FINALLY - some time to post!

Oh, boy - have I ever been busy! It's now been almost 2 weeks since I've sat at my wheel; I'm having the shakes from spinning-withdrawal. However, it's been a pretty fruitful 2 weeks of knitting time, so that helps. That was a lousy photo of my mom's scarf - I think I uploaded the wrong one (well, of course I would do something like that), so here's a slightly better one:

While it shows much paler in the photo than in reality, at least the details show up.

- AND! - I finally finished dd's Wedge-Head Tam™ that I 'unvented' last week. I have never seen anything made quite like it on the 'net (or anywhere else for that matter), but that isn't saying much. Until recently, I never knitted anything but socks :-)

It took me forever to shortrow a wedge shape that would actually work with the human head. You should've seen my earlier attempts. ::shudder:: They wouldn't have fit anything recognizable on Earth.

I made this from some of my hand-dyed Merino top (by April of The Gourmet Sheep), which I'd Navajo-plied several weeks ago. I loved the way the colors just melted one into the other. Some colors are very bright and clear, others are more subtly shaded, providing a wonderful foil for the brights which just 'pop'. A simple idiot cord and tassel finished it off just right. Now...if only she'd let me block the durned thing to give it some shape! Darn kid wears it 24/7, practically.

Entrelac (garterlac) Scarf done!

Well - it's been simply ages since I posted. The days have just whizzed by. I got this scarf done 2 days before Christmas and got it to its recipient - and forgot to take pictures. As usual!


















The fiber is Falkland from Laughing Rat Studios (thanks, Jenn!)











and the pattern is from Suzanne Pufpaff of Pufpaff Fiber Mill.

She has some really interesting patterns and I wanted to try her simplest one as I'd never in my life done entrelac. It was a weird experience, but I'm so glad I persevered! I changed her pattern quite a bit (mostly making it narrower), but it still looks much the same as her original one. I used size 6 needles (4mm) - and they were the totally cool Kollage square circular needles. WONDERFUL needles!

The biggest changes I made to the pattern was that I only knitted the leaves up to 30 stitches wide, and I changed the entrelac "rectangles" to squares by using garter instead of stockinette. Then, for the number of stitches in the squares, I kept them at just 8 stitches wide, rather than increasing them up to 10 or 11, as the pattern called for. But other 'n' that - it's just the same!

The bumpies and noils of it all

What a wonderful two days I've had, to be sure. I haven't had two nice days in a row in...um. I'm not sure when. There's even going to be BIRTHDAY CAKE later today - lol. I'm sure the Birthday Boy will share with his wife and kiddos.

Anyway, about the yarn. I'd gotten some buttery-soft 50%-50% Merino and silk laps/clouds - in greens, turquoise, white and purple - from Leah of Yarn Or A Tale and ran it through my carder last week. I put each batt through twice on the carder; in retrospect, one time through would have probably been better, as the colors got a bit too homogenized for my liking. It's still beautiful, though, with plenty of color separation. I love this yarn (heartbreakingly soft!) and wish it would tell me what it wanted to be. I've only got *180+ yards of it, though, so it can't get any fancy-pants ideas of being a sweater. I know - too bad - it would be a glorious sweater!

* I re-measured and missed a few yards, so it's actually 190 yds. Still...it isn't much to work with.

I've got more of the same laps in a white, silvery-greys and blues mix named (appropriately enough) 'Cloud Cover'. It's just lovely, but THIS time, I'm only going to put it through the carder once. I've also now got some lovely Angelina fibers in to put with it. I think I'll the use silver and opal - it should be gorgeous!

It's too bad my idiotic camera thinks that greens are always blues, but I tried really hard to MAKE it see green as being green. I don't know if you have to do something to adjust the camera, or what? Anyway, I didn't succeed, even though I took over 40 pics. I took them in every type of light imaginable, with and without flash. Either the skein showed blue or was totally washed out and looked nearly white. ::sigh:: Oh, well! Just imagine my new yarn as being true GREEN (a medium-bright, silvery green!) with silky noils and texture-y bumps of blue, purple, green and white. It's really very pretty, if I say so myself.

