Guess what? We had snow again Sunday and yet more today. Just after a nice warm stretch and as usual just when we all start thinking about gardening again. :) I had managed to side step the urge to garden, thinking that it wasn't time yet and that Winter was just not over yet. However I am wishing it would warm up just enough for more frequent motorcycle rides. I am missing that.

I have been filling my time with some spinning and knitting. I'm still knitting the same thing, but have finished off some yarn. Yesterday I was able to get the purple/black/gray thingy skein done. I'm still not sure I like it but I am sure I'll keep it. It intrigues me too much to get rid of it. In normal daylight it's got this purply black color, but every time I try to photograph it the pictures show a washed out gray/green. Wierd. It's super soft, supersquisy and I'll do something with it.

This is unknown fiber, and the dyeing was done way back when I was trying to get purple. Or was it black? Who now knows? lol I suspect I was going for black and was using the Wiltons dyes at the time. What I do know is that it's approximately 352 yards, 3.75 oz. and 14WPI. I was most excited that I remembered to dig out my WPI tool and use it. I know! Impressive, huh?

The pictures are dark as I had adjusted the camera down to a point where it would take a picture showing that there is acutally a pinky purple part in there and not washed out gray. I know, it's not the most stunning. (You can click on it for a more close up look if ya want though. It's better looking close up.)

I'm still working on the grey Jacob but should be done with the singles tonight. I've already plied up two skeins and this last bit should make three. (Love the jumbo flyer for plying!!!) I also dug out the mostly white Jacob last night as it occured to me that I was close to completing the fiber in my spinning basket. So next up with be the mostly white Jacob and a dull rusty pumpkin color. I know...sounds so exciting. ;) I forsee another day spent behind the carder making up goodies to spin.

Pretty soon I'll be doing some dyeing of the Corriedale top I bought and would love tips from others who have dyed top before. I have visions of it dyed and braided. lol I should have bought it dyed, me thinks. ;)

Well, waiting for Blogger to load my pictures due to my crappy slow dial up connection has made me grumpy, so I'm off to spin and regain some happy.

Bloggers not playing nicely........spell check isn't working......I give up. I hope the typ-o's aren't too bad.

Hey, Y'all!

I'm leading with a positive for a change! I finished the Nutkin socks last weekend and have 3......yes three pictures of them to show you. As previously stated, I wasn't happy with how the colorway actually turned out as I was expecting deeper, more vivid colors but was happy with the yarn (as usual) and really loved the pattern! I used Knit Picks Essential Sock yarn in the Tuscany colorway and because I only did 6 pattern repeats before starting the heel, and needed only 5 pattern repeats for the foot I ended up only using just over one skein.

I can not state enough how much I loved this pattern! I was suprised how easily I memorized the pattern and how easily these socks knit up. The patterning on the socks themselves looks more difficult than the pattern really is, which is the genious of the pattern writing. They are wonderful looking and wonderful fitting. They feel so good on the feet. I immediately put them on as they came off the needles and yes, I wore them for two days straight. (In my defense, I was sick and at home, so I wasn't walking around stinking them up. Two days in a row was ok. Really. Honest.)

And why did no one tell me the joys of short row heels?!!! And the construction of the toe is sheer genious! I've never been so pleased with knitting, and so happy with a pattern in my life. My very short knitting life. WOW! My next step is to look up other patterns from this wonderful knitting designer....Beth LaPensee.....there must be more gems from this one out there!

The husband woke up with a head cold a couple of weeks ago and generously shared it with me. I spent a couple of days on the couch (finishing socks, playing with sticks and string, generally laying low....OH! How Abbie loved that!..etc.) and then spent what turned out to be the worst of it back at work. That's usually how it is with me, I totally misjudge when I should stay home, but in the end it worked out. I did spend a bit of time that I was home sick logging my yarn stash on Ravelry. I rarely use Ravelry as it's intended and I really plan on doing so in the future. Now that I have the majority of my stash on there, I think I'll be able to match up yarn with projects. It will also allow me to be able to "see" the stash at a glance when I'm "shopping" for yarn. I was really happy to see that most of the stash is my own handspun, although some of the quality of that handspun is a bit embarrasing and for others my photography skills don't do them justice. lol I am getting better though, and that's not just me trying to make myself feel better. Honest!

I'm still working on spinning up the "Mostly Gray Jacob" using the long draw. I took about a week off from spinning as with the head/chest cold it either hurt to draw out, or I was just too tired and uninspired to try. Today I spun a bit and it's moving nicely. I'm already looking forward to starting on the "Mostly White Jacob" that's already carded. The bulk of the fleece was "Mostly Brown Jacob" if I remember correctly. I've earmarked all of this fleece to become an afghan and will determine what pattern I use after spinning it up. The plan is to long draw spin the whole thing though so I end up with a nice fluffy soft yarn.

After finishing Nutkin, I pulled out the yarn from the frogged Jaywalker socks and cast on. I don't know what I was thinking. These socks have been rattling around in my brain and I keep thinking I need to get them done. The fact that I started them probably a million times, finished them once, wore them a few times, hated the fit and frogged them in a fit of knitting superiority should speak wonders at my mental abilities. It really bugged me that they sat in the sock drawer, never getting worn, because they just didn't fit. For the last few weeks it was really bothering me that the yarn was sitting on spools in the closet because I still hadn't reknit them. (It's a sickness, I tell ya.) So, being truely sick, with nothing on the needles and a pattern memorized from knitting it a million times, I cast on again. This time I cast on a needle size smaller than last time and all is going well. Umm....well.....I'm still not sure they're going to fit. I've gotten a few inches of the leg done and I'm not sure they'll stay up, but I won't be able to tell if they're acceptable until after the heel is done. I think I'm learning a lesson about the type of yarn used in a knitted article and the size of said yarn. Meaning not all sock yarns are the same. Oh.

Yeah.

And.

Cotton sock yarn behaves differently from wool sock yarn. You can laugh, but it took a head cold for me to realize that.

So right now I'm fighting off the impulse to cast on the Pomotomus socks using Brown Sheep Company's Wildfoote sock yarn in Forget Me Not. I'm fighing it because the yarn is smaller than the pattern calls for and I'm not up to the mental part of figuring out how that's going to affect the fit of the sock and what adjustments I'll have to make to make the socks fit me right. Also...this one's written in chart format and I......

Well......

I......ahem.

