JenLa

First, and quickly, I give you progress reports, but then we move on to a new online store and then if you stick around, I have pictures of the happiest place on earth. And I don’t mean mouse ears.

Ribby Cardi has a completed back and about 1/3 of the left front now.

Here’s the blue silk I was spinning the other day:

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New hookup alert!

A nice woman named Carolyn started up a new shop called Spinning Yarns Online. I ordered some yarn and a pouch and tape measure and I’m very happy! She shipped it right out. I ordered it on Labor Day and had it in my hands by Friday. Since I have the inside track on the packages, I’m kind of surprised it got here that fast following a holiday. You know I work for that place that puts the things in the box at the end of your driveway? The place we don’t mention here; so I have the scoop. And not only that, here’s something else I want to draw your attention to: she put it in a box small enough to fit in a regular small mailbox. This is a really good practice. Obviously, if you make an order that is so large it can’t, that’s one thing, but it frosts my $7.99 for 6 target brand cotton undies when a package is just 1/4″ too large to fit in the damn box. Admittedly, I do a lot of online ordering so I should install a large mailbox out of courtesy to my carrier, but still, if something is small enough to fit in the box, then don’t pack it to counteract that! Yeah, sorry for the digression, but the wee bittie little box made me smile wistfully. I only wish you could have seen how full of wist I was but the paparazzi were nowhere to be seen when I went out to get the mail.

This will be a cheerful sock for a gloomy day, you can bet your sweet ass. [Yes, it is sweet, so go ahead and wager it.] I confess that I’ve been the Anti Sock for a couple months now. I don’t know what’s come over me. I feel reasonably certain that someday I will want to knit socks again, which is why I’m stashing yarns against the inevitable Lack of Sock Backlash Flash Flood. I want handknitted socks, I just don’t want to knit them at the moment. Which is why when I posted that pic of the butterfly the other day I said “I want socks in this colorway, please.” NOT “I want sock YARN in this colorway.” Someone knit me a bunch of socks, my feet are gonna be cold if I can’t get my sock love back. Size mumblemumblenineandahalfmumblecough. I guess I could wrap them in skeins of sock yarn. Oo, that might be squooshy! Anyway, Carolyn is going to be putting handpainted rovings on her site, soon, so bookmark that site and go buy some yarn and stuff. Hey, Carolyn, the neapolitan and pool yarns would make reallllly nice rovings, hint!

Knitch Renovation pics behind the jump.
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Name me.

She’s here. I haven’t had much time at all to spin on it, maybe a sum total of 30 minutes. It’s the double treadle Ashford Joy wheel and I bought it from The Woolery. I’ve always had fantastic customer service from them and they ship fast. In fact, they shipped it the day I ordered it and I had it two days later. Ashford doesn’t do “sales” but The Woolery has a really great selection of bonuses you can select from. I got a free book, 2 yard Kromski niddy-noddy and maintainence kit, but if you’re in the market there are 3 or 4 other bonus packages, so check them out. The fiber on there is something I’ve shown before, but it’s “Walking on the Sun” BFL from Spunky Eclectic. It was a gift from Stacey and just the perfect thing to christen the new wheel, so cheerful and pleasant and soft. This baby is coming with me to SAFF and I can’t wait.

Sunday I went knitting with some good friends, old and new and it was SO nice. [I "knew" itgirl in the online form for years, but this was the first time I met her. Hope you're feeling better, girl!] I really miss being able to go to a Stitch n Bitch, but I now work Saturdays. Which means I’m also SOL on my spinning guild meetings. I think this new group has a solid start and the chemistry is good; hopefully we can keep it that way. It’s hard, you know? You get a group together and eventually the dynamics change with the membership. Something that you used to feel fits you well can really start to become something else altogether. And if you have a group that’s open to everyone, you have to be prepared to change as it changes. We’re going to try keeping our new group exclusive for awhile so we can decide where we want to go with it. ESC, we’re gonna be at Knitch this Sunday, we expect to see you there! We’re going to try changing up the locations so it’s not always a far drive for everyone.

