I think I’m going to make it.

As I intended, yesterday was spent spinning, for the most part. I’m sorry to say that it got a little sloppy in the afternoon, when the kids got home from school and my attention was divided between helping Veronica write a paper on Martin Luther King Jr. and my singles, but once it’s knit into Clark’s sweater, no one is going to know.

I carded the remaining two batts, spun 7 of them, plied and washed one skein,

and this morning, I plied half of a second.

(The half skein is on the right, remaining single on the left).

All that’s left is to spin two batts and ply them onto the partial skein.

Then I’m done.

Whew!

Clark and I watched two of his cousins for a couple hours yesterday afternoon, and they all played super sweetly in the living room while I spun.

I couldn’t believe it worked out that nice.

It’s so weird to see Clark play with boys. He’s always been the tagalong baby with my girls, so to have it just be him, and boys… I haven’t done boys yet. It’s always been girls and my baby. It’s taking some getting used to, but it’s incredibly cute.

Here’s a picture of the yarn I bought in Portland. If you’re as tired of seeing undyed brown around here as I am, it should be a treat.

I didn’t end up taking many pictures of Portland at all. Towards the end of the day, I thought about all the pictures I should have taken, like yarn shop signs, the garter stitch coat in one of the shops that was super cool, the entire wall of Koigu, the super cute store owner with the heavy, eastern european accent, etc. But I didn’t. Here’s what I’ve got-

Katie and I on the train on the way down to Portland from Seattle.

Although we walked all over downtown for hours and hours, we did hop on a streetcar for a few blocks.

After lunching at a psychedelic teahouse and hitting the three yarn shops on the “tour”, one of them twice, we went to the infamous Powell’s Book Store. I was going to link it but the website is pretty lame, and why exactly they have a naked chick on their home page is beyond me.

Supposedly, they’re the largest independent bookstore in the world. Or something. I don’t know. It was huge. I knit on a bench in the art gallery upstairs while Katie shopped for books, and I missed Nate terribly, knowing that he would have loved it. Then Katie found me and knit a little herself.

We ate chicken enchiladas at Cha Cha Cha (how cool is that?) before heading back to the train station for the ride home.

The tower says “GO BY TRAIN“.

And that was it. I bought some sock yarn and completely delicious silk mohair laceweight that isn’t too fuzzy. Something that I’ve found to be quite unusual.

It was a great time.

Clark got a much needed haircut this morning. He looked a little wary ’til I held the buzzing clippers to his head, then he grinned and was quite enthusiastic.

For awhile.

But I had to finish anyway, and by the end, he wouldn’t look at me.

Also this morning, I knit Liv’s watchband. Finally. I woke up at 4:30 and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I cleaned the kitchen and in the process, uncovered the watch parts and needles I’d set out to do it. I’d decided to keep it simple and make it stretch over her hand, as opposed to reincorporating the buckle.

I was going to do an interesting stitch pattern but there were so few stitches, it ended up looking better in plain ol’ garter stitch.

Last night, I nearly finished carding batts for Clark’s sweater. I carded 7, have one in process, and one more to do after that. I have one skein completed, at about 240 yards.

There’s a lot of single still on the bobbins, but I think I’m going to fill them up again before plying another skein. I hope to get much of it done today, because the rest of the week is going to be busy at the girls’ school.

Satuday, I went on a train with a bunch of knitters to Portland for the day to walk all over downtown and visit their yarn stores. I don’t have time to talk about it now, as the kids are out of school for Martin Luther King Day and we’re headed to my sister-in-law’s house, but here’s a picture of Liv’s sweater after 7 hours of knitting on the train.

It’s so pretty.

I’ll talk more about Saturday later.

Good morning! I had a great week last week. I met my calorie targets Tues, Wed, Th, and close on Friday. I exercised all of those days, plus Saturday, doing weights twice. I feel good.

How was your week?

I’ve got a decent start. I cast on last night, and I’m about 21 rows into it.

It’s even easier than I expected it to be, but the yolk will give me some headaches.

Based on how it’s working up, it looks like I’ll need to cut about 40 rows from the body to avoid being a dress on her. I’ve had a couple of good suggestions, and I feel pretty good about it.

And Clark can’t stay out of a picture for nuthin’. He swept the sweater onto the floor immediately after I took the above picture and climbed on the ottoman himself, where he looked at me expectantly.

Ok, seriously? I liked the yarn Liv picked for her sweater. I legitimately did. I thought it would be cute on her, if not something that I would have picked myself.

So, on Saturday I’m going on a train with 30+ other knitters to Portland to hop yarn shops and knit in company. It will be tremendously fun, and I’ll have the opportunity to get a lot of knitting done. The only project I have in progress are my cable socks.

(We’re not speaking of the purple gloves. They WILL get finished at some point, but right now, I’m pretending they don’t exist. The only time I acknowledge their existence is when I’m hunting like mad for my size 2 double points and it finally comes to me that they’re in the purple gloves. Then I grumble, make do with something else, and forget again).

