Something new (ish)

My spinning is all self taught largely using a combination of You Tube and just doing whatever works. Every so often I might try something slightly new or different or think about getting creative but most all of the time I go back to my standard short draw worsted spinning. Hey if it ain't broke....right?

But recently I decided to be daring and try something different and try my hand at spinning woolen.

In my stash I found a bag of fiber from Zeke the alpaca that had been washed (although while spinning I was getting dirt/dust so it wasn't washed that well I guess) and looked even to have the locks flicked open. I used my old beat up purchased on ebay hand carders to work the fiber into rollags. And then I spun it up.

Random interesting observation: The rollags, logically but still amusingly, take up so much more volume than the raw or the spun fiber. In this picture the pile of fiber on the top left represents about half of the total the rollags on the carders is a quarter and on the bobbin is a quarter.

Spinning woolen/from the rollag was rather different, but enjoyable. It always fascinates me to see just how the fiber really does stick to itself and enable me to pull out foot long strands without breaking the yarn. As I was trying to do this however I did find myself often lacking in consistency. I'm not sure if this is because it is a new technique and I'm not yet skilled enough with it or if its the nature of the long draw back or whatever exactly my hands where doing.

Once spun up the singles did indeed seem to be rather fuzzier although not so much fluffier. Although its worth noting that my regularly spun worsted alpaca yarn also often seems rather fuzzy. While plying the single definately struck me as been more fluffy. It was exciting.

And I was in a bit of a rush so I've not compared it side by side to anything yet but I'd say the final skein now washed and dried does indeed appear to be different than my normal. I'll definitely need to try this again.

Nerd Wars Tournament 5

What have I been up to? Well, lots of things. One of those rather time consuming and just as awesome things is Nerd Wars.

The basic premise of Nerd Wars is that you are on a team that centers around some kind of specific Nerdy-subject (sci-fi, science, books, all kinds of things). And over a period of 3 months you craft things to meet challenges which earn your team points.

I joined up with Club 33 which is the Disney team because Disney is awesome, it worked perfectly to build excitement for my trip, and it has so many great ways to connect projects back to the team (bonus points).

Here's what I made:

And one scarf particularly awesome lace scarf that I can't show here because its a gift for someone who may read this.

Today the next tournament started!

I think I have too many things to do.

As is too often the case I have one again neglected to post anything here for quite some time. Fail. The past few months have felt just insanely busy. Tis the season!

First and foremost work really really gets in the way of all of the things I really want to do. And to make matters worse my work doesn't stop at 40 hours a week. Every time we have a concert or special event there goes any "free time". The spring is definitely the worst. And just looking at the calendar May is the most ridiculous month. Between April 30 and May 25 the only non-work day is the 12th. Ouch. Although I do plan on taking a few other days off. Now if I could just get someone to do my job when I'm not in the office things would be rather more dandy.

So it whatever time is left to me I have all of the following things to do:

• House work: The cat is not pulling his weight around the house and I have to do it all. The little jerk.
• Yard work:  I think I had to start mowing a full month earlier with the weather so warm. And I've expanded my veggie garden. Here's hoping I keep more than just cucumbers alive this time.
• Friends: After years of being largely, but not entirely, anti-social it seems that I've recently managed to re-connect much more with some old friends. And I've even found new ones - whoa.
• Band: The music is kinda bad all too often, but I could never give up playing so i'm glad for the outlet.
• Video games: Bran got me hooked on World of Warcraft and now he's dragging me into Diablo as well. I try not to admit it but they can be fun. I just wish they took less time and or I could knit and play!
• Biking: Exercise is healthy and can even be fun, I should do more of it.
• Photography: My photos really are getting better I think. But as with all learning/improvement more time is always a sure way to better results.
• Reading: I really don't know how I did it but as a youth I would fly through books sometimes to the tune of multiple books in a week. I've been doing a bit more lately but sometimes it feels like I'm just slogging through them. And the library deadlines come up so quickly!
• Knitting/Crochet: Aside from the perpetual desire to be working on dozens of projects of my own I even have the opportunity right now to work on growing a bit of my own crafty business. Maybe I should learn lever knitting or whatever the supposed current fastest knitting method may be.
• Spinning: I am totally getting better at spinning. Latest discover is an awesome DKish single. Knit up so wonderfully.
• Other Crafts: My awesome sewing machine is practically begging me to use it more often. And wouldn't it be wonderful to work at sketching/doodling/zentangling. Oh and what about the sweatshirt that I've wanted to paint for myself for over a year.
• Relax: Eh, overrated!