I did show Pixie the stole and she was happy with it, now if I can just finish it! I am soooo tired when I get home from work lately. I gotta start taking vitamins or something. Usually I cook dinner, drink a beer and go to bed, which is simply not good for finishing anything, be it knitting or stuff I have to do like chores. Today I’m off but I set up my brother’s computer, got him an internet connection, found him a bunch of local job sites to look up, defragged and cleaned up his hard drive and tried to fix a lot of his sloggy computer issues. Oh. And I also bought another new addition to the family, a brand spanky new BBQ grill. Today it’s 81F and breezy with little to no humidity. Bad for all the local wildfires, but good for grilling brats and drinking beer.

Is anyone besides me, Jane and Claudia planning to go to Stitch & Pitch on July 15? Everyone else I’ve talked to has wimped out about the heat. It’s knitting, beer and hot dogs for crying out loud! Oh and there’s some kind of sporting event thingie going on as well. I hear Knitch is planning some kind of bus to the game deal, but I haven’t any details, I may know more next week. It’s actually taking place on a Sunday when I can go, I can’t believe it. Everything here happens on a Saturday, presumably so the churchies can do their Sunday thing. Drop a line in the comments if you’re coming, I’d love to meet you there.

Now I have to go knit Pixie’s stole build my BBQ. Tomorrow is barbecued chicken night, then we might do steaks after that. Hard to knit with bbq sauce on your hands!

I’m avoiding mulching a half acre of garden by writing a post. I’m squandering a nice, wet, cloudy morning that would be perfect for laying out cardboard and hay, but these days I have to post when I have a spare couple minutes in consecutive order, which isn’t often.
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My horoscope is hitting every mark these days.

Today it’ll be easy for you to get caught up in wanting something you don’t have — and to lose sight of the fact that what you already possess is a treasure most people would give their eyeteeth for. Right now, you shouldn’t devote your energy to what’s next in your life. Spend your time finishing up the projects that you’ve already begun. Sure, they may lack the excitement of fresh challenges, but they’re not going to finish themselves! The sooner you complete them, the sooner you can start something new.

Hey, horoscope? Shut the fuck up. I will slap the first challenge that gets fresh with me.

If you’re trying to tell me that time for selecting and finishing an April UFOR project is running short, I get it. I feel like I should finish February’s project first, but lawksalawdy, it’s April on a farm, otherwise known as the month of being in MACH 5 with my hair on fire. No way I’m going to get two done. I may have to call in one of my projects that needs frogging.

Speaking [typing?] of wanting something I don’t have, [and btw, horoscope, that one was too easy, that's me every single day.] I’m going to buy this. I have a tiny bit of money from mom and the gubbermint is refunding us some of our taxes due to the fact that I sacrificed myself and didn’t work much last year, putting us in a lower tax bracket. Who knew they gave money back instead of asking for more? It was quite an effort to stay home and do farm stuff and play on the computer instead of working for the man, so I know you’ll all agree that I deserve this. To analyze the statement above from my preachy horoscope? Yes, what I have IS a treasure that many people would give their eyeteeth for, but it’s a treasure that doesn’t fold, don’t you see?

Yes, I can take this:

And make it into this:

Which looks remarkably like this:

But not while traveling. I have taken John Thomas many places, but he’s unwieldy and awkward in public. [I had a comment comparing him to my first husband but I really like my wheel MUCH better than my ex.] He has physical limitations which prevent him from flying and he’s not the best car traveler, either. I can justify anything with enough keystrokes, no? Now if you have a Joy, please tell me where you bought yours. There’s not much to be had in the way of “deals” with Ashford, but I’d like to support someone worthy, at least.

And to head off the usual questions: The roving is superwash merino in the “Petals” colorway by Luxe. And in case you don’t know, this is THE superwash roving, you will practically faint when you work with it. I shouldn’t be telling you this because it’s hard to come by and this is only going to make it harder. Please don’t kill me, Pixie. [it was she who first gave me the secret handshake to get into the Luxe club.] And the flower is a Columbine I bought at the plant sale at our local ag college a couple days ago. I went to look up the variety [McKana's Giant] and I couldn’t think of the word “variety”, I kept thinking “colorway”. Clearly I need to spend more time reading my gardening books and less time snapping up new knitting books.

