Sunday, March 16, 2008

Lazy Sunday

Its a nice, lazy sunday. I have too many things I want to do today, though!

Like work on this yarn for the store. I dyed white wool in pink and purple, then hand carded it with some white wool. It turned into a pretty skein; I think I'll leave it as singles, because its about a sock weight right now, and it will have enough yards to MAKE a pair of socks! (I think I still have almost an ounce of this fiber left before the spinning is done!)








You may have seen this before! It was posted in my store as roving, but it sat for a few weeks without any buyers, and I started getting antsy because I've wanted to spin it for myself since I dyed it!
Last night I finally took it off the store, and started predrafting.

I'm kind of glad I did; it got a little felty during the dying process, which is weird because I always take extra measure to make sure I let the fiber cool in the dye bath to avoid felting while trying to cool it down with water.


It's making a wonderfully squishy yarn though, and I still love the colors.

It should be reappearing in my store in the form of a skein this time.

(Photo note: Hubby in the background playing Madden '08 on our Wii)






In knitting news, I started this pair of socks last week.
Hubs and I work in the same place. He has to start work at 7; I don't start until 8. Normally my department offers overtime and I just start an hour early. Last week, the corporate office put the kabosh on that, so I get an hour of knitting time every morning. Its pretty nice, even if I do have to do it in the break room.





It's a blurry picture, but a totally cute one of hubs playing football =)











I'm also working on some handmade knitting needles. I love working with polymer clay, and I have tons of it from making beads for hemp necklaces we make that my dad sells to his crazy hippie friends in South Dakota, so I figured I might as well take some lessons from my carpenter father in law and start whittling my own knitting needles, using clay for cute toppers. Today I'll be getting my first couple pairs of needles baked and varnished, and they should be making their appearance on etsy very soon as well!

We just got a 37" TV in near perfect condition from a friend for only $200. I think hubs and I will have fun putting together the new entertainment center for it today, not to mention lifting the huge sucker up onto that thing. Guys, this tv is MASSIVE. Its sitting on the floor in our living room right now taking up about the entire walkway into the kitchen. I'm excited to get it set up; that means we FINALLY get to have a tv in our room again. Yay!

Happy St Pats tomorrow, all! Don't forget to wear green and drink lots of guinness. I know we will.

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Just what I needed..

After spending a week stuck in our apartment, alone with the flu, I was looking forward to spending time with Rick (hubby!) this weekend. He ended up having to help sister in law with an easter photo shoot she was doing on Saturday and Sunday, and it ended up being HOURS and HOURS longer than either of us expected. I got the worst headache ever and couldn't help but just sit here and cry because I have such bad cabin fever. Dare I say, it will even be nice to go to WORK tomorrow, just to get out of this box we call our apartment.

My entire day was saved by a lovely etsian who bought two items from me this evening, which was my first sale of March. It is amazing how much joy you get from knowing that something you put a lot of effort, time, love, and soul into making can find a good home with someone. It made me feel mountains better.

I also finally figured out today how to use my hand card to produce roving that is nice enough to sell, instead of having to just sell it in the form of rolags. I know, rolags are nice to spin from, but I don't know if I would buy fiber in that form if I had a choice between that and roving. Call me obsessive, but I did figure it out.

Friday, March 7, 2008

Flu Day

Today is the 4th day in a row I've had the flu. Both hubs and I are home right now, sick. At least I'm not so bent over the toilet that I can do some things. Yesterday I threw some fiber in the crockpot and rainbow dyed it. After some drafting, I have a big pile to spin


It's a little over 4 oz of fiber, but I'm kind of sick of spinning really thin sock yarn, so I think this is going to stay as a chunkier single. I love it so far.

I'm off for some sprite. ugh.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Colonel Mustard

Well, today started off not so good. I had to run to the bathroom as soon as I got to work; the flu is going around. So now I'm just going to sit on the couch with my 7up and work on a fiber project; this mustard colored roving. It started as about 2 oz of bare fiber. I separated it into 4 little chunks and dyed each a different color. Yellow, dark moss green, a salmon/tan color, and left one white. I carded it all together once, yielding this big mustard colored batt.


It's still needs some processing and more color blending, so it's getting one more carding before I pull it into roving, like I have with these:
They'll eventually be a skein of yarn for the shop.
I'm hoping I keep feeling *ok* enough that I can have some studio time today!

Also check out the new skein that will be posted today to my etsy store!

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Melonade

Man. It's seems like it's been forever since I posted anything to my store. I'm just finishing this skein of merino, and it will be up in my store tomorrow.


I'm trying to use and/or sell most of my stash yarn, so I'm using some to make this Trellis sweater from Knitty for my niece Samantha.

I dyed this roving up last in an impromptu dye session while watching transformers. I just posted it to the store!