Valentines

I have this idea for a super cute Valentines postcard with a fiber twist. And I thought it would be a perfect project to share with you all as a little diy project. But then I got distracted by life (happens quite a bit I'm afraid) and I've not yet actually made any myself yet. So today I'll figure I can still share with you my ideas and what I intend to create, and well maybe it will spur some ideas of your own!

My fascination with fiber post cards started two years ago when I participated in a post card swap. My fun knitted post cards are still one of my favorite crazy bits of crafting. And as a bonus they were wonderful valentines as well. When I participated in the same swap last year I wanted to be sure and once again include fiber. And I came up with my little crochet flower postcards. Another successful bit of mail-art.

So putting these past experiences together when I thought about making valentines this year I quickly came up with the idea of putting crochet hearts onto a postcard.

To start I needed a crochet heart. Alas I have yet to try any kind of patterning on my own so it was off to the interwebs. Happy I came across this perfect tutorial for a simple little heart on pinterest (which by the way is highly addicting and highly recommended). I made probably 20 of these little guys quite quickly one evening. The only modification that I made to the tutorial was to use the magic ring as my center instead of the first chain. This kept the heart neat and tidy with a solid center. My first attempt following the directions exactly was a bit wonky as that first chain stretched way too much.

This is as far as I've gotten thus far so bear with me and make a picture in your head.

My plan is to sew them onto a piece of card stock. Now sewing into the heavyish stock really isn't so easy, in fact I found it to be pretty darn painful/ineffective when last I tried. The solution is to poke holes wherever you'll be brining the thread up. I plan to hold the heart on the cardstock on a piece of corkboard and then poke holes just inside of the shape. This way I can invisibly stitch the heart securely down onto the postcard. I will also tie off the thread in a number of different places so that if the thread breaks in any one location the damage will be localized and the heart will stay securely on the card.

Now unfortunately all of the card stock that I've managed to find and purchase really isn't a particularly heavyweight. And so in order to give my postcards a better chance of surviving the mail I add a second piece. This also serves to hide the backside of the sewing. Last year when I was doing this with the flowers I was thinking glue but knew that glue would probably not survive the journey still completely glued. I then had the brainchild of sewing the cards together!

It really is amazing how one can take tools that seem so geared towards a specific craft and morph them into the perfect tool for something a bit less obvious. Stitching around the edges of the cards fastens them securely together quickly, simply and cleanly.

Now if you don't have a sewing machine there is also the option to do something more like my first knitted post card. In that instance I placed (well I poked, but a hole punch would be easier) holes around the outside of the cards and then just sewed loops around the outside. This method adds its own decorative element as well.

Once everything is together you really can mail them just like a regular post card. Albeit at a higher rate. The postcard is too thick to fit in the postcard rate so you can use a regular letter stamp $0.45 now and then you need to add a $0.20 non-machinable charge.

I can only hope that the friends and family who will be receiving these Valentines enjoy them as much as I think I would. Snail mail really is so much fun!

Box of Happiness

Yesterday I posted a very long-winded post about using a $50 Knitpicks gift card. Well that post took me a while to write. Long enough in fact that I placed the order last Friday, the 20th, and well my package was delivered on Wednesday the 25th! Ok, so I suppose its not just that my blog writing and posting is slow but also that Knitpicks is super fast - hooray for that.

Here is my box off happiness:

Thanks to the holiday generosity of my Aunt and Uncle it cost me $1.13. That rocks. The split ring stitch markers there were a $2 addition that got me the free shipping. And really one can never have enough stitch markers, right?

