by Sarah

Sewing Spinning AND Knitting...

Sewing: This bag was sewn in 6"x6" squares that I cut out, mostly from a pak of fat quarters that Stacey gave me on Sunday when she and her sister came to craft with my sister and me.  Stacey is a much better blogger than me, as she took a picture while we were crafting.  She also made banana bread - YUM!

Spinning stuff: Stacey's sister helped me ply up some of the singles I made from the rolags, and we washed it and hung it on the fence.  I think it fluffed up really nicely!

I also finally plyed off the Loop batts with some merino wool singles.  More photos of it dry and fluffy:

and...Knit this: I started my first clapotis.  Being the only person in blogland to not at least start one of these, its a big step.  The yarn is Lorna's Lace Lion and Lamb in colorway Seaside.

My (inside) garden abounds...

Inside my house, I am growing things bountifully.
Here is the aerogarden, it makes lots of salads:

And look at these (mung bean) sprouts.  Sprouts are great, cause they are the closest thing you can get to instant gratification in gardening.  These are the second round of good sprouts I have grown, the first was an alfalfa/clover mix that was delish on sandwiches and salads.  I gave the rest to my grandma to make some veggie sandwiches of her own:

With the sprouts, I made stir fry for dinner with chicken breast, the bean sprouts, natural peanut butter, teriaki sauce, and some fresh garlic, plus a side of brown rice:

AND, my outside garden is catching up...

I picked my first zucchini Sunday!

And in crafting news, I made this "money bag" for Jody a while back.  I spun the yarn from a loop batt she bought me, and then crocheted it into a bag, added a zipper, and used pennies and glass beads for the pull.  I absolutely LOVE the way it came out.  And as usual, my crappy pics do not do it justice:

Peapod Sweater Set Wrap-Up

Peapod Baby Sweater
by Kate Gilbert
Yarn Used: 5 skeins Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino
Color: tan (340005)
For: Kenya's B-day
Notes: A fun and easy knit.  One of my favorite things about this project is that I finished it (way) before my deadline of August 7 when they are coming to visit.  I hope her mom likes it as much as I do.

Pants are the Baby Bell Bottoms pattern by Alison of the Blue Blog.

YUMMMM!

No, this post isn't about food, its about fiber.
Here's the beautiful June Batt I received from Loop - the theme was butterflies. 
My sister is a new spinner who loves pink and bling...I am going to have to work awful hard to keep this batt:

AND I got a bonus Birthday Batt - I cashed in a gift certificate I got a while ago [THANKS COLEEN!!!], and Steph made me EXACTLY what I wanted - a whole bunch of gorgeous different silver fibers to twist together.  I have some silver merino-tencel yarn I spun a while ago, and I wanted to get some more silver to add to it.  This sparkle is going to be spun thin and plyed into yarn for a beautiful shawl!

And as a bonus - some KNITTING!
I finally finished the second sleeve and sewed up my peapod baby sweater.  It still needs to be blocked - so there will be a final FO post, but here is a sneak peek:

(Yep, it REALLY needs blocking.  Hopefully I will get to it tonight.)

Our Friend Lilly...

Lilly is great, here are some reasons why:

• The Murph LOVES her.
• If you leave the door to the bathroom open when you are taking a shower, she keeps peeking her head in to make sure you are still there. (Like there is an escape hatch from the shower she can't see.)
• She makes this weird grunting/snorting noise at the cats before she tries to "play" with them.  The do NOT want to play.
• She keeps trying to play with them anyway.  They hiss and she hides.  Its adorable.
• She is a GREAT help in spinning.  She stays right next to my chair and supervises the thickness of the singles and the twist I put on the plying.
• She digs in the yard.  Ok, thats kind of annoying, but really funny cause her nose gets really dirty.
• She is always really happy and ready to play. 
• Her little aussie tail wags in a circle like a propeller.

Lilly went home last night.  We miss her.  Especially the Murph.

To console myself (you knew there would be spinning), I spun up a couple of bobbins with the rolags I told you about yesterday afternoon.  The fiber was so fluffy, I ended up spinning the yarn a heavier weight than usual, and did it thick and thin, thinking of the artyarns one of my sisters favors.  I know she will love it, so it will be a gift to her when I finish.  I had to stop after two bobbins and see how it looked plyed up - it came out to about 75 yards, and I still have about 2/3 of the fiber left to spin.  Here's a picture before its bath - just to show you how great the colors look together.  I will plump it all up together when I finish spinning it all.