OK. I don't read charts. I know! What kind of knitter doesn't read charts?!! I prefer written out patterns. The chart is confusing me. And I've already tried it a couple of times. It's bad enough that I'm thinking of writing out the pattern myself. That's pretty desperate. lol Right now I knit away on Jaywalker and out of the corner of my eyes, contemplate the Pomotomus socks. The yarn is already in my knitting basket with the pattern.

Another thing I've been doing is reading up the Yarn Harlots books. I'm loving them! That's me, late to the party but happy to drink fast to catch up!

Well it's time for me to wrap this up and go comment (finally) on a few blogs I read and then knit for a bit. Talk to you soon!

Fibery Stuff

I've been away for a bit and thought I should check in and let you see what I've been up to. I'm still working away on the Nutkin sock, but have not been working on it much as I've had other stuff going on.

Last weekend I decided to clear off some bobbins that have been hanging around for I don't know how long with bits and bobs on them, waiting for just the right color to pair them off with. I gave in and just started to clean off bobbins. One was this turquoise, that I was convinced I was going to spin up two copper colored singles and make a three ply out of. I finally decided that the copper wasn't going to happen any time soon and that the turquoise would look dandy as a two ply....and would free up a bobbin. So, that's completed and measured in at approx 138yards.

I also finished up the brown/yellow/blue color blending exercise. I'm not happy with the colors but the spinning is better. I'm practicing the long draw spinning method and I think I made great improvement in just this skein alone. It's certainly got more loft than I normally produce. I can tell you the plying was much easier than it has been in the past. (I'm also getting better at plying from a center pull ball. No feet were used this time and that's a huge improvement!lol) I personally dislike this colorway, but Don likes it so it'll end up being something for him.....if I can stand to knit it up. ;) It is only 93 yards.

I also combined about 3 or 4 bobbins worth of test spinning, all from the same natural brown fleece that will later be worked into a full skein. There's lots of brown to be done up yet, but just combining them freed up more bobbins. I'm sure there will be more posts regarding this brown project. lol

After cleaning all that up, I looked at my basket full of empty bobbins and decided it was time to get a variety of fiber prepped for spinning. I dug out the red/black/gray and got that ready to work on. I don't recall how I carded them together last time to make the yarn for the gloves (should have taken notes!) and I really want to try to match it as closely as possible so this time I carded them separately and will have to do the combining during the spinning. We'll see how that works out. I don't need the gloves to be identical, but I'd like them to be close.

I also sorted out my dyed fiber from ages ago. You know the stuff, the results from dyeing experiments using the Wiltons icing dyes? I went at it with the thought that I'd card up what was possibly acceptable, and put aside the rest to be over dyed a different color. From that lot is this "orangey" color that was suppose to be the aforementioned copper. It's not what I was expecting and carded up really nice, if not my favorite color. Oh well, it will be good practice and someone will like it I suppose.

In the "To Be Carded" pile was this Jacob. I've already carded up the "mostly white" portion of this small fleece and besides this "mostly gray" batch I have a "mostly brown" batch to card up. I envision a small afghan made of granny squares all from this one fleece. We'll see. We'll see. There's lots of spinning still to be done. This came out light and fluffy though so it should be a real pleasure to spin up.

I also pulled out the dark mess I call Dragon. It was atrocious in the bag and got only marginally better after carding. I'm reserving judgment on this one until it's spun up. There is something about the light and dark colors that intrigues me. We'll see how long that lasts though as I started to spin it up last night and it's insisting on being a fine single, and I've lots of this colorway carded so that means it will be a long spinning process. Sigh. That's the spinning fates for you. I may have to alternate between spinning this and the Jacob, just to keep my sanity.

This last one I finished off last night before starting the Dragon fiber. It's the sky blue/purple/vermilion/slate blue color blending exercise. I really like this one and like the end product. I will confess to the fact that I completely mis-plied this one and had to redo it as I'd plied it in the wrong direction and it was trying to eat itself in distress. It was a good lesson though as I think I now know what I did wrong on that cable ply last year. :) I don't have a yardage measurement on this one as it's still drying.

Well that's all for now. I'm gonna finish eating dinner and then work on either the sock or the spinning, not sure which yet. ;)

Knitting, Spinning and Such

Oh what to blog next? In this mad dash to catch up, it's hard to decide what's next. Hmmmm....I'm thinking knitting!

Awhile back I noticed that there are holes in the bottom of my felted slippers. I have a pair of clog type slippers that I love dearly and I've been meaning to replace them with the felted clog slippers from Fiber Trends for the last couple of years. For one reason or another it's not been done, mainly because I doubted my ability and (snort) didn't think I had enough yarn in the stash to complete them. (rolling on the floor laughing. If you could see my fiber/yarn stash.....hehehehehe) Anyway, I noticed that not only did I wear out my felted fuzzy slippers, but my favorite slip on slippers are at deaths door as well. With snow on the ground and cold weather abounding, I decided to quickly knit up a pair of warm footsie covers out of a Wool Ease in a cranberry color. (They show lighter in color in the pics.) After completing Mom's shawl, I cast these on and whipped them out. They fit, well they were a bit large, but I wasn't giving in. They were mine. And warm. Even if I had to add a draw string to them to keep them on!

After completing them I decided to tackle the Fiber Trends Felted Clogs. They knitted up surprisingly quick and while Don was modeling the "before" picture for me, I had him model the Cranberry slipper as well. (Don's wearing the before felting clog and my foot is next to it for reference.)

Wouldn't you know it, the Cranberry slippers fit him perfectly. Well, almost perfectly. The cuff was cast off a little tight for him, but overall they fit fine. So I finished knitting up my felted clogs, then undid the cranberry slippers and recast off with a looser finish and removed the tie so he could wear them. He's now up 2 pairs of slippers to my one. And he wants a pair of felted clogs now that he's seen them finished. (Not that he's the slipper Nazi or anything. I am the one who offers after all. lol)

Here they are all done. Well basically done. They felted right down and very quickly I might add. I think Don had his doubts as to weather they would felt down that much, but I had faith. They are really warm and very cushy and all I hoped they would be. I wore them most of yesterday, but have tabled them until I can get the leather glued to the bottoms. I nearly did the splits on the lino last night and really, my body doesn't bend that way. So I'll try to get the leather on the soles (suede side down) either tonight or tomorrow. I have a couple more projects I want to complete before I start his. Maybe.