This book and skeins are destined to be Christmas presents for next year. I am all kinds of ahead of schedule...it's pretty doubtful that the trend will continue. I spent a bit of time paging through the book and read most of the intro. I am way more excited than I even realized I would be. The history that Nancy Bush includes has just completely drawn me in and makes me so much more excited for the patterns and techniques. And now I'm even second guessing my original pattern choice. There is a good possibility that I'll choose two different patterns. But then I would have to decide who gets what and well how on earth could I manage to decide? Maybe I'll gift them but say they should share :-)

And well the yarn of course. Oh my is this wonderful yarn. It was hard to capture the colors, but then even in real life colors will change depending on the light. In person they are much darker but still have a beautiful sheen. The alpaca is super amazing soft and lends a very light halo. And holy moly is the stuff thin. I thought that my cone from colourmart was particularly thin, but this Alpaca Cloud is only maybe a hair thicker. It's hard to believe that I'll be able to knit up a whole scarf from skeins that really are quite petite. But that's the magic of lightweight yarn and lace patterns I suppose. I suspect that the hardest part of working with these yarns is going to be not plastering these projects all over the place and spoiling the surprise for my giftees.

Lastly we have my wonderful happy-inducing splurge on self yarn. Yup, it's colorful. But I knew that, what most took me by surprise was how amazing soft this yarn is. I think during the ordering process I was do distracted obsessing about which color(s) to choose that I lost sight of fiber content. Luckily early on in the process I had narrowed in on the 25% alpaca in the Imagination sock yarn. It is soft and squishy and colorful and as such quite wonderful. I immediately (well after the photo-shoot and eating dinner) had to wind one of the skeins into a ball and start working up a little swatch. As I suspected the project is going to be quite super saturated. And the stretches of color are all shorter than might be my ideal, but I am still going to love this project.


And rather off topic, but many many thanks to all who commented and encouraged me last week. On a wave of enthusiasm from your input one of my goals this week is to finish processing the rest of the fiber to prepare for the marled yarn with Max fiber.

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Thanks for visiting! Be sure and check out the rest of the Fiber Arts Friday blogs.

What to get

For Christmas my Aunt and Uncle gave me a $50 Gift Certificate to Knitpicks. It turns out that my Aunt asked my Mother what I wanted. And Mother, having found and read by blog had seen the wishlist I posted about when I was plugging the Knitpicks contest. But anyways it is totally like an amazing awesome gift and I have been thinking about it since the evening I received the code in my inbox.

My first solid plan was to buy the yarn to knit up these amazing Penguin Socks. These suckers are actually what first drew me to knitpicks. It was a few years ago and for some reason my parents had received a knitpicks catalog in the mail. I think it had these super cute guys on the cover, or maybe they just decided to keep it and give it to me when I came home/visited. They had a whole little kit you could buy of the yarns needed for the project if memory serves. I drooled over everything but at the time sock knitting still seemed way out of my league, plus I'm totally cheap. So I just tucked it away in my memory. And at some point along the line when I was on ravelry I found it and added it to my (large) project queue to make sure I would remember it. This winter I actually came *this* close to offering these socks as a gift to my friends, but the weird IOU-ness of having custom socks when I didn't know the recipient (we were doing a Pollyanna) made me decide against the idea in the end. However before it was rejected I had already purchased the book. So now all I needed was the yarn. I spent a good bit of time debating over which yarn/colors to choose. Palette had more colors available but I liked that the Stroll Sock Yarn was super-wash and so I added the yarns to my online shopping cart.

In browsing I had completely fallen in love with pretty much all of the luxury yarns Knitpicks carries: Alpaca, Angora, Cashmere, no matter the flavor if it sounds soft I will drool over it. I wasn't quite sure what to make however. But then I feel in love with a beautiful delicate lace pattern on ravelry that I thought would be perfect for my Mother and or Aunt. Now over the holiday's I learned that they've both read the blog so I don't want to spoil the surprise but I found a perfect lace alpaca blend that seemed just divine. Plus I was being super good and thinking about and planning to start my Christmas knitting super early.

