Knit and Spin with Susan

Love and Sideways ...

So this is the 14th Valentine's Day I've spend with The Hubs. We have this weird thing about Valentine's Day, we both hate the commercial aspect of it. Although, if he'd get flowers just once... Anyway, for some reason we always seem to be dang grumpy on Valentine's Day. No reason why, just grumpy. (Flowers might help, or fiber) In order to combat it this year, we decided to split a 2lb box of See's Assorted Dark Chocolates   and do all of the Valentine's quests on World of Warcraft after The Girl is in bed tonight. Yeah, we're geeks. I need a break from fiber (shocking as that may sound) as tomorrow begins the full scale dyeing assault. Tonight's dinner is our usual special night fave, steak and artichokes with a baked potato and a bottle of red wine. The steaks will be served dripping with blue cheese tonight... Ummmmmmm....

The Yarn Harlot posted a rather earth shattering post yesterday.  She says Judith MacKenzie McCuin casually said in her class at Madrona that fiber should go into the drum carder SIDEWAYS.  This one little statement, and it's posting on the web seems to have set off quite the little fervor on the Internet.  Gotta love it... 

As I posted in the comments on her blog also, considering I've made like 30 sets of batts in the last two weeks, I'm wondering how much nicer they might have been sideways.  I'll have to experiment with the next batch.  I think it would make a big difference in how you can control the colors as they go on the carder.  It would certainly be difficult to get the stripy batts, but if you were making a well blended set, this might be key.  I wonder if this would make getting sparkle and such on easier, laying the sparkle in sideways...  I bet the silky fibers would be easier also...

Must try tomorrow if I find time, as tomorrow is DYEING Day.  I'm hoping for a pile of lovely pics tomorrow night!

Balls!

Intrigued? Good! Let me tell you about my balls. The little balls of wool, or neps, I have been putting into the last six batches of lovingly drumcarded batts. I promise there is no symbolism here, as The Hubs has been amazing the last few days skeining yarn in the office for me while he works and plays WOW (World of Warcraft). Being the handy guy he is, he's got it set up so he has it running with a timer on so he's alerted just before he needs to stop. Smartie pants! Needless to say this is making me feel much better about my timeline for the March show.

Back to the balls. These little wool neps look so cool in the batts and will add a lot of texture to the resulting yarn. I'm adding in other goodies like sari silk and angelina too. These will be a blast to spin! I've saved out a few of the leftovers from the drumcarder to play with. Normally these go into a basket and become my Leftovers batts but I want to make a few samples so folks can get an idea of the end result. I'm going to put them up on a board or something at the show.  I've been making up some sparkly goodness too.  Life is fun, no?

 

 

 

 

From this to that!

I love rainy days.... There were even several rainbows today and a little bit of snow on the hills behind the house.

Today has been spent turning cones of yarn into 4 oz skeins. Frankly, it's not the most thrilling thing in the world to do. I much prefer dyeing it. It takes me about 2 hours on my electric skein winder that my dad built me to do a whole almost 3 lb cone. I get 11 skeins a cone so it's not too bad but still pretty slow. I think we can re-set the gears to go a little faster but much more and it will be hard to use. It sure would be nice if I could order it in skeins already... My setup is a little wonky but works for me. My dad didn't put in a yarn guide so The Hubs had to do a makeshift one for me today. Plus it was overheating and shutting off on me so I had to take the top off so I could put the fan over the motor. First class operation this Susan's Kitchen, huh?

I also received the cutest little Amiguarmi Bella from a lovely lady named Joy from Ravelry. She also sent me a lovely skein of handspun yarn which was so no necessary but totally sweet of her. Thanks Joy!

In the mail yesterday was my new spindle, a Kundert Denim Pine and one of the last bundles of Spunky Eclectic Corriepaca. Glad I got a little of this, it's lovely. I got mine in Mountain Majesty. This will be something for me for sure.

Happy Birthday Grandma Jan!

Today was The Hubs' Grandma Jan's Birthday. Of course, I won't spill the beans on how old she is... ( I should take a moment to apologize for the fact that this whole post is one giant paragraph, I have yet to figure out how to go to a second paragraph when using Typepad Mobile from the Crackberry.) The above cake was lovingly baked by yours truly, including the decorating job. Since several family members thought it was store bought, I think I did pretty good. That Wilton class I tool last year is really paying off. The cake inside was chocolate and white checker board. It was fun but messy to make. I have a neat pan set that has a insert you use while filling in the batter and remove to bake. It is beginning to look dark and ominous again in the sky, it is supposed to very cold and the snow level down to 2500 feet, maybe we'll see some snow flurries again!

Small World at dusk, with rain....

 

I thought the addition of the Disney characers wasn't too bad.  They made them fit in with the overall theme and style of the original parts.  Still, do we need the characters in everything????

I am home, I was wet, and now I am happy and dry in sweats heading up to skein yarn.  This Panda Sock is lovely!!!!!

Last weekend....

Ok. So I promised an entry a while ago. I have no idea where the last week or so went. I do know where I've been: Glamis ! Yup, spent the weekend doing a little off roading. Alex had a blast playing in the sand and dirt all weekend. I'd clean her up only to find her a dirty mess again in 10 minutes. Like I said, she had a blast. It was nice to get out again, our camper has sat idle for like two years. Off to Disneyland today, curious to see the new and possibly improved, possibly not Small World.

  Alex, and Cousin Andy being pulled by Grandad, with Bella butt following!

MIA again...

