Weekly Goals, 10/24

Last week was a success. Here's hoping I can follow with the same.

1. Ply Ellie - This shall be the huge awesome skein. Yay fluffy yarn.
2. Spin & Ply last batch of Ellie - There's only a tiny bit left. It's almost a shame that it's all on its own.
3. Finish and Wash Ellie - One alpaca down, one to go [for the spin a bag keep a bag project at least]
4. 9 more circles for tote bag 1 - Turns out each bag will take 24, ouch.
5. Piece together tote bag 1 - The cirlces are all shades of blue and being pieced using white half-double crochet hexigons.
6. Start Tote bag 2 - either shades of pink or multi color. Probably multi.
7. Proto-type any other animals - I'm thinking more of Fuzzymitten's designs because I love the first. And maybe a crochet amigurimi because we'll see how that goes.
8. Make 2 holiday mice - I love these guys and hopefully I can get pretty quick at things. I also want to try them in the round this time as I hate seaming.
9. Sort Rosie into locks - prepare for Alpaca 2! She's a rose-grey and so beautiful.
10. Wash at least 2 batch of Rosie locks.
11. Test knit hat, and try sock & sweater mods - Gotta catch up to the hat from last week and work on the pattern modifications while the ideas are still fresh in my mind.
12. Level WoW mage to 80 - Yup I've been sucked into a MMO. Bran and I need to use this last week of the refer a friend bonus to ding 80 or we'll have to do it the old fashioned (slow) way.
13. Two repeats on mittens - I think I stand a better chance of sucess on this this week.

I much be rather insane. Last weeks awesome has gone to my head and makes me not see how absolutely much this weeks list really is.

Weekly goal wrap up, 10/23

List updated as items are accomplished. Bold = finished.

1. Check that Eowyn Costume still fits and is in decent shape, fix as needed - Still got it on with no problem. The fitted top is rather tight and restricts breathing a bit and arm movement is somewhat limited, but I think that's the way it was when I made it. This thing is like the most poorly sewn garment ever. Trimmed the rough bottom hem to make it slightly more presentable and sewed up a number of holes where the stitching had split. Methinks that I'll want to bring a sewing kit along when I wear it and maybe a set of regular clothes.
2. Plan Christmas Gifts -rocked this one fairly early and was pretty happy with everything. Although there are a few question marks.
3. Prototype Sweater, Sock, and Hat -Got through the Sweater and the Sock but not the Hat. Soo close. The first two went quite easily although I do want to make some modifications to the final patterns.
4. Prototype Holiday Mouse -Sewed up the body and head easily and quickly on Monday. I'm quite happy how easy it was. And really as I am becoming familar with the pattern things will only get easier. Also, this little guy is so stinking cute.
5. Order yarn -Managed to convince myself not to go overboard and stuck with just the basics. Now I'm anxiously waiting for the package to arrive!
6. 15 Hex circles for tote bag -This objective was greatly assisted when it worked out that I spent 1.5 hours out of the office over lunch at a different office to sell things. The selling of things never occupies the whole time however so hooray for excellent on the go crafts. Now I just need to figure out how many circles I actually need for each bag.
7. Knit 2 repeats of pattern on argyle mittens -I picked up this project again and totally fell back in love. Although it is difficult to get myself doing it as all of the other projects which are less for myself tend to feel more pressing. Alas I always put the other projects first. But at least i got through one repeat and the thumb gusset is now complete.
8. Order Mother's Gift(s) -Check. Hooray for ebay. Now I'm just hoping everything shipped to the correct address and I didn't get scammed.
9. Make more applesauce (if needed) -After planning out my Christmas gifts it was quite clear that I have plenty of applesauce for me and for giving. Therefore, not needed. That was easy.
10. Ply Ellie singles - As always there are some thick and thin spots but I ended up with a nice soft and squishy yarn that was still a fairly lightweight. Awesome!
11.  Prep 4.5 oz of Ellie - I'm getting quite good at prepping.
12. Spin another two batches of Ellie -Done and they were even giant batches. This skein will be nearly 4 oz.
13. Create a crafting plan for the next 3 months -This took way longer than expected. Like holy moly will I be churning out a lot of stuff. I really need to make sure to do all of my fall/winter craft planning in June or July next year. It is a much much smarter plan.

12ish/13 - not bad.

