Officially Official

Long time no see! Well, I guess that it is no secret that I haven't been around this blog in a long time. Some where along the way my desire to blog has just disappeared. Not sure why but I do know one thing and that is I'm going to make my break official by posting it. I'm still knitting and spinning and chasing my kids around all day so nothing has really changed for me I just don't get around to blogland very often. Heck, I even have a hard time posting my projects on Ravelry right now. For now I will work up to posting on Ravelry and then someday I'll try to work up to blogging again. Take care everyone and bye for now!

Busy as a Bee

The reason that I haven't blogged in awhile is because so much has been going on. I have been plugging away at my Shetland Tea Shawl. Right now I have reached the knitted on edging that is taking an eternity to finish. It's a VERY intricate edging but very beautiful and I can't wait to finish. Now I'm trying to decide if I want to dye the shawl when I'm done because the vanilla color is starting to bore me to tears. The terrible thing is that will I still have half cone left of this color when I'm finished.



A couple weeks ago my brother brought my early B-day gift over. He really knows how to spoil his little sister. Love ya bro!



My new Kromski Symphony spins so smoothly, in my opinion it is one beautiful wheel. In fact, I love spinning on it so much that I already finished my first skein of yarn off of it.



I used the roving from the bottom picture in the post down below. The one that I was disappointed in how it turned out. I have to admit that I'm not so disappointed now. It turned out really nice and I need to learn that when I dye roving to let the colors just do their own thing and not get upset if they don't turn out EXACTLY like I planned. I'm a bit of a control freak. The stats on this yarn is about 664 yards of heavy laceweight (18 wpi). I'm not quite sure what to make with it yet but I'm looking for patterns.

My current spinning project is one that I can't seem to pull myself away from. The fiber here is for a spin-a-long on Ravelry. The fiber is 80 % merino and 20% silk and is dyed by Kristin from All Spun Up. I really love the colors and it is so soft and fun to spin.



My 10 month old little lady is sleeping so I'm off to spin some more!

Dye Pot Edition

Roving, or in this case combed top, is so much fun to dye and spin because as you plan the color choices in the roving I start to fantasize what the resulting yarn will look like. How I want the yarn to stripe or have that charming Barber pole effect so often seen in handspun is all taken in to consideration before I start applying dye on the delicate, soft, fiber. When all goes according to my plan I get results that are pleasing to my eye and I couldn't be happier.



When things seem to take on a life of their own, well I get a little concerned.



You see, the blue and orange one worked out almost like I had envisioned it so there was no cause for alarm. But the one on the bottom, that's a different story. I'm still not quite sure what happened there. For now I will lick my wounds and look forward to my next session at the dye pot because playing with dye is almost as fun as spinning.

P.S. Elise if you are reading this (I couldn't find an email or blog address) I just wanted to personally thank you for your words of encouragement because they helped tremendously. Hugs to you.

Moving On

Sitting at my computer with my cup of coffee ready to drink and my children sleeping soundly in their beds I realize that I am ready to return to the fiber community that I love so much. I'm so thankful to those of you who didn't give up on me and kept me in their bloglines subscription. I may have lost some of my readers that I valued as friends but I needed that time to take a break from the blogging world that can seem a little competitive at times. I hate losing readership and during my short blogging experience I have lost several readers and I always see it as a reflection on myself, either I'm not entertaining or funny enough and then I would get a little upset with myself. Well, no more! I just got a thicker skin baby! Blogging should be fun and I won't take things so personally any more.

Moving on.....I have some exciting news in the spinning department; I'm going to attempt to dye some roving today. Little nervous that I will accidentally felt the beautiful and Bluefaced Leicester that my colors won't work and that they will all run together and become a lovely shade of poo but it's a chance I'm willing to take. Another exciting tidbit is that I'm will be acquiring another spinning wheel. A beautiful Kromski Symphony as an early B-day present from my brother. I think that my entire family has been worried about the fiber funk that I was in and did every thing in their power to get me out of it and what can I say... it worked! The quickest way to my heart is with handspun. ;)

As far as knitting goes I'm still plugging away at my Shetland Lace Tea Shawl. I'm not as quick at knitting lace as I used to be because I can only work on it when the kiddos are in bed. It requires too much concentration and if I drop a stitch it will most likely end up all the way back at the beginning. The project that I work on during "business hours" is a crochet ripple blanket I'm making for my little one who is now a grand 9 months. This is a blanket that she will need to grow into first!




Those of you who may remember my daughter's Torticollis condition, she is getting better but she is still not 100%. If she doesn't get better soon they may have to do surgery and I don't think my heart can take that. So if you could please keep her in your prayers I would be so grateful to you.

Don't Wanna

I didn't realize that an entire month had past since I last looked at my blog. I feel terrible and at the same time some what liberated. You see, I think that I have put myself under too much pressure to be do it all and be super mom and super wife. I knew that putting myself under that kind of stress put me in danger of a burnout and finally it happened. I stopped looking at my blog and in turn that made me neglect reading blogs (sorry about that). I stopped knitting and instead I picked up my crochet hook; I even stopped spinning. In fact, I don't want to knit or spin anything all I want to do is hook (crochet). I'm not quite sure what emotions are fueling this strike of mine but they are very strong, which is ashame since I have that awesome spinning wheel to play with and all these beautiful patterns to knit but all I can think about is crocheting my daughter a colorful blanket. I would post some pictures but my blogging strike is not entirely over and I will do so when I feel less hostile/lazy towards blogging and just so you know it's not because of Ravelry because quite frankly, I have been avoiding that too. I'm sorry for the bad attitude. I will leave you with what I did accomplish on my wheel before I went on strike.



Next time I promise I'll have a better attitude. ;)