But first– the markers. Lets just linger here for a moment to let the glory that is handmade goodness sink in.

Just breath. Relax. Try not to covet. It feels like warm sweet sunlight showering down after a long cold winter doesn’t it?

I’m shocked and delighted by the two extra stitch markers– the little elephant and the Hello Kitty. Squeeeee!

And more Squeeeee!

Her very own handspun yarn and a book and Hello Kitty swag– it’s like Christmas without all the annoying fire hazards and relatives.

There’s even candy!

(I will make the yarn nekkid and try to take some really sexy pictures of it later)

She even sent me some catalogs to give to Lexi. (Yeah, my 5 year old likes to read catalogs– a little weird, but at least she’s reading something.)

Last month I bought some Shetland roving from Serenity Sheep Woolens. I’ve been playing with it for a little bit and after a few samples, I went for a more rustic yarn.

I love naturally colored wools. This stuff is a dream to spin up, I’m not predrafting at all (even though I probably should) and its cooperating fully with long draw spinning.

What have I done with the real me? Obviously, I am not me. I just can’t be.

Look at my poor dog. Georgia knows that I’ve been taken over by some alien life form that is controlling my central nervous system and it makes her sad.

She is overwhelmed by the responsibility of saving me (and the rest of humanity) from a sinister force that sends out parasitic drones to pull us down into the hive mind.

Or, she’s just enjoying the remaining bits of residual butt heat from my husband’s chair.

I can’t tell.

Black Coffee sock yarn is officially finished. So mood controlling alien parasites can’t be all that bad.

Right?

It’s not like my theoretical mind controlling alien parasite is making me listen to Phil Collins or Kenny G. Or making me read Altas Shrugged, or design handbags from human skin (you know, things that are *truly* evil.)

The Black Coffee roving from FiberOptic is almost sock yarn now.

Please excuse the greenish hue, my camera does that under fluorescent lights. The greenish hue doesn’t exist in real life and I’m sure it could be corrected in Photoshop except that my attempts at correcting it turned out far worse than the original.

Note to self: If I *must* own expensive software, I might want to learn how to use it before it is obsolete.

At least I managed to get an accurate picture of the finished Dragon Tile.

I was worried that the red wouldn’t stand out against the gray background but it seems to stand out just enough.

Good lighting didn’t hurt either.

I’m itching to do some botanical dissections in thread. I’m thinking pillow covers.

The above paragraph probably explains why my husband rarely buys me flowers or houseplants doesn’t it?

All I need is tasty handpainted roving.

My family disagrees, for some reason they think its more convenient to have food and running water. I’ll never understand them.

This a sport weight that I made from spinning Moonlightbaker‘s Blue Steel roving.

40/60 bamboo/merino blend. I was sorely tempted to not ply the singles and just use them as is for sock yarn, and I probably would have if I hadn’t added so much twist when I was spinning.

The plan was to do a second Baby Surprise Jacket for Lexi, but I’m debating now– I’m thinking it might be fun to make her a kimono or ballet sweater from it. So many decisions.

Then I spun up some Superstition superwash merino from FiberOptic.

The squish factor is unbelievable. I’m very tempted to knit myself some socks from this yarn but I’m keeping my options open– it seems a shame to hide such pretty yarn on my feet. A new hat wouldn’t kill me. Or a little shrug.

Or I could just put the skein in a gallon sized ziplock bag and tape it to my chest with a note saying “I spun this.” (Yes, fashionable and bust enhancing– all the kids are doing it nowadays.)

Regardless, I decided I needed more of this good stuff and put in another order. I don’t know if I’ll spin up the second batch the same way, but I want to spin more of it.

My books finally came from Amazon. I’d ordered One Skein Wonders and EZs Knitting Workshop– and those are what came in the box so I’m pretty content.

I’m only slightly disgruntled because I was hoping there’d be more in the way of patterns using finer yarns and smaller needles in One Skein Wonders– I’m tired of doing math on patterns in order to get them to fit the yarn that I actually own. Not to mention the book pokes at my rant button; not everything that can be knitted should be knitted, some things really ought not be knitted.

Example: Coasters.

Don’t get me wrong, knitted coasters are cute. I just imagine setting my coffee cup on a poufy coaster and seeing it topple over and poof! The cuteness is gone as the searing hot coffee hits my skin and the loss of caffeine becomes a cold hard reality.

Not to say it’s a bad book or that I dislike it completely, there’s some cuteness to be had– its just that starting out with knitted and felted coasters was a bad editorial decision. Someone should have thought that one through.

I think I’m due for some housekeeping today. My work space tends to turn into a little Wendy-nest full of sheet music, yarn, needles, graph paper, books, doo-dads, and what-nots and a pile of hoodies that end up stacked on the back of my chair. At least until I freakout and tidy every thing up in one fell swoop. I have three hoodies and a cardigan on the back of my chair right now, which is sort of a personal record– since I only own three hoodies.

I feel a feel swoop coming on.

I’ve shocked it in hot water and cold, thwacked, soaked, and snapped the snot out of this yarn so that it’ll be as tough as the hubs of hell.

All the torture has felted and blossomed it just a little, forcing the merino to contract and lock together while the bamboo fibers loosen just slightly and giving it a slightly heathered appearance.

