So many hobbies!

The Great Batt-making Weekend

Since I discovered that 8 oz. of fiber isn't enough for most of my projects, I took steps.  I bought 14 oz. of roving to make my own batts.  My camera refuses to correctly photograph purples but the left-most and middle balls are purple.  Plus, light blue and melon-orange.  I spent all day Saturday carding and made 13 batts.

This was the order of the carding:  purple 1, melon, purple 2 and light blue.  After the blue, I pulled the batt off the drum, split it in half, put the first half through and then the second half.  This is the drum after the second half was carded.

And the finished batt coming off the drum.  The melon roving was only supposed to be an accent so only 2 oz. of that color were purchased.  The other three colors were in 4 oz. balls.

All 13 batts.  I ended up using about 12 oz. of fiber in total.  I expect I'll start spinning pretty soon.  All that lovliness is calling to me.

I want my two dollars!*

I finally broke down and bought white miso paste to make my miso soup.  To make it more traditional, I also bought kelp to add to the soup.  It tasted fine but I think the yellow miso would have been much more flavorful.  I'm still searching for yellow miso.  Here's a shot of my mostly-yummy soup:

I also added shiitake mushrooms and tofu, just like in Japanese restaurants.  There were little bits of miso floating around so I don't think I disolved/mashed the miso quite enough. 

Sunday I exchanged gifts with my parents and opened the combined gift from both my sister and my grandparents.  When I blogged that I wanted one of these for Christmas, I honestly didn't believe I'd get one.  You know, it's like when you were 16 and you added a car to the Christmas list you gave your mom.  You didn't actually think you'd get a car.  Same thing here except this time it actually worked.  Behold:

The Stauch Petite.  Isn't it beautiful?!  I've even made my first bat, modeled here by the handsome Galen:

More carding will have to wait until after Christmas however.  Bummer.  I have a house to clean and a bit more baking to do before Friday.

I've been toying with the idea of finishing as many works-in-progress as possible.  I've got about 3 quilt tops to finish (the actual quilting will have to wait), some yarn to dye, and 4 or 5 bats to spin.  I guess you can say I'll be doing a Finish-a-thon.  Start the new year with the old year's projects done.  Join me?

 

*This will make sense if you've seen the movie "Better Off Dead."  It's hilarious.  Plus, it's an inside joke for my sister.

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?