So many hobbies!

Ready to transplant

My babies are growing up.  The six on the left are peppers and in front and to the right are the tomatoes.  I think the peppers are ready to move to larger pots but my container gardening book says the tomatoes should have three sets of leaves before transplanting.  Those little peat pots look awfully small for the size of the seedlings.  I doubt I'm going to have time to do any transplanting before I leave to Maryland so I hope they'll be okay until I get back Sunday afternoon.

I finished spinning 3 ounces of Cormo tonight... and then running the singles back through the wheel to add more twist.  I was using too small a ratio and they needed more twist.  Tomorrow is knit night so all I'll have time to do is to wind the singles into a centerpull ball for plying Thursday after work.  That's cutting it close since I leave at 7:00am Friday for the airport.  I can't remember:  did I mention the Cormo skein is going into the skein contest, too.  The Merino/mohair wasn't plying even enough so that one stays home.  Now that I'm thinking of all the work I still have to do, I don't think I'll be spending more than an hour or so knitting tomorrow.

I ordered a duffle bag online to bring home the fleece, or two, that I'll be buying this weekend.  I didn't realize just how BIG 20"x20"x40" inches was until I opened the darn thing up.  It's HUGE!  I could move a body in that thing!  I could send home 4 entire fleeces in it!  Needless to say, I'm sending it back and going to Target or KMart to find one in a more managable size.  I'm telling you, guys, it's absolutely enormous!  I had to call my sister and tell her what I'd done so she could laugh at me.  Hey, who couldn't use a good laugh?

Let the sun shine in!

This morning Seli very happily celebrated the return of the sun to the couch.  She slowly moves down the couch following the sun and when I pet her, she squeaks.  It's probably just me but I find her irresistibly cute.

This is carded Cormo waiting to be spun.  Turns out I've been carding correctly all along except that I was loading too much on the cards.  I probably still am.  The static is still horrible and that makes carding challenging.  I'm not making rolags because I'm terrible at spinning long draw.  All I do is peel the wool off the card and starting at one end, spin semi-worsted singles.  It seems to be working.

Saturday I was invited to a local spin-in.  I found myself spinning with some of the founding members of the Spinners Flock.  Of course I forgot my camera.  A couple of the ladies were totally out of control and they had us all cracking up.  I'm looking forward to the next spin-in at the end of next month.  One of the ladies, Barb, ordered one of my spindle boxes for holding her sock-knitting.  Which reminds me, one of the things I need to do next week is to finalize the measurements for the larger spindle box and make up paper patterns for each of the pieces.  It's a short week at work and Maryland for the weekend!

A lesson in hand carding

These are my wonderful Schacht hand cards.  I'm not very good with them so my friend Eric (from spin night) offered to give me a lesson tomorrow after work.  Thanks, Eric!  (Hey, Eric, do you want to have dinner afterward at Shalimar?  Mmm, Indian food!)  I have a large plastic tub full of Cormo and since I don't spin a very even singles when I spin from the lock, I thought I'd try another method.  I've played with them a bit the last couple of days and the static is terrible.  It's possible I stink so badly with them because of the static.  The fiber flips around and clings to the backs of the cards and poofs all over the place on the front.  I've tried wiping the cards with a dryer sheet (a hint I got from a back issue of Spin-Off) but it didn't make a difference, although that may be because the dryer sheets are 6 years old.  (I don't use dryer sheets or fabric softener because I'm allergic to the perfumes and unpronouncable things they add to them... I should probably throw the darn things out, huh?)  Hopefully, it'll be a bit more humid tomorrow when I get my carding lesson.

Aside from the carding lesson, I don't really have any plans for the weekend, aside from finishing up a spindle box I'm making to trade for another Butterfly Girl spindle and some of her lovely batts, and playing with my hand cards, of course.  What fun things do you have planned for this weekend?

Oh, I almost forgot, I found out from Elizabeth today that she's going to SOAR, too.  Elizabeth and I have been commenting on each other blogs for a while now and I finally get to meet her.  I'm totally psyched about this.  I've made friends because of my blog but they all live too far away for us to actually meet.  Elizabeth will be the first of my blog-friends that I actually get to have a face-to-face conversation with.  If I wasn't thrilled about SOAR before, I certainly am now!

