I’m finding that it’s a lot harder to think of things to write when I can’t SHOW you anything. My friend is going to update my software when he has time, so it isn’t a permanent problem. In the meantime though….

We had a nice 4th of July. My brother almost blew himself and the younger children up, but since there were (miraculously) no injuries, we can all laugh about it now.

I spun a heavenly skein with 4 ounces of my watermelon batts last night. It’s really very pretty, and I’m excited to do something with it, but I didn’t get as much yardage as I expected.

Um, what else?

I’m starting to look pregnant instead of just big. That’s kind of fun. It still depends on what I’m wearing.

I have a shipment of new dyes scheduled to arrive today and I’m excited to try some new colors.

I guess that’s it. TTYL.

This morning, after Veronica’s playdate comes by to pick her up, we’re heading out to pick up fifteen pounds of locally grown strawberries already sliced and sitting in their juice in a bucket. I’ve never bought strawberries this way before, so I don’t know how far they’ll go, but I’m hoping to make my year’s supply of strawberry freezer jam this afternoon. I’ve got the Costco bag of ripe lemons, big bag o’ sugar, and many boxes of liquid pectin all ready to go. My kitchen counter is even clean.

I have a feeling we’ll be making biscuits in the near future. Which’ll send my blood sugar into chaos and I’ll probably have to sleep it off. But whatever. We had cupcakes with whipping cream and fresh raspberries last night after dinner, and I felt fine.

I still haven’t figure out what sets me off, but I’m making considerable efforts to get more protein, and to get it frequently throughout the day.

Ok, what the heck just happened??? I scanned my post after publishing it, and all my dye talk has vanished. It’s gone. I’m so grumpy.

So the short and cross version is that I’ve come up with a new colorway that I really like. It looks like watermelon. I only have a pound of it dyed right now, so I need to dye more, lots more as I’d like to make myself a vest a la the cool sweater in the first Debbie Bliss magazine that I like. Yes, I said a vest. Me, who has ranted about how much I hate them. I’m over it. I concede that like anything, there are good vests and bad vests.

In my post that vanished, I said something about dyeing enough that I can have my vest and sell it too. I was quite amused by that.

The three vests that I have worn for years (not fully realizing that I was wearing vests) are about worn out, and I’d love to make some that fit me well. That go in at the in bits and out at the out bits. (I do in fact have a waist).

I’m excited.

I also test dyed a bit of one of my dark gray lamb fleeces with a dark, golden yellow dye. The fleece came out the most fantastic, warm, chocolatey golden brown. I want to try carding it with black alpaca and gold silk. I think it’ll turn out a bit dressy. More formal than a typical tweed. We’ll see how it goes.

I’m trying to figure out what exact color of green it is. Moss green, maybe? I didn’t have a recipe for juice that both used the things I wanted to use, and that I had all the ingredients for, so I made one up. I started with 4 carrots, and their tops. Added half of a fat cucumber, half a red bell pepper. Some kale, some celery… and then added an apple so it’d taste a little better. It probably made 16 ounces of juice, which is lot. I’m working my way through it. My stomach has been unhappy all morning, so I’m hoping I can keep it down. But it sounded good. Fresh. Full of vitamins, etc. Maybe it’ll give me some energy.

Liv finished spinning her colorful yarn from wool she dyed. It’s really pretty. Veronica kettle dyed 4 ounces of wool. Kettle dyeing is SO much cooler than handpainting, which I find to be tremendously tedious. And I hate throwing away a handful of plastic wrap when we’re done.

I’ve spent the week primarily spinning, dyeing, cleaning the house and enjoying the kids, now out of school for the summer.

I’ve been working on a new batt color, and while I love the base, my tweedy bits don’t quite match it. That’s the thing I’m finding with the tweed aspect of my batts. If the color doesn’t come out JUST so, the whole color scheme is off. Like my boysenberry silk. It needs just a TAD more red in it to be perfect with my salmon base. And it doesn’t have it. It’s too purple. So I’m going to bag it up and save it for another base color, a nice green perhaps, and I’m dyeing some mahogany to see if that fits the bill.

I’m having a heck of a time coming up with an additional color. The light green I’d envisioned isn’t all that great. So what now? A blue? Light or dark blue? Maybe I’ll keep the boysenberry and add the mahogany? No matter what I do, it looks like I need to cut down the amount of silk for this colorway. I put the same amount in the salmon base that I did in the purple, and it looks messy.

We may break out an origami kit later in the day if we get bored.

Please tell me. Because it’s lost, and I’m annoyed.

Liv dyed 4 ounces of superwash BFL yesterday in extremely bright colors. I’d show you, but, well, I still can’t upload pictures. I keep thinking that it’ll “fix itself” at some point. Perhaps not.

She’s half way though the second bobbin now, so I’d imagine she’ll have a plied skein by the end of the day. My undyed fiber stash is suddenly looking significantly smaller.

Now that I have a couple pounds of alpaca on its way to me, I need to find where I wrote out some colorway ideas. Perhaps I’ll be dyeing soon! And I’m hope, hope, hoping that it’s great and I can consider them my new supplier!