After completing the clogs, I was looking for something quick and easy to knit while we went to the cabin for the weekend (another post in the making) so I balled up two small skeins from the color blending exercises and decided to make some finger tip-less gloves. I grabbed the same pattern I used last winter and on Saturday cast on the red/black/grey while watching TV. I decided that this time I would experiment with the pattern some. I usually wear this type of glove when driving which is why I don't want a full fingered glove as it impairs my grip on things like the key, the gate latch, etc. However warm my brown pair are, I found myself wishing for a longer finger length, so I decided that this time I'd knit the fingers full length (past my finger tips) but not tie them off together as a closed tipped glove. This way I can pull them down to use my finger tips if needed, but have the warmth of a full fingered glove if wanted. I'll test them out and let you know how they work for me. If they don't, I've got enough length to take out the cast off and modify them if I want. I may not have enough yarn to complete the pair so I may have to blend and spin up a bit more to finish them. Good thing I wrote down the color ratios. They may not match perfectly, but they are only for me, so no biggie. I'll post pics as soon as they are semi complete.

I took a break from knitting yesterday to get some spinning done. I completed Maria's Gunmetal/Burgundy skein. It turned out to be 290 yards and a nice squishy yarn at that. Part of me hopes she hates it so I can keep it all to myself! hehehe I've already started on the purple she asked for and have one bobbin of singles completed. I'm pre-drafting the batts into roving so it would be more uniform with less concentration. It's going quickly and I think this and the vermilion will both be Navajo plied into a three ply. I'm not committed to that yet, but it's a strong gut feeling so it will probably end up being so. It's a good thing Maria's flexible, but if she hates them, I can always keep them. (Not that I'm trying to make something she hates, honest. It's just a nice safety net that I happen to like how they're coming out too. Honest. Really. Stop laughing.)

Well dinners almost done and I've got to get on with it. There are a couple of more posts in the plans, but I'm starting to wonder if it can all be done in one night. (grin) If not, I may be back tomorrow.

Victory Is Mine!

"Victory is mine!"---Stewie Griffin

I know I've been away for a bit again, but I've been productive. The holiday snuck up on me and I managed to get the house cleaned up enough for Mom to come over for dinner. We had a great day and a simple meal, making more time for games and visiting. I love that about simple holidays. ;) The hardest part was not talking to her about this.....

The shawl is finished! I'm so excited I can't stand myself! Seriously. I do the happy dance a every time I think about it. Don's gonna be ready to sedate me by Christmas. Now I've to to figure out a shawl pin thingy for her. Even though it's wide enough for her to tie it should she choose, I'd like to provide a shawl pin for her to use as well. That's the next project.

Here it is in it's painfully pinned out blocking form. You'll notice that I'm using the unconventional pattern cutting board as I needed to be able to block it on something that I can move out of range of the children. (Every time this was laid out flat, someone with claws was showing too much interest and even in this picture you can see The Vomiteer heading over in a curious fashion. I wasn't taking any chances!) Thankfully Don thought to mention this wonderful fold out cardboard thingy that I own, as I was shooting down options at an alarming rate. He's definitely the brains of the operation here. ;)

I was so excited to have finished the shawl that I jumped at the chance to freely spin yarn with no guilt. Yeah, that lasted all of 15 minutes, then I was back on the couch cleaning up knitting mess and working on the re-knit of the Jaywalker socks. I tried the one on and don't think it's feasible to continue it. I'm contemplating re-frogging (for the umpteenth time) and starting over with a bit looser gauge, maybe different needles, I don't know. Something is wrong with this sock though as it's way too tight. Ironic as I'm re knitting them due to them being way to loose. Whatever happens, I'll not re-frog without re-reading the last blog post on them to see what's what with them. ;)

I leave you with a bit of eye candy.

The boy. I noticed this weekend that his chest has broadened out some and he's starting to put on a bit more bulk. Don snapped a few really nice pictures of him so I'll share those when I'm done snagging them off his computer. He also got some really nice video of Tucker howling that I'll post here soon.

I hope that all is well with you guys and that these holidays are sweet for you all. I'll be back soon!

Feeling Chatty Part 3-

That'll learn ya!

See? You ask where I've been and you get a three part blog post. lol


On With the Fiber! In which I say "FINALLY!" and " Whew!"
Ok, a while back I started these "color blend" exercises in which I tried to blend colors I would not normally blend. Can I just say now I consider it a failure? If I can't stand to blend the fibers and resort to striping out the blend to spin it, is is really a color blend test? Does it matter? Does anyone care? Anyhow, here's the latest that I named Charleston Chew and immediately liked it better due to it's name. It had no name before it's photo shoot and I hated it, but upon naming it Charleston Chew (which it resembles) I was immediately overtaken with a comforting memory from childhood and liked it better. Not saying that if you claim it it's not yours cause to be honest it's repellent to me. Just saying that it's not "throw it on the bon fire repellent". K? It's one redeeming factor before naming was that it was a softer twist and a fluffier yarn than I've been spinning, so there's progress, no?


Holy Cats! it feels good to be speaking of the fiber again! It seems so long since I've typed a sentence about the fiberly goodness! Not that it's been neglected. Oh, I've been dyeing. I've been carding. I've been spinning. I've even been knitting.


When I show you what I've come up with for Maria, you will be so jealous you may well want to hunt her down. To be fair to her, as I love her dearly, I won't tell you any more of her. We'll just refer to her as "The Fair Maria" from now on. K? Well, "The Fair Maria" has commissioned three skeins of yarn from her minion (myself) . One to be a Burgundy/blue mix of my choosing, one to be of a vermilion and the final to be of a purple hue. All three are to be for the Princess Brooke and must be skin-worthy. I dyed and blended a soft wool/alpaca blend that I believe the Princess Brooke will be pleased with.
Here's the blue, which I've already started. It's the softest blend I've come up with so far and the color is pleasing. At the time of this post, I've completed one bobbin (approx. 1/2) of the blue. Once the blue is done, then I'll start the Burgundy. After completion of both colors, I will ply one color with the other to complete the yarn.

After that is the purple.



And the vermilion. Three skeins total.

