Loving the Single Life

I'm partial to plied yarns, I admit it - at least in my own handspun. Though sadly, it takes so much more time to make a plied yarn than it does to make a single - especially if I'm plying handspun with more handspun! I'm trying to teach myself to love singles as well as slubs...I'm slowly getting there...

see? These are all spun from Mill End fibers - from the Brown Sheep Mill no less...The mill ends (because they *are* mill ends) vary in quality - with some drafting easily straight from the bag and others requiring considerable amounts of fiber preparation. Color range is also very limited, though the Sheep Shed Studio (the place that carries the Mill Ends) has recently started carrying first quality rovings from Brown Sheep in limited quantities, so if color is a must and you want to spin your own Burly Spun, now you can :)

In case you're wondering, these yarns aren't named after the desert - they were actually inspired by food. While the desert is a very colorful place, some of my yarns are inspired more by dessert ;) have a look over here to see what inspired this batch, and also to see them in their unskeined glory.

Not Traumatizing at All

It's been ages since I've had to speak in front of a group - work stuff doesn't count...I have to say thanks to any of you who made the trek to Tempe Yarn & Fiber to watch me talk and demonstrate the fine art of feeding a drum carder! It was fun, and I'm glad there was some fiber that needed "straightening" available - I had brought some fiber with me to send through the carder, but it was boring colored compared to the stuff in the "play" basket! And of course there were bits of stuff I haven't had a chance to play with yet on my own - like silk and recycled silk! I think the most rewarding part was after the demo seeing samples being spun up from the batts created during the talk. It always amazes me how different the yarns look depending on who spins em!

Oh, and just so you don't think I'm leaving you with yet another photoless entry, go have a look at the finished objects blog. There's a pair of buns over there :)

Mmmm. Crispy Goodness.

Yum. Normally, I'm all for full fat food, but only in moderation - mostly because I can rarely find a suitable low fat substitute. I do tweak my fair share of recipes, but often I'm hunting for snacks that fill my snacking needs between meals...and quite frankly, there are times when fruits and veggies just don't cut it.

I stumbled across these at the grocery store the other day, and unlike most baked chips, these are actual slices of potato! They're fantastic - and they come in three flavors! Hooray!

Curious about Carding?

Well, if you're local, you're lucky - because you can come and ask me questions to your heart's content. Me and my drum carder will be at Tempe Yarn and Fiber this Wednesday evening. Come say hello and meet me in person :P

Crunch & Snap!

Two noises that you do *not* want to hear when you are attempting to spin on your spinning wheel....

Seriously. First the Right Treadle did it, and then the Left one followed suit in less than 10 minutes! Just what am I talking about? The leather cords connecting my footmen to the treadles had broken - let me tell you - the first time (heck, both times!) it happened, I was seriously afraid I had somehow broken my wheel. Not a good thing, especially when in the midst of a spinning project. Luckily for me, I was able to salvage the remainder of the leather straps to re-attach the footmen accordingly. If it happens again, I'll be replacing them with hemp cord - I have LOTS of that. Anyhow, the new yarn is drying, so stay tuned for pics in the future :)

Published!

And I have this little guy to thank for it :) His name is Jacques and he can be found here!

For those that make a Jacques of their own, I have created a Flickr group to share photos :)

I did complete that spinning...

If you don't read my finished objects blog, I did indeed finish that five ply that the cats were so entranced with :) A photo is over here (scroll to the bottom of the entry)...and you can make it your own over here!

In other news, I'll be doing a carding demo at Tempe Yarn and Fiber in about a week - hopefully whatever bug I'm currently battling will leave me alone by then. I've got a box of mill end rovings in that need to be carded - I've gotten dreadfully spoiled since I have been spinning primarily from batts these days - no predrafting required :)

Since I can't concentrate on knitting anything other than stockinette stitch and I'm not energetic enough to tackle that box o wool, so I've picked back up the kitty pi bed and finished the knitting portion (hooray, stockinette!).

The cats seem to like it just fine the way it is:

Unfortunately they like it enough to kick each other out of it...See Troy in the background?

And here he is looking innocent - but note the flicking tail! He's just forced his sister out so he can have his turn in the kitty bed!

Luckily I have more of this wool, and I'll be making catbed #2 so they can each have their own - once they are both knitted up, I'll be pitching them in the wash for felting.

