Early Presents are the Best!

While I was delivering some Kilt Lifter to her and her husband as a thank you gift, Raquel surprised me with an early birthday present! Thank you Raquel! Isn't it lovely? Creative and reusable packaging (wooden wine bottle case) stuffed full with eight ounces of stunning blue-hued merino/tussah silk roving! Hooray! I haven't tried yet, but I suspect the wooden case will be just the perfect size to stuff my spindle inside along with some roving for a little bit of protection. I love it. And in my favorite color too :)

Fire up those needles...

it's nearing holiday time.
That's right, Halloween candy is in the aisles...and next thing you know it it'll be stuff-yerself-with-Turkey day and then the official count down begins.

As such, the knitting needles have been pressed into action - various gifts are in the planning stage, others are in the execution stage :)

Of course, there's also some Personal Knitting going on...a pair of socks, Cozy (which actually got worked on this past weekend - 24 more rows done, and nearing the end of my 2nd skein of yarn - at least I *think* it's the end of the 2nd skein...I can't remember - the poor thing has been stuck on needles longer than I can remember. ) I'm flirting with the idea of knitting Leaves in Relief, though I'm thinking of doing it with a cabled braid down the sleeve instead of all those twining leaves....I certainly have the yarn for it - 1 full kilo of worsted wt cream colored Irish yarn...

Citrine!

Look! She's done! More details on her creation can be found here. She and Pasha are good friends - and they are going to be winging their way to a pair of sweet little girls who have been evacuated from their home due to Hurricane Katrina. I suspect when they evac'd they didn't take many toys, so hopefully these two will bring a bit of brightness to them.

Cat Bits

I've been taking a break from knitting to crochet....
... and I've found that while I can crochet reasonably quickly, and I love the fact that there's only one loop to keep track of, crocheting hurts my hand :( I don't know if it's the way I hold the hook, or if the hook handle is simply too small...

In any case, I have completed all the bits and pieces for a Matcha/Skimima/Flo & José - like kitty...and finishing syndrome has set in. What is it with finishing that makes me want to procrastinate and set it aside for later? Most of the hard work is done...all that is left is to put all the pieces together, after all!

All Skeined Up!

:) amazing the difference lighting makes...I am continuing to struggle to get accurate representation of the color of this yarn. Anyhow, there they are...all skeined up :) Aren't they lovely?

Pure Nerd.

Pure Nerd

69 % Nerd, 26% Geek, 21% Dork

For The Record: A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia. A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one. A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions. You scored better than half in Nerd, earning you the title of: Pure Nerd.

The times, they are a-changing. It used to be that being exceptionally smart led to being unpopular, which would ultimately lead to picking up all of the traits and tendences associated with the "dork." No-longer. Being smart isn't as socially crippling as it once was, and even more so as you get older: eventually being a Pure Nerd will likely be replaced with the following label: Purely Successful.

THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST

Prettily Plied

I'm very pleased to report that plying goes a lot faster than spinning :)

For a more details and bigger photos, go look here.

Of course, I haven't decided what I'm going to do with this yarn yet...I've got plenty more roving in this colorway - I think I bought 8 ounces total.

I'm currently contemplating keeping the small hank for myself to play with while offering up the larger hank for sale. In case you're wondering, the larger hank is 50g (about 2.5 oz) and contains about 79 yards (72.5 meters) of yarn.

Ready to Ply!

Well...Almost Ready to ply anyway :) I've got a full spindle of lovely Mojave colored Merino Roving spun up into singles - or one long single anyway. What is the proper terminology - does anyone know?

The plan is to transfer the yarn from the spindle onto a ballwinder so I can try to ply this into a 2 ply yarn using a center pull ball - I was going to try the Andean bracelet trick, but I'm worried that 1) I will wind up winding it too tightly around my hand and 2) the yarn will be prone to twisting on itself making a snarled mess.

Lack of Fiberly Pursuits

Well, work has got me in a slump. But perhaps you all have noticed...especially since I've been dreadfully remiss in updating my blog!

I seem to have recently fallen back into reading - mostly a wide variety of escapist reading...every now and again I work on a crochet project...but I've discovered that crochet seems to aggravate tendonitis in my hand. If I'm not reading or crocheting, I've actually found myself determined to completely fill my spindle so I can get to plying. It has to be close - it seems I've only got a few millimeters of unoccupied space before the spun yarn is flush with the edge of the whorl - the spindle still spins fine, and the accumulated fiber is not threatening to slide off the spindle shaft, so I guess I still have some more yarn to spin before I'm "officially" done. Interestingly enough, I've nothing on knitting needles at this time! How odd!

Gotta Love Technology

Well, it's been a while - needless to say, work has been keeping me plenty busy - the weekend was spent getting my weekly dose of sunshine (along with my fair share of bumps and scrapes...and apparently I got a bit too friendly with a prickly pear).

