I am SO excited! UPS is scheduled to deliver my Woolery order today, and I’m antsy. I ordered the wild flyer so I could spin my wolf yarn without having to clear the hooks every other draft. And I ordered one jumbo bobbin to ply on (however I’m curious, what good is a fatty skein when the standard ball winder won’t hold a ball that big? I’m going to find out I guess), plus two more regular bobbins (cheaper than, yet just as effective as a new wheel), and the Strauch fiber teaser. (I bought a dog flicker brush as I’d heard they’re just as good and way cheaper. They’re neither. The teasing tool is amazing, I’ve used one, and it’s only about twice as much as a flicker brush, which I didn’t find helpful at all).

So, lots of spinning goodies are coming my way and I can’t wait!

I’ve washed a couple pounds of the new wool.

Aside from an odd yellow stain on some of it, part way up the locks,

it’s fantastic. So much silkier than the white lamb I’ve been working with. I’m dying to dye some and make a batt from it, to see how it differs from the wool I already had.

And finally, I don’t know what’s going on with me. I’ve suddenly, over the last 2 1/2 weeks, ballooned out. My face is puffy, I don’t feel that great, my low back has gone into an absolute tissy, and most noticeably, my upper arms have grown. A lot. I don’t get it. I’ve been exercising. I haven’t eaten bad. This really sucks, I’m in a rotten mood over it, and I’m really glad I have something to look forward to today.

I finished the swatch, and seem incapable of getting a photo with accurate color. So, imagining that it isn’t quite as bright as the picture… do you like it?

My main question, more than color, is do you like the amount of tweed (the light green noil)? Is it too much? It’s really nice and drapey for a heavy-worsted 3 ply.

As I mentioned yesterday, I went down south to buy more fleece.

I came back with 37 pounds over 5.

Lin asked me to bring some of the fleece I was having trouble dyeing, and she dyed a little bit right there, without soaking it first, using her magenta and yellow. It dyed much more evenly. So, I brought 2 gallons of her water home with me, and I ordered color cards of her dye. She uses Washfast mainly, with a few select colors of Sabraset. I’d already ordered small jars of Jacquard primaries (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) and I’ll see how they work out. I WILL figure this out. I swear I will. She also said that ewe fleece dye more evenly than lamb does, and my fleece was a lamb. Yesterday I bought ewe, with one lamb, the amazingly gorgeous, dark gray.

While we were skirting the fleece, we looked out the window and saw this.

It was incredibly cute and we both laughed and then she said, “Great. Chicken poop in my fleece. That’s just what I need.” Ha.

That’s what I’ve got. Tons of fleece to wash. Dye stuff coming. Hopefully, I can dye something soon.

So, on Saturday, I soaked some wool, alpaca top, bombyx top, tussah and bombyx noil.

I picked a general color scheme, and, of course, none of it turned out the way it was supposed to. However my locks dyed really well, and the alpaca is gorgeous.

They just aren’t quite the color I was going for. Too dark, and not as much yellow as I’d wanted.

The silk…. you know, I’ve heard that silk takes dye really well. I haven’t had that experience. And of the dye that does take, much of it washes out when I’m rinsing out the dyebath.

This is what I got. The silk on the far left is hideous. Strangely, it’s the exact same color as the silk I tried to dye red awhile ago.

But I learned some things when I spun the batt and swatched it. The color of the swatch was stunning last night (tho’ it needs more rust), but this morning in natural light, it’s a bit brighter than I’d like. It looks like a mess in the photo, but in person, it’s nicer.

While I was dyeing, it felt like I was cooking. The dye would start to soak in and I’d see I needed to add a little of this, a little of that. A little more black, some complimentary color to dull it, more red to add color, etc. It was very fun.

I’m running horribly late. I need to take a quick shower and head south to buy more fleece. I’m looking forward to washing locks again. I always enjoy that.

Well, I exercised hard this week. Not every day, but I feel good about it. I haven’t eaten too much, I don’t think, just not very healthy. So it was a mediocre week. I’ve gained weight, and inches. I don’t understand that. I’m guessing it has something to do with the heat and humidity. I feel gross. But aside from the fact that I’m sweating every waking second of the day, Nate’s worked 80+ hours this week, and he’ll just be adding to that today. So it’s been a difficult week all around.

How was yours?

So, I dyed my little mini alpaca batt yesterday. It’s brighter than I expected. I thought the brown of the fiber would tone it down more than it did. Good to know. It’s a very earthy, brightish sort of moss green. Extremely earthy. It’s interesting. I tried lighter and darker shades of a similar green, and there is some variation to the color. I think it would have been more distinct if I had more fiber in there. A thicker roving or top would have held the dye in place better. But with this green and brown, the lighter spots look a little sickly. Once it’s spun, it’ll be fine. During the dyeing, I thought for sure I was getting a repeat of my silk experience (a big mess with distinct stripes where I poured the dye), but as I watched, it diffused and spread.

Neither of the two pictures I took are color accurate, but I’ll show them both and if you imagine something in between, you’ll probably be close. The darker one is closer.

So, I have some tan alpaca top I could try. I’m not sure if I should add a little black to the dye, or a little red to tone it down. Or if I’ll just go for purples, because that is of interest, too. Maybe I’ll do both. What I want to dye is my camel, mainly because I’m so anxious to spin it, but I don’t want impatience to ruin it, either. It’s such beautiful stuff.

