So many hobbies!

I want a drum carder for Christmas!

I was a carding fool this weekend!  I made art bats, which were a total blast:

I dyed BFL, Merino/silk, Merino/mohair, Merino/bamboo and superwash Merino in three dye pots:  red, blue and black.  Different pots getting different combinations of wool.  I found that the Superwash Merino took the dye the best of all of them, giving me jet-black roving.  The BFL and Merino/mohair came out gray-black. 

The colored bits are sari silk.  This bat had a base of black BFL, with some red Merino/silk and what I think is straight bamboo (although I have no idea where I got it).

I made two bats similar to this one.  The other one produced this yarn:

The sparkly bits in both the bat and the yarn is ultraviolet Angelina fiber.

Eventually, I got tired of making bats out of my limited supply of stuff and turned to my stash for inspiration.  I pulled out some washed locks of brown Polwarth and brown Merino and decided to combine them and card them up.  While I was carding, I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with about a pound of brown wool.  It was beautiful and soft but it wasn't inspiring me.  While rooting around in my stash, I found some Firestarr that had been in my stash for so long I'd forgotten I had it.  The lightbulb went on.  After quite a few hours of carding, splitting, carding again, splitting, carding, adding Firestar, carding, adding more Firestar, splitting and carding yet again, I ended up with 10 gorgeous, sparkly bats:

The one on top is smaller than the others and I added a bit too much Firestar.  Eventually, I'll spin up all this bounty and probably knit a shawl.  Or maybe a vest.  (The sparkle isn't really this obvious but I had to use the flash so the picture would come out.  Oh, and I've already straightened that picture.)  Using just had cards, it would have taken me at least 5 times longer to get all that wool carded and blended.  Darn, I have more brown locks (Corriedale, I think) in the basement that I could have carded.  It's a good thing that at our next Guild meeting I plan on renting one of the drum carders my Guild owns.  I kind of doubt I'll be getting a drum carder for Christmas so renting is the next best option.  I have about a third of a fleece of beautiful Cormo that needs carding.  Guess what I'll be doing over the holidays?

Saturday

 

Saturday was Worldwide Spin In Public day.  I drove to the Spinning Loft in Howell to join the crowd of spinners.  The original plan was to sit out on the sidewalk in front of the shop and spin.  Unfortunately, it was too cold so we were inside in the hallway between the Loft and the restaurant next door.  We all had lots of fun.  I spun up some Texel to add to my breed book.  Friday night I spun both yak and camel.  They were hard, at least for me, to spin alone so I blended them, separately, with some lovely soft Merino wool.  The knitted swatches are going to be wonderfully soft.

Today was the Spinner's Flock Fleece Fair in Chelsea.  I went to keep my friend Alice company and ended up buying a couple of ounces of gorgeous angora fiber.  It totally wasn't my fault!  I blame Alice who made me go and Jan who owns the angora rabbit who gave up his fleece.  It's possible I was affected by the wool fumes as well.  Besides, it's really beautiful fiber.

Maker Fair

Wandering around Maker Fair Saturday was interesting but the part I enjoyed the most was teaching people to knit.  In four hours, I taught four people to knit and one to do cross stitch.  I'm not the world's best teacher but they seemed to get it by the time we were done each time.  One of my students was a 16-year-old boy.  Way to go kid!

When we finished our shift, the nice ladies who ran the needlearts zone let us take home some of the hundreds of knitting needles, yarn and crochet hooks that were donated:

 

The needles are Lantern Moon rosewood needles and the crochet hook is also Lantern Moon but made of ebony.  OMG!  Lantern Moon!  Apparently, the light colored end on the crochet hook was a mistake so Lantern Moon donated a bunch of "wrong" hooks.  It is hands down the best crochet hook I've ever used and the most beautiful.  It's a size G, by the way.  The Silky Wool they couldn't use because they didn't have a swift to wind the hanks and didn't have time to wind balls anyway.  I'm not sure what I'll make with two hanks but I'm sure something will come to me.  In the meantime, it'll be welcome in my stash.

It occured to me I never showed you the quilt labels I had made:

 

My friend was nagging me to put labels on my quilts for posterity.  I finally caved and had these made.  They're a little "sweet" which isn't exactly me but I like them.  In case you're wondering about that white blotch, I fuzzed out my last name.  Now I just need to remember to actually put them on my quilts.

