Chocolate Yarn and Desert Batts

I havent posted in a while. Mostly because I just havent felt like blabbing or even being ont he computer. Its been incredibly cold outside, here in NY and that means its pretty cold inside as well. I dont fancy numb fingers for typing so Ive been huddling in our combo bedroom/livingroom with the beasties trying to keep warm. But today was pretty nice out. Bit of a cool breeze, but warm enough to remove Lokis two blankets and open up her yard a bit. Ive been keeping her shut up in her stall because the dang wind and sub zero temps are awful! I cant let her have her full pasture untill the snow melts. The electric wire is lost in the snow. I dont want her wandering in to it and hurting herself.

Anyway, my most recent fiber stuffs have just been some crochet cat toys. Last fall I promised a friend of mine that I would make him some for his kitties, but Im a lazy poop and never got around to it. So during my *hibernation* Ive been pushing myself to get some done. Ive made some odd shapes, a few mice and am getting a nice collection. When I showed them to my Ma she fell in love with the mice. She has a beautiful little chihuahua, Rose, and poor Rose is so small that most toys are just too big for her to pick up. Ma wanted a mouse for her. But before I could give it to her, she found one of the cat nip mice. Wow was she happy! So Ive made her a few more toys, little balls, a square stuffy and a squiggly ball. Shes completely too adorable with them all. Theyre her babies. She hides them in her tent and wont let anyone touch them! I will try to get some pictures of her with them.

I also bought some fiber from a wonderful lady I found on Etsy. Her shop is called Blackcat Handspun. The first two batts I bought were so gorgeous, I went and bought a third. I got 7 oz of one called Desert Morning. Its made from Coopworth and Chow fur. Its wonderful! I havent spun it yet (Ive got a pound of fiber from The Sheep Shed Studio on my wheel at the moment), but I know its going to be beautiful!! The other batt I got is called Mocha Chocolata Yaya. 4 oz of a mix of corriedale, merino, mohair and silk. Its some of the most beautiful colors Ive ever spun. Lovely texture, too. I want more! It spun up in to two skeins, finishing up to be about 80 yards of two ply. I wish I had enough for a sweater!
A while back I bought some silk and used Berry Blue Kool Aid to dye it. The dye didnt make it in to the center of the roving so there was a bit of white left. I was a little annoyed at first but once I got it fluffled a little, I figured it was ok. I had wanted a solid blue, but this didnt look bad.But when I spun it....it just got prettier and prettier!! I'm in love with this blue color. I hope they never stop making Berry Blue!!!Now, Ive got to get off this frigging computer. Our video cards fan rattles and its driving me crazy!!!

Music, Masks and Snow

Ive been steadily working away at Puppi's crocheted sweater. It seems like its never ending! Ive got like 12 more inches to go...*cries* Will definitely post pics when I'm done!!!

I'm also working on a heat pad for myself. Found this pattern on the net for one and thought about making that, but decided to just make up my own. So I rummaged through my yarns to find one I liked. Its hard to use the yarns I like. It was all I could do to not use one of the yarns I don't really care for. But I finally convinced myself that this will be something I will use at least once a month (you ladies know what for) and I want it to be something I like looking at!! So I chose the red sari silk and wool yarn I bought last year. I also decided to crochet it since I'm starting to like crocheting more than I used to. Its coming along nicely!



I also decided to make one out of a piece I knitted a while back. Its some yarn that was like my second ever spun on my wheel. Its very very uneven and lumpy and I love it. Its not much and I was thinking it would make a nice neck warmer. But I never got around to finishing it. I looked at it and realized it would be just the right size for a heat pad if I folded it in half. So I looked for some nice contrasting yarn to sew up the sides. I chose the very first yarn Ive ever spun. It a pretty teal color and I spun it on a drop spindle. The one and only time Ive spun on one, lol. I crocheted all around the edges of the knitted piece and then sewed up the sides. I had first put split peas in it. It worked well for heat but spelled icky. So I got some rice and filled up some pantyhose feet and popped em inside and sewed up the end. Its soft and pretty and works great!