Fiber Arts Friday: A Sweater and some Trindles

So I've pretty much been kicking butt at accomplishing things this week. Check out my crazy goal list for the week. It's going well so far and I plan on posting the outcomes late Sunday. At least for the next few weeks when there needs to be crazy crafting production I want to make those goals a weekly blog feature. Accountability and all.

But anyways while I have you my captive audience here I am quite pleased to present the most awesome accomplishment ever (in my biased opinion at least):

The project began way back in May when I spent my time watching the Giro d'Italia and prepping fiber. I have had big bags of this alpaca for a few years now and never managed to go through terribly much of it. It was what got me started spinning way back when the Mother of one of my High School Friends asked if I could knit her something and if I'd be interested in the fleece. In the quest for a better method of processing I had been investigating creating my own hackle. I wasn't terribly thrilled with the comb approach so modified things in my own way. I use the hair combs to flick batches of the raw locks. 

I then take the locks and can load them up onto my homemade hail and random wood plus duct tape hackle and pull myself out a long strip of roving. Roving is definitely my favorite preparation for spinning. I am much better at being consistent when I use it. And the whole hackling, pulling process, results in these amazingly fluffy, need no further drafting strips.

I spent some time testing different spinning styles. One yarn looked absolutely amazing but it has lots of twist so the knitting, which is done on relatively large needles, looked quite wirey. I found that while it was a bit difficult not to drop the spindle all the time or break the yarn I very much enjoyed the fabric created with a rather loosly spun yarn.

Aside from the initial testing all of the spinning was done during the 2011 Tour de France/Fleece. Highlights included spinning in the car, spinning in the car in the dark, spinning more than I've ever spun before, Contador sucking, and Evans rocking.

By the end of the 3 weeks I had a grand total of 1496 (ish) yards. Holy epic. Actually when I add in the bit of other TDF spinning that was accomplished I spun over a mile of yarn.  I am still proud of that.

From the get-go I knew the yarns intended object was a Featherweight Cardigan, but immediately after the TDF I was distracted by many other shiny projects and the yarn languished for a while. On August 22 I knew I would have some time while up with family over Labor Day and I cast on. Crazily I had to rob another project of the proper size needles. That project is still quite stagnant, oops.

The knitting itself was incredibly easy and amazing. I would highly recommend this pattern. Some folk might find the giant swaths of stockinette boring but I revel in the simplicity and love having a project that I can take and knit anywhere without having to worry about messing up a pattern.

It was odd how when I was knitting the hand spun yarn with its 'irregularities' almost made the stockinette look like there was a pattern going on. After being a bit dismayed in the end I decided it added to the character of the piece. But actually know that it's all knit up you don't notice it at all. A friend commented last night that it actually looked machine knit even. Although she was at least a few feet away.

The other real quirk of the sweater is that there is a significant color change. Apparently Max, donor alpaca, has some different shades to him. I didn't notice until I had knit probably 2 inches of the new skein, but then suddenly it because quite clear that there is a difference. I'm too lazy to re-knit anything so I just kept going. Chalk another one up to some extra character.

No matter what in the end I love it and shall definitely be wearing this sweater quite a bit.

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Thanks for visiting! For all of you fiber people visiting I encourage you to check out the Spinning Trindles Group on Ravelry where they are currently hosting a giveaway. I purchased my first Trindle in the spring and it was immediate love. Just about everything that I spin these days is done using my Trindle. They are the most awesomest and I'm hoping to write up a post all about them sometime next week.

And after signing up for that be sure and check out the rest of the Fiber Arts Friday blogs!

Apple Sauce

My goal for Saturday was to make apple sauce. Things got off to a rather late start as I was with Bran and did engage in a bit more new apartment with him. I also finished the Max Sweater that morning.

So I didn't get out to my local awesome farm stand/market until sometime 2-3ish. I was hoping they might have gala or fuji apples but no suck luck. So I went with a half a bushel of Golden Delicious and half a bushel of Jonagold.

The back seat being occupied with a bunch of stuff for Bran the apples went into the trunk for the ride home. Alas this resulted in mass apple spillage through the trunk. D'oh.

The evening before I had purchased a new gadget that I thought might aid my process, an apple peeler. So I couldn't resist pulling it right out and giving it a whirl. It was amazing.

I then spent a bit of time trying out my new aproach and getting a feel for things, while also doing a bit of housework and blocking the sweater. This was a very very poor plan as inevitably the pot of apples that I left on the stove to soften boiled over while I was up pinning the sweater. I knew it was bad when I could smell burnt apples on my way back downstairs.

