One Crazy Fiber Lady

I must say, the events of this past month have certainly been interesting.  It is never dull around here!  First the somewhat unexpected lay-off (well I knew it was coming, but like a teenager, didn’t expect it to happen to ME!), followed by the whirlwind courtship with the new employer, I’m still in a bit of shock.  I started my new job this past Monday and I’m pretty sure that I made a good decision.  The work is interesting and varied, the people are really nice.  Thursday evening was a company affair in the Soho office, Beach Party Beer Pong.  Yes you read that right.  There were two kegs in the office and a beer pong tournament.  No, I didn’t get hired by a frat   I’m working here, in the Community/Membership area.

Now that the work turmoil has ended, I can get back to the hobbies.  I no longer have to spend all my “free” time reading tech books to get ready for interviewing (and up to speed on the tech that the new employer uses).  I’ve actually gotten back to spinning and {gasp} knitting!

First up, is the finished fiber from Leann.  It is yummy yummy Polwarth, which was not only spun on the Tina, but also plied!

The color is pretty crappy.  It isn’t quite this bright, but more of a subtle orange/brown.  I took this with the iPhone and find its flash is meh.  But then again, it is better in most ways than my P&S (point and shoot) Olympus that I bought last year on the cruise.  I’ve never bonded with the camera and actually just ordered a new Elph to replace it.  I should have it Wednesday,  in time enough to use it over the holiday weekend next.  But I digress once again, the yahn needs to be wound off and knitted up into something.  I suspect there’s more than enough to knit me some socks.  Commute into Brooklyn is going to require it

I finished my first knitting item of something other than a cozy for a new electronic device.  This is a sock.  No, its mate hasn’t been cast on yet.  I started it ummm in April I think after Leann brought yahn to SnB one night.  it is yummy too.

The color is also crappy in this picture, but not quite as crappy as the yahn picture.  I don’t think it is quite so dark.  I actually bound this bad boy off last night.  Now I need to cast on for the mate.  Will do that tonight so that I have something to knit while reading and commuting tomorrow.

I do hope to return to regular posting, and hopefully this was the start of it.

Craft on!

OK people, get ready.  Its been known that Schacht has been working on a folding travel wheel for a couple of years now.  Well they finally have one!  You know I’m giddy with anticipation.  I spotted details of it on Ravelry last night and just had to give you a preview of my future new wheel

Here are the details as posted on Rav:

• Folds to 21 1/2” x 15” x 8 1/4”.
• Integrated storage of bobbins, flyer, and whorls for transport.
• Lightweight at 13 pounds.
• 13 3/4” drive wheel allows for ratios between 4.25 to 15.25.
• Long, comfortable treadles.
• Uses the same bobbins, whorls and flyer as the Schacht Matchless and Ladybug wheels.
• The Sidekick can be purchased without the bobbin-flyer assembly.
• 25” orifice height for comfortable spinning.
• Employs Scotch tension with precise control knob.
• The drive wheel spins on ball bearings.
• The flyer turns on self-aligning bearings.
• Drive band tension adjuster allows for all whorls to be used with one drive band.
• The Sidekick comes with 3 bobbins, 2 whorls, threading hook, and carrying strap.
• Also available: The Sidekick Bulky Plyer Flyer Package can be added at any time.

And look at this from the Schacht blog:

The leash is actually the carry strap.  I do believe this is the folding travel wheel that I’ve been looking for!  I might just go for the flyer-less route as I have both the regular and woolee winder flyer for my Matchless.

Looks like May 2011 and the price is still to be set.  I’ve put my name on the waiting list.  Like that surprises anyone. Hehe.

Craft on!

After Kat got her wheel around birthday time all I heard from the boy was that he wanted one as well. I kept an eye on the usual spots for used wheels and finally got lucky on Ravelry when an old Ashford Scholar turned up in the sub $200 range. Alex and I took a road trip to central Jersey to pick it up right before Channuka. Now to teach them both how to spin. I guess its in the blood

Craft on!

I know, there’s been alot of radio silence from me. I hope to change that in the coming year. Might not get long detailed posts but would shorter more frequent posts be okay?

