Garden Center

I’m spent. I used up a good hour this morning at the garden center. I had to splurge on some Gerbera daisies. They are one of my favorites. I also purchased some pre-grown rosemary and lettuce in addition to the lavender, chives, and salad greens seeds. Another 2 hours were spent dumping out pots, re-fertilizing the soil and planting seeds. I sure am going to ache tomorrow. It was really nice out today – not too hot, sunny with a nice breeze. I say it’s the best spring day we’ve had in Ohio so far. I hope my some of my seeds grow.

I squeezed in some long over due photography of yarn, fiber and projects. Here are the very Green Heen socks:

And my birthday socks:

I’m not super crazy about how my dye job came out on the birthday socks. I need to mess with the length of the color repeats. The pooling is a big meh.

I participated in my first swap; this one was for Funky Carolina handspun. I spun up a bulkier yarn in Grey Room for my partner. I didn’t take any pictures so you will have to look at the ones she took. I didn’t realize how much swag everyone sends for these swaps. I feel bad cause I didn’t send that much thinking this was really just a yarn swap. My package from Devittles was divine.

Jeanette really underplays her talents. Her spinning is beautiful, much more advanced than mine. She spun me a three ply sock weight yarn. Amazing! I love all the small extras she sent, like the flower seeds and lavender sachet. She has a newly started etsy shop where she sells her handspun if anyone is interested.

The swap was fun and I would do it again.

Abandon Post

I’ve really abandoned the blog lately. I’ve been so scattered brained and unfocused with everything. I need to start a million things that I get so overwhelmed I end up getting next to nothing done.

There will be a shop update over the next week. I’m going to add things here and there as to not be chained to etsy for hours. There is the new pencil merino roving balls and more kettle dyed yarns. I’m gradually working on getting some striping stuff done. I had to order more 80/20 yarn.

I visited Yarnzombie over my birthday weekend. We had a blast doing more awesome keggle dyeing greatness. Her process is very stress free and worships the chaos side of dyeing. It’s a lot easier than dyeing striping; I usually dye 5 times the amount of yarn I could get done in a weekend when I visit. Jacki and Travis always are very amused at my uber poking and prodding of the yarn.

The progress on my sweater is abysmal. I have 3/4 of a sleeve done. I did finish one of my sister’s Green Heen socks. I just haven’t got around to getting a picture up. The 80/20 base yarn is really nice to knit with and the finished fabric is lovely. I’m finishing up the toe on a sock I started on my birthday. The teenie tiny twisted cables on the Heen socks were killing my hands. Can you believe I have three WIPs right now?

I decided to donate a skein of yarn to the Cookie A book KAL group. Here’s what I came up with. I have a second skein in a different base I need to list on etsy.

What have you been up to?

Done

The shop is updated. God that took forever.

Sneaking a Peek

Here’s a sample of some of the great colorways I dyed up with Jacki.

I’m keeping these two bad boys for me, not that I need anymore yarn or anything like that.

I’m thinking the shop update should go down this weekend, baring any unforeseen craziness.

This is Lucky Charm in the new 80/20 base yarn.

Rainy Day Feeling

It has been pretty much non-stop raining since yesterday. Not that wussy rain either – HARD rain. The yard is starting to look like a wading pool. It’s far worse than anything I ever remember seeing. Even our ditch is flooding from the creek overflow.

Thankfully it wasn’t raining father south from my casa. I spent yesterday at Yarnzombie HQ. What a gorgeous, nice day for dyeing yarn. We dyed about a metric ton. Holy cow did Jacki and Travis wear me out! I ate a very tasty French dip sandwich (Nom nom) and looked at scary pictures of cupcakes. Everything we dyed looks fantastic. I want to keep a few! As soon as it is dry I’m going to get it listed.

I have some self striping skeins that will also be listed soon in the shop. The shop has been pretty neglected so I’m trying to get some new colorways and skeins listed ASAP. I dyed up some green St. Patty’s day stripes that sham-rock! I’ll do a blog post when things get listed.

I’ve been doing a bunch of heavier weight handspuns. My spinning is actually looking like yarn. Yay! Those will be listed on etsy too.

There is a huge order of 80/20 merino nylon sock yarn that should be going to the Sweet Sheep this week.

The new base yarn is amazing and takes dye up beautifully. There are some new colorways and quite a few old favorites. She is also getting
superwash merino roving in 4 oz braids.

My sweater yarn is skeined up and drying.

As soon as I finish my That 70s socks, I’m going to get cracking. I even picked up a new pair of addi lace circular needles. I’m thinking of trying to do this bad boy seamless up to the armpit. The seamless knits group on Ravelry has inspired me to give it a shot. I really hate seaming.

