I kind of feel - I captured this little guy gathering pollen the other day - no idea what the flower is called. But I don't know if I've ever seen a bee more heavily laden down with pollen.

Caramel Swirl revealed

2006-11-22T10:55:00.000-08:00

Finally - the much promised pictures of my Caramel Swirl Cardigan! These were taken by a friend at work during our morning break, and maybe not as good as the pictures that my really nice boyfriend takes - but I've been wanting to show this off, especially after all the moaning about this project that I've done on this blog.

I started this on Labor Day weekend, on our one-year anniversary - on our lovely relaxing trip up to Lake Tahoe. I had this lovely handspun yarn that I call Caramel Swirl (1 ply each of fawn alpaca/camel down/tussah silk/angora-wool).

Basically I decided that I wanted a fairly plain cardigan that I could wear to work, with a deep ribbing, so I did a gauge swatch, did some math, and cast on. Knit in a 3x1 rib back and forth in one piece. There's a garter stitch edging on the fronts which have a knit-on i-cord border. Knit the sleeves with a deep 3x1 ribbing, and joined at the armpits.

My initial thoughts were that I wanted a saddle shouldered cardigan (I haven't done one of those yet). But reading the directions in EZ's Knitting Workshop called for doing decreases every third round - I knit this back and forth, and couldn't quite wrap my head around how to make the decreases match up on the purl rows, so just caved and knit a standard raglan.

Then of course, I lost the last ball of yarn that I spun for it, and waited for a while to see if it would reappear. It didn't. So I had to spin some more yarn to finish it.

My next huge hurdle came with the collar - I looked and looked all over the net, and my own knitting library for a solution that would work. I had a general idea of what I wanted, and just couldn't find it anywhere! So finally after a couple of weeks of dithering, I punted. I just cast on, and knit. It's a sideways garter stitch edging, with short rows thrown in - for a kind of flared edging.

Here's a better pic of the back so you can see how it came out.

I found some buttons at Joanne's that I actually sewed on. (That's a big deal for me, There have been sweaters that have waited for over a year for buttons - not kidding.) I've decided that these buttons aren't quite right, I mean, they're OK - but not fantabulous, so I went back to Joanne's and picked up some really pretty buttons that I do believe will be Just Right. Though I haven't had a chance to sew them on yet. Or gotten a pretty pic of the buttons themselves.

My general verdict on this sweater - I love it. I've worn it the last three days. It's good for work-wear. It's warm, it's soft, it's comfy... what more can I ask for?

In other news. I finished spinning up all 8 ozs of the Kid Mohair/Merino blend from the last post. And I've started spinning the silk that I dyed last weekend. I'm still debating whether I will do a 3 or 4 ply (definitely 2 plies of the Kid Mohair/Merino) and one or two plies of the silk. I've only got a smidge on a bobbin of the silk so far, but oh - is it nice to spin!

Oh - and my job interview yesterday? I thought it went tremendously well. I was there for 2 hours, and met with three people - the manager was in the middle of a few crises, so I had to wait a bit for her - but I think it's a very good sign that I actually got the opportunity to interview with her while I was there. I will hear back at the beginning of next week, and my fingers are even more firmly crossed now, than they were before the interview. Though I am trying my best not to count any chickens, if you know what I mean.

Also, it was my sweet baby girl's 20th birthday yesterday. We are planning on doing lunch together on Saturday. How in the world has this happened? She's a very wonderful young lady, and I just love her so much, but 20? Sigh - I guess I'm getting old.

Tomorrow of course, is Thanksgiving. we're going to my mom's house, and then my BBE's sister's house for 2 dinners. I'm looking forward to seeing my little nephew Zane - he just had his first birthday a couple of weeks ago. And how did that happen? Seems like there's just no way it could have been a whole year ago that he arrived! I understand that he is quite a chunk. I will be sure to get pics for gratuitous cute baby pictures to post.

I hope everyone that celebrates has a wonderful Thanksgiving! I'm sooo looking forward to having 4 days off. I'm hoping to be productive and get some spinning and knitting in - I need to start my Christmas knitting, and there's about 5 (or more like 20) different projects that I'd like to start for myself.... Too many projects/Not enough time!

And here's one more of the back view of the sweater.

Hot out of the microwave

2006-11-20T19:11:00.000-08:00

So I dyed about 2.5 pounds of fiber on Saturday night. I am very pleased with everything I ended up with, and even managed to take a couple of "during" pictures of my dyeing process.

Here is the merino/kid mohair getting ready to go into the microwave. You can kind of see how I arrange the fibers into the baking pan, and then just pour the dyes over. I squished the dyes around within the fiber and then nuked until the water was clear. I didn't carry the lilac all the way across on this batch - I kind of wish that I had, but the resulting roving is beautimous. I have actually spun up almost all of it already! I'm spinning it worsted, and the tips of my fingers are still sore from all the pulling, but ohmygosh is it ever pretty!

Here's a pic of the fiber all dried and ready to spin. As you can see that the dry fiber is much more subdued in color, but, oh so pretty!

For this roving I split it down the middle lengthwise, and spun up one Joy bobbinful (sorry no pics of that - no light). I took the other half of the roving and spun it from the opposite direction. The first bobbin was spun with no predrafting, the second bobbin I have predrafted the entire length of roving before spinning it. I'm really hoping to get the colours to mix up as much as possible - lots of barberpoling and interest (hopefully)

I'm planning on spinning one more bobbinful of tussah silk that I dyed in a similar colourway and creating a three ply yarn. The tussah silk was a lovely surprise in the dyeing stage - it's unbleached, so the colours came out very rich and deep. I haven't gotten a pic of it dry yet - but this is what it looked like before I threw it in the microwave.

Is it just me - or does this look like brains? I think it does anyway, very pretty brains. I just threw this fiber into the baking pan willy nilly, so should have some nice surprises when it's spun up.

Tonight my mission is to finish spinning the tiny bit of merino/kid mohair that I have left. Which will definitely be a pleasure, this stuff is so yummy to spin, I just haven't been able to stop! I plan on starting in on the silk tonight. I'm almost thinking of doing a 4 ply yarn - two plies of each fiber (there would be enough to do so), but don't particularly like knitting with anything bigger than a DK weight, so we'll see.

I also managed to sew the buttons onto the Caramel Swirl. I wore it to work today, it is amazingly warm, and comfy - I even picked up a few compliments - but have decided that the buttons which I thought would pick up the silky bits are really not quite right. I did pick up some new buttons on the way home, and will switch them out tonight as well. I can already see that this cardigan is going to become a staple of my wardrobe.

Sorry, no pics yet - the light has been bad, and I really do want to give it a proper introduction to the blogosphere... so next post, I promise!

Oh, and think good thoughts for me if you're reading this around 11:am PDT - I don't want to jinx myself, but I have an interview tomorrow -Not counting my chickens, but the fingers are ever so firmly crossed (might make tonight's missions a bit diffy). I'm nervous and really hoping that I get it. So, yeah, good thoughts sent my way would be a tremendous help. Thanks!

Oh - and I mustn't forget - I found this little mushroom on my walk yesterday and really wanted to share it with the rest of you.

Fly by posting

2006-11-18T17:05:00.000-08:00

OK - I only have a few minutes, and no pictures to share with y'all - but I did actually finish up the collar (yes you read that right) for the Caramel Swirl Cardigan. It is on my bedroom floor blocking right now, even as we speak (well - I guess I should say as I type). I even bought buttons - they're really pretty mother-of-pearly type buttons that will work nicely - just have to wait for the sweater to dry, and sew those puppies on. The official FO dance will commence on the next posting.

I also have a whole butt-load of fiber soaking in the sink at home waiting on me to start throwing dyes all over them. There's 8 ozs of CVM (California Variegated Mutant - mmm soft!), 8 ozs of honey coloured tussah silk (mmmm shiny!) The Kid Mohair/Merino that Megan sent me - I've been wanting to do just the "right" thing for this fiber, and still haven't totally figured out what that is, but also don't want it to get totally buried in the midst of my monstrosity of stash - so figured I'd just figure it out as I go along (like that's anything different than I normally do, right?). There's also some mystery spongy wool, some more Optim, and 8 ozs of superwash 64's.

I guess that counts as a butt-load (dont'cha just love the technical terminology used on this here blog?). Or maybe somewhere around 2.5-3 pounds of wool to dye.

Depending on how all that goes, I might just throw a couple more things into the mix. But I'm just about out of "fun" fibers to spin - don't have any "real" knitting projects going on right now, and am just at that point. You know that point don't you? Where you have umpteen bagillion possibilities, and dozens of different ideas floating around in your head - with nothing to sink your creative teeth into and be absorbed by. Yep - that's the one.

I also stopped by Borders last night and picked up the new IK - lovely projects. I picked up the new Knitters as well - mostly because I've always been intrigued by Ginger Luters work - and am trying to figure out if the T sweater in there couldn't be made into something really nice if one was to use some really pretty yarn. What are they thinking over there anyway?

And - I picked up the Victorian Lace book - I've been thinking for months and months now that a new lace knitting book should be coming out. I've been going to Borders and coming back empty handed and thinking, why are there no new lace books? Well. My wish has been granted. This is a beautiful book! Much like GOL, same type of instruction system, and layout.

My main quibble with the book is that there are a ton of projects in there that you can't really tell what they look like! I mean the photography is beautifully done - and the shawls and scarves look just gorgeous all wrapped up around the models. Why couldn't there just be a thumbnail pic of the piece laid out flat so you can see what it actually looks like? Tremendously annoying! And there are a couple of full pages of interior shots of what a Victorian house would look like and no knitting! Bestill my heart - no knitting! I'm not kidding. Hmmmph.

But I will say, that I had stopped by with the intention of looking at the book, deciding if I had to have it - and then ordering it via Amazon ($10 cheaper). Well - I bought myself an egg nog latte, sat down in a comfy chair and really looked through the book. Thought about my options for a few minutes, and just bought it on the spot. I just had to have it, and I didn't want to wait. So I guess that counts as a fairly rousing recommendation on my part as it is.

Anyway - Must head off. Will have lots of pretty pictures of FO's (well one anyway - but it's a handspun, handknit self-designed cardigan FO!) and lots of pretty pictures of newly dyed fibers, if I can manage to get to it tonight! And maybe a new WIP if I can figure out exactly what I should be working on at this moment in time, that will fulfill my soul, give me tremendous joy, and an abundance of fun and pleasure (or whatever else I decide to throw onto the needles).