My day got away from me. I had every intention of dyeing some of the amazing baby camel down top that I have, but right now, I’m soaking part of a tan alpaca batt to test hot pour dyeing and my colors on.

I’ve spun a little of the camel. Just a tiny bit to see what it was like. I didn’t put enough twist in it and it’s a miracle I was able to ply it. But I did, and knit a tiny, incredibly soft little swatch which I’ve been rubbing between my fingers for a couple of days.

It hasn’t felted or balled at all. A good sign.

If I am able to dye it well, I think it’d be fun to add dyed camel top and handspun to my Tweedy Batts offerings. It’s such nice fiber. I think it’d make a delightful little neck scarf. A small one to tuck into a sweater or coat to keep the chill off. But, this is all assuming that I will EVER figure out how to dye properly. My confidence is nil. Hope remains high, however.

So, I’m going for greens. We’ll see how it works out.

It rained on Saturday, which means that my housepainter couldn’t finish painting and now he’s on vacation for a week in Alabama.

Waiting and waiting. Sometimes, it seems like that’s all I do. Wait for the siding to be replaced. Wait for my stupid elbows to get better before I do more in the yard. Wait for the painter. Wait for slow bids on our front deck.

Wait for everything relating to Tweedy Batts. It’s always a wait.

SO, our house is sort of painted. On Saturday night, Nate took a picture of the house and put it in photoshop to try out doors. All of the doors we liked weren’t working. They were too busy. So we tried other doors and found the PERFECT one! I’m going to see if the local shop I linked last week can make it for us.

After we found the door, Nate played around in photoshop and changed the yard a little bit. It’s a rough mockup and not complete, but you get a pretty good idea of what we’re going for. So I’ll show you the before and pseudo after photos.

I didn’t even know our house could be cute ’til that tree came down, and once the little roof came off, you could actually see the house. Now, as long as we keep it clean and simple, the door and the yard and anything else we do out front, our house has a very nice, modest look to it. I’m very excited. When we bought this house, I figured it’d always be ugly from the street. It was so ugly. But we loved the inside, and that was enough. I’m happy to have “discovered” the outside.

I think that today, I’m going to start on the garage. I want to organize it like I did in the last house, make it clean and nice, and put an elliptical and weight bench out there.

On Friday, some of my sisters-in-law and I went blueberry picking with the kids. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. With lots of little helpers, we took home 18 pounds of blueberries.

Clark took berry picking extremely seriously. He wouldn’t leave his bush.

The girls were having more fun running around with their cousins.

I can’t believe summer’s almost over. I have big projects planned for the September, when I’ll have free time again, and that’ll be here before I know it.

Pretty good week for me. A lot of exercise, ate tolerably well. I’m able to lift light weights again. My physical therapist said that I can do it as long as the weight is light enough for 20 reps. So I’m doing my biceps, triceps, and some squats for my quads.

I need to be eating more protein, but I don’t want to eat more meat. I’m having a hard time figuring out how to do it. I was surprised that beans aren’t as much of a source of protein as I thought. They’re more of a carb, so eating beans doesn’t help much with my nutrient percentages. And I only like Tofu sliced thin and fried. So, that isn’t going to help. And I’d feel weird using more protein powder than I already am. It doesn’t seem like a great food “source”, but a respectable supplement, you know? I don’t know what to do.

But since I’m trying to build muscle, I need more protein.

How was your week?

My stuff came.

I ordered a bunch of different things to experiment with. Three were backordered and the only reason I mind is that 2 of those are the other wools, BFL and shetland, that I was going to try. I want to make a batt with something other than Romney just to see what the difference feels like, and I can’t.

Annoying.

BUT, I’m anxious to make some batts with what I got.

Liv is knitting again.

She started a Gryffidnor scarf yesterday and once again started knitting backwards instead of flipping it over to purl the backside. That’s so amazing to me. I’m guessing it’s because she’s a left handed girl with a mom that kind of, um, forced her to be right handed*… so she does unexpected things sometimes. **

I cut Liv’s hair recently, then she talked Nate into dyeing it for her, and she got new glasses. So she’s a totally new girl, and so cute with short hair. It’s wedged high in the back.

* I didn’t mean to. She went back and forth between the two so much as a little kid, I figured that life was easier as a right handed person, so I encouraged her to go right. Strongly. If it had looked like she was strictly left handed, I would have left her alone. I think. I hope.

** Her first and second grade teachers couldn’t figure out why she was so behind in handwriting. She’s caught up now, thankfully, but I feel bad. We didn’t really figure out why ’til two summers ago. We were killing time at a wedding, and one of my brothers-in-law started throwing a ball. Liv was in softball at the time, her first year, and wasn’t a particularly strong thrower. So Nate was surprised when he saw her gunning the ball back to his brother with strength and accuracy. As he watched her, he realized she was throwing left handed, which she doesn’t do in softball because she has a right handed mitt. We then bought her a left mitt and she immediately improved. Then this last year, at the second to last game of the season, Nate had her bat left handed. (She had started to struggle at bat and wasn’t getting on base much). The coach looked dubious, but as I remember it, she hit the first pitch… hard. The coach was elated. She bat left for the last game and did great. I feel like a total heel. I can’t teach left handed knitting though. I wouldn’t know where to start, so she’ll have to make do.