Duplicate Stitch Is Your Friend

I have begun work on the center front of my Rogue Pullover. I'm not extremely happy with how it's turned out so far for a couple of reasons.

First, somewhere in my knitting, two knit stitches disappeared and then reappeared a couple of rows later. Don't have a clue where they went or why they returned.

Maybe one said to the other: "Let's step out for a cup of coffee for a few minutes while she completes a couple of rows, I'm tired of waiting around." The other one says "sure, let's do it, I'm running low on caffeine!"

Anyway, this is what it looked like:
See those two yellow arrows? They're pointing to the two holes that are missing the knit stitches. It may not be glaringly obvious in the photo above, but in real life, it is. So how to fix this?

Well, I'm basically a lazy person. I refuse to go back and rip out all those rows to fix this when I can cheat. Yes, I said cheat. You too, can go to the dark side occasionally when you don't want to rip. How? By duplicate stitching.

Duplicate stitching is where you duplicate a knit stitch by using a tapestry needle and yarn. Google it for directions, there's tons out there. Most of the time I've seen it used for decorative effects, not for cheating on fixing your stitches. But dang if it doesn't work for that too.

Here it is after the duplicate stitching:

Now, I don't advocate cheating on a regular basis mind you, just when the occasion warrants. Like this time when I'd have to go back a couple days worth of complicated cable creating. Is it perfect? No, but blocking it will help.

The second reason that I'm not happy is (and I don't have pics of it) there are some holes that are at the bottom of the front V. I went on Ravelry and found out that this is a common occurrence, but I just don't like it. I'll probably go back and duplicate stitch this area as well to clean it up a bit. I'll wait on that a bit before I do it. I will try and get pics of the before and after shots of that for you as well.

See? Cheating does pay occasionally, just don't tell my Eldest that I said that, okay?

Earning Cash

Slowly, but surely I am earning the cash for my future drum carder. I'm getting the fine 90/120 one. I can't decide if I'm getting the brush attachment or not. It adds about $50.00 to the total. I might just go get a wall paper brush to use instead. I bet the spouse could come up with a way to attach it for pennies.

I've been selling stuff on Ebay and on Craigslist like crazy. I've almost become obsessed with it. I've caught myself walking around the house looking for more stuff to sell. It's kinda fun.

I've been surprised at what has sold versus what hasn't. The nicer stuff has stayed home and the cheaper stuff has gone. The latest thing to be sold, a small, faded Little Tykes play cube that has been living outside, went today to a lady who owns a Doggy Day Care. Who woulda thought that a doggy daycare would use one of those? Cool thing is, I bought the cube for 2 bucks at a garage sale. I got $30 for it today. Way cool.

If anyone is interested, I'm auctioning off Paula Simmon's book Spinning and Weaving with Wool on ebay.

My Knitting Buddy

Full Moon?

Well, I survived being sick (new meds are working fantastically) and managed not to make a fool out of myself (didn't forget any words) while singing in front of two Sunday church congregations. I didn't see anyone holding their hands over their ears, so it must not have been too bad. :)

The rest of the weekend completely, totally and horrifically sucked though and bled into yesterday. I'm blaming family madness on the full moon. It's the only explanation I've got for batshiat crazy in-law types (my spouse counts as one of those by the way.)

I have been knitting, even though it's been sporadic at best.


The Rogue Pullover is coming along well. I haven't come across any more confusing directions, yeah! I'm working on the armhole shaping, upper back and shoulders at the present. You can see a cross-section progress pic above. I love how the cables turned out on the sides. The ribbing at the bottom will disappear once I've hemmed the final piece.

The Plague

I just can't shake whatever has been plagueing me. I'm sick. Still sick. I finished the prednizone (sp?) and thought I was doing fine and it's hit me like a ton of bricks again. I'm having ear troubles, aches and pains and dizziness and a cold on top. And guess what? I've got a solo to sing in two services this coming Sunday at church. Not good. I'm still waiting on the doc to call me back.

Then on top of that, the spouse and I had a knock down drag out kinda fight, the Youngest has acted up horribly for three days straight and if you give me a minute, I'm sure I can find something that the Eldest has done too. Actually, right now, as I type even, he's aggravating his brother onto ever higher levels of tantrums.

