ugh

I'm tired, too full (ate at Applebee's for dinner, and I don't want to fold laundry. Plus I have a headache.

On the other hand, I did get a lot of spinning done tonight at Touche. In between laughing at Deawn, and commiserating with Eliza about drama that's going on, it was a good time.

Now I'm off to pop some tylenol, fold towels and sheets, and maybe spin some more. I want to get the first half of the CMF roving done tonight.

Oh! Almost forgot.....and it would be nice to forget.....my scrub tops that I ordered for work finally came today. So I'll be in my lovely shade of navy blue come July 1.

7 things

Beaunoze tagged me, so here it is.

1. My dog chews her toenails.

2. If you asked me to pick a favorite book, I probably couldn't name just one. It's constantly changing. One of my more recent favorites is The Other Boleyn Girl.

3. Favorite movie? Totally different story from the book thing. I'd tell you Gone With the Wind every time.

4. I've sewn my own set of Civil War era underwear, entered a costume contest in it and won Best Dressed Woman....while only half-dressed. But it was 14 yards of fabric.

5. Corsets are actually very comfortable to wear. Once you learn not to swing your hips when you walk, or breathe with your abdomen (hard for someone who's taken singing lessons).

6. My sock stash is bigger now than it was at the start of the year....I've been very very bad.

7. I hate frogging my knitting, but a ballwinder makes things so much easier. I think it has something to do with the time spent. When it only takes 3 minutes versus 3 hours to rip out something it takes a little bit of the sting away.

State of the Me address

Ok....I feel the need to blog since I'm in something of a funk right now. But I'll start off with the good stuff.

Pirates!! I know people haven't exactly cared for this movie, so I didn't go into it with high expectations. I think that's what helped me get through it. Minnie, you were right about that point you made last Thursday. Once I knew to look for it, it was easy to spot. I did love how some plot points were resolved. But I was disappointed in Cap'n Jack. He just kind of faded from the story and afterwards I found myself wondering....what happened to Jack!? My opinion? Good movie, but I'll wait for it to come out on dvd before I watch it again.

Mom and Dad came to visit this weekend and we got my garden planted and some housekeeping stuff done. I've got strawberries, lettuce, cucumbers, tomatos, green pepper, and rhubarb in my (hopefully!!) rabbit-proof garden. The dead vines were cleared out of my clematis, weeds were sprayed, garden hoses set out, dead front lawn raked and re-seeded, a picture hung, and lots of food eaten. Mom and I also cranked out some squares to donate to a lady making blankets for family's in Greensburg, KS. I'm planning on hitting up my stash for some more yarn so I can do a few more.

But other than that, I haven't really felt like doing much fiber-related. Mom also frogged my finished Grasshopper sock for me. I may re-do it, but top-down and without the leg gusset. I've been working on my Borg Queen sock and finally managed to turn the heel this afternoon.

I went to a party at a neighbor's last night and managed to finally meet two neighbors that I had met in the year since I moved into my house. Just took some Veggietales videos over to one couple who has a 3-year-old little girl named Grace. She's adorable! I also got to meet the neighbor cop's girlfriend....I'm not impressed. To hear her tell, she's a stylist for an advertising agency.....I'm reading that as she's a cosmetologist who sometimes works for an ad group when they need help. Especially when she said she's from Kansas City. How many big advertising/commercial-making groups are there in KC? Whatever. My parents saw her too and weren't too impressed. But I'm done with that.

Still spinning on the CMF roving. I haven't even made it through the first 4 oz yet. That'll hopefully come later this week.

Guess that's all for the moment. I'd better start getting ready for work tonight. At least it's only an 8-hour shift thanks to the holiday.

Yay for movies!!!

I'm going to see Pirates 3 today at noon with a couple of co-workers. Here's hoping I don't fall asleep.....and that it's better than the second one.

And since I'm talking about movies, I'm going to point you all here. That's going to take you to the website for my friend, Sarah's, film school. This is the OTIS film festival for this spring. You have to put up with some commentary by a couple of acting students who are the emcees, but it's worth it. First up is Twilight Rain in its entirety. I've linked to an early 5-minute version of this, but the sound has been tweaked since and it's a wonderful movie. I cried. Go watch it. The next one is called Harold and it's cute and short. Third is Sarah's documentary, Blowing Sand. I'll admit that I haven't watched it all the way through yet (it's 30 minutes), but I fully intend to.

So go! Go now! And enjoy!!!

The honeymoon is over...

....with the neighbor cop. Let's just say that after the marathon good-bye I saw him and his girlfriend exchange Sunday morning, he's safely out of the running. Oh well. That's life.

At least I got an email back from Purlescense Yarns and they're shipping me my Sheep-2-Shoe kit today. Yay! I ended up getting the Footzey Foo colorway since I already had the other two colors in STR (Lapis and Pink Granite).

lots of pics!!

