Another Addiction

I have been having lots of fibery fun lately. First I finished carding up the fiber I dyed with Easter egg dyes.

I also got around to taking a picture of the plyed yarn I made from the roving I bought at the spring fair.

My guild is also making some friendship hats in which we all spin up some yarn, cut into 30 yard skeins. Then we all take about 8 of these mini skeins from each other and make a hat using some of each yarn. Originally I spun this yarn:

to use but Jacob begged me to make him a hat out of it so I ended up using something else. My hat did not turn out like planned but in the end I think it will work. This is a shot of it before blocking. 

I hope it will look a bit better after I finish blocking it.

Finally, the new addiction is weaving mini squares. While looking for something else on YouTube I came across a video of  a woman with a little square loom that she was weaving WHILE warping so when you are done with one, you are done with the other. I followed the link to these little looms and figured I could make one for WAY cheeper than they were being sold for. Rather than spending 25 bucks plus shipping I spent 3 bucks at the craft store and invested 30 minutes of time and voila! A little lap loom!

Less than 24 hours later I have a tidy little stack of woven squares that will make a neat little blanket when they are all sewn together.

Now that I have finished knitting the hat and it is blocking I can go back to whipping out more squares - seriously these things only take minutes to make and they are tons of fun. I didn't even get bored doing plain white ones. While I am still working on the hexipuffs, I think I will be using my samples on these little squares as they are more suited to different grists of yarn and stick to sock yarn for the hexipuffs.
I think I will make a larger square loom to do bigger squares out of that I can then felt. These things are a great size for sample weaving and I may even make a few more in this size with different setts just for the purpose of sampling before weaving.

I have been knitting

Even though I have not been posting lately I have been knitting. I finished the mitten I was working on and I made a hat for myself. I will be making a companion scarf from the remaining yarn.

I have also been spinning and I finished an experimental yarn using brown wool and cut up thrums from a weaving project.
I also made a new spindle using a pretty jade green donut bead I found some time ago. I was not sure how I was going to feel about a bottom whorl spindle but it is now my favorite spindle.

Settle In - It's A Long One Today

I have been a bit (completely) absent from my blog for a while as I have been rather busy with things. Life things like going on a vacation for our ten year anniversary, going to see Les Miserables, and visiting my parents; as well as crafty things like the sweater I showed you a peek of in my last post, a couple of quick projects for the kids and a couple of teddy bears. Now that I am back to blog world I can show you some of the things I have been up to.Let's see first up is the sweater. The pattern is Wish Me Luck and I was one of the test knitters for the pattern. I finished it and my cousin Melanie took a few photo's for me (it was in the 90's so I did not keep it on very long). I worked on this thing pretty much every spare minute I had during the testing period and barely made it. It was definitely the most challenging thing I have completed so far in my knitting adventures. I even took it with me on our anniversary trip to wine country. That was spectacular let me tell you! We stayed at The Cozy Rose bed and breakfast in Grandview and love the place. I think this was our 5th time staying there and we look forward to going back. You can't beat a gorgeous room with a private entrance, a huge shower, a soaking tub and delicious breakfast brought to your door. We tried wine and had great food and it was a really nice little getaway for us. Here is a view from one of the wineries where we had a ton of wine and some lunch.I also met up with my spinning guild and we hand dyed the warp for our upcoming sheep to shawl competition for which I will be the weaver this year. We went round and round about the color choice (nothing gets decided quickly when doing it via committee) but ultimately decided on fall colors. I think it will turn out beautifully with the combination of color and weave structure that we have chosen. We will be weaving it at the Puyallup Fair on Sept. 11th somewhere under the grandstands...I think near the Artists in Action area.Near the end of the sweater making I was getting a little bit over it as happens at some point in all of my knitting projects...the point where your eyes start to wander and you start to think about the next thing you want to knit. I resisted this with much difficulty and only succeeded because I was on a deadline and didn't want to be the one holding up the bus. That was until I had to wait for the sleeves and button bands to dry while blocking. At that point I allowed myself to knit a little something for Abby. A while back Abigail really wanted to spin 'for real' (not just treadle an empty bobbin). So I made up some rolags of the Romney fleece I have and had her sit on my lap. I treadled and she helped me draft. I was very impressed with how Abby stayed focused and actually listened to what I told her to do. I would hold the fiber in my left hand and put her hands on the single we were making. Then I guided her through the 'pinch, pull, slide-back' motion of drafting out fiber. She had the hang of it rather quickly and together we were able to make a pretty consistent yarn. Then I plied it back on itself to make a 2 ply bulky yarn. Then the real fun began. She really wanted purple yarn so I soaked the yarn in some warm water and a dash of vinegar while we mixed up the grape Kool-Aid. Then we laid out the yarn in a 9x13in casserole dish and poured the Kool-Aid over it and mixed it up thoroughly so the color would take evenly. Then a cover of plastic wrap and some time in the microwave and it was done. But something interesting happened. The color went onto the yarn evenly but they dye took unevenly. It worked out that the red pigment sunk to the bottom and the blue floated to the top so we ended up with a range of purples from 'starting to be reddish' to 'that's a bit blue' and the yarn is gorgeous. I could not have hoped for anything more beautiful even if I had done it on purpose (Or I guess I should say Abby since she was the one driving this train.)Anyway it was this yarn that I used for her little project. She has been asking me to make her a 'snuggle bug' for a while and so I got online to look for a pattern but couldn't find one I liked so I ended up making one up and it turned out pretty good. The face could be better but embroidery is not my strong suit.After the sweater was done I made a beret for my cousin Melanie but it only turned out so-so. I did not get a picture of the one I made but you can see what it was supposed to look like here. After that Jacob really wanted me to knit him a 'snuggle worm' so after I finished the beret I got back online to find a suitable pattern and alas, nothing fit the bill so I Frankensteined a few patterns together to make Wordsworth the Worm. And finally fresh from the bear nursery (my sewing machine) I have two new teddies for my friend Lee. I finished these up yesterday afternoon and they will be cared for lovingly (set on a shelf far out of the reach of my children) until they can be handed over for adoption.

Alphabet Hat

Here is the hat I made for Jacob with that fun beaded yarn completed finally!


The triangle top was lots of fun to do!

First Hat...

...for me that is. Of all of the knitting I have done in the 5 years that I have been knitting and of all of the hats I have made I have never made a hat for myself. Until now. When visiting the Grand Opening of Yellow House Yarns Andrew bought himself a skein of Cascade Chunky Baby Alpaca to make a hat. This stuff is SUPER soft and I had to have one for myself so I got me a skein and once I finished that DNA Scarf and the Cowl I was working on I made this hat. It only took a few hours, even with the cabling. I Love it. It is excruciatingly soft and when wearing it, you forget it's on because it is so soft and light. It is warm without overheating you. In all, I picked the perfect yarn (actually, I must give credit to Andrew on this one, it was his idea first) and made a very nice Snappy Hat.

Timmy The Viking

Here is the birthday boy in his new hat. Hope he likes it. Happy birthday Timmy!

Vikings ahoy!

I finally finished the hat I have been working on for my brother in law. I can't wait to give it to him! Thank you so much to my reluctant model. He must love me a lot to let me post a pic of him wearing it on the internet for everyone to see.

Stuff I've been doing this week

So a while ago I made a hat for Jake and he really liked it but did not like wearing it. Originally it was way to big so I frogged it and cast back on with fewer stitches...making it too small. It's cute and it sorta fits but it's a stretch.

It does however fit Abby perfectly and she loves it to the point that she screamed and had a fit the last time I tried to put it on Jacob. So now it's Not Jake's Hat.I think the best part is that the ear ties are long enough they come to her knees with the tassels on them. It is really cute.

I finished up the yarn I was spinning on the Turkish and finally got started knitting the scarf I have been eyeing for a while. Here it is, almost done (keep in mind it is not blocked yet so it will look even better after that happens).While I was on Orcas with the kids I brought my spinning wheel and finallly started spinning the Faukland fiber I bought from Jeannie. It was a real challenge to spin worsted after having spun laceweight but I think I got fairly close. If anything it is a little chunkier than I planned but it will still make a fun sweater for Abby.The first fiber braid is all spun and plyed. One more to go. I think it's a total of 8oz.

I also finally got my ass in gear and ripped back the socks I made for Brandi for Christmas (they were too long). and got them sorted out. Hopefully they fit now. If not I am just starting from scratch.

Ok, so we all know I need a new hobby like I need a hole in the head but....

At the monthly spinning guild meeting one of the ladies was giving out free weaving yarn - the only catch was that she wanted to see something woven with it by I think June...Well I have had a loom in my craft closet for about 6 years now and have never taken it out of the box. I figured that if the yarn was free and the loom was free, I really didn't have anything to lose. So I checked out a book on Rigid Heddle Weaving from the guild library and brought it home. That was Tuesday night. By midmorning Wednesday I learned that I needed a way to wind my warp. Since I don't have a warping board I improvised:The only complaint I would have about the Tinker Toy method is that now they make the darned things out of plastic (great if you need to block your yarn...)and so the 'dowels' started to bend a little as I got close to the top (wouldn't have happened if I wasn't using as much tension) which caused the warp to be slightly shorter on one end - live and learn. Next time I am definitely using the single post warping method.
By Wednesday evening this is what I had after teaching myself to warp the loom and making myself some shuttles out of cardboard:

Last night I pulled this off of the loom:This morning I finished tying the warp threads. In about a week I have made a sampler. It is ugly as I am not hot on the color choice but it was free, what can I say. I tried out a few things and am glad to be over the initial learning curve. Here is a closeup of a couple of things I tried:
Now it's all about fine tuning. Next up will be a plaid scarf. We'll see how that goes.
I also learned about halfway through that the cardboard shuttles were simply not cutting it as they were snagging often enough to be so irritating I didn't want to weave. So I grabbed a balsa wood stick and got out the old Xacto knife and sandpaper and made myself some nice (smooth and lightweight) shuttles. I also remembered what a pain in the ass it was threading the heddle with a teensy tiny crochet hook that would only go into the heddle about 1 inch before it got too think not to mention the head being so small it would not work on anything thicker than laceweight yarn. So I made me a heddle hook to:
Ain't I crafty?

How the #^&* do I block a tiny hat?

So as you all know I finished my Vine Lace Baby Hat for Abigail. I love it on her and she did get to wear it once before it got wwaaaaayyyy to hot for wool. But it still needed to be blocked. The delay was I couldn't figure out how. I have a little styrafoam head for blocking grown up size hats but I wasn't sure about the little heads. I saw Roxy at the Lamb's Ear and she had a brilliant idea - use a balloon. I thought, great I'll get some balloons and give it a try, however it later occured to me that this hat has little scallops that will need to be pulled into submission and that usually needs pins. Pins and balloons don't really mix. I decided it didn't really matter since it was too hot to wear and I could deal with it later. The next afternoon we were at the grocery store and I spotted melons and cantelope in all kinds of sizes and the light went off. So I measured Abby's head (yes I do carry a tape measure around, why do you ask?) and picked a melon that was close in size. So I was able to stick my pins in and now I'll have a snack for later.

She is a pretty cute little melon in that hat isn't she? Now I just need to wash the melon juice off of my pins and I am good to go. I have not put it on her to see how it looks since with the weather at this point I think that could be considered child endangerment.

