Update on the Fiber Front

I've been busy. Yesterday I was determined to complete the lace scarf I had started using shetland handspun yarn. I got the last design charted only to discover after starting to knit that I hadn't enough yarn. I did have a bit of grey shetland roving so I started to spin. I finished a small skein of yarn before the fireworks started last night; I guess I'm picking up a bit of speed as that's the fastest I've gone from roving to finished product ever! Of course I couldn't knit as the yarn was still drying after setting the twist...so what did I do? Why, I started another project!

This lovely Noro yarn has been calling out to me from a corner of my bedroom and saying it wanted to become a Bugga Bag. OK, I started to make the transition. And I restarted the Unbiased recycled purse from Knitty.com for good measure. This time I hope the directions are error free as my last nearly finished attempt at Unbiased had me swearing and ripping. I guess these projects seemed so quick to finish that they hardly count. Now if I could finish my pi shawl that quickly, I'd be jumping for joy. That's currently on hiatus.

Strangely enough, the counter on my antique yarn winder has started working again. I assume the humidity has made the wood swell just enough for the gear to catch the cog. I was surprised as I wound on to hear that powerful snap again. I thought I had broken it. I wonder if there's a way to keep the wood hydrated all year long.

And my last thrill of the evening is that I found an ad in the local paper for a local spinning guild that meets in my little town on Thursday mornings. I'm very excited to think I might break away this week and spin with some experienced folks. What fun!

The baby went to camp

How does this happen? The maturity of your children seems to grow only with startling leaps. One minute he is holding your hand as he crosses the street and planning to marry you when he grows up, the next he is telling you that you are embarrassing him in front of the counselor. And he's gone. Oh, I've been through this before and I know he'll be back, but we have our children with us for such a brief time. And even this youngest that started out as a 5 pound little bundle is taking his first strides toward independence. I'm grateful that he is reaching out eagerly to embrace it, even at the alarming age of 8. And let's enjoy the prospect of a week of dinners with no scatological humor!

On the fiber front, I swatched half the way to camp this afternoon only to find out the yarn was just too bulky for the pattern I was attempting. It's an ebay purchase, a melon colored wool and acrylic blend, apparently bulky in weight. So this evening I found the pattern I had originally intended for the yarn, a cardigan in Family Circle's Easy Sweaters. It will work up fast and the yarn was so incredibly inexpensive that I don't mind knitting it up to match my favorite sunflower t-shirt. Frivolous, you say? The defining adjective of fashion! The real reasonI started it? I needed a mindless knitting project for the summer meetings to come. Sanity is possible only with needles softly producing something lovely. I'm 8 1/2 inches up the back last count. Photos to follow when the new camera arrives.

The perfect summer day

Low humidity, low temperature, clear skies...how perfect! I even had to wear a sweatshirt to pull weeds in the garden this morning.

Thomas is off to camp tomorrow. He'll spend a week and is very excited about it. We got him all packed this afternoon and he spent some time watching the Live 8 concert with his sister. Don't get any ideas about things being too idyllic around here. Although I was able to spin some wool/angora fiber I bought at our local sheep festival ( Jefferson County Sheep Festival), there was the usual dissatisfaction with dinner and the ever present namecalling. We wonder about charging for each name called and at the end of the summer we can send the proceeds to Heifer Project International or another worthy cause. A quarter per name, maybe? This could have many positive effects, one of which might be to slow down the growth of the new puppy fund that Elizabeth is accumulating. Do we really need another chewing and peeing machine? The possibilities are endless.

I look forward to some car knitting time as we drive to camp tomorrow. I really need to finish one of the shawls I've been working on.

Strawberry Season in the North

This morning we started the day by picking 18 quarts of strawberries. And the smell of them has been following me around all day. There's a wonderful roadside stand that I pass every morning on the way to work. It's run by a young couple who have built a home and worked the surrounding sandy soil to produce the best fruits and vegetables in the area - all of this in just a few short years. I love to give them business and stop every chance I get. This morning it was u-pick strawberries.

There was a lovely breeze keeping away most bugs and the humidity hadn't joined us yet. The berries were small, but they still produced that thrill as you crawled around moving leaves and suddenly, there it was: a lovely clump of ruby red berries. And this thrill is chief in mind even after hulling 11 of those 18 quarts. Here's another reason to frequent this stand; we paid 12.00 for the 18 quarts. And with any purchase over 10.00, a handful of fresh basil was free. Yippee - pesto and strawberry shortcake for dinner. Yes, summer is finally here.

