On Friday, the girls and I went to the Weaving Works to pick up some needle felting kits and Christmas colored rovings to do this.

I saw a picture in a magazine of using cookie cutters as molds to felt shapes, and knew the girls would love it. And they do.

Yesterday, I went back to the Weaving Works to try out their drum carder. They carry a Pat Green carder, but not one that’s on their website, however it looks like the Deb’s Deluxe.

I liked it. I had time to make three batts. The first was romney, silk noil, and silk top. The second was romney and alpaca. Third, I did a batt of dyed kid mohair and silk top.

They’re all lovely.

I finished spinning the wool and mohair roving I bought with my fleece a month or so ago. This is the last skein.

And I got a better picture of the scarf.

I spun the yarn woolen with just enough twist in the single to hold it together, then I plied it as heavy as I could without making it rough. The resulting yarn is light as a feather, and squishy as the most luxurious sponge you could imagine. It’s not a soft wool, but I think the scarf feels fantastic.

Clark threw up all over himself last night, but didn’t wake up. I have a tremendous mess to clean up today and while I’m at it, I might as well do the rest of the laundry.

Sigh.

Sometimes.

And he’s only 19 1/2 months!

I’ve been spinning up a wool/mohair blended roving the past few days. I have a little left to do, but four skeins are done and washed already. We cleared off the coat racks in our entryway for Thanksgiving guests to use, and I was happy to see them when wandering the house with four wet skeins Sunday night, looking for a place to dry them.

I’ll have to remember that. You’re only seeing two of the three racks. I could dry a lot of yarn there…

Anyway, I’m knitting a cabled scarf with it.

The colors are quite washed out in the photo, but it’s really pretty, and soft and squishy. I like it a lot.

I wish I had enough to knit a vest or something. If you recall, I railed quite passionately against vests a couple years ago, but I’ve changed my mind. Vests can be very cool. Hayden has shown me the light.

So, while I haven’t been much of a scarf knitter in the past, I’m suddenly turning my handspun into scarves. I need to try something else.

Now, I’m going to make turkey soup. And my post is incredibly boring. Can you hear the malaise? I’m done here.

So much to do, and I’m completely behind in every imaginable way. Except for the grocery shopping.

I was supposed to clean my house and do laundry on Monday.

I was supposed to make gingerbread turkeys and pumpkin pies yesterday.

I am supposed to make 6 dozen crescent rolls today.

And as it turns out, I’m doing ALL of those things today. And there will probably be some carryover into tomorrow.

Dangit. Dangit. Dangit.

BUT, the laundry is well under way. I’ve cleaned my counter and reloaded it with the necessities for pumpkin pie.

The boy is SO going down for a nap as soon as this post is finished. I am eating healthy food and drinking lots of water to maintain my energy.

I WILL PREVAIL!!!!

I will. I will. I will.

I bought yet another large container of Band Aids this week. We have a serious case of Band Aid abuse in this house. I made rules. I wrote them on the box. It amused me. I took a picture.

I went to a spinning guild’s fiber sale last night (I made the decision to go last week, thinking I’d deserve a break from all the Thanksgiving work I’d be doing, which clearly hasn’t been happening. I went anyway). I almost came home with a loom. Nate is thrilled that I didn’t, which probably explains why he seemed so pleased when I showed him these.

A pound + to spin,

And a pound to dye.

And then spin.

And I’m stuck baking.

Dangit. Dangit. Dangit.

I was straightening up yesterday. Bustling through the house, tidying up, my mind in far off places as I went through the motions of housework when……

…when I picked my shoalwater shawl up off the back of my computer chair. I’ve been using the shawl a lot recently around the house, as it’s gotten colder. I lifted it, spread it, and that’s when I saw it.

And once I started breathing again, I took pictures.

You probably can’t see it there, but it’s a cool picture. My modern couch is instantly “grandma-fied”. It cracked me up.

How ’bout now?

And finally,

What the heck? My only asumption is that because Noro Kureyon isn’t the strongest of yarns, I happened to end up with a particularly weak spot in a stress point, and it snapped.

In the absolute dead center of my shawl.