My part-time job sure takes up a lot of time. I feel like I’ve totally lost the knack to write a blog entry. And sometimes the inclination as well. But I have finally managed a few other things. On Sunday I went here [OMG, OMG it is such a wonderful store!!] with these people where I bought this, [wow!] this, a bit of this, [lucky baby] and a hell of a lot of this. Enough, in fact, to make this for this person. While there, I also started this:

Three different times. The first time I screwed up the seed stitch border. The second time I twisted it when I joined it for knitting in the round. The third time was a charm and now I have a rhythm. It’s going to be a tank top, but the pattern I bought has been basically discarded. Right from the very start, I changed the pattern. It was patterned flat, I’m knitting in the round. There was a garter stitch border, it now has a seed stitch border. It was plain stockinette, now it’s got design features. It called for cotton yarn, I’m using linen. So the pale purpley tank is some sort of bastard step child of a pattern and we’ll just have to see if it turns into something good or not. If not, I’ll simply rip it out like it’s predecessor. The yarn used to be another tank from VK. I love the yarn (linen from Interlacements-a show special that there was only one hank of and no more to be found), it’s soft and the drape is perfect. But I didn’t like it’s prior incarnation as the pattern was written for a mannequin, not a person. Plus I hated the way I’d seamed it. With this one, the round knitting has preempted that issue.

Also, I got some roving in the mail yesterday. Since it’s Trash Talk Tuesday and a certain someone fell down on her duties today, and since I’ve been anything but responsible with my blogily duties, I’ll pick up some slack. I joined the Spunky Club and so far I’ve been whelmed. Now, let me just qualify it by saying that this applies to the club only. This BFL roving that Stacey sent me is awesome, for instance.

It’s called “Walking on the Sun” and it’s BFL and I love it.

For comparison, here are the club rovings so far this year:

“Walkabout”, a mixed wool on the left and “Forecast”, a merino on the right.

And this newest one that felt so nice I started spinning it right out of the box:

The camera refused to focus on it. What you can’t see is the blue that’s also mixed in with that. Here’s a picture of the roving.

It’s called “Dandy Lion”, I’m going to practice my navajo plying with this, then dye it over with maybe a darker green. I wish I could get about a warehouse full of this roving-undyed. I’d sleep naked in it. So I guess my Trash Talking is just that I wonder if I should stay in the club. It’s certainly not anyone’s fault that I’m picky. On the one hand, I’ve gotten to use a fiber that I know I love and will look for in other colorways, and I get to support a fellow blogger and fiber entrepreneur. On the other hand, I’ve gotten nothing I like color-wise and only one thing I like fiber texture-wise. In the immortal words of The Clash, should I stay or should I go?

And we really need to make a point of discussing what one can knit from X oz of roving once spun. And when we have this discussion, the first person to suggest “hat” and/or “scarf” gets a size 10.5 in the eardrum.