Neglected

Sorry for neglecting the blog. I just haven’t had much to say that Flickr or Ravelry can’t handle.

I’m about to order some yarn for the Ribbon Trim sweater. Yes, I’m really going to break sock ranks and knit something bigger than a bread box. I just cannot for the life of me pick a color. I ordered two ribbons I liked and will see which one pops the best with the color samples I have. Since I’m ordering it thru my wholesale supplier, the sweater is going to run less than $70. Big big yay.

I did a smallish shop update. There are some semi-solids; some are in the new seacell/merino base yarn. I’ve marked down some of the rovings too.

I’ve been dyeing stuff that is bright and happy like spring. I’m so sick of winter blah. I’ve also been using a new 80/20 merino nylon base. Oh baby does this stuff dye up beautifully. It’s super soft and has a bit looser twist than the 75/25 blend I’ve been using. I’m able to get beautiful pale colors since the dye is taking up very evenly. I dyed the most perfect yarn on the this new base. It caused a yarngasam so extreme I had to keep the skeins.

My attempts at duplication have been a major FAIL. I cannot get the teal. I used the same color and it didn’t even look close. WTF? I’ll keep trying. I may be willing to part with one of them. Perhaps a contest?

I haven’t been doing too much spinning. I had to force myself to do a bit here and there so I don’t forget how. My fiber stash is also growing out of control. I need to spin.

I finished some Yarn Pirate socks, in Booty club yarn no less. I love the garter rib. It may be one of my favorite patterns up next to Roza’s Socks.

I started another Yarn Pirate pair in my That 70s Yarn. I’m doing some YP stash busting here people! I’ve been really good about not buying yarn. I did cave when Yarn Zombie posted this gorgeous ray of sunshine. I’m temporarily obsessed with the pink yellow combo and it had to be mine. She still has the mate for sale if you are obsessed too.

I’m kicking butt on a good size Sweet Sheep order. There’s some rovings dyed with a new technique Jacki and I came up with. I love them all. There is also the new 80/20 base yarn. I’m dyeing up a bunch of colors and revisiting some old colorways. I was sick of those colorways for a while but now I miss them. Dyeing them after a long hiatus is like seeing an old friend with that familiar smile. The goal is to have the order ready to ship in early March when Michelle gets back from vacation.

A Few Things

Wow has it been bitter cold! It’s finally starting to warm up a bit to more tolerable cold temps. It really makes you want to curl up and do nothing but knit. But I can’t – there is yarn dyeing to do. I’ve started working on another order for the Sweet Sheep with a new merino/nylon base yarn. It’s a bit fatter than the one I currently use and seems to dye up nicely.

I’ve also been playing with a different way to dye roving. It really gives an interesting zing to the fiber and is less messy than steaming fiber burritos.

I finished my first pair of socks for the new year. They are a gift for my friend for Christmas; we are pretty lame and usually end up exchanging gifts in February cause our schedules never seem to mesh or there are cootie related delays.

It’s weird how the white background makes the white bits on the yarn look more cream colored. The colorway is Sage from Spritely Goods.

I spun a mondo skein of Creatively Dyed. It’s almost 8 ounces of three ply. It was really hard getting it to all fit on the plying bobbin.

I took the leftover singles and navajo plyed them.

Jacki showed me how to do it when I visited her a few weeks ago. It’s a bit figitty at first. I’m going to spin this roving and try plying the whole thing that way.

I’m resolved this year to knit and spin from my stash. I’m still going to do one fiber club and continue with my Yarn Pirate Booty subscription but other than that I need to cull the herd of skeins. I want to use up some of my Yarn Pirate and Wollmeise. Why am I saving it like it’s the holy grail of yarn?

I also need to either sell or give away this giant pile of handspun that’s building up. It’s not perfectly spun stuff but I’m sure they could find a good home and become nice shawls, blankets or something.

I also need to finish my Chain Lightning pattern, fix the errors and finally put it up for sale. It’s been almost a year since I wrote it. Argh!

Snowscicle

It is snowing and snowing and snowing. The roads are really crappy and I’m glad I don’t have to go anywhere. The snow already ruined the plans Yarnzombie and I had for today. At least we got to hang out on Monday, doing some kick ass keggle dyeing and drum carding. Jacki and Travis are trying to get me to upgrade my computer so I can play Fallout 3. The game is beyond sweet and I’m seriously considering saving up for the hardwear. I loved playing the first two and haven’t played video games in forever. Knitting and yarny stuff took over my free time.

