Ghouls Night Out.

And so it commences.

I've been spinning up my first "art" yarn. I've always had a bit of difficulty with art yarn-- it just doesn't suit me. Over the years, I've figured out that my personal knitting style tends to veer away from the novelty towards the practical. I love details like lace and cables, but if things are too fuzzy or have too many colors or added embellishments, I tend to run in the other direction. Although I've always found art yarns pretty, I tend to avoid them because I know I will never knit with them.

Until today.

I happened to find some skull beads at the bead shop while looking for something else, and it sparked a notion of making a Halloween themed yarn. So I started digging through my fiber stash. Instead of the traditional black/orange combo, I decided for something a little less literal and opted for some black merino with bits of gray and white NZ wool and along with the skulls, there are gears and small keys and big swirly glass beads. It's not a true art yarn-- for starters it's a relatively even thickness throughout-- but it's probably as close as I'm going to come.

Frankly, I'm rather giddy over the whole thing. Now my month of Halloween can begin.

No stashing for Jilly.

I am kicking myself for not budgeting for NW Handspun Yarns Mother's Day Sale. 20% off everything? Why oh why does it have to be this weekend? So instead, I've been focusing on the great things about the last few days.

Some favorite things of today:

• Potato Bread Rolls from BreadFarm. I made it to the farmer's market too late to get a loaf yesterday, but the rolls are just the perfect portion of potato bread-y goodness.


• The new yarn I spun Friday night. I had picked up four or so coordinating colors of New Zealand wool last time I was at NW Handspun, so I divided each color in half (so that I can possibly get two skeins that are similar in pattern) and spun each color in succession, throwing some reddish orange I already had in for smooth transitions. I'm calling it my Noro KnockOff.


• The sun is, if not shining, atleast making an effort. That's about all one can ask for in Northwest Washington, especially after last night's torrential downpour.


• Basil plants, ready for the repotting.
• Yarn from the lovely girls at Spin Cycle. I picked up a hank of Rusted Rainbow to test out gauge. The bad news: It's not going to work for Knitty's Cathode, like I'd been deluding myself into. I probably should have read the patter first. The good news: I love it so much I'm definetely going to be making a sweater out of it anyway.
• The Manos del Uruguay hat I managed to make in one slow day at work. A bit big, since I just cast on and went to town, but it should felt down a tiny bit and be perfect for this cold spring that won't seem to end.
• Listening to a ska album from about five years ago that I loved, but had since forgotten about. (for those interested, it's Catch 22--Keasbey Nights.)
• Getting to spend Mother's Day with my mommy. We're going to dinner tonight for prime rib and giant hunks of chocolate cake. She won't be getting her present until tomorrow though, because I haven't had time to pick it up. She asked for a candy thermometer, a specific one that she found at Target, and I haven't had the time and sanity required to brave the mall. So she'll be getting it tomorrow.

Man, I am one lucky girl if I have that many things to be happy about!

We won't stop until somebody calls the cops

The borrowed spinning wheel is looming, staring at me, waiting for me to finish my spinning homework. I think I know what I'm going to be doing with atleast part of my Sunday. I've still got a bit to get done before my next class on Monday. Thusfar I've really enjoyed spinning, but hanging out with friends I haven't seen much trumped sitting in my room. It's almost embarrasing to realize you've barely talked to people that live less than 30 yards away from you.

Yesterday pretty productive, as far as days off go. I got pictures taken of last weekends dyeing experiments. I'm pretty happy with most of those-- I tested out frosting colors in earnest (the first time was kind of half-assed and didn't go well at all) and "overdyed" some less-than-spectacular Kool Aid yarn. I also found that I LOVE Ashford's purple dye, despite it not really being purple. I'm hoping I have enough left to dye up a sweater's worth of yarn. I'm thinking it might lend itself to a Wicked sweater, or atleast something wicked-esque.

I also got the front of Baby's First Tattoo pinned up and set aside, and the back is about done with just a few decreases left before it gets set aside for sleeves. With any luck, this thing might be done while Wyatt is still small enough to wear it! (Then again, I cheated and started knitting the 1 year old size for my five month old brother.)

Now if I can just fortify myself long enough to finish Rambling Rose, I'll be set!

No time for a real post, but since I only just wanted to post the photos that accompany my last couple of posts, I don't feel too bad.

E modelling the Tube Sock Scarf

Very blurry (it moves fast) and very big ball of roving!

The fruits of my labor-- my handspuns so far. The one on the left was done when I had been spinning for about three days and was trying to ply for the first time. I think things have gotten a lot more consistent since then. The bottom hank is from the Purple Haze ball.

The newest project, a purse. I started on it last night during Whiskey Night with Mike and Jen. It's almost but not completely in the round, since I didn't have a circular short enough. I decided to just make it with one seam up the side. I'm not entirely sure how it's going to play out yet, since I'm just kind of making it up as I go along, but it will atleast be an interesting project!