When the house was purchased back in January the first thing that happened was my Aunt and Uncle replaced the crazy old stove with a new amazing fancy one. It's a giant flat top and I love it. Burnt stuff on it is very very bad and muchly distressing to me. Eeek!

I already had about a quart and a half of sauce but I basically stopped my whole process and decided to clean the whole kitchen first. This gave the stove top some time to cool down so I could work more at cleaning off the burnt stuff and avoid any damage to the glass top. Plus it refocused me and gave me time to establish how I would run my operation.

At approximately 6PM I recommenced operations.

Here's my snazzy new peeler. the contraption could also core and slice, but I opted just to peel.

The dangling strands of peel were at times too much for Helo to resist.

I worked in batches of 6 apples, 3 of each kind. First I peeled them. Then I would slice off the skin remaining on the top and bottom. This also helped make a nice flat surface for using the slicer corer thing with the red handle there. I was working in batches (multiple ones at a time) so all of the slices then were left until the cooking pot was free.

The slices were put in a pot with some water to soften. As soon as they were soft they were scooped into the Foley mill and the next batch of slices went on the stove. Although make sure to change the water every 2 batches or so. The water gets very syrupy and bubbles over way too fast if you don't change it - not that I have experience with this or anything...

As the new slices were softening I was milling. Because there were already peeled and cored just about everything went through the mill. It saved me quite a bit of scooping out peel bits and fretting that maybe if i just mashed harder i could get more from this or that batch of left overs. It was great. The sauce then went into a big pot which I attempted to leave at a low boil. This was fairly unsuccessful as it tended to just find one place to bubble and project apple juice splatters all over the stove.

As soon as the milling was done, or if my arms were tired I would start alternating, I was back to the peeling/chopping/slicing. When there was a good bit of sauce in the pot and when I had a full 2 batches ready for cooking I would switch to filling the jars and putting a batch in the water bath.

The end result was 6 quarts, 11 pints, 4ish of the blue tupperware (a pint maybe) and one of the big tupperware which was already at Bran's new apartment when this photo was taken.

Weekly Goals, 10/17

This past weekend was pretty odd. I spent a good bit of it with Bran in his new apartment. So it kind of blows my mind that I still managed to accomplish what feels like quite a bit of stuff on my own as well. Excellent.

Looking out over the next few weeks/months there is a TON of stuff that I would like to accomplish. I must keep going with the success and really ramp it up as well. And so I think it's a good time to establish some plans and goals for myself.

This week I would like to accomplish the following things:

1. Check that Eowyn Costume still fits and is in decent shape, fix as needed - We are inviting patrons to dress up for the next concert for work, so staff ought to as well. I'm quite certain that it shall be entirely awkward but at least I get to rock my awesome costume. And the costume itself is pretty 'neutral'.
2. Plan Christmas Gifts - I really am rather late, for me, at this plan but I was leaning away from the crazy involved handmade gifts this year. But I still need to figure out what I'm doing instead.
3. Prototype Sweater, Sock, and Hat - I worked up a quick tiny mitten (pictured) last night and it's so cute. I want to keep churning these guys out with the end goal of making lots to sell at the Christmas Market.
4. Prototype Holiday Mouse - Same deal as the ornaments but this is a little adorable mouse. I'm a bit afraid that this pattern may be more involved, but that's what I need to figure out.
5. Order yarn - I know I want to use sock yarn for the ornaments and solid colors can be tricky to find so I need to order online. Hopefully I can rock out a quick mouse as well to determine if online ordering would be best for that. Yay knitpicks.
6. 15 Hex circles for tote bag - I'm going to start with a Christmas Colored tote (red, green, yellow, and white). These suckers are the perfect easy anytime project to have on hand at any (and every) free moment. I still need to mock up how many circles I'll need for each bag.
7. Knit 2 repeats of pattern on argyle mittens - Even though I'm trying to accomplish a zillion other things I don't want to abandon my fun projects for myself. Must keep working on mittens.
8. Order Mother's Gift(s) - Don't want to forget about this and don't want to wait until everyone else is ordering their gifts as well.
9. Make more applesauce (if needed) - I already made a bunch but I need to take the Christmas Gift plan into consideration and see if I want to make more so that I have enough for myself.
10. Ply Ellie singles - I have 2 rolls of singles ready for plying. I think it will give me 2.4 oz of yarn.
11.  Prep 4.5 oz of Ellie - I have a good pile of flicked locks already waiting for the hackle. I'll likely need another batch but then I will have all of her prep work done and ready to spin.
12. Spin another two batches of Ellie - At the end of the week I'd like to have around 5 oz spun up so that I can finish the last of her yarn (to be sent back) the following week.
13. Create a crafting plan for the next 3 months - I suspect this is the only way I will get through everything that I have in my mind. And even then it will be tight.

