And while I'm at it...
Here's the progress on the Noro jacket, posing on the drying rack with Prudence. hmm... not the greatest shot, but I still want you to be impressed at how fast it's going.
Phebie's Needle Arts is open in the new Claremont Packing House! It's an old citrus packing house, and I totally love how the sign evokes the old orange crate labels.
I admit that this shot coulda/shoulda been cropped a bit... but I really love the way those cotton skeins go so well together. I forgot to write down the name, but Erin bought a couple of skeins.
I have to share this -- I'm googling around for orange crate labels, with the idea of having a TwistedSpinster brand yarn label.
Go see this: BEN SAKOGUCHI - Orange Crate Label Series. Especially the "Happily Ever After" brand in group 4!
So, it's all
Lisa's fault. I signed up for the
Summer of Socks.
Not that I'm currently an obsessive/compulsive knitter. Who me? Just because I went through a skein and a half of the Noro yesterday (yes - in ONE DAY) and now have finished the back up to the armholes - who, me?
And have I done the Saxon blue yet? Did I call it Mayan blue? Sorry, Mayan blue is indigo sucked up into the nanotubes of attapulgite clay. It's a pigment, not a dye. JFGI.
I'm doing the Saxon blue, the one with sulfuric acid. As soon as I can quit being neurotic and intimidated. Maybe this weekend.
Erin, you up for a dye day?
Attitude level- pissy, with a nice dollop of grumpy. The Roketman's been gone all week, doing the Smart Boat project. (if it's so smart, why can't they fix it???) This is after 3 straight weeks of being gone Mon-Wed. And he may not come home this weekend. They're threatening to throw him overboard, and I may want to be there to round up the fishies to feed him to. Grump grump grump.
Erin, I'm in awe that you and M can live apart and it works. Me, not so much. I get antsy. I get pissy. No one like being around me, not even myself.
'nuf.
Focus, Ruth, Focus!!
Wow, that last post got garbled format-wise. I'm going to let it be, and my excuse is that it will probably get more garbled, not less.
But really, I need to get more focused.
SO!! I need to write down my goals, and stay focused.
Number One Goal:
***Do trial runs of the dyes for the Class I'm teaching on the Mayan Backstrap Weaving and Dyeing Workshop. ***
(in case you're interested, it's Saturday, May 19. Auspices of the Greater Los Angeles Spinning Guild. At Garen's house in Hollywood, ask for more details!)
Down time (aka television knitting): knitting on the Noro jacket, see previous blog entry. I'm finished both fronts, almost done with the sleeves, need to do the back and collar.
(insert whip-cracking sound effects here!)
I've been bad...
All I can say is, when the Roketman's away, I have a tendency to succumb to temptation.
OK, sometimes I even seek out temptation to succumb to!
Here's some of the latest -- a black fleece from Whitefish Bay! Oh, I was so bad -- I got two.
So today, I'm washing up Tempest, and maybe even Prudence. Lotsa black yarn in my future...
More later, the timer just went off. Time to pull the next two net bags out of the sink.
And... this is about 2 hours later...
I want to show you the magic. This is what my skeins look like before and after being blocked with hot water:
and another before, with the after and another before...
and here's the final after:
Here's a better explanation. See those really really overtwisted skeins? Those are before they get dunked in hot water, and snapped between my hands.
This picture shows my sample skeins. Far left is the skein I did by spinning from combed locks. You really can't tell where one skein ends and the next begins, but I hope you can see how the yarn in the middle is so much smoother. More on that below. The skein at right is spun from rolags, in a pretty much woolen method.
Now, that yarn in the middle. Yesterday, at the Greater Los Angeles Spinning Guild, I got Dave Larsen to show me how to diz roving off a drum carder. Such a cool technique! I promise to try to get pictures of this. I was totally blown away by how clean the drum carder was with this process. Because this is definitely how I'm going to process this fleece!!