These past few weeks have been terribly cold. I think I got a bit of frostbite on my face! My nose is all peeling like I have a sunburn. I wrap a scarf around my face while I'm out, but it slips and gets wet and everything so I got to thinking...I need a ski mask! So I searched all over the net and couldn't find anything I liked. BUT I did find these horribly freaky ones. They are absolutely nightmarish to look at but the basic pattern is great. I searched more on the net for the actual patterns for them, but couldn't find em anywhere. Sooo I went on eBay and found the magazine they're in, bought em and am now waiting patiently for them to arrive. I don't think I will be knitting in the creepiness that the patterns call for, but who knows.. Maybe Ill knit something even worse!! HEEEHEE!!!

Last week on Carson Daley there was this guitar player, Andy McKee. I don't normally watch Carson (hes a moron and completely bugs the crap outa me. hes also a terrible interviewer, imho) but Carson said he found this guy on youtube (gotta love youtube!) so I decided to stick around. OMG I'm SOOOO glad I did! This guy is incredible. He played this song called Drifting (which you can see HERE ). Its become my new favoritestest bestest mostest greatest song ever!!! The song is so beautiful. Even my BF said that it was hard to believe that it was all done with a guitar, its too sweet sounding to be a guitar. We agreed that it sounds like something from a video game. Maybe a small country town or an area just outside of town (those of you who play any of the FF games or the like types will know what I mean!). I liked it so much I even bought his cd! I cant wait to get it.

We got a nice Valentines Day snow storm. Though we weren't able to be home the whole day to enjoy it. My cat Seamose has a urinary tract infection. He had to be at the vets at 9:45 am. We left the house at 9 and it took a full 40 minutes to get there! Normally its only like 15. Yeck! It was snowing so hard that while waiting in the nice warm office, looking out at the snow, we couldn't even see the other side of the street! Good news though, Seamose will be ok. I almost lost one of my cats, Levi, like 8 years ago to a blocked urinary tract. He had to have emergency surgery. So I was especially nervous about my S'mo! But he will be ok. Hes on meds and has to eat canned food until he is better (oh he lurves canned food!!).

The snow is really pretty. But yesterday when we got home Shane and I went right out to check on the animals. Wind was blowin like crazy and the snow was piling up. Poor Loki was shivering all over. So I asked Shane to help me put up a tarp wall. OMG, it was sooo friggin cold. I think I got a little frost bite on my face! Shane is awesome. He moved fence panels around and did all the climbing to tie up the tarp to the rafters. Sometimes I think hes too good to be true. At first Loki thought the tarp was freaking scary! She even ran through a hole in the fence, out in to the yard to get away from it! But once I got her in her stall again, she decided it was nice in there, heehee. In the night it was blown down but I left it for the day. The sun was shining in and the breeze wasn't coming in too bad. But this evening, I climbed up and tied it all up again. The tarp was flapping all over and even flappin on to Loki, but she was completely unconcerned. Shes such a good lady!

The sheep are doing well. Hiding in their house, though! And not venturing out too far. The snow is past their bellies. Poor things! I think we might move them back in to the barn until this cold snap is over. My chickens are all hanging in there. Though I wish I could bring them inside!! Harry is going to lose some of his comb. I had them shut in their house but theres teeny cracks everywhere and with this wind, its still cold in there. Ive moved them in to the sheeps old stall in the barn. Its a bit large for them, but its MUCH less windy. Im also getting them a heat bulb today.

New Knitting and *Ancient Tiles*

Ive been working on a few things! Its been incredibly cold here so Im stuck in the house (cept for my ultra fast runs out to do feed!). Things get boring in here so Ive been fooling with my yarn and fiber alot.

