I needed a laugh

Today has been a test of my nerves and stamina and the Swedish Chef from the Muppet Show can always makes me laugh when I need to.

Just in case you didn't know... Never Threaten A Chicken!!

Tour de Fleece 2008 results

I finished plying this morning. I underplyed some of it so it was a learning experience too, but I'm still very happy with the results. I also realized last night that I had been plying in the wrong direction for about ten minutes. I had to pull that all off and I just plyed that to itself and got about 10 yards to use as sock toes maybe.



I bought my first bag of silk/wool blend roving today at Knitch. It's fuschia, so whatever I end up making with it will be day-glo. I'm not afraid to wear pink. :)



I also bought some baby alpaca roving. The color is closer to the actual color in the second photo, which is also almost the color of my own hair where there's a little more chrome in it.

Tour de Fleece update

I've finished both of my singles for my Tour de Fleece project.



I'm letting them rest for a couple of days and I plan to ply them on Saturday or Sunday. I'll post pix of the finished yarn on Sunday.

Yarn! Real yarn!

I plied my first skein and blocked it yesterday. It is a medium chunky weight and I got about 200 yards in total. I just need to figure out what I want to make with it to have as a keepsake of my first skein. Anyone have any suggestions? A lot of thick and thin, but I'm thrilled/stunned at how it turned out. I was so anxious about plying it and messing it up. I went pretty slowly at first and picked up a little speed once I got a feel for it. I still had to tell myself to slow down a few times before it got away from me. I made a homemade lazy kate with a box, a 5 pound bag of rice (for weight) and a couple of knitting needles and it worked well, but I definitely need some tension on the bobbins. They spun a little too much a few times and I had to stop and unwind it from the knitting needles.





I also finished my first single for the Tour de Fleece. This should end up about a worsted weigh I hope.



We saw the new Batman movie today and it's excellent!

I got a bag of blueberries from a friend (thanks Rob) on Thursday and I made a batch of muffins today. I had to test a few to make sure they weren't overbaked. I might need to test just one more before bed just to make absolutely sure. Hopefully there will be some left to take to Knitch tomorrow since I really don't need to eat them all myself.

My Tour De Fleece

Here is the fleece I'm spinning for the Tour de Fleece. It's from Gale's Art and the colorway is called Majic. I started spinning it on Sunday. I just pre-drafted the last part of the first roving this evening.



Here is the pile of pre-drafted roving before I rolled it into a ball. The colors in this roving make me think of the rainbow sherbert we used to eat as kids.





This shows how big these bobbins are. There is already about 3 ounces a fiber on the bobbin. I could fit all 8 ounces on one bobbin, but I'll spin half each on a bobbin for plying.



The DH and I had a wonderful time at Claudia's house this past Sunday. We were there to celebrate her Birthday. It was a fun and relaxing time and we even got to put together some jigsaw puzzles. I love jigsaw puzzles! I have lots of great memories of the talk and laughter over puzzles at my mom's house during the winter.
Katy and I had a great time putting together a wooden puzzle she had on the coffee table. I've never had the chance to work on a custom made wooden puzzle. It was such a treat! A group of us put together a couple more puzzles before we left. I think they did two more after we left. There is a huge collection in her basement that we were allowed to look through. It is an amazing collection. I bet I could find every puzzle I've ever done in her basement. We even saw a puzzle with 18,000 pieces!

Tour De Fleece 2008

I've joined Le Tour de Fleece 2008! This year it's a spinning challenge. I bought more of Gale Art's lovely merino roving last week in pretty summer colors. I'll post a pic in a day or two to show what I'll be working on for my challenge. I will hopefully have it all spun up and plyed by the end on July 27. Thanks Nell for letting me know about this. Sounds like fun! Click on the link in the sidebar for more info. It started on July 5th, but they accept late signups as long as you finish up your challenge by the end date if you are interested in spinning along. Now I have the Kraftwerk song 'Tour de France' going through my head.

My first spinning singles

I've been spinning every night since I got my wheel. I think I've worked on my knitting twice. It's new and I tend to concentrate on new things for a while. The knitting will return when I've gotten over the excitement and newness of my wheel.



The dark grey on the left is my very first single. and the blue on the right is my second. They are both Corriedale that I bought at Knitch.



These are both from Gale's Art in Stone Mountain and they are the same colorway. I'm going to ply them together. This is merino and I've really enjoyed spinning this. I bought more of it in another colorway last night.



I wish the wheel came with a lazy kate. The bobbins don't have a groove in them so the regular tensioned lazy kates available out there won't work. I may have to just build my own. I'll probably just start with what we locally fondly call a ghetto kate (shoe box and knitting needles).

We aren't going anywhere this weekend. We both just feel like staying home even though it's Pride weekend. Been there, done that and we just don't feel like getting out in the heat. We may go to the golf course behind us to watch the fireworks tonight. It's just a block behind us, so we can just sit in the back yard and watch through the trees if we don't really want to walk over there.