Behold!

Hey Ho!


So today we had a nice sunny day to help show off the splendor which is my purchase from yesterday...fleece for the spinnin'.


I really can't tell you just how excited I am about my purchase. I'm not sure I can put that kind of exhileration into words. Well, I suppose to say, "I'm so excited, I'm gonna pee my pants!"...I think that pretty much sums it up. I have been carding like a madwoman -- I'm currently spinning up the lighter brown fleece.I believe it is Border Cheviot -- if I remember correctly. It is a coarser fleece, but very strong. Loretta told me it will make a really nice cardigan sweater or something that won't be right against the skin. I have the perfect pattern in mind for it. I'll try to find the picture (it's from Interweave Knits). I have wanted to make it for some time, but haven't had the wool. By the time I spin and ply the wool required for the pattern, the sweater will have costed me somewhere between $5-10 dollars. But I will love it because I will have handled it from the beginning stage of carding it all the way to knitting the last stitch.


I'd better get going. We have our last soup supper and Lenten service tonight at church. I have about an hour to get a few things finished up before heading over. Enjoy the pictures of my latest fleece shopping adventure...

In the foreground: (l) dark brown Romeldale, and (r) creamy Alpaca

In the background: Corriedale (very silky!!!)

The cream coloured bag contains 5 or 6 lbs of unknown fleece

Cream and Light brown in colour -- will make a nice heathered wool

On the left: the Corriedale fibre

On the right: an unknown fibre

Mama's A Happy Camper!

Hi Loverly Peoples!

I am in a very happy mood tonight. I will have dreams of fibre spinning through my fingers tonight! Earlier this afternoon I went to the home of one of the ladies from the Spinners' Guild. She had some fibre she offered to sell me. I got quite a variety: some Border Cheviot, Alpaca (eeeee!!!), Romeldale, Coridale, and a couple other bags of I can't remember what. All in all, I got almost 10 lbs of assorted fleece for $45.00!!!!!!!!!!!! To give non-spinners/knitters some perspective, the local yarn shop sells 1 lb of Coridale for $47.50. I think I got a pretty good deal. Yee-haw!

Earlier this afternoon, I carded up some of the Cheviot and spun up some up to get a feel. It is a coarser wool, so the lady who sold it to me said it would make a really nice cardigan -- or something that isn't right against the skin. It has about a 3-4" staple so the longer fibres make it much easier for me to spin the singles quite thin.

I'll snap some piccys tomorrow. Tonight it is late and I am needing to get to bed. Morning comes early, so I'd better get moving. Good night everyone!

A New Beanie

Hi There!

Just a quick update. I wanted to post a picture of my latest FO. I made my daughter a new beanie hat with some of the wool I handspun and dyed. It turned out pretty nicely -- I'm pretty pleased with the results. Madeline really likes it and was more than willing to model it for me yesterday after school.

Can't stay. I'm spring cleaning today. I figured since I'm on a roll, I'd better do it until it's done. I can't believe I actually pulled my fridge out today and swept, vacuumed, & mopped! It was rather exhilerating, actually. Could it be that I secretly am enjoying this cleaning experience???

Boo-Yah!

Today was cloudy, but our south facing window still lets in so much natural light. So I did a bit of a photoshoot of my newly dyed yarn. I couldn't stop touching the yarn and looking at it today. It was a ray of sunshine in an otherwise cloudy day.

I just don't know what to make with my newly spun, newly dyed wool...I did the ruler test and I have about 110 yds total in worsted weight and about 40 yds in bulky. Perhaps for the moment, I'll do a couple of swatches just to get a feel for the yarn and how it looks once it's knitted up. That's what I'll do! I'm gonna swatch and watch CSI -- I need a little break from my mom's shawl. I'm about halfway done. But it brings me great stress. It's loverly! But it brings on the stress. Tonight I need to just knit. Enjoy the pics...

Skeins dyed with Jello

So pretty!

I'm ready for my close-up...

Tie-Dyed Jello Skeins, Anyone?

Well, tonight I was really needing to do something "artsy-fartsy"/"creative" with my time. I knew I wanted to try some more dyeing with a couple of undyed skeins I spun. But, what to do, what to do...

J-E-L-L-O!