Have fun!

F&F Official FO's

2006-11-11T14:52:00.000-08:00

I managed to finish off the F&F socks last night, as I was hoping! Nice when it works out that way - somehow it doesn't usually. But that's one thing I really like about knitting socks. No worries about the perfect edging stitch, or you know - maybe these puppies need a lace edged pocket, or any other such nonsense. Socks are so wonderfully straightforward. I've developed my own preferences over the years and know that if I have a ball of sock yarn and 4 dpn's I can usually just go to town without having to pull out 10 different reference books. Unlike my Caramel Swirl cardigan which is still languishing at the point you last saw it.

I've tried - really I've tried. I've been over all the lace patterns at knitting-and.com. Numerous times even. I've tried the lace edging patterns at Yarnover.net. I've been through my own personal knitting library - pulled out all the books pictured, and still nothing that just resonates as being the exact right thing. Now - this is just a very small sampling of my knitting books - but out of the ones that I've pulled - you'd think I'd find something right?

This Caramel Swirl cardigan - she is stubborn. I started off thinking that I really wanted a saddleshouldered cardigan - and ended up with a standard raglan. The plain lines I think just call for an i-cord neck edging, so that is what I'm going to try as soon as I get done updating my bloggity blog. Just let the darn sweater do what it wants, and get the heck outta the way.

Oh - I was talking about my F&F Socks, wasn't I? I'm still not feeling 100% - but much better than I was. They started off life as a merino/tencel blend that I bought at Lambtown. Which I dyed in a dye-day frenzy a couple of months ago. Spun it up pretty fine 500 yards/4ozs. A fairly standard 2 ply. The way that it self stripes was somewhat planned. I divided the roving at the half way point, and took that first half and just spun that up with long colour repeats. The second half I split into 4ths lengthwise to get shorter repeats, and then plied the two bobbins together.

I mentioned that the needles that I used were horribly mismatched.... I even managed to get a pic of the needles I used with the socks in question. I guess I am starting to feel a bit better!

Final verdict on the socks... They're OK - I'm not totally in love with them - but that's probably just my general illness speaking. They are softer and squishier on the feet than my normal socks. And I've been needing new socks anyway - so I guess it's all good.

When I went to the doctor yesterday I was actually wearing one black sock and one white sock. All I could find clean. I don't have a washer and dryer at home, and just have not had the energy to do laundry, and to be honest - the need to have matching socks on was not at the top of my priority list.

The Christmas Cacti are blooming at my house. I love the weird alien looking flowers that appear every year.

Actual Knitting Content

2006-11-10T16:34:00.000-08:00

Well the crud caught up with me. I have been totally down for the count since about Tuesday night. Wednesday was the worst. Getting the mail was a Herculean task. Brushing my hair hurt. Basically I was just laid out. When I managed to actually get up and vertical and moving I swear I resembled nothing less than an extra from Night of the Living Dead. I went to the doctor today, and was told that it looked like I had a really bad cold, and to get plenty of rest, drink lots of fluids, and gave me a note for work. I needed the note for work because I've been off for three days. I would not have gone to the doctor if I didn't need the note. Because I know that while I feel like death warmed over, and I don't have much energy, that's exactly what the doctor was going to tell me - and yes, I'm drinking lots of fluids and trying to get plenty of rest.

But! I was able to wind up the ball of sock yarn. Wow - who woulda thought that winding a ball of yarn would be so hard! And I actually started knitting my handdyed, handspun socks! I pulled out Socks X3 and just used the basic stitch pattern for the Feather and Fan socks which I have been eyeing for years now, and just never got around to doing until now.

I'm on the main part of the foot on sock #2 now - and am looking at finishing them off tonight. I'm a 4 dpn's and top down kind of sock knitter. I've always kind of thought it would be really cool to do two socks at a time, but the few times I've tried it I've had to concede defeat. The casting on has beaten me every time.

This is my first ever pair of handspun socks! I have so much commercial sock yarn, it's just a bit overwhelming really! I have a really hard time leaving a yarn shop without at least a ball of sock yarn. It's true that sock yarn doesn't count - but it's also true that it sure does add up.

Before I started these socks I thought that the yarn itself would be really nice for a multidirectional scarf - and I'm almost sorry I didn't stay with my first instinct - but you know, I'm sick, and I knew I could deal with a pair of socks in my muddled state, so that's what I stuck with. I do like how the trekkingesque patterning is coming out. And I really like the fact that I can get a pair of socks that fit my huge feet on 64 stitches. Really makes them fly along. Most of my socks are done on 2.o mm needles, so this was a nice change. I think that most of the needles that I used on these socks are about a 2.5 mm. I just grabbed some likely looking sizes from my dpn jar, I think I ended up with a birch needle, a bamboo needle, a cassein needle and a metal needle - but as EZ says and differences in sizing on dpn's in a project really aren't noticable - and they really aren't.

Well, that's about all I have the energy for today. The BBE wants to drag me out to get burgers and he needs a new video game. Or something. I think I'll sit in the car and knit.

But in the meantime - I also have.... This lovely Monarch butterfly that I captured the other day at work.

No knitting - but plenty of plying

2006-11-06T18:14:00.000-08:00

Warning: Serious yarn Pr0n ahead - scroll down to the bottom

I've been feeling a bit under the weather, nothing serious - just kinda achey and generally run down. One of those things where you feel like you're coming down with the general crud that's been going around, but it hasn't hit full force and you're not sure if it will.

I took the day off on Friday, fully intending to be good and virtuous. Take my time, fiddle about with my projects at a nice leisurely rate: finish my cardigan, do some spinning, maybe get some dyeing done. I dropped the Boo off at school and dropped by my boyfriend's house - might as well - it's practically around the corner. He was still asleep - I gave him quite the startled waking up. He wasn't expecting me in the slightest, he joked that it was a good thing that he'd made all the other girls go home before I showed up. Yeah, right.

I crawled into bed, and the next thing I knew it was 2:30 in the afternoon! I must have needed the rest.

Anyway - Friday night I started plying. I plied the Brown Sheep Shed Studio Mill End rovings that I have been spinning on my Skipper.
'
This is about 260 grams (about 9 ozs or so). I think it's something like 650 yards total. I'm thinking a jacket would be nice out of this - or a nice yoke sweater - with the black/white roving that I also got from the Sheep Shed Studio folks.

All in all - I have to say that this stuff is really nice! Not next to skin nice, but it's got a lovely crispness to it - and you just can't beat the price. I love the heathered look that you get from the roving.

Then I proceeded to spin. I spun up this merino/tencel blend that I dyed in my last dye-day extravaganza. I've been wanting to knit some handspun socks. Believe it or not - I've knit probably a hundred pairs of socks now. Though I think I've only finished 2.5 pairs since I started this whole blogging thing. Socks used to be my "do where ever I go thing" but spindling seems to have taken over that little niche.

There was even a method to my madness. I took the length of roving and folded it in half lengthwise. I tore it apart at the halfway along the roving mark. Spun up one half of the roving without splitting the top, or any predrafting either. Then I took the other half of the roving and split it lengthwise into 4 fairly equal strips and spun them up on another bobbin. I only had 4 ozs of this stuff, so plied them together using the Joy.

This is what I came out with. 4 ozs about 500 yards of something very different than what I had envisioned the roving to spin up to be. Now I think that this should knit up in a nice self striping Trekking type of sock. I don't know for sure until I start knitting. But it was a fun way to spin up some space dyed roving - that's for sure. I can't wait to turn this into it's own little yarn cake and see what it does in the skein.

And last - but very most certainly not least - I present the Optim that I've been spindling for oh.... since about the first of September. I spun it all up on my Lacewood Emily, which has a good 3" whorl. Again I played around with spinning one spindleful just from the roving as it came. The second spindleful was the roving split in half. The two spindlefuls were plied together to give me the loveliest, softest stuff that I have ever spun.

I have taken to calling it my precioussssss and fondling it and petting it, and just holding it up in the light, watching the reflections bounce off it, and watching the drape of it (oh the drape!) I.am.in.love! I wish I could find someplace that sold it at better quantity/price. Every place online that I have seen it, it's $15/4ozs, which to be honest - seems a bit steep. But then again I was able to get a whopping 635 yards from the 4 ozs that I had.

It really reminds me a lot of a pointillest painting, very Monet. The roving that I dyed did the lovely trick of getting nice and dark on the outside, and white on the inside. But because I didn't do much if any predrafting, I ended up with a speckly type effect that I am in love with. Oh - did I mention that I'm in love?

Sorry people I guess I should have warned you about the serious (I mean serious) yarn Pr0n that was about to be foisted upon you. Can you tell that I get excited easily? Or that I'm easily amused? But look! Oh.my.gosh.
I'm sorry - I just can't help it - drool, thud, wow.... I really really can't wait to start knitting this lovely stuff up.

It will grow up to be a lovely lacey little top for yours truly. This again, should have some Trekkingesque self striping tendencies, so I'm considering a Feather and Fan, or other chevron type of thing. It will not need sleeves - just pure unadulterated Optim next to my skin.

Deep breaths - I think I have to go lay down for a minute now before I hyperventilate even more.

My goal for tonight.... easy dinner - pick up a rotisserie chicken that's already cooked, maybe some mac and cheese and some veg and try to get my Caramel Swirl done before I dive into the Impressionistic Dream that I really want to be knitting.

I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with the CS cardigan. I have a sneaking suspicion that this cardigan has a mind of it's own and just doing the darn I-cord along the neckline and calling it good will suffice.

It looks darker in the middle picture, because I took that last night, and the light wasn't as good as it was at lunchtime today - but it's so prony I had to include it!

Flashin my fiber stash

2006-11-01T18:18:00.000-08:00

A wonderful call to flash your fiber stash has arisen on the Knitty board - there's even a FYFS blog so those of you who aren't in on the hype can go see some much better pictures than mine! I wrote out Abiknits & Spins in roving and tried to take a picture of it - here it is in all it's craptastic glory :-)

I fully intended to go through and take loads of lovely pr0ny pictures... but I was organised enough to grab a good portion (probably a good third) of my fiber stash and take pics of it this weekend, while it was still light enough to get decent pictures. This is probably about (I'm guessing) a third of my fiber stash. It is probably the third that is towards the top of the want.to.spin pile.