Knitpicks has free shipping at $50 so, of course, I must hit something just above that value. My cart needed more stuff.

After seeing it on someone else's blog I had absolutely fallen in love with the Peerie Flooers Hat. And having somewhat recently become comfortable (and dare I say good) at stranded knitting I thought it would be a super fun project. Plus I had some left over palette finger colors from the tiny Christmas ornament knitting I had been doing. So I set about choosing the other colors I needed for the project. But in doing so I was perusing all of the other projects on Ravelry and completely fell in love with the idea of using a different color palate. So I went about drooling over all of those possibilities and spent lots of time excruciating (did you know that excrutiated is not a word? well at least not one I can manage to spell. weird) over finding the perfect colors. As much as I love online shopping this is where it really let me down. There was really no way to know how perfectly the colors would work together firstly because my monitor could be showing something different and then secondly because it's yarn and the dye lot could be different.

In the midst of all that color planning I realized that since the pattern I needed for the lace alpaca scarves was from a book, Knitted Lace of Estonia, so well maybe I could use a Barnes & Noble gift certificate (also a gift) to purchase that. They had the book but before I ordered I realized that so did Knitpicks! Plus the Knitpicks version included a DVD and was a few dollars cheaper.

Well adding that to my shopping cart just messed up my whole plan entirely. After much deliberation I realized that I just wasn't nearly so enthralled with knitting the Penguin socks as I had once been. Many other projects seemed more appealing. So out of the cart they came.

And then to really shake things up instead of Peerie Flooers I had the brilliant (crazy) idea to make a different hat from the same designer. Originally made from all different shades of sheep I could blend up my own shades of alpaca! And possibly even come up with my own alpaca charts. Crazy, but awesome. And it requires no more purchasing. Out of the cart came all of the yarns for the hat.

Now I was left with another $20 burning a hole in my pocket. So I ended up thinking about more of my linen stitch scarves. On numerous occasions I had contemplated how some of their sock yarns would look knit up in one of those marvelously colored scarves. But I was already planning two spinning project ideas to be knit up in the same pattern so it seemed like over kill.

But the more I thought about it the more I convinced myself that it was ok. This was my Christmas Present after all. Why not go ahead and splurge (ok ignore the fact that all of this is splurging really) and just do whatever I want. After a good bit more excruciating over color options I settled upon the crazy wild and bright Over the Rainbow which was in a luscious sounding 50% Merino Wool 25% Superfine Alpaca, 25% Nylon blend. The colors are super wild and I'm worried that the whole scarf will just be too super saturated and not look that great. But then when its cold and I'm bundling up in a scarf I really will need something bright and festive to warm me inside and out. So it'll be good.


All very very good.

Marled Yarn

All four colors after some prep (flicking).

Way back in September I purchased a pile of raw dyed alpaca from Alpacas of York at Knitters Day Out. I purchased without intention just because I loved the colors, and the price was good. But I really like to have fiber/yarn with intention so I quickly, I think I was still at KDO, came up with the perfect idea for the fiber.

The doomed swatch. I had already started frogging when I
remembered to take a picture.

I wanted to spin it up so that each of the 4 colors was still distinct but knit it up into a linen stitch scarf where all of the colors would blend together (like the Koigu Linen Stitch Scarves on Ravelry). I even went so far as to spin and knit up a swatch. Two swatches actually as sometime late fall or early winter I made some adjustments and spin and half knit myself up a second swatch.

Now coming off of the holiday maddness I am thinking about the project again. So I, finally, finished swatch #2. I was happy with it and weighed it to see approximately what gauge I was getting vs. the amount of fiber. DOOM. My not terribly large swatch was nearly half an ounce and I only have around 5 ounces of fiber. The maths would not work.

So I spent a few days rather sadly contemplating the state of things and unsure of quite what to do. And then at some point it came to me....a while back I remembered reading an article about creating marled yarns as a way to stretch dyed roving on the knitty blog. Perfect!

