Buzz Buzz

I've been a busy bee this month. Haven't posted anything, but I've been making stuff. I set the twist and finished my Valkyrie yarn:




Consider that a Handspun Monday post :)

Finished a lovely, squishy scarf in Malabrigo:



I'm officially a Malabrigo fan now. I didn't get what all the fuss was about til I felt the stuff for myself. Wow. Anyway, the scarf itself is just done in Purse Stitch (found it in Vogue Stitchionary Vol. 1) and not blocked.

Had a blast at Stitches East. Made another pair of armwarmers (of which I do not have pics... sorry!). Had a ball spinning with Pam while our boys shot each other with little plastic bb's. And started two Christmas presents. Which I cannot show you, because, well, they're Christmas presents! I'm gonna be knitting and crocheting and spinning myself into a frenzy for the next 25 days. At the same time, I have to register for classes and figure out how I'm paying for grad school in the spring. And attend various performances and football parties. And cook my Christmas specialties. Yes, I have a full time job. Whee!

Handspun FOs!

I have been remiss. I finished a project last week and didn't post it. In fact, I finished it exactly one week ago. Bad Carrie.

But, as it is made from my own handspun and I have nothing new on bobbin or spindle (and I'm sure you don't want more pictures of the same roving in varying amounts on my bobbins), I feel that it is appropriate for Handspun Monday. Ladies and Gentlemen (are there any?), I give you -- the Ocean Waves Boteh scarf!





Actually, I've been on a roll with the handspun this week. Because on Saturday I started -- and Sunday I finished -- another long-planned, never-executed project. This one is from the roving that I bought at Stitches East in 2006 and spun on my first Golding Spindle (I've since started a collection). The roving caught my eye because the colors reminded me of the sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean, and I eventually decided I would make a moebius wrap out of it. Sadly, some of the color washed out in the finishing bath, butit still makes me think of that beautiful sunrise. So about a year after finishing the yarn, I finally sat down and made the moebius. If I don't just decide to make it happen, it's not gonna make itself, right?


The color in the picture is off, unfortunately, but that's what I get for having such yellowy lightbulbs in my room. I'll try and get a more true-to-color pic. Since the color is really what's important about this piece. *sigh*

I've spun half of the Earth & Sky roving, and I need to ply what I've spun and get to spinning the other half of the roving, so that I have more handspun yarn to play with!

I know, I know...

...over a week. Again. I'm sorry. I haven't had much to post. No spinning progress as of last Monday, no discernable progress on the Razor Cami (it all looks the same, I mean really), and okay I didn't post Friday because I didn't have much time. Also, I was out knitting two nights, and cooking one. And Friday I decided to sit down at my wheel for once and pretend that I actually spin sometimes. It worked. Here's what I did:

I took this:


And made it this:



In case you're wondering, it's merino in the "Thistle" colorway from my friends at The Drafting Zone. I'm trying to spin it as fine as I can without losing my mind.

Also, this weekend my parents and I went to the National Museum of the American Indian (so is that the politically correct term now, not Native American? I'm so confused) to see the exhibit on American Indian dresses. WOW. The amount of work and the amazing skill that these women put into these dresses is remarkable. They are absolutely beautiful. And there are women who still make dresses with the same techniques today. It's an amazingly wonderful tradition. If anybody has the chance to go to the exhibit, you really should.

Of course, I needed something to do on the Metro, so I had my little spindle with me, with the Denim merino I'm working on, and I spun on that. On the way into the city there was a little girl that seemed to be peeking over her seat at me a couple of times, but on the way back out a gentleman came up and asked me if I'm a weaver, and if what I was using was a spindle whorl. He said he'd seen them in archaeology but never known how they were used. I explained that I knit and crochet, and showed him how I spin. He asked if it's less expensive to make your own yarn... heh, I had to tell him it's not particularly so anymore. There are so many gorgeous fibers out there, and so many of them are so expensive! But worth every penny :D

Magnificent Monday

Well, sorry, I totally buggered out of WiP Wednesday AND Yarn Pr0n Friday last week. I wasn't home much, as usual. Mom keeps telling me I gotta get out of that habit. But hey, I did start a new project! I started that Razor Cami that I linked to in my last post. Let me tell you, that whole continental knitting thing is AMAZING. So much faster. A lot more like crochet, actually. I like it much better, and I think I might actually *gasp* enjoy knitting! Wow! And the baby blanket? Is on the backburner for a few days. Every time I tried to work on it the past week, I end up frogging as much as I crochet because I end up with mistakes at the beginnings of rows, which I don't notice until I get back there by the end of the next row. Very frustrating.

