Ok, I bailed on you this week. Here’s what I’ve been doing aside from trying to clean things.

The Sea Silk stole, which isn’t looking as wide as I expected, but I have faith that it will block and relax a little.

And I’ve been spinning some of the targee fleece

I didn’t know what I was going to make with it, so I just started spinning a single I might ply into a worsted weight yarn. It looked very fuzzy. I started spinning thicker, to see if it would show off the colors in the wool better, and it also looked extremely fuzzy, in a weird way.

Also, the wool grabs onto itself a lot, and it was really difficult to separate into a thick draft. (Am I even saying that right? I have no clue what I’m talking about, I’m just trying to explain it). I didn’t like the way that looked either, or how hard I was having to pull on it, so I decided to try laceweight.

It is really easy to spin that way. It’s pretty. The fuzziness is less apparent, and it’s a strong single. So I’m spinning a little bit onto two bobbins. I’ll ply them together, set it, and knit a swatch to see if the yarn is nice. If so, I have a shawl in mind out of the Victorian Lace Today book I linked on Monday, but it’s huge and will take a lot of yarn, which means a lot of spinning.

Nate suggested spinning it up and making another pair of clogs, which sounds like an excellent suggestion. I might to that, too. There’s enough wool here.

Funny story, my friend Hayden was here last night (oh, and none of us threw up this week, thankfully) to knit. Towards the end of the night, when I’d had enough of trying to keep my place in the lace pattern of my stole, and remain conversational, I grabbed the rolag (carded wool to spin) off of my counter and sat at my wheel. Hayden said, “Oh, that’s what that is! I thought it was a huge dust bunny, and was trying to figure out why on earth you were keeping it!” Haha. That’s kind of embarrassing. I’m glad I started spinning it to clear things up.

So, it’s the day before Thanksgiving, when all through the house, not a single room was tidy, no food for the spouse………..and all of his family that are coming over tomorrow.

Yesterday afternoon, I felt pretty good about my Thanksgiving to-do list. Then last night, I went to the Valley Spinners guild meeting for the first time, where they happened to be having their semi-annual fiber sale (well, ok, I knew they were having their semi-annual fiber sale).

There are three fibers I want to try spinning. They had my first two picks in abundance, mohair and romney.

Mohair-

and Romney

Plus, a completely delightful and wonderful woman showed me how to use hand cards.

I really like her.

Finally, I bought 22 ounces of what looks to be a beautiful, washed targee fleece off of a sheep named Nolani.

I can’t stand it, I’m so excited. I was up at 6 am this morning, playing with fiber. I spun the little bit of red mohair that the sweet woman gave me to card (I think her name is Aline). I spun a rolag I made from the teal Romney. And then Abby and I carded a few more rolags.

Last night, I dreamt about fiber (and Matt Damon and Christian Slater, which was random, but also about fiber). I dreamt that Olivia had gone and used my Visa debit card to buy a drum carder for $148, and I was torn between being furious at her for using my card without asking, and pleased that she got a really good deal.

That’s ridiculous.

Getting back to my entry title, I don’t want to clean. I don’t want to cook. I don’t want to do anything but play with my fiber. I can’t tell you how silky and soft that mohair is. And I have bunches of it. Now that I can use my hand carders, I want to try blending things.

I don’t want to knit an argyle stocking (I’ve started the gusset. The way the colors are working out is crazy. I’ll talk about it on Friday). I don’t want to get ready for Thanksgiving. I have 58 ounces of fiber I spent less that $50 for. I’ve discovered I really like hand carding. (This surprises me. I expected to find it tedious and thought I wanted a drum carder as soon as possible. I was wrong. It’s really fun, and goes quick. Plus, I now know that Abby can do it. Hmmmmmm).

Right. So, I’m off to, um, clean my house and bake things. I hope.

Yup, I picked up Veronica’s Kimono yesterday, and completed one side of it! The pattern gets all weird once you divide for the armholes, so I had a big tangle of yarn for awhile, but one side is done, the shoulder stitches are bound off….. and it feels good.

As promised, here are a couple of pictures of my wacky, supposed-to-be-sock yarn.

(Notice my incredibly cool lime-sherbet green linen pants? I bought them for the ocean, and love Love LOVE them)! I twisted the snot out of the singles, because my tendency is to under-twist, then it falls apart when I ply. Not horribly, but enough to annoy me. So I really twisted it. Then, I really twisted the ply. So, it’s probably nearly indestructible now. I don’t know about the functionality.

Since I’m sure you are all dying to see my new wheel again, here’s another shot.

Oh, and it looks like I may have a computer at the cabin after all! Maybe. Nate wants to leave on Thursday, so you should know by the end of the week.

Thanks for the cheers and well wishes yesterday. I have spun a partial bobbin and navajo plied it. I used four different colors of roving to attempt self striping sock yarn, but it isn’t thin or consistent enough for socks, so I don’t know what I’m going to do with it. I’ve set the twist, and it’s drying right now. I’ll hopefully get a picture today, and will show you tomorrow. I made a new hook though!

I have an abundance of them already, but now I have a wheel, so I needed a new hook. Right? Well, it’s pretty anyway, and it works good.