I haven't posted since Alex's birthday.  How dang sad is that????  I am going to attempt to get much better at giving my poor neglected blog some love.  I'm paying for the darn thing, might as well get my money's worth, right?????

I'm not sure how well I will be able to going to stick to this vow as I currently have 140 lbs of fiber sitting in my front hallway ready to dye.  YES, 140 POUNDS.  I am going to be a vendor at the Association of Southern California Handweavers Show March 6-8th and I need to massively ramp up productions for this.  Whoooo!  Scary, but Whooo!  I mean, I now own fixtures... Bought some old display racks from the Mervyn's going out of business sale for displaying at the show.  I'd better be serious now, right?? 

More to come, including, how to do nothing in Hawaii!

Happy Birthday Alexandrea!!

Today was Alexandrea's First Birthday!  We took her to Disneyland (we have passes) and played.  All in all a goodtime was had. The real fun will be this weekend, her party is on Sunday.  We practiced cake by getting dessert afterward, there was no hesitation about it, dove right for the cake.  That's my girl!!

So, I really do spinning still.  Here's some proof!

This is the Spunky Eclectic Club very first offering, Green Gables from April of 2006.  Why yes, I am a slow spinner!!!!  But it came out lovely and I am quite happy with it.  This was spun on Bess, the Ashford Elizabeth One that I have. 

Second up we have some lovely BFL from Rae's Yarn Boutique that I received a while back from her as a thank you for being her angel in a swap.  (Her swapper never sent anything.  Bad swapper!!)  I was trying for a bulkier two ply and I succeeded fairly well.  This skein didn't give me issues until I went to ply it, it was just off on the plying and it was too loose.  So I backed out the singles onto the bobbins and re plyed it.  This is not anywhere near as easy as it may sound, and I don't suggest trying it unless you are good and pissed about your plying job and insane.  There was yarn all over out bedroom, and I had to enlist my husband to keep tension as I separated the singles and he then wound it back on.  PITA!!!!  This was spun on Ricky the Fricke and plyed on Audrey the Mazurka. 

Finally, a little skein of random goodness I threw together last night.  This is made from a couple of batts I made up from the leftovers from drum carding and ends odds of handspun and other such goodies.  I keep it all in a basket and card it together when the basket gets too full.  Spun on Ricky, 42ish yards, about 6 WPI and 2.7 ounces. 

I went to a Fiber Festival Sunday in Torrance, and I swear it will be the next blog!

Fiber Festival!

On to the Fiber Festival!  Sunday was the Southern California Handweavers Guild annual fiber show in Torrance.  It's usually the only close fiber festival to me all year, so I really look forward to it.  They get a nice variety of vendors in there.  I resisted pretty well but I couldn't resist the following:

A giant 1.39 LB skein of space dyed Merino fingering weight yarn.  I'm thinking either a sweater or a Clapotis.  I'm not sure which yet.  Some lovely handdyed silk hankies, An adorable cat soap for my mom, A Thank Ewe stamp for invoices and some random fibers and sparkle for blending into batts. 

I also recieved some lovely silk caps in a swap with JacksBlueJane from Etsy the other day and I'm itching to spin them.  I think they will go on the wheel next...

How in the heck???

How in the heck has it been since October 10th since I last posted?????????? Sad, I tell you!!

Actually I know how.  I've been busy with lots of dyeing for the shop and trying to get it updated.  Alex has been quite time consuming lately.  And Halloween just happened.  So here's a quick update to get us back on track!

Dyeing:  I have been trying to develop actually colorways for my shop so things will go faster and be more repeatable.  This is harder than one would think.  Come up with the idea and work out the colors.  Write out the percentages of dyestock for the next batch.  Apply to actual fiber and rework the colors since they weren't quite right.  Check the look again once it is done to make sure it was as you hoped and if it needs to be reworked.  PHEW!  But I know this will make my life easier in the end to have colorways.  I'll still always have a few one of a kinds, since they are fun to do.  Squirt and see what happens. 

Spinning:  I organized a weekend spinning challenge on Ravelry for the Spunky Club folks for the weekend of Rhinebeck, since I so wasn't going (next year).  I wanted to get a full pound of yarn done in one weekend, which was of course an overly lofty goal for me.  I wasn't doing too bad until I managed to burn my hand making a Dutch Baby for breakfast on Sunday morning.  I forgot I had had the pan in the oven and went to pick it back up again after taking it out initially.  OOOPS!  Nice big burn on the palm of my hand under the thumb and a little on my last three fingers of my right hand.  It was killing me waaaay to spin for most of the day, but by evening I was able to ply up some stuff and spin a little more.  I did manage to finish the first month of Spunky Club from two years ago Green Gables and some fiver I had received from Rae of Rae's Yarn Boutique a while back.  We did prizes for the spinning challenge and it took a few days until I could do mine, a set of custom batts. 

Carding:  See above, better now, no time.

Alexandrea:  Cute as ever of course.  She is beginning to finally walk more and crawl less.  She is now off formula and on Soy Milk since her birthday is Thursday.  We will be celebrating it on Sunday though with just a token thing on Thursday.  She is also now sleeping with a blankie at night, and loves it, cuddles in all snuggie.  Here's the best things:  She loves water and has no clue what juice is!  She loves carrots and bananas and isn't much of a bread type things girl.  Meats are still iffy unless cooked soft and in a sauce. 

Bella: Being a dog.  Cats:  Think they deserve more treats.  Husband: Same

Coming up:  Why Halloween is such a big deal and Fiber in Torrance