you are violet #EE82EE

Your dominant hues are red and blue. You're confident and like showing people new ideas. You play well with others and can be very influential if you want to be. Your saturation level is lower than average - You don't stress out over things and don't understand people who do. Finishing projects may sometimes be a challenge, but you schedule time as you see fit and the important things all happen in the end, even if not everyone sees your grand master plan. Your outlook on life is bright. You see good things in situations where others may not be able to, and it frustrates you to see them get down on everything.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

Clean up in aisle 5...

...Or is it crash on turn 3? Anyway, here is a picture to still the hearts of many a soul who love their wheel as much as Fido/Kitty...maybe...

















It seems that one day, this lady went to spin in her family room while her favorite show was on the tube. She noticed that her wheel was spinning 'funny'. Several weeks went by, til darling son #2 happened to mention that him and the dogs where wrastling in said family room and MAY have knocked into the wheel. A few weeks after that, the poor, poor wheel could no longer keep its drive band on(how embarrassing!), so the lady had to break down and do surgery on the poor baby. Here you see the wheel in parts and scraped of old glue so that re-gluing can commence when the appropriate tools come home from darling husbands' work tomorrow.

I feel so lost and lonely, like sitting in the waiting room at the hospital.

ps: the only reason I attempt this is because a replacement wheel has different turnings than this edition. This is a 1970's edition of an Ashford Traditional. I prefer to keep wheels in their respective age groups, silly me.

the Finish Line!

Hurrah! Hurrah! the finish line!!!! I don't how much of my original goal I've managed to meet. Here is a picture of 2 whole bobbin's, and not showing is about 1/2 of a third. I've used about 4 oz so far of Sassy, the Corrie/Dorset.

I've decided, at the end of the Tour, that although I spun and plied A LOT of yarn, I still didn't meet the goal of spinning 12-1600yds of Sassy.



So.....I'm gonna do the red jersey instead of the yellow jersey. I've accomplished a lot, but not what I wanted to. Sometimes that happens. The red jersey is for when you've fought and played hard, but just couldn't get to first place. I think that's just fine!

Lambtown

Here's to Lambtown, Dixon, CA on Saturday, the 19th of July. I was part of the Hangtown Fiber Guild team for
the Sheep to Shawl competition. I have finally figured out how to down-load pictures from my phone, cause my camera batteries where dead.

This first picture of Pam weaving on the loom and Joany on the far right talking to the public.



The second picture is of Barbara on the left and Charlotte-sitting- at the carding table. Not shown is our fearless leader, Nancy. She did all the plying and making sure that Joany, Barbara and I spun to a standard and an evenness that was required for the weaving.


BTW: we won!

Picture Rich Stats.....

...so far, I've managed to spin approximately 1300 yards of 2 ply, AND NOT ONE INCH OF IT IS THE STUFF FOR THE ORIGINAL CHALLENGE!

from top to bottom, the first picture is 5 20yd/2 ply sample skeins and 1 67 yd/2 ply sample skein of the some of the stuff that we dyed in the previous post.



the second picture is a broken black buffalo/merino 2 ply that I picked up at ebay; 4 oz got me 262 yds of plush softeness. And the purple is the stuff that was in time out for over a year, 'the crash at turn 5' stuff. I thought I wrote it down, but I think I spun about 300+ yds of 2 ply. I'll recount when it's finished drying. It's almost there.











the third picture is of 2 batts from the etsy shop of 'enchanted knoll'. I love her stuff. The orangey looking one is called 'Red Dirt Girl' and the black one is called 'Phoenix'. Both are superwash merino with sari silk and angelina. Red Dirt came in at 92 yds and Phoenix came in at 262 yds.













Last but not least is 462 yds of black shetland from StoneHaven Farms in Oregon. This stuff spun up to a round 19 wpi of 2 ply. Not too bad if I do say so myself.









Sorry for the washed out pictures in the sun, its the only way I can even get close to an accurate color with my ancient camera.

Dye Day Pron!

