Forgot...

I forgot to say what I was totally thrilled to see by Lisa's roving - its already separated into what must be 2 oz braids. I don't have a working scale right now so I've been doing it by luck and have come fairly close. This will totally make it easier to spin each of them up on their own spindles before plying.

Stab needles in it, it's done!

After plying for three days. Not all day silly. Karma Chameleon is all done and ready for debut starting from this:


Spinning for a several days to get these:


I really should have remembered to take a picture while plying it.....


The drop spindles that got me here:
The one that looks like its carved on top has been my plying spindle. The purple glass with the gold in it is the one I started out with Karma.

I'm being tempted by this:


But I have started work on Block 20 of the Cascade Lizard Ridge afghan. I'll finish that today, if I ever get away from the computer long enough not to be taking photographs and editing them, or reading forum posts, or writing posts (you get the idea). Then it will just be laying out the blocks and deciding which order they'll be in. Brandon will help out with that part.

So now to try to get away from the computer...... ;^)

Last Day Tour de Fleece and Beyond.....

Sunday I spent the greater portion of the day spinning trying to get Karma Chameleon done. Here is what I ended up with by the end of the day:


Submissions close on Friday for Challenge Day and currently we are doing pretty good vote wise. I hope this next week of voting just continues to help improve our odds on winning. Is that awful of me that I'd like to win something?

Along the way movies were watched along with episodes of Stargate SG-1 season 1. Just a couple more of those left and then it's on to season 2.

I couldn't resist finishing up the Basket Rib Hand Towel:


I also couldn't resist trying out Deep Blue Sea and seeing how it knits up, the background doesn't help the colors:
This is one chart of the Sinuate pattern by Marnie Maclean. I've added another repeat and blocked it to see how it is. I think I'll keep going.

We had little visitors to the pond that I don't recognize. I'm wondering if one of their relatives was an escaped parakeet: Do you have a name for them?

Drop spindling is time intensive. It wasn't until Wednesday afternoon that I finished up all the roving into singles:

I then started plying them and even took them to the Wednesday night Sip n' Stitch at Hagen's and continued plying there. I was able to also show Judy and Mac what it looked like.

It's now Thursday and I plan on taking it with me to Insomnia for the Thursday group to hopefully finally get it finished up. I made one of my shoe boxes into a Lazy Kate and it seems to be working much better than the last plying session. I have Brandon tasked with making a drop spindle lazy Kate. He's working on it. The ladies at school are eager to see the finished yarn and what kind of project it can be made in to, so no pressure or anything. Summer school is done this next Thursday so I'll have to find a project for it also and at least start it so I can show why handspinning can be fun.

The rain and clouds were nice earlier in the week. Now we're back into sunny weather and warm, hopefully not too warm again!

School wise things were much better this week. My student likes the computer time-walk schedule that we have going and was even really happy and holding my arm several times today. Hopefully we can end the summer on a positive note.

Stage 16 plying

Okay, I finally figured out that my days weren't coming out correctly. I was seeing Star start out with days, then somewhere switched to stages and I got mixed up on the count. Today really is day 18 but stage 16. I think because of those 2 rest days?

I finished spinning up the BFL earlier. Took a little break then got them both off of their spindles, after of course taking pictures of them. I have them on little cardboard tubes but couldn't find planter pots to help out with the plying.

I think I have about half of it plied. I can definitely tell the different spindles. My first one has more thick and thins than the second one does. I was much more consistent with keeping the spin thin. I hope to get it all plied up tomorrow. Not as fast as I had hoped.

The new spindle has awesome spin! Lot less work than the other two donuts. I'm definitely going to use it for Hydrangea. If I weren't thinking of plying it on itself, I'd also use it for Karma.

No knitting and no blocking. We've had overcast skies today and I got so caught up in the plying setup and then the actual plying that is all I've done today. Which also means that while I took some pictures, I haven't taken them off of the camera.

Tomorrow night, Wednesday I'll take Brandon over to his mom's for socializing and I'll head over to Hagen's for my knit socializing.