Bonus Thursday Post...

Yes, this is ANOTHER spinning post.

I figured since I LOVE the yarn I finished before work this morning (and soaked and let fluff up today) you should get to see it:

I am pretty sure it came out exactly as I intended.  Three long background strips of green and lavender, with shorter bursts of lavender as the other ply.

(Since I finished something,) I have one more thing on deck now.  Jody and I hand dyed some fibers - mine blue, hers green - BIG surprise, and we felted them a little bit - by accident.  I decided to use my new hand carders to blend then into some rolags, which I will spin on tonight:

Hopefully I can show you some singles tomorrow morning!

Free Flowers...

So lilies and day lilies around my place are free flowers.
They have not been separated and transplanted in a long time.
This weekend my grandma gave me some new colors of day lilies - dk pink and light yellow, and I had some dk yellow and light pink.  So I dug them all up and started the process of lining my front path for next year.  Hopefully the flowers will take this year and bloom into a nice garden next year.  Right now they look kind of awkward, but when I line them with some stones and add mulch, it will look great.  Here are some pictures of my free flowers:

My spinning style...

I TOTALLY have the spinning bug right now.  (As if you couldn't tell.)

And lest you think my spinning style is more monogamous and perhaps more organized than my knitting style, let me set you straight right now.  I have 7 spinning WIP's going on right now.  I spread them all out on my dining room table to take stock.

This is about 4 oz of Merino Fiber handdyed by Spritely Goods in the colorway olive grove.
I separated the braid into two (about equal pieces).
For bobbin one, I spun the yarn in 3 long chunks of green and purple last night:

For bobbin two, I separated the roving into pencil thin strips, and will be spinning the colors as they appear:

Then I will ply them.  Right now, the beginning of bobbin two is on my wheel.

After conferring with spinning guru Jonne, I decided to ply my chunky Loop singles with a thin creamy ply of Merino to balance it out some and make it ready to weave later this year.  I spun the merino up last night.  The art yarn is still drying, so I will likely ply them this weekend:

This fiber is handdyed by Mama E of C*eye*ber Fibers.  I love this colorway I picked up at MDSW 2008, and spun it SUPER thin after a couple of margaritas.  It is also destined for me to practice my Navajo style 3 ply on:

Some of the famed Crown Mountain Farms superwash merino in the wild thing colorway. I love this fiber, not sure why I took a break from spinning it, but I made it pretty thin, so now I'm glad I did, because I can workeven more on my Navajo plying:

This is some really gorgeous silk merino from A Verb For Keeping Warm that I picked up at MDSW 2008. I predrafted it and separated it into piles of light and dark. I got two bumps - a total of 4 oz, and I plan to spin it nice and thin (yeah silk) and 2 ply it for a nice laceweight.

I was practicing spinning on the fold with this gorgeous mossy green merino before I cast it aside for other loves:

And last but not least, I am working on a couple of pounds of medium brown coopworth fiber that I am spinning over time to make myself a yoke sweater like Jody's.

Another Handspun Update...

Here's that "No Comment" yarn in its 3-ply form, as I played with the navajo plying at the end of the second bobbin:

And here it is all plumped up after a good bath in its two ply form.  I like it much better now, and may actually have to knit myself a pair of socks out of it:

And, not to be vain or anything, but if you want some Sweet Sheep Superwash Merino Roving in the colorway "No Comment", you can head over here and get some.  Michelle is even having a sale until the 13th! While you are there, you should also order some of her delicious custom scent of SOAK.  It smells like watermelon - and summer!  I have already used half of my own bottle of it!

Last night I spun about 8 oz worth of Loop Batts - thats two whole batts - into a thick and thin but mostly thick single ply of about worsted weight. Here they are before their bath:

This one is the Winter Seasons Club Batt from May:

This one is one I got at MDSW 2008:

I love them both.  They are taking a bath right now, and then I think they will wait until I can learn how to weave and make them into something really beautiful.

More Spinning...

I finished spinning the NoComment yarn.  . 
This yarn is a two ply, and came out nice and balanced. 
Sadly, I think I like the look of my usual tightly overspun yarn better.
I also tried navajo plying at the end when I ran out of my first bobbin of singles and I like the way it looks in a three ply better.  I think it will look good when I knit it in the two ply though.