Warning: If it hasn't been made obvious yet, I write the way I speak. And I speak in parentheticals.

Do you have those friends that you can spend hours with, without ever getting bored or needing some other distraction (ie, a movie or a game or some other form of entertainment)? I do, and I am so grateful for it. I also consider myself lucky in that two of those friends are miraculously dating eachother (which means I get two for the price of one!) and another one of those is my boyfriend.

The four of us (myself, E, and our friends Jen and Mike) spent the night hanging out, having drinks, and basically shooting the shit, and it was quite honestly one of the best nights I've had all week. Sometimes I feel bad and/or neglectful of our other friends, since we hang out with these two so much. At the same time, I don't.

I even got to briefly teach Jen about spinning! I've been (very) slowly teaching her how to knit, but I'm beginning to think spinning might be more her thing.

In other news, I've come to a decision about the things I was mulling over yesterday. Basically, I was offered a really big, but kind of scary, job opportunity. I mix paint for a living, for one of those big-box hardware stores. I have been offered the option to go to a smaller, more local store a couple of times. This time, I was made a really good offer. The manager of this smaller store wants me to come work there and eventually take over his job when he moves on, which is going to happen within the next six months. On one hand, this is an amazing opportunity, and would eventually mean making almost twice as much money as I do now while doing something that I enjoy and am good at. On the other, I'm terrified that I will be biting off more than I can chew. Managing my own store would be the biggest responsibility that I've ever had in my life, and I'm scared shitless that I will fall flat on my face. But after a lot of thought I finally had to ask myself, "what is life without taking risks?"

So I think I'm going to fight my fears and go for it.

To sum up, I am feeling very good about today.

When did "sit and spin" go from being a crafting phrase to an insult?

I find that after certain events today I suddenly have a lot on my mind, but I'd rather put it aside for awhile to write about crafting. One can only mull over things for so long before people start to wonder what the constipated look on your face is about and whether you are, in fact, constipated. (In the interest of full disclosure, I wasn't.)


Meanwhile, there is so much spinning going on! Now if only I had better light for pictures/time to take pictures during the day!

There's a lady in the next town over who buys up fiber remnants from Brown Sheep Co. and cards them into bee-you-tee-ful balls of roving. My LYS, which if not previously mentioned is NW Handspun Yarns, sells them for $10. $10 for a ball of roving bigger than my head? Why yes, I will take some of that! I picked up a colorway called "Purple Haze", which is a lovely blend of purple and royal blue with bits of lavender tossed in. Because of the way it's been carded, it drafts super-easily. Within about a day, I was able to get a decent sized ball of singles spun, soaked, and wound up into a hank.

I also finally got the merino/silk and New Zealand wool I had spun soaked as well, and it definetely makes all the difference. The silly little tangled balls that were sitting on my coffee table have now morphed into smooth not-so-tangly-twisted hanks, albeit very small ones. One of these days I might actually spin enough yarn to knit something!

The Tube Sock Scarf is, thankfully, also done. There is only so much *k2p2 (repeat from *) I can stand, so I was more than happy to bind off that little number. E is very pleased with it, and spent about two hours surfing the internet Tuesday night with it wound around his neck.

Now it's onto finishing the stupid mittens that I've been putting off (I changed the pattern on the thumbhole, but being slightly addle-minded I forgot to write down how I changed it, so I'm going to have to guess at matching them. I'm not looking forward to this, hence the procrastination. ) And then it's back to the fuzzy sweater! I think I'm also going to make a purse from some of the random yarn I've picked up recently. After that, who knows? The list of future projects is so long, I don't even know where to start!

Bundle up!

It's frozen in Bellingham.

The view outside my window. The tall building is formerly City Hall but now serves as a museum. If you look next to it, you can just barely see the bay. The lack of buildings or scenery, however, makes for some amazing sunsets.

Yahoo lists our current temperature at 20 degrees, and all the snow we got last night has since frozen solid. When it started snowing last night, my inner island girl got excited. Growing up in Hawaii/San Diego/Florida, I didn't see snow until I was almost 13, so I still haven't had a chance to get sick of it.

On the other hand, the big girl voice in my head so oh crap, you might actually have to drive in it this time. I managed to get out of it during the last snow storm two months ago making E drive everywhere. This time, because of schedules, I actually have to get on the road myself. Thusfar I seem to be doing okay. I've made it to work and back twice with nary an incident.

It's really wierd to see all of this white wind whipping over the ground. Makes me think of Antartica or something, not plain old Bellingham. Luckily the boiler for our building didn't freeze this time, it's not so fun without heat.

The cold weather did give me the opportunity (like I need one) to spin some more. I had picked up some new roving from my LYS to continue spinning. Still mostly New Zealand wool, but I also picked up an ounce of a merino/silk blend to treat myself.