I hope so. I can probably manage to do that

Anyway I hope the holiday season is going well for everyone. Im having nice quiet family time. More at home than I would have otherwise planned, but acceptable nonetheless. That most dreaded of substance,namely snow, put the cabosh on my plans for Sunday and Monday. We got a little over 18″ of the horrible stuff. The roads are passable now and I made it out of the house today because we were out of cat food. Got back with everything and everyone in one piece. Tomorrow I go back to the office for one day (working remotely on thurs until noon) and will be bringing the kids with me. Should make for an interesting day

I’ve been making all this off indoor time count. I’ve spent. Some quality time with the Knitting needles and the various wheels. In the Reeves saxony I finished up spinning 2oz of self striping batt that I picked upfron Leann at SnB one night. Im going to navajo ply it so it will sit for a bit to relax. On the CPW I finally finished spinning the last of the three singles from the last installment in the ITW fiber club from this past spring. It will be a true three ply like the previous fiber. Will probably ply it today. I’ve got another ITW fiber going on the matchless. This is a batt that if memory serves correctly I picked up from Cris at Rhinebeck in 2009. Id guess it is properly marinated by now. Lastly, the recently neglected Vermont wheel got a spin and produced yet another bobbin from the never ending bag of CVM roving that I’ve been seemingly been working on forever or at least 3 years. Someday I’ll hit the bottom of this bag. And then the plying fun will begin. Oh joy

Ok time to go do something fiber-y.

Craft on!

Lets pretend that it hasn’t been forever since my last post and that I don’t owe pictures of Rhinebeck purchases, FOs and other assorted stuff.  But how cute is my new purse spindle?

It is a Jenkins Kuchulu Turkish spindle in cocobolo weighing in at a whopping 9 grams.  We’re talking cashmere / Merino sewing thread

Craft on!

I thought I had missed it yet again, but evidently today is my blogiversary! I can’t believe its been six years, and I’m still at it (well maybe not as frequently – but work is getting in the way of the best posting time  I’m also somewhat surprised that I didn’t totally miss it like I did last year.  I know that it is around the time of the kids’ birthday, but never remember the actually date.  Talking with Carole last night, I was convinced I’d blown it again.

This is a recovery day, besides being Columbus Day.  Happy day to those who celebrate.  To me it is a day off, one where the kids are actually in school!  This past weekend was a very busy one.   As I mentioned before, blogiversary is around the time of the twins’ birthday.  Well that was Saturday.  I can’t believe they’re 7 already.

This year we held the party at BounceU on Friday night.  There were 12 kids, including my pair, bouncing, climbing, sliding and otherwise having fun.  This was followed by pizza and ice cream cake.  By the time we got home, opened all presents and finally settled down for bed it was almost 11pm.

Saturday, I treated Kat to her first manicure and hopefully started a new mom/daughter birthday tradition.  Heck, maybe we started a new bi-weekly tradition.  I have to admit, I like having polished nails.  I think the last time I polished them myself was during my staycation a year ago.  Last manicure was for my sister’s wedding in 2006.  I think its time.  We spent a good deal of time chasing Alexander’s new remote airplane, tracking it down from various neighbors yards.  I spent some of the evening hours revising Knit Counter and adding features/functionality that Android board members on Ravelry suggested.  Unfortunately I found there was a problem for those who newly installed the new version rather than upgrading.  I fixed that problem last night, but I’m getting ahead of myself here now.  Anyway, I added features, and flubbed it for the new installs, and uploaded to the marketplace.

Yesterday was a very long day, covering many miles.  It was Jessalu and R’s wedding!  I headed up north at 10am and didn’t get home until 12:30 am.  A long, but beautiful day indeed.  The wedding was sweet.  The reception was lovely and the food was yummy.  I got to hang with a table of other knitter/spinners whom I all know well.

Unfortunately I wasn’t tired after getting home, and had found a complaint from a new purchaser of the app, so I sat down to see if I could find the problem.  Fortunately, before too long, I had narrowed it down and was able to upload a new version to the marketplace.  So whew.  I feel badly that I had released it that way.  I guess I’m used to having a team of QA people at work and not accustomed to doing more than the unit testing that I normally do.  I am my own SQA team here!  This won’t happen again.