All I want to do is have a drink, eat some chocolate, knit, take a hot bath and go to sleep. Not all necessarily in that order. Except maybe for the alcohol, that stays first. I need a nerve tonic.

Silk!

I almost jinxed myself yesterday. I told you that I was flying along and everything was perfect didn't I? Yep, me and my big mouth.

I got to section four of the pattern and then blew it. There is a lot of confusing wording. She breaks up this part of the pattern into what she calls rounds. Not rows, not exactly repeats. I'm not sure how she justifies the wording. I did a panic call out on Ravelry and then got smart and went to her site. If you have trouble understanding this section of the directions, go to her site and check out the FAQ/Techniques/Tips section. She goes back and explains it much better there. After about half an hour I was flying along again nicely.

This morning though, while both boys were away at school and I had peace and quiet, I got out my spinning again. I've been working on 2 oz. of Tussah Silk that I've been slowly turning into lace-weight singles. I've finished it up and I'm letting it rest on the bobbin for the day. Tomorrow, given a chance, I'll wash and set the twist.

Here's what it looks like now with flash both on and off:




It was supposed to be black, but now, depending on the light, looks sometimes black, sometimes charcoal and sometimes a deep rich purple. I don't care, I think it just looks lovely.

Rogue Hooded Pullover Speed Knitting

I have found the key to speed knitting. It's not only small movements worked at the tips of the needle with proper but loose tensioning.

No, I've discovered that if you add in an over-healthy dose of caffeine combined with Prednizone and a pinch of antibiotics, your speed will increase by at least 50%. I kid you not. I've been flying on the needles even with children interruptions, child chauffering, cooking meals, thinking about cleaning (notice that I didn't say doing), grocery shopping and trying to sell stuff on ebay so I can get my drum carder I've been wanting.

Here's what I've managed to do in two partial days:

I'm working on the Rogue Hooded Pullover. I'm amazed at the cleverness hidden in this pattern. The cables that you see above are at the sides of the sweater. She's hidden the waist shaping in those cables and no one will ever notice.

Once I got past the small learning curve of deciphering her charts, this has been a breeze. The combination of cables and mindless stockinette keeps you from getting bored and also keeps you from getting mired in endless cables like my other cable sweater project.

I've got about half the main sweater (not counting the hood) completed in two days. That's, like, a record for me. I can't wait for all the kids and dad to disappear tonight to go to scouts so that I can work on it some more.

I've got a deadline (self-imposed) for this project. We're going the annual family "pig-pickin'" in SC again this year on Feb. 21st. I want to lose at least three pounds and have this sweater complete by then. Think it can happen? We'll see. I'm optomistic about the sweater, not so much on the poundage, but I'm trying to be hopeful. :)

One quick question for all the cable working gurus out there. I'm having a problem on one side of my cables. See?:


On the left hand side the stitches are gapingly huge and obvious. Any tips on tightening this up and alleviating the problem? All comments welcome!

Beware!

Beware taking a three year old with bad behavior to get professional family portraits done. I'm just sayin'...




Another start-i-tus knitting project coming tomorrow!

Over Ambitiousness

After making the Soon to be Lost toddler mittens, I got all excited about making up another set of mittens. I knew that I wanted them to be fingerless and I wanted them for me. So out came some scrap yarn and needles and I began to play.

I can now with confidence say that I am amazed by the designers out there. Some of them just whip up a pattern and say "ta-da!" Um, I'm not one of them.

I got all over-ambitious. I wanted baby cables and I wanted eyelets and I wanted them to spiral and I wanted it now and for it to be all perfect.

You wouldn't believe how many times I've ripped these things back out. I threw out the spiral idea, but kept the others. The mitts have gone through many shapes and phases. I just haven't been real happy with what I've come up with.

This is the current look, but again, I will probably rip this too since I'm not real thrilled by them. I don't like how the eyelets are sitting right next to the cable. It makes the cables look like I made huge mistakes.




But that's okay. I'm considering this a learning process. I just keep repeating to myself, "baby steps, baby steps". There's not one designer out there that didn't start with baby steps. Unless they're super mega talented prodigies of course. I don't think I can be classified in that category.