Yikes.....I have a bad feeling that I am being super-way-over ambitious (especially when I look at my list of future goals as well). Fingers crossed that I don't hate myself for trying to do so much.

Fiber Arts Friday: Not so much progress

So after pretty much kicking butt last week at the whole getting stuffs done this week was not so good.

I had every intention and didn't think it would be at all difficult to finish up the Max sweater. I mean all that was left was the band! Alas life had other ideas in mind. Friday night was cleaning and seeing Bran, Saturday was a rushed last big of cleaning then the Renaissance Fair. Sunday and Monday were spending all day with my Aunt & Uncle working on the house (or all too often watching him work and wishing I could help). There was indeed some knitting in there, but it was sadly minimal. Tuesday was the only decent free day and it did indeed have much knitting. In fact on Tuesday I crafted all of the strength right out of my hands. That was new. Wednesday was a bit of time but then Band and seeing Bran's new apartment. And Thursday was dinner with Bran's family and more new apartmentness.

Holy smokes how is a girl supposed to get anything done around here?

The Max sweater is however amazingly enticingly close to finished. Its a bit tricky because I have to take all of the stitches (300ish) off of the needle and onto waste yarn to try the sucker on to check on the band size. I have in my head that I must must must finish and block this weekend. I can not wait to wear this sucker.

I did also get in some reasonably decent spinning time. I have probably 2-3 ounces completely prepped all the way into roving form (yay hackle) which I've found easiest to work from. 1.4 of it is all spun up and waiting on a TP roll for plying. Most of that is just one nights work (Tuesday) so I fully expect that I ought to have a plying mate all spun up for it this weekend. I could theoretically ply but I think I'll let it rest a bit first. Plus I'm going to aim to get another few ounces of washed locks flicked and drawn into roving.

Lastly on the fiber front this week I started a new project. Not exactly the most brilliant way to get all of the other stuff done but so it goes. But it's for the Scarves for Special Olympics project. And it so happened that the yarn was on sale in Michaels when Bran drug me there. I'm just doing a simple double crochet pattern with holes in the shape of a heart. It's great because it takes approximately no focus and can be picked up/put down at any time. I actually started it at the Ren Faire and it worked quite well anytime we were sitting and waiting for a show to start. It is super happy news that this year they gave us colors that can be had in "Red Heart Soft". Previously it was all regular Red Heart Super Saver yarn which is rather dreadful (but cheap). The soft is quite akin to my super favorite cheap yet soft yarn: Simply soft. Hooray for that.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you'll come back and read about more of my goings-on. 

Be sure and check out WISDOM BEGINS IN WONDER! to see more Fiber Arts Friday Blog Amazingness.

Farm Show Options

Once I found all of the information on entering things to be judged at the Farm Show I immediately started thinking about how many of the different categories I could conceivably enter. It was overwhelming. To try and organize myself I printed off the 20 pages of "Home Living" info and went through with a highlighter. Each of the following orange items was marked, my notes are in black.

Crocheting: Accessory – pair of mittens, hat, shawl, etc. I can totally crochet some little something or other. Even just a scarf if nothing else. I could even theoretically use one of the scarves that I've been crocheting for the Special Olympics project.

Crocheting: children’s Garment – sweater, shirt, dress, etc. The other category of adult garment is rather out of my range (plus I'm not a huge fan of my crochet garments) but kids stuff is so much faster/easier/funner.

* Knitting: Hand Knitted Accessory – pair of mittens, hat, shawl, etc. I am already planning on making mittens and scarves for myself so this is easy. I'm thinking I'd enter one of my hand spun linen stitch scarves. Although that would mean that I wouldn't be able to wear it for that time-span. Tricky.

Knitting: Hand Knitted Adult’s Garment – sweater, shirt, dress, etc.Quite ambitious for me but I have already been knitting up my Max sweater so that would count and proves my capable of such feats.