I don't know why I've been saving these up on my camera. Maybe I'm just getting lazy with the pictures.



First up is the ripple afghan out of Red Heart that I wrote about a few posts ago. RIPPP!!!!





Here's the bloody end. All of this got donated to my church's VBS along with other various skeins of stuff I'll never use.





And now this....last week I mowed my lawn. Then Phoebe wanted to go outside at 2 am. Pretty normal. Until she came in and I didn't have a white dog anymore.



Those are green paws people....green! My poor little tie-dyed dog. First she has a blue spot on her side from Miss V dripping dye on her, then her paws get tinged green from the cut grass. But she's white again after a much-needed bath.



Then comes the finished Jonagold roving. I haven't been able to find anymore of this. It's BMFA 50/50 merino/tencel in Jonagold. I ended up with about 550 yards of 2-ply. This is the stuff I managed to ply in the same direction I had spun the singles. But it came out okay!





And here's an indoor shot a little truer to color.





Finally. A shot of the Borg Queen Jaywalker. I'm calling these my One Mind, One Voice socks. What's more appropriate for the Borg than socks that pretty much every sock knitter on the planet has made?





I think that's it for now! I'm meeting k2p2 (Cheryl) from the LnV messageboards and some of her friends at Personal Threads in the morning, so maybe I should get some sleep. But I think I'll spin a little first.

No go for launch

Well, I got an email back from Blue Moon and was basically shot down. According to the lady who emailed me, they don't have any Sheep-2-Shoe kits and aren't offering any roving right now. Hmmm....then why did I just see over on Cookie A's blog that they're spinning up Sheep-2-Shoe kits?!? Very interesting.

I did manage to save the Jonagold roving. It's kind of lifeless right now, but it's not overtwisted at least.

I started my One Mind, One Voice Jaywalkers out of the Borg Queen sock yarn Miss Violet dyed up. I'm loving it. I showed the yarn to my pastor last night and once I explained it, he laughed. He actually talked about the Borg in his sermon on Sunday. I'm so glad I have a pastor who's a sci-fi geek!

Started spinning the Crown Mountain Farms Sock Hop fiber I got around Christmas time. Decided to start with My Boyfriend's Back. Gorgeous!! If I wouldn't have been hosting a couple of college girls at my house last night (they're part a touring bell choir), I so would have been on my computer and ordering more.

And finally....I might get another puppy. I heard on the news this morning that the Humane Society had raided a puppy mill and rescued over 150 puppies overnight. They're letting people adopt them starting Sunday and they're only asking half their normal donation for them. I'm seriously debating.

Off to bed!!

Once in a Blue Moon

I just emailed Blue Moon Fiber Arts. I'm hoping that they're still dyeing merino/tencel roving in the Jonagold colorway.....

....and just for the heck of it, I asked them about the Sheep-to-Shoe kits as well.

In for a penny, in for a pound....of roving!! Hahahahahaha!!! I'm so witty when I'm sleep-deprived!!

Ravelry is killing me!!

Ravelry.com

Love it.

Cannot stop uploading stuff to it.

Must take more/better pictures of completed stuff.

Must photograph stash. *whimper*

What I really need to do is sleep.

Plying away...

The plying of the Jonagold singles is done thanks go Eliza and the plying head she loaned me. And then the directions she gave me for how to get my wheel apart and put it back together again!

Then I was stupid. I plied my singles in the same direction that I spun them. I'm hoping that it won't affect the finished yarn too much. I'm guessing that it'll probably just act overtwisted. I wish I would have caught it sooner, but I already had more than half my singles plied before I noticed.

Anyone with more spinning know-how than I have....thoughts?

promised pictures

Jonagold singles are still on the bobbins. Blue Moon Fiber Arts 50/50 merino/tencel blend, 10 oz in Jonagold.


And I had to show off some of my cool new shoes I bought out in Virginia. My friend, Sarah, is a shoe freak (about like I'm a yarn freak) and we went to four different shoe stores. I got these at Payless and they are so comfortable!


Tuesday, Dad took Cozy (his Brittney spaniel) to the former family farm (now some conservation prarie that they have to keep up) and she got tuckered out. These two dogs are used to sleeping all day and all night. You'd never guess that they're both just over a year old! Toffee happened to be sleeping on Cozy's pillow when Dad got home from the farm, so Cozy just went over, plopped down and used Toffee as a pillow. Mom was quick with the camera and caught the cuteness.


And since Phoebe was feeling left out....here she is hanging out at the top of the stairs. She spends a lot of time there. I'm guessing she likes it because she's about equi-distant between me and the foodbowl, and she gets to let her paws hang over the top step.