This time change definitely discombobulates the blogging ability of being able to take pictures in decent light - that's fer shure!

I take an awful lot of my pictures on these here hedges. Really nice to have them available. Here's a shot of me at the end of one of the hedges - just for scale.

The BBE kept saying - but that's not all of your fiber! No - of course it's not. But I didn't have as much time as I'd like (which is totally the story of my life these days!) And trying to dig fiber out of every nook and cranny that it's hidden in around the house - well... more than I could manage last weekend - and of course it's d.a.r.k. by the time I leave work now. Darn daylight savings time!

I did try to get a few more pics... Here's the stuff that is kept in my secretaire desk - three drawers (one is just a few inches tall - so not much in the bottom drawer) which is the top picture here. And also has tussah silk - alpaca - linen/viscose blend
This is some camel down, mystery white fiber - there's some fawn alpaca that you can't really see (sheesh - I suck!) That's OK - probably better to leave the prizes to others who don't already have their kids telling them that they'll never be able to spin up all their fluff.

This is the top drawer - yak down, more silk, some chiengora/wool mix (I've never tried it). Some ingeo/wool mix, which needs to be dyed.

Also I've got a couple of fleeces that need to be processed. I have to say that I've been pretty good about not buying raw fleeces, I know that I just don't have the time to process them. I also don't have a washing machine and it just takes such a long time - otherwise I'd probably be in really really big trouble! This first one is a grey Shetland that I've washed most of - carded a tiny bit of, and am not too impressed with. I'm always hearing people rave about shetland, but this one is really coarse - not sure if they all are. But I'm doubting it!

I also have an East Friesian yearling fleece. This is not supposed to be a breed that is bred for their wool, more for their milk I believe... But being a yearling - I think it should actually clean up really really nicely. I've had it for well over a year now, and haven't done anything with it (yet). I've been thinking about dyeing it in the lock and then trying to process that way - probalby keep me more entertained anyway, and so have more of a chance than the proverbial snowball in hell.

So thanks for perusing some of my stash with me - You'll be seeing more of this - hopefully next time as spun yarn.

My Caramel Swirl is still awaiting a neck edging of some sort - I've been looking far and wide for something that I like and I think will work, and fit into 54 stitches in a sensible manner. Then weaving in underarms and other various ends and a blocking to end all blockings. Once I land on something that will work for the neck edge, it really won't take more than an hour or two to finish off. So close, and yet so far.

Caramel Swirl

2006-10-28T14:08:00.000-07:00

I don't think I've ever posted any of the "blurry headless pictures in the bathroom mirror" on this here blog. Well, not anymore. I'm just about done with my Caramel Swirl. I just have to figure out what I'm going to do with the bind off for the neckling. I'm considering:

An I-cord bind off - I have I-cord going up the center fronts and I think that would carry along nicely with what I've already got going on.

A sideways knitted on garter stitch edging...for a fold over collar. Maybe with some lace. The sweater is very plain. I have some Garter stitch going up the center fronts (before the I-cord edging). I really love the way that sideways knitted on edgings look and finish off a piece. I really don't understand why they are not in more use. Probably because it's such a pain to describe how they're done if you're writing up the pattern! Very simple though - you just cast on however many stitches that you want your edging to be and knit back and forth, eating up a live stitch every other row. Does that make sense? Probably not - but it works beautifully, and you don't have to worry about your bind off being too tight.

I still have to weave in the underarms - you can see the Denise needle that I'm using to hold some of the stitches hanging down out of the sweater on my lower right in the picture at the beginning of this post. That's a standard stitch holder on the underarm in this pic. Hey, it works, and I'm not done yet. And of course weave in the ends - I also have some funkiness where I increased in a couple of places that I think I'll just have to go back and sew in - hopefully with some of the ends that I have left over.

All in all - I decided that this was something that was probably just going to get ripped out. I was not happy with how the I-cord edgings at the front were pulling the middle of the sweater up - and I'm not happy with some of my increase techniques. But looking at these pictures I think I'm going to go ahead and finish off the collar, and block the bejeezus outta it, and then decide. I wasn't sure if my waist shaping would work - I just decreased for a bit, and then increased for a bit longer (My bust is bigger than my hips) and went from there. Sometimes that's a total disaster - sometimes it actually works. I think I managed to make it work on this sweater.

This is knit with my handspun yarn - a 4 ply that I made a while ago. A ply each of tussah silk, camel down, fawn alpaca and an angora/wool blend, that melds together very nicely if I do say so. And it's soft! And warm! And of course with such precious handspun I want a finished item that will actually get worn, and that I'm proud to show off as my own. The jury is still out on this one, but I have a tendency to be overcritical of my own work, and also after spending weeks working on something, I start to question my thinking... It's too plain - the increases are funky - this i-cord at the edgings is pulling up way too much. My buttonholes are a bit wonky - what the heck was I thinking.

And then I take a picture and see that the shaping is actually very flattering on me, it's a good length - I'm very happy with the sleeves, and at the end of the day it's a lot of work to tear out. Stay tuned! It should be finished soon. Then I'll make my final decision.

Moths and Azaleas oh my!

2006-10-24T19:03:00.000-07:00

I finished the Wings o'theMoth shawl on Saturday!

Just a quick WhooHoo with me everyone - Whoo Hoo!

The lace gods did indeed try to smack me down a bit. I had to do the section between the Twin Leaf Lace and the Corona Edging 3 times before I got it right, but I did perservere.

The BBE and I went to go visit an old friend of his who lives a couple of hours away on Saturday. I (of course) took the Moth with me to finish in the car while passengering. We had to stop 3 times for directions (I guess that trouble does come in threes doesn't it?).

At the third stop I went into the gas station and bought my man a California Map. Really helps having one in the car!

Anyway, we had a nice visit with the BBE's friend and his sister, who by the way lives in Maryland, and has offered to put us up *if* we might just want to take a trip out there... In maybe May?? For those not in the know (if you spin and you read my blog - you'd be in the know) but the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival is only supposed to be the biggest festy around. I wanna go!! Now whether or not I'll have the funds come Spring to be able to pull it off would be the big question.

Anyway - the Moth - she is beautimous. These pictures were again taken in front of the Mexican restaurant in the last rays of the sun - so came out a bit warmer in color than all the other pictures you've seen. I'm pretty pleased that you can see the variation in the colours at all. I'm especially pleased with the way that the point looks.

However, I didn't get to show it off at the guild meeting on Sunday. I am ashamed to admit that I overslept. We didn't get back to my house til about 1am - and of course, I couldn't go to the guild meeting with an unblocked shawl... I had time! It was the weekend! We had Deadwood to watch on DVD. I blocked it, and then....

I blocked the Azalea shawl too!
This is one that I finished back in early September - I have been meaning to block it for ages! And if you're already crawling around on the floor with sodden lace - well, you might as well really get down to it, right?

I dyed the roving with Easter Egg dyes in a long colour progression - just like this, but in silk way back in the Spring of '05.

I spun up two bobbins of the silk and plied it in the normal way. I decided on yet another variation of the Azalea Shawl from Marianne Kinzel's First Book of Modern Lace Knitting, this time using only 2 repeats for a triangular shawl.

This one has an amazing drape (well, duh - it's silk!) and I'm totally in love with it. I mentioned before that I thought I'd hang this one on the wall over my bed - and that is precisely where it is currently residing.

Isn't it just amazing what changing one thing in a room will do to the feel of the whole place? Everytime I walk through my room I am just so pleasantly surprised by that!

Unfortunately I did not get to show off my work at my spinning guild meeting on Sunday. I overslept. I guess that's what happens when you are up to all kinds of trouble till the very wee morning hours crawling around blocking shawls.

And why is the spinning guild meeting at 11am on a Sunday, anyway? Wouldn't something more reasonable like 2 in the afternoon be a much better time? I like to sleep in on the weekends - I like to take my time, have my coffee, and then have a nice leisurely packing up, and driving over to the East Bay.

In other news. I spun up a bit more of the yarn that I need for my Caramel Swirl on Sunday. I didn't need much, and no - the missing ball has still not turned up. The Camel Down that I bought from Little Barn is quite a lot different than what I had before. The first stuff was baby camel down, and in roving form. This is adult camel down which has been carded - so it's kind of like a cloud. I've found that the best plan of attack for this stuff is to pull several staple lengths worth out - and they're short - pull them apart a couple of times, and then diz them. I'll try to get some pictures up next time - I don't want to overload everyone. I'm so close to being done with the cardigan - but I'm having that nagging feeling that it won't be "right". I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the fitting measurements - just decreased around the waist for a bit, then increased for a bit - then decided to start the V-neck. The sleeves are just about perfect though.

I'm also ready to wind off my second spindleful of the Optim, and will be able to ply that shortly. So stay tuned - more FO's - more spinning - more disasters in the making to be coming shortly.

Till then - have fun y'all! I leave you with a photo of a moth that I took on Saturday - the first time that we stopped for directions. Of course, I shouldn't complain - he is at least very good about stopping for directions when he feels it's necessary.

Wings o'the Moth Part III

2006-10-19T20:19:00.000-07:00

Yep - I've been busy. I am loving this pattern! The Twin Leaf Lace is almost done. Just another 3 or 4 rows to go since this picture was taken, and then the transition to the Corona edging.

I have been sitting in the car and knitting on my lunch breaks. I can walk and knit - but I haven't felt that I can trust myself with the patterning at the edges without the chart in front of me, so haven't dared to go on without it right in front of me. These rows are starting to get a bit long now. I was only able to get one and a half done in my half hour lunch today.
I've been forgoing my normal spindle walking sessions along the bay - which is a bit of a shame as the weather here is still pretty nice, fall is definitely in the air, and this won't last too much longer.

When I lived in England I would actually get flack for my "misuse" of the English language for saying "fall" instead of Autumn. I was very happy when I found out that "fall" is actually a term that was coined by the great bard Shakespeare, and in common usage in Elizabethan times. It has just fallen out of use on that side of the pond now. Definitely gave pause to a couple of Brits that this particular Yank could out-english them every once in a while.

I'm really hoping I can have this done and blocked before my spinning guild meeting on Sunday. I'm still really new there - but it would be nice to knock a couple of socks off - I'm not trying to brag or anything - but I'm impressing Myself with this particular piece. Nice when that happens, isn't it?