If I'm able to fight off the call of this fiber, I'm working on Mom's shawl. It's the only knitting I'm allowing myself at this point. So far I'm at 140+ rows. Here's a picture of it holding down my new knitting basket. ;) At 250 rows, I'll stretch it out to approx blocking measurements and then make a determination from there. Do I go to 300 rows or not? That's remains to be seen. My mother is a small framed woman and I want her to be able to wear this. I'll probably be making this decision this weekend. (oh man I hope so, cause I need to figure out how to do the border around a triangle, cause you know?, it wasn't addressed in the book it was published in. And I quote, "Alternatively, you can finish the piece with a narrow knitted on boarder." Thanks. Thanks so much. From those of us new to this, how do I knit the freaking corners?!!! Before Christmas would be nice thank you very much! So anyone with any clues, it would be much appreciated if comment now. It could make a huge difference in a nice elderly lady's Christmas presents. Just sayin. ;)

Another "finished project" on the bobbins was the previously cabled yarn from HERE that became two separate yarns again in the last few months. I discovered that to make a cabled yarn you really had to intend that at the onset of spinning the singles, so I un-cabled this yarn, added twist to the two, two-plys and then set their twists, making two skeins of two ply yarn. Both beautiful and functional, but not one cable yarn. Therefore, the cable yarn is still on my to-do list, but these beauties are now functional yarns. ;) We're all happy with the results.

There have been other spinning feats, but I'll wait until I have yardage to post the pics. At least I'm somewhat up to date. ;)

Oh Crap!

Before I get to the "Oh Crap!" portion of this post, let me rain a little happiness on you all. Well, the happiness for you spinners anyway. ;)

This would be, and is, another of my blending tests. So far it's a hit with everyone that's seen it. (Yes, all three of us. But really, that does make 100% satisfaction and if the politicians can get away with this, so can I!) This is the red/gray/blk sample on the wheel. I decided not to blend the batt a second time on the carder, but to strip off the colors from the batt and to spin the colors as individually as possible. (Yes, I know, it's kind of mucking up the "blended" batt tests if I don't blend the batt fully.....but, well......it didn't want to be blended. So sue me. I'll try to blend a mix of these colors later. Really. I will.) So here it is on the wheel and looking ever so lovely with it's separate color sections! ( And don't you just love the sheep peering up from the wheel at you?!!!)

After completing the single, I then wind it into a center pull ball and ply it back on itself, giving myself a two ply yarn and no left overs. This plying technique's name escapes me at this time (small voice in head says "Navajo" and large voice says "nope, you're wrong. Wrong, wrong wrong!!") I'll look it up later. The shot of whiskey in the tea says, "Keep typing and ignore all other voices." Sounds like good advice to me, so I'll continue on and hopefully look up the required info later. Back to they plying technique... Besides it's name escaping me it's a technique that I'm not overly proficient at. Hopefully by the time I'm through with these "tests" I'll be better at it and more comfortable with it. One of the downfalls of it is that I have to start and finish the plying in one sitting as my fingers on one hand are keeping the stuff from knotting up, it's important that I don't put the center pull ball down, but keep plying until done. Thank goodness I have no children and no one is likely to knock on the door, requiring me to stop the process.

OK, so now the happiness. Here's the finished skein! It is 1 oz Fire Engine Red, .5 oz Silver Grey and .5 oz Black ALPACA. (I havn't washed it yet to set the twist so I have no yardage info as of this time. Future post to be sure.) Yep, I cheated. I figured, why take perfectly good white wool and dye it black when I have absolutely fabulous black alpaca.....and I do mean BLACK Alpaca that is clean and super soft and would make nummy gloves. Ok. You caught me. The husband tried to claim this as his...to go with the red/black/grey sock yarn I dyed that he claimed.....but I beat him to it. 'Tis MINE! Mwaaaa haaa haaaa!!! I do believe I'll have a whole wardrobe of glovies for this winter!!!!

Which reminds me. Do you remember these? The first finger-tip less gloves I knit last winter. Well, it was Feb of this year which technically was last winter. Anyway if you remember, I typically wear these to drive the car in cold weather cause my hands are becoming cold weather wussies. A couple of weeks ago I got them out of the glove box on a particularly cold morning and as I was leaving for work the dufus pup managed to catch a fang on one of them and I was sure he tore the yarn and caused a run. There was much swearing and planning of his funeral as I headed to work. Driving down the country backroads is not conducive to checking hand knits for runs and broken yarn so it had to wait until I got to work. The "run" was so tight it took me quite a bit of time and two bent paper clips to clear it up and lucky for Tucker......the yarn was NOT broken. So...he lives. Anyway, this incident lead to them being lovingly washed (as they had not been properly washed at completion but had been hastily worn and then stored!) and rinsed and rinsed and rinsed again. I was getting worried due to the color coming off in the rinse water. The third rinse recieve a huge glug of vinegar and clear rinses followed. Oddly enough, they pretty much look like the above pictures so I don't know where the color came from. lol After they dried they were placed in a convienient spot awaiting frosty weather. Well, I must have been sensing the seasonal change cause they've been put to work this week for sure. Just this morning I was thinking that I couldn't wait to cast on for another pair! One for every day of the week would be nice! hehehe

The pooch is enjoying this very seasonable change in weather. He's very much a cool weather dog and loves to play in the rain and roll around in the frost. With the cooling temps he's wanting to play more and is begging for more attention in the evenings. As I was trying to unlock the door tonight he was nibbling on my ankles, which tickels no end, making it very difficult to get in the house, especially with my arms full! He's quite the ham when he wants attention to be sure! It's time to start shopping the second hand stores for new bedding blankets for him and to hastily put a roof on the dog house as he's finally decided to use it on occasion and of course it leaks from him climbing on it. Nice of him to wait until the end of Summer to make that determination! lol My mom came over last Monday and he rode in the car to pick her up. I think she was quite suprised to see how large he really is and now understands why we don't take him many places anymore. I do believe he out weighs her by at least 10 lbs! lol He was so happy to see her though and gave her many kisses in the car on the way home. She hasn't seen him in quite a while and I don't thinks she understood me when I said he took up the whole back seat of the car but she seemed delighted to see him. All went well, he showered her with kisses and made eyes at her through the living room window like the handsome flirt he is. I've gotten rid of some house plants and he can see more fully into the house now. He's a liken that!