So that's what I've been doing. Ripping back everything I've touched in the past couple of days. :sigh:

When and if I ever get these done, I'll write them up and put them up for everyone. But I need to warn you, the finished product may not even resemble the ones before you!

No Sew Dorsal Fin Tutorial - Image heavy

I apologize to those who are looking for knitting or spinning. I'm afraid this post is going to be geared towards costuming. Specifically, making a shark dorsal fin. Obscure huh?

I directed a children's play last night. The kids were fantastic in it. Five of the characters were sharks. We decided to put the kids in gray or blue sweats for the body and add a dorsal fin. One of the kids put teeth and eyes on the hoodie and it was way too cute.

I decided that I would share my method of making a no-sew dorsal fin in case someone else in this wide world needed to make one for a stage play or just for a Halloween costume. So here goes: (click any of the pics for better viewing of the directions)

12 x 18 in. stiff felt

Fold like a book

Staple top of bookKeep it opened





Recycle!

Double this amount


Basically, it's worn like a back pack.

Yes, there are tons of staples. This was done for the stage where the staples could not be seen from the audience, so it didn't need to be clean, just quick and dirty. You may want to do this with hot glue for a cleaner look.

Sorry this is so image heavy, but I hope it helps someone, somewhere!

fleece dyeing

In my present attempt at going from sheep to sweater, I decided to dye the Corriedale fleece that I had in the garage. The color ranged from light gray to dark brown to begin with.

I got out my Lanaset dye starter pack and my new big enamel pot and went to town.

I was aiming for a deep dark brown. I got out the bordeaux, teal green and yellow. Of course I had no recipe and no idea how to get the color that I wanted. Like everything that I do, I winged it. I'm not exactly the sharpest crayon in the box. Do as I say, not as I do. Why?

I had approximately 2 lbs. to dye - that meant (according to the directions) that I needed 4 tsps. of dye. I grabbed the bordeaux first and put a tsp of it into a glass jar, then a tsp of the teal. Then I made my first mistake. I thought I was grabbing the yellow, but what did I do? I picked up the bordeaux again and put another tsp in. oops. Now I had to correct my mistake. I added the tsp of yellow that meant to add and then anothe 1/2 tsp more. From that point, I just played mix the colors. There's no way I could ever duplicate what I did. I added some plain red into the mix, a little black and more green.

I didn't think it would ever stop. I wasted quite a bit of my dye, but kept going anyway. (I'm stubborn that way.)

The next disaster to occur was with my candy thermometer that I had planned on using to make sure the whole shebang got to 200 degrees. Yep, it was broken, so I mostly winged that too. I knew that I just needed to keep it from boiling and went from there.

At this point, I was worried that I ruined all my work with this fleece. It had made it through the cleaning process without it felting, but I wasn't so sure it would make it out of this process still usable. But it did!

Of course, it's not the color I intended, but I love it anyway. It's a beautiful rose-brown and once it's carded and spun, will be a lovely brown yarn.

I was so happy until the Youngest said, "Mommy, Look at all dis poop!" He's kinda right, at this point, it does look like that:



But up close, the color gets better:

This weekend probably wasn't the best time to do this. We had the pinewood derby and I was supposed to be preparing for the children's play I'm directing tonight at the Eldest's school. (I'll give you an update on that and a costume tutorial tomorrow.) But it was fun to do anyway. I love being busy with arts and crafts!

Harry Potter Pinewood Derby Car

Any Harry Potter fans out there? If so, you'll like what you're about to see.

The Eldest competed in the Cub Scouts Pinewood Derby on Saturday. I always try to steer him toward making an original car for the derby and mostly, he listens. He's a huge Potter fan so we went with a Harry Potter broomstick theme. I present to you, the Firebolt.

Click to enlarge for better detail!

Turned out to be very cool and really fast. Notice the lighting bolts on the side? The Eldest said that he wanted those on to represent Harry's scar.

To make the broomstick, I sacrificed some bristles from my broom and painted them brown then using masking tape, taped them together at the top and over the handle of the broom. The handle is twist paper from the handle of a paper bag that I coated in Aleene's tacky glue and then placed over a flame. When it was all sooty, I burnished it with a cloth and then applied rub n' buff to it. Lastly, I added a bit of orange and gray paint to the handle. I then painted the masking tape gold. To make the bits that hang off the broom, I took hot glue and glued my countertop in the shape that I wanted it. After it cooled, I simply peeled it off and glued it to the broom and painted it gold as well. Simple. The completed broom was then hot glued to the car.

