The Dye Pots Are On!

This morning I set nearly 3kg of fibre to soak to open up the follicles in preparation for dyeing. The bulk of it is Merino top, but I also put up 225g of Milk Protein fibre, a bit of some lovely grey alpaca top, and 225g of nylon icicle/firestar for some experimenting. I think I will also do up some cheesecloth bags with silk nupps, wool nupps, and maybe some regular silk cocoons and Indonesian silk cocoons.

It's going to be a fun week! I hope it doesn't get too hot, otherwise it will be a little miserable in the dye kitchen...

Grey, Grey, Grey and More Grey With a Touch of Wet

The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Okay, after two months, the rain is starting to get me down. The metal bits on the spokes of my bubble umbrella are starting to rust. The cuffs of my pants are wet. I don't want to leave the house anymore.

Tomorrow's forecast calls for some brightly coloured dye pots, I think!

Summer at Liberty!

I am free! Free of school, at least for a little bit. I'm also free from work, which is a little worrisome, but I've mostly said "Eff it!" at this point. I have a lot of things to make! Fibre to spin! I have a loom I haven't used in years, and a spinning wheel that needs putting together still. 15 pounds of Merino top to dye! Bins of fibres and sparklies to blend together! And my newest endeavor--books to make!

There are tea cozies in the works for my favourite local tea shop, World Tea House. There will be lovely books with felted covers.. maybe yarn journals, or tea journals? Anyway, pretty books to pet and write secret things in.

So many things to make! So many lakes and beaches to swim! So many places to camp!

I hope summer comes soon.

Art Attack!

This morning was my second stint of doing a spinning demo at the Alderney Gate library. This morning I was in the children's section, and there were lots of other activities happening for the Art Attack programming. It was mainly interested moms that sat down and chatted with me, asking questions while I spun some wool. The kids were all tearing around with cool rock sculptures and balloon animals.

Wedensday the 20th at 10am I'll be back down on the main floor of Alderney Gate library, doing some more spinning. I will be plying together the work from the two previous days. Come out and see!

Wow. That went quickly.

Or at least it seemed to! That's right, I have burned through 20 pounds of merino top since January. And now I have to get more if I want to have stock for the Halifax Crafters show on December 4th and 5th.

I will be posting pictures shortly of all the luscious locks and top I have dyed int eh past two weeks. If you are going to the Spinners Retreat this weekend on PEI, Mimi from The Loop will have a bunch of my fibre (top and batts!) for sale.

The UberMom Has Left the Building

The UberMom came for another visit, and yesterday we went on our fibre tour of the Annapolis Valley. We hit the Avonport Discount Centre for awesome quilting fabrics, then the Just Us! in Grand Pre, and then finally Gaspereau Valley Fibres! I accidentally bought supplies to make quilts at Avonport, like I needed another hobby! At Gaspereau I bought two bags of Indonesian Silk Cocoons! They are so beautiful, I will have to take pictures of them. They look like the golden ghosts of leaves. I'm very excited about them, I think I will try dyeing them like the Yarn Wench does.

It's been a busy few days with the UberMom--we also ended up at Michael's while she was helping me look for a davenport for my den. I bought a dolphin no-count cross stitch to do for my boyfriend for his birthday. He pretends to hate dolphins really vehemently, so we all give him dolphin things for his birthday. I really want to find him one of those cheesy fleece blankets with some dolphins on them this year, too. His serious gift is going to be a proper martini shaker.

A davenport (or FlipFlip as they are sometimes called) was finally acquired at Ashley Furniture Warehouse. It will be ready sometime in October. It is red because Red Is Best.

The UberMom left early this morning. While it was still cool in the house I made two loaves of banana bread for my tattoo artist because I have an appointment today. I must love him a lot, my house is inching up to sauna again. Ick.

The UberMom Cometh!

Yup, the UberMom is visiting, and we will hopefully hit up some fibre and fabric shops while she's here. Tangled Skeins, maybe Gaspereau Vally Fibres? LK is in the neighbourhood, and maybe we'll pop by The Loop, too. So much fibre, so little time!

In other news, I am dancing at Masq on Saturday the 22nd, and at Women Who Rock on June 5th, and it looks like there is a big Serpentine Circus show later on in June. So very exciting!

Also among the excitement is starting library school in the fall. Sweet ass. I'm going to be a kickin' librarian!

Gaspereau Valley Fibres...

