OK. I admit, I suck at keeping up the blog. I blame it on too many wool fumes and wedding plans. First, there was this little beauty:


I designed this Rock 'n' Roll All Nite Sock for the lovely Sharon of Stitchjones.
Other than playing too much with wool, I've been busy planning our May wedding. We'll be going back to my hometown in Spearfish for it, and afterward we leave for our 15 day European cruise honeymoon! (We got a $4,000 discount on it since I've traveled on the cruiseline before. What a deal!)
Mom came a few months ago to go dress shopping, and we found this gorgeous gown in a store here in MN. It was the only one we had found and liked, but it was $800!


Mom checked some boutiques in SD, and she found the exact same dress in a store there for $300! It should be arriving at my house any day now, and I'll obviously have to get it altered a bit, since the halter was a bit too big for the chesticles.

As for now, I'm dyeing a lot more yarn and fiber for the shop, since last week my hours at my part time job got cut nearly in half. This weekend, though, I'll be busy with these two cuties
No, not my girls. They're my nieces, Katelin and Samantha, respectively. Mom and Dad are going out of town so they're going to spend an awesome weekend at Chez Auntie and Uncle.

Yes Sir, Yes Sir, 3 Bags Full!

<---------- Look what I got!!

Our friend Erica's parents had kept 2 sheep and a llama as pets until recently, when they had to sell them. They gave me the fleece for free, considering I would knit them scarves from it. No sweat there, I would kill for this llama fleece in any other situation! It's so soft and clean that I don't think I'm even going to wash it before spinning.

















This is the Cheviot fleece, which is a breed I'm not very familiar with, but it seems pretty solid with a good staple length and a mild crimp. It'll probably be blended with another fiber to spice it up a bit.









And, the Shetland. I'm not sure if this is the norm, but this particular fleece seems as if it doesn't really have much of a lock formation. It's just kind of a big blob. That may also be attributed to the fact that they probably did not have a spinner in mind while shearing, but I've been able to work around it, and have already gotten some really good, clean, soft wool from this one.




The best part of these is that I got them right when we moved into our new place, where we have a TOP LOADING WASHER! I finished my last fleece washing in it, and it worked like a dream. So much less work than doing it in the sink or the bathtub.

Weird day...

I've had an..odd day.

It started off with me calling in sick to work, because I re-developed an old painful infection sometime during the night. I went in to the hospital for a lab test, because even though I have had this same thing a bazillion times, this new doctor still won't just call a refill of the prescription into my pharmacy. Whatever.
So I go and pee in the little cup for them, and like I ALWAYS DO after having my lab test, I sit down and wait for the results, and my prescription.
After 45 minutes of waiting, a lab nurse came over, commented on my knitting, and said, "You don't have to stay you know. We'll call you with the results and have your prescription called into your pharmacy"
It would have been nice if you would have said that before I SAT HERE for FOURTY-FIVE MINUTES!!

ugh.

It got better after that, with an interesting trip to my local craft store. I'm out of dye, and I've been putting off ordering more online until we get more settled into our new home. So I decided that a couple jars of Procion MX dye they carry (the ONLY dye they carry that I can use for wool) would hold me for a bit. I ran in, and to the exact spot where I knew the dye was. But, it WASN'T.
After a mini panic attack, I ran to an employee.
"Oh, uhm.............I think we moved it to our closeout store" (Crafts Direct closeout store; crap they got to get rid of for CHEAP)
So I run across the street, hoping, praying that they still have some.
After running around this little shop for awhile too, I have another mini panic attack. I can't find it anywhere.
Turns out, I'm just blind. It was in some far back corner, sitting on the floor. I made out like a bandit; 8 jars for $12; thats half price!

So tonight will be busy dying, and teaching hubby how to help! He's been doing little things to help me like reskeining and picking vm out of fleeces while he watches tv. It's so awesome to have someone who not only respects and admires my little fiber world, but wants to be involved with it as well.

Moved!

I think I've been going crazy! First we went to South Dakota in June, and now we've been moving for what seems like a month, and I finally have my studio with my computer back up and running!
June 20th was my birthday, and hubs got me the best present ever! I had been obsessing to him about starting a big project of a technique I haven't done much before...either something lace or fair isle. The sucker got me three BEAUTIFUL skeins of Malabrigo Lace! I knew what to make with it the second I touched it, and here she is:




















I had my wheel once we got into the new apartment, but I didn't have anything to spin, since I've been waiting to order supplies until we got settled. So I pulled the peacock batt from my store to spin. It's turning out a gorgeous teal, and the gray/silver alpaca is making it beautifully shiny.

Go on with your knittin'

I love this irish knitting poem; it reminds me of the Beatles. Hubs is obsessed with music, and a million times I've heard the story about Yoko Ono sitting in a corner during a recording session and being told by John to 'tend to your knitting, bitch'. It's a good suggestion!

IRISH KNITTING POEM
When the folks next to you act like those in the zoo
Grumblin', growlin' and spittin'
It's a pretty good plan
To be as calm as you can
And do something useful like knittin'.

When a gossipin' Susan with poison barbed tongue
Comes into the room where you're sittin'
And starts to defame
Some neighbor's good name
Count your stitches out loud and keep knittin'.