I've been meaning to block my Azalea Shawl for weeks now - and haven't gotten around to it yet. I really should - if I'm going to be crawling around on the floor with damp lace I figure I might as well make it a party right? We'll see if I can wrap my head around the next chart. The knitting gods could just bitch slap me for all my happy happy joy joy - look at how good I've done so farness... (touch wood - they won't - please do not bring the wrath of the lace gods!)
Have I not already done my penance? There has been 2 tinking sessions already. The first took me a week to do... Well, it shouldn't have taken a whole week. It was just that I'd taken myself off to me bed with a book.

One weird thing is that I'd been knitting along from a seemingly undending ball of yarn for days and days. Then yesterday - without warning a huge gaping hole has appeared in the middle of the yarn cake that has been giving and giving with no real indication of anything happening to it. This is what they mean when they say that shawls start to eat up yarn at a rather alarming rate. I had been worrying that the purpley bit at the end of the ball would not see this particular project. Now I'm very slightly worried that I will have to spin more yarn just to get to the bind off. We shall see.

I also have a fall/housewarming/we just moved in together let's have a get together type party that we've been invited to weekend after this next one. I'm seriously contemplating taking the shawl - but am also very nervous about doing so. It's one of those parties where I'll be going and only knowing the hosts (and not well at that, though she seems lovely, and like someone I'd like to get to know better) and my most wonderful boyfriend. So there's the normal angst about what I'll be wearing, and how I'll be perceived. I don't think I own anything particularly trendy - Just putting makeup on is kind of an occasion for me! I like getting dressed up and wearing makeup - I just don't do it often. I'm more about being comfy and haven't been in many new social situations in a pretty long time. So yeah, I'm kind of nervous about it.

Anyway - it's getting late and this is the second time I'm attempting to post this (damn laptop froze on me - and I hadn't saved as Draft, not Bloggers fault - but tremendously annoying all the same).

I will just leave you with a nice phartsy shot of the Moth...

Wings o'the Moth Progress Part II

2006-10-17T17:12:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to put out a quick note to say that thanks to Anne's wonderful help last night I was able to figure out what had happened. I had reversed the shaping for the second half - thinking it should be mirror imaged. If I'd just read the directions properly I would have been fine. Basically you repeat the directions for the first half when you do the second half. Do not second guess the designer.

So I tinked back two rows, placed my markers in the correct positions and had a great time knitting the Twin Leaf Lace, which is a lovely intuitive pattern, and just looks wonderful. I was only able to get one repeat done last night - but the rows are starting to get a bit longer at this point. I'm hoping I can match that progress tonight.

And let's see - I should probably throw up something pretty since I don't have any progress pics to show of the shawl....

OK - here's some Rosemary that is growing near my house... Nice... I can also pick fresh mint - bay leaves - I have sage and basil growing in the window box... There's more, but I can't think of it all right now - time to go home and work on my shawl....

Wings o'the Moth progress

2006-10-16T10:41:00.000-07:00

So not much blogging from me - Last week was absolutely hellatious in my part of the world! In every sense of the word - hellatious! Awful - just bad all the way around.... So I just dove into a book after work just about every night last week. I'm reading the Green Angel Tower series, and it's OK so far. But when I'm looking to escape from my own reality for just a bit having a whole series (4 books) on hand is a good thing! And to top it all off: the BBE was working up in Lake Tahoe from Monday through till Thursday - so not even any good cuddle time, or pats on the head, or anything. So I spent a lot of time after work in bed reading. Cuz y'all know - when the man's outta town, I'm real busy getting myself into all kinds of trouble. And when the going gets tough - the tough take to their beds!

So I have not spun on either of my wheels for at least whole week (shock! horror!)- projects have languished. I still have not found that last ball of yarn for my Caramel Swirl cardigan. I do have more that I can spin for it - I'll need to spin a tiny bit of alpaca - and a fair bit of camel down (at least I'll make a dent in the pound and a half that I bought from Little Barn, but I won't even need much more than a quarter of a Joy bobbin to finish off the CS), so I do have singles left for 3 out of 4 plies, and I really don't need much more yarn to finish it off anyway. I've been hoping that the missing ball will turn up - but I've cleaned the house, and done the laundry. Checked in the cars, and the BBE's house. No sign of it. Maybe I'm just crazy and used that ball already? I don't think so. Who wants to bet that it will turn up as soon as I've spun and plied more yarn for it and finished the darn thing off? A hat to match might just be in the cards.

I did pick up the Wings o'the Moth shawl Friday afternoon and ripped it back to where things were still ok. (right before the 2nd purpley band), and then proceeded to knit - I knit Friday night. I knit most of the day on Saturday, and I knit for the first part of Sunday. I stopped when I got to the second chart (twin leaf lace) because I'm not understanding the directions at this point.

I've done the reverse stockinette ridge, and placed more markers where directed. I've done the first set up row, which all went really well - all my stitch counts were good, and I ended up with the right number of knit stitches at the markers. But then it looks like the pattern (and the charts) are telling you to have the markers in completely different places than where the directions specified. I put it to the side to let it percolate in the back of my brain, and did the mountains of laundry that had piled up during my descent into the Green Angel Tower series. Swept the front of the house, vacuumed, and generally tidied up. I also got rid of half of a small mountain of clothes - and have found that I actually have a bit of room in my tiny little closet! I've talked about the fact that I live in a tiny place before - but I'm not kidding when I say that the only closet that I have available is probably less than 3' wide. Add that to the fact that I literally had things in my closet that I've never worn.

I've looked at the errata posted on the website. I see no fix there to unstick me. There really are a couple of areas here that just aren't making sense to me. I know I have massive difficulties following directions - but I really should be able to get this... I spent my lunch 1/2 hour counting stitches and going back and forth in the directions, to come to the conclusion that I am really and truly stuck. So I e-mailed the designer and hopefully my detailed questions and bad Ascii art will make some sort of sense to her, and she can unstick me.

Anyway - I have lots of pretty pictures!

This is the backside - which looks a tremendous amount like egg crate foam. And is just kind of intereting all by itself.

I just heard back from Anne @ Knitspot. Apparently my inablility to follow a pattern has once again reared it's ugly head. She is telling me that the stitch markers aren't placed symmetrically! THUD! I don't do so well with non-symmetrical stuff. I like symmetry - it makes my heart sing. She was very nice and even offered her phone number to talk me through all this - which I might just have to take her up on.

My brain just keeps saying - not-symmetrical - not-symmetrical!! Must take deep breaths! I love this shawl, it is so very pretty - I want it - I want to have it - I want it in my pretty handspun, which is showcasing the pattern in a stunning way. I am really hoping and praying that I will end up getting into the darker pinky/purple at the end of the ball... There's another version that the designer knit where she was running out of yarn, so threw in a stripe in the Corona pattern, and it's just stunning!

So I will update y'all with the progress that I might make on this one. I am actually capable of doing something like this pattern. If I can wrap my poor little brain around non-symmetrical stitch markers! Ow Ow Ow.

And in the mean time - I leave you with a nice cheerful sunflower - just cuz - you know, they're so damn photogenic!

And cheerful!

Where oh where has my little ball gone?

2006-10-08T18:58:00.000-07:00

So I whimped out. Totally and completely whimped. I'm doing a bog standard raglan sleeved cardigan shaping on the Caramel Swirl Cardigan.

I do have a good reason, I'm doing it back and forth (steeks scare the bejeezus outta me), and if I'd continued on with the original plan of a saddle shoulder, I would have had difficulty doing decreases every third round, so I went the route of the familiar. It's not really as red as it shows in this picture, I caught the last of the light this afternoon.

I would probably be done with the thing if I could just find the last ball. I know there's one more ball of yarn that I spun. Where it might be? No friggin clue. I really should be home right now doing laundry and looking for that ball.

I also went ahead and started the Wings o'the Moth shawl. I did really well last night - then started knitting this morning, and somehow screwed up the patterning on each side of the center increases, so I'm on an extended tinking session.

Why is it that it takes so much longer to fix a mistake, than it does to just do it right in the first place... Another reminder to myself that I really shouldn't be trying anything complicated after midnight - or before the pot of coffee that I seem to need before my brain can function properly in the mornings.

The BBE and I went on a lovely walk today. We just went into the marshes by his house. It is just so mind blowing that you can get out into such prettiness so close to the freeway, and the hustle and bustle of central Marin.

We saw lots of birds - I was particularly pleased with this heron that we found. We were able to get really close to it.

Beautiful views... This is Mt Tamalpais in the background - you would never guess that the freeway and who even knows how many thousands of people are between the plants in the foreground, and the mountain in the background.

The Blue Angels buzzed around for a while - it's Fleet Week in San Francisco. I got some pictures of the planes flying in formation - but they were so far away that you probably wouldn't be able to see it very well.

I almost stepped on this guy as I was walking down the one of the paths. We moved him so he wouldn't have to worry about someone else coming along and squishing him.

We even found a rope swing to play on, and both took some turns.

It was a beautiful day - and a nice weekend. I didn't get nearly as much accomplished as I wanted to. I have loads of laundry still - though I took the Boo shopping yesterday and bought a bunch of good stuff - whoo hoo for new clothes!

And I still need to block my Azalea shawl. I had high hopes of doing some dyeing this weekend. But mostly I still need to clean my house, and get ready for the upcoming week.

Meet Missus

2006-10-03T19:07:00.000-07:00

This is the new Kitty round at my place - no idea how long I'll be able to keep her. I do present the lovely Missus

My daughter moved into a new place (not North Carolina, thank goodness!) where she couldn't keep her kitty, so she brought her over to my house to stay for a while. She's a sweet kitty! Very interested in Ember (my very skitzy psycho cat who does not stay still long enough to get many pictures of her). Ember does her skitz-out full-speed-ahead oh-my-god-I-have-to-get-out-of-here!! zooms through the house, and Missus goes and follows her like, What is it? I wanna see! Can't we be friends? Kind of a way, and she ends up getting hissed at. There is a tense standoff going on at my house right now. I think they'll be able to sort things out - or not. But Missus - the new kitty is a little lovey thing, which is a nice change from Ember - who will come and cuddle with me at night, but freaks out the minute anyone walks from one room to the next.