Oh and have I mentioned my 8 month old is climbing the stairs now? She crawled for like 5 days before she was over it and wanted to stand. Once she figured that out (about a day, maybe 2) she wanted to go go go and started cruising along the furniture (time to lower the crib mattress). Now she is not only getting up to standing but wants to climb things - like the tv stand etc. The last few days the stairs were a fun thing for her when she could get to them (baby gates ususally up) She would get up a step and then slide back down but this morning I had one of those heart stopping moments - Abby was set down next to her brother to play I leave the room long enough to grab a grahm cracker (this takes less than 10 seconds) and Jakes says "Abby on a stairs" (she was no where near the stairs when I set her down). I run around the corner and sure enough, there she is, on the 4th step. A misstep at that height could be very dangerous for her little body. So I climbed up and sat behind her so she could continue to have her fun. She made it up 9 steps before turning around and reaching out for mommy. Needless to say the baby gates are up now no matter what.

Lately

What we've been up to lately....
I mentioned we went up to Orcas for about a week and got to hang out with Grandma and Granddad...
Jake and Granddad ran the tractor:

Abby hung out on the couch:Jacob found his wings:but don't get me wrong the whole time he was 'flying' he kept saying "My an airplane Mommy!" and making appropriate airplane noises.

We spent some time in my Mom's amazing garden...Jake loved the shovel, the wheelbarrel and the rake but mostly he loved the peas, cherries and strawberries: I finished Abby's lace hat and just had to put it on her right away. Fortunately it was a cool enough day that I was not torturing my child for the sake of seeing if it fit.
My dad went fishing and came home with several fish that he smoked. Jake got to help him make the brine and was very very excited to do so.The fish was delicious too.

We have been home for a week now and I am finally getting my butt around to posting. I finished snakes for a friend's grandsons. They turned out great except I didn't end up embroidering eyes on them. I still think they look pretty sharp with their little tounges sticking out. I am really glad I got them done before my machine decided to break. The day after I finished the snakes I finally decided to get my stuff together and make a bear for Jacob since I hadn't yet done that. He came up and 'helped' me. After we got the pattern traced and cut out we sat down to sew only to find the machine only sewing in reverse. I couldn't figure it out. I thought it was probably the same problem Alexis had. So I thought it was a loose spring on the backwards button but I couldn't get the cover off. I was doomed to have to take it in to have the shop look at it...they look at it for free...if it needs to be fixed they charge 125 bucks. I took it in and she couldn't figure it out...sait it had to be sent in (damn it, I knew it)...aske if she could just show me how to take the cover off...she said she had no clue but her co-worker could often scare any machine into behaving. Said co-worker came and sat down at the machine. 5 seconds in she had my machine working...get this it was just on the wrong stitch setting. I guess that there is some limbo on the setting that if you put it in the right spot it sews backwards. This is probably intentional in the design of the machine but still was weird to me. It made sense that it was a minor problem as Jacob had confessed to messing with the machine when asked. But in the end it all worked out and I didn't have to pay and arm and a leg...so here is his bear in all of the Curious George and Firetrucks glory: Oh and on Wednesday I made a fabulous dinner. I knew I was totally in the mood for a roast so I grabbed one and coated it in coarse kosher salt and some dried minced garlic and some pepper. I baked that at 325 for about 2 hours. I also served mashed potatoes and best part was the Ratatouille Tart from the August 2009 issue of Cuisine at Home however I made a few changes. The recipe calls for zuccinni, yellow squash, red onion and red bell pepper. I used all of those but added eggplant. I also changed using goat cheese for using parmesean since none in my household, including myself, care for goat cheese. I am not familiar with the copyrights, etc. so please pick up a copy of the magazine for the recipe. I guess it would probably be ok to see me for my version of it too since I did make changes. Pretty huh?

Anyway it was one of those things that I thought would be just ok and Brian was sure he would hate (and really wanted to also since he thought he was getting one of his favorites - fried zuccinni as a veggie) but we it turned out to be really yummy. We will make it again for sure but do a couple of things differently. First I will use more basil than called for. Second I will layer the veggies a bit more densly and third I will use more olive oil. I enjoyed this very much and it reheated GREAT! I used the leftover slices of zuccinni, yellow squash, eggplant and red bell pepper at dinner the next night with our french dips (always follows a roast night...) by eggwashing them and coating them in breadcrumb and pan frying in a little olive oil. Sooo yummy!