Knitting: Hand Knitted Children’s Garment – sweater, shirt, dress, etc.Same deal as the kids crochet garment. Except I know of at least 2 babies who I've kind of wanted to knit for anyways.

Handmade Garment (Any garment knitted, crochet or woven from a natural blend of yarns [commercial or hand spun] containing a minimum of 30% mohair): Garment Again a whole garment is rather intimidating and at first I didn't know about the mohair aspect. But then I realized that I had purchased 4 oz of the most phenomenally amazing Mohair/Alpaca (or maybe sheep I can't remember off the top of my head)/Angora blend roving at Knitters Day Out. It would be absolutely amazing and perfectly suited to spin it up just like the Max and knit another Featherweight.

* Folk Art: Hand spun/dyed yarns Given how obsessed I am with spinning these days I certainly must enter some hand spun yarn. Although it's also rather intimidating as I really don't ever consider my own stuff to be so great. It's pretty darn bumpy (adds character to my knitting which is fun but not sure how well that goes over in judging).

Skill in Needlecraft: Cross-stitch (counted)  Cross-stitch is amusing, and quite easy.

Skill in Needlecraft: Embroidery (creative) I have been wanting to learn more embroidery stitches and skills for quite some time now. Perfect motivation!

Home-related accessories: No Clothing Items: Other – Base size no larger than 15” x 20” Kinda seems like I must have something around. Would a knit/felted alpaca toy fit here?

* Cloth Toys: Stuffed figures of animals Or would the amazing felted alpacas (if I can manage to get my yarn to felt) fit better here. Not sure if knitted cloth is the cloth they are looking for or not. I could always sew one of my awesome penguins. Those guys are great. Whoa brainstorm! I ought to make more of the amazing tiny penguins I was making for a while. I love those things.

Quilted Wall Hangings: (Pieced patchwork- hand quilted, appliqué – hand quilted, mixed techniques – hand quilted, or Machine Quilted) All of the things listed in parenthesis were options. I've not done much quilting but its another craft that I really do want to pick up someday. I would probably go fairly simple and stick with Machine quilting although my sewing machine skipping stitches could be a problem.

* Quilt Block Context – Pieced Adult (The theme for the 2012 Quilt Block Contest will be “Country Pride, City Wide.” We ask that you create a block using new fabrics in the color palette of red, white and blue and design of your choice.  Each block will become the property of the Family Living Section of the Farm Show. Items will be constructed with proceeds benefiting the Farm Show Scholarship Foundation.) Even better a quilt block that I can try to run with the theme. Except I'm really not quite sure about the theme or the colors really. I'll probably do this anyway instead of the previous category.

Adult Photography (lots of different categories) Normally I wouldn't think of myself as much of a photographer but I randomly entered a picture in a contest last spring and won! This is likely because there were only two other entries. But still. Photos are fun.

* Greeting Card Contest I love making cards. There are so many different possibilities of what I could do its hard to choose. I would probably go with Scherenschnitte. I miss paper cutting, it was probably the most meditative craft I've done for me.

* Tote Bag Contest: Large or Small Tote Bag Adult This category seems a bit odd. I think it may be more geared towards buying those plain canvas bags and decorating them. But I want to enter a bag like my awesome colorful crochet hexagon bag. I'm already planning to make some to sell at the Christmas Market so might as well mass produce!

Gift Box Contest: Hand-made Box (Any material using theme “Country Pride, City Wide”) Again a bit of an odd category but definitely within my grasp. I'd probably go with something paper. Paper is such a broad medium you can do so much with it.

* Potholder Contest: Hand Constructed Potholders Really I ought to be able to knock out a potholder with no sweat. Quite a while back I was thinking of making a pretty double knit potholder. That would be nice.

Place-mat Contest: Adult Way back when I moved into my house in February I was thinking of making some place-mats for the dining room table. They would still be quite a nice addition.

Since I first did all of my highlighting I've had a good bit of time to think about the crazy and the time has also seen me find even more crafty stuffs that I want to get done in the next few months. The ideal solution would be to quit my job and just make crafts all day. But then I would have no monies, and soon no food, house, or craft supplies. Alas that plan is a no-go. 

So instead I'm going to pick and choose my categories. And really this is certainly a smarter way to go as there is no need to enter more than a few things on my first attempt. First times for me are very much about feeling things out and learning whats what. 

I've marked the projects that I want to try and accomplish with the asterisks. Most of them are things that I will already have been creating or often are more simple type objects. I think this should work out well.