I finished plying the superfine merino from the last post. I was very surprised, there wasn't really that much of a difference between the two bobbins. I must have spun the second bobbin slightly thicker than the first, because I only had a little carmex sized center pull ball to finish the plying from at the end of it all. Who wants to guess how much yardage I got (I'm thrilled!).... It was 1170 yards!! Whoo hoo - plenty for the Wings o'the Moth shawl! Maybe even enough to do the shawl and the scarf... I really really love that scarf for some reason.

I also went ahead and set the twist on the BFL that I spun up. It floofed up nicely, and I really don't think that I need to reply it, so that's a good result.

I'm itching - I mean itching to get started on the WOM shawl... I still have to turn the yarn into center-pull yarn cakey goodness.

(Why is it that getting my skeins turned into perfect little yarn cakes makes me so inordinately happy?? Am I the only one? Is there anyone else out there that just gets a total thrill from seeing the yarn all balled up like that?) Ahem... Got a little carried away there, didn't I? Sorry!

I have also made progress on the Caramel Swirl cardigan. The sleeves and the body are all joined as one, and fitting in nicely (much more nicely than the feline contingent at my house - but we've already been there). I have a little bit of straight knitting before me to contemplate how I'm going to get the sleeves and the shoulders and the raglans vs the saddleshoulders to work out - also have to think about the neckline. Part of me wants to do a scoop neck - the other part thinks a straight V neck is much more versatile for an over-layer cardigan. Any thoughts, comments, suggestions? I'd sure appreciate it! What would you do? I can't promise that I'll take any advice, but I'll certainly take it under consideration, could even get me to go off sideways someplace else entirely different. No pics though, sorry - no light, and it looks like poo at the moment because I have a mishmashed jumble of all sorts of things to hold the underarm stitches at bay until I figure out what I'm doing with the rest of it.

I went for my walk today for the first time in about a week. I've had a kink in my neck for days now - but I did a full two miles on my lunch break, with my Emily and the Optim wrapped around my wrist... There's been some discussion on the spintalk forum about using a wrist distaff, and I took some pictures of how I hold my roving -

I just wrap it around my wrist. Basically, I just take the end of the roving and tuck it into my bracelet (or a hair tie, watch band whatever). Then I wrap the roving around my wrist until I have most of it out of my way, and just spin until I need some more roving, when I unwrap a little more off of my wrist and keep going. After I'm done with my walk - I just wrap the roving back around the spindle and throw it into my bag. Works for me. I don't need any special equipment, and I can do it anywhere - anytime.

I also saw this guy on my walk today - just a seagull sitting on a pier overlooking the Richmond/San Rafael bridge.

And just one more picture of the new yarn for my WOM

Sometimes things just don't go as planned

2006-09-30T19:21:00.000-07:00

One of the features of the last installment of this blog was a bobbin full of very fine singles, I'm not going to say laceweight - because I have no idea if the yarn is going to puff up into fatness after I set the twist. And I have no idea if the yarn will even stay dyed after I set the twist. My fingers were blue after todays spinning session - but in the interests of maybe keeping people entertained out there, I present two full bobbins. What's that? One of those bobbins looks erm, a bit more full than the other? Damn! I split the roving in half thinking that I would try to match the colour repeats in some sort of fashion. Any bets that it's going to match up nice and evenly out there? Darn - I thought not. Sigh, oh well - barberpoling can be a very nice effect as well. And I do have to say that this particular roving has very nice subtle colour striations... It will be interesting to say the least.

I'm planning on plying it up later on tonight, and seeing what I get. I've resigned myself to taking the last bit of the mondo full bobbin and trying to do the wrap it all over the house thing so that I can ply from both ends at the end. Should be a little bit of entertainment for the troops.

Speaking of barberpoling. I've also finished off this skein of yarn. You might remember it from a couple of posts ago. For this yarn that was the effect I was going for. I spun up half the roving just straight from the full thickness, giving me really long color repeats - then I took the other half of the roving and stripped it into 1/4ths lengthwise to give me shorter repeats - and (as we spinners do) plyed them together. I'm quite pleased with it, though I think it's a bit underplied, and so haven't soaked it yet. I'm contemplating running it back through my Skipper - but then again, have found that it doesn't make that much of a difference in the knitted up sample.

It's about 650 yards of Blue Faced Leicester. The first ply I spun with my regular inch worm technique, and the second ply I spun much more worsted. I have been really needing to practice my long draw more, and think I did a pretty good job. It's not as even as my inchworming - but it did go quite a lot faster, and also gives a nice effect to the final yarn - at least I think so. This will look much more interesting when I've actually balled it up into yarn cakey goodness.

Now I would like to present to you the very very first skein of yarn that I ever made. I'm so glad I kept it! Man is it fugly! What? You don't believe me? All yarn is good yarn - hmmmm - well, if you're particularly squeamish you might just want to look away now. Cuz it's ugly! When I showed it to the BBE he was taken aback. "Baby, this is bad! You plyed it? My spinning is better than this!" Were just a few of the comments heard from him. It was a half a fleece that I bought from P&M Woolcraft near Milton Keynes in England. I got the half of a fleece, a dog brush and a boat anchor bottom whorl Louet spindle. I was determined to learn to spin. I figured out pretty quickly that I could spin for longer if I stood on the coffee table and let it drop down. So you can just picture me standing on the coffee table, contorting and concentrating and dropping the damn spindle over and over again. It got even worse when I discovered that I could spin over the bannister at the top of the stairs. I don't even know how many times I dropped it, had to run down the stairs to retrieve the spindle, and hopefully not have dropped it on someone's head when they were trying to get up the stairs.

Progress has been made on the caramel swirl cardigan. I am almost done with the second sleeve, and get to do the fun part with figuring out the yoke soon. First I want to ply up the laceweight for my Wings o' the Moth shawl.

Also on the list for this weekend is finally blocking my Azalea shawl. We'll see how much I get done.

Weekends are just too short!

And now I leave you with a picture of my Saturday sky, taken just a few minutes ago.

General update

2006-09-26T18:17:00.000-07:00

So last Thursday I noticed that things were going to be slow on Friday, and promptly asked for the day off - boy did I need it! I'd been going on 17 days straight, and the three day weekend was wonderful.

Friday I woke up early to make sure that the boy got up for school, and drove him there. Then I went to the DMV and got my registration on my car taken care of, I have a happy little green sticker on my license plate now.

I came to the realisation that I'm carrying a big load at my job - there's three of us in my department, and I'm "in charge" of a whole long list of pretty critical stuff there. I hadn't realised really how much stuff until I went and made that list. A situation came up last week where my co-worker didn't do something that he should have done, and somehow it became my fault because I didn't double check that it had been done. I was so cheesed off - I went home to search for my resume - which necessitated a big clearing out of my whole desktop computer - removing old programs - disk cleanup - defrag etc... it's still slow, but at least I can open my resume and the template I use for my invoices.

So basically I just puttered about and didn't feel like I got much at all accomplished, but I was able to get some work done on the Caramel Swirl cardigan pictured above. This is the where I'm at as I type this. I've got one sleeve ready to be attached to the body - have to get the second sleeve done, and then do the top yoke part - that's where it's all going to get pretty tricky, I really do want to try to get the saddle shoulder shaping done on the top yoke. I have all the EZ books, and Barbara Walkers Knitting From the Top Down - I really need to do some research to see if I can wrap my brain round the method needed.

I also was able to get some spinning time in on my Joy. This is some more of the fiber that I dyed in my dyeing frenzy a couple of weeks ago. I was most pleased with the dye job on this one - pretty subtle colors, though I had no idea what the wool was. I think it must be some of the superfine merino that I picked up from somewhere, I know I got a bunch of it. This particular fiber (whatever it is) just does want to spin up superfine, and is very soft - so I let it do what it wanted. Wasn't that nice of me?

I split the roving in half down the middle, and will spin up another bobbin trying to keep it fairly even, and hopefully get the colours to line up somewhat.

I think this would be perfect for the Wings of the Moth shawl pattern that I picked up over the weekend. I've been seeing it around all over the place, and thought it was very pretty, and something that I can even manage!

I'm not so sure if I'll be able to get 1000 yards out of this fiber, but I'm sure going to try, and if not - then I have this that I picked up at the spinning guild meeting on Sunday that could possibly get used for the edging. Not sure yet, it'll be interesting to find out though.

Oh yeah! I went to the Spindles and Flyers guild meeting on Sunday - and am now a fully fledged member of the guild!! Whoo hoo!

It was my second meeting there, and their annual stash sale. I met Nancy Roberts and bought the latest copy of Spin Off from her - she even signed it for me! Some of the stuff that she's been working on lately is just gorgeous! Go check out her website, the techniques and the results are so beautiful and amazing. I so clearly remember that article and the jacket in Threads Magazine where Nancy got her inspiration from back lord knows how many years ago - I mean it was when they were still doing fiber arts and not just sewing!

I got to show off my new wheel, and wore my Angst Top (which garnered a compliment or two). I bought some fiber and some machine knit blanks from Nancy Roberts. These will get dyed, and then reknit. Not sure exactly what I'll do - it's supposed to be enough for the felted bag on the cover of Spin Off, but I'm not so sure that's a project I'm itching to do.

Saturday the BBE and I went on a lovely walk at Phoenix Lake. It was a long walk, but lovely all the same!

New fibers!

2006-09-19T11:49:00.000-07:00

I mentioned that I'd gotten a bunch of fiber in the mail recently, but just didn't have time to go into detail - I'm sure the suspense has just been killing everyone, and even more sure that the people who gifted me would like a public thank you!! So without further ado:

The first thing I received technically was a swap that I did with Heather/Snerknits in exchange for one of the extra ballwinders that had washed up in my BBE's sister's yard. We agreed on some DK weight silk yarn from Knit Knackers which is local to her.

So the trade went off without a hitch. I doofed out and sent the ballwinder UPS to her after she'd already sent the silk via Canada Post, but she still received the ballwinder days before her package got to me. (UPS vs. Canadian Post - UPS wins).

I'm very pleased with the picture that I finally chose to use Looks like some good yarn pr0n to me! You wouldn't believe how many pictures I've taken of this silk yarn - it's so hard to capture the true beauty of silk. My immediate thought when I saw the silk was that it should be blues and purples.