It was a huge hit with the adults at least. I know that I had fun making it.

Free Mitten Pattern for Toddlers - Updated 01/11/2010

"Soon To Be Lost" Toddler Mittens - fits ages 2-4


Needle size: 6/ 4.0mm
Yarn: Patons Classic Wool Merino in Deep Olive Tweed, Worsted weight
Gauge: 24 stitches = 4 in.
Yardage: approx. 100 yds.

Measurements: Cuff 1.5in, Wrist to tip of fingers: 4.5in, Thumb: 1.5 in.


Pattern is written for two circular needles, but may be easily altered for dpns by dividing the stitches evenly on each dpn.

For the beginning of each round (on one needle only) you may use a stitch marker or you may use the long tail of your cast on to keep up with the beginning of each row.


Cast On:

Cast on 28 stitches.

Cuff:

Rows 1 - 10: K1P1 Ribbing
(If you prefer a longer cuff, you may add as many rows as you like.)

Rows 11 - 16: Work 6 rows of St st

Thumb Shaping:

Row 17: Inc1, k to end. 2nd needle - k to end.
Row 18: knit
Row 19: same as row 17
Row 20: knit
Row 21: same as row 17
Row 22: knit

Separate for Thumb:

Place 8 stitches (4 stitches from each needle) onto a holder/waste yarn. Cast on 2 stitches using backward loop method.

Center of the Mitten:

Work two inches in St. St.

Fingers:

On each needle: ktog, k to last two stitches, ktog.
Next row: knit

Repeat two more times
Next row: knit

Bind Off:

Three needle bind off or Kitchener.

Thumb:

Move the 8 stitches from the holder, placing four stitches on each needle.

Row 1: Pick up and knit two stitches from the inside of the thumb and knit around both needles. At the end of the second needle, pick up two more stitches. Make sure that all four of the picked up stitches are knit twisted. This will help tighten up any gaps made where the thumb and hand meet.

Row 2 and 3: knit

Row 4:ktog, knit to end of row.
Row 5: knit
Row 6: ktog, knit to end of row
Row 7 and 8: knit

Bind Off:

Leaving a long tail, cut yarn and thread onto needle. Thread the yarn through all loops on the needles, remove needles and draw up the yarn tightly. Weave in the tail.

Weave in all loose ends on the mitten.


*As always, all comments and critiques are much appreciated. If you find an error in the pattern, please let me know and I will update the pattern accordingly.

*Updated on 01/11/2010 - corrected the increase section at the thumb.

Free Pot! - Sorta

I've been trying to sell some stuff in order to get enough money to get me a drum carder. Have you priced drum carders lately? Those suckers cost more than my spinning wheel did and I thought that was excessive. So, I'm back to saving my nickels and dimes and pinching those pennies til the scream for mercy. Sort of. Anyway, I had a pleasant surprise today. I dumped out my little piggy bank and counted up what I've been socking away for the past several months and found $66 bucks! That's before I sell anything. Now if I could only get someone to respond to some of my Ebay and Craigslist ads...

I took the Youngest out today to run some errands. One of those errands involved getting him some new shoes. He insisted on the Batman ones, the ones that came with the dressup costume and only cost $10 at Walmart. But, I bet you didn't know that Batman ran around carrying an axe, did ya?




We also went around to some thrift shops looking for a pot that I can use for dyeing wool and roving in - specifically for acid dyeing. Found nada, zip, zilch. Until, I went to my Father In Law's for a second today. Guess what? Big enamel pot's been sitting in his cabinets for 25 years with no one wanting it. Yes! Free pot! Score! (HeeHee, now we'll see how many hits I get on this page alone just because I wrote Free pot.)


When we got back, I saw this, but in a blurry sort of state as it rushed past me out the door:


The neighbors got quite a show. Shea, diving into bushes yelling , No! Tiger! and then coming back up with a hissing cat that was trying to kill me. Fun.

New FO!

My new scarf is finished!