I tossed and turned last night after finally going to sleep, having decided that the geek stuff needs its own home, and not here.  You guys kind of fuzz over when that side of me pops out.  So this morning after the kids went off to school, I got busy and set up a new blog for the software dev stuff (might notice it in the navigation at the top), change the page that you hit if you just go to crazyfiberlady.com to be a main screen rather than the default redirect siteground put there.  Sadly, my browsers are caching the page that had been there, but that should expire shortly I hope.

So now, I have two hours before the kids come home.  I’m going to spend the rest of the day relaxing with a spinning wheel.  I’m hoping the down time will help me shake the cough that’s been with me a couple of days now.  Maybe i should nap.. hmmm.

Craft on!

Things have been busy around here, but that’s not news.   Then again, what I’m about to share shouldn’t come as news either, especially to anyone who has been around this blog for a bit.

Beyond writing Knit Counter (see QR link – heheheheheeh, gosh that makes me giggle),  there have been some herd changes as well.  Where to start?  Ok.  First, the Road Bug is gone.  I know, I know.  I only bought it at MASW in May of this year.  I found it nice to use, except I had one problem with it.  I try to sit like a lady with my knees close together and found that if I did so while spinning on this wheel, I’d get whacked in the legs by the flyer.  Ugh.

Soooo, I was contemplating selling it.  Around the same time, Kat started bugging me to teach her to spin.  She can’t use a single treadle, and the only DT around here right now is the Van Eaton (far too large for her to use) and the Tina (which strikes me as a tad delicate for her), so I started considering other wheel options for her.   The fates stepped in when I found someone on Ravelry who posted an ad for her Traveller so that she might obtain a Roadbug.  I pm’ed her with the option of doing a straight up swap.  The Traveller for the Bug.  She jumped.  She shipped.  I shipped.  A couple of days later, a box full of Styrofoam peanuts and wood arrived.

I’m having Kat practice the treadling action while doing something with her hands.  I hooked the end of a skein of sock yarn to the leader and she’s been treadling it on and moving hooks.  She’s now finished the first bobbin so I’ll pull it off, hook it to a second one and she’ll do it again.  We’ll progress to roving shortly after I teach her how to pre-draft a bit.

So anyway, she’s happy that she now has a wheel.  But that left me without a small portable wheel.  Yes the Journey Wheel is portable, but it, like the Matchless, weigh a ton.   Back to the Ravelry boards (not that I ever left as I prowl them daily) I went.  I turned up a wheel in South Jersey.  A little over a week ago (on the 26th), the twins and I took a road trip to New Hope..

Where we fed ducks, wandered about, bought lots of young reader books and picked up this..

Yup, a Majacraft Little Gem II.  She’s in perfect condition.  Came with 5 bobbins IIRC, a niddy, and as the seller was getting out of spinning, I got an excellent deal on 3 huge vacuum bags of processed fiber (romney, apricot colored alpaca and a grey cria alpaca).  On the bobbin is some Falklands that I got from Leann at Wool that I mentioned in my previous post.  Last night I finished the second two oz and am now plying it.  Yup, plying on the Gem too.  Not the Womack.  I was too lazy to drag it out   And the good news, so far, 4 oz of spinning (about 4 hours worth) and the ankle isn’t complaining at all.  Yay.

Hope to get in more regular postings soon…

Craft on!

I had a wonderful Weekend Out On the Lake, as usual.  I could have skipped the 5 hour drive home which should have taken a little over 3.  I hate the NY Thruway.  Killed some of my rest and relaxation buzz It was a beautiful weekend with wool, old friends and new friends.

I spun:

This is 452 yards/4oz of Polwarth in the Calico Blue colorway from one of my favorite crack dealers indie dyers, ITW. I must admit to emitting a loud SQUEE when I heard she had polwarth fiber.  I lurve that fiber and this was just a joy to spin.  It wasn’t the only skein I spun either.  Then again, I wasn’t the only one spinning. This was the view out front of the Lake House this morning before we left with all the new yarn drying in the sun.  Mine is the purple/green one in the middle (or so).  I have not measured it yet, but it is also 4oz of Polwarth from Cris, but this is the Rainbow Dash colorway that I spun on the Road Bug while sitting on the dock on Friday.