My son told me that there was a package waiting for me up at the main house where our mailboxes are, after I'd gotten home from work (it was the night that I got home about 9). The sun had long since set, and there are no street lights on the property where I live. It really helps that I've lived there long enough that I can find my way around in the dark. So I grabbed the package, and ripped it open on the way back to my place, reached my hand in, and felt something fuzzy - soft - and decidedly not silk. "Wow - she must have thrown some other fiber in there too!" I thought as I was walking back to the house. Yep - about 100 grams of a lovely white alpaca. There was a little note saying that she liked my dyeing and would be interested to see what I would do with it. So stay tuned!

Thanks so much Heather! I love the yarn, and I love the alpaca - I'll be sure to post about it when it makes it into my long list of projects that I'm actually working on.

Next up, I got a package from Jamie who is sadly blogless. She has sheep up in Northern California - I think of where I live as Northern California, but in reality I'm in about the halfway point. She e-mailed me a while back thinking maybe we were in fairly close proximity, and we've been e-mailing back and forth a bit. Anyway, she has sheep! And she's been processing the fiber. She told me that she'd put some up on-line to try to sell some of it. When I asked where (I might be in the market for some fiber) - she asked me for my address and told me she'd send me some! I received 4 lovely, beautifully prepared batts.

The brown is a Romney, and the white in the background is Suffolk. She calls them coarse fibers - and while it's certainly not soft soft soft stuff, it's exactly what I would expect of Romney and Suffolk. Nice crimp - crisp feel, no VM that I could see. Absolutely wonderful for beginning spinners. I know I'm certainly looking forward to using these to practice my long draw! Thanks Jamie! If anyone out there is interested, her ad is on the Spinners and Weavers Housecleaning pages - the 9/15 entry.

And last, but very certainly not least, I received an e-mail from Megan in Australia. Her blog is called Creative in Crookwell. I've seen her around on the Multidirectional list - she is actually knitting my ANGST top (link to pattern over in my sidebar). Not only is she knitting my pattern, she also raises sheep and angora goats.

She e-mailed me asking for my address so she could send me some fiber! Could have knocked me over with a feather with that! I told her I was gobsmacked - pleased, but gobsmacked, and not too much later another package arrived. And what was in it? Oh.My.Gosh - words just do not do justice! I didn't even take the fibers out of the bags to take the pictures, I don't want to risk anything untoward happening! On the left is a blend from her own animals that is so soft, I had a hard time telling the difference between the package on the right - which is another 4ozs or so of Optim. She says that she is thinking of trying to market the fiber from her animals. It is clean, it smells good, it is wonderfully prepared into a nice roving - and it is melt-in-your-mouth, to-die-for soft - I'm not kidding, it's amazing stuff!

Now for those of you not in the know, I've been raving about this Optim stuff since I got some from Chameleon Colorworks at the Lambtown festival. It's merino that has been stretched and chemically processed, it's soft it's shiny, oh my gosh is it lovely! She said in the lovely card that she sent that she had a bunch left over, and so was sending me some just because. Wow - I really am gobsmacked. I can't wait to get started on something for these two fibers!

My project is done, and I have my life back! I got home last night at a decent hour, and just knit a few rows on the cardigan - no real progress to show on that front yet - It sure is nice to knit with your own handspun!

Now for some pictures of prettiness....
A Day Lily from across the street at my work:

That personality test that all the cool kids are doing

2006-09-19T11:41:00.000-07:00

My Personality


Neuroticism	10
Extraversion	57
Openness To Experience	66
Agreeableness	50
Conscientiousness	10

Test Yourself Compare Yourself View Full Report
Find your soulmate / pysch twin

MySpace Surveys, MySpace Layouts and hi5 by Pulseware Survey Software

So yeah - that's me, sounds pretty accurate, though it's slightly different than one I took last week, and never posted. I was just glad to see my neurotic streak is pretty low ;-)

Whew - back to your regularly scheduled blogging

2006-09-17T20:26:00.000-07:00

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!!

Now last weekend was much different!

2006-09-11T22:53:00.000-07:00

So I got an e-mail from a client that I do side-work for last Tuesday - I do document formatting for him maybe once or twice a year. This one is mondo huge, monstrosity many many documents some of them are 70+ page documents that have been cobbled together from many different sources. So last weekend, I did not step foot out of the house - not once. Just sat in front of this computer and got a bunch done. I have been spinning and knitting - no pictures to show sadly, I just didn't want anyone to think that I'd fallen off the face of the planet.

I'm almost done with this project - whew! It needs to be printed up Thursday, so it looks like we're on schedule.

I'm sending all the files to myself right now, and am going home. Still need to figure out about dinner.

I really really hate to post without pictures, but I just can't do it this time - next time, I promise.

Oh, and my silk shawl still hasn't been blocked - but I have started a lovely little cardigan for myself, and am spinning on both wheels and my Emily spindle.

I also slipped and ordered a bunch of fiber - I mean, what the heck am I going to do with a pound and a half of camel down? I also got 8oz of yak - and a pound of silk. Everything was really reasonably priced - and I haven't spun yak yet - the silk is because I always need silk. The camel down? Well, I'm a little worried that I won't have enough to finish off the sweater that I'm working on.... Not a pound and a half worth short by any means - what was I thinking??? Oh yeah, side gigs mean that I have a little bit of extra money, so I might as well spend it! DOH!

Have fun out there!

What I did with my weekend

2006-09-05T19:31:00.000-07:00

The BBE and I went up to Lake Tahoe to celebrate our anniversary for the weekend. We left Friday night after work, and stayed till Sunday evening. We had use of a private beach near King's Beach both days, and we did a lot of jet skiing both days. He dumped me the first time we went out (into the water - not the relationship) But the water was (surprisingly) not tremendously cold, and of course we had our life vests on. Just glad I didn't take my camera with me out on the jet ski!
I was just amazed at how blue the water was - just amazingly beautiful.

We went to Carson City Nevada to go check out a property - probably not staying on "the list", but it was interesting - a 33 unit motel - needed a lot of work.

We hit the casino, and lost $20 in the nickel slots - well, I lost 8 and he lost 12. Not too bad. The weather was beautiful and it was so friggin nice to get away! I haven't been on any kind of vacation in years! So it was good.

I took a ridiculous amount of yarn with me to knit with. Enough for 3 cardigans and a summery top - and a pair of socks. I packed more yarn than I did clothes. Somehow that bothers me - but I'm glad I did!

I started the Top Down Swing Coat from Log Cabin knitting during the drive up, but the yarn I was using was too scratchy for a jacket with a collar. Glad I did the neck test before I got any further than the collar.

I also took some of my handspun yarn with me, and started a cardigan in the Caramel Swirl yarn that I made way back in April. No pictures yet - it's basically just about 3" of a 3x1 rib at this point. It's shedding quite a lot, which I'm not too pleased with, and I have not been able to sit down and figure out where the side seams need to be. I'm hoping that I can manouver it into a saddle shouldered cardigan, ala EZ's Knitting Workshop, with some waist shaping and an I-cord edging. We'll see if I make any progress at all on it.

But I do have some nice pictures of the Azalea shawl! I'm done with the knitting - so these are all pre-blocking pictures. The picture to the right is in the shade - the one below is in full sunlight.

I did two repeats of the lace pattern, and just worked back and forth. The pattern calls for a plain row every other round, which I purled.

I'm so pleased with it! It's done in my Rainbow Silk - 616 yards of 2 ply silk has resulted in 14 repeats - 64" across the top, and 30" down the center. Again, preblocking. I'll block it when I get home later tonight. I'm thinking it would look great on the wall over my bed. I've never been too fond of the painting that is currently there, and this is about the right size - unless of course I'm wearing it - but it's not something that I can just wear with any old thing - I do have a lovely heavy silk pink skirt that I think this is going to look fabulous with.

I also took my Emily spindle, with the Optim fiber that I dyed last week. I was really worried there for a while that I'd lost that particular spindle - you know, it just wasn't anywhere for a long time. I kept thinking it would turn up - it took months, but I found it behind the TV in my room when I was cleaning last weekend. It's so pretty, and I don't think that I'd ever really used it for more than a test spin after I got it, so even better!

This particular Emily has a lacewood whorl, and a purpleheart shaft. The Optim, was of course dyed in blues and greens. I am loving spinning the Optim! It's so wonderfully soft and it wants to draft out to a very fine single. There are some weird little slubby bits that come up from time to time. I'm not sure what that's about - something strange with the fiber prep, but I'm not a perfectionist spinner - and little slubs are OK from my point of view.

Of course I came home to a messy house, and a belligerent teenager. He's never ever been that rude to me before. I guess I should know better - this is the third time that I've gone through the teenage years - but man it is so hard when the child that you love and care for looks at you with hatred in their eyes.

This too shall pass - and in the mean time if someone knows where I can get a clue-by-four for a teenager who has no friggin clue how hard it is to be a single mom, who is having a tough time making ends meet, totally doing it on my own. The place we live in is not the greatest place, but I've managed to keep us in it for the last 4 years. It's so darn expensive to live in this area. I get no help or child support from his father - we get a call from his dad every couple of months or so, but I have no way to get ahold of him. It's frustrating and hard, and I'm hurt, disappointed, and don't have a lot of options. And this all started over the fact that it was his turn to do the dishes!

Anyway - enough of that unpleasantness for the moment - here's another pretty picture.

1 year ago....

2006-09-01T16:53:00.000-07:00

I started going out with the Best Boyfriend Ever....

Baby, I love you!

I just want to thank you
For being there for me all the time.
For your understanding and your patience.
The way that you dance in the car.
That look you give me.
You just being who you are.

I hope I've been able to make you as happy as you've made me in this last year.

I'm so glad I found you.

All my love!

Dyeing not disasters

2006-08-31T18:47:00.000-07:00

Wow - I haven't posted since Monday, which isn't so long for me - but I just have so much I want to share - where to start?

Well, I guess the obvious place would be with the promised pictures of the merino tencel that I plied up with bright orangeness. I had a few comments from some of y'all that the colour was OK - well... trust me it really wasn't. The eye searing orangeness with the delicate rose and blush was just so Wrong.

My daughter came over the other night (after I'd done the overdyeing) and I showed her what the whole horribleness had started off as. She took one look at it, said, "And you plied the whole thing? And you knew how wrong it was?!? Oh my god mom, you are retarded!"

Well, yeah, there is that - but I wanted to see how much 3 Joy bobbins would fill on my Skipper bobbins (still not all the way full btw) - and I did fix it - I mean look! Isn't it pretty now? It reads as a lovely tomato red. There are still shocking orange bits to it, but with the darker reds combined, well it works, I can knit with it, and I like it! It's 650 yards of a light worsted weight. No idea what it wants to be when it grows up, but I'm sure it will figure itself out.

