Wednesday, May 21, 2008

ZOMGZOMGZOMGZOMGZOMG

Hi, short post.

Got Age of Conan installed last night. On the Damballah server, fyi.

Got a Wii Fit today.

Will promise to keep kids fed, clean and housed. Anything else is gravy for the next week.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Well, I'll be...

Overheard earlier today:

Mr. Ninja: "Why's this clone trooper hiding behind the desk? With his head turned backwards?"
Mr. Munchkin, with a huge eyeroll: "Jedi Mind Trick. Duh."

Anyway. Mr. Munchkin and I were amusing ourselves yesterday with kool-aid and fiber. I set him up with some undyed sock yarn and let him loose. I'll show you the results later, the skeins are still drying. At the end, there was still some dye kicking around, so I shrugged and dumped it all into a pot with a bunch of superwash merino roving. I wasn't expecting much as it was orange, red and purple - definitely not my first choice of colours. This is what I got:

I sighed a little when I was waiting for it to dry and figured that since it wasn't really hitting a sweet spot for me, I would use it to practice my long draw technique with. Well, lo and behold:

I lurrrrve it. Can't wait to see what it becomes. Meanwhile, I've also been spinning some of the BFL that I got from Crown Mountain Farms - the Novalis colourway has been calling my name.

And yet somehow, I'm not nearly as entranced with the actual singles.

I'm not sure that I'm going to like the barberpole effect with these colours. I find it weird how different the two yarns are from what I was expecting, but it just goes to show that it does pay to push yourself out of a rut every once in awhile.

I'm a little bummed at the moment - I lost one of my WIPs and the lovely project bag that Lesley made for me while I was pregnant. So if you're walking around Fisherman's Cove and see a lonely bag of knitting, drop me a note eh?

Baby pic of the day:

Fear the Stormpooper.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Nebula revealed.

I finished spinning Nebula last night. This yarn was SO much fun to spin. I would be going along, drafting and then all of a sudden, a gigantic slub of blue silk would appear. Or, I'd be just about to spin a bunch of silk, and it would be consumed by some black merino. It was like watching the birth and the death of galaxies. So cool.

Today, I tried a test ply...and didn't like it at all.


The two plies seemed to be cancelling out the prettiness, and making the whole yarn kinda greenish. So I'm setting the twist and calling it done as a single ply, lace weight. I'm already planning to use this for a spectacular shawl. Just need a pattern. The skein has about 880 yards, so it's enough for something really cool, I hope.


I just can't seem to get a good photo of this yarn - it's so pretty IRL. And it's a good thing that I finished Nebula last night, 'cause my Crown Mountain Farms order arrived today! One of the co-ops I'm in does an annual order from CMF, and every time I order some...I wish I'd ordered more. Check these out.


BFL and superwash merino. Hooray for sunshine! Hooray for pretty yarn! Hooray for sheep!

Friday, May 2, 2008

Arachne ain't got nuthin' on me...

So, just about the only crafty thing that I can do with Miss E attached to me has been spinning. She has been having a rough week - first shots, poor wee thing - and refuses to let me put her down. Thank goodness for my mei buckle tai. I've been trying to knit with her in the carrier, but I have to hold my arms at an odd angle and it hurts. And forget sewing...the noise of the machine wakes her up everytime. But I can spin standing up, and the whirring of the wheel seems to soothe her.

I had some yarn that had been sitting on the bobbin for the longest time, and I wanted to finish it up. So I decided to give Navajo plying another shot. Let's just say that it wasn't pretty the first time that I tried the Navajo method, and that there was lots of alcohol and cursing involved. Sort of like a really good Colonel Tigh imitation. It went better this time, but not by much. (The lack of alcohol may have been a factor this go around.)

Superwash merino. Navajo ply, albeit crappily done. I think that it's Pansies colourway from Abby's Yarns.

And the next fun thing that I have on the crafty horizon is a spinning challenge. On DSD, they've started a spin-a-long. We all have this photo for inspiration:

And we're supposed to spin some yarn inspired by the photo. So far, I've made up some rolags on my hand cards.

It's black, blue and brown merino with liberal splashes of sparkly Angelica and blue/turquoise tussah silk. In retrospect, probably shouldn't have used so much brown. But it'll be interesting to see how it spins up. I have a sneaking suspicion that the brown will make the black just look dirty, but we'll see.