Meanwhile, the poor husband is asking after his hat....

Spike!

How strange, I was checking on my site traffic, and noticed a very strange and mostly unaccounted for traffic spike. The engineer in me turned to data analysis...and low and behold, I discovered that Carat had garnered a mention on MAKE! Tell me, how cool is that? I'm so proud :D

Mmmm Cheese.

With the spring here, and warmer weather, a transition back to shorts and more fitted clothing is in order....much to my dismay, things are not fitting quite like they were before the winter season set in. This might just be the jolt to remind myself that I wanted to work on my overall health and fitness this year...

So I've buckled back down, gotten out the measuring spoons and scoops and dusted the fiber off the scale (I have been using my kitchen scale to weigh fiber lately ;) )

I kicked off my renewed "diet" with Fondue for lunch - that's right - cheese. For lunch. On a diet. Yes, it is possible. I have never believed anything should be "off limits" while trying to pare down poundage...I also have never believed that butter, cheese or ice cream should be traded in for their "lite" counterparts.

Anyhow, back to the fondue - it was rather tasty, if I do say so myself. I steamed a bunch of vegetables (cauliflower, carrots, a small potato and asparagus, if you must know) and then nuked up the fondue - it was quick and easy to prepare, and consisted of a smidge of flour, chicken broth, a touch of mustard powder and pepper and cheese of course - 2 ounces worth. It was more than enough to keep me happy thru to dinner time. And for you Weight Watchers out there, it was well worth the 8 points ;)

Matcha Madness

It must be a sign of spring and summer...

First I got a little promo thingie for the stuff on the left (which, by the way, I can't find at my local grocery stores at all :( )

But while I was hunting for it, I decided to ask the Starbucks Guy if he knows if they might carry it since Starbucks and Tazo seem to be paired. He didn't know anything about the Matcha Latte concentrate, but he did let me know that the Matcha Green Tea Frappuccino is coming back!

Set your calendars - they are due to be available Monday April 3rd!

Batt'r Up!

Thanks to the late season bugs making their rounds, the weekend was dedicated to creating inventory for the local yarn shop in addition to my own store. I'm all batted out I think. A weekends worth of hand carding has me surrounded by batts.

I did spend some quality time with my wheel...the cats were plenty happy to let me spin peacefully when I was just spinning the plain wool...but the plying was a different story altogether. That's what I get for trying a five ply (what cat could possibly resist all that string waving about?!) and it certainly didn't help that 2 of the plys were rather shiny - especially the one with beads and sequins all over it! Stay tuned, that skein is in the finishing process now.

Troy may look all innocent, but really, he's quite the little hellion. I think at one point I was stuck behind my wheel, one cat was batting at the beaded thread and the other had managed to grab hold of one of the other plies and was dragging it away.

Here he is, resting up and saving energy for the next spinning section. And don't buy that "who, me?" look of his. He's got it perfected after all the mischief he's raised :)

Stash Reduction

Alright, I'm going through my stash and am trying to find new homes for some of my yarn - you can see the list (now updated with photos) here. A bonus, it's on its very own blog - so if you are inclined, you can subscribe to its feed :) The list is also linked in the sidebar, so if you don't want to go with the feed, you can opt to click over there any time ;)

Kitchen Lab

My poor kitchen is just not turning anything interesting out lately - I'm not feeling motivated or inspired to cook....

However, this seems like something right up my alley. Perhaps I should suggest it to my cohorts back at my alma mater...

Kitchen Aid *check*
Tasty Ice Cream Base *check*
LN2 *drat* unfortunately, my stock of LN2 is running a bit low. *sigh*

Happy Spring!

Vernal (spring) equinox is today :)
While my favorite season is the autumn, I also love the spring - it's usually marked with a spurt of wildflowers and the hills all bedecked in color, but this year we've been having a bit of a shortage of rain.

Sadly, today is a photoless post.

For those who are crocheting patterns by me, I have created flickr groups for each of them...
Right now, I think they only have photos posted by me...If you have made any of the little creatures, feel free to join the Flickr Groups:
Little Lambkins
Ilion the Cat
Carat with Carrots

Stay tuned for new batt colors - I've been giving the drum carder quite the workout and I'm quite pleased with the new color combinations :)

Some favorite things....