Project: December is for Stephanie
Yarn: Handspun Merino in Riverstone colorway
Needles: Size 8
Started: Jan. 14, 2009
Completed: Jan. 20, 2009

This was a super easy, fun project. Unfortunately, these pics don't do the yarn justice. I could not get a better pic of it while I was inside and it's too bloomin' cold to go outside to take a better one.



In it's previous life, it looked like this:It's much easier to see the true colors of the yarn in this shot.

Inauguration Observations

A couple of things I'd like to mention about today's presidential inauguration:

I thought the bobbling of the Presidential Oath by the Chief Justice and the President was delightful. The Chief Justice reversed the order of some of the words of the oath and it briefly threw off Obama's response. I'm delighted because it shows that they're both human and can make mistakes like the rest of us.

During the ceremony though, I was less than delighted by Aretha Franklin's rendition of My Country Tis of Thee. While I enjoy Aretha singing Soul music, I found her version of the song to be the equal of a tooth needing a root canal. Jarringly yelled, not reverently sung.

Three presidents ago, I attended the Inauguration of George W. Bush Sr. I was honored to be able to participate by marching in the Inaugural Parade with the Auburn University Marching Band. While it was an honor to be there, it was absolutely miserable. The temps were freezing and I was crying by the end of the 5 mile parade. I feel both happiness and sympathy for the poor kids who will be doing this again today. I'm very glad to be watching the events from home while snuggled in my armchair in my nice toasty house knitting something that I wish I had had during that parade approximately 20 years ago:


A nice wool scarf. Back then I was just wishing I could get some booze. My how times age us, huh?

So Guilty

What kind of a Mom forgets to go into her son's school and take cupcakes to celebrate his birthday?

Um, that would be me. Here I was at home, enjoying the peace and quiet of having no children at home, knitting away in front of a movie. I didn't even think about the fact that I was supposed to be hosting a little shindig at his school. I clean forgot about it.

Oops.

I've felt guilty about it all day. Not that he really cares, thankfully. He knew he had cupcakes at home waiting for him anyway. I'm such a lousy mom.

But I'm making great progress on a new knitting project, does that make up for it?

Mission Organization: Episode Three

I have a monumental (to me) announcement to make: I can now park in the garage! Yippee!

I know, not really exciting and has nothing to do with yarn or fiber. But I can't tell you how nice it is to be able to get into the car and not worry that my buns are going to get hypothermia and chip off. Definitely a reason to celebrate.

The drawback? I now have 5 or 6 large boxes to be emptied in the playroom. Can't win them all, huh?

I promise to get back to all things fiber-y tomorrow. I'm off to go celebrate with some silk spinning!

Mission Organization: Episode Two

First, a small disclaimer: In the last episode, I might have made a Freudian oops. I might have said "when my husband was living here" in reference to the bedroom. The correct thing to have said would have been, "when my husband was working here in the bedroom/office ." Like I said, oops. I thought the slip was quite funny. Hubby wasn't quite as amused though...


Anyway, the new play room is finished!

It's a really huge room, taking up a third of the upstairs floor of our house. There is one piece of grown up furniture, but it works since they like to dress up and look at themselves in the mirror.

I broke the room up into areas:

Game area for the Eldest:

On the opposite side of the room, is a reading area with green netting over it that they can close in like tent and opposite that is the train table:



Ikea was a great help with organization in this room. Notice the new stair step storage above and here on the wall is more storage for the few stuffed animals we have. Also, below that are the obligatory race tracks for Hot Wheels cars:


And don't forget the Little People area:


What I haven't shown you:

The closet: filled with games and legos and prize possessions of the Eldest. This will have a lock on it to keep the Youngest out of it.

The bedroom: is a work in progress, but is going great so far. Both of their beds and chests of drawers fit perfectly. I still need to decorate the Eldest's side to his liking, but so far, everyone is happy with the changes.

The garage: Also a work in progress. As I get more stuff moved to the playroom, I get closer to getting my car back in it. Yeah!

Mission: Organization (The Shea Episodes)

Episode 1!


Do you know the show, Mission: Organization? You know, the one where they go into a home and reorganize it for them. Most of these homes are worse than messy, they're scary messy. The kind of scary where you would be afraid to enter the rooms cause you might not be able to find your way out again.

I'm dealing with a couple of situations like that in my home.

I don't normally make New Year's resolutions, but this year? Yep, I want a more organized house.