Since I wasn't happy with ANY of the companion singles I spun up (mostly white), I decided to just self-ply it and I'm glad I did - it looks very, very nice. I still don't get why Blogger keeps turning some of my photos to 'portrait', rather than keeping them the way I took them: sideways! Do you see how turquoise-y blue the singles look on the bobbins? That doesn't even begin to look like the real color. In fact, there's not that much turquoise IN the yarn and all the purple is just washed-out. However, at least you can see the noils and bumpies, which is why I kept the stupid picture.

Morning Surf Scarf

is about 1/4th done! I got the pattern from the Summer '08 Spin-Off magazine. The designer is Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer of Heart Strings Fiber Arts. I didn't realize it, but she offers the same pattern for free if you sign up for her HeartStrings Knitterly News email newsletter! She has GREAT patterns! One day...I will own them all. LOL Anyway, here's my progress so far, fuzzy shots and all:










I started it last night, using sz 7's, but decided I wanted a slightly tighter knit, so frogged and went down to a six. Went to bed late and was awakened at 2:50 a.m. by *someone* dinging the doorbell! Scared the dickens out of dd and I, while the MENFOLK snored their oblivious heads off. I made hubby get out of bed and "do something!" We figure it was probably some real jerk teenagers who live in the area. Little nerd-heads.

Now we know why...

I am not - nor ever could be - a corporate CEO. I would probably misplace the company and all its hapless employees :-(

Would you like to know what item I managed to mislay today? Oh, yes, indeedy! Connie-the-idiot-fairy strikes again! Connie couldn't find her own hind end with a flashlight and written instructions. Perhaps I didn't need to point that out, though...

Just today, I got in another roving from Jennifer of Laughing Rat Studios (Oh, yes, ratties really do laugh, especially when you tickle their fuzzy tummies. I've heard 'em on an ultrasonic recorder. In case you ever wanted to know.)

SO...Jenn didn't come up with Just Another Cute Name for her business - there is a Reason for that name! Besides...rats are hysterically funny and the best pets in the whole, wide world. I heard that. Quit making those comments about cats and snakes. Believe it or not, the rat nearly always wins, damaging both predatory species in the process. heh heh

YOU GO, FUZZ-BUTTS! (that was the name of my former Rattery. Not the "YOU GO", but the FUZZ-BUTTS part. Just thought you ought to know)

ANYWAY. I got that lovely new Falkland roving from Jenn - combed top, actually - in the colorway "Forest". About an hour ago. Inside 20 minutes of unpackaging it...I lost it. Of course. See, I wanted to take a pic for ya'll to drool over admire (pardon my lousy photo), and...it wasn't where it was "supposed" to be. Fortunately for my sanity - what little remains - I found it inside 4 minutes flat. I only had to race downstairs once and through the upstairs twice. I'm hardly even out of breath!

I also wanted to post my (rather slight) progress on the other roving of Jenn's that I finally found in the previous post. It is GORGEOUS!







Here's a pic of Jennifer's "lost" Falkland:











PLUS...I received a box of quite lovely, very soft Romney x Polypay fleece from Julia Redman at Sapphire Child. I "discovered" her on Dori Ann's Yahoo list, HandPreparedFibers. So, here's the pic of Jenn's Falkland and Julia's fleece.

Making progress...slowly

Hey, Jenn! I am really liking this Finn! The colors are soooo nice and this is going to be one soft yarn, I can tell. I'm spinning it semi-worsted, using a long forward draw and just letting the twist 'snap' into the drafting zone. Fluffy stuff, indeed! I'm not even trying to spin terribly evenly and I'm trying my best to get thicker-than-normal singles so I might end up with a worsted weight yarn this time. Maybe.

I'll keep you posted on my progress, hopefully with decent pictures. My camera is so high-tech, even the kids have trouble with it; so you can imagine how hopeless I am with it. I can turn it on and point it at something. I can use the close-up zoom lens thingie. That's it. Oh, and connect the funky cord to download the pics. That is ALL.

I am freaking hopeless

I need a Keeper. I really do. My poor dd does her best (which is a really most excellent 'best') to fulfil my needs for a Personal Secretary. But not even she can keep track of all my fiber; bless her for continuing to try. It's a wonder she isn't emotionally damaged from keeping track of her mother and all her junk. I've got fiber stuck EVERYWHERE in this house. It more resembles a jumble sale/barn/storage unit than a home, thanks to my Fiber Habit.