I'm still working on Mom's shawl and yes it's still a "sshhhhh!" item. It's moving right along and I've just finished row 199. Placed marker for row 200 and I am ready to move on. Now for the "Oh Crap!" moment. Why? I ask you WhY? I've been a good knitter. I'm knitting this for someone else, with yarn I bought, for goodness sake, in the colors THEY like. This is NOT for me! So tell me....why is it that I reach this milestone of 200 rows.......with every other one growing two stitches......only to find a nasty mistake about 25 rows back?!!! This is a gift!!! Why?! Why?! Why?!!!
Why? Well, I'll tell you why. This happened because it's a holiday gift for someone special. It's because it's my FIRST true lace project of any size. It's because I was knitting along so splendidly fast that I could complete it before the actual date required! (I KNOW!!!! ShOCK!) It's because it causes me to stop and think about what's important to the receiver vs. what's important to me. It does irratiate me that there's going to be errors in this shawl, but there's a voice in the back of my head saying, "It's your first lace, your first shawl, cut yourself some slack!" (But then again, that could be the whiskey in my tea.) Part of me wants this to be P.E.R.F.E.C.T. Another part just want's it to be done. I'm trying to make sure that I balance the one with the other and not be such a perfectionist that it doesn't get completed, but not so lax that the quality is crap. I paused the knitting process on it to look over my options. I could riiiiip it back. (Aargh. Rip off skin instead please!) I could try the knitted lace "oopsie" fix that I've seen on a more talented bloggers site, but really, I know I'm not skilled enough for that yet, so no I can't. ( Sigh ) Or, I could knit on and realize that the reciever isn't going to care if there is a mistake in it. She'll see it as a sign of the hard work that went into making it. She'll recognize the love and the sweat and the tears and the frustration of learning a new skill to make something special for someone else. Hell, she may never even see the mistake if I don't goof up and show it to her myself! So, I knit on. Hopefully tomorrow will give me enough hours to start row 201 and I do think it'll be time for a pictorial update after that.

Today was day two in row for frost in the morning. That means "Good bye Garden" for me. As soon as I got home I was out in the garden harvesting up the last of the summer squash, beans and the tomatoes. It's been a rough gardening year to be sure and there have been many let downs. While I was picking tonight I was thinking about the fact that it's October and I'm harvesting still. Granted the squash were all dinky this year and the plants didn't produce much, but really....they produced right up until frost. That's something to be grateful about. The strawberries were wonderful and I've gotten some in the freezer as well as blackberries. The green beans did wonderful this year and I've been able to put some into the freezer, so that's saying something. There are turnips out there waiting to be harvested, and the carrot I picked as a test tonight was wonderful! So not all's a complete loss. ;) It was a bit sad to not have the garden fresh tomatos this year. The tomato plants did fine as I thought ahead and had them in a more sheltered spot this year, but the weather just did not warm up enough, long enough for them to ripen fully. I had several hit the deck (literally) before they were even ripe due to the weather conditions. So I stewed on the problem.(no pun inteded.) Did I mention I'm slow mentally sometimes? Well I am. I only lately discovered that I could dry the tomatoe, green ones and all, in the dehydrator. Wahoo! So tonight I harvested the last of the little beasties off the vines. It felt good to know they wouldn't go to waste. I can use them later in soups, stews and breads and have the added pleasure of knowing that they were survivors of the "rough" gardening year.Don't they look purty!?! I fully plan on harvesting all the food out of the beds and planting with a cover crop this year. This excludes the raspberry and strawberry beds of course, but the other planting beds need to be harvested and cover cropped asap. I didn't do this last year and I think that failure combined with the weird weather and possibly some over agressive weed management caused the partial crop failure this year. I got the last of the beans tonight, so that bed can be cleaned, turned and planted. I've just got to harvest the turnips, carrots and the left over broccoli and those beds can be done. The squash tires can be cleaned out and cover cropped as well.

I'm planning on setting down and making two plans for the yard for next season. One is the food/herb plan including when to start certain plants and herbs for next season. The other is an overall plan to reduce the amount of yardwork required to maintain a pleasant yardscape. (Large words for how to make the crappy yard work disappear so I can ride the motorcycle more next year without guilt!! lol) This plan will largely include removing plants and replacing them with bark and easier care periennials or shrubs. It will also (hopefully) include a Monthly To-Do list (weather permitting!). I'm hoping to take advantage of some of the "not-nice-for-riding-but-great-for-yardwork" weather but I'll be honest with you, that weather often looks just like "perfect spinning/knitting" weather and I get confused easily. Here's to keeping my fingers crossed that it works out! ;) There's always plenty to do and often times at this time of year, I'm more inclined to work inside than out. Oh well, it's not a contest and I don't have any kids to tell me I'm doing it wrong. Lol.

Well, I do have a lot of other stuff to talk to you about, but it's nearly midnight and I'm tired so I'll wind this down and head to bed. I'll try to get some more pics to post soon. I hope all is well with all of you and that you and yours have enough to see you through. I'll be back soon as this blog has been on my mind lately. More and more I think..."I should blog that!" lol That's a good sign I believe.

Why this Weekend Sucked and Didn't Suck Alternately.

AKA....Knowing how to make the best of what ya got!

Well lets see, where do I start? Last week the Boss was on vacation and that always makes for a long week. That being said, by closing time on Saturday I was well ready for 1) a glass of wine. 2) a place to put my feet up and 3) a day off! So after the dinner chores were done, easily enough as the hubster is not a picky eater anymore (and was exhausted himself from having fun all day. ;) ) I sat down with my wheel and my fiber and spun on the white sticky mess that I brought back from Julies. Notice how when I brought it home a few posts back it was a large bag of spinnable wonderfulness and now its a "white sticky mess"?! After spinning up 2.5 singles of this stuff, aiming for a three ply, my hands were hurting from working with it and it was a bear to spin. Not what I'm used to at all. lol. It did give me something to work on on Saturday night though. I did consider knitting, but the Mojo was not to be found.

Sunday is normally a day that the hubster and I enjoy together. We get up, go out to breakfast, go for a wonderful ride together, etc, etc. Yeah. Sunday dawned gloomy. Not riding weather. Secretly my heart was happy as I had plans for a gloomy, wet, rainy day. We went to breakfast and discussed the fact that he wanted to go shopping after breakfast. Yep, you read that right. HE wanted to go SHOPPING. Weird I know! It turned out that he needed to get a couple of pairs of khaki pants for work (stupid new dress code to be enforced) and was wanting to pick up a GPS unit, such as a Garmon or a TomTom. As he had worked 6 days a week, three weeks in a row, one of which was over 65 hrs. I figured he could buy what he darned well pleased. ;) Besides, he does our finances and knows what we have money wise, not I. lol All that being said we ate our breakfast and headed off to the bowels of hell, aka. Wally World, aka. Walmart. Now I am known to shop there occasionally, but I absolutely hate it there. I HATE large crowds and crowded shopping venues. I will not go into the minor details of our trip that piled on and on to cause me to become a mean tempered, swearing she-devil by the time we left there but suffice it to say it had something to do with non-English speaking customer service reps(huge pet peeve here), being allowed to carry $40 worth of merchandise around the store, but having to pick up my $14 bottle of perfume at a special register and really I just don't do well in large warehouse type stores with lots of people so all these little things probably aren't anything at all but stress reaction. Call it over stimulation. Call it too much caffeine. Call it what you want. I call it the Bowels of Hell. Anyway, we escaped without injury (causing or receiving), legal fees and with his pants, my perfume and the TomTom.

