For HLF

When I first heard about the open position at my new employer from HLF (getting a lead on a RTP job from someone in California is pretty funny), I promised that I'd send her some handspun yarn if I got the job. Well, I got the job, and this weekend I managed to spin and ply 2 bobbins in the "Black Watch" roving she picked out. In the meantime, HLF has bought a drop spindle and has been spinning up a storm, but she's still getting this yarn whether she wants it or not.

This is a bit of a tease, since the yarn was still drying this morning and wasn't really ready for pictures, but here are some photos of the roving and singles stages:

I have to say, it made a nice, soft, squishy 2-ply. I'll probably not post the pictures until she gets the package, since it's more fun for her to wonder what the yarn looks like.

I got my wheel in late July. I've knitted up and given away some of my handspun, but I've definitely reached the "What the Hell am I Going to Do With This Yarn???" stage of my spinning life. My current pile of no-particular-use-in-mind handspun is shown below. I thought it would take a whole lot longer than this!

Long, long week

Last week was my first week at my new job. My coworkers are all great, my new boss is way cool, and I even already knew a couple of the folks there, but for an extreme introvert like me, a new job is incredibly stressful. Being paraded around to meet people, trying to remember names/titles/roles, trying to get familiar with the environment without being a pest to your new teammates, trying to prove that you're not an imbecile who just managed to put on a good show during the interview...let's just say that I was really glad when Friday rolled around.

The one true highlight of the week was, of course, this.

The sick kitty curtailed my social life to a surprising extent, and I was so tired in the evenings I wasn't really up for much in any case. I did manage to do some dyeing here and there, with the results shown below. I've started doing oven dyeing instead of microwave dyeing, and I'm enjoying it a lot. Far less mess, and really great color blending.

I also took the Tropical Sunset superwash merino off my Etsy site and decided to spin it myself. I love very bright colors, and I had a feeling this was another dye job that only its mother could love (I really do love it!). The finished product is a 2-ply, and I'd put the weight at sport or so, although I still need to do the WPI and yardage count. I hope it's enough for some crazy-ass socks.

The roving:

The yarn:

I neglected to post better pictures of Jag's weaving project. It really turned out great, especially after washing/blocking, which softened it up amazingly.

Not the quiet finish I had hoped for

After getting back from Virginia, my plans were to vote, then spend the remaining time this weekend cleaning the house, doing laundry, and dyeing up some roving and maybe some knitting/spinning/weaving. I got the voting part done yesterday (after spending an hour standing in line at Triangle Town Center!), but the rest has fallen by the wayside due to an unexpected illness in the kitty herd.

Miranda is the most vocal and social of my 4 cats, and she had been unusually quiet since my return. After I returned from voting, I tried tempting her with a treat, which she took from my hand, chewed on, and spit out while crying. Ditto with some canned food. I got worried, since I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen her eat anything since I had gotten in on Thursday, so I called the vet and managed to get an appointment for the same afternoon.

It turns out she has a mouth infection, pretty common in FIV+ kitties. She got some sub-q fluids (mostly to make ME feel better, I think) and antibiotic and painkiller shots at the vet, and now I'll be sneaking more antibiotics into wet food twice a day for the next 2 weeks. She's eaten an entire can of the special super-palatable squooshy prescription food since yesterday afternoon (with great gusto!) so I think she'll be doing much better in a few days once the antibiotics have really kicked in. She was feeling well enough to escape from her quarantine area in the downstairs bedroom last night, because I woke up this morning to find her curled up in bed beside me. At least I know she has no hard feelings about being stuffed into the carrier yesterday.

In the meantime, some fiber progress. Jag finished up his weaving project, so I promptly claimed the loom and worked on an experimental project with warp stripes. I used the only skein of Noro I've ever bought as weft, plus all but a few yards of a skein of Paton's merino in purple and most of a skein of silver-gray Elann Highland wool for the warp. I was pretty tired and slapdash while working on this, so I'm more pleased with the colors than the technical execution, but I still love it. And I know now that I absolutely have to weave a wool blanket now. After washing and blocking, this is the softest, warmest table runner ever! I have big plans for buying a bag or 2 of closeout yarn at WEBS or Elann for the blanket.

My recent spinning has involved 2 more 2-ply yarns. The first is the "Biff Spilled Sangria in the Swimming Pool Again" BFL, which I spun into a fingering weight yarn that I planned to use as sock yarn. It's actually too thin for my taste, as I prefer heavier sock yarns, so I may just knit lace with it.