I just came home from my 24 week appointment. I only have one, 4 week appointment left, then a 3 week, then some 2 weeks. Then we’ll be into the 1 week appointments. I can’t believe it. At my next appointment, I’ll be starting the 3rd trimester. Wild.

This pregnancy is starting to be fun, now that he’s moving around a lot and I’m feeling a little better. It feels like more than just “being sick.”

Black Sheep was great. Carol and I had a great time. We each bought some dyed alpaca/tussah silk that drafts out SO lovely.

As usual, coming back from Black Sheep has made me want to move forward carding my batts. My friend Stephanie is going to order some alpaca from her supplier for me this week. If it’s nice, I’ll sign up with them and start working. That’s been my problem, waiting for my supplier to get alpaca in stock. I’ve been waiting since December.

I also need help with packaging, and Stephanie is going to come over this afternoon and help with that, too. I’m really excited.

My picture adding feature is still not working. I think Carol’s husband is going to check into it for me when he has time.

The girls are officially on summer break now. We’re going to dye some BFL together that they can spin and prove to me that we should keep their wheels.

Calcifer looks like he’s pulled through. When I get the tank in my bedroom cleaned again, I’ll move him back into his home.

Miriam, the response I wrote to you will NOT send. I don’t know why. I’m running Safari on my Mac, so I don’t think the IE thing affects me. And I don’t have any faroese wool. Have fun with your spinning!

That’s all I’ve got for today.

Sigh. I hate technical computer stuff. I don’t have a clue where to go or how to fix anything. For those of you that might know, here’s what’s happening- I hit the add media icon (WordPress) and a little window comes up with the button “Choose Files to Upload” like it’s supposed to, only when I click on it, it doesn’t bring up the window giving me access to my files to choose pics. I click the button and it ignores me.

So, I’m getting ready for Black Sheep. Doing laundry, making lists… I’m about to start assembling piles to load into my car.

I think Calcifer is getting better. It’s kind of hard to tell. The redness is smaller, but the holes in his head are bigger. He’s still lively and eating. That’s the best sign of all. Nate is too grossed out to look at him, but to me, he seems improved. I don’t think we’ll escape some permanent damage though, if he lives. I can’t imagine how those holes are going to fill in.

Maybe you should be glad I can’t upload pictures. :-).

It is just headgrowth though, not like it’s boring into his skull or anything. That’d be REALLY gross.

As far as my health goes… I’m feeling much better. I still have a really hard time eating in the morning. And if I do manage to eat, I usually regret it. But lunch tends to sit well. Dinner remains iffy, yet better than breakfast if I’m hungry enough to eat it. My heart has been much calmer. I don’t really know why. Maybe I’m eating better. I should be losing weight since I don’t eat much and hardly snack. But no, losing weight is not something I do. It’s just not in the stars for me I guess.

Anyone have an opinion on rigid heddle looms? I’d love to hear if you do. I’m contemplating the Ashford Knitters Loom (20 inch) and the Kromski Harp. I really want to get the girls spinning this summer. If they don’t, I might be selling some extra wheels I have laying around come autumn. My girls don’t have the patience to knit, but according to Ashford, you can weave a scarf in 2 hours on their loom. I’d like to get them dyeing, spinning, and weaving this summer. It sounds like tremendous fun but I don’t know which loom to get. I’m hoping there will be some on demonstration at Black Sheep. As of now, I’m probably leaning towards the Ashford. Something about it (which could simply be their marketing department) makes it seem more kid friendly. If I love it, perhaps I’ll pick up a Kromski for me. Or maybe I’ll start looking around for a table loom. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Being pregnant and sick and having my joints all go to mush with that lovely relax-hormone-thing has made it difficult to keep up with my fish tank. I believe it had been 3 weeks since I did a water change when last night I noticed Calcifer had some deep red spots on his headgrowth. I called the man I bought him from, and was given some things to try. He has bacterial infections in his head. Lovely. I’ve lifted him out of the water and dabbed the red spots with peroxide on a Q-tip. I need to go to the store and pick up some Neosporin cream, not ointment that I can rub on his head once a day if I can dab it dry enough that it’ll adhere. I can set up a hospital type thing in some buckets and treat him with a general anti-biotic bath but seriously, I’ve never had good luck with bath treatments for things in the past. And I have a call in to Goldfish Connection to see how fast we can get their medicated food here (mine’s old) and what it’ll cost me.

Lame, lame, lame! If Calcifer pulls through this, I think I’ll be better about those water changes. It’s just so HARD lugging 5 gallon buckets of water around when it’s not so easy to walk anyway.

WordPress isn’t letting me upload photos today, so you get another long, wordy post with no pictures. Sorry.

Yesterday was the yearly picnic/BBQ/end of year party for the 3,4,5,&6th graders. We were up at Kayak Point which is gorgeous. The weather was lovely and it was very relaxing. I have some great pictures.