Of course I have Jello packages in my pantry dating back two centuries. I am obviously not using them for human consumption. The only logical solution for using them is to try a tye-dyeing experiment with three of the colours. 'Cause God knows if I use anymore Kool-Aid packets (which were bought solely for the purpose of dying my wool...duh!), my family will revolt and there will be mutiny and carnage like the world has never known! Ergo, I knew if I used three of the three hundred packages of Jello sitting in the pantry, nobody would be none the wiser!!!

Once my hubby was busy in another room and my daughter was having her nightly shower, I quietly snuck to the pantry. With the Mission Impossible theme song running through my head, I stealthily approached the cupboard. Peeking down the hall, I knew I had mere minutes to complete the mission, should I choose to accept it. With particular colours in mind, I quickly shuffled through the flavour selections, until I found the necessary items. Retrieval without setting off the alarms was key. I selected the following flavours: Strawberry/Banana, Fruit Fiesta, and Orange.

I quickly mixed the red and green colours in two separate containers and placed the ends of the two selected skeins and thus began the dyeing treatment. My heightened senses kept me informed as to the presence of family down the hall. As long as I could hear the shower and radio running, I knew my daughter would be occupied.

Soon I was ready to continue with...the magic! I switched the tips of the ends that had been soaking into the opposite colour (to give me a hint of some kind of browns). I also then put the undyed portion into the orange. It was ethereal to see the colours begin to intermingle with one another taking the skeins from creamy white and pale grey to a display of colours that would make even the angels weep as the glory of the skeins shone around them. I think I even began to hear the heavenly chorus rejoicing at the beauty before me.

"Yum," said my daughter standing behind me...dripping wet all over the kitchen floor. "Something smells like Jello!" I quickly looked up...like a startled deer. Alas, one more stealthy than I had outwitted me! I had been caught "having fun" without my daughter. I paused waiting for a cry of dispair from my daughter that I didn't wait for her before playing with the colours. But, there was nothing. In fact she peered into the kitchen sink where "the magic" was happening. "Hmmm...cool," was her response before skipping down the hall to find something more interesting to do.

But I didn't care. After the soak, I placed the skeins into a roaster and put it in the oven for about 20 mins. The hardest part was waiting for them to cool down enough to rinse them, dry them in my towel, and hang them to dry. But not before taking pictures. By this time, I was rather excited and in fact dragged my hubby to see this creation of such loverliness, I thought he would weep from being in the presence of such beauty.

"Hmmm...neat." (Note sound of a record needle scraping across a vinyl record...)

Neat. That was it. There was no weeping. There was no lifting up of one's eyes to the heavens above with shouts of alleluias (well, I suppose it is Lent).

But you know what? I didn't care. I heard the angels. And they were rejoicing!

P.S. I'll have pictures of the skeins tomorrow when the sun comes up. I tried to take some tonight, but the lighting in our kitchen is too yellow, so the colours didn't show in the piccys very well. Until tomorrow, my pets...until tomorrow!

Just a quick Hi

This will be a quick hello tonight. But I just wanted to do some "Show & Tell". Yesterday I posted pics of the wool I've spun up and a few were dyed using Kool-Aid. Today, I sat down with a couple of the skeins I spun and one commercial one (brown colour) and knit another meathead hat using my own handspun wool. A rather exciting day for me overall! It worked! It worked! And nothing has fallen apart!!! :) Happy happy joy joy!

Well, I need to bolt. Need to finish cleaning up and zip over the floors with the sweeper before getting baby girl to bed. Today was her first day back to school after the Spring Break. Glad to report she had a fun day. Student teachers are now at the school for the next 5-6 weeks so she's excited Miss P. has joined her class.

Night Everyone!

Kool-Aid Fun

Warning: this post may be picture-heavy...

I've finished spinning the fibre I got from my spinning class. I received a bag full of washed Arcott fibre from my class. I finished plying the last bit last night so I decided to venture into dyeing. So yesterday, I bought a bunch of packets of Kool-Aid to give it a try. My hubby was a bit disappointed the aforementioned Kool-Aid was to be sacrificed to the dyeing gods instead of for him...but I must say the results were kind of neat.

A basket full of woolery-goodness!!!

The first skein I tried was the handspun Finn top roving I bought for my b'day.Before picture

It was spun and plied using my drop spindle. It turned out to be kind of a brick-merlot kind of colour.