I did a great deal of plying on my Babe today and still have a lot to finish. That didn't stop me from carding another batch of the excellent Navajo-churro fleece from a sheep named CoCo I have and spinning that up. It's irresistable and I plan to ply 3 strands together when I finish this last bobbin. I haven't done that yet.

Still looking at digital cameras to replace my Mavica. (We're leaning toward a Kodak EasyShare. ) I'm anxious to post pictures here again.

Talk me out of buying this Hitchhiker!

Look at this sweet machine!
http://www.themerlintree.com/oops011.htm
I have an irrational desire to purchase one. This is in spite of the fact that loose change is a rare commodity and we're planning a costly trip this summer, and the fact that I already have more than one spinning wheel. I consider riding time lost spinning time and this will solve the problem. Plus it's so darn cute I can hardly resist! Lame, huh? My husband just rolls his eyes and he's usually quite tolerant of my obsessions.

OK, back to paper grading now. Maybe I'll forget all about it! Or not.

Thomas with his favorite bleeding hearts in the background. 

He told me he was looking for patterns in the water as it fell. Hmmmm. 

Thomas bailing. 

You gotta love this kid!

How many active 8 year old boys can entertain themselves with such simple things? We love this boy who can take a job (if it involves water, that is!) and turn it into a pleasurable activity. Thomas had decided to create his own mini pool - in Dad's canoe. All fine and dandy until Dad needed to dump the canoe to mow under it and found it too heavy to lift. Thomas, in his bathing suit, to the rescue. He started bailing and just had to dump water over his own head and look for patterns in the water as it fell to the ground. Check him out!

Lura fleece after a rotten day

One of my favorite things happened today. I came home to find a new fleece to spin ( packed in a Huggies box. Happily, we don't usually have those around here anymore.) I bought a lovely Jacob fleece from a lady in Oregon - mostly black with some white mixed in.

I'm now debating about how to spin - as variegated or as black and white yarns separately. I've tried to post my picture, but it is saved as a bitmap and Luddite that I am, I can't seem to get Hello to read it. Maybe another day when I'm not fatigued to the point of nausea.

Source of exhaustion? Being sick at heart. Today I learned something I should have known all along: that this leadership group I'm working with at school doesn't share the philosophy we've been working toward for the last 3 years. I'm sorely tempted to close my door, teach my way, and wash my hands of the whole affair. Luckily, it's the last quarter and I can get through 7 more weeks of the nightmare. Thirteen more years of it? That remains to be seen. And I can't rely on a daily fleece on my porch to sustain me!

Check this out. The yarn on top is the nicest I have spun...and it's made from the nastiest fleece I have purchased. We went to Ottawa to pick up the fleece and I must have washed it 4 times to remove the gross parts. Then I learned that it is possible to comb fine not so long fleece and my worries were over. The purple was made with the same fleece carded. Not bad, but not as nice as the white. I'm dyeing it shades of green for a friend to knit a scarf for her grown-up daughter. Double winner. 

The picture definitely doesn't do these babies justice. These were spun from the luscious roving I had processed. It's a blend of white Romney and grey mohair. I have tons of it as I got a really good deal on both and it makes a wonderful combination. No project in mind yet. 

Balls pictured here are from the practice yarn I spun as I first learned spinning on my Kromski. They are singles waiting to be plied with the combed Cotswold fleece I'm working on as the skeins pictured already have been. This will be enough for a large knitting project. 

This dark brown yarn is spun from some natural colored Navajo Churro I processed and spun 2 ply. I have some off white as well and hope it turns into a skirt I found from the Reynolds company. The original was knitted using lopi lite, but I love the idea of using fleece from sheep nearly extinct that are being brought back to their original numbers through the efforts of responsible sheep farmers. Lots of color work will be needed here and I'm looking forward to this one.  

Another batch finished. I'm much better at completing spinning projects made from already processed fiber, I notice. This was another pre-dyed fleece I got reasonably and had fun spinning and 2 plying. 