Finished up Small Favor late last night. That last 50 pages where the author sucks you in wrapping things up and you can't put the book down syndrome. I'd hoped to get to the library this afternoon to pick up books waiting there, but as mentioned above plying happened. ;^)

Day 15 & Rest Day

Sunday I spent a lot of time spinning. I also spent a lot of time blocking blocks. Made use of the sun and any wind and had them dry a little faster I think. In between there was of course dishwashing, finishing up laundry.

Before it got too dark last night and while it was cooler, I popped Nessa up on the table on the patio and trimmed her now. She's looking good in her Schnauzer cut. Still need to do Norbert, but he'll probably have to wait until later in the week.

The last part of school this morning was interesting. I ended up being a punching bag for one of my students. He has behavior issues and had been a little bit more agitated today, but just lost it when it was time to go home. Sure knows how to pinch and luckily was keeping the hits to flat hand rather than punching. Probably won't know for sure about any bruising until tomorrow. I'm going to try not to hold it against him, but I'll have to come up with a new plan for how we do things.

Brandon does think he broke a bone on the top of his foot. Of course if we took him in for confirmation, they would tell him to stay off it as much as possible, possibly give him a walking cast or just do what we have done - ace bandage it. He has done better over the weekend about staying off it and icing.

Today was also the last Rest Day for Tour de France/Fleece. I though did not rest. I started the day with three bundles of sliver to work and managed to get two of them done before my hand started tingling. Tough as it was to do, I set it aside and rested.

I did do one more color row on the CLR, and started the next to the last color for that block. Just two colors left and block 19 will be done. Then one block left. I also got three blocks blocked today for a total of eleven of them blocked. I need to set a timer to go check them.

Tomorrow I should be able to finish the last of the BFL. Then it will be winding them off the drop spindles and getting setup to ply them together. I'm going to try using pots and pulling out of the center holes in the bottom to hold the balls of yarn while I ply. Then winding off the drop spindle again and setting the ply. I really want to know how much yardage I'll get.

Pictures of lots of things coming up tomorrow!

ETA: I keep forgetting to add, since it's summer, and there's a total lack of TV. I've taken advantage of the SCI-FI channel and have been loading up on Stargate SG-1. I think it's because, Brandon told me this, that they came out on like Showtime, that I never got started on it when it first came out years ago. It's interesting getting them in a hodge-podge sort of order. I've seen episodes here and there and then pieced what happened. We're trying to watch them now chronologically.

Tonight though the movie watching was Nick Cage's "Next", not bad really. First though we had watched "The Painted Veil", Ed Norton and Naomi Watts. I wonder if that's where Naomi and Liev hooked up? Interesting movie too.

Sore fingers - Day 13 Tour de Fleece

I spent a couple of hours working on the last of the BFL from the first sliver. It's all done and looking pretty good. Unfortunately I finished just as it was starting to get dark, so no good pictures. I'll take those tomorrow and post the update view. I have a second drop spindle planned to work with the second one that way I can use my high tech shoe box lazy kate to get them both off and plied.

I'm tempted to break things up tomorrow and spend more time working with Karma. I'll try to be dedicated though and continue working with the BFL. Really should come up with a name for it too.

While waiting in line last night by the light of a parking lot light I cast on the Basket Rib Hand Towel using the Coral Cotlin out of my Summer Sampler from Knit Picks (it's the center top one). It was a nice light color and a simple pattern. Yes, the Cascade Lizard Ridge is an easy pattern but takes too much counting to work easily while standing in the dark.

Dark Knight really is a must see movie if you like the fantasy genre at all. Heath Ledger really did an awesome job as the Joker. It really was an amazing movie for holding your attention through the whole two plus hours. Go see it! Well if you can, they're saying that if you don't already have tickets you won't be able to see if for several weeks because tickets are pre-sold out. Wow!

I did add a few rows in the car this afternoon while driving with Will on his errands. It's a nice easy pattern and the Cotlin feels nice to work with.