I come from a background of depression era style hoarders. My grandparents had an excuse, they lived through the depression and lived on a farm where any little thing could suddenly become very useful again.

My parents were taught by these same people not to get rid of anything, you never know how useful something might be.

So, guess where that has got me? I never, ever get rid of a crafty type item. And it's been a darn good thing too. I'm constantly needing that stuff for school projects and cross-over craft projects. The hubby is just as bad with tools and guy stuff.

Oh, and don't forget, we've got two kids and a billion toys (I'm not kidding) to contend with.

So here's how I'm starting to tackle everything.

1. Mostly complete: Master bedroom - Used to be a combined office/bedroom when the hubby was living at home. I forced the hubby to use a much smaller desk that was given to us and to get rid of all the crap that was visible. We moved a small wardrobe from the Youngest's room to our room and hid all the office crap in there. I now have most of my bedroom back and where I'm not ashamed for guests to see it.

2. Boy's bedroom: Currently the boys are sleeping in separate rooms. We are moving both of their beds to the smaller bedroom and they will now share that space. My goal is to eventually get bunk or twin beds in there, but they can live cramped for now.

3. Playroom: The Largest of the two bedrooms is now going to become a playroom. All items that belong to anyone under the age of 37 will go in here. I'd like to have my downstairs mostly toy free as well and all toys currently down will now go up. The room is huge and will hold all children's junk nicely. The Eldest's favorite stuff, his clothes and everything that is tiny will go into the closet in there and we will put a latch on the closet to prevent the Youngest getting into it. By the time he can reach the latch, it won't really matter what he gets into in there anyway.

4. Garage: Would be nice to use it for what it's supposed to be used for and not as a storage unit. A year or so ago we thought we were going to move and began boxing up toys and other things. All of that will move to the playroom as well, even if it continues to live in boxes.

5. Dining room/my office/craft room: I hung a curtain in one of the doorways so that I can close it if company comes over. That way I can at least hide what ever I may be working on.

I'd show you pics of everything, but it's way too embarrassing.

I'm desperate to have a nice house again (a pipe dream with small children, but still.) If I can't have nice, I'll settle for a tiny bit more organized.

I'm currently going through each room as I get to it and I'm separating things into 5 piles: donate, trash, sell, attic or find a damn place for it. There's a couple of children's consignment sales coming up and I really want to get rid of some toys. We have enough for five families. Especially since I was on a children's consignment committee for so long. I got all the best stuff first and went overboard. Time for some of it to go.

It's going to be a while going through every room, but I'll get there. Wish me luck!

I shouldn't have

But I did!

I finished the merino today during the Youngest's naptime. My shoulder seems fine right now, we'll see if I aggravated it later tonight.

I'm just tickled with how this yarn turned out. I was a little worried since my second bobbin of singles didn't turn out quite as even, but not to worry, turned out great anyway.

3 Ply Yarn
Fiber(s): Merino (purchased from Cloverleaf Farms) & Rayon
Colorway: Riverstone
Yardage: Approximately 226 yards


I was feeling inspired, so I went out into the garage and dug through my craft bin and came up with some gold rayon thread that had been languishing for quite some time. While it sucked for sewing use, it was superb for spinning. It's incredibly soft, so it didn't take away from the softness of the merino and it gives the yarn a nice touch of glitz.

It's off to be blocked now and then it's destined to become a lovely scarf. I'll give more details on the scarf later.

Merino!

Since Christmas, I've been itching to spend lots of time with my spinning wheel. I got the wheel out and sorted through my options of what to spin.

1. I could pick up where I left off on the whole oatmeal colored fiber that I'm almost finished with, but it's boring me to tears right now, so that was out.

2. Exotic stuff from SAFF - I've got Camel, two kinds of silk, and llama fluff, but I wanted something with color.

3. 3 lbs of Corriedale that's pining away for me to do something with it. First, I need to figure out what color I'm going to dye it. I don't have a clue what color I want. Then I need a non reactive pot. Since I'm going to be using acid dyes in it, it can't be one of my cook pots and I'm not about to sacrifice the ones I've got. I either need to hit a thrift store or walmart for that. The Corriedale is going to have to wait until I pick a pattern (I think), which will lead me to a color (I hope). I'm also thinking about blending in some of the Tussah silk I have with it. So, big project, that's going to have to sit for a while.

