So many hobbies!

Gotta love, 'shrooms!

Mmmm, Cremini mushrooms, sliced, sauteed and added to spaghetti sauce.  My favorite sauce is Classico Tomato and Basil.  I have spaghetti a lot.  It's easy and fast after a long day of work and very yummy covered in fresh grated parmesan cheese.  It's what I had for dinner tonight.

I forgot my camera for the Fiber Expo, but someone took a picture and sent it to me.  My roving sold the best.  The handspun, not so much.  A number of folks had some nice things to say about my spindle boxes.  Next year I'll do somethings differently:  order a banner with my logo to hang on the back wall; make up small signs, particularly for the handspun; I'm trying to decide between a real cashbox and just stuffing my earnings in my pocket; possibly a rug to warm things up; lights; and some kind of system (lattice, pegboard, wire rack...) to hang handspun and/or roving at eye level.

I was forbidden by my sister to buy more roving after we de-trashed my condo.  She told me if I needed to go shopping, I had to go through the large bins of roving in the basement and shop there.  She was a bit annoyed with me when I told her I bought this:

 

It's Merino/silk/bamboo and it's soft and luscious.  It's also brighter than this crappy picture:  blue, green and aqua.  It's the purchase I always make so I have beautiful, cheerful winter spinning and I always buy from Winterhaven Fiber Farm.  I just love the way Jenny dyes.  Plus, it's the only roving purchase I've made since May (the May roving is already spun) so I don't feel guilty in the slightest.  The rest of my spinning this winter will be from stash diving.  There's some really nice stuff in there.

 

I've given myself a mission to complete as many of my UFO's as possible before the end of the year.  I've already finished spinning and plying the Cormo roving I bought in May.  The spindle above has the third quarter of the graduated purple roving I dyed earlier this year.  One more singles to spin then I can ply.  The rest of the UFO's are:  fingering weight socks from Socks that Rock, the sport weight socks from my handpainted yarn that I haven't touched since last winter, a handspun shawl, some Polwarth I'm spindle spinning, the last 4 oz. of Polwarth/angora to spin and then ply with the Cormo/silk singles that I've already spun.  I'm not knitting any Christmas presents this year so Christmas knitting isn't a concern.  (Everyone is getting jam and/or cookies for Christmas this year.)  It'll be nice to start the new year without any old UFOs hanging over my head.

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. 

Nothing too exciting

I'm sorry to say I haven't been doing anything terribly interesting.  I've been sewing spindle boxes and cutting out the components for more.  Much I'd like to, I haven't started on my next quilt.  I finished two spindle boxes last night and I've just put them up in my Etsy store.

 

This one was commissioned by Pat.

 

And this one is for anyone who wants it.  More will be coming.

I've been thinking

Off and on I've been thinking of whether or not I should keep up my blog.  I've been dealing with some personal issues lately and I feel sometimes like I haven't been keeping up my side of the blogging bargin.  I feel like I've been boring and not very productive.  Not productive = no blog fodder = boring blog.   But when I think of the friends I now have because of my blog, I know I'd miss all of you too much if I gave it up.  So I'll keep blogging for a while longer and I thank all of you for your friendship.  It means more to me than you know.

I have a new toy:  an Ann Grout spindle.

 

It's a bottom-whorl spindle with a ceramic whorl.  It spins like a dream and for a nice long time.  My only complaint is I really could use a notch on the side to run the singles through but other than that, I love it.  It's very different from my other spindles. 

 

I'm spinning some gorgeous Polwarth that I'm in love with.  My singles are a little too fine for the weight of this spindle but I'm enjoying it too much to switch to another one.

(Hey, Yen, Ann Grout is a potter at State College, PA.  We should go visit her the next time I come to visit.)

Still spinning

 

All I've been doing this week is spin and I'm almost done with this cop.  I'll have finished yarn to show Sunday night.  It'll be my fourth skein to enter in the skein contest at Maryland.

I ordered some camping equipment for my trip to Maryland and it arrived during the week:  a tent and a Coleman stove.  This weekend I get to play with both of them - trial runs to make sure they work the way they should.  Well, as soon as I buy some propane I'll get to play with the stove.  The tent just requires 10 or 15 minutes and the back yard.  Not so much fun will be hanging out at Midas while my car gets an I'm-going-on-a-roadtrip checkup.  Here's hoping it won't be a big deal.  At least I know my brakes are fine since I had the entire braking system replaced last year.

I really need to carry my camera with me at all times.  Tuesday I stopped at the Spinning Loft to pick up the bulky flyer for my Elizabeth and hung out for a while.  One of Beth's friends came in with her new Bosworth Attache Charkha and spun an incredibly fine cotton thread.  I sat there wishing I'd brought my camera.  I need to get one of those tiny ones that you can carry in your pocket so when I find/see cool things, I can share them.  The charkha was cool.

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.

Loving my new spindle

 

I'm hoping to finish this yarn in time to enter it in the skein contest at the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival.  They have a special prize for the best spindle-spun skein so I figured I'd go for it.  I dyed about 6 ounces of Targhee in graduating shades of purple and I'm on the next to the last shade for the first ply.

 

I love how you can see each colored layer through the whorl.  I took each shade and pulled the roving into quarters.  Each cop will start with white and work to the darkest shade.  Once I ply, I'll have sock yarn that moves from white to dark purple.  The tentative plan is one sock that goes from light to dark and one from dark to light.  I'm rather fond of funky, and hey, purple socks rock!

Still not satisfied with the color

Well, my peeps, you know that sky blue yarn that I overdyed to a medium turquoise?  It's still not right.  Or rather, I want to use it for a nice warm cowl and that color won't look good on me so I need to try again.  Possibly purple but I'm leaning more toward a deeper blue.  Yeah, definitely blue. 

As for purple dyes, I dyed up some Merino/bamboo roving today.  Because bamboo is a celulose fiber and not a protein fiber like wool, it won't take acid dyes.  This means you need to dye the roving darker than you normally would because the undyed bamboo fibers will lighten the color.  Anyway, the finished roving is drying and will be available for a photo shoot later this week.

 

My newest spindle was delivered Saturday.  It's a .8 ounce Comet spindle from Tracy Eichheim.  It's one of his production spindles which means it's nicely affordable but still very well made.  I've been searching for a spindle that will spin for a long time and I'd heard good things about Tracy's spindles so I ordered one.  Everyone was right:  these spindles do spin forever.  This thing is the Energizer Bunny of drop spindles!  Seriously!  By the time it slows down, I need to wind on anyway.  If you've been looking for a long-spinning drop spindle, order one of these.  Love!

I'm in the mood to bake something scrumptious.  Anyone got any good recipes they'd like to share?  I have some bananas that are happily on their way to black so I'm thinking banana nut bread will be forthcoming... as soon as I clean off the kitchen counter. 

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.

The new baby

 

My new Forrester spindle.  Isn't it gorgeous?  A Christmas gift from my parents.  I haven't told them yet that they bought it for me.  Christmas money is a lovely thing.  Thanks, Mom and Dad!

 

I haven't had much time to play with it but it seems to spin nicely although not as long as I'd like.  Still, it weighs less than an ounce and the whorl is less that 3 inches wide so I guess I can't expect a marathon spin.

My other new baby is an iPod Classic.  I have a small problem, however.  Somehow, I told the thing I speak some Asian language and now nothing is in English.  I have no idea what I did or how to fix it.  (What?  Embarassed?  Not me!)  Does anyone have any suggestions before I haul off to the iPod store in the mall?  I'm usually not this dense when it comes to electronic toys...