Well, the babies need a bath. Until next time.

Hang Ups

We all have our own little quirks and whatnots. I have finally figured out one of my hang ups. For some reason I can't get it out of my head that I can't blog unless I have pictures to post. Now I realize that this is ridiculous but for some reason that has been why I have been putting off posting.

So I am trying to get over it. I'll post pics when I have them and not worry about it in the meantime.

Projects I am working on:

The pukish/black colored socks for Andrew. Trust me the colors are totally him. I will be glad to be done with them because I feel like they are taking forever and I am getting tired of looking at them. He does have some pretty big feet though, so maybe that is why it feels like they are taking so long. Actually, I think I may have a pic of the first one finished...

Just a size refrence in the above photo the foot is 12" from heel to toe. This is not a HUGE foot, but since the only other socks I have made are for newborns and myself it is quite a departure size-wise.Everyone thank the reluctant foot model, my Husband, for posing in socks that make his teeth itch (Don't worry, he isn't the sort to wear handmade socks, or wool at all for that matter, the intended recipient however, is and will love them).

I am also working on a pair of Corsett gloves for Amber for Christmas...pics to come later.

The only other thing I have currently in the works is some handspun yarn...I am proud to say I have finished my first bit of spinning with a drop-spindle. I really really love it. The yarn came out to be about worsted weight, maybe slightly bulkier, is of course a single ply and sort-of a novelty yarn as it goes from thick to thin to thick, etc. (common for beggining spinners). I have hanked, washed and set the twist, now I just need to ball it up for use... Not sure what it will become yet, probably a scarf and/or hat. 120yds was the yield so I am not exactly sure what I can get out of that much yarn...at least a scarf though. I am also working on making some teddy bears...Here is a pic of the first one I made...since then I have gotten some much neater fabric to use: No eyes you say? I want them to be completely infant friendly so no buttons, etc. to be chewed on.

I have recently finished a hat to match the sweater for Abby,
And a pair of newborn sized socks for my neighbor's brand new baby:
Some other things...I am finishing off the roving I used for the blue yarn in a finer thread so I can attempt to teach myself plying and possibly get a pair of socks out of it (we'll see if I have enough...I have tiny feet...it helps).
Also I made a drop-spindle just to see if I could make one that functions and I want a lighter weight spindle for finer yarns:
Ta-Da! It works but the whorl needs to be heavier (stops spinning too soon and rather rapidly reverses direction)...I'll look to see what I can find at the store today that might do the trick, not sure if I'll be able to find what I am looking for as I had a hard enough time as it was finding the one I did (a toy car wheel purchased at a large chain craft store). The construction was easy...drill tiny hole in dowel end, insert tea-cup hook, slide dowel through wheel (the dowel and wheel are a perfect tight fit so there is none of that whorl sliding down business and no glue, etc. involved). Total cost was about $0.80.

In other construction news...I decided that instead of spending $17.00 on a niddy-noddy (for hanking yarn) I would make one:
That's nothin' but pvc pipe folks...5 lengths, two 't-joints' and 4 end-caps. Total cost: about $5.00. The beauty of having one of pvc is that I can set the twist without having to move the yarn off of the niddy noddy. My Darling can not escape the Engineer inside and has already brainstormed a way to put it on a stand so it will spin around as I wrap the yarn (similar to a swift).

Oh and I got some goodies too!

At the fair I got some of this beautiful roving. It is very pretty I think. I am eager to see how it spins up. I don't know enough yet about fiber to tell you anything more than it is wool and I think alpaca.
The other goody I got is some of this beautiful roving that is silk and something I can't remember. I got it at my LYS.That's about it for right now.