ETA: I just finished frogging a Red Heart afghan that I started a couple years ago. I was about 2 1/2 feet into it, but just couldn't find the motivation to finish it. There are before and after pics on the camera that I'll post later today. *sigh of relief* It feels so good!

Progress....

Pictures will be added later....I promise.

Jonagold roving is done, but still in the singles on the bobbins. I'm still debating on whether or not to ply it. But it is just so pretty. The tencel in it just makes it shiny!

Grasshopper #1 is past the heel. I decided to complete that before I went to bed. It only took 5 episodes of Voyager, season 2.

And now I'm off to bed.

Yay for storms!!!

I love me a good thunderstorm. As long as there aren't tornadoes in the area, I'm good. And the pup-pup isn't even freaking out about the storm. Very cool.

I've switched to the second bobbin for spinning my Jonagold. I'm still debating whether or not to ply this. My single's are about as fine as Trekking right now. But I did switch to the other bobbin about halfway through my fiber in case I change my other mind. I should have the spinning done on that tonight.

Then it will be on to my knitting. I'm neglecting my Grasshopper sock. I'm just not feeling motivated to work on it. So after the spinning's done tonight, I'm planning on starting a Miss Dashwood hat to go with the MDK baby kimono I made. Should be cute!

And I went over to Violet's house last night to help her with skeining.....but that progressed into both of us proudly waving our geek flags as we started naming the colors for her next shop update. And V? I've had that stupid song in my head ever since. Curse you!!! I can't say what song or type the lyrics or anything or that will give away the fun that people will have with these yarn names.

Off to spin! Just keep spinning, just keep spinning, spinning, spinning....

MYB is here!!!

I had joined the Magic Yarn Ball swap over on the LnV messageboards last month. After sending off my stuff to Becca, I was waiting for my package to arrive from Janice (aka NotMe) in Canada. And it finally came today!!! There was a slight fiasco with the UPS guy. Evidently their idea of delivering to my "porch" involved stepping off my front steps and wedging the box in between my security system sign and the house. I almost missed it, but found it on the second sweep as I was going inside.

Here's the two MYBs that Janice sent me!


MYB #1 (the one on the left in the first picture) had a bunch of goodies in the middle. To start on the outside, Janice (who really needs to get a blog so I can link to her...hint hint) had threaded alphabet beads on some string. This first ball spelled out Carin. Inside was a skein of Alchemy Yarns 100% bamboo in bright blue, a set of size 1 Brittney dpns, a button that you can personalize by threading yarn through different holes, a sample set of Soak woolwash, and a knitted cupcake (that's the orange funfur sticking out the top). All of that was wrapped up in a skein of Fleece Artist Sea Wool sock yarn in Wild Flowers.


MYB #2 (the labeled with Alcariel beads) had more Soak samples, an ounce of alpaca/bombyx silk fiber, size 2 Brittney dpns, a bag of really yummy milk chocolate wafers, and a magnet from Lettuce Knit (where the Yarn Harlot and Amy Singer go for their SnB). This was wrapped up in another skein of the Sea Wool, also in Wild Flowers, but slightly different than the first. Both are gorgeous though.


And now I'm off to knit some more on the Grasshopper sock and keep spinning on my Jonagold fiber.

woohoo!!!! photo update!!!!

And it's about time too. Let's get this started!

First up are my Monkey socks that I knit in Cherry Tree Hill's Life's a Beach colorway. Gorgeous!! Why did it take me so long to break into my CTH stash?! I'm loving this yarn.


Here's another angle. Did you know that it's really really hard to bend over and try to take a picture of your own feet when you can't even touch your own toes?


Next up is the Magic Yarn Ball that I sent to Becca from the LnV messageboards. She blogged it all unwrapped over at her site, so just follow the link. I ended up having to use two skeins of sock yarn to get all her goodies wrapped. One (the one you can see) is Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Wild Raspberry. Then in the middle is some Meteor (roving dyed by Miss Violet and spun by me). All kinds of goodies including gummy rats.


Also stuffed in that ball of goodies was a sockblocker keychain. So of course I had to knit a little sock to go on it! Here it is next to my nano for a size reference. Kinda blurry, but at 3 AM we take what we can get.


Moving on, I've got the start of my latest RSC kit sock. Here's my modified Grasshopper sock (switched out the p2tog for k2tog).


And last is the first four ounces of Goblin Elbows Blue superwash merino roving, spun up into sock yarn. It's two-ply and about 375 yards. I've got another 4 ounces, but I think that'll wait a while.


I worked some more on my Grasshopper sock tonight and then broke out the wheel again and started spinning some 50/50 merino/tencel from Blue Moon in their Jonagold colorway. I've got 10 ounces and no clue what it's going to be. But it's purdy!!