Anyway, I bought yarn to make Liv’s sweater awhile ago and decided to swatch it today, to hopefully get it ready to knit on the train. And it is swatching beautifully. I was surprised. I showed Nate, and he was “wow-ed”. It’s gorgeous. The color is mouthwatering. I’m excited.

I wish you could see it in person.

I have to mess with the pattern to make it fit her, as it’s an adult pattern, so I have some work ahead of me.

Now I’m off to do laundry so I have my choice of things to wear on Saturday, and so we have clothes, really.

Remember the frog? I took a cute picture of him yesterday and thought I’d share.

I’ve been doing a lot, and therefore have lots to talk about, but my brain isn’t working right. I can’t focus and formulate anything comprehensive. So I’ll show a couple of pictures and ramble a bit.

Since I happened upon that little spinning guild meeting years ago and decided then and there that spinning on a wheel was something that I simply HAD to do in my life, I’ve been romanced by and in awe of the idea of making a completed, functional item from raw fleece. Now, 5 or so years later, I’m finally doing it.

As I mentioned last Monday, I want to make a sweater for Clark. Well, now I’ve sampled, swatched, and decided on a blend and weight…

…which is basically going to be in between those two. The one on the right is a two ply of 1/3 alpaca, 2/3 wool knit on size 5 needles. The one on the left is a 3 ply 1/5 alpaca, 4/5 wool knit on size 6. Indecision and varying opinions from the outside have resulted in a 2 ply yarn that is 1/4 alpaca, 3/4 wool by weight. I’m well into the spinning right now, and have carded over half. I’ve learned that while carding does remove some vm (vegetable matter, or bits of grass and hay, etc), it doesn’t remove enough to make it worth using the parts of the alpaca that are particularly dirty. (It’s been washed, so it’s CLEAN dirt/hay/grass/whatever).

That was annoying, but I learned quickly, and didn’t ruin anything.

So, I have about a week and a half to finish the yarn before the dye party, and I’m planning to journal the progress for posterity.

Here is weighed and measured, cleaned fiber for one batt.

That picture isn’t completely legit, as I’ve hand fluffed the wool to get it ready to card. But we’re close.

And here are some batts, which you’ve seen already, but humor me.

Oh! The softness. The fluffiness.

And here we are with I think 4 of the required 15 batts spun into a single.

And that’s as far as I’ve got. Hopefully, you’ll see some plied yarn in the next few days.

I’m shocked as to how quickly the spinning is going, which has a little voice in the back of my head FREAKING out that I’ve messed up my math and have 3 times more to do than I think I do. At least.

I haven’t touched the socks, so they look the same as they did the last time you saw them.

And I had more to say than I thought I did. Cool.

Ok, so everyone around me is losing weight. It’s the month for it, and I’m wanting to get in on it, too.

This past week, I did some core strengthening, but my treadmill is still buried under stuff from Nate’s painting project. Hopefully, we can get it accessible today and I can start on it next week. I’ve already bought running shoes.

A woman in our church congregation is a personal trainer at a gym, and Nate has talked with her about coming and setting up a program for us. That could be a fun kickstart.

I actually weighed myself today. I could tell I’d gained weight, and was afraid I was up around 232. And I’m only 226.5. That was happy news. Well, not happy necessarily, but a major relief anyway.

I’ve been struggling with Calorie King, because I’ve lost some of my patience with breaking down everything I eat to figure out calories. Breakfast, snacks, and lunch are easy enough, but dinner can be really tough. Janell and I emailed last week and she said some things that I think will help, mainly to not be so OCD about it and just guestimate the best that I can.

That has to be better than doing nothing.

So, I’m working towards a good week. Is anyone having some good, beginning of the year success?

1, 2, 3, count!

So yesterday, I went down into my newly usable basement kitchen to card some batts to take to spinning group.

I carded 3 romney/alpaca batts, but only ended up spinning one, as it wasn’t spinning up as soft as I wanted it to, meaning I need to add more alpaca.

(That’s about 7 ounces of washed alpaca fluff that is remarkably similar in color to my countertop).

Since you saw the basement kitchen last, I’ve added more shelves

and a corkboard to pin various project notes and color inspirations to, along with a few pieces of the girls’ artwork.

(That piece on the bottom right is a 3 dimensional depiction of the life of a silkworm that Abby made in class last year. It’s really, really cool, and theme appropriate)!

I navajo plied the batt spun last night to get it off of my bobbin, and surprisingly, it still made a very nice yarn. Good to know. I’ve washed it and it’s drying now.

And this is interesting… Here are two skeins of yarn made with the same wool, and different colors of alpaca, one black and one that reddish tan color.

The black skein is extremely soft and amazing, and that’s what I’m trying to recreate, this time, measuring and recording fiber amounts.

This morning, I carded a new batt that I’m trying to spin,

but Clark is enjoying holding on to my whorl while it’s spinning, and plucking my driveband like a bass ’til it falls off. And laughing. So the spinning will resume at nap time. Stinker.

I have some sock progress. I’m finished with one gusset, and almost done with the second.

And after taking all of these pictures this morning, I noticed a very large smudge on my lens, which would explain why they all look a little overexposed and fuzzy, but I couldn’t bring myself to take them all again.

Lame.