Now in the blog she talks a good bit about which color to choose. Being as I don't have that much of a fiber stash I just went with my good ol' Max fiber which is virtually never-ending around here. Plus the chocolate brown worked well with the rich muted colors.

Marled Yarn, pre-wash.

Unwilling to sacrifice any more of the fiber to swatching I rather crazily managed to un-spin the last swatch back into a single. I then re-spun the single to make sure the twist was still ok. This resulted in some rather funky yarn but for testing purposes I decided that was acceptable. Once I had enough Max spun up I plied the two together.

Almost all of my crafting these days is done at night while it is dark out by the lamps of my living room. In that relatively poor light I was rather worried about the yarn. Everything just seemed overly dark and muddied together, except of course the yellow which was high contrast. But I finished up the sample washed it and hung it to dry over night. [I've taken to hanging/laying things out over the top of the furnace in the basement, best drying method ever.]

The next morning I found that I was much happier with the yarn in the daylight. I had to be out of the office over lunch to sell tickets and whenever those days come I like to take a good craft project. My swatch was perfect for this. So over the next two days I knit up the new swatch in between selling tickets and answering questions.

Swatch - take 3.

I really am surprised how much I love the next fabric. The way the colors pop on the solid brown background just seems like such fun. Although I'm a bit worried that some of the colors, especially the green, fade into the brown a bit too much.

Now, as I finish prepping the rest of the fiber, I'm a bit on the fence. I could run with the "Max Brown" color for the entire scarf. I'm pretty sure I would love it. But I could also try spinning up some of the Fawn fleece that I have (Lance), rip out, un-spin (again), and re-spin with the alternate color. It's a tricky choice...

I'll probably go ahead and continue the ridiculousness and try me some Lance sampling just to be sure. Boy am I crazy sometimes....

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Thanks for visiting! Be sure and check out the rest of the Fiber Arts Friday blogs.

Burned Out

It happens every year. I have all of these grandeous crafting plans but then reality hits and I realize that there is just not enough free time in the day. It's sad.

This year I thought I was being smart. Initially I wasn't going to do much of any holiday specific crafting. I was actually going to buy (or maybe cook) gifts instead. Instead I would get to work on whatever I wanted, mostly projects for myself even.

Before too long this plan morphed so that I would make small things for most people. Then I committed to the charity crafting. I got involved with a spin a bag get a bag commitment. And suddenly the awesome idea of crafting and selling things and even establishing my own little business was firmly in place. Plus a bunch of those items would be perfect for my regular giftees.

And next thing I knew I just spent all of November frantically crafting in every spare moment. The sell/business idea was definitely the bulk of the crazy. I'll be posting tomorrow with all that I did for that. It's pretty awesome and I do hope I succeed. But holy moly I don't know that I want to feel so rushed again in the near future.

Since delivering all of the items to sell on Friday I've been in a bit of a craft coma. I dabbled a bit in a few projects that had been on the back-burner when the business stuff took priority.

Yesterday I finally managed to start looking ahead at the next few weeks and take stock of all of the things that now must be accomplished. I'm trying to keep it lighter now, but alas I think I'm going to need to get my butt back in gear pretty quickly if I'm too accomplish all that needs to be crafted.

First up is sewing my friends wedding veil. I rather stupidly underestimated the time required to hand sew the lace edge. But I think I can still be on track to have it ready to go when we get together this weekend. Now you must excuse me while I go get to work!

Knit Picks Wishlist

A few weeks back I ordered from Knitpicks for the first time. I figured since it was a place of fibery goodness I would enjoy window shopping and allowed them to add me to their email list. Scanning it quickly while in the midst of something I noticed it said I could win something! But having no time I just left it in my inbox.

Yesterday I finally managed to revisit the email and discovered the following contest:

As posted on their website you add stuff to your wishlist, which requires signing up for a username, then email the list to someone. Once you do this they must somehow know about it and will select 3 winners on Friday who will each receive $50 to spend on things from their list.

Now being all about window shopping this was no problem at all.

