Yeah. I bought a bag of hair. So what?

We had a good time at the alpaca festival (Pacafiesta) today. Well, actually not so much. Ian liked the alpacas for about five minutes, then he was bored and acting crazy, climbing the decorations and trying to kick spinning wheels. I had to chase him to stop him from scaring the baby alpacas. But despite all that, I learned a lot. I got to see a spinning wheel in action (it was like oooooooohhhhh! I get it!) and a loom as well. No interest in weaving at all folks. Don't fret. There was a lady with a llama as well, with a baby. If you could milk a llama, it would be the perfect animal. I asked her about it, she said they have small teats. But she also said it is really close to human milk, and probably really good for you.

Hmmm.

So I got some nice stuff for spinning. I got this superwash merino custom blend (which I started already):

It is 100 grams, I am hoping to get enough for socks. At least that's the plan. I know to knit socks, you need 100 grams, so in theory, if I manage to spin it at about a sock weight, I should be able to make socks. Most sock yarn is blended with nylon, however. So I don't know how I will get around that. (ply it with Phentex, maybe? KIDDING!!!) Anyway, we will see how it goes.

I also got this, Pat's Colours hand dyed feltable Merino roving:

Which I actually don't think I am going to spin, I want to make thrummed mitts. It's hard to show the colour right, but it is like green and yellow and brown.

Finally I got a pound of this:

Which I forgot to find out what it is. But I think it is also superwash merino. There is A LOT of it. A pound is a lot of fibre. I don't know what it will be for. Maybe a sweater? Or a scarf? The colour is not quite right in this picture either, but it is dark grey with a hint of brown. They called it Earth.

All together, I spent $17. (well, $26 with admission) That's it. Cheap!! The big bag was only $5. I have spent more than that on regular sock yarn! Like, a lot more! Now if I had a spinning wheel and could make yarn, you know, efficiently, it would actually be quite a bit cheaper than buying sweaters ready made! Surprise! Who knew knitting could be cheap if you make your own yarn! Too bad I suck at it. Hopefully practice makes perfect.

Now, off to practice!

Last night at supper:

Ian: This is my baborite supper in the whole..... oony-berse!

(We were eating fish sticks. Sigh.)

Playing catch up. (click any pics to embiggen)

Ian's artistic photography:

Kitty wants to knit:

My plied yarn! Woo hoo! It took forever, but I finally washed it today, and it should be ready to knit when it dries!

Ian at apple picking. Pretty big, orange, apple!

The sun was in his eyes:

Tree swing:

Apples:

Me and my boy:

Views on the wagon ride:

Yummie!

My tomato crop. Not bad for a first try I don't think!

You would think he grew them himself:

Queensland Beach, Thursday:

Then we went for a walk in the woods:

Stopped for a bite to eat. Ian had some cheese with his whine:

Mood swing!

This is his angry face. He stomps around and says "I'm Mad!"

My mad face:

I don't know how he took this:

Sometimes wrong is just right!

Hi folks!

I got the carpet cleaned today, and I just got my computer set back up again. I managed to ply the singles yesterday. I will get pics up as soon as I can. I still need to wash them as well. Anyway, I couldn't do a thing today with everything I owned in the wrong rooms. I have a big day ahead of me tomorrow!

Anyway, I heard this on the radio this morning and it made me laugh! I think the lady took it very well when she decided to stay!

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=b3f2600b-a2a8-4c78-9d38-1fba45df7f0a

Hope it brightens your day, and tides you over until I get my yarn pics up!

A good day

My spinning is getting better. Hopefully I am not boring anybody with all this, but at least I am posting! I am getting a lot more proficient with practice, and I am also becoming much less afraid of the wool, as in, not so scared I am going to tear or ruin it. Plus I am doing more prep work, which I think is helping. Here is a pic of the last bit I spun:

And just for reference, here is a pic of the other stuff, from oldest to newest, so you can compare quality:

(sorry the pic is blurry. It's hard to take pictures at night)

I still have a little bit of the roving left, I will probably finish it tonight, and tomorrow I will have to figure out how to ply it. Then wash it, hang it, dry it, measure it, knit it, etc. You never know. Anyway, it is sort of satisfying to see all that fuzz smooth out into threads, right before my eyes.  But I am running out of wool! (she says as she eyes the cat and the hair clippers...)