I found the missing fiber...top...roving...whatever...(from the previous post), late last night. Only to discover that some much-loved hand-dyed Finn top was now missing! I nearly had a heart-attack over that one. It was very precious to me, not only because it is gloriously soft and JUST the colors I wanted, but also because Jennifer of Laughing Rat Studios dyed it up. She does lovely work and her fibers are always easy to work with - and she's a such a sweet lady, to boot. I finally found the precious stuff after a frantic search up and downstairs a few times, yanking open drawers, doors, boxes and bags located in about 5 or 6 places ::pant! puff!::

Poor Jennifer - she about had a heart attack, too, as I'd written her a bit earlier (before my 2 mad hunting rampages through the house), asking the poor girl if she'd ever sent the stuff to me! You can have no idea how awful/bad/stupid & horrible I felt, having caused such heart burnings for this lady. She's had enough troubles lately as it is, and here I was causing even more :-(. My stomach still hurts thinking about what I put her through. Thank goodness it was relatively brief, lasting only about 20 minutes.

Fortunately for us both, my 2nd 'mad rampage' had the happy result of my finding the beautiful Finn top. Wanna know WHERE I found it??? Well, remember my freak-out over the itty-bitty moth? Where I used my Food Saver to vacuum bag lots 'n' lots of fiber? Yeah. In that pile. It was the very first thing I'd bagged. On the bottom of the pile. In my bedroom closet. Plain sight.

I can't believe God ever trusted me enough to give me 2 precious children - it's a wonder I haven't mislaid them as well, the poor loves. But my saga doesn't end here...oh, no...it gets better (and isn't that just thrilling?).

This morning I lost my new blue Salish locks I just got in the mail from Dori Ann! GAH!!! Somebody help me! Put me in a round rubber room with just my fiber and wheel - I'll be FINE! I promise! Can't lose anything in a round room, right???

Yes, I found the Salish. Finally. Don't ask. I'm not telling.

What a STUPID start to the day. Even though it began last night. The question I can hardly bear to ask myself is: "What else is 'missing' that I don't yet realize?"

Anyhoo - here's a pic I'm posting of the two "lost" fibers. I figure I ought to have the pics just in case these things (bite my tongue!) get lost for real. At least I'll have proof that I HAD them. Once upon a time.
Look how LONG those Salish locks are! They're about 7" inches long, but the fiber itself is SO fluffy and soft. I have no idea how I'm going to spin these up, let alone combine them with the Finn top, but I would LOVE to have a 3-ply yarn composed of 2 plies of the Finn and a single ply of the Salish. Thing is...the Finn is, like, majorly short-stapled. That means it will have to have a very tight twist just to convince it to be yarn, but the Salish will have to have a very low twist to keep it from turning into steel cable. I have NO idea what the plied result will be. Probably horrible, as most of my experiments are. I really hate sampling the Salish because I have less than 4 oz, but I've got to do it or I'll end up with yet another It's-Not-Supposed-To-Look-Like-This! yarn.

Wheee!!! It's DONE!

It's done, it's done! You know that yarn I've been spinning (and blathering about) since time began?? The alpaca-merino-silk 'bumpity-bump' stuff (2 bobbins), the hazelnut superwash merino stuff (1 bobbin) (both fibers from Leah at Yarn Or a Tale), and the dark chocolate brown llama stuff (1 bobbin)? C'est FINIS! I am pretty pleased with the way it came out, too. It is 4-ply worsted-weight (more or less). I was going for heavy worsted, but I just can't seem to spin thicker singles no matter how hard I try! I was hoping that a 4-ply marl would be good enough - I just didn't think I had it in me to spin up a 5th bobbin to get a heavier weight! Anyhoo - I got exactly 800 yards (780yds from the original plying + 20 yds from the "leftovers") - an amount I could hardly believe. I filled up my monster plying bobbin 3 times before getting through it all!