Yesterday was a good day. I got a lot of chores done, stuff cleaned, and I played with the wheel. I cleaned and oiled it, too. So now it’s even prettier, and it smells good.

I’m sure you’ve noticed that there hasn’t been a lot of knitting around here recently. That will change. I miss it. When I’m at the cabin next week, I plan to finish as many of my WIP’s as possible so I can start something new. I’m thinking about lace. Maybe I’ll finally start I Do with that luscious, pale blue Angora by Elsebeth Lavold that’s been getting it’s beauty sleep in my stash.

And finally, in response to the comments yesterday… Yes, I got a haircut! Gayle (FYRKRKR in the comments, and she just got a blog) cut it for me a while ago. I liked the length I had, but it was getting stringy, and because nothing about me is subtle, I had to whack it all off. It grows way fast, and I’m already looking forward to some more length, but it’s cute. I’m glad you all like it.

YES IT DID!!!! And it came with loads of stuff, which is good, because aside from the ball winder, I didn’t have anything.

There’s a niddy noddy, a homemade lazy kate, Clemes & Clemes curved-back hand carders, 7 bobbins, a ball winder, a spool of “drive band”, and a gorgeous jumbo mother-of-all, which is a nice set up for spinning that core-spun mohair I want to try. Oh, and there’s a basket full of 10-20 year old Spin Off magazines and fiber periodicals.

There was a spool with a little bit of silk spun onto it, so I used that to practice navajo plying. (That’s the white stuff you see on the wheel). I’d never done it before, and it is WAY fun! I couldn’t have done it without this video, linked by Stephanie awhile back. Thanks, Steph!

I can’t believe I have a spinning wheel! It’s been such a long wait. I really like this one. It’s a Clemes & Clemes, and it has a ton of personality. Plus, being out of production, it’s rather unique. And it’s stained dark, which is what I wanted. I’m giddy. The only thing I want to investigate is the possibility of either making (having made) or buying additional whorls. I have one only. If anyone happens to know anything about that, I’d love to hear it.

I’m going to go and play with my wheel now. Am I happy?

Yay! Ten packages went out yesterday. Four Valentine’s gifts went abroad. One pretty Valentine’s doll went to Carrie. A lovely pair of socks plus a beaded keychain adornment went to Grandma June. A James Dean calendar went to Mari in Virginia. Some catalogues went to mom in Oregon. And then there were a couple of merchandise returns. That was an event. I don’t get the post office much, so when I do, I have a truckload.

I mentioned yesterday about spinning…

Quite frankly, I’m dying to show Jessica how I rigged up a lazy kate, and a tensioned one at that! Just because I know she’ll laugh at me. Yes, I rented a spinning wheel without a lazy kate or a hook. Check it out.

Nate calls it a “lazy fake”. Clever boy. I took 24 gauge wire and strung the bobbins to the chair. I didn’t expect it to be tensioned, but because they rest against the back of the chair, it works beautifully.

This has been the scene in my family room for the past couple of days. I’ve been spinning away, and now plying. Hee hee. My first time plying. I may be doing it completely wrong, as I’ve had no real instruction on how to do it, but I’m very happy with how the yarn is turning out.

In fact, after I set the twist and hung it to dry, it barely twisted at all. I’d like to think that means I did something right. (And if you noticed in the second picture, we have our fairy tales a bit messed up. That would be Cinderella with the spinning wheel, not Sleeping Beauty. The Sleeping Beauty dress in this house is size 6x).

I have more pictures, but I’ll save them for tomorrow. Like I said, it was a busy weekend.

Oh, and one last thing…

This just showed up in my inbox. Wow. I’m not being unkind, everyone has their thing, and more power to them. I really believe that. In this case, it isn’t my thing, but I am notorious for liking crazy stuff, so I can hardly point fingers. That being said…. wow.

Cher is selling one of her old Fricke drum carders.

It is very old

and very dirty.

She is asking $50 for it. I found the website of the guy who bought Curtis Fricke out in 2000, and is manufacturing the current Fricke/Strauch drum carders. He also refurbishes the old ones for a price, of course. So, here’s my question…. ok, I have two.

1. Is an old, semi-rusty drum carder salvageable? Can I clean it up and use it?

2. Is it worth it to buy it and ship it off to Virginia to have Otto Strauch refurbish it for about $300 when I can afford it, sometime in the future?

ok, there’s a third question, too.

3. While we’re on the topic, does anyone have any opinions they’d like to share about other carders that I’d be better off with?

Thanks in advance.

I’m heading off to Oregon to see my mom. The kids and I will be gone until Thursday evening. I am taking the laptop, my camera, and everything I think I’ll need to post while I’m away. It is possible that nothing will work and the blog will be stagnant until I get back, although Nate has been a peach and spent most of Sunday night getting it all ready for me. He dug out our old, orange iBook, charged it up, installed OS X, and set up bookmarks for me, as well as my new email accounts. So we should be good to go so long as I can find somewhere in Central Oregon that has a wireless network. I’m just warning you ahead of time, considering I haven’t missed a day since the birth of the blog back in May. (Except for my regular break each Sunday). I’d hate to worry anyone.

