One Crazy Fiber Lady

So much for more regular postings 😉  My bad.  I’m finding that the stuff I used to blog are now quick status updates on Facebook.   Which makes it sort of weird as the people who wouldn’t be reading this blog are technically reading it.  There might be less postings about knitting there, but then there was a lot less knitting going on.  That’s not to say there isn’t fiber related stuff going down around here outside the work drama.  Which as of Friday last, I’m off.  I took a week to recuperate after ending the gig from hell and starting what looks to be somehting awesome.  Anyway, enough about that, here’s the other stuff.

I did go to Maryland this year, taking my little festival buddy, Kathryn, with me.

Alexander stayed home with his grandfolk while we went to sniff wool fumes.  We were reserved this year, employment issues had me a little conservative, but we still came home with stuff.  This is my haul (Kat has her own)

Not too shabby.  Some fiber.  Some yarn.  A spindle or three 🙂  If you look closely you can see that I already starting spinning some of it.  The white fiber in the box (2 of em) are 2oz of Cormo/Silk from Roclan’s that I started spinning froghair thin on the brandy new Spanish Peacock Amboyna Burl bead spindle.  Awesome is all I can say on that.

Moving along, I’ve been spinning on wheels too:

This fiber is from Cris, fiber is BFL/Silk and the color is a 2014 club color of Cat’s Pajamas.  And yes, it is on the Golding.

The big news is that I’ve been wheeling and dealing again.   This time the herd numbers have remained stable though as I traded the Norm Hall for a new baby on Saturday:

Meet my new to me Wyatt Pegasus in a gorgeous cherry.  She had a bit of a mishap while transporting in the trunk home from the meetup where the wheel exchange happened.  BTW, a wheel this size doesn’t fit overly well in the trunk of a 2010 Camry.  I really need a bigger car!  Sadly, the plastic tubing between the footman arms and the treadles snapped.  I tried a number of things to repair without success.  Until last night when inspiration struck.  I recalled the general repair for Canadian Production Wheels that have lost their metal footman.  Wire hangers!

I was finally able to use her last night.  She’s FAST and super quiet AND super smooth.  LOVE LOVE LOVE this wheel.  While the decision to trade off the Norm Hall wasn’t an easy one, I’ve covetted this wheel for years.

Craft on!

I didn’t realize so much time has passed since my last posting.  Rather than a whole bunch of recaps, I’ll do a quick photo essay of what’s been going on at chez CFL.

I was keeping busy for a change.  Writing an update to iKnitCounter on one, reinstalling OSX on another, listening to a baseball game on a third and honestly can’t remember why the fourth was there except it was the original computer I’d done the counter on :)  Updated version of iKnitCounter in the app store if you haven’t already gotten it. 

There’s more but I have to get to a meeting shortly..

Craft on!

Yes, today was the first day of school.  I now have a pair of third graders!

First Day of Third Grade

I know.  I’m amazed.  Much better picture than last year.  Kat didn’t like that I used last year’s as my Facebook picture for a year and decided to cooperate.

On another note, I added yet another support spindle.

Grizzly Mt Mini Russian

Isn’t it beautiful?  This one is a Grizzly Mountain Arts Mini Russian in tiger maple.  It is 7.5″ long and 13g.  It came with the pretty little bowl that nestles in the bag.  The bead rings are removable to change the overall weight of the thing.  Mouse included for scale, as the normal scale device (the iPhone) was busy taking the picture 🙂

Two more days of the eh job.  Been reading up on Ruby on Rails.  Love learning new languages!

Craft on!

While there are some things going on that I can’t share right now, I can admit to a new addiction.  I confess, I’m addicted to support spindles!  I’ve been amassing quite the collection of them, most of them from other people’s stashes on Ravelry.  In an attempt to document what I’ve got before I totally forget what they are, I’ve taken photos along with notes.  I now present them to you all as I come clean.

Malcolm Fielding Pu-Yuk

Malcolm Fielding "Fleegle Style" Tibetan

Enid Ashcroft Tibetan

Tabachek Tibetan

Malcolm Fielding Russian and bowl

All the rest of the Russians (Spanish Peacock, Texas Jeans, Skaska, Tabachek, KCL)

At least i admit to the problem.  Bigger problem is that i’m not actually spinning.  Oh well.  Can’t have em all.

Hopefully another post before over a month goes by.

Craft on!

It looks like I can just about commit to posting once a week.. and it appears that Sunday is that day.  Kat is in her room chilling before bedtime, Alex is off taking a shower, and I finally have some down time.  Its been a long interesting day but we’ll get to that in a bit.  Here’s the update:

On the needles

1.  Stripe Study Shawl is definitely moving along.  I had some good quality knit time yesterday and finished contrast stripe 11 of 12.  As of  a few minutes ago when I put it down, I was halfway through the last contrast stripe.  Almost done with this project.  Still need to do a load of the dark color garter stitch.  Hopefully this will be done by my next update.  It should be.

Will be nice to see it finished and spread out in all its glory.  I have to admit, I’m liking the Woolmisery and bought another skein off someone on Ravelry.  Nice that the price for the yarn has returned to earth.

2.  I’ll Name Them George Socks – The yarn is the ITW club yarn for February and is just awesome to work with.

It’s my standard recipe plain old vanilla sock over 56st, toe up, short row heel on US0.  The socks have been my purse knitting, being worked on primarily on the train and at work while reading.  I finished my coding project on Tuesday last week and moved to a research project that has me reading tech books.  The socks let me focus on the tedious stuff while making excellent progress.  I should have finished this sock during the week and honestly, can’t remember why I haven’t, but the train has been crowded on the way home and I didn’t get as much knitting done as I’d like.  Oh well.  It will probably get wrapped up tomorrow and then I’ll start its mate.

That’s it for the knitting.  I’ve been pretty darned good about keeping the WIPs under control, though the biggest part of it is resisting the urge to cast on something new.

On the Fiber Front

I haven’t done much spinning this week, though I have done some, on a new wheel at that!  Hold on, the wheeling and dealing hasn’t stopped. As you know, the Sidekick was boxed up and shipped out this past Monday.  Her new owner loves her already  Go figure that after scrounging for a box to ship her in, I found the original Schacht box in the basement this morning.  Ugh.  Anyway, I’ve also gotten a deposit on the CPW and she should be heading to her new home this weekend.  Neither is news…

So, I’ve been eyeing a Matchless, yes I know I have one.  But since the left foot injury to balance out the right ankle injury, I’ve found that my feet don’t really like a single treadle wheel.  But I loved the matchless.  I toyed with shipping her back to Schacht to convert, but decided to buy something else instead.  I saw posted on Ravelry an almost brand new Double Treadle (DT 072111 2) for sale in NYC.  After a bit of back and forth, I sent a deposit via PayPal to indicate my sincerity.  Kat and I drove into Manhattan this morning and picked the wheel up on the Upper West Side.  I got the new wheel home and sat her next to her older ST sister:

You can see the patina that my ST has developed (her bday was 5/2007).

There weren’t two Matchless wheels in this house for very long.  A dear friend, and SnB buddy, who was looking for a wheel to take places (has a S-R 24″) came over to “try it out”.  He he he.  I’ve never tried out a wheel that was for sale and not taken it home.  Didn’t happen this time either.  The ST is no longer her mine.  I’ll miss her, but know that she’s gone to a good home where she’ll get plenty of usage.  Too much competition around here!  I also look forward to seeing how the patina develops on the DT.

So what am I spinning on the new girl?  Well, I was scanning one of my favorite forums on Ravelry when I spotted a leap day sale (10%) for a fiber dyer I hadn’t spotted before.  I surfed over to her Etsy store and had to order a couple of braids.  They were shipped quickly and arrived just in time yesterday, err Friday.  Working from home is making me lose track of the days.

This fiber is the Mountain Mist fiber (60% Superwash Merino / 30% Bamboo / 10% Nylon) in the Strawberries colorway.  The braid is so squoooshy that you just can’t tell from looking at it, but just invites in person.  I broke the 4oz length in half.  I then split each lengthwise into smaller sections..

It is almost spinning itself..

I do love me good fiber on a good wheel..Just about done with the first 2oz.

Yup, happy girl here.  Tired as the day started early with a trip to Manhattan to get the wheel.  Then Tami came over to try the Matchless.. This was followed by a birthday party that Kat went to out in Fairfield.  Alex and I went with another family with one kid at the party to a restaurant.  Didn’t get home from the party until 6pm.  Alex still needed to do the rest of his reading homework, baths, teeth, bed.. you get the picture. So, I’m torn between spinning and maybe, just maybe, finishing contrast stripe 12.  I’ll probably knit and save the spinning for another night.  or…. maybe I can squeeze in 5 min or so before work.  Yeah.  I like that idea.