Our trip home was quick and uneventful other than when we "confused" the TomTom. As we where headed home, I tore it out of it's package, plugged it in, did a fast-fix-it-the-way-you-want-later set up and plugged in our home addy for it to "lead us home" to test it. Well it did dandy and like all new parents we said, "WOW!" and "Look at that!" and "I can't believe it just did that!" That is until we decided to take a detour, off the map, to get videos on the way home. Then we had the whole parent of a teenager moment. You know, where you sit and giggle and say, "It'll never figure out what we did now!" But sadly, it did. Yep, our TomTom is smarter than us. Sad. But wait! Isn't that why we bought the blasted thing?!! Yessirebob! So this is a good thing!

Well we get home and it's fixing to pour rain like you wouldn't believe and I'm thinking "YEAH!!!! I'm throwing some laundry in the wash, setting up some dye pots and sitting down to spin me some yarn!" And thus I did. I give you proof!

This is Scarlett and Gun Metal dyeing up nicely. I've just this week ordered me a new SS stock pot through work (at a discount) to be my replacement dye pot for the one on the left. That pot is aged enough that occasionally stuff like fiber gets caught on the bottom of it. Not a good thing in my book.

So here's Miss Scarlett dyeing up with a flash photo. Yep another red. I'm not sure why I bought 3 red dyes, but it's a color that will get used a lot here, so that's all good.

Here is my new love! Gun Metal. For some reason I was completely expecting it to be a grayish color. Yes I did get the color sample page, but this on the page looked different to me. I was absolutely awestruck at it's beauty. I even had to get the hubster to confirm for me that it was a Gun Metal Blue.....not grey! WOO HOO! I'm so liking this color that I've already built in my head a couple of fantasy colorways to blend this into. I just need to write them down before I forget them!

So while the laundry was landry-ing and the fiber was dyeing, I was spinning up the white stuff that sucks and watching a movie with the hubster. I finished the singles while the first movie was playing and plied during the second movie. I did manage to get the yarn washed during the third (while I started to spin the Brown-Julie's-machine-carded-beautifully-and-it's-not-sticky-at-all-cause-it-was-cleaned-properly) but took no pics if it yet. I will when I dye it.

When we first sat down to watch the movie, Abbie kept trying to get me to sit down and knit. She pestered and cajoled. She climbed up and rubbed against my legs. Finally she gave in and climbed into the wool basket and inside the bag of wool. We've got several pictures of this, from several angles. lol


All in all Sunday wasn't too bad. The rain sucked in the respect that there are not too many more weekends for us to take day long rides this year. However, I really, really needed a wet dreary weekend to spend playing with the fiber again!

I have Mondays off now, so they officially count as weekend for me. Monday I decided that I was going to go to deliver the skeins of Alpaca I spun to the owners of Squire Creek Ranch. I phoned and left a message to see if they would be home. I then spent the morning on chores and such. I decided it was time to wash some fleece that have been soaking. How long do you soak yours? Well I don't usually wait this long but this one had time to sprout!

Kinda scary actually. This one was a small amount of leg/neck fleece from an alpaca and had been soaking as it was pretty dirty. It's almost done washing out now and I'll show you it all done up. (The picture quality is really bad. Sorry for that) I've seriously never sprouted a fleece before. lol

Part of Monday's "chores" was dyeing some more fleece. I determined that the bag of nasty sticky fleece would be re washed and then dyed. I wasn't spinning anymore greasy sticky white fleece. An wow! What a wonderful decision that was!

This is chestnut. Wonderful warm brown!

And Sky Blue. Woo Hoo!

And here's Salmon!

One of the wonderful things about this experiment is that I'm getting such vivid beautiful colors with a specified measured amount of dye. I know I can adjust these colors by adjusting the amount of dye used. It's truly exciting for me as I'm not just seeing each color, but the potential for each color as well!

While I was waiting for these colors to dye up I decided to sit down with Abbie and knit a bit. I wasn't in the mood to knit on a sock so I decided to wind up a skein of Red Hat yarn I bought for Mom and cast on. I know it's safe to talk about it here as she doesn't have Internet yet and no one who reads this will tell her about it. I bought a few skeins of Red Hat yarn from Knit Picks last year with the intention of making her a shawl or wrap out of it for Christmas. Well life and time got away from me and it didn't get done. Now I'm planning for this Christmas, or if not, her birthday is in February. So yesterday I picked up a simple lace shawl pattern, wound up the yarn and cast on. The knitting Mojo was back!

I give you a pic of the first attempt at three repeats as I'm pretty sure I'll be ripping this out to restart. I think I'm doing my yarn overs incorrectly in the lace sections and that's giving me a "different" look. It would be alright if I were consistent about it because then we could call it a "pattern modification" and I could just continue it through the whole thing. Unfortunately I think I'm doing them differently each lace section, so it just looks odd. lol Oh well. At least I can see definate lace sections, however odd they look lol I'll look up how to do the YO's again and practice a few more repeats before I rip back and restart. I'm finding it soothing to knit with the lace weight on small needles and the lace pattern isn't driving me insane. It in itself is soothing. This is a MAJOR improvement from last year when I couldn't even cast on in lace weight. VBG. I'll most certainly be posting on this again and at that time will give the pattern details. I just wanted to say..."But look....it's lace!! I CAN!"