I made sure my wheel was safe during our 200 mile drive…

Thank you ladies for another wonderful year at WOOL!.  And now, to relax before full re-entry tomorrow.

Craft on!

As I approach the end of my two year contract with AT&T, naturally I’m considering the next cellphone.  Do I get the new iPhone 4 or do I try something else?  While I love my iPhone and will keep this 3g around at the end of the contract and use it like a iPod Touch (handy for handing to a bored kid), I’m not sure if I want to replace it with the new iPhone.  I’m not that much of a fangirl that I HAVE to replace the old iPhone with a new one.  Yes it has been a fave tech toy since I bought it almost two years ago.

What am I considering?  The Motorola Droid X.

I read an excellent review of it here.  As a developer, this phone has two advantages for me over the iPhone:

1. Apps are written in Java – which as a C# developer I pretty much already know as opposed to Objective-C which has some similarities but is far more different and is a far bigger learning curve.  While learning yet another language is not a bad thing, I could be up and developing Android apps far faster.
2. The distribution of Droid apps is an open market – not closed like Apple.   I don’t believe I would have to pay $100 to even get the SDK let alone distribute any application I do happen to eventually turn out.
3. Since the language is Java, I could develop apps either on my Macs or a PC, depending on how the mood was flowing and which computer I actually felt like carrying around.  With the iPhone, I was locked into a Mac.  Now this is not necessarily a bad thing as I do heart my Macs, but my netbook is far lighter to schlep carry than my MacBook.

That’s the short list.  I’m sure, given enough time, I can come up with a few more reasons.  On the other hand, I’ve invested a bunch in iPhone apps.  Fortunately, that won’t go to waste as I’m still holding onto the 3G and I’ve got the beloved iPad that can take advantage of all. 

Anyone have an android phone and can offer up advice either way?  I have some time to do further research as my contract ends in early August and the X ships finally in mid-July.  I don’t want to be paying early termination like I did when I made the jump from Sprint to AT&T (though it was worth it for the iPhone).  I wonder if I could get a temporary number from Verizon and then port the old number from AT&T when that contract ends… hmmmm. 

Oh and since the iOS4 update, my battery indicator is flaky.  Unless I reboot the phone, the indicator is pretty much stuck.  Awesome.  Hope that patch fix is soon.

Wait, what is that you’re saying?  This is a crafty blog?  Hmm.  I better show some crafty pictures then post haste!  Would a picture of two different crafts make up for the geektalk above? 

The sock is the Roundabout Socks (rav).  I finished the first one on Saturday and started the second yesterday during my morning commute.  The yarn is mmMalabrigo Sock in Stonechat colorway.

The spinning is ITW Merino-Silk in the Autumn in Burgundy colorway.  I’ve moved to the high speed whorl and bobbins on my Matchless.  I’m going to two ply this stuff and hopefully get enough yardage for a decent lace project.

Okay, that’s all for today.

Craft on!

There’s been a number of requests for more information regarding the newest wheel in the herd. It is a double treadle Merlin Tree Roadbug.  Here is another shot of her nestled in her bag:

The pocket on the front of the bag is her second treadle.  When Dave modified his little portable wheels from single to double treadle, he didn’t modify its overall footprint.  Instead, he designed a removable second treadle.

You can just see the “left” foot off to the side here in this picture.  Also included for scale is my Van Eaton production wheel in the background (with the endless bag of CVM fleece).  I love the green monstah wheel on the Bug.

Here she is with both her treadles and set to spin:

From this picture you can see how her left treadle attaches.    She makes for a pleasant (if a smidge noisy) little spinner that fits perfectly on the boat.  I also like how the flyer poses no danger to anyone wandering too close to the wheel (beyond them hitting my leg and making me get whacked with the flyer) which was a concern with the Sonata and how her flyer was out back.

On other fronts, I finished the latest pair of socks at SnB on Thursday.

I decided not to reknit the first sock as there is so little difference between the pair, beyond actual stitch count (52 v. 56) and needles used (both US1 – dpn v. circ). At this point, I can’t tell which is which.

Craft on!