On Tuesday of this week, instead of spinning for the Tour de Fleece, my friend Charlie and I spent most of the morning-BEFORE it got to be 106F-dyeing 1lb and 2lb lots of fiber with acid dyes. We let them sit in black plastic on the drive way to set, then decanted and rinsed yesterday and today. You can see the riot of shades, tints and hues that we got. What fun!!! We figure that we dyed about 16 lbs worth of a Suffolk/Corriedale cross. A tough, but easy to spin wool that isn't the softest, but not very scratchy and probably have to work at it to get it to felt. Perfect for socks and mittens.

Remember...

...last year, the crash and burn at turn 5? go here to see the spectacular crash. I was so disappointed with the 'stuff' that I could only bag it in a zip lock with a sprig of lavender and relegate it to the back of the closet for an extended time out. Today I took it out of time out, and carefully unwound the rest and let it rejoin the sibling that behaved. Tomorrow I will ply, I think its learned its lesson. Maybe then I can start the major project of the Tour: 1200-1600 yds of 2 ply.



Today I spun the rest of 'Phoenix' from EnchantedKnoll at etsy. Very nice and shiny and soft. Wonderful! I'll ply it later in the week, when the last bobbin has had a chance to relax and catch up to its sibling. A silky supersoft washable merino with sari silk in red and gold with gold Angelina. Hard to believe that she labels this as MW Sock batts.




I also plyed the last 2 oz of merino/buffalo mix that I dyed a broken black. Very interesting. Very soft!
This is a soft dark grey with red highlights. Interesting.






Sorry for the dark pix: my digital is from the stone age and I was trying to take pix with the flash and a spot with a sunlite bulb. I was hoping that the flash would bounce off the window and provide a little back light. OH! Well! Maybe too much little dog nose on the window???

Let's Roll!!!

the tour has started!!!!

I am slightly non-plussed that the only bobbin that I have empty is the one that needs to be glued back together. Everything else needs to be finished spinning for the single and/or plied to clear the bobbins. How's that for planning?

Ah! well! will try to post pictures today or tomorrow.

goals

for the tour: to try to spin a little bit every day. The big goal is to spin enough of a suffolk/corrie fleece to have 1200-1600 yds of 2 ply for a dyeing demo in August at the guild dye day.

Tour de Fleece 2008

Tour de Fleece 2008


the challenge this year is to spin from stash. we'll see how it goes.

Summer of Lace '08

Friday nite I started the charting/math for the Fine Framed Unst Shawl from Sharon Miller's 'Heirloom Knitting'. It's a combinations of the Unst Stole center and the frame from the Fine Framed Shawl in the book. The cool thing is, that you can rearrange the stuff in her books and patterns any way you want.

I was knitting along, got near the end of the row, and promptly found that I had dropped a stitch or two or three right in the middle of the spider cluster in the border. No hope for it but to ladder down, pin everything out in order and knit back up.

You can see that I was successful!!! You can see the first spider of the next cluster in the next picture. I got to the top/bottom of the trees before I had to quit today. So maybe pix in a few days.

too much to do....

and not enough time to do it all in!!!!

I've been knocked out of Sock Madness. I didn't finish this round before the 21st knitter. In self defense, I can plead illness: not mine tho. A shepherdess friend twisted her ankle and put herself in a cast two weeks ago, so I have been doing the heavy walking for her and reporting back to her in her chair. Another shepherdess friend had her shearing canceled 4 weeks ago because of bad weather. She has no building big enough to shear in, so we had it yesterday. Not enough people showed up to help, so I got to do lots and lots of sheep wrangling and skirting/note taking of fleeces. On top of it all, my hayfever is trying to turn into something else, and it feels like I'm trying to hack up a lung! What fun!!!!

The green sock picture is as far as I got in this round of Sock Madness. I finished the heel and am on the foot of the 2nd sock. the yarn is some kool-aid dyed knitpicks bare in berry blue, lemon-lime and mango. not too bad for a microwave sock yarn.