Look at these colors - all dyed with leftover Easter egg dye tablets. It's the very sandy Romney fleece I washed multiple times, dyed, combed and plied using my Babe wheel. I love the way that little baby plies. Now to find a project for these beauties... I'm looking at rug hooking. I need another fiber project going around here, no? 

What a pleasant surprise this turned out to be. It started out with intrigue regarding a pattern I found online, then discovered I had in a book. I didn't like the fleece I spun in this early spinning project, but it knit up nicely here. Included are some partial skeins of yarn from my stash and a lovely small bit of corriedale dyed single yarn spun on my spindle. In terms of using up leftovers, it was a great success - 4 in one shot! It needs the pocket stitched on, but I'm counting it as complete. I'll make this one again. 

I finally finished an entire batch of spinning. In the interest of lace knitting, I purchased a lot of processed Shetland fleece from an ebay seller, 12 oz in 3 natural colors: oatmeal, silver and brown. That will go nicely with the black Shetland I'm currently working on, but I won't post at this time. I'm reveling in having completed one whole batch! 

Sad Sunday again!

Sadly, it's the Sunday at the end of spring break. I know lots of moms yearn for it to be over, but not this one. We've had some wonderful stay home times and just a few travels to keep things interesting.

I started out by taking a girls only trip to Fultonville, NY to pick up a treasure from an ebay purchase. My friend Tina joined me and we had a great time. It's wonderful to find a person that's easy to travel with. She didn't mind not knowing where we would eat or spend the night or even if we would. Neither of us mind turning around or asking for directions or poking around in random shops striking up conversations with strangers. We came home loaded with nearly free fabric, notions and vintage clothing as well. What fun!

I did spend a moderate amount of time knitting and spinning. I made some progress on projects and yarn which you can see in photos below.

Someone shoot me if I even think about buying another Rambouillet fleece. At least the one I have is a nightmare in terms of dirty ends and it's just too short for me to get excited about combing it. I've been struggling with that to make room for the 2 new fleeces I actually bought from a local person. We went to Alexandria Bay yesterday to buy a Shetland and a Border Leicester fleece from a gentleman recommended by a local shearer that Tom met in his travels. I'm getting drowned in unspun fiber of course, but as long as I can get everything washed before warm weather arrives, I'll be happy. And then there's all that summer spinning to consider.

Time to quit whining, get dinner ready and prepare something fun for my students to do tomorrow. After all, it will be the end of their spring break, too!

Here are Thomas and his buddy Jake enjoying the finished product. We'll have to save this recipe and share it...not bad! 

Thomas and I made Mrs. Peters' birthday cake from a book called the Seven Silly Eaters. A little diversion for a lull in spring break! 

I'm having a pi shawl frenzy. My spinning is getting finer, so I will spin the yarn for my next one. I just got some natural colored roving that's spinning up beautifully fine. Next to the 8 oz of Navajo churro I bought, washed and carded and the nearly white alpaca roving I have, I've got the makings of a shawl drastically different from the one I'm knitting now. I will master lace knitting! 

This is my pi shawl after about half of the 144 stitch lace design. Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitter's Almanac. The yarn is Moriah from Lisa Souza, a laceweight wool. I hand dyed it and am using 10 1/2 needles after starting on a smaller one. 

My first design project sadly failed. I knit my son a vest using the sideways knit technique used in my red handspun sweater. My best guess is that I didn't knit enough space under the arm as it's too narrow to fit comfortably around his belly and it looks sort of strange. I'll be unraveling this and starting over. Isn't it funny how the self striping showed up right at the buttonhole "placket" area? That won't happen in the second version, I'll bet! 

My current handspun project shot flat, looking like a vest. 

Thanks, Elizabeth. She is sort of modeling a sweater I'm knitting for myself from handspun. It's knit sideways from left to right and I'm just starting the second side. I hope the sleeves don't take too long as I'm anxious to wear this one! 

I just finished this hat for my daughter and she says it just sits on her head. The yarn is ChaCha by Patons. Thank goodness it didn't take too long to knit! I was surprised that the edge didn't roll the way it would with other yarn. 

I'm up to 144 stitches on my Pi shawl. I tried to show our frigid weather as part of the backdrop - those are ice crystals on the inside! I need to start the first lace row and am procrastinating! I'll post more as I make progress.