non-spinning yarn stuff

Just a little update on what I have been doing the last few days... that's not spinning yarn.

Saturday night we had a guest over in the form of my 11 yr old nephew. This is a good and a bad thing. Good because it keeps the 9 yr old son busy, bad because I am convinced that boys can't play together without getting on each others nerves. So, my kid went to bed about 10:30 which is late for him but not so early that he misses time with his cousin. The 11 yr old went to bed an hour later. So from about 9:30 till 12:30 I did some dying.
This is the result. I am trying to stay away from to many pastel like colors and get more saturation but I didn't have any luck that day.

I have discovered that so far, my new baby blue dye is breaking funny. Its really annoying because it creates spotting on the yarn/roving. I purchased two packets so I may need to open the other and see if I get the same effect. Also, instead of hand painting I may need to opt with a soak in a pot. Just in case the dye is not mixing well. I'm not sure why it would since all my other dyes used while hand painting mix up fine.

I also got some carding done. I don't have a really good picture since I wasn't planning to take any. However, my husband was playing around with the camera and got several fiber pics (after he took my spinning pictures.) So in case you can see through the clear plastic enough, thats my new batt set. Its pink and black with sari silk and bamboo and glitz and some regular silk as well. That's pretty hard to see but I will be sure to upload more pictures in the future.


In the store, I went through and remeasured the yarn that had been dyed in block coloring such as "Parakeet." Surprisingly that yarn was listed at 114 yards and it was actually 132 yards. However, most of them were roughly the same yardage as listing. The only difference is that instead of using the word "approx" the measurements are more exact.

So, on a final note I wanted to mention that I got some samples sent in for the April PhatFiber box. I didn't mention it earlier because I had some restraints that made me unsure if I was going to be able to make it. (Now, lets just hope the PO doesn't have issues.) I hope to contribute on a regular basis or at least bi-monthly. Since it was my first time I only sent in a few but next time I will be more experienced in what I need to do to get more samples made. If you happen to make it here after getting a box, be sure to leave a comment. I'd love feedback!

A lot of love and a little mingling

I have always thought that my family was perfectly suited to me. Sure I gripe and grumble and yes I nag at TheBoy and TheMister to do this and do that. Really that's just part of what being a mom/wife calls for sometimes. Fortunate for me its days like today that remind me that they really know me, love me, and want the best for me.
Growing up, Valentines Day wasn't all about celebrating the "love" of your life (i.e. significant other, sex partner etc..) but just showing that you cared. When we hit high school my mom bought us little Valentine's Day to showed she cared. Also, high school is when kids are at their worst and I wasnt getting any cards or candy because I just wasn't popular enough. Sometimes being an adult is not much different unless you have a great family and a great bond. Sure some adults don't feel the need to spend money to show they love someone, and thats perfectly alright. My family just gifted me with the sweetest surprise gift yesterday.

To start is this:



On the left is a brand new enamel dyepot so that I can work on dying more than one batch of fiber at a time. More effective for the store and less time consuming. Jay said he really wanted to encourage me to keep up with the progress and level of productivity I've gotten since losing my job. YAY hubby! Oh, and there is more....


Inside the pot was a special selection of goods just for me. The "U-R GR8" heart, frog stickers and a teddy bear card from my baby boy, Dyl. I also got another (personal =P) card from hubby, a tub of jelly hearts and everything else you see in the picture above. The small scissors are to complete my scissor trifecta so now I have 8-inch Ginghers, Fiskars pinking shears and small embroidery/detail scissors. I also got a mini (1.5 inch) sticker maker with a refill adhesive cartridge.
I'm so happy with my little gifts I could squeal! I won't but I could. As I've gotten older I realize that family is very special to me and I couldn't have married a better fellow or had a better son!


On another quick note, here is what I was working on yesterday that I hope to add to the Mix and Mingle section of the store soon.

It's handspun mill ends in the same color set as Faded Forestry. I noticed in Etsy chat people would like the colors but they were not spinners. Hopefully this will add some options for those who really like the combination and are able to knit or crochet. Unfortunately since these are spun from millends, I can't guarantee that the yarn will felt or not felt. There is also some variation in color in certain areas because of the varying wool composition .

