So many hobbies!

The hiatus is over

Well, almost.  I'll be back to my normal blogging starting Sunday.  My girlfriend, Alice, stopped by Tuesday evening and fixed my computer for me.  She restored it back to October 2nd before everything slowed down then did a system clean-up that included deleting temporary files.  Am I the only one who didn't know you're supposed to delete your temporary files periodically?  It took an hour to delete 8 year's worth and 3G of temp. files.  Alice was laughing at me.  A lot.  She went home a told her husband and he laughed at me.  A lot.  The end result of her efforts is my computer now zips along like it's supposed to.

The Fiber Expo went very well, better than I was suspecting.  My goal was to make back my booth fee and I accomplished that and more.  I'll be back next year.  I met lots of nice people, many of whom had some very nice things to say about my spindle boxes.  Naturally, I forgot my camera.  (I think I need to go to a blogger support group to help me deal with these bad blogger issues.)  The organizers of the Fiber Expo was wonderful, nice people.  There were donuts and coffee available each morning and someone came around a couple of times each day with hot cider and fresh apples.  I had a very nice time.

Yesterday as I walked to my car after work, I met a man walking his 6-month Newfoundland puppy.  I LOVE Newfies!  The puppie's name was Rose and she was just a big teddy bear who wanted nothing more than to lick my face.  She was so sweet.  I still have hopes to move to the country and I'll get a dog, or two, when I'm there.  I'm mostly a cat person but we had a Hungarian Viszla when I was a kid and he was a wonderful dog.  The puppies are uber cute.  Red has been gone at least 15 years and we're STILL telling each other Red stories.  I'm informally investigating dog breeds to see which would be the best match for me when I'm able to get one.  I want a big dog (I don't get little dogs) and one that's a good guard dog since I'll probably be living alone.  It has to get a long with cats since life without cats isn't worth living.  And it has to be one that likes going on long walks and, possibly, jogs with me.  When I quit running regularly, I was up to 3 mile runs.  I'd like to get back to that eventually.

I'll ramble more on Sunday.  Have a great weekend my peeps.

I haven't forgotten

I have been crazy busy lately which is only part of the reason I haven't been posting.  My home PC has slowed down to an absolutely crawl (remember dial-up?) and between that, my sister and I doing a clean-sweep on my condo and getting ready for the Fiber Expo, no blogging has been happening.  I'm pretty sure, since my virus software is up to date, that my PC isn't infected but beyond that, I don't know how to figure out what's wrong.  Last weekend, my sister stayed with me and we spent three days doing a clean-sweep on my condo.  The three days was supposed to deal with the entire thing but instead, we spent nearly the entire time on the basement alone.  The end result was two loads of recycling, two trips to Salvation Army and 7 bags of garbage.  I got rid of crap I've been carting around since high school.  We're only about a third of the way through the whole process but it won't be until spring that my sis comes back (she lives in Pennsylvania) to help me finish it.  It was such a huge job, there's no way I would have tackled it on my own. 

The prep for Fiber Expo hasn't been going at the speed I would have liked but considering some of the crap I've been dealing with, personal and other, it suppose things aren't too bad.  I'll have 10 spindle boxes finished.  Did I tell you my oven died?  On the day I was planning to dye roving, I go to turn on the oven to bake said roving and nothing happens.  This prompted the purchase of a far too expensive replacement which was only delivered yesterday.  I won't have the roving stock I was hoping for.  I did go through my stash of handspun and pulled out the yarn I'd spun because I loved the roving but did't have plans for.  Most of my handspun I'll never use so why not sell it to someone who will.

I haven't disappeared and as soon as this weekend is over and I figure out my computer problems, I'll be posting more regularly. 

Not productive

This was supposed to be a productive weekend for me.  I took Friday off to dye roving for the Fiber Expo.  I put the roving to soak Thursday night, Friday morning I starting mixing up dye.  All was going well until I tried to turn on the oven.  See, I cook my roving in the oven to set the dye so having a working oven is crucial to the dyeing process.  The stinking oven wouldn't turn on!!  I said a whole lot of words that would make Dad yell at me, practiced avoidance for a while and spun some of the Polwarth/angora then pulled out the phone book and started calling appliance repair places.  By 3:00 I was $35 cheaper with an oven that still didn't work and the knowledge that I HAD TO BUY A NEW ONE!  More bad words were spoken.  So today, not only did I have to shell out way too much money to buy a new stove, but the darn thing is going to take 10 days to be delivered since it was a special order (I have one of those stupid 24" apartment stoves).  Ten days!  I am so not a happy camper.  Pretty much the only good thing from this weekend was this:

 

This is 300 yards of my future hooded scarf:  1 ply of Cormo/silk and 1 ply of Polwarth/angora.   I haven't spun up the second 4 oz. of Polwarth/angora.  I should have spun it before I started plying but I just couldn't wait.  The rest of the spinning and plying won't happen for a while. 

The Cormo, washed and dried.  It's very squishy and soft and I have no idea what I'm going to do with it.  I might put it up in my store. 

I made crockpot corn chowder today.  Just what was the evaporated milk supposed to do 'cause it didn't thicken it at all.  I think of chowders at being thicker, heartier soups.  It was good but the consistency was more soup-like that chowder-like.  Any suggestions?

Note:  When I got up this morning, it had thickened up nicely so I've got my answer. 

Hey, an FO!

 

(That's "finished object" for those of you not in the know.)  There's a full 4 ounces on the spindle!  That cop is 7.5" tall and 4" wide.  The darn thing was HEAVY by the end of the 4 ounces.  I had no idea I could actually fit that much on a spindle and still have enough shaft showing to turn the spindle.  Oh, the fiber is the crappy nep-filled Cormo roving I bought at the Maryland show back in May.  I'll post a pic of the finished yarn on Thursday after I skein it up and wash it. 

Sorry I've been gone

I'm sorry, I've been dealing with some things and I haven't been in a posting mood.  I took a break from life for the weekend, though, and had some fun.  Friday night I hung out with friends and Saturday I spun almost all day.  It's been cold in the mornings here.  Not cold enough for my down jacket that has a hood but too cold for for the fall jacket that has no hood.  Which has been making me really want a hooded scarf.  A year or so ago, I bought some 75% Cormo/25% Bombyx Silk roving from Foxfire Fiber & Designs.

The pin drafted roving was processed so well, I didn't need to look at my hands while spinning.  I watched several movies while spinning up 8 beautiful ounces of the stuff.  I've got two full bobbins.  I'm going for a 2-ply yarn ('cause you know I love plying) with the Cormo/silk for one ply and some 50/50 Polwarth/angora (that's been hanging around for more than a year, too) for the other.  I haven't started the Polwarth/angora yet.  This is the hooded scarf pattern I've picked.  (It's a Ravelry link so my apologies to those of you who aren't on Ravelry yet.)  I'm not too fond of white so the dye pot will eventually come out.

I picked up more fabric for future spindle boxes:

 

I'll get to making more of those later this week.  I'll try and post more often but I can't make any promises.