So where's the handspun? I know you're thinking it. I haven't done much spinning, and certainly haven't been spinning anything new, except that yesterday I went to my monthly spinning guild get-together, and I bought a couple of merino rovings that I just couldn't resist. The couple that hosts the guild has their own fiber preparation and dyeing business, and their rovings are beautiful. One of the ones I got is a colorway called "Denim." I've been wanting to make a shawl that I can grab and throw on with jeans and whatever I happen to be wearing with them, thus it must be a neutral or the same general color as the jeans. So when I saw the "Denim" roving I just knew that I'd have to make said shawl with my own homespun. Hopefully I'll be able to spin enough; it doesn't need to be a big shawl, but I'd like it to be big enough to cover more than my shoulders. Anyway, I'll quit yakking and get on with the pictures. First, the roving itself:



And here's how it spins up:



YUM. It's wonderful.

In other news, there are two or three obsessions competing for brain space right now. Psych, Transformers, and The Magnificent Seven. Let's for a moment take Transformers. The movie is beyond fantastic. It's everything a summer blockbuster should be. Don't believe me? See it yourself. Now, this does have a relevance to my blog. I've gotten the crazy idea to do Transformers themed yarns. I've got an idea for a yarn to correspond to each Autobot. No Decepticon ideas yet. Decepticons are boring and nowhere near as cool as Autobots anyway. But maybe by the fall or winter you'll see *gasp* art yarns here, inspired by the Transformers!

Another of my obsessions, and one which I haven't managed to work into my craftiness yet, is The Magnificent Seven. Not the movie, no. The television show. See, my best friend got me hooked while we were at college, and now that the show is on DVD we each have both seasons. Season two came out just recently, so I just got it a couple weeks ago, and I'm obsessed all over again. So it's not at all relevant, but I thought I'd share this absolutely perfect fan-made music video I found on YouTube. Enjoy:

Podcasts Are Happy Things

No pics to post at the moment, because I don't have them downloaded yet, but I finished Mom's "Lavender Fields" merino. Well, finished spinning it. Still needs to be washed and hung. But it's off the wheel! So now I have moved on to the "Ocean Mist" merino/tencel. It's like spinning a little bit of Heaven. Okay so I've never spun Heaven, but it's what I imagine Heaven would spin up like. I seem to be getting better at being consistent, too. Which is not to say that the yarn is completely consistent, but it's consistent enough that I think only I will be able to tell. The only problem is that I'm getting better at spinning a consistent, thin yarn, which means I'm having a hard time finishing the mohair blend I've got on my Golding spindle, because that started out relatively thick, and it's just getting thinner no matter what I do. Gahh!

So that's the update on what I'm working on. On with the rest of the post.

Thanks to Spin-Off magazine, I have discovered The Fibercast (link to your left). It's a fiber-arts podcast done by a very nice woman named Caroline, who owns a plethora of animals including alpacas. In the podcasts, she gives an update on what's going on in the fiber world, what she's working on, and she often interviews somebody in the fiber business. My favorite interview so far has been the one with Ted Myatt, the Knitterguy, whose blog I now must read. Caroline also discusses her animals and has done one podcast entirely about raising alpacas; that's my other favorite. So, my few and loyal readers, you really ought to listen to the cast. It's fantastic, and now that I've listened to all of them at work, I have to set my laptop next to my wheel and listen to them all again while playing (in case I missed anything, which I'm sure I have, being at work). Enjoy!

I haven't abandoned you, blog!

Before I start my craft post, I can't post without acknowledging what happened today at Virginia Tech. I don't even know anybody there except for one guy who I've already heard is okay. But all I can think of is what it would be like if it had happened at my own school instead. It's so disturbing, and all I can do is pray for the survivors and the families of those who died.

So putting aside my horror and disgust and trying not to dwell on it, on with the normal post...

What have I been doing since I posted last? Well...

I've been spinning this lusciousness :

Into this: Using the highest ratio and being very careful. It's for Mom. It's "Lavender Fields" superwash merino from C*eye*ber Fiber (the blueish color is actually a lovely lavender, I just can't tweak photos well). My next spinning project is this:

But that's been on hold quite a bit because I've been working on costumes for the local community college's Twelfth Night (ya know, Shakespeare, with cross-dressing and cross-gartering?), set in Regency England (ya know, Jane Austen?). The best though probably most labor intensive piece was altering this relic from the costume closet:
Which got lace added (cos it was too straight) thus:
And then eyelet to extend the hem (cos it was too short) like such: And such:
Voila! I'm rather pleased with it. Though through tech week and the first weekend of the show, the sheer fabric that overlaid the satin of the bodice managed to rip into shreds. Why? Because the damn thing is so old it was dry rotting! Ew. I had to take the sheer overlay off. I simply tore it off, as one tears off the bill from the bottom of one's insurance statement. Oooh check me out with the metaphors. Okay so that was a simile. Sue me. (No don't really, I'm not that rich.)

Found out today about a couple nifty yarn shops in Frederick. So those need to go on the destinations list for Yarn Safaris. We need to get this Yarn Safari thing going. Though with Sheep & Wool coming up, I think that Yarn Safari season must be postponed. Can't be spending our cash before S&W! Especially since I think a charkha (sp?) has been added to my shopping list... darn you Matt! ;)