Something horrifying happened to me this morning.  I found a wool moth and it was loaded with eggs.  *&^%$%#@!  I had two of those huge Ziplock bags so I loaded them up with all the wool and yarn that would fit and shoved them into my chest freezer.  They'll hang out there for a few days, come out for a day or two to let any eggs hatch then it's back into the freezer for a few more days.  Hopefully that'll take care of any infestation in that bunch of yarn/fiber.  I'll be damned if I'm going to let those moths eat my wool!  I wish I'd thought of this last winter when I could have just shoved all my wool in the trunk of my car.  Now I have to do it in shifts in the freezer.  You know something, I have wool, yarn and unspun, ALL OVER MY CONDO.  It's everywhere!  I need to buy more jumbo Ziplock bags.

Spun bunny

 

Spinning this was pure pleasure.  This is 100% angora yarn.  Oooo!  Aahhh!  Oh, yeah, this baby's soft!  And spun from stash fiber, I might add, so the stash is diminished.  This is a 2-ply, sport-weight yarn and I have no idea what I'm going to do with it, aside from entering it in the angora skein contest at the Michigan Fiber Festival in August. 

That's all I have to show for tonight.  I created my quilt sandwich for the green/copper quilt tonight but I'm still deciding if I'll be quilting it myself or have someone else quilt it.  The easiest way would be to quilt it free-motion but I really stink up the joint when I try it.  I could use my walking foot but it would be a pain in the rear with all the turning and adjusting.  So, free but frustrating or send it out and pay.  I'll likely quilt it myself because the free factor is hard to ignore.

I'll be away from the blog until Monday.  My sister is coming to help me declutter my condo so there won't be anything to show you anyway.  Maybe before and after pictures.  So, have a good weekend.  See you next week.

Michigan Fiber Festival

The day started out rainy but happily, cleared... and became really humid.  Despite that, I managed to drop off my yarn at the skein contest and do a little shopping.  I managed to surprise myself by leaving with money left over.  No one was more surprised than me.

 

My first purchase was 8 oz. of BFL.  The brown you see running through the braid is natural brown BFL.  I can't wait to see what this one looks like spun up.

 

My second and last purchase was two braids of Superwash BFL, both in the same colorway.  The colors in BFL seemed to be brighter and clearer than any of the Merino I saw.  I just have to slow down and be careful not to put too much twist in the singles or the finished yarn is going to be harsh.

I entered two skeins of yarn in the contest and I was pretty surprised when both one blue ribbons.  Yippee!  I don't have pictures yet; you couldn't pick up your yarn until Sunday and I was only there on Saturday.  A friend who was camping picked the yarn up for me today.  I'll have pictures as soon as I get it back.

 

The first bobbin of singles from the Merino/bamboo I dyed last week.  Not much progress has been made on my socks since I last posted a picture.  I'm still working on them, just very slowly.   

Navajo plying

 

From left to right:  CVM, Cormo and Cormo.  That black wool is amazing.  The brown and black are all natural colors straight off the sheep.  Both were combed with Louet mini combs and spun right off the comb.  The white Cormo was flick carded and then spun from the lock.  Once I had my singles spun, I used this video by Sarah Anderson to learn how to Navajo ply.  It's such a great tutorial, I was plying almost perfectly the very first time.  This yarn is destined for a pair of mittens.

I started cutting fabric for a new quilt last night.  My inspiration was this quilt back from Red Pepper Quilts.  My colors will be oranges and blues.  I hope it looks as good in reality as it does in my head.

Finally, garden pics

 

Not too shabby for the front of a condo.  The pots on the right and left hold green beans; the bed on the right two kinds of tomatoes; the bed on the left more beans, grape tomatoes, cucumbers and miniature cantelope.  The long narrow pot in front has the carrots.  (They don't seem to have germinated very well.)  And, of course, the two potato boxes at the back.  To the left of the garden are four more pots that have my Purple Viking potatoes.  See:

 

Baby 'tato plants!  Okay, here's my question:  These five sprouts are all coming from the same piece of potato, do I cut off all but one or do I let them all grow?  The pot they're in is about 18" across.

I bought more raw fiber (I know, I know but I couldn't resist!), this time Polwarth.  I'm in love with Polwarth's crimp.  Even after scouring, the crimp is still gorgeous:

 

How could I resist such gorgeous wool?  And it's sooooo soft, too.