I also got some photos of the rest of the fiber that I dyed. Took them out to the shrubberies to get some pics in full sunlight - talked to my neighbors for a bit. They don't think I'm too crazy, but the people that were walking past the Mexican restaurant the night before where I took the pic on the cactus sure looked at me funny.

Here it is all laid out. From left to right:

BFL in blues and greens. I was so happy to see that, it's about 8 ozs. I'd totally forgotten that I had it. It was in the kitchen in the pile of wool that I've been meaning to dye. I do love to spin BFL. I also had some superfine merino in that batch that I didn't even bother with - I mean, it's OK - but I don't like spinning it all that much.

4 ozs of Optim in darker blues and greens. Mmmm optim. I dyed it in the same batch with the silk that is right next to it. There's about 8 ozs of the silk. I'll probably end up doing separate plies with this stuff, and then plying it all together.

The red blue and green space dyed fiber is the other batch of merino/tencel that I just dyed. It will probably go well with something, don't ask me what yet.

Next to that is red and blue superwash merino, that will most likely get turned into my first pair of handknit/handspun socks. I've never ever knit a pair of socks out of my handspun. I know, I know... it just has never come up.

And last - but certainly not least is some mystery wool that I think is my favourite of the batch. No idea what it is, probably some Corriedale or something similar.

And here is the progress on the Azalea shawl so far, looking a bit washed out - but still it's progressing nicely!

I've done more work on it after the picture was taken, it's now down into more of an aqua colour - 12 repeats! I'm sure I can get at least 1 more repeat, but with triangular shawls like this, as the rows get longer the yarn starts to get eaten up at a rather alarming rate. Still, it is going to be big enough. I confess that I was slightly worried that 612 yards wouldn't be enough for a full size shawl for me - but holding it out from the center it is already covering my wingspan. I'm hoping to have it done and blocked in the next couple of days, you probably won't see it again until it's final unveiling.

Whew - there's more - lots more - but I'm going to try to get on with my evening now, and sign off for this installment with a sunflower shot that I got outside the Mexican restaurant by my house.

Dyeing disasters

2006-08-28T22:43:00.000-07:00

So what do you do when you find two lovely gorgeous coordinating colours of a blend that you haven't tried before? Well, if you're me - you decide you want a three ply, and wouldn't a lovely orangey peachey colour look nice with the pinks? Yeah right!

I totally screwed it up. Totally not knittable in it's current state - nothing I could ever wear. Man, it was bad. I'm pretty pissed off with myself - I mean I plied the whole thing. Three full Joy bobbins plied together. Took me hours. And I just kept going. Part of that was because I was curious about how many Joy bobbins I can fit onto one Skipper bobbin - but doh! Not to mention that the plying is not my best ever - For some reason the Skipper was just clattering along in a very annoying fashion - I'm hoping it's just that one bobbin.

Only one thing to do really at this point, and that's overdye. I did that after I got home from work tonight. Just threw a bunch of red into a big bowl and threw it in the nukerwave. This skein probably weighs about 10ozs is the good news. And now it's just basically red - so that's good - but those colours that I started off with? The first two that I bought at Lambtown I am mourning them, and kicking myself a bit. Don't get me wrong - usually when I'm dyeing I'm not going for any particular effect - color is good. I like color - I like to mix colors up - I really have fun with it. I think a lot of my problem is that I'm not used to playing with "real" dyes - and I overdid it big time. No pictures of the overdyed version yet - it's drying.

I had a hellatious day at work on Friday, and I did something that I haven't done in so long - I just can't even remember the last time it happened. I stopped off at Borders on my way home - picked up a book (Phantom by Terry Goodkind), got home and took to my bed. My son is off camping with my family, and my boyfriend was down in Southern California - so I had no interruptions - nobody wondering what was for dinner, asking me questions, talking to me, nothing - no distractions of any kind. I dove headfirst into that book, totally escaped from my own reality. I read a lot and knit a little on my Azalea shawl, finished the book Saturday in the early afternoon. .

I emerged from my book and cleaned the house - did all the laundry - mopped floors, scrubbed toilets - the whole cha cha. Boy it felt good to get all that done! I haven't been home much lately, and I just haven't gotten to all the deep cleaning stuff in too long. Clean sheets, less muck, whew.

I haven't spent an entire weekend at home in a long long time - I really needed that.

Saturday night the BBE called and asked if he could bring anything - I said sure! Dinner. He did good. I didn't want to mess up my nice clean kitchen and I was tired. It was just a take and bake pizza and a couple of premade salads, but hey, I didn't have to cook and mess up my nice clean kitchen so it was good.

Sunday I spun the whole bobbin of the orange merino tencel from hell, and plied it together into the wrongness I pictured above. Yep - I'm still kicking myself.... Oh well, live and learn.

Tonight I went home to do some dyeing. I wasn't even planning on overdyeing the orange yuck, but I got one look at it in natural light - and just knew. What I was planning on doing was taking lots of pictures and dyeing up the Optim, the rest of the merino tencel, and myabe some silk. Well - I dyed all of those and I found some BFL to dye, lots more silk, some other mystery wool and some superwash merino. I think I probably ended up dyeing 4 pounds of fiber.

I fully intended to take copious amounts of photos of all the different steps that I did and show some kind of tutorial - but wow - is that hard! I really have to wait until my daughter is around or something. I love taking pictures, but having to stop where I'm at and take pictures in the middle of dyeing silk and optim blues and greens, or some bfl blues and greens and pinks - wearing latex gloves? I honestly think that it's just something that isn't possible for me. I did pretty well up until the point where I actually started dyeing.

There's a picture of the vinegar that I used.

A picture of the bowl that I poured the red dye into before I overdyed the assault to my retinas. Pictures after? Well, I already said it's drying and it's dark outside - I will get some pics - good ones (hopefully) after it's all dryed.

There's a pic of a stainless steel bowl that I poured the green dye into.

There's a pic of the Merino/Tencel waiting to have dye poured on it.

After that? Nada - nothing - no enchilada.

Also there's absolutely no guarantee that I will be able to identify which fibers are which. There was one that started off as a mystery - but I can't remember what colour I dyed the superwash merino - that could be interesting! I think it's the really dark red/blue/green.... Better try to do a felting test I guess.

So the good news - I'll have lots of fun fibers to spin up. Photo ops galore. No more retina assaulting orangeness. And the fun of trying to figure out which fibers are which. Sigh - I need a photographer - and a stunt knitter would be kinda nice too!

The Azalea shawl is 10 repeats in - no new pics, sorry - but it's coming along nicely! I'm firmly into the blue, getting closer into green, and FO-ness. Still loving the flow of the pattern, and no bumps in that particular road.

Just a tiny butterfly on the flowers by my work

Heads or Tails

2006-08-24T18:50:00.000-07:00

The start of my Azalea shawl out of my handdyed two ply silk.

So, as you might have noticed, I have an awful lot of stuff going on with all my projects right now. Between the two wheels, and my spindles, not to mention the bagillion WIP's that I'm knitting right now. I've been splitting time between work, home and my BBE's house for a while now (almost a year actually!). My wheels are at home, and I always have at least one knitting and a spindle project that I schlep around with me to work on when I'm not at home, so I've been doing a lot of spinning at home - which works nicely except that I tend to do most of my crafty work at home, and have been feeling like I'm not getting much done.

I decided to try to mix things up a bit, and when I have the time to get a little work done bring it on in more of a random mix. So after dinner I've been flipping a coin - heads is knitting, tails is spinning. Then if I get heads I further refine my choices.... For a knitting night I flip again with two projects in mind - new project/old project. For spinning it's big wheel/small wheel.

Well, the last 4 nights in a row have been knitting. How does that happen? Ask any mathemetician it is not probable. Apparently I should have been able to do a bit of spinning done since last Saturday!

But I did finish my P90!! Whoohoo, finished objects are so good.

I also started my Azalea shawl (pictured above) out of my handspun rainbow silk, which I'm liking very much so far. The coin has fallen to the Azalea shawl for the last two nights.

I mentioned that I've done this shawl a couple of times already, and I'm finding it very soothing. I like the pattern (obviously, this is the third version!). I love the symmetry, I love the look of the flower petals radiating out of each other. I love the general flow of the pattern. It is very intuitive, I don't have to concentrate too much on it, and it just comes out looking very pretty. Other bloggers have called it mindnumbing - but I like mind numbing - bring it on!

If I ever get to spin on my Joy again I've decided that I'm going to go ahead and spin up the merino tencel blend that I dyed the other night. I had been thinking that some kind of orangey rosey colour to go with the other two bobbins that I spun last week? I think it was last week anyway - time is flying by these days - I'm so busy I don't have time to think straight half the time.

Anyway, when I was dyeing this I just couldn't see the yellow tones that I wanted, so I added some straight dye powder into the mix. Hung it up thinking, it'll work out ok - well, when I got home the next night this blinding brightness greeted me from the shower. I still think it will be alright. It will definitely be interesting! I'm planning on spinning it a bit finer than the other two bobbins, if of course I ever get to spin on my Joy again. And hey, at least it's not all blue all the time!

I had a comment on my last post from Tallguy asking if I could name the flowers that I post on the bottom of a lot of my posts.

I take a lot of pictures on my walks - it brings me a lot of joy. I've found myself looking at the world in a whole different way since I got my camera. I really enjoy taking pictures of things I find pretty! Does it detract from the image that I capture that I don't have a name for it? The obvious Shakespeare quotation comes to mind...

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

I will try to let you know what they are from now on - but there are a lot of them that I just don't know - the best I can come up with is wildflower for the one pictured at the bottom of my P90 post. The one before that was some wild irises and a rose - but those are pretty obvious.

This one is a macro of a Lychee - we have a tree right by work and I got some nice shots of some ripe ones that had fallen off the tree. Very evocative of the Merino Tencel that I dyed the other night.

P90

2006-08-22T20:18:00.000-07:00

Pattern: p90
Yarn: Jonelle DK cotton/rayon from John Lewis (uk)
Mods: Quite a few. I subbed the recommended yarn, and did it in two solid coloured stripes - just 2 row garter stitch, at the top I did some wider stripes of the grey. I made the top triangle quite a lot longer than called for in the pattern, (36 rows vs 24). I changed the decrease in the center top. Probably a few more that I can't think of right now - but it's done! And I love it! You can see the pics better on my Flickr album clicky on the link up there to your left.