Before and After:

I also dyed up some Louet Coopworth top recently. I was NOT happy with this fiber. It's full of vegetable matter and it's in super-thin, raggedy, flat sliver, which IMO is not combed enough and is full of snags and neps. I dyed up 8 oz in 2 colorways, but I just wasn't going to be comfortable selling this stuff, so I've kept it for myself. The first one I dyed in various leftover purples that I squirted randomly over the wool. After spinning, plying, and finishing, I have to admit that it made a pretty nice yarn, softer than expected. It's a DK-worsted that will make some nice sturdy mittens, I think, maybe with some Kristen Nicholas-style embroidery.

I've also finished up part of the Dad Secret Project. Everyone BUT Dad, click here to see .

Cabin by the lake

Jag and I just got back from another mini-vacation in a Virginia state park. This time it was Occoneechee, which is right on Kerr Lake (or Bugg's Island Lake, if you're in Virginia). It would be nice to take these vacations in-state, but North Carolina has exactly 2 parks that offer climate-controlled cabins, while Virginia has them in 14 parks, all of which offer online reservations. Our state's park system is kinda sad and the web sites suck. Also, alcohol is forbidden in NC state parks, whereas Virginia only forbids public use/display. What's a nice vacation without a glass of wine/mug of beer in the evenings? Sheesh.

It would be hard to overstate how nice the cabins were at Occoneechee. The cabins at Fairystone were adequate; these cabins were simply amazing for a state park facility. Clean, nicely decorated, and supplied with a full kitchen that had nicer appliances than I have at home. The lake views out the back windows/from the back porch were stunning. For the price (~$100 a night), you can't beat it. Our cabin had 2 bedrooms (1 queen bed/2 sets of bunks), and they allow pets! Since you can cook all your meals in-house, it would be especially affordable for families with kids.

We brought the loom and spinning wheel, a bunch of food and books, a few bottles of wine, and just hung out. Some nice previous visitor had cut a pile of firewood, which we put to good use, along with the complimentary firewood bundle left at the cabin.

Jag finished his weaving project while we were there, and it looks great. All the closeups I took came out like blurry crap, so I'll try to take more pictures later on. (I spun up 4oz of Coopworth roving and finished half of a secret knitting project, which I will discuss in a later blog post.)

The back of the cabin faced west, and the sunsets were spectacular.

I love this picture of Jag. It looks like the jacket photo for a novel about The Immigrant Experience. "Young Lars knew that he could not remain in Sweden to take over the family lutefisk business, not when tales of the rich cod fisheries of Canada reached his ears."

It was pretty windy while we where there,

I found some kites hidden in the back of my car, and we tried playing with those.

If Occoneechee had as many hiking trails as Fairystone, it would be hands-down my favorite park. It has only about 3 miles of trails, and just outside the park border is a 15-mile "multi-use" trail for hiking, horseback riding (there's an equestrian campground in the park) and mountain bikes. It's paved with loose gravel, which is really not pleasant to walk on, and during spring/fall there's hunting allowed in the area, so hikers/riders are advised to wear blaze orange. Does allowing hunting where people are hiking and riding horses (and conversely, encouraging hikers/horses to wander around in a hunting area) seem like a Bad Idea to anyone else?

Despite the few little quirks, I wish we were still there!

SAFF 2008

Me, Michelle and Jamie drove around 3.5 hours each way on Saturday to visit SAFF, aka the Southeast Animal Fiber Fair, aka A Big Crackhouse For Knitters, Crocheters, Weavers and Spinners. The entire Flickr set of the trip, including videos, can be seen here.

It rained almost the whole way there, and then the skies cleared as we neared the Mecca of Wooliness.

The main vendor floor was 2 levels of awesome.

Yarn, roving, fleeces, spinning wheels, looms, angora bunnies, sheep, goats, alpacas, finished products like hats and shawls and socks and sweaters, buttons and other notions, felted goodies, wool rug-hooking kits, sheep-themed pajamas, sheep paintings, you name it, it was there.

We hit the alpaca barn in the afternoon and saw some real cuties.

Here's a video of Miss Thang mugging for the camera:

We also got to see an outrageously cute 4-day-old pygmy goat. She wasn't an orphan, just had a mom overwhelmed with 3 babies, so her human mommy was making sure she got plenty of milk via bottle-feeding.

Here are a couple short videos; my longer video upload to Flickr is stalling, so I'll try again later.

I ended up with a couple pounds of combed top, including Cormo (a merino/corriedale cross which I've been wanting to try for a while now), alpaca, silk and merino/silk blend, and BFL. Also the starts of a rug-hooking hobby, some Brooks Farm mohair/wool yarn, and some gorgeous fabric that was being sold as scraps from a weaver's studio. No pictures of my haul, since I'm heading to a cabin in the woods for a minivacation.

Belated weekend update

First off, the Ren Faire. Me, Jag and Michelle drove to Charlotte on Sunday to spend the day at the Carolina Renaissance Festival. The weather was sunny and dry but on the chilly side, and the areas shaded by trees stayed pretty cold all day. The people selling Italian ices were sad and lonely, while the places with hot cider and coffee were doing a brisk business. Michelle hung out at her friend Kim's booth, spinning and selling her beginner drop-spindle kits (very successfully!), while Jag and I wandered around, watched shows, ate and shopped.