My first introducing to knitpicks was a catalog that my parents had somehow received. But they passed it along to me and I absolutely fell in love with the most amazing penguin socks. Seriously how cute are these guys? I knew the pattern was in a book so I tried looking for it, which of course involved pulling up Ravelry to find exact sock pattern and book. And then utter disappointment when it seems that knitpicks no longer carries this book. Luckily there were more categories to explore.

I started with the needles and accessories as yarn is harder to select online I think, its much nicer to feel it. I already have the knitpicks interchangeables which I use all the time. They're great. But it would be nice to have a longer cord for magic looping larger items. Plus I actually may have broken one of my cables. I was pulling it out of a swatch and the metal bit that has the screw part pulled most of the way off of the plastic cable. It was very sad. Then of course they didn't have much of those things but lots of other good stuff. How awesome would it be to have a real swift in place of my foam core arms with paperclip hooks kinda taped to a lazy-susan. Or lace blocking wires to actually block things with decent straight edges. Or whoa, a pretty needle case.

The $$$ amount of the wishlist went up pretty darn quick.

Then I figured I'd at least take a look at the yarns even though I couldn't vouch for their softness. The first thing to catch my eye was the absolutely beautiful line of Chroma yarn. I have a somewhat random love for all things gradient so these were right up my alley. The choices range from beautiful fall colors to a bold sunset to a bright rainbow. Love it. A bunch of those went on the list even though I have no idea what I would ever make with the yarn. And well I may or may not have accidentally purchased an awesome bright rainbow graduated yarn from A C Moore on Saturday....buuut moving on.

The next, and final, thing(s) I fell for were the bulky yarns and the soft sounding yarns. Having just had such fast sucess with the super bulk yarn used for the crochet scarf it seemed like it would be lots of fun to make many more such quick gratification projects. And then I am always a sucker for soft, particularly Alpaca and Angora so Alpaca Cloud Lace, Capra Cashmere, and Sugarbunny Yarns all found themselves on the list.

Here's my list. I just need to win the lottery so I can buy it all with or without any contest winning. Now go and make your own list so maybe we'll both be lucky winners!

Weekly Goals, 11/14

Last week I had a very good moment of inspiration when I decided to take my weekly list, break the items down into smaller chunks, and make myself daily lists of what I wanted to accomplish. And while I may not have accomplished everything from last weeks list I still kicked some pretty good butt so my plan of attack is to do the same this week. Blue items are carry overs from last week. And I'm also going to take a slightly different approach. There shall be a primary objective list and then a list for the bonus stuff that I'd like to do but know time is short so they may not happen. My hope is that I can actually get through all of the old stuff plus all of the this weeks stuff and and even knock out a few bonus items and then be able to start Thanksgiving week from a very good position.

1. Piece multi-color hex bag
2. Sew bag lining for blue hex bag
3. 3 color work ornament
4. 2 solid ornament
5. Finish bag top and bottom
6. Bag handle
7. Sew bag lining for multi-color hex bag
8. 24 hex circles - Although I don't know what color palate to use :-/
9. Ply 4 oz of Rosie
10. Prep 3 oz of Rosie
11. Spin at least 2 oz of Rosie - But all 3 would certainly rock.
12. Knit Squirrel
13. Knit Fox
14. Knit Mouse with beret
15. Knit many animal scarfs - they are cold
16. Add eyes and noses to animals - Confession: many of my animals are still lacking eyes and some are even missing noses. There may also be one bunny without a tail, but I think he also has weirdly placed ears so he just really did not luck out.
17. Add Fringe to Super Bulky Scarf
18. Bulky Crochet Scarf
19. Create a business identity
20. Design business cards
21. Design item tags

Bonus Items:

• Knit Hedgehog
• Knit Otter
• Super Bulky Scarf
• More Ornaments - I didn't put these on the regular list because I still have all of last weeks to complete but I would like more if possible.
• Establish an online presence for my 'business'.
• Prep & Spin Dyed Alpaca for my scarf