More to talk about - no time! Have to go feed the ravening teenage boy.

Have fun!

Abi

Flotsam

2006-08-20T12:01:00.000-07:00

Last year we had some pretty major flooding happen in the area. My BBE's sister had a box wash up into her yard, and tried to find out who it belonged to, with no success. She told the BBE that maybe he should come and take a look, because it looked like it had tools in it. Well, we went and took a look, and what did I see? Well, there were 2 pairs of electric sheep shearers, 2 big ball winders, a wooden umbrella swift, some kind of a rug hooking machine - and a couple of other things that I couldn't even identify! She's held on to the box for quite a while now, and needed to make some room in her shed - so we went over and grabbed the ballwinders and the swift, all were quite mucky and the swift was missing some of the connectors to hold the arms. And you know what the weird part about all this is? She lives about a block off of the Freeway - there are no sheep or any other type of fiber animals within miles and miles of here!

We took everything to the BBE's shop and cleaned them up, and he fixed the swift for me too! We took these puppies apart, and cleaned every piece we could get to. The BBE even took the metal guides and ran them on his grinder with the wire wheel to get all the pitted rust off.

Now I have 3 ball winders (the one I have at home is just one of the little blue ones) and 3 swifts/skein winders. I've been working with one of the little Japanese metal swifts, which hasn't been ideal for bigger skeins. One of my niddy noddy's is just too big for the little swift, though I can make it work fairly well if I put my arm into the bottom of the skein and wind slowly. My Japanese metal swift is mounted on my bookshelf pointing out into the living room, so that worked for me, but not as well as having a lovely huge swift!

I love that my new wheel has a hole at the top to accommodate a skeinwinder - and now this new (to me) swift. I love a lot of things about my new wheel though, so I thought it was time to take her outside to get some more pics. It was getting a bit late in the day, hence the long shadows....

Boo is not happy about the new wheel, and he is even less happy about the new swift. I've got it folded away at the moment, but all this stuff is just "too big". I'm sure he'd be better about all this if we had a bigger place, but I try to keep Skipper in my room as much as possible, when I'm not using her.

Here's what I've been spinning. Remember the Merino/Tencel blends that I bought at Lambtown? Well, they've turned into two full Joy bobbins - about 4 ozs each. I'm having a bit of a quandry as to what I'm going to do as far as plying is concerned. They're fairly fine singles, and I could simply just ply them together. Or I could spin up another bobbin of undyed merino tencel blend that I bought the same day - or I could dye up that Merino Tencel (I'm thinking an orangey/pinky colour - fairly bright, more on the orange side - but with pink thrown in for good measure - if, of course I can manage to get that right!). And of course - I have 8 ozs of the undyed merino tencel blend so I could even dye both of those up some kind of coordinating color to go with this current stuff, and then spin and 2 ply those together to be used in a project.

On the Knitting front:

I started another Azalea shawl from Marianne Kinzel's First Book of Modern Lace Knitting with my rainbow dyed silk last night. I'm only doing 2 repeats this time - working back and forth. This will be the third time I've knit this pattern. The first time I did three repeats, and didn't make it nearly big enough. The second time I knit 4 repeats and gave the shawl to my grandmother (I tried to take pictures of it before I gave it away - the only one that came out halfway decent became my blog header!), this time it will be just 2 repeats, which I'm positive will block out to a nice triangular shawl shape.

Also, I have an FO to show off - next post I promise! I finished the P90 top, which I am tremendously pleased with! It is maybe the most flattering knit I have ever completed. I need to go jump in the shower so that we can go do a phot shoot. Stay tuned!

And have fun!

Foo Dogs

2006-08-16T14:48:00.000-07:00

Foo Dogs
Originally uploaded by abiknits.

Basically I'm just testing out the "blog this" feature on Flickr right now. What a great site Flickr is - I just wander around looking at some of the most amazing photographs... Very fun.

This is one that I took a while ago, I just love the property that I live on - these were installed close to a year ago now I think.

My daughter called yesterday to tell me that she's planning on moving to North Carolina next month. I'm not doing so good with this news. It's so far away!

Almost done with the P90 now, should be able to finish it off tonight, and then playing with the new handspun!! I think that the first thing that I cast on is going to be with the cable 4 ply.

All for now...

Rainbow of silky goodness

2006-08-13T18:40:00.000-07:00

So I finished spinning and plying the rainbow silk that my sister and I dyed last year using Easter Egg dyes. Basically I put 4 sets of roving side by side on saran wrap and poured vinegerated (Look mom, I made up a word!) Easter Egg dyes in a very long colour progression. This particular yarn came from one of these rovings which was 100% silk. It has grown up to become this 616 yard 2 ply skein that starts off pink and changes to violet, blue, and green - with colour variations inbetween...

Pretty? I sure think so - it's telling me that it wants to be a triangular shawl, not sure how big it will end up.

I'm being Very Good and not casting on any of my handspun until I finish the P90 that I'm working on, which is pretty close to being done.

Here's a not-wonderful picture of half of it. I'm doing both sides the same so that it will be reversible, and also because I do like a low back on my tops. I used the same type of yarn as my No Gauge Swatch Top - Jonelle Shine - 50% cotton / 50% rayon, with a nice drape. I've made a few mods to the pattern as well - nothing major, and I'll list them when I post my done photo.

The other half is done up to the armhole on the right side - so not too much longer until I'm done. I really like it so far. I'd love to do another version in an all over variegated at some point... Maybe the Merino Tencel that I'm spinning on my Joy.

So yesterday I was able to finally get my neighbor to a proper yarn store (Dharma Trading) - thank God! She's really caught the knitting bug, and has made 2 garter stitch scarves so far. It's hard because when I first taught her how to knit I was very happy to grab something out of my stash to get her started. But as it's gone along, it turns out that she's very particular about what colours she wants to work with..."Don't you have this in a red?" Or if it is the right color, then she wants to know if I have it in cotton. Sigh!

She's really going through a really rough patch right now, and we all know that the knitting - it helps when you're going through hard times. I'm happy to try to help her through this a bit - but the going through my stash? Talk about testing my patience.

So anyway, she was finally convinced that my stash is probably not the best place for her to shop and I got her out of her house for the first time in days. She was thrilled to walk into Dharma - I mean she had that intake of breath - and the ohmygod reaction that I think most of us are familiar with. And then she went straight for the fun fur. Lots of fun fur. Yarn with squiggles and hairs and sequins, oh my! And Addis to work with. She's loving the Addis. And I'm loving the fact that I am no longer going to have to worry about her not being able to find what she wants in my stash! I mean - I had most of it shipped home from England - there's a lot of stuff in there that has sentimental value. Stuff I bought on vacations, to Wales, to Malta, to Scotland etc....

Anyway - I guess that's about it for this post. More next time!

And now for some prettiness. Just some purple cone flowers growing up by the main house.

Blogger quiz

2006-08-10T10:50:00.000-07:00

You Are 7: The Enthusiast

You are outgoing and playful - always seeing the happy side to life.

You're enthusiastic and excitable. You love anything new.

Multi-talented, you do many things well... and find success easy.

You prefer to keep things light with others. Opening up is hard for you.

What Number Are You?

Yep - sounds right to me!!

Confetti wool 3 ply

2006-08-09T00:19:00.000-07:00

I took this picture (above) a couple of days ago. Reason No. 289 for the neighbors to think I'm crazy. If I want to take pictures in daylight I wander around the property to find a likely spot with decent light. I wonder what they think of all this sometimes. I mean, it obviously doesn't bother me too much to let the neighbors think I'm nuts - or the workers in the office building across the street from where I work, or the people that see me on my walks everyday... But I do wonder what they must think sometimes.

At the back you can see the colour progressing spindle (which is now full), in the center is the Confetti Wool which I've just finished - and in the foreground is another colour progression of silk on one of my Joy bobbins.

I was told that the Skipper (Schippertj) was really a wheel that was made for spinning a nice bulky yarn. I've gotten so far away from spinning a nice bulky yarn that it's not even funny. I don't know if y'all have noticed - but I've been doing a lot of spinning and putting together a lot of plies just lately - and it takes an awful long time to spin up fine yarn. And to get enough to ply together to make anything useful? Well, it takes about forever. So I've been on a bit of a mission to spin up a bulkier yarn since I got my new wheel.

I spun up about a half a bobbin of Confetti Wool - a soft wool with bits of silk thrums carded into the roving (another purchase from Copper Moose). It's a good deal, and I bought a lot of it about a year ago (it was on sale!). So when I got my purty little Skipper I decided to give it a go with the Confetti, hoping to get a bulky designer (newbie) type yarn.

I only spun the half a bobbin because I was getting a bit bored - and of course the bobbins on my new wheel are ginormous (which is so awesome!), and I have new scrummy stuff that I want to spin up, so I went ahead and wound this wool into a lovely little yarn cake on my ball winder, fully intending to ply from both ends of the center pull ball cake.

When it was time to start the plying my brain did an about turn and decided that I should Navajo ply instead. I started off with a nice chain 3 ply when I remembered that I don't really like Navajo plying. Darn. Now what?

I remembered that I'd spun up a couple of spindles of this confetti about oh, a year ago - and had just wound them up on storage bobbins until I could get an idea of what I wanted to do with them, so I went and rummaged around my Monstrosity of a Stash and found them. I had spun up one big honking spindleful, and another smaller spindleful - No way I was going to have enough to 3 ply the whole shebang together. But I decided to just start anyway - merrily plying away from three strands. Of course the smaller bobbin gave up the ghost pretty early on. No problem - I'll just grab the other end of the center pull ball and keep going. Even the fuller (more full? ) spindleful gave out pretty quickly - so I was back to Navajo plying.... Yep - this skein has been 3 plied every which way - and you know what? You can't really tell which parts are which in the skein. Though I could very possibly change my mind about that once I start knitting it up.

Here it is in all it's glory - 185 yards of very soft Confetti Wool - 3 plied in every direction. As you can see it's not as fine and even as most of my stuff - but that's a good thing! I have absolutely no idea what in the world it is going to be when it grows up - but that's ok too! This was some spinning for spinnings sake, and I'm sure a project will find it soon.

And now - for some random prettiness.