Yarn and Traveling

The weekend always goes by too fast for me. I spent the entire week at work being the only person processing cash for my department/division. I deserve a longer weekend dagnabit!

As weekends go this wasn't a bad one. It wasn't quite the excitement of last Sunday but it was definitely welcome to being at work this week. On the yarn front I finally finished that wool/soysilk blend I purchased a few months ago. It was a very long time coming in my opinion. I think what finally did it was the new wheel I get to borrow. I was able to fit the bobbin from my Babe unto the S51 and finish spinning my single. Then I took a Louet bobbin and plied the two singles together. I ended up putting the remaining single into a center pull ball and plying it onto the same skein as well. Hefty!

There were a few casualties though. I tangled a portion of the center pull ball and lost some yarn. It was almost 1/2 ozs worth of yarn. Fortnately, I was able to pull the tangled center portion out of the ball and salvage the remaining yarn to ply with. I really hadn't thought that the yarn was thin enough to tangle but it's certainly a lesson learned. I did end up with some knots in my yarn which I am not to pleased about. I try to make my plying work out without the use of knots but it wasn't happening this time. It's not much of a problem though. I am not selling this yarn, I intend to find a nice light/lacy pattern that will best utilize the finished yarn. (If you know of one send me a clue!)

The book in the picture is a recent purchase as well. It's one of my "To Do's" in the fiber world now that I will be moving into a house. We have this utility room which will serve as storage once everything is sorted out and it makes me feel much safer about trying natural dyed methods.

The other fun thing from this weekend was our spur of the moment trip to Knitch. We had traveled to Forsyth to take a look at a furniture liquidation store and some sofas. Then I convinced my husband (and son... though he didnt have much say so) that we should go into Atlanta and see if they had more of the black merino fiber from the last trip. Unfortunately they did not. Of course I didn't come away empty handed, not after driving in the car for that long. So I picked up some roving from Gale's Art called Rose Garden. I also got some Gaywool Dyes. It appears that since the last time I was there Knitch has decided to start offering some dyes. I think the price is more than I wanted to spend on dyes but it will be a good chance to try another brand. I only picked up two colors though so I will have to make sure to work them in as needed.

(Side Note: I opened up a poll on how often a blog should be updated. I'm doing a little market research and would really appreciate the input even if you just happened here by accident. Thanks!)

Fibery Tidbits

I have been working on spinning up some plain wool yarn to dye into more Mix and Mingle colors. I really like how they have come out so far and they seem to have gotten a good response (i.e. views) on Etsy. I start with what I can get for the time being. I finally caved recently and got an order of the Sheep Shed Mill End Grab bags. Monetarily the price can't be beat. However, as is the case when purchasing things like fleece you do more work trying to prep then you do with the more expensive already processed "nice" roving. Case in point; I purchased four pounds of mill ends grab bag i.e. whatever they send me. Roughly a pound of the mill ends are colors including black, brown red and a little blue. Then there is another pound thats mostly batts that have been cut off the machine. Then of course there is the regular mill end roving bits and the mohair mill end roving bits.
Yes, there are a lot of mill end roving bits.


So after just a few hours of spinning I was already through the easy to use roving mill ends. Next would be the easy to use batts. Unfortunately almost all of the batts had cut ends. Fortunately, I had the experience with some of the cut ends from the roving and manufactured a plan. I took all the batts and carded them into ... well, batts. I basically recarded the wool which there by eliminated the hard to deal with blunt cut ends and made the wool soft and bouncy and easy to draft. Yay me!

The other thing that I did was to divvy up the rest of the undyed bits and started dying them. I have green and yellow that I did this past weekend. I will also have purple and hot pink which I am doing today. The plans for these bits are to card them up with all the variations of colors, texture, glitz and anything else I feel like putting in there. I'm really excited about this but wish I didn't have to wait for the other wool to dry tonight. Where is an air-only dryer when you need one!