 

I've gotten back into bead embroidery again.  I love to see pictures of other people's studios so I thought I'd show you a shot of mine.  I've been happily working on a variety of projects besides beading:  spinning, making oodles of strawberry jam  (ooo, I need to post a pic...), crochet and the gardening.  I'm even going to finish (finally) the theater book I learned to make months ago in a class.  I've been having fun.  Here's my latest finished piece:

 

It's supposed to be hot and humid this weekend so I expect I'll be holed up inside with the air conditioning, only venturing out in the early morning or after the sun goes down.  I really don't like hot and sweaty.  On the plus side, escaping the heat means more time spent working on projects so, bonus.  What will you be doing this weekend?

Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival, Part 1

I had so much fun, I don't really know where to start.  Let see... I learned for myself on the drive there that books-on-CD are FABULOUS.  I hardly noticed the nine and a half hours of driving.  In case you're curious, I listed to Sherilyn Kenyon's "Dark Side of the Moon" on the way there and "The Hobbit" on the way back.

The campground - Patapsco State Park - was a very nice place.  You need a code to get in so the only people there are fellow campers.  My campsite was very close to the showers and had electricity.  Very convenient for blowing up my air mattress.  I got my tent up before a brief rain shower but I needed help from a nice park ranger to get the rain/dining canopy up.  I'd forgotten how big it was.  Most of the canopies you can buy now are 10ft. square but I'm pretty sure this one is 15ft. square.  It was plenty big enough for the picnic table and camp chair with plenty of room left over on either end of the table to stand and cook.  Sorry guys, I didn't get a picture of the camp.  Why you ask?  Because it rained virtually the entire weekend.  It was a bit of a drag but I had a great time camping.  The tent mostly stayed dry and the only reason there was water in it was because I didn't trim down my ground cloth and water get between the floor of the tent and the ground cloth.  Thank goodness I found the rain canopy or I would have had a very different experience however.  Once I got home, the tent, tent canopy and rain canopy got tossed over the railing on the back porch to dry.  Most everything was wet.

Saturday morning I started hunting sheep photos but I'll save that for the next post.  I got in line at The Fold to get some Socks that Rock Twisted yarn.  I've been to Maryland twice and both times the line to get Socks that Rock yarn has gone out of the barn and around the corner.  I was determined and got my yarn:

 

Once I finish this post, I'm casting on for this shawl. 

After The Fold, I headed over to the Bingo Hall to see how my yarn did.  I was both happily psyched and rather puzzled.  Check it out.

 

The Merino/bamboo yarn didn't place at all which was puzzle #1 because I thought it was pretty good.  I thought the judge's notes were rather cranky.  That wasn't the main puzzle though.  Puzzle #2 was that the purple 100% spindle-spun skein one a blue ribbon but the cashmere/Polwarth skein that was only 2/3 spindle spun (one ply on the spindle, the other on my Elizabeth, spindle plied) won 5th place but got the special prize for the best spindle-spun skein.  That's was the fancy purple ribbon is for.  I'm trying really hard to wrap my brain around the whole thing.  I'm completely thrown because the skein I spun specifically for that award didn't get it but the skein that's not even completely spindle-spun did get it.  I'll wrap my brain around it eventually.  Sometimes I just very slow.  Hey, I just realized I won both 1st and 2nd in the same class (yarn from roving chemically dyed by the spinner).  Cool!  The Cormo yarn got 3rd place.  I need to practice carding and spinning from hand carded fiber.

Whenever I sat down somewhere, I'd chat with the folks next to me.  That's how I met a group of ladies who were playing with their new spindles.  They asked me if I was going to the Spin-in.  I hadn't been planning on it because I was pretty tired by 6:00 Saturday night but they were fun and I wasn't ready to go back to my campsite.  Unbeknownst to me, there were contests and prizes.  I won a Festival t-shirt because I came the farthest.  Yay!  One contest was the longest singles while spinning blindfolded.  I didn't think to pull out my camera until the contest to see who could spin the longest singles while wearing plastic grocery bags on your hands.

 

These are two of the ladies I had met earlier.  I'm not positive, but I think they tied for the longest yarn.  It's hard to see but the spindles they're using have, instead of a whorl, three spokes sticking out with glass knobs on the end.  There's no ring or whorl.  They're pretty cool looking but I tried one and it didn't spin as long as I like.  I stayed for a couple of hours before going back to camp.  Once there I was in bed by 9:00 and slept until 7:00.  I was a bit tired.