Reading

Beyond the boring (and inspiring) tech books on SOA and WS-Security, I’ve finally settled on a fictional book to keep my reading interest:  The Lion.  I’ve always been a Nelson DeMille fan and I’ve had this book for ages. Its just that he puts out books so slowly that I tend to hoard a new one. Yay me, just hope I don’t flounder for two weeks when I finish this one!

Garage Sale

I finally got around to photographing the various knitting bags / purses that I don’t use and would love to find a new home.  I posted them on Ravelry here, here and here 🙂

Well that’s it for this week.

Craft on!

I was posting at a pretty decent clip there, so I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I fell off the wagon again and went dark.  All things are cyclical with me I guess.  I’ve had a sooper seekrit project in the works that started life as an out of the blue telephone call.  I can’t divulge what it is quite yet, but hopefully very soon.  It’s sooper seekrit you know.

I might be working on this other project, but that hasn’t stopped the knitting thing, just the blogging thing.  Go figure.  Apparently, if I can’t talk about EVERYTHING, I choose to chat about NOTHING.  Not to mention there’s the whole falling behind, amassing lots of stuff to mention and then having sooooo much that I don’t know what to include v. what to exclude.  Someday I’ll get this right.

The most important event in October is the twin’s birthday.  My babies turned 8.  EIGHT!  I could swear that they were tiny babies just yesterday.  This year we had a bowling party at the local alley.  15 kids on 3 lanes is like herding cats.  Everyone had a good time, which is the important thing.

Yup, each kid got to pick their own cake.  Alex went for the ice cream cake and Kat, surprise surprise, picked a Hello Kitty pink masterpiece.  Happy birthday babies!

October is also the annual pilgrimage to Rhinebeck for the gorging of the wool 🙂  This year I had the kids with me and we spent the day with Leann and baby.  It looks like turnout was down this year, which from a fairgoer perspective is good as it is less crowded.  I just hope the sellers had a good year.  Would be nice if what was good for us was also good for them.  My haul was remarkably restrained this year.

From left to right:

• Forbidden Woolery Lush in “Charmed” colorway – 3 skeins to knit Featherweight Cardi
• Shawl pattern and lace weight cashmere from Just Our Yarn
• 8oz chocolate alpaca in a sport weight for a cowl like Tami’s
• 2 skeins of sock yarn from Into the Whirled
• 1 alpaca blend from Brooks Farm – originally plucked for a cowl but displaced by the later purchase of the choc stuff – might still be a cowl 😉

No spinning fiber at all this year.  Yeah, can’t remember the last time (if ever) that happened!  There was one year, probably 2005 – which was the last time that the twins went, that the only thing I bought was like a pound of shetland fiber.    Also for a change, everything was purchased with a purpose in mind.

There’s another event in October that I totally missed.  My blogiversary.  My first ever post was on blogger on way way back.  I can’t believe I’ve been at this since 2004.  The twins had just turned 1.  My how things have changed!

That brings us almost up to date.  I have other stuff to show, like a nifty spindle I picked up, as well as some finished objects, but I’ll leave that for another day.

Craft on!

http://www.forbiddenwoolery.com/

It’s that time again.   This weekend was MDSW.  This year I went down on Friday afternoon, with the kids.  We stayed with a family also comprised of twins and a SMC (single mother by-choice) who live in the suburbs of Baltimore.  Saturday the other mom kept all the kids keeping them busy, fed and safe.  This enabled me to hit the festival unencumbered.  Good thing!  It is becoming more and more of a zoo each year.  The 88F temperatures didn’t help.  This is the first year I’ve gotten a sunburn at the festival.

Did this stop the shopping?  Not a chance.  More on that in a bit.

Today, all six of us hit the festival for a few hours before the Phillips clan headed back north at 1pm.  We had a great time.  It was nice to spend the weekend them and a yearly tradition might just have been born.

Okay, so this is what my kids looked like just before I hit the Delaware Memorial Bridge on the way home.

Would you believe how much you can jam into the trunk of a Camry?