My finger is healing up nicely. I can probably stop wearing oodles of band-aids in another week. The tetanus shot still hurts and has made my whole arm sore and painful to move. At least I can knit. The special safety tip for the day is to make sure your ruler for the rotary cutter has no slip grips. I’m still not sure how I cut off the side of my finger but I’m sure slipage had something to do with it.

I’ll be updating the shop on and off all weekend. I’m playing around with a new set up for my yarn photos. There are a few self stripings and some of the keggle dyed yarns from Monday being listed. I’m saving this one for me.

I’ve been test dyeing some of the new yarn and roving bases. Here I did some of the merino/cashmere roving. I liked the colors so much I did them on some Louet fingering yarn I had saved. I wanted pale pink but I never have much luck getting pale colors.

I wasn’t so sure about this seacell/merino one until I reskeinned it. Now I love it and want to keep it.

There’s lots of yarn p0rn in my flickr stream. Send some warmer weather my way, if you’ve got any to spare.

Sleigh Me

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all my fabulous readers!  Things are still non-stop busy.  I think I made far too much soap for my Christmas gift plans.  That didn’t stop me from making more on Monday.  I decided to try hot process. 

It worked out fairly well.  I was making cookies so I didn’t mind hovering over the stove to make sure it didn’t volcano.  It looks like applesauce here; this is the soap “gelling”.  I made Georgia Peach and Honey Shea.  They both smell really good. I am going to have the cleanest relatives and friends this holiday season, that’s for sure.

My new ABC Cookies cutters are awesome.  I have yet to frost and sprinkle their horrid sugared bodies.

I’m late in making my Christmas cards this year. It’s not really my fault. One of my favorite stamp companies, Just Johanna, was releasing some kick ass gnome stamps and they were severely late in showing up at her online shop; I didn’t my Monday order until Saturday. I don’t really care that they are getting mailed after Christmas. They look phenomonal. Here is a sampling of a few I did.

I didn’t get all the holiday knitting done that I had planned. I finished Uncle Joey’s socks around 11 last night. I’m hoping to squeeze one more pair out for my friend. We usually don’t see each other right away to exchange gifts and if I do a plain pair I might be able to crank them out in time.

And as promised, pictures of my mini Wollmeise sample skein socks!

Have a safe holiday and may Santa bring you tons of indie dyed yarn!

Holiday Madness

There hasn’t been too much knitting going on around here. I’ve been working on holiday sewing. I swear I’m turning into crazy sewing lady, even trying to make some boxy project bags.

I ordered some sweet monkey fabric to make the most awesome PJ pants ever! The fabric was uber clearance so I’ll have PJs for under $12. Then I lost my mind I ordered 100 12″ zippers on ebay cause they are like $0.35 a piece instead of the almost the $2 Joann fabrics was charging; now I can make as many zippered bags as I want.

I’m going to try to get a few things up in the etsy shop this weekend. In the meantime, why not check out the fragrant wax ornaments my brother asked me to list. They are really cute and I told him the ribbon is the icing on the cake.

I will ship first class if you ask so no worries on the shipping costs. He has some votives he wants me to list too.

The only knitting I have been doing is crazy mini socks. I’m still trying to find the perfect mini-size.

The Wollmeise worsted sample skeins I had laying around are working out great. Photos to come later…

I have a huge order of undyed yarn and roving coming in this month. I’ll keep you posted when some new blends are ready for the shop.

I am Thunder Snow!

I broke up with XM this past week. They were real asses, transferring me all over and even hanging up on me when I refused to answer any more of their lineup questions. Since I already sent them an email, I didn’t see the point of wearing an old hat. I demanded they refund December while they were at it. We’ll see if they actually canceled it. I did find something even better to occupy my ears – Slacker radio. It’s sweet with its artist and crappy song blocking capabilities. I made my own channel with all my favorite artists too. The G2 has my tech loving name written all over it. Perhaps later next month I’ll be able to get it. I couldn’t get the web player to work in Firefox so you may want to download the desktop player or try IE.

I did a small shop update today, 95% of which is Colortopia skeins. The sun was out today and I got caught up on all my photography – Raverlry stash pics included like this AMAZING YP Black Apple.

I’m test knitting up the Colortopia 12.

It’s doing some crazy pooling the likes of which I haven’t seen. I like it!

YarnZombie also did some kick ass Colortopia socks. You can check them out on her blog. It’s weird that this sock was knit from the same dye pot.

I also finished the first of the Hot like Wasabi socks for my uncle. The sock is longer than my Loopy Ewe sock blocker! The toe looked all sad and warped when I put it in the blocker.