There were some things I just couldn't pass up and ended up coming home with me.  Some sock yarn:
 

The skein on the left is mill end Socks that Rock, the middle skein is SW Merino and nylon and the right skein is SW Merino.  There was also some roving:

 

The braid at the top is BFL.  On the left is 50/50 Merino/silk.  I just couldn't pass up those jewel tones.  The roving on the right is Cormo and while I love the color, I'm very disappointed with the quality of the roving.  It's full of nepps.  (I just tried to find a definition for "nepp" and I'm thinking I'm using the wrong word because I couldn't find one.  By "nepp" I mean little wool pills caused by the fiber being stretched too far and then released.  When it's released, it springs back and makes a little knot of wool.)  This roving is full of those little pills and it's impossible to spin a nice, even yarn.  Well, not unless I want to stop every couple of inches and pull out the nepp.  I don't so I'm not even trying to spin an even yarn.  This one's going to have character.  Here's what I'm spinning it on:

 

This is the one purchase I really shouldn't have made:  a gorgeous Golding ring spindle.   Am I the only one who has those kind of purchases or is anyone else afflicted, too?   This one put me over my budget.  Oops.  I just can't bring myself to regret buying it though.  It's beautiful, hand carved and spins great.  And I've been wanting one for a while now.

I had so much fun this past weekend.  The rain really wasn't bothersome.  I slept great on my air mattress.  Fortunately, I bought a down comforter with me because the double polar-fleece blanket just wasn't enough.  With the comforter, I slept in the lap of luxery.  And my new toys were a joy to use.  Here's a shot of my new camp stove and camp pan cooking up sausage and mushrooms for a breakfast burrito:

 

It's tinged green because the rain canopy is green.  (Yes, that's my morning dose of caffeine and carbonation to the right there.  Hey, you drink coffee in the morning, I reach for a Dew.)  Let me tell you, when it's damp and chilly out, a hot breakfast is wonderful.  I can't wait for next year. 

A nice relaxing Sunday

Once I finished my taxes that is.  After that, it was pretty low key.  There was a fair amount of snuggling and napping with Seli.  It was beautiful outside:  sunny with a clear blue sky.

Saturday I finished spinning the first cop of Targhee singles and wound them off onto my spindle Lazy Kate:

 

And then started the next cop.  My spindle box will be my constant companion for the rest of the week.  The white is finished and I've started the palest purple shade.

 

Even though I have way too much roving, I couldn't resist this one.  It's from Creatively Dyed Yarn purchased from The Loopy Ewe.  It's Merino and Seacell.  Isn't it gorgeous?!

 

I finally got around to the baking I wanted to do last weekend.  My hand of bananas was brown and shriveled and perfect for banana nut bread.  All I did was rip off one end and squeeze the banana out of the skin.  Easy peasy.  I want badly to slice off a piece but I'm saving it for my very lucky co-workers.  It makes Monday mornings a little bit easier.

Surprise

 

When I got home Friday night, this box was waiting for me.  I wasn't expecting Stonehedge to process my Corriedale fleece so fast so it was quite a surprise when I opened the box.  As you can see, I've already started spining it up.  I knew the fleece was a nice one when I sent it off but I wasn't expecting just how soft it would be once it was clean.  I'm very happy with how it's spinning up.

I just finished watching disc 6 of the first season of "Enterprise."  I know I'm a little slow on the watching but for my fellow SciFi geeks who may not know, I found 3 Easter Eggs in the Special Features.  Instead of using the down button to scroll through the list of features, use the left button.  In the first menu, two of the images on the left of the screen hide Easter Eggs and in the next, the middle image hides one.  Also, my friend found an Easter Egg in disc 4 of "Firefly" that hides Adam Baldwin singing the Ballad of Jayne.  It's a hoot.  Same thing as "Enterprise," use the left button instead of the down button.  Scrollwork on the left lights up. 

Spring is finally starting to arrive to Michigan.  Most of my bulbs are up and the birds are coming back.  I always forget how quiet winter is until I start to hear the first birdsong of spring.  It's a very welcome sound.  I'm not fond of silence.

A girlfriend and I saw "Watchmen" today.  I was warned that it was very violent and even so, I was surprised by how much violence there was.  Still, I liked the movie.  The acting was great and the CG graphics were incredible.  I'll admit, I haven't read the graphic novel so I'm not missing what they had to leave out.  One of my friends who has read the novel, was rather grouchy about the missing parts but they are apparently going to release a DVD of the entire graphic novel with all the bits added back in.