Friday, Carol and I are going to the Black Sheep Gathering. I’m so excited! Tho’ I’m not sure how comfortable I’ll be on my Thermarest 5 months pregnant in a tent. It’s only one night, and the grass is usually really long and cushy. Nate (and I, for that matter) would like to know why Fiber Events hate men. Madrona has been over Valentine’s Day the past few years, and this year, Black Sheep is over Father’s Day. Which is why we’re coming home Saturday night instead of Sunday morning. How hard is it to avoid family holidays when planning these things? Enquiring minds want to know.

So that’s that I guess. I’m just plugging along, worried about my dumb fish, looking forward to my favorite getaway of the year this Friday.

Oh, that reminds me! I like to go to Black Sheep with my wheel empty so I can wander the tradeshow, find something I like, and spin it. So I made myself finish that bombyx silk last week. It’s really lovely, and you should have seen me trying to stretch that skein between my toes to get a picture. That I can’t post. I’m going to keep trying.

I got about 400 yards from 2 ounces, and there was some waste. Some of it was pretty matted and lumpy. It didn’t draft well at all. I’m looking forward to knitting something relaxing this weekend.

My friend Carol gives me half of her organic produce delivery every week. (I know, how cool is that?). She has trouble using it all every week, and I’ve found that I have trouble using the half that I get every week. It goes off so fast, for one thing.

So as I was knitting this morning, it occurred to me that I ought to dig out my juicer and move it to the kitchen counter for the summer, and juice some of the produce. I have this fabulous book full of recipes, and as I just looked it up to get the link, it appears she released a new one in March. Oooh, ahhh.

I wanted to use the broccoli/celery/pear recipe, but my pears aren’t ripe yet. So instead, I did carrot/tomato/celery/lime juice.

It tastes a bit like bloody mary mix. Yum.

One of my favorite vegetables to juice is cucumber. Celery is a close second. They’re unbelievably refreshing. I happen to have a fantastic organic cucumber in my fridge right now, along with some spinach. Oooh, the possibilities.

I’m annoyed I didn’t think of this sooner, as I was given three gorgeous beets with tops a couple weeks ago that went rubbery before I could figure out what to do with them. There are a bunch of beet recipes in my book.

I’ve been keeping a food log (more or less) since my field trip to the hospital last week, trying to figure out what sets me off. Other than caesar salad (why? Seriously? Taco salad is ok.) I haven’t picked anything off. I’m almost through my full glass of fresh juice, and I’ll see what it does to me. I’m a little concerned about the blood sugar rush without the accompanying fiber to balance it out. So far, I’m doing good.

So, for some unfathomable reason (nothing brought it on, it came out of nowhere), I decided it’d be fun to knit a Molly Weasley sweater (the groovy one from Chamber of Secrets) for Halloween. I looked at the pattern in Charmed Knits and it didn’t do anything for me. Then I saw this.

Oooooh. Now that has potential. I’d knit the body of the sweater and just crochet the sleeves. I’d also get the sleeves back up on the shoulders, not hanging off like that. I have some ideas as to the neckline and trimmings, I’d shorten it and make it an A-line at the hips, and I gotta find/make me an apron to wear over it, along with a decent wig… BUT! Wouldn’t it be cool? I think so. And since Molly Weasley is heavy set anyway, I’ll look perfect, if not too tall.

I’ve contacted Gayle, my crochet master friend that I’ve only seen a handful of times since we moved 3 years ago, and I think we’re a go! So, I need to start collecting bits of yarn in different colors. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to go all wool, or use acrylic, or a mix of the two. I don’t see this as being a very fun sweater to handwash and lay flat to dry, but I don’t like touching acrylic, so the actual crochet experience (which I don’t particularly like) will be far more enjoyable if I have nice yarn to work with.

Fortunately, I already have the PERFECT body color, I just have to figure out how to use it without getting Liv mad at me, as it’s the yarn I was going to knit her cabled yolk sweater with. But that’s been stalled out for a year and a half anyway, and we’d already discussed scrapping the yolk sweater for a cabled vest/jacket thing, and she’s older now. Maybe she doesn’t want pink anymore? Maybe???

So, that’s my latest crazy idea. It may or may not happen, but I think it’d be fun and one of those things I could wear every year.

In other news, I’ve discovered that I don’t particularly enjoy knitting toe-up heels. So the Goldfish Socks are stalled for the moment, I’m probably going to need some hand-holding from Carol. I’ve re-decided that I HATE the colors of that stupid hexagon shawl. I’ll finish it, show it to a bunch of people to get their opinions, then I’ll probably overdye it. Which means I have to knit some swatches to test-overdye.

This is so annoying to me. The color of this Colinette yarn is what made me splurge on it at the store, and then it knit up like crap and I don’t even like the way it feels compared to other mohair laceweights I’ve used.

This is what, 3 or 4 grumpy posts in a row from me? (I just checked, make that 5+).

I’m sorry.

But I really am excited to try my hand at crocheting (even though it hurts my wrist) a Molly W. sweater. I’ve already bought the pattern, I’m just waiting for the PDF to show up in my inbox.