Maybe Nate can re-start that R2 scarf he was working on and post about it while I’m gone!

But if not, here’s what you have in store… I’ve been knitting on some wonderful Koigu socks that I’m making for my Grandma, provided she likes the colors. They are sooooooo pretty! If all goes well, I’ll be able to show you pictures tomorrow!

Ooh, ooh! before I forget, I FINALLY brought home yarn to make the Weasley sweaters! It’s so exciting! And I bought lots so I can make them big. I want the girls to get many years of wear out of them. Goodness knows HP will be popular that long.

The lovely Hayden and I had our spinning class on Saturday. It was very much fun. It is also amazing how quickly one can get better at it.

I tried four different wheels while I was there. I started on a double treadle Schacht, moved to the Ashford Traveller, back to the Schacht, then I tried a single treadle Lendrum, and snuck in a go on the Ashford Traditional. I was pleasantly surprised that I liked each of them. The Schacht and the Lendrum were by far the smoothest to treadle. And in my newbie opinion, the Lendrum was even smoother than the Schacht. The Traditional would be next, followed by the Traveller, however it was still a fun wheel to spin on, and out of all of them, I like the look of the Traveller the best.

The first half of class was spent learning about wheels and spinning. The second half was spent on fleece. Now, I’m probably going to butcher terms here, because this is completely new to me.

The instructor rolled out a fleece cut from a sheep. It had been manhandled a bit in classes, so it was no longer in the obvious shape of a sheep, but it was still all one big piece, primarily. She went through the fleece and taught us about what to look for when buying one. As this was happening, I was thinking about two things, well, three. First, I was thrilled at the thought of roaming fiber fairs and looking through fleece with some degree of practical knowledge as to what in the heck I was looking at and for. Second, I was thinking about the ribbing I would take, probably for months and certainly in company, from the husband the day I come home with a sheep in a bag. Third, I was wondering how Hayden felt about spending a good couple hours looking at a pile of sheep locks on the floor instead of continuing to work on her drafting and spinning, which the poor thing had been struggling with quite a bit.

And right here, I’ll officially say, when she CAN’T interrupt me or accuse of false claims, that the first bobbins I spun looked JUST. LIKE. HERS. I still have them. I can prove it. They were spun two years ago and I hated it SO much, I gave the borrowed wheel back within the first week and determined never to do it again. See? The only other spinning I’ve done since then was at Columbine Yarns a couple months ago, when I spent a couple hours in her shop, and it got considerably better. And you saw how I did in class. Don’t give up, my sweet! You can do it.

And while we’re on the topic, here are the skeins of singles I came home with-

Apparently, I over-twist.

Getting back to the fleece…. We learned what skirting is, warning signs to look for, how to check for second cuts, etc. She showed us about crimp and explained what it means. Even if I don’t wander fiber fairs, I think this information will help if I were to buy raw fleece on eBay. I know better what I’m looking at.

Then we hand carded fleece to spin. As I was thinking, “no freaking way am I going to do this in quantity”, Hayden leaned over and whispered that it had been her favorite part. Go figure. So we’ve worked out a little arrangement. I’ll wash it, she’ll card it, I’ll spin it.

Right, so aside from a wheel, I’m also going to want a drum carder…. hahahahahha yeah right….. unless I only spin roving. Roving is nice.

We spun our, (darn it, I can’t remember what those little rolled, hand carded things are called), watched a plying demonstration, and had to go. I didn’t want to go. How in the world can 6 hours in a chair go so fast?

There you are. I can buy a wheel at 10% off for the next week, and I can’t afford it. BUT, it was fun, and I want to do more.

I get to spend 6 hours learning the in’s and out’s of spinning tomorrow, and I’ll be in good company with the cute and funny Hayden. (Never a dull moment with that one)!

I’ve been looking at wheels online, and although there is a particular wheel that has been romancing me in pictures, I am anxious to try a few in class to see what I like. Unfortunately, I can’t find a local dealer for the wheel I think I want. It’s the Kromski Symphony.

Now, picture it in a walnut finish. Isn’t it beautiful? I have no idea if I’d even like how it spins, but it’s gorgeous, and in my dreams, I love it.

And holy cow! Drum carders are expensive. Mercy. I had no idea.

Well, I didn’t do much yesterday. At least, not much worthy of blog talk. I cleaned one of my fish tanks, which needed it. I played with and read to the girls, so I get the good mommy award. I finally made corn bread using soft white wheat flour (whole grain), and although the girls ate it right up, and it really isn’t bad, the recipe will need some tweaking. I made some very important phone calls, got the kids to and from school…. nothing exciting there.

Any Haydens happening? I’ve heard tell of some good intentions :-).

So I guess that’s it then. I have a whole lot of stitch markers and other assorted Valentine’s to make this weekend. The doll is knit, stuffed, and armed (as in, she has arms and they’re attached), but she still needs legs, hair, and facial features. And as I’m sitting here thinking about today, (helping out at school, then heading directly off to work at the LYS ’til 9pm), and tomorrow’s 6 hours of spinning class, I’m realizing that I’ve got a lot to do with not much time. I’d better go.