Since we went to PCC Rock Creek Campus and were by The Knitting Bee I popped in to try to pick up some Cascade 220 for the border and the seaming. Stephanie thought the blocks looked nice and is looking forward to seeing the finished project but suggested that I wait until I have it all seamed together and bring it in to pick out the border color then. Something about it being easier to tell what would look well against the whole from her experience with quilting. She's a different quilter than I am. I usually planned ahead and bought my border and backing at the same time as I picked up my block material. Obviously different styles but thought she might have something so left without buying yarn. Yes, you read that correctly. No new yarn came home with me. ;^)

A trip to Home Depot and lots of effort looking in various locations of the store finally yielded a black plastic grommet for one of my last to be put together drop spindles. No that's not true, there's a green donut that didn't sit correctly and needs to be re-glued to the dowel. I need Brandon to pre-drill a hole in the dowel for me and I need to polyurethane the dowel and it will be ready for use. I think I'll save it for the Hydrangea. I'll have a picture of it completed soon, but may wait to post until I have some yarn on it so I can safely put in my 'stash' at Ravelry. I'm walking the line with my stitch markers in there. ;^)

Going to bed early to catch up on sleep but also to get some good reading time in on Small Favors. I really enjoy The Dresden Files world. It was one of the series I was just recommending to my mom as well as Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan series, oh and Iris Johansen's Eve Duncan series. I had already gotten her started on Kay Hooper's Bishop series and the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon.

Hopefully fun things tomorrow, so we'll have to wait and find out about those - Good night!

Day 11 Tour de Fleece

Yawn, I'm tired. I think all that concentrating has worn my brain out. I came home this afternoon with intention of working some more on my BFL. Then I saw my purple glass spindle that has just been waiting for me to put a hook on it. So I thought 'why not?' and found a paper clip, end cap, and some glue. I tried wood glue first, so allowed it an hour or so to dry. Came back to check and it seemed like it was in place so I thought I'd try out that Karma Chameleon that I picked up from Sharon yesterday.

Oh my that's a long piece of roving! I haven't put them side by side lengthwise but probably double if not triple the length of the BFL. So the 'little bit' that I disconnected from the whole as a lengthwise strip, yeah that kept me busy for two hours! It was a fun two hours though. My fingers on both hands as well as arms, back and legs are a little sore. I have been sitting on the edge of the couch so that I can park the spindle between my feet between drafting. Yea, I'm still parking and drafting. It works and until I can get a wheel I'll probably still do it. It's allowing me the control to get some nice thin singles I think.

I'm liking the merino so much that I'm going to take advantage of Sharon's sale on roving ($10 on all her roving stock) and pick up Hydrangea, tomorrow night at Hagen's. Another reason to make it to the knit night there. ;^)

Day 10 Tour de Fleece 2008

Last night I started the Fleece Artist BFL and put in two hours. Today I've put in another two hours. I have this much done so far:


I'm pretty happy with it. The big decision will be either keeping it as a single or how well the second one comes out and plying it. Not something I have to worry about right now though.

As promised here's pics of the skeins:
Habu Green Tea Corriedale from Knit/Purl

Habu Natural Romney from Knit/Purl and Natural Corriedale and unknown source of pencil roving from an April drop spindle class at The Knitting Bee.

I'm going to try to get more spinning done later tonight. I also did stop and get a roving from Sharon this afternoon. The Karma Chameleon - lime green, yellow, red/orange. It's wild. It's a merino and so another new spinning experience to look forward to. It's for in case I do get the BFL done before the end of the race.

Days 3 & 4 and more

Day three of Tour de Fleece I tried out another one of the new drop spindles. Not a lot put onto the spindle though. I just couldn't seem to get into a flow. I did finish all dishcloths though. Photos are up in Flickr and updated at Ravelry.

I also put in a couple rows on block 15 of the Cascade Lizard Ridge afghan. It's one of the blocks that I've actually 'tried' to do a color scheme with. I started out with my greens and flowed into blues and will end with the yellows. I'll probably do something similar with the purples.

Day four of Tour de Fleece I thought to try something other than the corriedale. I remembered I had some romney left of the little sample I picked up at Knit/Purl. I used that all up. So tomorrow it will be back to finishing up the corriedale.



More work tonight on blocks, finish 15 and start 16.