After picture #1

So there is approx. 53 yds (50 g) of that colour.

After picture #2: In the sunshine

The next two smaller skeins I did turned out to be like an icy-blue varigated with bits of green and cream and a darker blue.After picture #1 (icy blue)

That was with the Arcott fibre spun on the wheel.

Before picture (Arcott fibre)

In total I have about 57 yds (approx 50 g) of that colour.

After picture #2 (icy blue): In the sun

I have bought dye from the wool shop, but need separate cooking pots for that. So I decided to try the Kool-Aid method first. I'm pretty pleased with the results and I am now trying to figure out what to make with it all. I want to knit up a simple project using the home-spun wool that I can take for "Show & Tell" for my next Spinners Guild meeting (last Monday of March). Any suggestions???

Da-lovely!

Well, that is all for tonight. I have to get a few things done before bedtime. Tomorrow my baby girl is back at school, so that means my holiday from cleaning is now over. :( It's back to the grind for this Cinderella. See you again tomorrow.

Hello...Are You Still Out There?!?

Hello Loverly Peoples,

I hope you haven't given up on me. This week my daughter has been home for Spring Break and so, being the ever-faithful, oh-so-awesome, super-fantastico mama I have kept myself busy with her all week. We have had fun outside, went for loverly walks, sat out on the back deck while baby girl played on her swing set (someone needs to be out there with her right now...apparently there is a pack of wolves somewhere in the area...yipes!), gone bowling with friends, hit the library, watched movies and kids cartoons, held bunnies and guinea pigs at the pet store...and now it's Saturday. And I feel terrible that I have neglected you. It's not you...it's me. I really am not good a multitasking, so as a result, blogging, spinning, knitting, etc have all been sorrily neglected!

But Mads and I have had a fun week. Hubby is busy as usual ... it is the church season of Lent and so that means extra services and so that means hubby is MIA until after Easter. It gets pretty busy around here during this time of year. But with my baby girl off school this week, I decided to carelessly throw my chores out the window (HA! Like I even planned on keeping up...sheesh!) and spent time with my girl this week.

Today is bright and sunny. A good day for hanging out laundry -- better get at it. I spent about two hours this morning carding and spinning. I am excited to say I have almost finished spinning all the fibre I got from my class. Next I am thinking of dying some of the skeins and trying a quick project so I have something to take for "Show & Tell" at the next Spinners Guild meeting.

Well, gorgeous peoples, I am off. It sure felt good sitting down and blogging again. I'll be back tomorrow...I promise.

Forgive Me Faithful Readers...

Forgive me, Faithful Readers, for it has been five days since my last blogging experience...

I really have no excuse other than life is busy. I've also been spinning like a banshee! Check it out!!!

I am so glad I learned how to spin -- it's very relaxing! The fibre they gave with the class, though, is full of straw and grass. So much time and effort goes into picking out all the little tiny bits and pieces. I'm much too much of a perfectionist to just leave the odd strand of straw in the fibre. You know, to give it that whole organic feel. But it pleases me greatly to spin it all up after picking through it at such great lengths. Although I do feel like I'm in a re-make of the great Shakespearean play, Hamlet, when I start obsessing over all the little microscopic pieces of grass in the fibre. Picture it, folks... there's me, it's mid-afternoon because all efforts of housecleaning have been shoved aside in pursuit of spinning, I have not showered, hair is dishevelled, I'm hunched over on a kitchen chair with piles of sheep fibre surrounding me.

"Out, out, damn grass!" I mutter over and over to myself.

But it all works out in the end and I am ending up with some loverly wool to work with. The last batch I worked on was most impressive. I am learning to spin with lesser amounts of fibre with each pull resulting in some nice singles.The last batch I did turned out much more silver/grey than the skeins I made over the weekend. The twist is much finer than those done on the weekend. But I fondle them all with the same amount of love.

On the knitting front, things are in a bit of a holding pattern. I have not been on speaking terms with my mom's shawl for most of the week. We've had a bit of a ... falling out, so to speak. Things were progressing well on the shawl and the other day I noticed the ribbon was getting pretty close to the end of the needle. Without picking up the needle, I simply pushed the stitches back. When I pushed it back in place I thought, "Gee, there doesn't seem to be as many stitches on my needle." I lifted up the shawl, and to my absolute HORROR, I couldn't help but notice that half of the stitches had fallen off the needle. They had all come off and, with the ribbon instead of wool, I could not for the life of me figure out how to pick all the dropped stitches up. Many of the stitches by this point had begun unravelling themselves to the halfway point of the finished portion of the shawl.

