What I got goin' on

Knitting:

Scarf in linen stitch from my handspun.

Lace shawl.

Simplicity socks.

and of course the new obsession.

Spinning:On the wheel some nice roving that will become some nifty color shifting socks

On the spindles I have:

some pinkish/lavenderish silk
Some merino/silk
and some more merino/silk
Toddler Stuff:Abby's newest words: Uh-oh. Thank You. (bringing her total vocabulary to about 3 words besides momma, dada, and Jacob) The other word is Down.

Jacob's newest words: Fabulous. Shit (only once. Mom's fault). Delicious. Impossible. Dork Fish (repeatedly. Dad's fault). Tool (not the hammer kind. also Dad's fault). Adorable (looking at pictures of when we brought Abby home). Startled. Privacy. Herbivore. Pteranodon. Tyrannosaurus.

Which leads me to his imagination. I had dinner with a Pteranodon, a Tyrannosaurus, a dog, a duck, a cat, a bear, an owl and a goose all in one sitting and at one point I was a Pteranadon and a bear.

Goals:

Not so much into the resolution thing but there are a few things I would like to do this year and see no reason not to.

1. I would like to finish a few quilts I have in the works

2. I would like to finish a few bears I have in the works. Maybe make a few more.

3. I would like to get to a farmers market and sell a few things.

4. I would like to get my tummy into shape. I am by no means overweight but I have a bit of a belly from having the kids and it bothers me so I am going to try to fix it.

5. I would like to train myself to keep up with the housework so that I am free to do things like spin and quilt and knit without either a: feeling guilty or b: doing 2 hours of housework first. You'd think I'd have figured out by now that wishing for it won't make the laundry and dishes done and ignoring it won't make it go away.

6. I would like to try to be more social. I need to get out and make it to knitting on Fridays and spinning once a month. Not that hard, I just need to DO it. Besides getting out more will probably improve my mental health too.

Next up: teaching a new knitter.

What I'm Working On

So...I made another spindle...I think I am done for a while now. I really do need to start packing, not making more of a mess around here.

This one is made out of a chopstick and another donut bead - looks like bone, I am not really sure what it's made of. Very light. I will only be able to spin very fine on this spindle - I think it's my favorite so far.

I finished spinning up the silk blend that I got at the County Fair when I participated in the Sheep to Shawl back in August (don't have pics from that, left my camera at home that trip). Right now it's singles but I think I might ply it with some a grey silk/alpaca blend.Next up are the socks I am working on. These are constructed sideways and I am loving the technique. Yes those are holes in my sock...just wait, you'll see when it's all done...I am giddy over these socks.And lastly I have started a lengthwise scarf out of some of my handspun yarn (guess I am on a sideways kick with the socks and now this...)This should just fly off the needles once I get it going. I can't wait to see this one all done too.In other news, Abby now has two teeth! Oh and I got to sleep ALL NIGHT last night (no I don't believe me either, but it happened!) both kids blessedly did not scream or wake up needing to poop all night. Jake usually wakes up and yells at me from his bed (he knows I can hear him through the monitor)...this morning he did what I have been telling him it's ok to do for several months now, just get up and come on down. It was a little weird to wake up to a little face popping up over the side of my bed saying "wake up mommy" but nice too.

Well, I guess its time for laundry and all that silly houseworky stuff.

Silk

So while the babies slept yesterday I decided to pull my silk back out and give it a go again. Silk is kinda a pain in the butt to work with since it catches on everything. I thought I'd try a new way to wrangle it this time to see if it did me any good.

So here is my process:

1. This is a silk hankie...it is made up of layers of individual whole silk cacoons that have been stretched one by one over a frame. Because it is the whole cacoon there will be both long and short fibers so don't expect a perfectly smooth yarn.2. Isolate ande peel off one layer.

3. Poke a hole in the middle.

4. Stretch.5. Keep stretching until it's fairly close to the diameter you want your single to be. In this case I am spinning it very fine so I went a long way with the stretching. With silk you want to keep your hands fairly far apart...8-12 inches I'd say, moving closer as neccesary. Also, the more you predraft the more luster your yarn will have. Oh and don't forget to soften up your hands with some lotion first or you'll think you'd just coated your hands in glue with the way silk clings.
6. Break the ring at some point. You can do this anywhere you want, if you have hankies that are dyed multiple colors, you may choose to always break at the same point in the colors to keep your pattern the same.7. Spin. I wrapped my silk around my papertowel holder. I thought it would be smooth enough to allow the silk to come away freely but it did snag quite a bit. Next time I think I will just pile it into a bowl and see how that works. Oh and because the staple length is so long you don't need a ton of twist it holds together really well.Here it is spun up on the spindle - There are about 4 cacoons already spun on there.I must say you do get a lot of bang for your buck with silk hankies. Plus you can get them cheaper if you buy them undyed and you can use kool-aid to dye them too.
Anyway, there you go, a mini tutorial on spinning silk hankies.