Bubble Yummy

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

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.

Hot out of the microwave

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.

F&F Official FO's

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.