This alternating rib is getting to be one of my favorites for DK weight socks. I alternated every 10 rows on this one. The green is so hard to photograph and I have no idea why. It’s so vivid in person.

I felt compelled this week to photograph a sweater I knit a while back. I bought some discount cone yarn from Webs that turned out to be a pretty dumb thing. The yarn still had spinning oil on it and was very easy to break – not ideal when you are a tight, high tension knitter; I think it was meant for weaving even though the listing said it was ok for hand knitting. I loved the tweedy color and was trying to save money as I know I was not long out of grad school when I knit it. The buttons were a steal from Sawyerbrook (they still have an amazing button selection) – uber cute were these orange carved leaves. I knit one more sweater after this one. The cost of all that yarn and the huge amount of time it takes me to complete the project always has discouraged me from knitting more sweaters. I wear this sweater quite a bit despite its slightly too short sleeves. So my advice is to buy the best yarn you can afford and compare the pattern dimensions to a sweater or sweatshirt you already own to see if you need to knit something a bit longer or shorter. It’s an investment of time and love and it should fit!

I may tackle that Ribbon sweater pattern next year. I’m still working on holiday knits and I think I’m going to have to rethink some of my plans as I am not going to finish everything. I also want to knit myself a new winter hat, one that actually matches my orange coat. I’m going to dye up some roving and spin the yarn! I’m thinking one ply should be the orange of my coat and the other one can be all color crazy. I ordered some Targhee wool to use yesterday. I’m hoping it’s here by this weekend so I can play.

XM, Gutted and Left For Dead

I turned on my car this morning and found out the XM/Sirius merger was no merger at all. Sirius has gutted XM and its last dying gasps are heard on a few stations. All my favorite stations are gone, replaced with piss poor substitutes or just flat out dead. I still haven’t gotten the after the fact email from XM about the new lineup.

I loved XM radio. I found so many great new bands to which I would have never been exposed – indie bands that struggle to get their sound out there. They are all silenced. I’m sorry Sirius subscribers but there was a reason I picked XM – deep deep playlists. Sirius limits their playlists to 500 songs. XM had no such limit. The XM subscribers are going nuts online while the Sirius people are happy cause they got a few extra toys. The XM customer service line has been busy all day, no doubt due to the massive amounts of cancellations. The comments on this article pretty well sums it up. I already fired off my vitriol to XM via email.

I tried to listen to the comparable stations today at work and I wanted to chuck my headphones. Yes I’m a music snob and I’m not afraid to admit it. I don’t like listening to homogeneous hits over and over and over again. I’m going to give it a few more days but I’m 80% sure right now I will be canceling my subscription, demanding a refund of any remaining months and getting an MP3 player instead.

Onto happier things, I finished some socks! Yay! They came out pretty good. My dye job didn’t knit up quite like I imagined it would but it’s good enough for gift knitting. I hope the needle tracks will wash out like they do most of the time. One sock is a wee bit longer than the other (which is ok since people don’t have even sized feet either).

I also knit a sweet swatch sock in some of the Colortopia colorways. Oh baby does this method of dyeing rock! I’m usually an order loving girl but this is pure joyous chaos in yarn form. The mate will have to wait until I dye up some more DK yarn scraps.

I started a pair of socks for my Uncle. Is this pattern manly? I’m on the fence. It’s probably fine but most of my knitting is for me or women so I struggle in this department. The color is so rich. I wish I could duplicate it but it was one of those use-up-a-bunch-of-left-over-dyes dye job.

I’ve also cracked out the sewing machine. I haven’t sewed since around high school. I found some rocking fabric on etsy for some super secret projects I’m constructing. The monkeys are the bestest part! The etsy sellers were fabulous (thanks luckykaerufabric and sewcutefabrics), letting me order 1/2 yard pieces instead of the full yard. Is there an esty seller that doesn’t rock in customer service? If so I have yet to find them.

I also found this amazing esty seller, Margaux Lange, who makes really creative jewelry with Barbies. She reconstructs used Barbies (she takes donations if you are looking to get rid of some dolls). It’s so unusual it’s cool and I’m so tempted to save up to order something. She makes all the silver fixings by hand and uses resin to create some unique and interesting masterpieces. I read her whole blog on and off yesterday. I would never think to do that and people like her inspire me to be a better crafter and artist. Too bad garage sale season is over, I would love to find her some good dolls to breathe new life upon.

I’ll leave you with soapy sneak peek! Most are for gifts but I’m getting hooked. Would anyone be interested if I added soaps to my etsy shop?