Yesterday afternoon I also found out that the job I interviewed for went to someone else. It was a 'Media Assistant' position for a new elementary school in Cornelius. It would have used my degree, but wasn't meant to be. The principal had suggested at the beginning of the interview that she had another full-time position that she thought I might be good for. I'm not sure if that was a subtle code for, I have someone else that I'll probably have to hire because they are already in district, but would like to hire you. We'll have to see when that other position comes up.

Day two of the new summer position working with developmentally delayed kids in the morning. I think one of the boys came to school with a slight cold because I came home yesterday with a sore throat, fell asleep on the couch and went to read in bed and fell asleep there too. Day seemed to go by quicker today too. Day is three and a half hours before noon Monday through Thursday, so short days.

I've started Damien, book four by Jacquelyn Frank and for some reason just having a hard time getting into the story. Thankfully, it is a library book. Brandon is finally reading the Jim Butcher book, Small Favors. It's one I'm looking forward to reading also. I may just bounce over to Kelly Armstrong's Personal Demon, since it too has been collecting dust as it gets bounced in the queue for library books.

Need to go do some dishes, cook dinner and get back to the knitting...

Day 2

Day 2 of Tour de Fleece and I finally have some spinning done!

My migraine is better today. I worked on the drop spindles - little steel wool on the finish then a quick wipe with the stain again. Let them dry. Brandon drilled little holes for the paper clip hooks that I made for them. Also added end caps to make them look nice. I still need to take pictures.

I had gotten some corriedale from Knit/Purl that I originally planned to send off to my Gemini swap person. Since the Habu really wasn't local, I opted instead to send some nice handmade chocolates that were made by Moonstruck. Still need to post pics of what I got and what was sent....

I pre-drafted the corriedale and have some of it spun. The drop spindle I was using seemed to work well. Very light! It seemed to have good spin. It's a little warm in here and the wool was making me warmer so before I started to felt things, I put it aside. I'll take photos tomorrow.

I finished two dishcloths for my swap, started another one too. I also hope to get over to the ceramics shop by The Knitting Bee this week to see how much a coffee mug would cost and how long it would take to get done. Stitch markers will of course be the easy part for me. She said no chocolate because of the melt factor.

I'll also need to get back to work on the Cascade Lizard Ridge. Hopefully these little projects will have been enough of a break to help me over this hump towards the end. When I check out the ceramics shop, I also hope to pick up the two skeins to do the binding for the blanket.

Did I share a link to the blue face? Mine looks like the blue-green up front. I have two of them. Still leaning towards getting this from Sharon too.

Notice I have the projects progress bars going? Got that working the other night working around the migraine. Took longer because of that to see that the code had an extra bracket that shouldn't have been there. You do have to be a Ravelry member to click the links and get more details, but you can click the button and sign up.

Talked to mom yesterday about starting her own business making liners for felted bags. Apparently this is a huge thing over the Bags, Bags, Bags forum. Someone paid a tailor $50 to have one made. Towards the end of the week when the budget can handle it, I'll ship her my tote that needs a liner to give her an example of what people are making and want linings for. Also suggested she become a Ravelry member so she can get connected. She hadn't signed up earlier but hopefully soon. Drawback will be her seeing my project page if I work on a project for her. So won't be able to use names sometimes. I know I'm not the only one with this as a problem. ;^)

worst day for a migraine

Today has got to be one of the worst ones for having a migraine. Neighbors letting off noisy ear drum piercing fireworks, okay they've been pretty good and with dusk starting it's starting to get noisy.

I think though with full dark and the neighborhood display that I will go back to the bedroom and continue reading Kim Harrison's Outlaw Demon Wails. The flash of fireworks would not set well and since I have also been strangely nauseous today with the migraine, not something I want to unbalance further.

Migraine does not equal knitting. Too difficult to concentrate well on stitches. Sigh. I also haven't done any of the planned work on my drop spindles so I can start trying them out for Tour de Fleece.