At this point in lace making I had to set it aside to deliver the yarn. It's approximately 1.5 hrs from my house to the Ranch, so the plan was to drive up, drop of said yarn and head to the grocery store on the way home. I arrived at he Ranch with no problems. Handed over the yarn and thanked them again for the gift of the fiber. Spent a few minutes looking at the group of nearby Alpaca and then got in the car to head out. Only. The. Car. Wouldn't. Start. It was dead. No clicky clicky. No turn over. No radio. Nutin! Not even enough juice to move my automatic seat belt. I hadn't even been there 10 minutes!!! I was so embarrassed! They kindly hooked me up to a charger after I checked everything I could think to check including fluid levels. lol After about 30 minutes it still wouldn't start, even on a quick start setting. We ended up borrowing jumper cables (yes I own some, they were in the truck!) and jumping the car. Did I say how embarrassed I was?! Needless to say I drove straight home. No stops. Ironically it died in the driveway just after crossing the threshold. I had to push it about 3 inches to get the gates closed so Tucker could get off his tether. Wow! I should have tied him to the front and let him pull it! lmao. I figured it was the alternator and called the hubster who brought one home with him, but within 3 minutes he figured out it was the battery. He replaced said battery today for me (I drove the truck as it was raining for a bit and I still had groceries to get!) and I should be good to go tomorrow. What a stressful ride though! I spent that hour and a half on the way home figuring on how I could buy a new car and then what fencing I'd have to do to keep Tucker from climbing on said new car! Good thing this one's fixed. Now I don't have to do that extra fencing. lol

Ok and at this point, you've read this far in hopes of finding a pic of Tucker. This weekend he was NOT so helpful in the taking of pictures and I've got nothing for ya. Sorry. I do have a story about him that I'll try to post soon....with some pics and I've got another post on a hike/ride we did last weekend. I'll try to get all this done this week as we've got a big weekend planned for next weekend.

I hope all is well with you and yours. If the current weather is anything to go by, I'll have more time to post soon. :( But at least this will get back to a craft type blog again. lol

Dyeing!

So first up, before the fiber fun....you may have noticed I changed my template. I've been thinking about changing blog platforms and last night I set up a blog on another platform to see if it really would be that much better. I stayed up way too late and pretty much got it set up, including importing history from here. I'm still undecided. That is probably because it's all new there and I have to learn how to use it, and here, I know how to make happen what I want to happen. For the most part that is. Of course after I went to the bother to set that one up, I had the thought that maybe I was just sick of my Blogger layout and maybe it's time to try a new layout. DUH! Should have thought of that first, but there it is....that's the way my brain works. I'm not listing the other blog address here yet and won't if I don't stick with it. I may just spruce up this place. :)

Now for the fun.

It's long been my goal to get organized enough to be able to spend time dyeing fiber and making my own custom blends for spinning. I'm finally making headway in the washing of Alpaca and spent some quality time on Sunday vac packing clean alpaca so that it could be stored away in the shed for future fiber blends. After I finished that I ran across some of that nasty sticky Border Leicester that I took to Julie's for carding last month. I had every intention of taking it back out to the shed to re-box it, but before I knew it the package was open and it was in the pot of hot water on the stove after a squirt of dish soap was added to the water. I told my self I was just checking to see if the stuff was going to wash out clean or not. That was until the dye ended up in the pot...then I had to admit I was dying fiber. ;) Last night I dyed up approximately 4 oz of each of these colors: Burgundy, Spruce, Purple, Sapphire Blue. Here's my results after dyeing today.

This morning I washed more fiber to be able to dye this afternoon. Today's colors are:

Emerald and Yellow.

Right now I have Silver Gray and Fire Red on the stove a cooking away.

These are all Jacquard dyes and they are some of the colors I ordered a couple of months ago. I as a bit intimidated to try them but they are SO MUCH EASIER to use than what I was doing before. The procedure is almost exactly the same. The only difference is that I do not have to dissolve the gel coloring before mixing it with the water in the dye pot. I was shocked at how fast and easy it really was. I will use up what I have in my back stock, but I believe all future dye purchases will be powders. ;) I'm just so excited to get solid results that I can use for color blending on the carder. Each color is only 4 oz so that will give me enough to play with the blends. My mind's already ahead of me and planning what colors to put together!

I'm still spinning up the white singles that were carded at Julies fiber mill. It's a bit slow going as it's soooo sticky and white is always a trial for me to spin, however I did finish the second bobbin today and started a third. Once this one's completed I'll be plying!!!! So I'm getting there. At least I'll have something to spin at guild.

Why?

Just to prove I can!

HEY! Mom's spinning again!

So I sat down this week to start spinning. Why? Because I suddenly had loads of lush fluffy ready to spin fiber in the house and ya know, it calls to you and tells you to dust off the wheel and take off the nasty llama that's full of veggie matter and really is going to be a bear to spin and start on some really wonderful soft fluffy if sticky with a bit too much lanolin left in it Border Leicester. White even. And we all know how I LOVE to spin white. ;) I'm a bobbin and a half into it, and am not even feeling any color withdrawals. Yet. So far, It's spinning up fairly smooth and even and fine enough that I'm considering a three ply ....and yes, I'm dreaming of colors to dye it. lol I've got a lot of time to consider colors looking at the size of this bag.

I started spinning this up the day before I attended a funeral. I find spinning to be a comforting habit and it really helped reduce the stress of the pre-funeral and the post funeral nerves. (Man do I hate funerals!) It's been a comfort all week. I've noticed on other blogs that other spinners call it calming, stress breaking, relaxing, meditative....many of us don't even try to dissect the reason it is. We just accept it for what it is, and are grateful. I've noticed lately that I've had a bit of a bitter and hard edge developing. (understatement) I'm feeling it softening in areas and honestly feel that it's due to the reconnection to my fiber arts and the fiber community. They are both so stress relieving and grounding. I don't think the realistic side of me is going away so there will always be a bit of a jaded edge, but the bitter seems to be fading. Sadly, I'm starting to look forward to fall. That's just not completely right! I should be enjoying to the full the rest of Summer. I think it's a combination of the funeral and the last week of mostly rain that we've had. Anyway, here it is in all it's in-progress-singles-glories. At the time of this post I have filled 1.5 bobbins and am aiming for 3 bobbins for a three ply. WOO.....we'll see how that turns out! BTW, I bought a WPI gauge and no longer have an excuse for leaving this spec out of my reports. aaargh! I'm planning on plying it up after I fill three bobbins and not waiting until I complete the bag....in... like.....2010. lol. 3 bobbins plied together should get me about 150-200 yds at the current thickness being spun. Maybe more even. So for me, that's a skein in the making and woo hooo, lets move on. ;) COLOR TIME!**

"Really, Put down the camera!"
More importantly, as far as Abbie is concerned, is that I sat down for the first time in ages and knit for a bit. What I'm working on is not important. It's the re-knit of the Jaywalker socks in the same yarn as last year. I'm hoping to complete these sometime in my lifetime and move on to another yarn in another color using another pattern. Hope springs eternal, so I hear. All Abbie cared about was that I was sedentary, playing with sticks and string again. LAP TIME!!!