Amongst the things I seem to adore, bowls are one of them. I really like this bowl - first, because it has a cute kitty that looks an awful lot like my kitty (along with some mice) playing with a ball of yarn....

Second, because it's the perfect size for a serving of ice cream or other tasty things that should be indulged in with moderation...like pudding or custard....or molten cake.

...or sweetly handspun yarn ;) (thank you Illanna!)

Finally, you can see the third reason I love this bowl - it clearly proclaims the contents as "mine" :D

I'm adoring the yarn, I love it when people bring me gifts I can learn from! I plan on studying it closely so I can create more beaded yarns for the shop! (yeah, I know I said that would not likely happen again anytime soon...but soon after I was gifted with this ball, I somehow stumbled into Beads Galore and wound up leaving with a pile of beads that I think will go quite nicely with some handblends I've got bouncing around in my head. Unfortunately now I have to see if they will fit through the orifice of my spinning wheel. Stay tuned ;)

Forced into the kitchen

Apparently, Peanut Brittle is considered a seasonal item. I was hunting high and low for it the other day, to supplement the hiking food pantry (with the amount of hiking that is done around here, it is safe to say that the regular gorp and beef jerky were long ago tired of). Anyhow, as there was no peanut brittle to be had at the store, I figured I'd try my hand at making my own. Yeah, the color is off...but I figure the next time, I'll get it right.

Recipe and comments can be found here.

Springtime Buns

With the lack of rain, all kinds of little creatures are wending their way down into the residential areas. Each morning and evening I could watch cottontails browsing the grass in nearby parks and greenbelts, and they provided the inspiration for this little guy.

His name is Carat :) Don't you just want to reach out and give him a hug?

Luckily the record breaking lack of precipitation was finally broken over the weekend, giving me an opportunity to actually finalize the pattern for Carat.

Should you wish to make a Carat for your own, his pattern is available at the shop now :)

a little bit of this...

...and a little bit of that.

Twas an exciting weekend, actually *seeing* my yarn and some of my batts at the LYS gave me a little jolt of surprise and pleasure :) At the same time, it also made me realize my personal store is near to empty, and that I better get spinnin'! Hoping for a little rain to perk the wild flowers down this way, I spun up another skein of Desert Globe Mallow - this time with more Mallow ;)

I did somehow find myself sucked into a bead store, so while I did vow to not do beaded yarns again, I'm going to have to give it another go...This time, I think I'll be going with beads on the plying thread rather than beading the singles as I spin.

In addition to pondering and designing yarns, I sat myself down to think a bit about some other design submissions...my friend Alison is launching a new e-magazine: For the Love of Yarn - go check it out :) She's accepting design submissions in both Knit and Crochet in addition to articles...so if ever you've been wanting to be published, here's an opportunity :)

Glorious Sunsets

This photo (I love the desert - we have such spectacular sunsets!) led to this:

A bowlful of wonderfully colored merino...yeah, I admit to using a huge mixing bowl for my fiber prep activities :) May as well make my kitchen multi-purpose - it is, after all, where my drum carder lives!

Speaking of drum carders...that big bowl was turned into this:

Isn't it lovely? In case you're wondering what the batt looks like rolled, have a peek at the shop! That's right, I'm now offering batts for sale, in addition to handspun!

Busy and Exciting

Last weekend was a busy one indeed, what with the redesigning of the sweater and the subsequent ripping and reknitting. Before I went and got that wild and crazy idea of redesigning my knitwear, I had spent the day carding and spinning.

Since I was wanting to test out my CD Spindles, I spun up another skein of Nighttime Sky. I'm pleased to announce the spindles seem to spin beautifully and are certainly not lacking in capacity! I fit the entire 4 oz skein quite happily onto my CD spindle. In case you're wondering, I decided to do away with the binder clips, as I was afraid they would snag my precious handspun - the weight of 2 CDs seemed to be fine for plying purposes.

In addition to playing with my new spindles, I finally got around to executing on a yarn that's been floating around in my brain for a while - a closeup and more info can be found here.

And now for the exciting news: my yarns and some handblended batts will be available for purchase at a newly opening local yarn store (in addition to my online store, tho it is rather depleted for now)! You locals should have a peek at Tempe Yarn and Fiber - their Birthday and "Grand Opening" is this weekend!