Im knitting Shane (my bf) a pair of mittens, the type with the flip top fingers. This is my first like them. Ive knitted one pair of regular mittens and a few pairs of fingerless mittens, but never these. Theyre coming out well, though! Im using the German wool I spun. Its scary at first, using something Ive spun, keep worrying about screwing it all up. But Shane likes em and Im enjoying the job. Here they are -
Im also crocheting a sweater for my American Eskimo Dog, Puppis. I recently knit a brown and red striped one for my old man, Mike, and hes just so dang cute in it, I just had to make something for Puppi, too. Its my first crocheted garment. Ive made toys before, but never anything like this. Its coming out great, if I do say so myself...
Im also coming out of a funk that Ive been in for like ages. I get very depressed and then I come out of it for a while, then go back in. Its a cycle Ive been going through for as long as I can remember. Its annoying and tiring, but I dont beat myself up about it anymore. I just go with it now. Ive realized that this is how I am and thats ok. Anyway, I havent been cleaning...At all. I mean, Im certainly no June Cleaver, but I do like to keep things at least a little tidy. But when I get in these holes, I just dont give a crap about any of that. I have many pets in here (1o cats, 2 dogs, 3 chickens, a bunny, a cockateil and a turtle) and though they still get fed, watered and have their cages cleaned, well, other than that, I dont do anything. It gets overwhelming. But...with this cold weather and my inability to open up the windows (Im a freak for fresh air) Im starting to clean again.

I started in the hall. Ok, you see, my bf and I share 3 rooms here. Ones his (also for a little storage. No animals go in there), one is our bedroom and the other is for the computer and chicken cages. The three rooms are connected by a small hallway. I chose that because it was a least daunting. Now, we have a rooster living in here. Magnus, hes a great pet, but hes certainly not the most tidy. He lurves dry dog food and always ALWAYS spills the dogs dish. Youve seen chickens scratching around for food, right? Well he does that, but with the dogs food. It gets everywhere and we end up walking on it. Crunch crunch crunch! It collects in the corners and along the edges of things. Also, my bunny eats hay, so that gets everywhere no matter what I do. And my two dogs are unaltered males who sometimes mark. And I have male cats who are the same, so, well, all these things are on the floor and usually its just stuff I can sweep up.

But this time around one area of the floor it all mixed together. It was incredible. Ive read about other cultures who use mud/manure/hair/straw to build houses and things. I guess I never really thought about what those things were like. But I have a new found respect for those people! Its absolutely ingenious. The stuff that was on my floor was SO incredibly hard, it came up in tiles, large, flat pieces. It was so strong that I couldnt break it with my fingers and it took every ounce of strength I had to get it off the floor! Now some of you folks are surely thinking Im out of my noggin. But I dont care, I was fascinated. I even took pictures! lol!

This is what it looks like from the top -
This is the bottom of one piece. Its hard to tell, but its very smooth. Glossy, smooth even!
Is this piece you can see how it took an imprint of the floor. The X is where the floor tiles meet!This is a pic of one area that was on bare wood. It made an almost perfect cast of the grain!! I may be a total weirdo, but I had fun cleaning. I usually detest it. But it was like an archaeological dig or something, lol! I also found a missing piece of my spinning wheel, yay!!

Yarn Swap, Alpaca and Mittens

Well! I got a very nice surprize in the mail today. (Two actually, but one was a pound of roving that I knew was coming, so that wasnt completely a surprize.) You see, a while back I signed on to be part of a yarn swap Basically, person A spins a (3.5 oz) skein of yarn for person B, person B spins one for person C, etc. We get to see who were making the yarn for, but have no idea whos making one for us. Im very much a pessemist sometimes and thought that surely I would be paired up with the one person who wouldnt spin a skein of yarn. But (*YIPPIE*) I got a person who not only spun a skein, its the most wonderful, funky, and fabulous skein of yarn Ive ever held in my hands!!! I ADORE IT!!! Looky---->

*dances* I lurve it!! Though I have no idea when Ill be able to convince myself that I can knit with it and not totally ruin it. Im just going to stare at it for a while.

Last year I bought myself some alpaca fiber to spin. Ive finally finished it! The first skein came out nice (it spun up wicked easy), but this second one, I even impressed myself a little, heehee! Its the most even Ive ever spun. Also pretty thin for me. Its a two ply worsted (alsmot a sport weight). Its soft and a really wonderful warm brown color.
I ve also been working on the fingerless mittens for Shane. Theyre coming along nicely. I tried to take some pics tonight, but they came out terrible. Its night and I had to use the flash. Ill try again in the daylight. All I have left to do are the flaps!