We don’t need no stinkin’ minivans to get wheels home! In that trunk are 2 bicycles that my friend’s kids outgrew and passed to my pair, the scooters we went down with and a nice wooden wheel, amongst other hand-me’s.  Boots.  Knee pads.  Elbow pads.  Fiber 😉

My purchases were small in number but not insignificant:

The purchases:

• 4oz Mulberry silk from Little Barn
• 4oz dyed fine wool also from Little Barn
• Alpaca fiber (about 3oz)
• 34g Bosworth Moosie (need to find the tag in the trunk to get the shaft wood but it is dark)
• Frederick Bordua marked 30″ Canadian Production Wheel from The Merlin Tree

Yes i know, this makes 4 years in a row that a wheel came home.  But but but… it’s a tradition ya know!

This does mean that I do have a wheel for sale 😉  This time it is the 27″ CPW that I bought a few weeks ago.  Pictures are here.  Its not that there’s anything wrong with it, I just wanted a 30″.  I know.  Crazy.

I’m off to bond with the new kid.

Craft on!

This was one seriously busy weekend. Yesterday was my day at Rhinebeck for the beloved Sheep and Wool Festival. I have to admit, I wish the fiber hobbies hadn’t gotten quite so popular. The festival gets more and more crowded each year. I blame Ravelry 😛 At least it didn’t rain yesterday, but it was pretty wicked cold for the middle of October. Brrrr.

Anyway, it was the year of the spindle for me. I bought no fewer than 3 of them. The first one was actually on my shopping list, the other two sort of followed me home. In an effort to document these things so I don’t lose their details to fuzzy memories like the rest of the spindles around here, I present them now:

• Golding Ring Spindle
• 3″ Cherry Celtic Ring
• Walnut 9 3/4″ shaft
• 1.9 oz

• Bosworth Midi Spindle
• Silverwattle Whorl
• Bloodwood Shaft
• 28g/1oz

• Hatchtown Kaari
• Purpleheart and Walnut
• @1oz (she lost her tag before I bought her)

I did mention it was the spindle festival for me, didn’t I? ¬†As you can tell I have started spinning on the Kaari. ¬†She’s a wonderful little spinner.

The fibery purchases include two lbs of a BL-Romney in grey to spin for another sweater.

Sara had to check out the wool, and well, invade the one spot of natural light in my room.  Shortly after I took this picture, I had to get her slobbery nose out of the wool.  She has a thing for fiber.

After picking up 3 spindles, I had to buy some nice fiber for each of them.  I returned to one of my favorite nice fiber vendors, ITW.  I had picked up an Etsy order from her earlier in the day, but had to add to it.   Other than the grey BL-Romney, my only other fiber purchases were from Cris.

Front Row

• 56’s Falkland in Moody Neopolitan
• 60/40 Merino/Bamboo in Jonathan
• 80/20 Merino/Silk in Sangria

Back Row

• 56’s Falkland in Pumpernickel n Jam (x2)

Its safe to say that I’m a bit of a ITW groupie. ¬†I have more than a few braids and batts from her. ¬†The fiber that I started spinning on the Kaari is the Merino/Silk Sangria.

Other than a Knit Kit and a glass shawl pin, that’s my purchases for this year. ¬†I think I was pretty restrained. ¬† ¬†Oh wait, there was a bit more. ¬†I bought 10 skeins of yarn from Wild Apple Farm, 5 in a denim-y blue and 5 in a dark green. ¬†Still, pretty restrained. ¬†Its not like I’m lacking for hobby materials 😉

Today was the twins’ birthday party. ¬†Yes, I know I scheduled their party for Rhinebeck Sunday. ¬†Yes I was supposed to stay overnight upstate and hit the festival both days. ¬†But thanks to a brain fart and a desire to not move too many weekends from their actual birthday, I jumped on the first Sunday noon party available. ¬†Alas, it coincided with Rhinebeck. ¬†I hope to not make the same mistake next year 😉

We had 12 kids at The Little Gym for an hour of organized activity with the energetic and enthusiastic party directors, followed by 1/2 hour for pizza and cake.

The staff took care of entertaining, setting up, cleaning up and even packing all the gifts into big bags for us.  These types of places are well worth the cost.  We returned with a 1/3 of one cake, a pizza and lots of presents to open.

Now ¬†I think I’ll take a nap. ¬†I’m exhausted!

Craft on!

This is going to be one of those “little bit of this, little bit of that” posts.

Here are the monkeys heading off for their first day of kindergarten..

Aren’t they cute? ¬†Okay, so this picture is almost a month old at this point. ¬†They’ve been doing very well, getting homework every night except Friday and are generally enjoying it. ¬†Last week they had a class field trip to the Museum of Natural History in NYC. ¬†Mom went as a¬†chaperon/helper type.