This morning I was up bright and early to go on a field trip to the Annapolis Valley with my local spinning and weaving guild, ASH. Much fun was had on the ride down as I got to meet someone I hadn't met before, a sassy older Scottish lady who'd done a lot of travelling in her youth and had lots of interesting stories to tell. Our other travelling companion had also lived up north, and they both made me want to give it a try! Maybe after I finish my MLIS...

Anyway, Gaspereau Valley Fibres was lovely as usual, and I restrained myself and only spent $80, all on fibre for blending and spinning. I got 194g of delicious wool/silk top in sunny orange/yellow with a bit of chartreuse, and I bought 200g each of some beautiful fleeces--white and coloured English Leicester, and a beautiful dark Romney with delicious crimp that I think I will spin in the grease. Yum! We chattered and poked about in all the fibre and yarn and books, and played with the new Ashford Wild Carder drum carder, and then piled back in the vehicles to go Blomidon Inn for lunch. It was a great way to spend the morning!

I've been up to a lot of dyeing as well--I bought 20 pounds(!!!) of Merino top in January, and I've been dyeing a few pounds of it a week for sale at the next Halifax Crafters Market on April 17th & 18th, and also for sale at The Loop.

The first picture is to show you what 20 pounds of Merino top looks like...

Next up are of some of the top I've dyed, and a bit of fleece that reminds me of the Golden Fleece from the Greek myths of Jason and the Argonauts.

Socks and Trilobites

I have started on a lifelong sock yarn addiction, I think. It's so pretty! And knitting sock on teeny tiny needles is startlingly fun! Right now I Lickety Split on the needles, in Fleece Artist Sea Wool. that I got at LK Yarns. No button placket, no intarsia, I just wanted split toe socks. I also have some Jaywalkers (Ravelry link only) on the go in some crazy bright Crazy Zauberball. How could I resist a yarn like that? Crazy.

I also just started Trilobite because I saw Louise's at LK - it was SO CUTE. I'm using aran weight yarn I got at the WWKIP Day swap because hers turned out small. I have a biggish noggin. And also, the yarn is very very pretty and I wanted to start it as soon as I got home.

Happy WWKIP Day!

I will be on the Spring Garden Rd. Library lawn (or inside if it rains) hanging out with all the awesome knitters. I am giving a spinning demo, and I donated a couple of prizes to the cause. Come out and play!

The UberMom Visits!

And we went to Gaspereau Valley Fibres, mecca of all fibre-y goodness. Between us we spent $200--some of hers was on fibre for me, and some fibre for me to spin up for her. We were in there at least an hour petting everything! UberMom also bought some yarn.

I've been spinning up a storm now that's it's not constantly gross and muggy. Hopefully there will be pictures soon.

Bounty!

My lovely friend Erin is heading across the country this summer, and in true nomadic style has sold or given away most of her possessions. Before she left home, she sent me a box packed to the gills with fleece and top and rovings and batts. This box had no straight lines left to it, the poor abused thing!

Here is my bounty:



(Please note that the red that is at the foot of my wheel and also dangling from the bobbin was not a part of the haul.)

Now, contained in those many many bags are some treasures, or so I hear tell. Angora/silk/wool blends, Romney, camel, to name but a few. And how excited am I? About as excited as this poor beleaguered box is empty:

Felting

Well, this weekend was quite productive knitting-wise. I managed to watch 30 hours of Torchwood/Doctor Who while completely ignoring the fact that it was Easter, which was awesome. I went yarn shopping on Saturday, scored a bunch of knitting needles for $10 at Value Village, got WAY too much yarn at Tangled Skeins, and got some black felt, some knitting needles, and two bundles of pretty pretty top to spin. And a freebie of some tangled sequin novelty yarn!

Anyway, that way too much yarn from Tangled Skeins was actually for a bunch of projects I intend to do quite quickly, for lo, I am going to felt. Saturday I knit an entire tea cozy--it is huge and in pieces on my dance studio floor. Sunday and yesterday I knit giant mittens. Sometime this week I will find my lingerie mesh bags, and these items will go in the washer with a pair of jeans while I close my eyes and pray to the knitting gods to be kind.

Pictures to follow of giant knit objets d'art.

Still no knitting.