Over a year ago I bought the book Stitch'n'Bitch. Theres a gorgeous pair of fingerless mittens in there. It calls for two balls of Noro something or other. So we headed out to the LYS and I bought the colors I liked. Well, I get home and am knitting away and soon realize that one ball is a continuous piece of yarn but the other is three tied together. The colors dont match up and I end up with one perfectly colored mitten, green to purple to yellow to orange. The other one I didnt even bother knitting because the colors woudlnt match up, it would drive me crazy! I threw the lot in a drawer and tried to forget about them. But while knitting Shanes mittens, I was almost obsessively thinking of my failed Noro mittens. So I got the one out and re-examined the yarn to see if I could piece it together to at least sort of match the finished one. No go! No amount of splicing would make it come close to being a mate. Ive decided that I must go bat to the LYS and scour their Noro yarn for one ball that will pair up with my finished thing.

I...must...finish...them...

Long Time No Knit

Gads, its been ages since I knit anything real. Ive knit a few little things, like a couple headbands, but thats it. A month ago I knit a hat, sort of thinking I would give it to my Dad. But it ended up way small. I followed the pattern to a T but its even too small for me! Still, its a nice hat.

I decided I needed some more inspiration. So, I asked in Spindlers if anyone knew of a good Knit Along. Well, they sure did! One in particular took my fancy - Red Sweater KAL - I have this red sweater that I started well over a year ago. It was to be my first sweater, ever. And after all this time, it will still be my first sweater! Its a very very simple pattern and also an incredibly BOOORING one. I think that with some people to chat with, whine to and show off my progress to, I might just be able to grind my way through it!

I miss knitting. Ive spun all this gorgeous yarn (if I do say so myself!) but Im afraid to knit with it. What if I knit something horrid? What if I dont have enough? What if while in the middle of knitting, I spill coffe all over it and stain the yarn that I spent so much time spinning? Gah! Ive lost my nerve!

Some Knitted Hats 'n' Things

Some of my winter thingies!!

First up is a hat I knitted last fall. I havent really worn it much, though I LOVE it. It needs to be stretched a bit as its snug on my head. I HATE having anything squeeze me head, so I dont wear it much. But one of these days I will carve myself a wooden head for stretching/blocking hats!

For this hat I used this pattern - http://www.fibertrends.com/viewer/patterns/AC59.html and some gorgeous Lopi yarn - http://www.camillavalleyfarm.com/knit/lopi.htm This yarn wouldnt be great against the skin as its rather rough, but the chunkiness and colors and everything makes me LOVE this yarn! Though it was the first time I've tried intarsia and the first time Ive ever knit in the round using a circular needle the pattern was very clear and it wasnt very hard to do! I recomend this pattern to anyone with a little patience. At first it seems very hard but with a little effort, you *get it* and its very easy. But boy, my fingers hurt!! Rough yarn and tight stitches equals raw fingertips!!

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This next one I used the same pattern but added 20 stitches (one more repeat of the intarsia pattern) and used different yarn. This one is much more comfortable to wear, bigger and softer. The grey is Cascade Ecological wool in 8087 and the red is some Highland wool Sari silk yarn I found on Ebay. Both are awesome to work with. Quite soft and it doesnt dry out your skin like some yarns do.
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I made these fingerless mittens to go with my hat. Same wools but the pattern is based on this one - http://cache.lionbrand.com/patterns/kwec-2NeedleMittens.html?noImages= But I changed it (obviously). Its knit on two straight needles and says to make the palm and back the same width, but doing this you end up with the side seam coming around to the back of the hand. It looks crappy. So I made the palm side with less stitches and the back with more. I used the intarsia design from the top of the hat on the back of the hand and added ribbing to the thumb, fingers and wrist. Its really pretty easy. Theyre very comfortable to wear and I like the color combination alot.
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This is my most recently knitted hat. Its made from Banana silk! I didnt even know what Banana silk was until a few weeks ago. Im in loooove with this stuff. I bought the orange from Ebay and the green from here - http://www.recycledsilk.com/banana.html (vine). This stuff has gorgeous shine and wonderful weight. It hangs so well! I wish I could afford enough for a sweater or something.
Now I just have to finish my Mothers hat and mittens!! Then get started on all the xmass prezzies.... I have so much to do!!