They are still at the center where they spent the last two years in Pre-K. ¬†My town does not have full day KG so this offered the best option for us. ¬†The program is fully accredited and children usually come out of it way ahead of their public school future classmates. ¬†It also offered the advantage of being able to transition into the KG class for summer camp. ¬†They joined this group right after graduation in June so they were more than ready for a day without a nap. ¬†Sort of. ¬† Once school started, Kat was wiped out and on more than a few nights, she’s punked out way early. ¬†Its all good though.

I took the monkeys to the Garden State Sheep Breeders show a couple of weeks back. ¬†The car is amazing still covered in mud from the field. ¬†The recent rain hasn’t cleaned it. ¬†I’m going to have to suck it up and wash it 😉 ¬†Anyway, we had a good time at the festival. ¬†Its the perfect size for bringing the monkeys to before their heads explode. ¬†I forgot to take pictures. ¬†Again. ¬†Yes. ¬†But I did get this one:

Again, how cute are they? 🙂 ¬†There was some stash enhancement, but needless to say no pictures of it.

In other news, I need to update the herd status.  There have been some transactions with regards to the spinning wheels.

This wheel?

SOLD.

This wheel?

SOLD.

This wheel?

BOUGHT 🙂

It was requested that I provide a closer up view of Fair Isle.  You asked for it:

Taken this morning in the car (duh) while waiting for the train 🙂

Finally, with 17 days left until Rhinebeck, here is how Rhinebeck started off this morning:

It is approx 6.5″ at this point. ¬†The plain knitting starts at the 13″ mark. ¬†I’m getting there. ¬†I’ve found it is perfect knitting for playing Sims to while watching the ballgame. ¬†Yes I am a multitasker 😉

Craft on!

I think by the time you’ve been knitting for over three decades (there I said it), you should really know what you like to knit. ¬†There has to be some accounting for the ebb and flow of the magical mojo or my sock and lace production wouldn’t change quite so drastically year (month) to year (month). ¬†Years with fewer socks and shawls usually see an increase in sweaters. ¬†Vice versa.

I always seem to hear the siren’s call of the lace shawl and socks regardless of what I’m working on and where the mojo level is. ¬†Doing some soul searching, it is because I like small needles and thin yarn. ¬†It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I jumped all over¬†Knit So Fine: Designs with Skinny Yarn when it came out. ¬†I have yet to make anything from it but while reading blogs today, and the accompanying time on Ravelry, I found something that just called out to me: ¬†Bohus Inspired Yoke Sweater(yes a Ravelry). ¬†

I’ve wanted to make a Bohus sweater for a while now, but the pricetag on the kits are daunting. ¬†That and the leeetle teeeny tiny needles and massive amounts of resulting knitting leads me to believe that “I’d never finish it and yet feel guilty for not because it was so pricey resulting in a less than enjoyable knit”. ¬†Whew. ¬†Soooo, when i saw this one, size 4 needles aren’t bad. ¬†Heck, I have a coupla sweaters on US4’s going now and this would be far less complicated! ¬†

Off to Knitpicks I went.  With the help of the suggestions they had in the project page, my handy-dandy install of Adobe Photoshop and JessaLu, I picked the colors I wanted.  

KnitPicks Yarn - Bohus Inspired Sweater

This is a mix of the Gloss and Shaow laceweights.  The sweater is worked from hem to collar in the round with the colors progressing in the order above from left to right.    The body will be the Sterling (the light grey on the left).  The yoke will run from the:

Aegean –> Blue Bird –> Juniper Heather –>Chipotle–>Mango–>Hot Rod Heather

The whole thing is running under $45. ¬†Which is way way less than the kit. ¬†I haven’t ruled out one of the kits someday, probably as a reward for something. ¬†Maybe my 10th anniversary of quitting smoking or somesuch, but for now, I’m looking forward to this project with tiny needles and thin yarn, even if it is doubled!

Yes, Mr. Not-So-Greenjeans is progressing, but the big needles and heavy yarn are making my hands hurt 😉 ¬†I’m about 4″ into the cable/rib thing at the bottom. ¬†I need to either dig up a long knitpicks cable or a second set off tips in the right size (and no I didn’t order more along with my lace yarn!) so I can do the sleeves.

Craft on!