I'm madly vac pacing alpaca that's been washed. Last count I needed to pack up 5 more bags full and still had an unreasonable amount out in the shed to wash. I know I may sound paranoid, but really, I haven't picked up this years yet. Could the fleece be breeding in the shed? I keep them in separate bags, in separate boxed even! And really....isn't it a bit scary to have that much?! Ah well. Maybe I'll be reckless in my dyeing this winter and come out with some FAB colorworks. (Snort!) You may start seeing custom dyed carded 100% alpaca for sale from this site. lol I did bring home 4 more rolls of vac pack bags. I need to get the box of vac packed out to the shed tomorrow though as Abbie has filed a formal complaint with the Paw that her table has too much stuff on it. :)

"Really, clean off the damn table, already!"

Ok, I'm tired and ready for bed. Time to sign off and get to it. I will try to update again soon, but if the sun comes out tomorrow, I'm on the motorcycle for a much needed ride!

**I'm sure to have a dyeing day soon as I talked to my friend with the fiber mill and she's willing for us to learn how to make batts on her machine. So! I'm planning on making two color blending groups. One is a deep navy blue, teal blue and a golden yellow. Another is reminiscent of a sunset. To get these results, I'm going to have to do some solid color dyeing to be able to do the blending on the carder. YEAH! I'll try to take pics and post. I PROMISE!

This was suppose to post last night, but for some reason was sent to the draft file. I expect it was operator error. ;)

Fiber Fun Finally!

I've not knitted in so long that Abbie is now stalking me through the house. Also, I had to re-read the Jaywalker pattern last night when I picked it up as I couldn't remember where I was or what to do. lol. Pretty ironic considering how many times I've knit this sock. And I do mean this exact sock. Same yarn, same foot....hopefully this time, right size. ;) Thank goodness I still remember how to knit!

Well I've changed days off so now I have two in a row. All stand and say Woo hoo at the same time. Thank you! It's fab! Really it is. I've worked split days off long enough now that I'm sick of it. hehe. So now I'm catching up on stuff and things are starting to fall into place and I'm getting caught up on lots of stuff. Relaxing mainly. lol

Last Monday I caught up with a fiber friend who is setting up a fiber processing mill. We planned on a few hours of play to give her practice with her machines and give me some processed fiber. I was unaware up to that point that some of these set ups need more than one person to run. It must be frustrating to have the equipment and not always have the extra humans to run it. So yes! I volunteered!!!! And I will again! I came away with LOTS of clean fluffy fiber ready to spin and a definite reason to own a wool picker of my own.

I had already decided I wanted a wool picker and had ordered/received the plans for one, but I had not realized how truly wonderful this tool is. Its a HUGE time saver. So last Monday I took with me fiber I vacuum packed in 2006 to see if it is truly a viable method of fiber storage. Upon opening the 8oz of Border Leicester, I realized that it still had too much lanolin in it. Next time, I'll make sure it's cleaner. However, there were no bugs and no other problems! However you would need to pick the wool to make it card able, and some of it is not as clean as I would make it now. ;)

Here's a picture of some of the teeth on the picker.

So here it is in it's 4 oz vac packed glory!! I have to say it comes out of the package in pretty much the same shape it's in the package. Flat...... really flat.

Here's the laundry basket with this packet picked into it! WOW! It really fluffed up!!! This tool is going to take sooooo much work out of my life. Julie watched this fiber fluff up and said, "If you're gonna vac pac, you HAVE to have a picker!" We were both surprised how much this stuff fluffed up!

Here's the carder. I know, drool huh?

And the fiber coming out of the orifice on the carder.(mine all mine!)

Here's a shot of the carded roving going into the tub. (side shot...sorry. I was in a hurry as I was manning this end and if you don't watch it, it goes completely crazy for some unknown reason.)

This was so slick! Even with my sticky grabby not wanting to work nicely wool, it was still slick.

After this we ran my cleaner unknown brown through and it was much better.

Then we ran Julies color blend, really clean project through and it was to die for! I almost stole it!!! I have got to get some color blending projects together!!! I didn't get any pictures of this completed, but it was beautiful!

So I left with a better understanding of how pickers work and how larger commercial carder work and why wool has to be ultra clean going through them lol . Also I came home with 2lbs of (sticky) white roving and about 1 lb of brown roving. Ready to spin. I learned so much that day and it was all low key and fun. Just my style. lol Next time I'm taking colors to blend! She also loaned me her cd that has the plans for her picker on it so I could compare it to mine. Awesome tool. Can't say it enough! Thanks a bunch Julie!

Another thing I came home with was two Alpaca fleece, washed and dried ready to go. Julie wanted to try her hand at washing Alpaca, and I'm looking to have mine washed away from home as it's taking too much of my time up. So for a one on one exchange, she washed two of mine. The other mill that I've arranged to wash and dry for me is gonna charge me $4.00 a lb. which is not bad at all. During Summer months I'm still working through washing what I have from last year, but I have more coming from this years shearing and when it gets later in the fall I'll start paying to have it done. I want to focus on dyeing an blending this year. This means that I need to not spend so much time washing;) As I'm not paying for the fleece, I'm not complaining about the washing costs. lol

Yesterday I vac packed two Alpaca Fleece, and that's about all I can handle in a day. It's tedious to weigh it up and vac pac it, but it was nice to be able to reuse some of the bags that were hanging around here. Unfortunately, I have about 6 more fleece ready to vac pac as I've been washing off and on all summer and no bags left. lol. I'll be buying more bags next week.

I don't know if I posted on it, but I did receive something like 17 of the Jacquard Acid Dyes that I ordered and I'm quite excited for the cold weather to start so I can play with the colors...lol It's a cold weather hobby of mine, so I can't take the time right now. I just look at them on the shelf and say, "OOoh pretty!". lol

Today I finally sat down and started spinning some of the white Border Leicester that was carded at Julies last week. I wish is was cleaner as it's pretty sticky with lanolin, so I'll rewash and dye before carding more. Great lesson for sure. It does spin up like a dream though so I'm not to unhappy. I keep thinking of socks as I spin, so maybe this will end up on the sock dyeing board. Wouldn't that make an interesting forward to this post. lol Maybe I can dye with the Jacqard dyes even!

Just want you to know that I miss you all even though I'm not around much and that I think of my online buddies all the time! The weather will change eventually and we'll be wishing we were busier sooner than we'd like, me thinks. I'm saving some of my nice weather stories to tell you then! ;) Love you all, even though I don't stay in touch!