Tuesday, July 29, 2008

want fiber?











I recently bought a ton (well about 2 pounds) of fiber from the best distributer I have found. The site is Coppermoose.com, and the owner of the site runs the whole business himself. His wife passed at an early age from a horseriding accident, which is what brought me to the site, but by goodness gracious does he have the most gorgeous stuff. Hand made spindles, wheels, and fiber by the gagillion. I bought 5 different merinos from him, it was so cheap, only $15 per 8 oz, best darn deal to be had, and he had it on my door in 2 business days. (shipped friday, got monday). You can email him questions, leave a voice mail, pay by paypal or like I did leave your credit card info on his voice mail. He replies like lightning. Love that site. Will buy from him forever and ever.




Pics are of the roving I bought, and the spun stuff is what I guiltily spun before I thought I should dig in. The spun stuff I bought at the shepherd's harvest festival, from Chamomileconnection.com. More lovely stuff. A bit difficult to draft, so I just pre-drafted.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Pleased as punch with myself











The last few weeks I have been concentrating on spinning nice, thin, even singles. I've gotten quite decent at it (note...not great yet) So I had 2 bobbins full of nice pretty white wool, and I KNOW that I have to ply them to make yarn. So I researched and researched and finally just sat with the wheel and tested to see if it would spin the other way. yay! it does. (called mom... she gloated that of course she had put it together right...yay mom!)




So yesterday I did my first real plying. Easier than I thought. Totally uneven, plyed from the lazy kate, thick and bunchy and over and under spun, but gosh darned it I plied some yarn!




Wanted to dye yarn. I like kool aid dye. no vinegar needed. wanted to dye yarn blue. DH actually made and DRANK the blue kool aid. I might need to label my kool aid from now on.




Fine. Have food coloring. NO have vinegar. Experimentation time. put yarn in jar, put dye in jar, cooked yarn a lot. rinsed yarn. got hardly no dye on yarn. Mental note...do not let DH drink kool aid or buy vinegar.




Anywho....pics show whole process. Even though the dye didn't take so much, the yarn is more of a light greyish blue than anything, I am still pleased as punch that I spun, plied, and dyed my own freaking yarn!

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

I have way not been posting


Sorry. I have just started to work an extra hour each day so I can have half days on Friday's and it is seriously kicking my hardwired home early butt. So on top of not having extra time to post, if I did post, it would consist of.. I came home and sat on my butt for a long time, ate some crap I shouldn't eat and went to bed. Not so exciting.

But I have been knitting, and I recently discovered the show Dexter is a great knitting show. Kinda like Nip Tuck, a bit disturbing, well a lot disturbing, but like a train wreck. You saw the first end of the train wreck so now you want to see the gross stuff.

I did spin a bit today too, figured out that my wheel will ply the way I want it to, so don't have to worry about extra stuff. Now I just need more bobbins because they are all full.

I have no pics of knitting or spinning, so I will throw in a random cute cat.
random cute cat is itchy attacking the first-no second-knitted fishy. First died an untimely death. I blame the catnip.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Another perfect sunday




Friday I took a half day from work. I might be able to do this from now on if I work 4 9 hr days, or take the whole day if I can life thru 4 10 hr days. We''ll see. There was a garage sale in columbia heights that advertised yarn, so I decided to make the trek there after work friday. The garage yarn was so so, so I hit Savers a few blocks up. Got some great yarn that came in a bag with crap yarn, and some 10 or more things of ribbon with some other crap stuff. Totally worth it. On my way back there was an estate sale in an old theatre (play kind of theatre.) They were selling all the costume and prop stuff.


Back story butt in here.... ever since I updated my craft room I have been looking for the perfect sewing chair. It has to be the right height, because sitting on pillows and using the foot pedal on the machine don't work. At all. So months have gone by and either the chairs are too big for the space or they are too expensive or they require too much work to redo.


Hence estate sale. Found perfect stool. Ugly, but totally perfect. Sturdy, and examining the bottom saw that the cushion would come off easily to be recovered. (always check the bottom to see how the cushion is attached. If you see that old nailhead trim you better like what is on that cushion cuz there aint no changing it) This is my $8 find. Before, and after pics.


Before the yucky brown paint and yucky red stained velvet cover and after, I painted to match the shelf and thread holder on the walls, and DUG in the back of my closet for the fabric I KNEW I had that would be perfect. Bought the fabric some years ago somewhere for close to nothing. About 2 yards of it. Fabric is like yarn. You see something perfect and cheap and you grab it even if it will sit somehwere for 2 years. You WILL eventually find what it is made to be.
Total cost, $8. I already had the paint and the fabric. 2 hours to finish the redo, including 2 coats of paint and stopping to talk to neighbor Robin who saw from her window I was doing something on the front porch and had to come see. (nosy neighbors, but I love her).
The best thing about my projects for my room are that a: i do them when I feel like it, I have the space to do them whenever now b: I am by no means a perfectionist, and my redo stuff is not perfect. but I love it, the finding stuff, the figuring out what to do, the painting or stripping, none of it turns out perfect but I have so much fun I don't care. c: the end product is what I want it to be. nothing more, nothing less. I'm not pleasing anyone here but myself. This room is mine. I recognize that it's a bit unfair that DH doesn't have a whole room of his own. But really, I have compromised on the rest of the house for his tastes, so it feels a bit more fair for me.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Migraines suck my a#@

Do you get migraines? I do. They suck. a lot. In fact, the reason I am blogging on them is because I have one right now and I feel like ripping my head off and throwing it in the washer for a bit....just to get rid of the STABBING PAIN IN MY RIGHT FREAKING EYE!
I know... headaches suck. they stick with you all day until you take some advil and drink a bunch of water to rehydrate your brain.
Let me tell you foks, migraines are ABSOLUTELY not headaches. In fact, mine tend to arse up my vision and word comprehenseion/composition center of the brain so that I can neither see clearly, but I also can't really explain what is going on. the only reason I can type this is because of the backspace button.
Seriously, would someone get the samuri sword out of my right temple?
The first time I ever had a migraine I was in my junior year of high school, taking my english comp exam. This exam went to the colleges you were applying to. I wanted to be an english major. All of a sudden, I could only see parts of things. Black spots everywhere. I moved my head to try to read past the black spots and finsihed the darn exam. Dont even remember if I passed. (of course it had to be an essay exam, bless her heart ms. english teacher) mri's and ct scans later, I have migraines. When I was 17, there were no great migraine meds. I got put on a med that literally made me drop asleep. Narcolepsy in the form of big fat freaking headache. Mom wrote a note to the school "if daughter falls asleep in class it is her meds"
I don't get migraines often. In fact, I have no meds for them anymore. I used to have some, but they interacted bad with my Effexor, so I quit. Usually, I can see them coming. I take a double dose of advil or tylenol and I'm ok. not great, but ok. This one hit me out of nowhere, like they sometimes do.
Please, someone get the little man with the samuri sword out of my right temple!

Monday, July 7, 2008

I've been knitting!




I finished up the first try of the baby yoda baby sweater. Turned out very nicely I think. The hat matches the ribbon I used for the closure.


I also have been knitting away on my oddball bags. I love mindless tv knitting, and these are perfect. Especially because I have no shortage of oddballs, and am trying to get the stash a bit more under control. Not too much, but a little more.


I do hate the feeling of if I use the last bit of this yarn I am POSITIVE I will need it sometime in the future. Oh well....


Crafty planet is now selling roving.