I was a racing car, folks. And I was in the red. Red is danger!

I quietly set the tangled mess back down and simply walked away. That was two or three nights ago. Last night, I unravelled the shawl (for the ninth time, for all those keeping track) and began again. It has become the bane of my existence! I have vowed that I will work practically non-stop on this bloody shawl until it is complete with fringe attached, gingerly packed into a padded shipping envelope, and sent off across the country. It is a beautiful pattern, but never again will I work with ribbon. Never! It's wool or nothin', baby! At least with wool I can recognize the stitches to pick them up when they fall and gingerly guide them back into place.

And with that, folks, I bid you good night! I must go eat pizza with the family, and then set to work on ... THE SHAWL. After my baby girl scoots to bed, I will continue to watch Survivor and CSI and work on ... THE SHAWL. When my eyes become blurry and watery around midnight, I will take my bloodied fingers, administer 2-3 drops of Visine in each eye and continue to work on ... THE SHAWL. Okay, okay. You get the drift, I know. But was it really necessary to roll your eyes so obviously during my melodramatic, one woman monologue? Sheesh!

Spinning So Totally Rocks!

That was the best day ever! I had a great time at my spinning class -- I learned a lot. I am glad, though, that I've been playing with my drop spindle for the last couple of weeks. It really helped understanding how to draft the wool, etc. The first thing I learned was "teasing" the wool. It had been cleaned, but you still have to pick out all the little bits and pieces of straw/grass. Then I learned how to use the hand carders to work the fibre into workable pieces of roving. Boy, as a knitter, do I ever appreciate the work that goes into spinning workable yarn!!!

I rented a Louet S10 wheel until the end of June. It cost $20.00 to rent the wheel, three bobbins, and a set of handcarders until the end of June. Pretty reasonable...plus it will let me know if, down the road, I would like to invest in my own wheel. I can tell you right now...it's most likely a, "you better believe I will" kinda response.

While there, I spun two bobbins of singles and then learned how to ply them together. I got about 23 yards of that skein. Tonight I finished plying another 26 yards. I'm kinda really most definitely loving the spinning! I think tonight I will be working a treadle in my sleep!! :)

I am pretty tired after today's exciting events. My baby girl woke up at 6 a.m. this morning with a bad nightmare and didn't want to go back to sleep. I was too excited about my class to even think about sleeping, so I stayed up with her. Suffice it to say, I'm beat. I usually stay up and watch Saturday Night Live, but I don't know if I'll make it tonight. Eyes are getting droopy as we speak...

Well, time to tuck my girl into bed for the night. Good night loverly peoples...

Oh Yeah...The Girl's Got Skillzz

Hello Beautiful Peoples,



Well, tonight I finished plying my first attempt at yarn.

Roving in the foreground,

newly plied skein of wool,

and how to book

After plying, I soaked it, gently squeezed it, blotted it with towel gently, and then set it out to admire.

Book with

skein of Finn Top wool

Not bad for my first attempt with the drop spindle. I am greatly pleased. I can't stop looking at the skein or touching it. It even smells loverly!!! :

Close-up of skein

Tomorrow is my spinning class in the city. It's an all day affair which I am so excited about, I'm actually salivating. I will be learning how to spin on the wheel (*squeals*). I have wanted to learn how to do this for the last nine years. Tomorrow, I will be the idiot with a smile pasted all over her face. But I won't care. I will be full of bliss...I might even do a little chair dance of joy.

On the knitting front, I quickly snapped a couple of pics of the shawl I'm working on for my mom.

Mom's Shawl

Not the best lighting...

The pictures would have looked better in natural sunlight, but you get the drift. As I make further progress, I will snap some more piccys and post them.

Mom's Shawl on needle,

Wool skein drying in the background

That's all for tonight. It's getting late and I need to phone my sister to wish her a happy birthday (was last night, but they were out). Then, I'm off to bed. I needs my beauty sleep for tomorrow.

Tah Tah!