Monday, October 31, 2005

Happy Halloween

We had 120 Trick-or-Treaters.
We ran out of candy.
That has never happened to me before. I need to remember to stock up next year. Speaking of stocking up, I'm about fixed for laceweight merino thanks to my Not So Secretive Pal Heather. Everyone knows that the BEST part of Secret Pal swaps for me is when my pal slips up and I get to find out who she is before the end. YAY! I'm pretty sure that the person I'm spoiling already figured out who I am due to a stupid mistake I made right off the bat, but oh well. So anyway Just look at this:

Here is a closer shot of the laceweight stuff to show you the color better:

It's sort of an eggplant color and soooo soft. That's a MILE of yarn there people. There is also the cute and funny book, and some dye it yourself sock weight yarn that I think I'm going to use to experiment with crock-pot dying. I actually SQUEALED in the post office when I opened the package, which caused the little post office man to look at me funny and ask if I was ok when I saw the yarns. LOL Thanks Heather!

Spinning
Well, the WooLee Winder for the Louet S51 got here and I spun some with it on the weekend. I keep thinking I need to stop to change hooks still, but other than that and a few pulling too hard issues that I think I've got all worked out it spins like a dream. Here is some stuff I spun while I was getting the kinks worked out:

I'll finish out this bobbin and then do another one and ply them sometime this week.

Knitting
I have nothing fun to show you. I did a few more repeats on the baby blanket, but I'm STILL not done. I need to work on only that this week, but I want to finish that kittyville hat for my friend Rachel, and it just needs ears. Maybe that first, then the blanket, then some more socks? I give up trying to plan anything. haha

Sunday, October 23, 2005

Hey, Look! I Finished Something!


Those are the socks I made for my Mom. I used Moda Dea Sassy Stripes in color #6948.
I'm really happy with the way these turned out. They match almost perfectly. There is a little bit of one row of the heel that is a different color on one sock than the other, but Mom doesn't seem to mind so I can live with that.
I'm still being passive-agressive about the baby blanket. I went to watch my Nephew play Pee-Wee football and my Niece be a 5th grade homecoming princess all day on Saturday. What did I work on? I knit almost an entire Kittyville Hat for my friend who's Roller Derby name is Kitty Kitty Bang Bang. Her birthday is coming up and she said she wants one and I've already made one earlier this year so I know it's super easy. How could I not?? haha I have no idea how big around her head is so I hope it fits ok. I swear I'm about to work on the baby blanket tonight while watching Alias reruns. For real...I swear.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

First the Spinning...
I ordered a Woolee Winder for my Louet S51 today. I wish it could get here like NOW. haha I'm too impatient. The only part of spinning I don't particularly like is moving the yarn back and forth from hook to hook so it fills the bobbin up all even-like so I figure if I'm going to do this I should go ahead and throw in the cash to make it 100% fun. Right? See, I knew you'd agree.
Oh, and if you have a Louet or similar wheel and you didn't have a Babe first so you don't know this trick, I'm gonna tell you something now that will freak you right out. Go to the store and buy some stick-on velcro dots. Take one of the toothy ones and stick that sucker on the wood directly below the orifice. Now when you're in the middle of spinning something and you have to jump up to go to the bathroom or answer the door or get yourself a drink or whatever you can park your in-process chunk of yarn on the dot. This way the twist stays held. It doesn't unravel or spin back on itself and try to crawl up onto the bobbin so you curse and have to set it back up again. It just hangs there patiently waiting for you to come back. It's also a good idea to slap a toothy dot on every bobbin you own. Put it down where you tie your leader on and you'll never have that frustrating moment of the leader just spinning around and around the shaft of the bobbin instead of winding on ever again.
 
Then the Knitting... 
Tonight is SNB night and unfortunately I still haven't finished Mom's socks so those are going with me and the dreaded lacy baby blanket for if I finish the socks while I'm there. I think I haven't been knitting the last few days partly because I don't want to work on the baby blanket and if I knit on anything else I feel kind of guilty like I SHOULD be using the time to finish that blanket before the baby shows up in a couple weeks. I could possibly wait because it's still like 75-90 degrees here all the stinkin time and the baby won't NEED the blanket for probably another month-ish, but we all know that's just my procrastination gene talking.

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Quickie Update

There are some pictures from my weekend over at the Livejournal. None of them are knitting related, but some of them are pretty nifty. We went to Petit Jean State Park and stayed in a cabin, hiked a 4.5 mile trail rated moderate/hard (I am just now starting to be un-sore from that), and ate a bunch. I also finished most of the second sock for my Mom. I can't remember if I have any pictures of these socks on the blog or not. They're made with Moda Dea Sassy Stripes on size 4 or 5 needles so they go super fast. I did the first one back in the summer and I'm just now getting around to the second. Only a couple more inches of ribbing and they're totally done. I'll take a pic then so you can see. I'm still working on that baby blanket. It's getting boring and sucking out my soul. Send caffeine!