Speaking of Tour de Fleece, yesterday I must have had the precursor for my migraine because I totally missed that it goes through the month of July. I was thinking it was only three days. Oh well, this does allow me to improve. I have my two slivers and I've checked - Stitch Jones has at least one or two rovings that I like the colors of and she's local. I can arrange to drive over and pick one or two up. I could also get a hold of Carrissa Marie for one of hers too. Her punk pink and purple/black looks cool.

Dogs and I are off to the back bedroom....

knitting, spindles-stitchmarkers, yarn, swaps & dogs-

Knitting - I've finished my Yarn Harlot inspired socks - Lacy Mock Cables, started anklets based off of the pattern "Express Lane" and also started my Shaun the Sheep. I just have to put his legs on and do his 'knitting' project and he'll be done. I also made a kitty for Jenna's first birthday. She had fun playing with it. You can check out photos here and here. I'm going to do one for Bailey, so have it started also. Need to finish that second anklet soon though!

Spindles & Stitchmarkers - let's see....I acquired the dowels of various sizes. Then stained them. Marked them to the size I thought they should be so Brandon could cut them. Sanded the ends. Brandon then used an epoxy to attach the stone donuts to the dowels. The next step is to apply a finish to the dowels and again with Brandon's help attach a wire hook. A little longer process than first thought but hopefully others will also think they look nice. I have some photos of some of the stone donuts, and the current state of the spindles here. At the same location are some pictures of stitchmarkers that I made recently. Some are being gifted and some are a reuse of former bead earrings I had made.

Yarn - I finally have photos and space on Flickr for my Knit Pick Summer Sampler packs I bought, so they are in my stash. I added in the Shibui sock yarn (wyvern socks), the Habu bamboo (cleopatra wrap), and Malabrigo Lace (falling water scarf) from my inventory $$ at Knit/Purl. Okay, a good portion of the Shibui I paid for but the other two were totally inventory money. Knit/Purl has been using volunteers to help them with their inventory of the store. I had fun doing it three different times and have the yarn/roving to show for it too.

Swaps - I have participated in my first swap. I sent a package of items to a lady in Denmark. Hopefully she'll like them. We had a $15 cap, that I went a little over. Which kind of made up for the postage that it took to send it - $24. Oh my! That after spending just a few dollars to send the Blanket Buddy to Belgium. It might have been the little jewelry box I used to put the stitch markers in. Live and Learn.

Dogs - Nessa is doing much better. I still need to have her blood re-checked but our vet $$ have gone to Norbert this month. He had been having an allergy reaction to a food I tried and that caused an 'aural hematoma' on his other ear. We tried treating it ourselves but it quickly became apparent it wasn't going away on its own. So a trip into the vet who said that she needed to do surgery and use buttons to get it to heal was the only way to go. Yes, buttons like on your clothes, go figure. Plus his teeth in the last year have gotten bad due to the kibble, or he could have been hiding those back teeth from me. So that meant a teeth cleaning, and a check of a tooth that had enamel missing from it being broken. Thankfully not broken to the point of needing to remove the tooth. He also has molars that didn't grow completely and are smaller than normal and soft so those had to be checked. End result, no teeth removed, but now clean. He's hiding out in the soft crate with his 'cone of doom' with 2pts for annoyance. Norbert I'm sure is thinking of it as the 'cone of shame'.

I need to finish eating my dinner that mom called in the middle of and then feed the dogs and go from there. Just happy to finally have all the photos taken care of and some updates at Ravelry with the projects and yarns.

spindle envy

I want a new spindle. I want to make a new spindle of my own. I'd really like to do one on the lathe, Brandon thinks I could start out on his big one and decide if I want a smaller one. Grizzly has a small version in the $160 range.

I have also seen a lot of people using the stone donut kinds from bead stores. The one bead store I checked out that's close to home was sadly lacking in the kinds of beads I wanted. Won't be going back there.

Why all this envy? I'm not enjoying my big heavy, non-notched, Louet. The hook also sucks, but I could probably fix that with a tweak of the pliers. I think its inhibiting me from obtaining a finer consistent single. Until I have a second spindle to test this theory on, I'm not going to play with the sliver I got from Knit/Purl.

I don't want to do the toy versions and hand-paint. I want the pretty wood or glass/stone ones. Am I weird?