I know they say 100% wool is good for beginners, but I had such an easier time with the blend! The slippery-ness that I was warned about actually helps me draft more evenly. It wound up beautifully and felt so soft!

That said, I am starting to get a tiny bit better with spinning pure wool. I tried switching colors while spinning with much better results. That tightly wound little ball in my hand starts out orange but gives way to an orangey gold, a reddish color, and eventually a bright pink in the center. In fact, neither picture shows how pretty the colors actually are. The folks at NW Handspun sure do carry some pretty-colored stock! I'm still trying to figure out how to avoid overspinning without my yarn falling completely apart. Right now I seem to be at one extreme or the other.

I'm gonna go crawl back under my blankets until it's time for me to go to work.

And the day's not over!

My day in pictures:

I started off by throwing on my new t-shirt from Anthropologie. I love the pretty leaf image and the oh-so-soft organic cotton. It feels like I've owned it for ten years!

I managed to get a bit more spinning done. I kept telling myself to put it down so I could run errands, but the roving kept call me. I'm finding that I'm starting to be able to draft and spin at the same time. Up until now, it's been the "spin and park" method all the time. It does however mean that I drop the spindle a lot more.

Even though they didn't strike me as particularly Christmas-y, I bought these giant sparkly feather ornaments this year for our tree. Now that I'm taking it apart, it occurs to me that there's gotta be something fun I can do with them the rest of the year. I'm thinking maybe as part of a walll or table decoration....

Per my list, I made it to the yarn store, the bead store, and the book store and picked up all kinds of things. The only thing I came up empty on was lavender, but woman I talked to reminded me that my favorite tea shop carries bulk lavender. Why I didn't think of that before is beyond me and the tea shop is a lot easier to find than the mysterious lavender place with the unknown name. After today, though, there will be a moratorium on buying new knitting books until I actually knit something from one of them.

Although the girl at the yarn store looked at me funny, there's a reason I carry these two books everywhere I go. One is my new planner, the other is stitch-n-bitch knitting journal that has notes on my yarn stash, including dye lots. I now have the exact yarn I needed to finish Carly's mittens, including the correct dye lot, and just might be able to get them done by the time she gets to town on Saturday!

There was also hummus and a trip to the Black Drop involved, but no pictures. It should however be noted that it was somn damn good hummus.



As for now, the plan is to finish taking the tree apart so E and I can haul it downstairs, tidy up my living room and possibly have some friends over for dinner. In my adventures today, I walked past one of my favorite italian restaurants and the smell coming from inside made tonight's dinner menu abundantly clear-- cheese tortellini with veggie marinara, garlic cheese bread, and a choose-your-adventure salad*.

But enough rambling. If I'm going to get all this done AND run to JoAnn Fabrics, I'd better get crackin'!

*choose your adventure salad-- the basic salad is there, but condiments are up to you. I plan to use a tiny bit of italian dressing, craisins, feta, and some crunched-up pecans. E leans more towards bacon bits and shredded cheddar.

Spinning, spinning, spinning.

As soon as I put new batteries in the camer, I want to take a picture of my first spun yarn, knitted up into a swatch. It looks like crap, but it also looks like it started to even out a little as my day went on. I've worked on some more tonight and it seems to be coming out better.





We rang in the new year comfortably, having drinks with our friends at their house. E and I had contemplated going to a bar, but we looked at the calender and saw that absolutely nothing was happening, so instead we all decided to have a small pajama party, complete with fuzzy slippers. I finally got to give my friend Elena the armwarmers I made for her, which are just like mine only in a different colorway. She's been subtly and not-so-subtly hinting for the last couple of months that she would really like these, so I made them for Christmas. I was glad she finally got to open them.

I really wish I could find a decent spinning FAQ, I've got a couple of questions that I simply can't find answers to online. I'm thinking that I may take the beginning spinning class at my LYS. For now, I'm just going to sit and be inspired by these girls. They spin and dye some of the most beautiful yarn I have ever seen and, lucky me, have their studio two blocks away!

And so it begins...

I decided to start one of my knitting goals early, so I just got home with this:

(New Zealand roving and an Ashford drop spindle)

and this:

(cambric from The Black Drop)

The spinning is ready to commence!

In other news, the Bellingham Parks and Rec. has been giving horse-drawn carriage rides downtown for the last 10 days. They've been going past my apartment about every thirity minutes or so. And they tell me living downtown doesn't put me in contact with nature-- we have trees AND horses! Next time they jingle past I might try to snap a picture.

And finally, I've realized that if someone were to judge me solely by what is on top of my dresser, I'd look like kind of a badass, or atleast someone into punk and rockabilly. (which I am. The music part, not the badass part.)

(clockwise from left: two Zippo lighters, the flask belt buckle E got me for Christmas, dice from my dice necklace in with all the change, girly heart-shaped candle, and an International Playboys pin. Oh yeah, and there's a stray knitting needle leaning up in the background.)