I didn’t know how I was going to fuse the yarn together once I had it fixed, but I figured I’d start in on it and deal with each problem as I encountered it. Fortunately, Kureyon is a felted yarn, very sticky, so it hadn’t run too far or gotten out of hand. So I re-threaded it. It didn’t look right. I did it again. Bingo.

In the end, I pulled as much length through as I could and spit and spliced it. I hope it holds. I really didn’t know what else to do.

To celebrate, I finished washing my second romney fleece.

Is it really that neurotic of me to spend hours picking through the locks to remove all second cuts and roughage, arranging them parallel to each other by length (generally speaking), and washing them in small batches?

I think it must be, but wow! When it’s washed and dry and all tidy like that, my heart just flutters.

I’m going out today to pick up my serger, and to do something else that I’ve forgotten already. I’m hosting Thanksgiving again this year. Dinner will be significantly smaller than last year, I think we’re feeding about 22, but we’ll be back up to 38 or so for dessert.

I’m making lists and assigning days to tasks. I can’t figure out exactly why I love to host big parties. But I really, really do.

I’m not exactly sure what weight it is. I think it’s laceweight, which is what I was going for. It looks finer than fingering to me.

I have about 680 yards, I believe. I’m going to find an intricate little lace stitch to knit on small needles, and make a scarf. The reason I bought this roving back in January, is because one of the samples in my silk spinning class was a quiviat silk wimple in a beautiful little lace pattern.

Do any of you happen to recognize that pattern or stitch? I don’t. I know the pictures are bad, the lighting was horrible in that room. Dark and fluorescent.

Anyway, it had the same look to it that the camel/silk roving had in the marketplace, so I bought it. However, I don’t think I’d really use a wimple, so instead, I’m going to make a large, yet delicate scarf.

Abby’s legwarmers are done. She’s wearing them at school today, so I don’t have a picture for you yet. They’re like my muppet monster legwarmers. 2×2 ribbing with a picot bind off at the bottom.

Next up, I’m knitting an Esther Williams hat for a friend of mine that just had brain surgery, and had a third of her long blonde hair shaved off.

I need to make Liv’s legwarmers out of the tweedy yarn I spun for her this summer.

Veronica wants legwarmers before a sweater.

I’m dying to play with the romney. I want to blend it with alpaca and silk bits and spin up small amounts of different combinations that I will knit into samples for my sweater. I hope to dye it soon.

This week, we have Halloween (oh, the sock hop on Friday was SO much fun, and we looked great. Even me in a poodle skirt. I didn’t look nearly as humungous as I expected. I hope to get a picture of all of us), and Nate and I are going away for the weekend, so I need to get the house and kids prepared for that.

And I have to go shopping.

Wow, it’s dark outside. There are going to be a lot of pictures from the bathroom in the coming months. Even in my bathroom this morning, with an entire ceiling of glass, I was getting slow shutter speeds and blurry pictures. But they’re still cute.

Here’s 5.2 pounds of washed Romney fleece. And Clark, for scale.

And that was about all the patience he had for a picture that wasn’t entirely about him.

Here he comes…

That’s better.

But the wool truly is lovely. I can’t. stop. touching it. So, I’m wondering… Do I spin it first, or dye it? It seems that if I want to dye, say, 3+ pounds of it to make sure I have enough for a cabled sweater for myself, I should dye it first, because I can’t imagine getting that much yarn in one dye bath, thus having the same dyelot. But I just got it all dry! I don’t want to get it wet again before I can spin it.

Dangit.

Ok, another question… I’m contemplating color. Should I do an earthy, mossy green to play up my eyes? Or a reddish sort of plum? More purple than red, but with some red undertones to it. Something else entirely? Whatdya’ think?

And finally, I concede. I’m not middle-aged. After talking with a few of you and reading the comments, emails, etc. I agree that I’m probably too young to be middle-aged. But I’m no punk kid, either. I guess I’m just a grown up. How boring is that? But I’ll be middle-aged soon enough!

I came to find out that while I didn’t get any pictures of our outing on Saturday, Nate did with his iphone!

I think my first batch of washed wool is dry

If I’m a good girl, clean the house a bit, and exercise, I’m going to wash some more!

