Madness.

I'm fairly certain that all of my kids are going through some kind of.. phase. I keep telling myself that they will be calm at some point. They'll stop screaming about everything. Things will "normalize" - whatever that is.

I haven't had the emotional/mental energy to blog. Nothing *bad* is going on. Just the everyday life of three boys. Which is enough, believe me.

Here's what I've been doing when *not* tearing my hair out:


This is a spin along (spin-a-long? I just don't know) from Hobbledehoy. I've started spinning it as a fine single to be chain plied. Mine is the 4th Doctor's Scarf colorway.


I've been making rolags! These aren't great looking, but they're only attempts two and three. Unlike the ones I pulled from the drum carder, these are skinny and long. How am I making them if not on the drum carder, you ask? (Okay, I know you didn't ask.)


B and I finally made a blending board! I've been obsessively thinking about, plotting, and planning this thing. It didn't work out quite how I'd wanted - the keel is majorly hacked. But it works! I wish we'd put the cloth another inch or so from the end and cut the board shorter. But these things are doable, though not high on the list.


This is one of the Elf's birthday gifts. It's my attempt at a intarsia/woven stranded hybrid. It's knit entirely from handspun. Not perfect, but I'm proud. I'm also making him some small crocheted Spartans (not historical but rather from Halo) but couldn't be bothered to take pictures.

In addition, I've been dyeing for the shop. I posted a large (for me) update today. And here's the admission, I've been spending more time than I should playing Borderlands. We finished all the DLC yesterday and started Borderlands 2. Yes, it's an addiction.

Oops

It would seem that I've been neglecting this blog. Here's a smattering of pictures to prove that I haven't been slacking elsewhere, too.


Muddy Rainbows - TdF13 spinning.


Super Heroes and Villains (from the Phat Fiber boxes) - TdF13 spinning.


Batt carding, spinning, and the Beast - more TdF13 stuff.


Campfire batt


Rainbow roving


Larger version of my Phat Fiber contribution this month - Sun Dappled

I've also dyed a mess of things in the last few days, but I haven't edited the pictures yet. Basically I've been wool obsessed (shocked, aren't you?) for the most part. We're working on the Elf's homeschool evaluation, the Imp's amazing transition out of diapers, and all the usual Summer craziness.

Etsy.

Okay. I did it. I spent all day writing listings, affixing tags, and taking pictures. I've uploaded all of my currently available yarn to my Etsy shop.

Yay! Right?

Well, Friday night (or Saturday morning) I'm going to put my shop on vacation until Sunday afternoon. This weekend I'll be at the Mayhaw Festival at Golden Acres Ranch. I don't suspect that I'll sell anything there, but I'd rather not double sell something, you know?

Now I'm off to put babies to bed. Then I'm going to sit down with some lovely 50% merino 30% bamboo 20% tussah silk and spin away!

Yarn Along

I meant to post this yesterday for Nicole's Crafting On series. But.. I didn't. For various reasons.

At any rate, here's what I've been working on:


Two bowls from leftover bulky yarn. Not enough to make anything worthwhile. And it turns out that these are kind of addictive. I looked over a bunch of patterns, saw how it was generally done, and winged it from there.


The Beast wanted to show these with some of his critters (made using Linda Dawkins' wonderful patterns).


Here's another that's waiting to be felted. It was knit from two strands of worsted yarn.


Still working on this hippo. Why, of why did I pick lace weight yarn?!


Microgreens shooting up. I didn't use the "proper" sunflower seeds (I used bulk-meant-for-eating seeds). I'm not sure how these will taste or when, exactly I should harvest them. I'll be Googling that today, I guess.


From Friday through Monday I spent every free moment working on gnomes for the shop. I ran out of felt, can you believe that? My regular source isn't stocking any more so I've had to seek alternate places. It's more expensive and hopefully at least equal quality. Sadly this means that all gnomes listed after 2/15/13 will be $4.50 each rather than $4 each. Which, if you shop around on Etsy, isn't an unreasonable price. Anyway, buying the felt spent all of my "chicken money." I realize you have to spend money to make money, but it's still depressing.

Reading! I forgot to take a picture of what I'm reading. Oops. Currently I'm reading Made from Scratch by Jenna Woginrich (I picked up two of her other books from the library yesterday) and The Death Relic by Chris Kuzneski (a LibraryThing Early Reviewer book).

Linking up with Ginny for the Yarn Along.

Another shawl

I've finished another handspun shawl. This one from Sticky Jam Hands, Daydream, And Deep Woods. I tried something with the increases which made a sort of butterfly shape. On the edge I added some corespun in dark green with little metal leaves. Whee! It'll be up in my Etsy shop shortly.

Yarn

I finally finished B's pants!