It was way too cold for a kilt. Jag was happy to have his warm leather jerkin.

The Walking Tree Man was back, much to my delight.

I got another picture with him, and ended up buying his t-shirt. This character just fascinates me. I clearly have some unresolved "tree issues" to work out.

One of the downsides of the Festival is the number of people smoking. It's an outdoor event, so it would probably be impossible to enforce a no-smoking policy, but it seemed like every time we sat down for a show, some exposed-butt-crack redneck loser would sit in the next row, light up and blow smoke in our faces. Take Sir Mullet van der Schproingie here, at Zilch the Toryseller's show.

Jag and I made a couple interesting purchases; he ordered boots from the Catskill Mountain Moccasin Company, and I bought a shoulder dragon puppet. I've wanted one since the late 1990's when I first saw this vendor (at the Georgia Renaissance Faire), and I figured that now was the time, since he perfectly matches my purple and black outfit. His name is Alfredo.

I also dyed up another batch of rovings over the weekend. Some BFL, some Targhee, and one hunk of Brown Sheep gray/black roving that I overdyed in greens (it sold about 2 hours after I posted it on Etsy!). I'm trying something new where I have 2 lengths of roving dyed in different colorways that can be plied together (or not, but come on, barber pole 2-ply rules!) and I'm calling them "Live and Let Ply". (Thanks to the folks on #dhgng for all the great suggestions!)

This Weekend's Work

I dyed up a bunch of fiber over the past week, including some Corriedale, which has a nice luster, dyes almost as well as BFL, and would make some nice socks. I'm also trying Finn top for the first time. It is incredibly puffy and soft, like a roving stuffed animal. In fact, I'm keeping the Finn labeled as "Teal we Meet Again" (bottom center) for myself. I generally try to leave stuff up on the Etsy store for a couple weeks before I poach it, but I may not be able to control myself with some of these.

You can also see a picture of my sweetie, helping me with the photo-taking on Sunday by ferrying rovings in and out of the house.

While taking pictures out on the deck, I noticed that I had a visitor. This is Pepe the Praying Mantis. For a bug, he was awfully cute. I think it has to do with the way his head swivels.

My mom finished a lovely scarf/minishawl she crocheted with the handspun I gave her. I think it really turned out great! It conceals the unevenness of this handspun, which is some of my first, and it shows off the colors really well.

This morning I had to do a urine drug screen as part of my accepting the position at my new employer. Are there any women who manage to pee completely inside the cup without getting the outside of the cup wet? I never seem to be able to predict exactly where the "stream" will emerge from and there's usually a lot of bobbing and weaving going on. These places need to start providing wide-mouth funnels or something.

Holy Guacamole

Christopher Buckley is backing Obama.

Spinning dyeing roving knitting blah blah blah

You'll never believe it, but in this past week I've done some knitting, dyed some roving, and spun up some wool!

I dyed up 2 5oz-ish hunks of BFL fiber last week and just finally got around to taking pictures this weekend. I was going to post them both to the Etsy store, but when I went to do the upload for this one, I just couldn't do it. So he's staying with me and is going to be socks, I think.

I named this colorway "Biff Spilled Sangria in the Swimming Pool Again".

Just look at that face. Could you give it up to a stranger?

This one is "Nightfall in the Enchanted Forest". I love it too, but not as much as my happy happy green and blue with purple splashes little Biff.

I finished knitting the Berry Hill mitts and I'm very happy with how they turned out. They took a good 3 days to dry on the drying rack after washing, so I just got some pictures today. I have a metric ass-tonne of this yarn left over, so I'm going to use up the rest by knitting a Calorimetry or some other earwarmer type project to match.

Note: taking in-focus pictures of your own hands is very hard, even with a mini-tripod and a self-timer. I got a bunch of blurry pictures, some with a garden hose, a bag of topsoil, my feet, and other fun stuff in the frame.

And lastly, I started knitting the Dreaming of September yarn into some simple short-cuffed ribbed socks. The yarn is soft and squishy and dense and the colors are a constant surprise. I couldn't love them more if they were made of sour cream. I hope I have enough yarn to finish them.

Dreaming of September

The "Dreaming of September" roving was originally posted in my Etsy store, but it was hard to photograph due to the colors and I had a feeling that it was too bright and contrasty for most peoples' tastes, although I completely loved it. I took it off the site and got it spun and plied before the end of September, and here it is, around 230 yards of heavy sport/light DK weight Merino 2-ply (around 14-15WPI).

It's going to end up as some very soft, bright socks.

Before:

After: