Granny Squares

Wanna do something good for someone? Go here. I think it would be great if we sent enough blocks for as many blankets as possible. It's not just babies that need blankies, Grannies and Grampies need them too.

Hate mail

I tried to write a post a few days ago about how much I despise Wal-mart and that they are the Evil Empire, but Blogger, I hate you too. You would not let me link to the things I wanted, and you kept doing the BOLD type stuff when I didn't want it and you ate my pictures and , and, and... I really am not in love with you. The honeymoon is waaayyy over. I was willing to overlook certain things at first, you are free after all. But I've had it to my eyeballs with your difficult behavior. You are on notice! I am seeing other people, and we may not be together for much longer...

In other news, I am going to the The Wool Gathering today and I can hardly wait. The kids are also super excited. See how I've corrupted them.

Spin-Aholic

I have to say I did not much knitting this summer. In fact, there were times when I went weeks without knitting a stitch. The reasonable explanation for this is that something else was fulfilling my fiber fetish. This is what I did on summer vacation.
My first dip into spinning oblivion came when I finally found my local spinning shop. I had been dying to spin some merino I had bought from e-bay (purple on left) last year, but my bobbins were occupied and I was too anxious to empty them. This is probably why I have so many sets of the same size needles but can never find a set when I want them. ADD. So originally I was in search of some more bobbins for my Louet. She had some bad news, though. The bobbins I have are the old 2-speed style, and the new bobbins are 3-speed. And you can't just buy the 3-speed bobbins because they have a different drive band. And the two shall not be mixed. Which means buying at least 3 new bobbins ($26.95 each!) and a new drive band ($9.95) and still only having three bobbins. That's a lot of ands. So, I decided to suck it up and finish what I had started. Of course I couldn't help but look at all the yummies while I was there and took home some 50/50 wool-mohair (the green on the right). I hurried home and got to work. The purple was my first yarn that when I showed it to people they said "yeah, it's yarn". Yay! They thought I bought it! Not that I want to completely lose the homey-ness of handspun, but I always find it a compliment to the consistency of my finished product. Anyways, I was hooked and had spun everything I had by the end of that week. Next I started hoarding fiber like I hoarde yarn! I got the blue-ish purple (same fiber as green) and some silk (notice it's not here? not so good at that yet). The green on the left came from Spunky Eclectic (Hosta Almost Solid wool blend). And I've got a whole pile of boxes and bags from various other places, including this. I found this on e-bay from Wooly Treasures.
I have really enjoyed spinning it, waiting to see what color comes next and how long it will last. Now I'm torn. I'm at the point where if I'm going to use it as a 2-ply, I need to start another bobbin. But I don't want to lose the blocking of the colors I've got right now. I know I could navajo ply it, but I not so great at that. I love how squishy and fuzzy it is right now and my navajo plies seem to come out kind of hard. Help? I've thought about leaving it as a single, but I'm not too confident in my singles- it's that whole even-ness thing. I'm probably too picky. But in the meantime, I've actually gone back to the needles. The purple swatch is some of my hand-spun knit up. It's so yummy, if I do say so myself. I have decided what to do with it yet, but it's begging to be knit. The oatmeal color swatch is from a baby gansey for the neighbors across the street. They are due in October. It's mostly done- in fact I'm seaming it up right now. Now I need to wash the swatch to see if it really is washable like the label says. There's also a sparkly sock in there for Abbey. The mate is having some issues right now but will hopefully feel better soon. There's some single of the Hosta wool and that fluffy purple is some locks I bought not too long ago. Yeah, I'm getting brave. I've never spun anything but rovings and slivers, but I couldn't help myself. It was just sitting there all sparkly and cotton candy-ish. It's an addiction, I know. Next, I'm going to the Wool Gathering in two weeks. I'm going to be in trouble, I know. Well, this post has taken forever (thanks crappy blogger picture loading) and I've got to get to work. I'll leave you with a summertime kidlet shot.
Indianapolis Children's Museum, July 2006.