Warm!

It was a beautiful weekend. We had 70 degree temps and I did not spend much time indoors. I am trying to get another hat done to send to my friend. It is somewhat complex and has a lot of cables and twisted stitches. I hope it doesn't take forever to do. I want to finish my hats before the Sheep and Wool festival. (New York?) One of those.

I helped my mom get going on blogspot and she should be happily blogging away now. I will put links to her stuff when I get a chance. I have managed not to buy any more fiber lately. I have just been washing and combing it up. Those Russian paddle combs are vicious and I have had several nasty wounds from them. So I'm trying to get used to wearing gloves while I work. It's tough and the fiber tends to stick to them. But at least I have no more nasty wounds on my fingers.

I have gotten used to using the combs and now I kind of wish I'd gotten the english combs for my merino. Maybe one of these days when I get rich. LOL You just never have enough fiber, or enough tools to work it.

Inventory

Last night I pulled all the boxes of fiber down out of my closet and went through them. I did inventory and wrote down everything I had. I pulled out all the stuff that was not clean or carded. Boy do I have a lot to process. Wow. I will be busy for a while. I am toying with the idea of an Ebay store to sell stuff and have just not decided yet. I just wonder how successful it might be, but I am having trouble letting go of the idea. So maybe I should give it a try. I just want to make more money than I spend. I need a way to pay for my habit.

And do I sell fiber or yarn? Beads? I think more people knit or crochet than do spinning. But then it will take more of my time. But I do love the raw fiber and spinning it up. And what is the best use of my time? I don't know. I need to focus on one thing but right now I feel scattered.

I am so proud. Last night my youngest son did a speech on fiber and did a spinning demonstration for his college speech class. I bagged up some fiber samples for him and labeled them. They taped it and I hope to get to check it out as soon as a friend converts it to DVD for me. Maybe he'll learn how to knit next. LOL He already knows how to cross-stitch, all my kids do.

Yarn Harlot

I was surfing the knitting books at Borders when I came across a little book that attracted my attention. It was the Yarn Harlot: The secret life of a knitter. I have read some of it and it's pretty good so far. I love her description of her yarn stash and her unfinished projects. It makes me feel a bit guilty about my blue sweater. I have been doing fiber prep and ignoring my knitting except for starting a hat for my angora buddy. I feel like I need to be finishing up her hats for the shows she will be at. The book is a lot of fun and I can tell I won't be long finishing it. Unlike my blue sweater.

I watched a video on how to card on UTube. It was strange, I didn't learn anything I didn't already know exactly. But somehow, after I watched it, suddenly things seemed easier and some of the fiber that I had been laboriously opening lock by lock and feeding into my drum carder was being combed instead with much less damage to my hands. Combing wastes more fiber, but I am saving most of it and will try carding it up on the drum carder for felting. The only thing that didn't do so great was my beautiful ruined Merino. I get less than half the fiber back, but actually, the new combs work as well as my mini combs. I got the Russian paddle combs which are only single teeth (I was disappointed about that) but they still work pretty well and do a fair amount of fiber at a time. The video is in three parts and starts at this URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-C9j6srYSg&mode=related&search=

The woman in the video is seriously goofy. But it is somewhat entertaining and it seemed to help me a lot with working the combs. Now I just need to get a table to work on and find that piece of wood that holds the comb on the stand... Where on earth could it have gone to?

Hats, and more hats

I have pictures of the two hats I have finished. This first one is my 4 rib hat. I

just made this one up.

This second one is a 4 rib hat. I got this pattern from a book and converted it to a knit-in-the-round hat as it was designed knitted flat. (weird) These are both knitted in the Samson's Blizzard angora yarn. So soft and cuddly!

I spent all weekend washing and carding fleece. I love working on the fuzz but I have to figure out what to do with it all. So much fiber, so little time! I just can't retire yet to work on my fiber. So I have to keep my day job. Ah, such is life.

More projects later.

It's all about the fiber

I have been washing fleece and carding it up until my hands are sore. I did find some brown shetland that I'm going to card up with my llama and see if it makes a nice yarn. I love the 100% llama but it will be silky and not have any spring to it. I still want to make a shawl with it as well. I keep thinking I should put some of my stuff up on Ebay but I can't decide whether to put up the fiber or the yarn. I'm sure more people knit than spin. But you never know what will go.

I have a shiny new computer from work and I'm going to see if I can hook my scanner up to it. Sometimes scanning stuff gives truer colors than taking a photo. So maybe I'll try scanning my hats. I started a 3rd hat and got a 4th pattern from the web as per my friend's request. I'm looking forward to a weekend of washing, spinning and carding.

The cool thing is that my youngest son (20 yrs) has decided to do a speech on fiber preparation so I will be making little bags of fiber for people to feel. He learned to card and spin and will demonstrate his skills in class. Too cool.

I will put stuff up to look at soon, I promise.

Black Faced Cotswold

I have been working on some beautiful black faced cotwswold wool this weekend. I washed it all up and started picking the vm out of it. My left thumb is swollen is keeps cracking now because I was pulling stuff apart all day long. I have maybe 7 lbs of wool. It is beautiful silver, dark grey and blonde or brown tips. It has a really long staple although some of it is felted about 3 inches down and I've been having to loosen it up as I go. It is 7 or 8 inches long and is a medium coarse fiber with a soft loose crimp. I am separating the dark from the light and will maybe ply one strand of each to make the yarn. I also did a lot of carding on some shetland I washed up. It's pretty too. I'm gonna have to do some knitting or something that doesn't work my thumb until it rests up.

I started my diet 3 days ago and I have been hungry almost constantly. I hope this is working, it sure feels like it. If I can just keep myself distracted with fiber, maybe I won't notice being so hungry. LOL Now the weekend is over. At least the sun was out today.

No Roadtrip

There are just too many factors so I will not be going to Canada for a fabulous fiber weekend. It's a shame and I am disappointed, but we will do it later. I will just have to do some fiber stuff on my own. I have some wool to process and a sweater to finish. I also have tons of spinning to do. My youngest son turned 20 today which is kind of scary. They grow up so fast. I also have about 6 more hats to do. I ordered a pattern that was requested of me, and I have some other ones that look promising. There is another blog poster who seems to make a lot of hats and posts the patterns. She is at http://smariek.blogspot.com/index.html I will be trying some of her stuff. I will also post up pictures and patterns from the hats I did so far.

The weather is relentless and we are getting more snow on top of ice and rain. That's one of the reasons I'm staying home. I am going to focus on sun, and then maybe we'll get some. Think warm!