Anyway - it has gone to its new home (to a dear, sweet lady whom I admire very much). I had hoped to get it done before the cold weather blew in; after all - one needs warm garments before Winter gets here, not after. As slowly as I go sometimes, I figured it would be Christmas before I finally finished. I'm quite slow when spinning worsted, and every. single. bit. was inch-wormed (oof!). I learned a lot (and how).

Below are some pics that the giftee took for me (as I'm too freaking stupid to remember to do it myself, bless her generous heart).











An update on the rain from over a week ago: okay - looks like the weatherboys were wrong (so what else is new?). We got about 9.5". But that was a LOT. I am SO happy we didn't get any more!

Cormo...to die for!

I've just finished plying up my 2 bobbins loaded with Cormo (Corriedale x Merino registered cross). It turned out so beautiful that I used its photo for my blog header.

I've now got over 1000 yards of sock-weight yarn (fingering weight) and it is glorious, gorgeous, squooshy stuff! It's in one, continuously-spun length - no breaks, no weak spots, even! I'm half-hoping nobody buys it so I can keep it and knit me some fab socks from it (like I don't have enough socks already?!). A whine: it's just that that's all I had of the Cormo - 8 oz of pin-drafted roving - and I didn't save any for myself (which was *really* stupid!). My dd, who is learning to use a hand spindle, swiped the last 3 feet of the roving, so I don't even have any left-overs! I'm already experiencing Cormo Withdrawal... This is terrible.

Spinning Cormo is a HUGE treat, whether using a wheel or the hand-spindle. This heavenly stuff is SO incredibly soft, it feels like a Summer cloud. At times, I would have to look at my hands to make sure I was touching the stuff - wow. The fiber is long enough that the spinner doesn't have any problem spinning worsted, which is the method I used in this skein. Actually, while I did use the worsted, short forward-draw method, I allowed the twist to 'snap' into the drafted length rather than smoothing it down with my fingers. I wanted to see 'what would happen', hoping that the resulting yarn would have the strength of a worsted, but the loft of a woolen. It worked more beautifully than I thought it would - hurray!

I am so pleased that I took a chance to try 'something new' to me in the way of fibers. Thank you, Sue, for being a Cormo breeder and bringing this glorious fleece to fiber-starved spinners everywhere! :-)

WHERE TO GET THIS MYSTICAL, MAGICAL STUFF: This pin-drafted Cormo (plus some fleece later on) came from Sue Reuser at Cormo Sheep and Wool Farm - and NEXT time I order the roving, the stuff is mine...all mine! The shipping from Cormo Sheep and Wool farm is very fast and reliable, so the waiting time is very short.
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Spring Flowers - handspun Sweet-Grass Targhee

I purchased the undyed Sweet Grass Targhee roving this January from Paradise Fibers, just out of curiosity - and 'cuz it was on sale :-). I didn't get around to finishing the 2nd bobbin 'til March...I think. This purchase was truly Providential, as the fiber turned out to be soft enough to use next to the skin (for most people, anyway), SUPER easy to spin (esp. compared to Merino), very lofty and light. It takes up dye beautifully and evenly, always supposing the dyer knows what she's doing... I don't much enjoy dyeing fibers (I just hate cleaning up my messes), but most of all...I have almost no space in which to do it. It's NO fun dyeing up fibers in my tiny, no-counter-space kitchen! I have to spread out the sheets of newspaper and plastic wrap down the length of my kitchen floor, leaving myself little room to squat and apply the dye - NOT an amusing diversion, I assure you.





Anyway, what I got out of the Targhee was about 597 yards of 2-ply, somewhere between sock and sport weight. If I sell it, though, I will probably only list it as about 520 yards, as the fulling process seemed to greatly shorten the skein (darn it!).



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Desert Twilight - handspun Merino

I purchased this dyed Merino roving from a seller at our local Fiber Festival. Usually, I work with naturally-colored fleeces and rovings, but Spring was finally in the air and I so much wanted some color to spin! I spun it straight from the roving, more thickly than normal. I decided I wanted a heavier yarn to make a really colorful something-or-other that didn't require skinny yarn!

The top skein is 239 yards and the bottom is 225. It is a 2-ply, 100% Merino yarn, spun worsted for strength, but fulled to bring out the 'fluffiness'.