I'm still working on the duotone throw. It's great for watching movies - I can just knit away without paying attention. I'm feeling a definite need for something more involved right now to go with it, though.

To that end, I'm going to rifle through my Etsy yarns and knit a shawl. A shawl that I will be designing on my own with only a basic recipe to follow. It won't be an amazing new design, that isn't the point. The point is that no one is buying my yarn and I feel bad. To get rid of the bad feeling, I'm getting rid of the yarn.

I will be waiting until tonight or tomorrow morning to do this, though. Because I thought I'd give anyone interested a chance to buy or swap for any yarn that catches their fancy before I take it out of the shop. The coupon code "flighty" still works for 20% off, too.

Sleeping and a shawl

My days have been filled with images like these:

My hands have likewise been busy. Since I didn't finish this shawl by Halloween, which was my original goal, I now hope to have it done by the end of the year. I'm on row 138 out of 170-something. Sounds easy, right? Each row is something like 768 stitches. It's damned near neverending.

This is my favorite part so far. The lattice-like lace is just so pretty. When I'm done I'll overdye the whole thing to make it all black.

The Elf wanted to knit his grandmother in Ohio a hat. So I spun some yarn for it. He emailed her to make sure she'd actually like a hat (he doesn't really knit and a hat seemed easiest). She doesn't. She'd prefer a scarf - which is too much of a project for the Elf. He'd never follow through with it - and even he knows it. So now I have a semi-bulky yarn with no project in mind.

Grr.

I promised myself that I'd only spin for specific projects. All the "fun" yarns I've spun are in my shop. They aren't in great quantities. I can't imagine what people would use them for. Which is stupid, isn't it? Trying to sell something that even I can't come up with a use for. Bah. So in an effort to clear out my shop of "useless" handpsun yarn I'm offering a coupon code for 20% off in my etsy shop. Just use "flighty" when you check out. I'll leave the coupon up until the end of the year (or when I run out of yarn!).

Linking up with Creative Friday!

Busy busy.

I failed to take a picture of all the gnomes lined up on the table to show how busy I've been. But I have just listed four sets of weather gnomes in my etsy shop.

Also, there is a giveaway over at Lori's amazing blog. You can enter to win some of my handspun merino yarn!

The weekend.

Wow. This weekend was very full. It helps that it started Friday afternoon. B came home sick, slept for an hour or two, and felt better. I went to Friday night knitting at my very favorite yarn shop and worked on my Arsenic and Old Lace shawl. Saturday was my oldest niece's 15th birthday party. More knitting ensued. That afternoon and Sunday were filled with wool, crafting, and video games. Mmmm. And iced coffee.

Gnomes!

This is the corespun yarn I was working on.. well.. a while ago. I finished all of it up on Sunday. It's been washed and is drying now.

A shipment of 175 "naked gnomes" arrived on Friday.

Finally washed, measured, and photographed my "luxury" Sticky Jam Hands yarn. It's spun from equal thirds of merino, bamboo, and tussah silk. I wish you could stick your hands through the screen and feel this yarn. It is divine (and listed in my Etsy shop)!

A photo session

I had a helper while taking photographs for the shop yesterday.

He was being a bit camera shy and quite honestly wasn't feeling so great. It seems that, on top of everything, the two youngest and I have gotten sick. There's a nasty cough/cold thing going around these parts and we've been hit. The Elf had a brief visit with said illness last weekend. Being the trooper that he is, it only had him down for a day. Me? I'm knocked flat. Seriously - enough already!

So of course yesterday, when I could barely croak let alone speak, the doctor called me back. It is now medically official that I had a miscarriage. I'm still doing fine. My father, oddly enough, is taking it pretty hard. Apparently my mother had several miscarriages. I suppose it was very hard on them both. It's times like these that I wonder what it would be like to have my mother still alive.

At any rate, I've photographed and stocked the shop with a few new yarns. Today I'm going to spin my merino/tussah/bamboo heaven. I'm wondering though. How do I label it? Most yarns are 80/20 wool/silk. Or 50/50 wool/bamboo. I can't see myself saying 33.3333333/33.33333333/33.33333 merino/silk/bamboo. Bah. How does one word that?

Weekending

I have been hard at work spinning, plying, weighing, measuring, photographing, describing, and otherwise completely engulfed in yarn. Stocking an Etsy shop is extremely time consuming.

Help! I don't have a name for this yarn - suggestions?

Other than that.. I think I have a stomach bug and would dearly love to sleep for a few days. This is not to be, of course, but it would be nice.

Bombs, Hippos, and a cute Toddler.

Linking up with Ginny for the Yarn Along.

Reading The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon. Here's one of the completed bombs for the Elf's Legend of Zelda bomb bag.