Ok....I definitely am feeling way over ambitious again. There is pretty much no way all of this can happen.....but I'm not very inclined to pare down the list either :-)

Weekly Goal Wrap Up, 11/13

I feel very much like I kicked some butt this past week. But it was a big list, I started late, and I know i didn't get everything so lets see what the list says:

1. 16 multi colored crochet circles - So many colors, so much fun.
2. Spin double ply alpacas of york - It was fun and the yarn was surprisingly squishy.
3. Test yardage for alpacas of york scarf - Although I was mostly experimenting so the knitting was pretty rough and maybe not the most exact test.
4. 1 color work ornament - I think I made at least one of these in stripes which is almost cheating but works. Although this list vs. the one prior is kind of all blurring together so who knows.
5. Finish mitten -After failing at the next item I went and rocked my mitten thumb to make myself happy again.
6. Sew bag lining -Utter fail. I was spending lots of time and being extra awesome to sew the most beautiful bag lining. But I cut the bag to my intended width instead of the width with seam allowances. For a while I thought it would still be ok, but it was not. Gah. And of course I was good and bought a small amount so I didn't have enough fabric for a second try. Very annoyed with self.
7. Piece multi color bag - I've made it almost half way but there's still the rest to go and I decided to sleep instead of keep hooking.
8. 3 color work ornaments - Thought about these guys and am totally loving them but ran out of time.
9. 2 solid ornaments - Thought about these guys and am totally loving them but ran out of time.
10. 1 knit squirrel - He is so stinking cute.
    
11. 2 knit bunnies - Seriously these little knits need a post of their own to describe/depict the awesome.
12. Prep 2 oz of Rosie - My carding technique is improving methinks.
    
13. Spin 2 oz of Rosie - And, despite some initial questionable spinning, I am getting to be super fast and much more even at spinning Rosie.
    
14. Prep 2 oz of Alpacas of York - This project has more or less officially been moved to the back-burner as it doesn't have such a hard, or soon, deadline.
15. Spin 2 oz of Alpacas of York - This project has more or less officially been moved to the back-burner as it doesn't have such a hard, or soon, deadline.
16. Crochet fast scarf from bulky yarn - Bulky yarn may be my new favorite thing ever. So fast and pretty darn awesome.

Hmm...not quite so much bolding as there could be but I'm quite happy with my accomplishments. Plus it's actually less than a weeks worth of stuffs so extra awesome. And I'm feeling good so I fully plan to keep this ball rolling into next week.

Fiber Arts Friday: Nice and Squishy

So I've had a pretty serious lack of online presence lately that is mainly owing to all of the ridiculous amounts of work but also contributing to that is the fact that pretty much all of the time not spent at work or work events has been going into crafting.

I have managed to complete quite a few little goodies at this point that I'll take home to (hopefully) be sold at the Christmas Market. But with the deadline of Thanksgiving its rather inevitably that I feel quite rushed to get things done. Good things do always seem to take time.

The other day however I was  putting on an old scarf that was a gift from my Aunt a number of years back. It was a simple crochet pattern but the bright fluffy yarn has made it a favorite for a number of years now. "I must make some of these" I thought.

A few days later I found myself at Jo-Ann's and wandered the yarn aisle considering the myriad of options. Choices are one of the many banes of my existence. How am I supposed to choose! But I had a friend along which always helps and a sale price plus a coupon made the $ less of an issue. I grabbed two skeins of Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick in a gorgeous deep orange rust color. The yarn has the advantage of being super soft and squishy plus being machine washable.

Back home it sat for a few days as I worked on other things. Then Wednesday night I decided I wanted to start on it. I checked the band and it called for a "N" hook. I checked my hooks and my biggest regular hook was "H". D'oh. I knew I had some bigger hooks somewhere from way back when I crocheted the rug for my kitchen. But I had no idea where I'd stored them. After much thinking and some searching, I was scouring the craft room when it dawned on me and I found the hooks stashed in a box of miscellaneous craftiness.