This morning I had planned on working from home (hooray for telecommuting) but that was quickly quashed by technical difficulties. I spent the first hour of my morning allowing the "Technical Assistance Center" break my machine further, only to have it returned to its semi-functioning self at the end of the call. Apparently if I decide to end the call, they consider the ticket closed, even if the problem is not resolved. How's that for customer service? *grumble* so after I get done with my phone meeting, I get to get back with the Tech folk to see if they can fix the problem.

Love it.

Recovery Weekend

Had a fantastic weekend just recovering - spent some time with Amy - and got a mixed assortment of stitchmarkers from her (all available at Amyville!) but sadly, I was too much the lazy (and hungry) individual to stage the photo shoots...lets just say it would have involved the stitch markers being displayed next to real size versions of the various foods...

Other than field trips to the north for food and yarn, we also popped into an amazing paper studio - I've always been fascinated with making paper - and they have a whole workspace and classes!! yeek! As if I need another craft! Lol.

The remainder of the weekend was spent either spinning (I nearly have my first spindleful of singles!) or curled up on the couch reading. I was a very much needed very relaxing weekend.

How odd.

Your Linguistic Profile:

70% General American English

15% Yankee

10% Dixie

5% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

it would seem, that even though I grew up in the midwest, and never ever spent any time in the south, I somehow speak 0% midwestern american and 10% dixie. The Yank comes from my time in College, I'm sure.

Shop's Open

Well, I've gone and opened an Etsy Shop - for now it only has marble magnets for sale, but once I get my spinning in hand, I hope to have handspun yarns to offer. Sadly, my sewing is always the hardest for me to work on, so fabric-goods like totes and softies may be long in making an appearance.

Sampler!

Well, I subscribed to the Sampler last month, and I received my August Sampler package while I was at the OR show. Lots of goodies to be had, but I especially enjoyed the following:

• A pearl choker made of pearls in clusters of three strung on what I think is Hemp string from MaizeHutton.com - I will probably have to lengthen it, as it is a true choker and I'm not accustomed to wearing them.
• Delicious Soap from Naikid Inc
• Tasty Summer Vacation Lip Balm (it's Vegan!) from Heather Joy
• Lovely Gift Tags from Annette Payne Designs
• Handspun Yarns from Midnight Sky Fibers
• A cute packet of fabric, button, needle and thread from Uplifting Arts
• Adorable Stationary from DeMarco Designs
• A sweet little Bee Charm from Amy Peters Studio
• and on my to check out list: Feed Your Head Books

Sorry, no photos, but you can certainly browse those Indie Artists and see their goodies for yourself :D

Exhausted.

Well, I'm back :) Spent the last week ogling and petting gear at the Outdoor Industry Summer Retailer Show up in Salt Lake City, Utah. Needless to say, I'm exhausted, and the gear is loooovely! Nearly no knitting was accomplished during this time, but my August Sampler arrived :) More tomorrow!

Spinning Bag!

Remember that floppy purse I made? Well, while it is a little floppy for regular use, I have discovered an excellent use for it! I use it to hold my predrafted roving while I'm spindling! I'm terribly uncoordinated and can't for the life of me figure out how to wrap roving happily around my wrist and feed it off for drafting....so this turned out to be the perfect solution. Stuff roving in bag, sling bag on wrist, and draft away :) Sorry, no photos of spindling in progress - it's going reasonably well, if a little bit slowly - the spindle is nearly full, so I suspect I'll be trying my hand at plying soon! hooray!

Nearly Frogged

I nearly frogged this project to turn it into something else...it had been on needles for what seems like quite some time - turns out it's not been too long - I originally had to rip it back out and redo math back in June - anyhow, I realized how close I was to being done, and I decided to finish it off. What is it? It's a Ribbon X-Back! Click on for photos and more details.

Connect?

Hey - does anyone out there use Connect? If so, and you want a code for 5 song downloads, please let me know. I don't use it, nor do I tend to download music. So...first come first served. :D And while this may seem like a blatant plea for comments, it's not. ;) not really anyway :D

A new Fiberly Pursuit!

Fantastic time was had the last few days hanging with other fellow crafters...

First was a farewell to Alison as she is moving from the Southwest to the Southeast...and while my time was limited, it was certainly good to be able to put some faces to blogs as a goodly portion of the ladies present were from the local SnB.

And yesterday I met up with Chris for a delicious Indian food dinner, lively and thought provoking conversation....and Crochet!

That's right - after all, you must have seen it coming, what with the small herd of Japanese Crochet Books that have landed in my library. And can you guess what I've cast my hook out on? Why it's a kitty...in the style of Matcha. Crochet is great - and there's only the one loop to worry about :) Perfect for portable projects :D Sorry, no photos yet, as I've just got a bit of a circle goin' on!

Shopping

Thanks to the pointers to CafePress and Etsy :)

I'm also going to check out Zazzle too.

I haven't been very happy with the available apparel products on CafePress - and I've not yet had a chance to look very closely at Zazzle yet. My main problem is ideally i'd like high quality organic cotton or hemp shirts - but the only way that is going to happen is if I print the darn things myself. As for the cards, cups, mousepads and such, I still haven't decided which way to go. Anyone have anything to say about either Zazzle or CafePress's print on demand for those types of items? Good quality? Crisp images?