When there's been a slight misunderstandin' at the church
And others hint broadly of quittin
Why the very best thing
You can do is to sing
And stay at your post and keep knittin

When Satan moves in with his cohorts of sin
Say, "You'll never find me submittin'"
You irk me I find, so get thee behind
And please don't disturb me, I'm knittin'!

I'm also very excited because I've been asked to have my yarn sold in a new online yarn store being opened by a couple of lovely Portuguese ladies. The store isn't quite open yet, but theres a preview of it at:
www.knit.com.pt
My two latest skeins of handspun will be going up there.

I know I'm a little lackin in the picture department today, but it's for good reason. The knitting project I've been most involved in lately is a sock of my own design.
I'm also working on something that will be a personal project. Hubs and I are huge M*A*S*H fans, and he has always wanted a University of Illinois letter sweater just like the one that Col Henry Blake wears. Well, he's getting one. I stopped at the lys for yarn and some new addis last night, and I've nearly finished the bottom ribbing section. Pictures to come when the progress is a bit more...interesting. I'm using armhole and neckhole steeks for the sweater, perhaps I'll post a tutorial when I get to them.

Knitting Craze

The tides have turned, and after a month or so of obsessing over fiber and spinning, while almost completely abandoning my knitting, I have flip-flopped.
I find my needles and yarn calling me the instant they come into my sight, and my wheel and pile of fiber to be spun sitting jealously in the corner. I still visit the fiber every once and a while, but right now I am in the midst of a renewal with my knitting mind.
By the advice of Kelley Petkun's KnitPicks podcast, I went and got myself a subscription to audible.com. For $22/month, you get to download ANY two audiobooks, regardless of the retail price. I've always adored reading, but abandoned my books when I discovered the world of knitting. Having a wonderful book on my ipod to listen to makes me want to do nothing but sit on my overstuffed couch, with my ipod and knitting all around me. Also per Kelley's advice, I started with a series of books by Diana Gabaldon. I just finished the first book this morning, Outlander, and I'm obsessed. I can only describe it as a mix of non-stop action, romance, and the rich culture and history of 18th century Scotland.


Anyway. Turning back towards knitting, I found myself noticing that I have very *little* yarn in my stash, especially nothing that would be enough for a larger project.
A few weeks ago, I went to my local craft store, where I found a huge yarn sale. Most of the yarns were fugly novelty, eyelash yarns, but there were a few colors of this silk/acrylic blend. I got 12 skeins of this brown, and 12 skeins of a light tan. These were $1/skein!
Because of the silk content, I wanted a possibly summer/spring garment that wasn't quite a sweater. I've been interested in the construction of the knitting pattern, Ester, ever since I first saw it. So, here it is. I've knit through the whole back section, and am now continuing it with the addition of the "sleeve" sections. This pattern is perfect for tv/movie knitting. Interesting enough to keep me entertained, but easy and repetitive enough that I could easily remember the pattern, and do not often have to refer to a chart.



I had a few blue, yellow, and green scraps of rather scratchy wool leftover from the pound of fiber that came with my carder. I carded these with some super soft white merino and some shiny blue/green firestar. It's being spun up on my joy, I'm thinking that it will remain sock weight singles, or be 2 plyed. I'm not sure yet, I'll see what mood hits me when I'm further along with the spinning.





I received this nice big box stuffed with 2 lbs of border leicester wool. It is well skirted, but still full of small debris and tons of natural oils. I've been slowly plucking the locks apart from each other in those small moments I find myself not wanting to knit or spin.
I had never washed raw fiber before this, and I found that its not nearly as tedious as it seemed from the sets of instructions I had read. After finding myself a small plastic shower basket at target with slots in the side, it was really easy. I stack some locks in the basket with the tips all facing the same way. I brew some hot water in my coffee pot, and fill a white tub with dishsoap and the hot water. Since the basket the fiber is in has slots, it can just be lowered into the hot water without agitation, avoiding frustrating felting. After the locks are washed, I press the water out of them with old towels, and set them aside to dry. I then card the dried, clean locks, and pull the batt gently into little nests of roving.

The clean wool is beautifully white in contrast to the dirty locks.
I'm still not sure what to do with all this fiber! It may ALL be prepared and dyed into tons of small amounts of different colors as filler wool in batts, or perhaps I will spin it undyed first, and hand paint the yarn.
I haven't decided. In either case, I'm sure I'll be working on this 2 lbs for a while.

It's been a while...

It's been forever since I've done anything etsy related, besides making items. Last week I got a brand new toy! A strautch petite drum carder. Here she is with my first test batch.



















I've been carding up a storm since I got it, and have some very pretty fiber to add to the store that will hopefully start going up in the next few days.

Last weekend we had our nieces (Samantha, 6 months, and Katelin, 3 years) while sister and brother in law were at a dart tournament. The kids were perfect little angels like they usually are for uncle and auntie, but unfortunately Michele had gotten sick the last night of their trip, and proceeded to give it to Rick, Katelin, and I. So for the last 3 days I've been at home throwing up again. I'm so sick of the stupid flu, and the fact that every time we have a nice springy day, it SNOWS again! Its April. Quit it. I really need to take a bucket of disinfectant to the entire apartment and let it air out, but I'm sure as hell not going to do it when its cold and snowy yet.