I've Been Spinning Again!

Crafting like mad!  It's the season for it.

Right now I have some suri on the wheel, blended with bamboo and a little bit of red firestar.  It basically looks like I've torn the hair right off of a goddess's head and am now tenderly and completely obsessively drafting it out onto the bobbing in tiny, lace weight plies.

Guys I know I say this all the time but it's fibersex.

I've recently finished a true three-ply (not chain plied!  First time ever!) of fall-colored BFL that was a blast, and a single (second time ever, eee!) of merino based heaven-batt with awesome stuff in it that I can't remember right now.  Both are waiting on me to set them, and I plan on thwacking the single a bit because I am horrified any single I make is going to drift apart mid-knit.

That 3 ply I made, by the way?  Used my new lazy kate.  Husbandcreature crafted me a three-bobbin lazy kate to attach to the base of my wheel to replace the kromski 2 ply one.  It's charmingly simple, and extraordinarily effective (even if the bars do point the wrong way).  I adore it!

He also made me a new orifice hook for Christmas, well, the handle to it.  He'll put the wire in it soon and I'll get to take it for a...spin.  Get it?

Ha...haha...

I love handcrafted shit.

Hmm, what else?  Crocheting!  And knitting!  I have picked up my husband's abandoned gift scarf for me made much too wide and out of red heart, because someone had to and it was just staring at me.  I've also finished a scarf for a cousin (who loved it!), made a poi (but not its mate), two fingerless gloves, half a bag for the baby toys, a pouch for my DND dice (don't judge), half a doily for my mum, a set of mittens and a matching hat with ear flaps and pompoms for baby Jack, uh...I can't remember what else.

CROCHET ALL THE THINGS.

And there's no slowing down now!  It's still cold outside!  KEEP TREADLING AND HOOKING.

Pictures to come, probably, maybe.

Later y'all!

New Splurge

It's been a long time since I had money to spend, but for my birthday, my father gifted me a hundred dollar spending spree at anywhere I wanted.  The rules were that I had to be able to stand for extended periods of time, and eat a meal without throwing it up.

Sounds like weird stipulations, I know, but when you consider that I had my first baby five days later, it kind of makes sense.

Well, two and a half months after that event, I finally felt like I had and needed the time to get out and about.

And you know perfectly well that I went to a fiber shop.

I went to WC Mercantile in Navasota, Texas.  It's not quite the mom and pop one hopes for, but they always have something special.  My haul:

A teeny adorably tiny kromski niddy noddy, a 5 foot ashford niddy noddy (which I only learned after opening is not actually a finished piece...oi), another bobbin for my Sonata Ginny, a WPI tool (no more marking inches on sharpies and pencils!), and two GORGEOUS rovings.  One is 60-40 merino and bamboo that is basically the exact color of sherbet and makes me hungry just to look at.  The other is good ol' BFL and is this beautiful brown and orange streaked thing that makes me think of fall, hay rides, pumpkins and pumpkin pie/lattes/everything, crisp autumn air, the whole amazing season.

If a fiber makes you smile that much, it's worth buying.

Well, with birthday money, anyways!

I think that's it?  I could be forgetting something.  But I don't think I am.



As amazing as those fibers are, I actually already have something on the wheel and all spindles.  Right now I am working on a black and white braid of BFL (think Cruella - it's like one long black and one long white roving glued together).  I've split it into fourths, and am spinning one fourth with lots of twist and very steady and thin.  The other three fourths will be my first attempt at thick and thin, again slightly overspun, and I'm going to take a stab at a spiral plied yarn with the two.  My last attempt was pretty frustrating (now I know why so many people use commercial cores), but hopefully I've tweaked my methods enough to not waste this fiber!

I'm also hoping to go to a knitting group (maybe to knit...maybe to spin...we'll see!) tomorrow for the first time in years.  It may not work out this week, though, because husband will be out of town for the day and then very tired when he returns...so I may spend the day with little one instead.  :/

Sorry for the overuse of parentheses and lack of proofreading!  I have some killer allergies right now and Claritin doesn't do a darn thing for me.  That, and the pharmacist just told me I'm DEFINITELY NOT EVER supposed to take Benadryl while breastfeeding, which I'm pretty sure is crap, but I'm putting up with the splitting headache and awful sinus blahness just in case...for now...

So bear with me!  :)