Pardon the extra sheen in this next picture, the yarn isn’t quite dry yet, and my photography skills still need improvement.

Because extruded bamboo fibers are clear (like polar bear fur) when the yarn is completely dry it should look like silk because of the way light reflects through the individual strands (think less like fiber optic cable and more like seeing a crayon through a quartz crystal), but keep most of the insular qualities of merino wool. The drape will be a compromise of the two fibers in the blend.

I probably spend way too much time looking at yarn through my kids’ microscope huh?

I’m saving up for one of those microscopes that I can hookup to the USB on my computer because I’m way too lazy to do sketches and scan them. In case you’re wondering, extruded bamboo fibers look a lot like nylon while bast bamboo fibers are much more interesting (and far less yummy and spinnable) under a microscope because there is a recognizable cellular structure, and when backlit on the slide bleached bamboo bast fibers make pretty rainbows.

Since impulse buying is (part of) what lead to my cluttered life in the first place, that means that staying with Flylady would present way too much resistance. I’m a path of least resistance kinda girl.

I’m not squishy or gooey and don’t fall into purple puddles but the change to my inbox does make me a little sad.

Fortunately I have some gorgeous handpainted bamboo/merino blend roving to console me.

The picture I took came out okay, except the colors are much more vivid in real life.

The yarn when plied is destined to become a Baby Surprise Jacket for Lexi. I know she’s no longer a baby, but it doesn’t take much tweeking to embiggen the pattern to fit a 5 year old.

Doesn’t this look like fluffy shiny deer guts? The effect is far more realistic in real life than I was able to capture with the camera. I thank goodness that the smell is not that of authentic intestines.

One of the things I like about dying silk is that it’s fairly goof proof so long as I give the dye enough time. It can be treated like an animal fiber and put into acid dye, or like a plant fiber and soaked in soda ash. I ended up using scarlet RIT dye (which is a little of each type of dye), warm water and giving it a good three hours soak before pulling it from the dye pot.

I can’t believe how paranoid I was the first few times I handled the stuff and how casual I am with it now.

Spun up it makes a more attractive and much less graphic yarn. It’s almost appropriate for Valentines day.

When I have my second bobbin full I plan to ply it, but it is so tempting to leave some portion as a single to weave in with the flax that is currently languishing on the other wheel.

Bombyx silk fit the bill.

I dyed this batch quite a while ago, the technique was really simple. I waited for a warm day, soaked the silk in water and soda ash, added a little ammonia, emptied dye into the bath and wrapped the whole thing in black plastic and set it out in direct sunlight. Time and solar energy took care of the rest for me.

I can’t believe I let this color languish for so long. I think it’s much prettier on the bobbin than in a zip bag hiding in the closet.

It’s easy to let spinning take the better part of my spare time. It’s cold and drizzly here, but easy enough to day dream of slipping into warm clear waters elsewhere.

I can almost smell drinks with paper umbrellas.

Why did I wait this long?

I can’t believe the difference a new drive and brake bands make. Not to mention that it helps when the footman bit is actually connected to the treadle and the wheel bit, at the same time.

Oh. And I found my old yarn winder. I went for my tools and found it hiding in the cubby drawer. Didn’t think to look there for it, maybe because I know better than to put yarn winders in the tool cubby. Still, the new winder is so much better I don’t mind one bit. I’m going to tinker with the old one a little bit and see if I can’t fix the yarn guide to stay in place, if I can then I’m going to  give it to the kids– otherwise, I think I should order a second inline winder for them to use.

Next on the list will be a lazy kate and more bobbins for the Traddy.

Now the only problem will be trying to keep my kids from arguing over who gets to use which ever wheel I’m not using. Don’t get me wrong, I like that they like the fiber arts, I could just use less squabbling lately.

I generally have the attention span of a hamster, so this progress represents more time than I care to admit investing into it.

Life in Craftopia is getting expensive again: Before the weekend I ordered an Ashford maintenance kit for the traddy, and my husband invested in 3 new bobbins for my Traveler (good man.)

My new winder showed up yesterday, and I’ve had a chance to test it with the swift. And the verdict is good, oh so very good. I was a little worried because I couldn’t find reviews of the inline winders, only the description of “smooth winding action”

It does have smooth winding action, that is absolutely true. It’s very solidly built (my other one came with a broken spindle right out of the box, so this is a definite improvement.) Also there’s no way that my yarn can end up skipping off the spindle and into the gears, I’ll miss that about the old one, because it’s so much fun carefully and slowly reversing the winding and untangling my mangled yarn from those gears. And for some reason, the table clamp actually clamps the darned thing to the table and it stays clamped (the old one would pop off the table.)

So far the major flaw seems to be that it was made by Lacis, also the manufacturer of my missing inferior ball winder, so while I feel justified dissin’ Lacis for producing a shabby winder I can’t do it so completely since the new winder is not so shabby. I can say that if I find the old winder I’m trashing it right away, I was going to give it to the kids for their yarn projects  but that just seems too cruel to do to my own children after using this one. I’ll ante up and lay out the cash on a second one of the in line winders for them, much less frustration involved.