I have indeed concentrated on bellydance for the last few weeks. I made some cowrie falls for a fellow dancer out of my handspun thick and thin slubby, and i knit a bit in my spare time on another Clapotis. However, I frogged that sucker--I had a disastrous needle fall out, and managed to miss picking up a stitch when trying to recover from it. Of course, I didn't really notice for oh, I don't know, eight rows? Gah. So I frogged the fucker and reballed the yarn. I am going to start over. It's goign to be my road trip scarf next weekend when my friend Danielle and I are driving to Montreal for a dance workshop.

Can't Knit, Must Dance!

Not much movement on the knitting front this week. Last week I was sick and canceled all my belly dance classes, which meant I got a LOT of knitting done. Right now I have to concentrate on belly dance because I'm performing at two different shows at the beginning of March, and doing a total of three solos. Eep! I need to get a few new costume pieces made as well, so there will be a lot of sewing involved, and possibly some spinning and cowrie fall making.

SO much knitting, so little time...

I have finally finished my first Clapotis. It was a fun knit, and I followed the pattern exactly, and I stayed up many late nights knitting furiously to get to the next spot to drop a stitch so I could have the pleasure of unravelling it. I made it from some of my homespun, which I'd made for exactlyt hat purpose. I had to dip into a second skein that I'd spun later to a different specification, so the very end looks a bit different, but it's still cool. I'm goign to make another one, but skinnier.



Right now I'm going to work on a few smaller instant gratification projects--I'm knitting Dashing out of the same stuff as I knit the Clapotis, for myself if my boyfriend decides he doesn't like them, and I'm going to knit Fetching for my mom out of some wool I spun just for her. Dashing is started, but Fetching is waiting for the wool to finish drying from the twist-setting.

I think I'm partially making this for my mom as a way to justify the way I overspent in the yarn store on Thursday. I've been sick all week, and I indulged in some roving retail therapy, and I really didn't have the money to spare to even buy one roving if I wanted to make a payment on my credit card like a good girl.

Dude, I spent it on roving instead. And so I'm making my mom something pretty.

Spinning Wheel!!!

I'm now the proud owner of an Ashford Traveller, with double treadle and double drive. It's currently sitting disassembled and partially stained on my kitchen table. It's a bit of a labour of love, and yes, I've been thinking that maybe I should have paid the extra $100 and gotten it shipped to me already laquered, but this way it's the colour I want it to be, and I'm better aquainted with all the pieces. I conditioned the wood, and then applied a lovely red oak stain. the last step will be the poly and the sanding and the poly again.

Oy.

New Project-itis

I've been working on a whole lot of other things instead of the alpaca mittens I started a while ago. Complicated Fair Isle knitting just isn't as relaxing in the evening after a draining day of work as it could be. For fun, I made the Yarn Harlot's "Unoriginal Hat," which was a nice fast knit and used up some of my stash. Yes, I didn't buy more yarn for it! I also started the Lady Eleanor Entrelac Stole from "Scarf Style" this week, and while the instructions were unclear enough in spots that I had to frog one section 3 times before I understood what I was doing, it's actually going really well. I'm using more of my handspun, so yay! for not buying more wool! And I've taught myself a cool new technique, so that's excellent.

On the way home form work on Thursday I was bad though, and I bought more fleece to spin. Only two hanks of alpaca merino! That's not overly bad.

Knitting Keeps me Sane!

Well, as sane as I ever am. I always need something to do with my hands, whether it's spinning, knitting, or something else. I can't even just sit and watch TV--I need to be doing something productive. I don't know if it's a compulsion, but I guess I feel like it's a waste of time if I'm sitting down in front of a show and I'm not actually DOING anything. TV isn't enough of a draw most times. When I was a kid, I would read and watch TV at the same time! I remember my dad getting angry with me for wasting electricity because he thought I wasn't paying attention to the TV so it didn't need to be on, but then I told him exactly what was going on in the show I was watching while reading, and he left me alone.

My friend Coyote says that if she's awake and there's not a beer in her hand, someone better be paying her, and I guess that's kind of like how I feel about working with my hands. If I'm awake and I'm not creating, I better be earning some money to keep a roof over my head. Or having sex. I just catn' have sex and knit at the same time either.

I'm Blogging thanks to Ravelry

One of the cool things about Ravelry is being able to link Blogger posts to it, and one's Flickr account. I guess I may as well take advantage of it!

I'm currently working on the Tiffany mittens from Knitty. I recently finished a sixth shawl, and my first Branching Out, also from Knitty.

I'm currently lacking any pictures, but perhaps I'll take some this weekend.