How's this for an adorable hippo head? If you know me, you know that I have a strong dislike for lace weight yarn. It hurts my eyes and makes me crazy. So of course when Emily sent me a new pattern to test (which ought to have been in bulky or worsted), I dove in with size 1 needles and held my alpaca lace yarn double. Can you say masochism?

I listed some new yarn in my Etsy shop and spent the morning taking more pictures of "new" yarns to add. I use a play silk, some pillows, and a patch of sunlight on the bed for my studio. This was my adorable helper today. The Beast, a rainbow dog, and a red lightsaber. Never a dull moment around here.

Poor photographs

It's another overcast day and I'm left to take pictures in poor lighting. It feels like I've spent the whole weekend washing dirty alpaca fleece. And I guess I sort of have, but it's all done now. I'm going to try to hand card some of it because I'm just too anxious to wait a week for my drum carder (estimated delivery on the 28th!).

I'm nearly finished with a custom order. I'm just waiting for the beeswax polish to soak in a bit before I attach the wee hats.

Finally finished the scrappy shorties. So many ends to weave in. It was insane. These will be listed in the shop once I get better pictures. Hopefully I'll get the Beast to cooperate and model them for me.

This roving look so much better unraveled. I think I'll take a new picture to show you guys tomorrow. There's so much more purple and yellow than you can see here.

Remember that yellow and orange mess I had in the dye pot? These are the results. It's more orange and pink than I'd planned, but I think it'll mix well with the tropical firestar I have.

Yarn giveaway

Spin, spin, spin. This is my life.

A two ply and a single. I'm hoping my single proves to be spun well enough not to pull apart. To be honest, that's why I ply so often - I'm not confident about my singles.

And here's my giveaway.

Details: Wool/mohair blend. Approximately 61 grams (2.1 ounces) and 31.5 yards. It's a pretty thick (and not consistent) yarn.

Leave a comment and you're in. Feel free to check out my Etsy shop as I have a few handspun hanks for sale (this is totally not required, just a shameless plug). I'll pick a winner on Sunday night.
The giveaway has ended! Thanks for your comments!

Weekending

This is how I spent my *entire* weekend. Okay, well, most of it at any rate.

Meet the newest addition to my shop! I'm so please with myself for being able to crochet with the suri/merino/bamboo yarn. That fuzzy stuff always gives me trouble. I had wanted to make him a shark. After six tails crocheted and ripped apart, I gave up. I even tried a dolphin tail. Bah. I apparently still don't understand the basics of making shapes. But he's done! And I'm happy with him. With any luck we'll have another mer-baby soon!

Don't forget about the jar cozy giveaway - I know it isn't much. But please do enter if you're inclined.

Things.

This week has been so up and down. I'm dizzy from the craziness of it all. The things that are getting me through right now are:
- my spinning wheel shipped and should be here Tuesday!
- mint-tarragon soda! I made more syrup last night. (just over 1.5 cups liquid to about .75 of a cup of sugar - I haven't tasted it yet, but it may be too sweet)
- pretty knitting (see below)

The weather has been crazy. Rain and wind and overcast skies with a slight sprinkling of sunshine. So we've been cooped up. Here are my zombie boys.

I'm stocking my shop today! And then (hopefully!) taking some better pictures of the mermaid to email off for a giveaway - I'll post details when it "goes live."

Birthday!

Today is my birthday! To celebrate I'm offering 20% off everything in my Etsy shop. Just use the coupon code "Bday31" between now and Sunday night. I'll deactivate it before I go to bed - this will likely be between 11pm and 1am (Eastern time).

Pictures of my lovely day will be forthcoming - B killed the camera battery and it must charge!

Overdue.

Well. So that absense was longer than I'd planned.

The Beast will likely wake from his nap any minute, so this will be short. I made black walnut dye! And tincture, but it's still "cooking" for another week or so.



The Elf and I gathered a slew of walnuts from our grocery store parking lot. I had so many and no one to pawn them off onto. We ended up composting half a bag of them.



These were my experiments. I didn't use a mordant, nor did I dye using heat. I just let it soak overnight and rinse-rinse-rinsed forever. The bottom layer is an old (previously white and well-loved) playsilk. The rolled up piece is a 75% wool, 25% nylon double-knitted sock yarn. The center is Sawya by Mirasol (pima cotton, alpaca, and silk - mostly cotton). The far right is a 100% wool that a friend sent me once upon a time (I've been slowly dyeing bits of it for projects). I think it's fascinating how different (yet similar) the colors are.

Tomorrow I hope to dye a cotton shirt and some wool felt. Yay!

On the gnome front, meet my newest favorite addition!



If my internet connection decides to like me again (as I've lost connectivity while writing this!), there will be some new (really new!) additions to my shop this afternoon (and more in the next few days as well).