So what to spin? At SAFF I also purchased a lovely merino roving from Cloverleaf farms in the color riverstone. It is absolutely yummy. Soft with gorgeous earthtone colors.

I got 2 oz. spun into singles and they looked like this (although the pic doesn't come close to doing it justice:

Click for the full multi color effect!

This is by far and away the most even spinning that I've done. I mean, just look at it, nary a thick or thin to be seen.

I was feeling very clever, and took a two ply worsted yarn I had and split it in twain. Hah! I said Twain. Anyway, I put one of the plies and a sample of the two ply yarn on an index card. I used this as a control card, spinning some and then every once in a while checking to make sure my singles were the same size as the single on my card. Okay, I admit that I stole the idea from David on Ravelry (Ravelry link), but still, you have to admit it's clever. I have since purchased a control card, but until the other bobbin has been finished being spun, I'll continue to use this card to double check myself.

I was planning on doing more of it once I got back from the folks on Monday, but I seem to have damaged my shoulder. I'm hoping it disappears in a week or so and is not a rotator cuff injury. That would totally suck.

It could possibly have been caused by that bin of baseball cards (that belong to my brother that I was transporting for him) that weighed almost a hundred pounds that I had to lift into that back of the minivan that did it. I wouldn't recommend picking up something that weighs almost as much as you do. Really wouldn't. You would have laughed your a$$ off if you had seen what I had to do to get it in the van.

Who knows how I really did it. I just know that my spinning would aggravate the hell out of it if I tried it. Go ahead, picture me crying here. I really want that merino spun up so I can knit with it now! Not sure what I'll do with it. I'm not going to get a lot of yardage out of the 4 oz., I might just have to purchase more. Now wouldn't that be a shame?

Back on the wagon

It's time to get back on the blogging wagon. I fell off over the holidays, sorry.

I can't tell you how glad I am that the holidays are over. I'm ready to get back to some established routines around the house and to have the children back in school!

I went IKEA on New Year's day with a friend. That store is pure evil. Makes me want to spend money like nobody's business. But, did you know that someone has killed Elmo and Cookie Monster and is selling the furs there? It was shocking, I tell you!


I also found this cute foot cozy pillow that I have got to try and make:


Over the holiday, i also decided to pin some sweater pieces onto Endora so that I could get a better looksy at it:

This is going to be a really cool looking sweater once it gets finished. I'm calling this the 2 year sweater, cause that's how long it looks like it'll be before I get the damn thing finished.

This weekend, I took off and went to my folks house to try and help them move a server and some pc's into their home office. I failed spectacularly at just about everything that I tried to do. I got one server and one pc talking to each other and I got one pc and the internet talking to each other, but for some reason I couldn't get all of the servers, pcs and internet talking together at the same time. not good.

But I did accomplish something this weekend, I made a Golden Snitch for the Eldest:

He's a huge Potter fan now. He's only 8 years old and he's finished all of the Potter books, so I thought he'd enjoy this. We're thinking about attaching it to his ceiling fan to make it fly. We'll see. Might be pretty funny to watch him get whacked in the head with it if we do tie it on there. I guarantee he'll forget it's there and it'll happen.

Unfortunately, now he wants me to crochet a specific Pokemon character (Treecko for those "In The Know".) I'd have to make up the pattern and I'm not an accomplished pattern maker, especially in crochet. I might be able to cobble something together, but it's doubtful though.

I'm a dreamer!

I'm a dreamer! (My mom could've told ya that one)

You'd be amazed at how much this fits my personality, well, except for the forgiving and tolerant part anyway. :)

You Are a Dreaming Soul

Your vivid emotions and imagination takes you away from this world So much so that you tend to live in your head most of the time You have great dreams and ambitions that could be the envy of all... But for you, following through with your dreams is a bit difficult You are charming, endearing, and people tend to love you. Forgiving and tolerant, you see the world through rose colored glasses. Underneath it all, you have a ton of passion that you hide from others. Always hopeful, you tend to expect positive outcomes in your life. Souls you are most compatible with: Newborn Soul, Prophet Soul, and Traveler Soul

What Kind of Soul Are You?