I Am Robo Caller

I’m still here – just busy, addicted to House re-runs on USA and sick with a sinus infection. I’ve been making soap like crazy. It’s super addictive, especially adding the various scrubby bits.

Since I last blogged, I finished my River Socks. Unfortunately in my zeal to finish them quickly, I made the one sock a bit too short.

Alas, mom ends up with another pair of socks meant for me.

I dyed up a couple of new colorways and am just getting around to showing them off.

I also did a redye of Smitten. I wasn’t sure at first that I could duplicate. Hell yeah I did and I love it! I’m this close to having the Sweet Sheep order done. Hurray!

There has been oodles of spinning. I attempted merino/tencel again. I still have to go really slow on the treadles and concentrate on what I’m doing or it gets overspun and funky.

I love the Three Irish Girls roving in Nora. Such a fun spin. Great for a baby hat?

This Funky Carolina Roving came out beautifully too.

So did this one from my peep YarnZombie. It’s my skinniest spin yet. I think I’m getting the hang of this.

I early voted and let me tell you it rocked! I’m imagining long lines this Tuesday so I went two weeks ago. Everybody was so nice and the whole thing took me around 20 minutes. That’s less than the time it took me to vote in the primaries! Whatever you choose, make sure you vote. If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain.

Next year, I’m proposing a ballot initiative to stay on Daylight Savings Time FOREVER! I had this time change crap throwing off my internal clock for weeks and I hate hate hate it getting dark at 4:00 PM.

Toil & Trouble

My first soap making attempt was a disaster.

The soap seized on me and then I botched the rebatch. The second round went better but I thought it wasn’t setting up right. So I rebatched that too, which worked out okay. In hindsight, it might not have needed the trip to the crock pot. Oh well. Not to be discouraged, I made 3 batches of soap today. I think they all worked! I watched a couple of videos last night on trace and that seemed to have done the trick. I’ll know more in a few days as they start to cure. I have to keep reminding myself that the first things I ever cooked, knit or dyed weren’t the best either. Stupid learning curve.

I’m Captain productive this weekend. Any paid holiday off makes for an excellent time! The Halloween sock yarn dyeing marathon is about done – thank you very much Count Sockula. I listed what was left in the shop today. I have a few more that aren’t done yet that will get listed prior to Halloween if all goes well.

There will be more Spooky.

I completed one Fish Bowl sock in my Guppy colorway. The colorway is even cuter than I pictured it in my head. I can see the fishy lips in the glass bowl now.

Since I’m Captain Productive, I finished spinning the Sakina Needles in Smokestack and plied it today. I also finished the first River Sock.

It actually looks pretty cool. I normally try to get the stripes really evenly dyed but for some reason the one blue just wouldn’t take up right. That resulted in a sweet semi-solid river rock-esk stripe. I have this song running threw my head when I knit them.

Have a great week kids!

All Hail Socktoberfest!

I’ve been a lame-o blogger. I just haven’t felt like I had much to say lately. Well, I’ve been compiling soap making supplies. Ah another craft you say? Hell yes! I’ve been wanting to make soap for a while now and the urge just won’t go away. I found an awesome place to buy all the fats right here in NE Ohio. Yay for supporting an Ohio business! I’m still trying to pick out some smells but I should be making some chemical reactions by the end of the month. Start up for this craft isn’t cheap either so I haven’t had much fundage to spend on yarn (soooo sad cause the Yarn Pirate update last night really needed me).

My Three Irish Girls order from early August happily arrived last week. The roving is celtic goodness. Sharon doesn’t have the roving listed on the website but if you email her, she may be able to dye you some too. She’s thinking about adding it to the regular lineup if the Ravelry board is any indication. So ask ask ask. She did a great job!

I decided to get over my merino/tencel angst and give spinning the other 2 ounces of Apple Harvest a try. It went much much better. I wish I had pictures but we are now entering what I like to call “the darkness” and the sun is going to be on sabbatical until April. The final yarn turned out really well for all the problems I had. I also spun some awesome fiber I got from YarnZombie that I blinged up on the hackle.

Look, an actual sock!

This is the first time I’ve used Lorna’s Laces. The base yarn reminds me a lot of my new merino/nylon base. My base is a bit softer knit up. I hope these soften up nicely with wear. The first gift sock looks nice and I’m past the gusset on the second.

I’m starting to get afraid of my dye pots. Halloween sock yarn is exploding all over here. I’m cooking up a new spooky color. I hope to have everything done before Halloween. I’m going to need to order yarn and roving soon; the undyed stock is getting low.

Socktoberfest is officially ON! So sock to it.