I'm in!

I found out today that my SOAR application made it and I've been accepted!  Yippee!  I'm signed up for the three-day workshop with Deb Menz called Creatively Carding with Color.  I've got her book and I'm pretty darned excited to be taking such an intensive class with her.  Now I have to decide if I'm going to have a roommate or a single.  On the one hand, SOAR is very intensive and I'll be with people from breakfast to bed.  I am absolutely an introvert and after such a day, I'm going to need time alone to recharge.  On the other hand, if I have a single, I'll miss a great opportunity to meet someone new. 

Green for Earth Day

Did you know that cotton grows in natural green and brown colors?  Believe it or not, the roving on the right is the natural color of the cotton (I know it doesn't look green... it is).  This was yet another cool thing I learned because I took up spinning.  I'd always thought that cotton only came in off-white.  Another cool think about the natural colors:  when you boil the cotton, the color gets darker and deeper.  God, I love spinning!

The fiber on the left is 50/50 cotton/wool called... wait for it... Golden Fleece!  (Spinning and Greek mythology... two of my faves!)  Okay, so now that I have this lovely cotton, I have to figure out how to spin it.  Cotton has a reputation for being difficult to spin.  The staple length is about half an inch which is MUCH shorter than wool.  I'm trying to talk myself out of taking up weaving.  So far I'm succeeding... mostly because I can't afford to buy a rigid heddle loom right now.  But if I fail, some cotton yarn would be nice to weave with.

A wee spindled skein

Spindle plied at Spin Night tonight.  This is just the first skein - there's more left on my TP bobbins.  It hasn't been washed yet and I'm going to have to whack the heck out of it to even out the twist.  How the heck do you get an even ply with a spindle?  It's easy on a wheel, you just treadle the same number of times per length of yarn.  I need to do some reading on spindle plying.

I did a little dyeing over the weekend.  I think I'm going to name it "Patsy" after King Arthur's "horse" in Monty Python's Holy Grail... that is unless someone has a better suggestion.  "Fruity Pebbles" keeps popping in to my head.  Have I mentioned yet that I stink at coming up with names for my wool?   Now I'm thinking "Carlos" but that's probably because I'm listening to Carlos Santana on the radio.  I think it's time to go to bed now.  (On a side note, don't my photos look much better now that I've switched to a gray background?)

More spindle boxes

I'm sitting here trying to decide how to start tonight's post and all I can think about is that the damn ants are back!  They're crawling around my kitchen and this time I can't figure out where they're coming in.  And my skin keeps itching like I've got the little bastards crawling on me. 

I've got one of the larger size boxes up in my store but it's a bit smaller than future boxes will be.  I'd already cut the fabric so I sewed up the box for the store even if it's a bit small (3"x3"x12.5").   Future boxes will be a half inch larger all the way around.

Sorry.  I've got nothing else.  I did a bit of spinning but nothing to show.  I need one more day of weekend to get groceries and do some cooking.  I'm excited that I mananged to get the dishes done, but now they've got ants crawling on them.  Does anyone have any tricks for getting rid of ants that doesn't involve spraying pesticides?

Festival skeins

My choices for Maryland's skein contest:  Refreshing superwash sock yarn, Merino/mohair border yarn for my shawl and the Spring's Coming superwash worsted.  I think these are pretty good but I'm going to have my spinning group give them a critical eye and give me their opinion.

I mailed in my application for SOAR today.  Yeah, "opening day" is tomorrow.  I thought I was late in getting it in and I end up sending it in a day early.  Well, it's out of my hands now.  I hope I make it in.  There are some classes being offered that I'd really like to take.  Hopefully I'll be able to pick up a passenger if I go.  Eight hours is a long time to drive by yourself and well, gas isn't cheap.  I'm also going to need a roommate but I think you can put a request in for one and they'll match you up with someone else who needs a roommate.

