Plumtastic

Some Corriedale roving I hand-dyed. The pink came out first because I forgot the vinegar, was really supposed to be reds and oranges... oopse... ( it is pretty, but I'm really not the pink type. Something had to change) Then I dumped the rest of the roving into my new giant pot and made a purple color and let the tips of the pink soak up the purple while the rest cooked (with vinegar this time)



And here is something I'm quite proud of, the first skein of yarn from my Cormo fleece I bought raw with my friend Angie last summer. I still have plenty to comb out, and this is about 150 yards... so a ways to go before I get my sweater's yardage done, but it feels good to start on it finally!!

Finished things!

I finally finished the Danish Tie Shawl a couple days ago, wish it were cold enough to wear... though I probably could use it where I work, it is freezing in there more often than not!


And I spun up my Border Leicester roving I had traded for sock yarn and dyed at tvini's house a while back (the first dye party).


I love my wheel and have just ordered more roving so I can have more and more fun making pretty colors and lovely yarns!

Fidget

now he is ours! we love!

Feel goods

So I finally got brave enough to watch The Golden Compass . I loved the books and had avoided this move because of this, but i have to say, they did a pretty good job sticking to the story and getting all the information ( and there is plenty, this is a detail detail kind of story) to the viewers. While I was watching I was knitting, of course, and finished a caplet and made a hat out of my hand spun.



The next night I plied some superwash Merino wool I had dyed at one of our parties with some black cotton thread. I love it! Incredibly soft and squooshy and light. I am so happy I bought this wheel, we are such a good fit!! I did the thread ply because I wanted something more than a single, but did not want to loose yardage and really wanted to let the colors stand on their own, not next to each other.


Here's a progress shot of the danish tie shawl, i have been neglecting it for a while and am going to sit down and give it some lovin' right after I post this.

Whew!!

It was a busy week last week! So, a little more development on my new spinning wheel. It came to my work, Dani supervised and documented the unwrapping and putting togethering. It was one of the best lunch times EVER! She's an Ashford Kiwi, I love spinning on a wheel to bits already, here's my first large chunk of yarn done:

I've had the rust color for a good while now, I dyed and blogged about it when I was still in good ol' Harrisonburg, VA. The white is corriedale and came with her. I'm quite happy with the 140ish yards I have, the most regular thickness is about 5wpi, but it is thick and thinner.


Thursday I "taught" a little girl how to knit, and learned I can knit from the back side as long as it's a knit stitch. And then I went home and spun more.

Friday Prabir and the Substitutes (myspace), one of Shawn's old band ( and the one he was playing in when I met him, for some Cat's life trivia) came to play and stay at our apartment, but I was getting up early to go to the Dragon Boat Races with Cristi, so I dropped by the bar, said hi, had a drink and went home to bed.

Saturday Cristi picked me up and we headed to the races in which our dear friend May was rowing. There was some knitting

Lots of sweating and hydrating

some cheering ( they are rowing back to the load in/out spot, the race pictures were way to small and you couldn't see the right boat anyways. sorry) more sweating

some crazy lady spotting

check out that fun fur fan! She kept putting it away whenever I went for the camera, she may have suspected our amusement... and then we sweat some more.

After the majority of the races we left, ate mandetory icecream that immediatly mealted all over my hands, lemee tell ya, there's nothing like melting icecream cone to make you feel like a five year old all over again.

And after recovering in the car's AC we made our final stop at the Davidson Needlecraft Center and both picked up some half- off yarns and I also widened my embroidery floss palette. It was a most lovely day! I just wish I had more pictures... especially of that fan! haha!

It was a good day and then the Alternative Champs (myspace again) show was that night and it was awesome funny and rockin'! I'll leave you with a photo of part of their costumes... and one of my favorite shots I took that night. ( they dress up every show as something different, this time it was 70's style preps. it was interesting. )


Sunday was recovery,and the traditional thrift store exploring. I had some major mojo and found an almost complete collection of Make it Yourself: The Complete Step-by-Step Library of Needlework and Crafts. It is an encyclopedia-like collection of 20 books and I found 13 of them! for 80 cents each. Score!

and now Monday's almost done.

~whew~

Darcy

now, what could be in here??








a wheel?! for me???





and I get to paint her and make her the prettiest thing with two treadles?


YAY! YAYAYAYAYAYAY! YAY!!!



Laters :)

Myrtle Beach

So last weekend we went to Myrtle Beach to visit some of Bf's friends and go to the beach, have a vacation, go to the Hard Rock Cafe's new amusement park, and generally have a good time.

The first night we went to a "Mongolian Style" grill... the food was good, but they had the weirdest combos in the regular buffet lines. By the end of the meal we all broke down and started coming back with very odd combinations of food. Here's my last plate:





canned peaches, some fluffy orange cake stuff and one of those nom nom good sugar dougnuts and a piece of crab wrapped in bacon.

and here is Bf's last plate:




thats right, bacon wrapped crab and chocolate pudding.


The next day we went to the amusement park, rode the Led Zeppelin ( highly recommended) and saw the magical mystery tour bus, it was a decent park, but needs more rides. We were glad that we had free tickets, other wise the story may have been different.

Then there was beach time and we met a new jelly friend. it was lovely to jump in the ocean again, I love it, but not enough to live there, eventually the sand would drive me crazy. ( as it would end up no doubt, in allll of my yarn. yeucky-doo.)


in all the vacation was awesome, plus the three kitties who decided to adopt our bags as beds were pretty darn sweet.



I knit a little on the way down and up on Pi, which is growing steadily, I have about an ounce left of yarn and am hoping that it will be done soon! The tie shawl is also growing, it tricked me into thinking it was finished so I pulled it onto some waste yarn last night and alas, it needs at least a good 5-7 more inches to be finished. :( boo.

there will be more very exciting news later this week! VERY exciting news. Stay tuned for the awesomeness that will occur!!!!!





Oh, and I should mention it was the second weekend of biker week and we saw all sorts of butts in thongs on the backs of those crotch-rocket/ ninja speed bikes... it was... interesting. We stayed as far away from the traffic as possible and it all worked out in the end. Minus the dumb old traffic we got stuck in for a bit on the way out.