Lazy summer days...

are a myth if you ask me.

Craft-wise, it's been all about the dyepot recently.


Mr. Munchkin in action, dyeing up another skein of yarn. We went all out and used acid dyes this time. (Don't worry, no children were in the room when I was prepping.)


From left to right: Carmen (red, violet, purple), Muddy Rainbow, and Mr. Munchkin's Special.

I had another skein of a rainbow yarn that I dyed, but Mr. Munchkin ran off with it and gave it to our lovely neighbor (who knits, fortunately) in lieu of handpicked daisies. He loves our neighbor and always runs off to pick flowers for her when she is outside. Today, he decided to bring her yarn. Will have to put the stash under lock and key. >_<

Lessons learned from this dye session - let the boy have no more than 3 colours at a time. Inevitably, one of those colours will be black. (His fave colour) Also, for the love of Pete...dye outside.


Superwash merino roving, in the Twilight colourway. (Sky Blue, Violet and Black) Twilight is my favourite time of day. Always has been, always will be. When I was dyeing this, I was so disappointed - the blue was so watery and pale before it went into the oven. But it turned out perfectly. Makes me happy just to look at it.

And the last reason that my blogging will be sporadic at best for the next while:


This is five yards of dirt...waiting to be transported to the waiting raised bed in the backyard. We're not really going to be able to get anything planted this year, but the plan is to put the structure in place in time for next years growing season. The plan is to build a square potager with paths from each corner, meeting at a circle in the centre. Inside the circle will be a bean teepee. Now I just have to move the dirt, build the paths and find a local ironmonger to build the teepee. Phew.

Well, crap on toast.

A favourite saying of one of my university roommates. It's appropriate, trust me.

I've had a lousy week.

1) No sleep. Lil' Miss E seems to be a night owl, as she likes seeing the sunrise.
2) Fought with my Mum 3 hours before she got on a plane to go home. We're better now...but still.
3) Got into a fender bender backing out of my freakin' driveway, as there was a car parked illegally on the wrong side of the street - and I wasn't really paying attention 'cause I was still wound up from the fight. Guh. Everyone's ok, but it was my first car accident ever, and I'm still pissed off about it. My car is NOT happy looking - going to have to get a side panel and the bumper replaced. Grrrr.

Fiber stuff:


Wonderwool is pretty...but it's curse worthy stuff. This is the baby shrug from Debbie Bliss. Nice pattern, a little confusing, but the end product is very pretty.


Mr. Munchkin's kool-aid socks. Dyed by the young gentleman himself, and knitted with a standard top down short row heel and toe. I really liked how the yarn did a self striping thing...which gives me another excuse to let the munchkin loose on more fibre now that the weather is marginally warmer. (17 degrees in June? Madness.)


And finally...Julia. I love this spinning wheel. Love love love love love love love it. The take up is so freakin' light that spinning cobweb lace suddenly seems like something that I could/should/want to do. However, the bobbins are teensy compared to the ones for the S10. I finally understand how people can spin up a bobbin and a half in a day (the thought used to gobsmack the hell out of me before). At the moment, I'm working away on the Novalis BFL.

Also, you may have noticed a new widget on the side bar - the mixwit tape thingy. It's SO cool. As an angsty teen, I used to spend hours making the perfect mix tape for my beloved boy of the month. The mixwit mixes are limited to what you can find online, but it provides enough variety to keep me very happy. I forsee this becoming a popular little toy for bloggers everywhere.

Drive by blogging.

Okay, don't have a lot of time to blog. (I do have a rather respectable level 31 Bear Shaman in AoC, by the way. And best not to ask what my Wii Fit age is if you want to keep all of your body parts.)

1) Lesley, I forgot to tell you - I found the project bag! Mr. Munchkin was evidently trying to help, and he put it into one of the stash baskets. I'm still amazed that it turned up in the same calendar year as when it was lost.

2) I hate Wonderwool.

3) I have almost 4 balls of splitty, clingy, obnoxious pink Wonderwool left. Anyone want it? (Why yes, I've never worked in retail. Why do you ask?)

4) My spinning wheel is gone. But I'm glad that she's gone to a good home. Thanks again Lesley!

5) I'm getting a new wheel for my (early) birthday present: a Julia! She's in the mail, and I can't wait to meet her.

6) According to my Ravelry project page, I clearly have a bad case of startitis. Five projects on the needles.

7) Yes, I have knitting in my bathroom. It's the only room in the house with a lock. (For me to be able to step away from the chaos for a minute or two. It's not like the knitting is at risk of getting out. Unless it's pink Wonderwool. Then all bets are off and I suggest that you read up on zombie apocalypse reference material.)

8) In a fit of apoplectic rage (is there any other kind, really) after finding the cat sleeping on all of the diapers that I had cut but neglected to sew... I went on a minor sewing bonanza, thanks to the fact that my lovely Mum is in town and is being the BEST grandmother ever. I now have 20 diapers in size medium to fit little Miss E's tush, which is enough. No more disposables for us! Pics may present themselves eventually.

9) Three month old humans are pretty much the epitome of cuteness. It's all downhill from here. Don't believe me? Check this out.


See, she's not always the screaming crying mess that she turns into the minute that we step into the Wired Monk. *sigh* It looks like it'll be a few more months until I'll be back at KOL, unfortunately. Until then, it's just me and the Wonderwool, and only one of us is getting out of here alive.

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.

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.

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!

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.