The smallest hook of the bunch was "P". Well at least I was getting closer. I tried out the P hook but the loops looked insanely large. So I reverted to the H and started a few rows of double crochet. It was ok but the fabric was just too dense. I ripped it out, was at a bit of a loss, and considered buying another hook. However before doing that I decided to give P another try.

Of course the loops were still huge but I was more comfortable and just went with it. After a bit of testing I settled on 10 stitches which gives me 5 or 6 inches. It is insanely easy going and after 2 nights of sporatic work I've used up all of one skein and have somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 feet. I still want to add more length but it'll be an easy project to finish.

I think I need to work with bulky yarn more often (and buy more yarn to whip up one or two more to sell).

PS: Help me out! To fringe or not to fringe? that is my question. Let me know what you think in the comments!

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Late Weekly Goals, 11/9

I feel like I've made some really good progress so far this week. But it's pretty much all progress that I wanted to have done last week (in blue) so that's a bit of an issue...

1. 16 multi colored crochet circles - to finish last weeks batch of 24. I determined last night that I can crochet 6 in an hour.
2. Spin double ply alpacas of york - I have about half of the spinning done of solid color stuff. I do still want to try playing with some blends. I love this yarn so it should be easy if I can find the time.
3. Test yardage for alpacas of york scarf - I still have no idea how much yarn I'll need for my amazing linen stitch scarf.
4. 1 color work ornament
5. Finish mitten - only the thumb to go!
6. Sew bag lining - Randomly tacked this one on for myself, but I have the fabric and everything else is done so I'm anxious to have a 100% finished product.
7. Piece multi color bag
8. 3 color work ornaments
9. 2 solid ornaments
10. 1 knit squirrel
11. 2 knit bunnies
12. Prep 2 oz of Rosie
13. Spin 2 oz of Rosie
14. Prep 2 oz of Alpacas of York
15. Spin 2 oz of Alpacas of York
16. Crochet fast scarf from bulky yarn

Given the rockstar crafting I accomplished on Monday and Tuesday I actually have some hope for this weeks success rate.

Oh and last week Marni commented on the fact that all my list is fun craft stuff. This is way true. It would just be lame (and depressing) to add the real work that I inevitably must take care of as well. As much as I love my cat and having my own house being but one person who has to work a lot and likes to make many crafts does not make for the tidiest of house and yard. My mother happened to be up and we visited briefly and I inquired about their leaf raking habits. Apparently father doesn't like to leave them lay for fear of the grass. I freely confess that I took this into consideration and decided that I need even more leaves so that the fact that I kinda slacked on mowing the lawn as we got towards fall would be hidden.

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.

Star making

My father is the executive director of a research library/museum. During the holiday season they expand their gift shop to a little “Christmas Marketplace”. Last week I received an email asking if I would be willing to teach people to make Moravian Stars on one of the days the Marketplace was open.

The funny thing about the whole proposition is that my Father is actually the first one in the family to start folding the little stars and even since I learned them myself he is easily the record holder for the number of stars produced. But apparently he’ll still be making them plenty through the season so he cleverly plotted to rope me in.

I was hesitant at first because it’s 3 hours of driving to get home and back, and I hate driving and gas isn’t cheap. Plus it’s the weekend after thanksgiving, so right after I will be home. And the following weekend I’ll have to work all weekend. Which would leave me with only one free weekend in December.

What to do?

By the time I had the opportunity to talk about it with Bran, my sometimes resident sounding board, I had pretty made up my decision. And he didn’t think it was a bad idea or argue against it so I committed to it. It helps that Thanksgiving is on Thursday so I can still come home Friday and have the weekend. And then when I go back the following weekend it will be late Saturday as I have a band gig. Plus on Sunday I suspect I’ll be able to work with the organist to play my flute in church that day. I love killing birds with one stone.

Now the final bit of this here Christmas Market is that I can make stuff that they take and sell on consignment. Whoa. My head is now swimming with all of these possibilities and ideas. As always my favorite place to go for ideas is Ravelry. The pattern finder there is however crazy dangerous. Total overload. Wish me luck.