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Slumber Party Recap

Ok, I'm fairly rested up now so here is the story of the retreat.
I was feeling a little hesitant about going at all because I had never met any of these people and I figured most of them were a lot older and probably a lot more conservative than I am. I seriously expected to just go, buy stuff, and end up sitting alone knitting probably 90% of the time, but that's totally not what ended up happening.
I got there around 3PM on Friday and didn't have any trouble finding the place. El-Reno is a pretty small town and everything. There weren't very many people there when I arrived so I just went in and found out where to dump my things, got my nametag, then wandered around looking at things the vendors had set up. Right away I got myself some great smelling soap from Leava's table and some "Mystery Roving" from someone else's (can't remember who it was). Here is a pic of the roving:

It's crazy looking. The color in that pic isn't perfect, but it's a wild acid green and a burnt orangey something. I think I want a hat made out of it.
Friday night I mostly just knitted and talked with people. Everyone was really nice and friendly and not stand-offish or judgemental at all. I got lots of compliments on the projects I brought with me, (The lady eleanor stole, the baby blanket, and the ruffles scarf) and I made a lot of progress on the Lady Eleanor Entrelac Stole.

See? It's starting to be a rectangle already. :)
It was cool to see other spinning wheels besides Louets and Ashfords in real life. There were all kinds, but I didn't ask anyone to let me try them because everyone seemed to be working on some project or another and I didn't want to bug them.
I stayed overnight there at the fairgound building. About five or six other people stayed with me, including Leava's husband Jeff who had a crazy monk looking robe and big felted slippers. haha Jeff is super nice and really enthusiastic about his silk worms. Talking to him made me want to get some silk worms of my own, but I think that'll have to wait till we get some of the clutter out of here.
The next day we got up super early and had breakfast. Gloria made some reference to having to "pay a fine and pick up the garbage in the snow" in conversation with someone else so for the rest of the day I had Alice's Restaurant stuck in my head. Gloria is really nice and funny and she had the cute service dog with her. She's also the one who made the awesome felted rocking horse. Gloria gave me a hard time the night before because I was wearing a Ramones t-shirt. She asked if that was my Mom's shirt, which made me laugh just thinking about it because, well...you'd just have to know my Mom. I told her no, it's mine and yes, I know who the Ramones are. I even know that there is only one Ramone left and I have a greatest hits cd out in the car. (I think Jeff would have died if we put that on though...he's way into the Yanni cd's)
Pretty soon more people showed up including Ruth and Lara, and then it was time to start the novelty yarn spinning class. I had a crazy good time with that. Here are some of the yarns I made:

That is a Marled yarn. It's made by spinning two different colors together at the same time then plying as usual.


Isn't that pretty? That's a Core-Spun yarn. It's mohair locks fed onto a previously spun single, then plied with sewing thread to bind it. Want a closer look?

I think that one is my favorite.


That's a Cabled yarn. It's made by spinning four super tight singles, plying them to make two energized two-plies, then plying those into a balanced 4-ply. It takes a while, but it looks really neat.

The other people in the class also made some Boucle, but I was too busy petting my Core-Spun sample. haha
After class, the nice little lady who's name I can't remember showed us how to skirt a fleece and gave us tips on what to look for when buying a fleece at a fiber festival. She was really entertaining and cute and funny. We had lunch while she talked, then she gave away a bunch of extra unwashed fiber she had with her, but I didn't want to be smelling it all the way home (a 3 hour drive for me) so I passed on that. I packed up my stuff and spent the last of my money on some soy silk and a Bosworth drop spindle, then hit the road.

I had a really great time, and enjoyed meeting so many other people who live relatively close to me and who like all the spinning/knitting/felting madness as much as I do.

Saturday, October 08, 2005

I'm Back Home

I'm home from the Okiefiber Slumber Party! I had a really nice time and met lots of really nice people who's names I will sadly forget go with their faces. I'm a goober like that. Hi to Ruth & Lara, who provided me with my first experience of people coming up to me, recognizing me, and saying "I read your blog!" I'm sorry if I seemed a little weird, but I was fixing to go start my class and that was just wild. It was really great to meet everyone.
I'll take some pictures of the things I got and the yarn I spun in my Spinning Novelty Yarns class tomorrow. (corespun, cabled, marled, and some confetti thing. I was supposed to do another one but the corespun turned out so good I just sat there petting it during that part of class. I told you I'm a goober.)
Meanwhile, HERE are some pictures from the retreat itself. It looks like there weren't many people there, but there were at least 30 of us. That room was really really big. Also I kept just taking pictures of people way across the room from me. So people sitting on my side of the room were totally safe from my lens. Maybe someone else will post some pics and I can show you those too later this week.
Right now I'm going to bed. I'm sooo tired I could just fall right over.

Sunday, October 02, 2005

Baby Stuff

This week's knitting time has been more or less devoted to the Baby Blanket. It's almost half done now:

I'm feeling really optimistic about finishing it before the baby gets here in about a month. I also made some booties, as you can see up there in the photo. Want a closer look?

One of them looks bigger than the other one because that's the first one and it got passed around and played with a little too much. haha I expect it to pop back into shape when it gets washed.
I think despite the evidence (booties!) I almost have my startitis under control.
SNB & OkieFiber Sleepover
I WILL be at SNB on Thursday this week. I missed last week due to a stupid migraine headache and the week before because I got too hot at work and almost passed out. ugh.
On Friday I will be driving 3 or 4 hours to El-Reno, Oklahoma for the Okiefiber Slumber Party retreat. I'm driving alone :( because I guess everyone else had other junk to do and because I can't convince Husband Boy he could find anything else to do in El-Reno while I'm at the fairgrounds. haha I'll be back Saturday evening sometime with pictures :)