Anyhoo. That is not all I accomplished today. I made bread, tidied the kitchen (for me, that is an accomplishment) and most importantly....

Took Ian to his first day of preschool! Yay!

Look how super cute he is, and such a big boy!

Happy to be there:

Hat and bag off...

Hung in his cubby...

And off playing without a backward glance!

Last night when I reminded him it was his first day of school, he was so excited! I asked him what the teacher would teach him, and he said "about vacuums!" and the first thing he did was run in to the toy vacuum. No tears (not even me), just happy to be there. He was one of the few, though. You could hear the heartbreaking wails from the other kids at the other end of the building!

Later on, when I went to pick him up, he runs up and says "Mama I PAINTED! And my FINGERS WERE CLEAN! I painted NICELY!"

I am glad we had a good day!

All Spun Out

I spun a bit more tonight, couldn't wait to post it. Here are my new singles on the spindle:




They are a lot more even. Not perfect by any means, but better. I believe it is about the same amount of fibre as the first batch, but it only took me about an hour, not three. I learned a lot from Youtube, I will post a link tomorrow to the most instructional videos.



You can see how much better it is than the first batch in this picture:




I guess I can go to bed happy:

New Skillz. I haz them.

So I bet you are wondering why I posted a picture of a tiny ball of Yarn of Questionabl Quality (aka YQQ) yesterday...even though if you were wondering, you didn't comment. Well, maybe I can explain by showing you this:

Yep, it's a spindle, and some furry fur. Which should shortly be spun into more YQQ, and plied together to hopefully be slightly less questionable. Then I will make it into something. Something sucky, no doubt. But it will be mine. And I shall be proud. And I will be one step closer to Little House in the Big Woods.

That isn't the only skill I have added to my repertoire... I also learned to cut hair! Observe Experimental Subject A:

I don't know if he is enjoying his HQQ (Haircut of Questionable Quality) But look at the heap o hair that came off the child: (foot included for perspective)

(hmmmm.... I wonder if I could spin that?)

At any rate, he looks pretty good for his first day of preschool tomorrow (yay)

And amidst all the spinning and haircutting, I stumbled across this half knit sweater, and what with fall approaching, I thought I had better get cracking. So here are the latest pics of my Anty Beryl Sweater:

The ants are gone, but the sweater lives on!

Big post later today...

But while you wait, sit back and have a glass of wine or two:

Something to think about.

Yum!

Me: MMM! This corn is sure juicy!
Ian: And I don't like corn juice.
Me: You don't ?
Ian: No. I just like sucker juice.

The Slacker Strikes Again!

Not only have I not been posting, I have not been taking very many pictures of my various adventures and projects, either! Yay! But today, I planned to spend the day cleaning up, so this is more appealing.

 

To my credit, I have been out to the valley three times, and I have made, since summer started, three batches of strawberry jam, three batches of blueberry syrup, one batch of blueberry jam, one batch of peach jam, two batches of dill pickles, and one batch of bread and butter pickles. Proportionately to normal, I haven't been knitting all that much. I gave up on the spiral rib for the fingerless mittens, and instead went with a cable pattern from Ravelry, with the end result being these:

 

(Only one pair, but two pictures) I am desperately in love with these mittens. I only wish I had thought to knit the second one from the other end of the yarn to make symmetrical colour patterning, but hey, it's minor. I have some yarn left over as well. Not enough for another pair, but I am trying to come up with something, like maybe a headband or something. I figure if I am going to knit part of mittens, I can knit part of a hat.

 

I am also procrastinating on starting a blanket and some other things. For me, procrastinating means I am knitting dishcloths. I won't put pics up because really. You all have seen them all before. I also wanted to show off these weird cookies I made. Sooo yummy:

 

Yep, they are two tone cookies. I have Baby Giraffe there guarding them.

And of course, Ian is cute as ever:

Bizarre self portrait:

He got really sandy, so I stripped him on the deck, and doused him with water, then wrapped him up and brought him in:

And just for fun, here is a pretty, yet fruitless zucchini flower:

What's next here on the slopes of Mount Weedmore? Apples. Specifically applesauce and dried apple rings. I got one of those apple peeling/coring/slicing dohickeys, so I plan on getting me a bushel of apples and just going to town.

So stay tuned, everybody! (And may I suggest putting my blog in your feeds, if you haven't already... that way you don't have to come back all the time if I flake out for a while again)