The picture of the tiny sock is from my 'Wee Tiny Sock Swap' pal: Tilladare on Ravelry. Isn't it pretty?!!!!!!!!!

what to do....

.....while waiting for the next round of SockMadness:

i'm doing this: Wee Tiny Sock Swap

knit and swap a tiny sock, about the size of an ornament.
I don't know how to link stuff together so here's the address
http://weetiny2008.yarnmiracle.com/


this wee tiny sock is the one I knit to send to Jen at

http://knittinglikecrazy.blogspot.com

it is knit of Socks That Rock 'flower power'. too cute!!!

Zombiezzzzzzzz......

are alive!!!!!! Sock MadnessII is alive and kicking. Here is my entry: the Zombies in Blue Jeans. Actually its Lana Grossa Meilenweit cotton/wool on US1's.

FO sunday #2

the Lisa Souza BFL that I spun and knit into socks. Just delicious!!!!

FO Sunday

Who knew! two posts in one weekend.

Anyway, finished my 'Monkey' socks for a KAL on Ravelry. Made of unknown Opal, I lost the band, and size US #3, #2 and #1's to get something that fits.
Here's the breakdown for top down:

• 3's for the ribbing and the first repeat
• 2's for the leg and the heel flap, and
  
• 1's for the gusset/foot/toe.

I had originally made another pair in trekking according to the pattern, using 2's through out and couldn't get them on my feet let alone up my leg. The only thing that fit was the toe and it was too roomy. So I modified by changing size of needles and number of heel stitches and gusset pickups.

when life gives you lemons...

...make marmalade! My dad's neighbor has a Meyer Lemon tree. If you've never tried one, you are in for a treat. It's a cross between a lemon and an orange. The taste is indescribable: sweet and tart and orangey and lemoney, and, and, all at the same time.




So I got a sink full: sliced em thin, peel and all, simmer in a little water for 45 min, add the right amount of sugar and boil til the iced plate test says done. Pour into sterile jars, seal and do a water bath boil for 5 min. Remove and cool. Yum!


I went through a 10lb bag of sugar to get:
4 pints,
one 12oz jar,
twelve 1/2 pints and
6 1/4 pints.

This should keep me for a while.

best laugh...

...of the day:

You can only be eccentric over the age of 50.
Below that, you are either weird or insane.
With age, comes privileges.

as quoted by Fleegle in the Ravelry group 'the Princess Diaries 2.0'

Hello?!...

...2008.

things here at Casa Knits are winding down after the holidays. And no, I didn't make any resolutions. No Diets! yarn or otherwise. No lists! No looking back in doubt or disbelief or relief, no wondering what the future will bring either. Just being in the moment.......being in the now!

altho, the Nov-December season was rather eventful: thanksgiving dinner, my birthday, 3 christmas parties hosted for various and assorted groups, my graduation reception, and the family christmas for all the relatives. Now its the seemingly never-ending "do you have a job yet?" and then the endless litany of 'helpful' suggestions for finding a job that have been gone over and over and over and.... you get the idea.

On the happy front: I did manage to finish some projects that I started earlier in the year. these projects also helped me to maintain my temper/sanity and gave a place to go 'timeout' myself. Both are from roving purchased
at Stitches West in 2007; both are blue faced Leicester-a pleasure to spin and knit, in my opinion. Lisa Souza at Lisa Knits does some of the most wonderful colors and combinations that it is my pleasure to purchase. and she's local to my area, another bonus. The blue/orange/red/purple skeins are the colorway 'Mardi Gras' and I managed to spin a nice 282 yards of 2 ply from the 4 oz roving. The green/blue socks are knit from my own handspun. This is one of my early efforts at spinning to a standard and for a project: this was a 4 oz BFL roving that spun to 210 yds of 2 ply in the color way of 'Spring Greens'. I have one roving left and somehow manage to go out of way my to pet it everytime I'm in the same room with it. I'm thinking that I will get me some more when Stitches rolls around again this year. sorry for the lousy pictures, camera is ancient.