More Yummies!!

First up is some gorgeous alpaca roving. This stuff is SO soft and light. I cant wait to try spinning it! There is a bit of VM as you can see in the pic, but nothing I cant take care of. Theres a full 10 ounces here, 30 yards! And I got it for a mere $18 :)
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This next is some shiney banana silk yarn from http://www.recycledsilk.com Its color is Vine and I bought it to go with the banana silk I bought off ebay (see previous post). Ive knit a hat with them and its just so pretty! Ill try to get a pic of me in it today.
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This is a full fleece I got off ebay. Its Jacob and just full of lanolin and Ive discovered that I adore the scent of sheep! It looks a little yellowed and dingy here but I took a handfull and washed it and after a bit o cleanin it sparkles like new snow. Its really beautiful!

That fleece came from the ewe below. They sent her picture with it. Her name is Valentine :o)------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is some Cotswold wool. I guess people use this alot for doll making. For bears and wigs and things. Its quite pretty though this bunch seems to have been washed to death. It feels dry and is a little dusty. But I think I can come up with SOMETHING to do with it!

Some Yummy Yarns...

These are some yarns that I bought off ebay recently and well, Im in love with them!

This top one is recycled sari silk and wonderfully eyelashy. And the warm tones make me feel all cozy! I bought 2 skeins and it was just enough to knit up a skinny scarf for myself. Its not thick yarn, but its heavy and has a wonderful weight to it. Though one skein was in 5 different peices tied together, it was fuzzy enough for me to hide all the ends well. Ive decided that these will be my xmass presents this year!

The color of this one was labled as Kathmandu Recycled Sari Silk Yarn in the color 'sunshine'. The two skeins differed a bit, one was very eyelashy and the other was more smooth. But I knit them together, 2 rows of one, 2 rows of the other, and they blended wonderfully. The seller was Aubelsbeth's Little Merchant Shop and they shipped very fast and packaged all the yarn I got in cute little celophane bags and wrapped in yellow tissue paper that had bees printed on it. Oopening the box was like xmas!
This one (also from Aubelsbeth's Little Merchant Shop) was labled as Kathmandu Banana Silk Yarn in 'mango'. But looking at the photo in the listing, I could have sworn it looked familiar. So, being the weirdo I am, I spent the next hour searching on the net for it. I found it here - http://www.recycledsilk.com/sarisolids.html The yarn in the photo in the ebay listing is actually recycled sari silk, not banana silk. BUT, the actual yarn I got IS banana silk and I looooved it. So they still got posative feedback from me. I liked this yarn so much that I bought two more skeins!

Vintage 1966 Knit Barbie Fashion Patterns

Gads, those scans of the patterns are small! I have them scanned large but I cant get them to show up here as anything but tiny and unreadable. Ok, so, maybe later I'll figure out how to change that but for now I'm posting them in my Deviantart scraps.

Slacks Suit - http://www.deviantart.com/view/27842224/

Bathing Suit - http://www.deviantart.com/view/27842315/

:o)

Vintage 1966 Knit Barbie Fashion

My mother let me borrow these McCalls patterns from their Spring-Summer 1966 magazine. Took me ages to scan, each page needed 4 different scans and then I had to stitch them together in photoshop! I have more patterns I will post soon. I just dont have the energy at the moment.

But I am knitting! I'm almost done with the slacks from this pattern. Theyre white and looking good so far. I dont have size 2 needles though, so I'm knitting them on my 3's. When I'm done I'll post a good photo of them. Also, I'm working on a coat from here - http://barbiebasics.tripod.com/knit50.html I'll post that, too, when I'm done!

Slack suit -


Bathing suit -

First Post!

Ok, well, Ive decided to make a new blog. I havent kept up any of the others and I was thinking that maybe because I just need some new scenery.

But I cant post anything long right now. My boyfriend, Shane, wants the computer to play EQ2, BAH!!

Oh well, I can do more tonight.....

Jes