The Fiber Cat Progress Report is brought to you by the letters “OUCH” and “HOLY CRAP”. Bobble mangled my right hand when I grabbed his sweet silken scruff to put him in the carrier. But he did get into the carrier so I WIN. The update: They are both free of feline leukemia and feline aids. (I’m so surprised and happy about this that in my giddiness I typed HOLLA after that sentence and then I sobered up.) But they do have severe URI and they are on antibiotics and antivirals and Loop also has eye ointment because her little conjunctivas are swollen to the point they stick right out of her eyelids. Poor little lamb, I know just how she feels. The Vet says that apart from this distressing infection they have good body weights and should recover just fine. Bobble earned himself not just a reputation but also had to have his picture taken in the exam room for his Feats of Ferality. He’s not one of those cats that lashes at you or bites, when you approach him he gets a look of terror and panic but he doesn’t do anything until your hand actually grabs him. Then he turns into CRAZY TWISTY CONTORTION THRASHY LACERATOR CAT. The very brave assistant took a look at my mangled hand and decided to go for it anyway. It was destined to end in blood, but I used to be that same assistant so I let him try. Hey, it’s his flesh, if he wants it flayed… So he caught him but was instantaneously forced to release the demon and since the cat was feeling just a little cornered, he jumped straight up the wall. There was a chair rail and I suppose he thought he’d land on that and be safely out of reach overhead despite it only being a couple feet off the floor. Except it’s a chair rail, not a shelf. So he sunk his front claws into it and was hanging there wondering what the hell to do next. He turned to look at us and let go with one foot. He was stuck to the wall with one front foot, trying to formulate plan B and the Vet whipped out her cell phone and took his picture. I wish I had been so quick. The rest of the time he sat on the exam room sink, staring worriedly at Loop. He’s obsessed with her. They caught him, sedated him and drew his blood and now I’m supposed to give him pills. Ha ha very funny. While he was gone Loop meowed for him for awhile then curled up in my hands for warmth and laid her head on my knuckles. Any port in a storm, yeah? When we got home, I took advantage of Bobble’s inebriation (hey people do it to me all the time) and patted him a lot. He’s quite soft and lovely. It’s safe for me to become attached now. Like I hadn’t got a headstart. And this concludes the cat portion of today’s post.

In other news I started knitting a goat. Of course it needs to be an angora goat and have long wavy hair, so I’m doing this really labor intensive “fur stitch” thing where you make loops on the front of the fabric. I was going to make four, but 1/4 of the way through the first one I decided to make two.

One might just be good enough. The idea here will be to cut the loops and tease out the individual plies for wavy locks. Even I realize I’m certifiable from time to time and this is one of those times. You needn’t remind me that this is a toy for a one year old, I’m well aware of the depths of my stupidity.

Mostly I’ve been spinning. I realize most of you get totally bored when I talk about spinning. I realize, but I don’t really care. Back when I couldn’t go to MDS&W because of Mom’s surgery, Sandy bought me a pound of natural white Corriedale. Well, I’ve been spinning through my roving stash like mad lately and I finally spun down to this and I thought for awhile I might dye it then spin it. Then I thought, no that would slow me down. So I tied on the leader and let it rip. And OMG, y’all. I hear people singing the praises of merino, alpaca, cormo, silk, romney, llama and BFL all the time. But I never hear anyone shrieking about everyday corriedale. It’s like the *perfect* spinning fiber. Or maybe mine is particularly nicely processed. It drafts like butter and spins up into a smooth, even single. It is so pleasant to spin that I decided within a few yards that I love it just the way it is and I will not dye it. I’ll knit something deserving from it when it’s done. But I actually slowed down because I don’t want the spinning part of it to be over so soon. And just so you get how much that statement means, I want you to get a look at the BFL I just got in the mail and understand that as far as I’m concerned, even this can wait:

And that is 7 7/8 oz of BFL from The Fiber Denn.

Since I promised, here’s the picture of the ornament I needle felted:

And here’s the loot I scored:

My gift was from Claudia. The yarn you see is what she was spinning at SAFF. She had been spinning for what, a month? When she made that. She’s pretty, she’s completely kind and pleasant and she is good at everything she tries. There’s just nothing to hate her for. Doncha hate that? Also, the dishcloths she knitted from a yarn that’s made of recycled coke bottles. And they’re my color *plus* I gave away all the dishcloths I’ve knitted. And christmas bubble bath which will come in handy when I light the peppermint candles and pour the eggnog and put on the Squirrel Nut Zippers Christmas CD in the bathroom to get in the holiday mood. I actually have an enormous collection of soaps and soaks and bubble baths. So even though it was totally random, I got the perfect gift for me. Thanks, Claudia!

And thanks to everyone else who wished me well. I’m recovered enough to be irked by the fact that my home is a pigsty, but not enough to really do much about it. I’m not sure when exactly I’ll feel good enough to clean. You know that part of illness can last a looooooooong time. Really all I can do now is knit or spin, everything else might send me into relapse.