The camel/silk roving is FINALLY all spun into singles, and I’ve been working on plying it. It’s taking a really long time. I don’t think I’ve ever spun this much yardage out of a single roving, and I’m anxious to see how much I end up with.

And today, Clark has joined the masses of toddlers (though he still isn’t toddling) that wear colanders on their heads.

Which had me totally flashing back about 8 years to Abigail.

Well, I’ve been plowing through the W-I-P’s.

While Nate was reading Harry Potter, I carded and spun the rest of the Targee fleece I’ve been griping about much of the year. The skeins aren’t washed and set yet, so they’re still a bit kinky, but they’re done.

I haven’t counted yardage. I don’t even care. It’s done, and I never have to work it again.

Second, I finished the Daisy Swatch Turned scarf. Finally. It’s blocking now, and I’ll weave in the ends when it’s dry.

It’s really hard to see in its “barely there pink”. Even in person, so I have no idea how I’ll get the final picture.

All that’s left are the purple cable gloves I’m trying to write a pattern for. And I’m not going to finish those yet.

So, with all that out of the way, I was free to ball my newly spun BFL roving. This is the smaller of the two skeins.

See the stripes? Aren’t they cool? The ball itself is a work of art.

I’ve ripped and started the scarf three times. I loved it in the original pattern (Fiona Ellis’s Campus Scarf from Scarf Style), but it would only have made a 40 inch scarf with the yardage that I have, so I modified it and cut 30% of the width.

I still really like it, and have decided that I’ll dye and spin a full pound of roving to make another scarf the way the pattern is written at some point. Though I like the slipped stitch I added on the edge instead of straight garter as it’s written.

The color patterning is a little better on the narrower scarf. This roving wasn’t dyed in even sections, it was kettle dyed with spots and splotches, so I’m happy to be getting the striping that I am.

Today, I hope to get to the store to buy some Dawn dish soap and more lingerie bags, in getting ready to wash some of the alpaca that Pat gave me months ago.

About reading Harry Potter (no spoilers)….

If you recall, Clark was up every hour Thursday night. Nate bought the book at midnight Friday night. He got home about 1am, and read to me ’til 5am. We slept ’til 9:30, then read pretty much straight through until 8:30 am Sunday. Clark was up most of Saturday night anyway, so I still wouldn’t have slept much.

I napped for 3 1/2 hours Sunday, Clark was up ’til 11 Sunday night, but happily slept the rest of it, so I got 8 or so hours. We were up very late last night, and Clark woke up 3 times between 1 and 5.

So I’m not getting any sleep to speak of. I’m so tired. My vision shakes while I’m awake, and my head twitches sporadically.

My poor baby is sick again. He has a high fever, but no other symptoms. Additionally, he’s been teething for a week with nothing to show for it, and his bowels are still causing him grief. That’s been going on for about a month now, which is all contributing to his lack of sleep I’m sure. Right about the time I decide to call the doctor, he shows improvement, so I don’t, and he sinks back again. I’ve upped his constipation medication, and we’re treating him for the fever.

And someday, I’ll get some sleep.

Good morning!

I made a little progress this week. I still didn’t manage any formal exercise, but I ate better, did some calorie counting, and yesterday I went to the store and loaded up on safe foods to eat so next week is already looking better.

I dropped back down into the teens at 219.4. That was a pleasant surprise.

Nate bought Harry Potter last night at midnight. We stayed up ’til 5 reading it, then slept ’til 9:30. We’ve made arrangements for the girls today, so we can read all day. I’m hoping to get done before church tomorrow, because I really don’t want to hear any spoilers.

Having finished my Sea Silk Stole, and my Daisy Swatch Turned Scarf (I haven’t shown you that one yet), and all my lovely spinning fiber from Black Sheep…. I’m not sure how I’m going to pass the time while Nate reads. So far, I’ve decided to continue with what I’ve been doing the last few days, which is making myself finish things. I’ve resumed spinning rolags from that wretched fleece. I like the resulting yarn, hate the fleece.

I have the remaining wool evenly divided into three bags by color, and only the light colored bag is carded. The medium and dark bags still need to be. The light rolags have been spinning up ok, though it took me awhile to get used to them again, after all the nice roving I’ve been spinning, but when I tried to card more rolags….

I just hate this stupid fleece. So I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to take it.