I think I may have solved the problem with my photos being out of whack.  I was using a white background and I've switched to a gray one.  I think my camera was freaking out trying to deal with a really white background and a darker subject.  BTW, a public thanks to Maggie who offered to help me fix the photos of my spindle boxes if the ones I took turned out badly.  Thanks, Maggie.  It was also Maggie's idea to make a spindle box for the Harlot.  I'm so glad I had the extra one with me to give to Abby.  It was a hoot to see how excited she was to get it.

This has been a very long week for me and I can't tell you how happy I am the weekend is almost here.  I started designing the larger size of my spindle box (accomodating spindles up to 3.5" by 13") and I'll have some finished and up in my store by Sunday.  Also this weekend, I'll be cleaning up, picking up and reorganizing my trashed condo.  Definitely no company until I deal with the mess.  It's pretty bad.  Something has got to go.  My condo is pretty small and I just don't have room for everything.  I think it's time to start selling my no-longer-used rubberstamps on ebay.  Just as soon as I have some spare time.

Sock yarn!

It's been nearly a year since I last bought sock yarn.  I've been far too busy making yarn to buy it.  But these two skeins tempted me too much to deny them.  The top yarn is Dream in Color's Smooshy sock yarn in the "Ruby River" colorway and the bottom is Hand Maiden's Casbah in the "Amethyst" colorway.  I'd heard that Smooshy was wonderful yarn to knit up and the Casbah... well the Casbah has cashmere in it.  Need I say more?  I don't know what the Smooshy will become but the Casbah is destined to be a pair of Red Dwarf socks.  They'll be my first socks with a pattern - as opposed to my standard, generic ribbed sock.  Now I just need to find the time to knit them.  After I finish the second fingerless mitt.

When I have a few free minutes or when I'm sitting on the couch watching a movie, I'm usually spinning with my spindle.  In many ways, it's easier than getting my wheel into position and tuned up for a spin.  As you can see, I've made good progress on the 2 ounces of Merino/pygora I bought.  If the finished, plied yarn turns out well, I'm going to enter it in the skein contest at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.  I've got three or four other skeins I'm considering entering.  I need to give them a good, hard look to see if they're up to par. 

Such an amazing weekend!

It started Friday night when I went to see the Yarn Harlot.  I left work early and rushed home to fix the spindle box I'd botched.  (NEVER work on a detailed project when you're tired.  It seems so obvious but I still forget from time to time.)  I was intending to give it to the Harlot but when I got to the library where the talk was, I saw draped across the seats in front of me, a very familiar shawl.  The shawl belonged to Abby Franquemont, the queen of spindle spinning.  I knew that if anyone could appreciate what I had created, it would be Abby.  And boy, did she!  She "got it" immediately and when I gave her the extra one, she was like a kid in a candy store.  She was so excited.  Then, she asked me if I minded if she blogged about it.  I was so excited I almost swallowed my tongue!  Mind?!  I was thrilled!  (I put four of them up in my store tonight.)

You would think that after that excitment, the Harlot would be a bit of a let down, but she was hilarious!  She's even funnier in person than she is on her blog.  She talked for about 45 minutes and we were laughing the whole time.  Her comedic timing is perfect.  I would love to hang out with her.

While all of the spindle box and Harlot excitment was going on, I kept smelling this amazing wool wash.  Talk about inexplicable knitter behaviour:  I think I scared a few people when I asked them if I could smell their shawl or their sweater.  I explained why but I still think they watched me carefully.  I never did find the owner of the amazing wool wash so I still don't know what it was.

Saturday I went to Spinner's Flock where I became member #678.  I bought fiber (big surprise) and someone was selling back issues of Spin Off at 3 years for $10.  I now have 12 back issues to read in my spare time.  (Ha!  Spare time!  I totally crack myself up!)  It was a fun day of socializing but this introvert crashed while we were at lunch.  I spent the rest of the day, cuddling with Seli and watching movies.

Sunday was spent sewing spindle boxes except when I took time for groceries and to buy more sewing supplies at Joann ETC.  I should be going to bed now but I'm a bit too keyed up.  I think I'll grab one of those back issues.