midgeling: life in a shoe.

I finally made it to Web*sters here in Ashland. I bought some vacation fiber Heathery gray-blue and some heathery brighter blue), and two skeins of KPPPM in the perfect banana colorway so that I can make some Nanners Socks. I wanted to shop more, but Mr Midgeling made me hold back. So I didn't buy the hand cards I wanted. He promised he would make me some as soon as we finish moving completely out of the old house and into the new.

Later tonight we will be dining at Chateaulin with Grandma A. I am really looking forward to the French onion soup. Aunt Kelly says it is super delicious!

Tomorrow we leave for Vancouver, WA to spend the holiday weekend with my parents, sister and brothers. It will be fun! I really don't want to go back home and have my vacation be over. I am having way too much fun.

Posted by midgeling at 04:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, so I wasn't fast enough to make the second round in Sock Madness 2008. I knit and finished my first sock late Friday night. I was so tired that I forgot where I put it, so a photo will have to come later.

I was so knit out by then that I decided to finish up some spinning and free up my favorite spindle.

It's from a Spritely Goods merino/firestar handblended batt in the Larkspur colorway. It's about 135 yards of roughly sport weight yarn. It will likely end up as a lace scarf of some sort. I tried to get it all in one hank, but my spindle refused to take any more than the 135 yards. The yarn kept breaking under the weight of the full spindle. So I Andean plied the remainder of the 2 chunks of singles into a couple of mini skeins. I'll probably end up weaving those into some coasters or something.

Lace week was sort of stressful. There were good parts and bad. Friday evening I felt like a totally crappy, horrible mother. I couldn't Make it to Marti's house Friday because Chace had his orchestra concert at 7:00. Guess what we found out? It was on Thursday. We missed it. He started to cry really quietly in the car. Then I started to cry and apologize all over the place. It was a big concert with 4 schools combined into one giant orchestra. I used to play violin, so I remember how big of a deal these things are. And HK didn't go to her boyfriend's karate competition because of the concert. And Mr Midgeling came home from work early, too.

Yeah, I suck.

Um, but on the bright side, the house we wanted is 95% ours. We sent in the paperwork accepting the seller's counter offer. Now we just wait on the inspection and by the end of the month, we will be the proud owners of a new (to us) 5 bedroom home down the street from the #1 rated high school in the state. According to Newsweek (I think it's them) it is ranked #37 in the country.

So it's not all bad. Losing at Sock Madness and orchestra. Getting the house we wanted. It's been a bit bumpy, but I'd say things are looking up.

Posted by midgeling at 06:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I decided that since I spun another 1/4 of the BFL top I bought from Crown Mountain Farms and emptied my favorite spindle, I would play around a bit before bed. So I grabbed a handful of the cat vomit, er, I mean Beaverslide roving to see how it felt. It was lovely! Fuzzy and just a wee bit of veggies in it every so often. I only spun up a few yards. The color is "natural black" but it looks more like a deep chocolate brown. It is so pretty!

And here it is closer up, but you still can't see much detail because of the fuzziness. It's 2 ply - about sport weight. I usually have to concentrate to spin a 2 ply any larger than fingering, but the loft in the fiber made it real easy. I haven't teh foggiest idea what I will knit with it when I spin it up. And unless I get a wheel anytime soon, 8 ounces is going to be a lot of spinning for me!

Posted by midgeling at 10:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Kassie: "Hey Mom! Doesn't this look like a giant ball of cat vomit?"

And just in case you were wondering, Lexa isn't holding a giant ball of cat vomit. She is holding an 8 oz ball of Natural Black roving that I got from Beaverslide for $15.00. Fifteen dollars. It is soft and smells nice and is very pettable. Kassie is holding my 4 skeins of Mallard colored 90% Wool, 10% Kid Mohair yarn that I bought for Wicked. It is about 960 yards and I really need like 1000 yards to knit Wicked. But I figured that I would knit what I could and then decide between 3/4 sleeves or the pocket. Or if I am off by that much, I just may end up with a 3/4 sleeve sweater with no pocket, lol. Hopefully, since I have unnaturally short arms, I will have enough for the long sleeve sweater with a pocket.

Why Beaverslide? I have never heard anything but good feedback on Beaverslide yarn. I have been wanting to order from them for a year or so now, and I finally got the good excuse to order some. I got a raise, so this was the perfect reason to celebrate! I also ordered a full set of color cards. They are gorgeous. The yarn is soft, without feeling like it has had all the character and personality processed out of it. And the colors are real and natural, and not like something mass produced by Willy Wonka. I am happy.

Posted by midgeling at 08:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Chace and I both say thanks for all the wonderful comments that everyone left about his spinning wheel model. And thanks for all the helpful links left to Lego motors and Youtube movies. You guys all made his day. Thank you SO much.

Posted by midgeling at 11:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My son loves me. You know how I know? He came to me with this Lego Prototype of a spinning wheel he is designing for me. You know, I think it would be awesome if someone out there designed a Lego kit for an actual, working model spinning wheel.

Chace wanted me to post a phot of his model to see what my spinning friends thought of it. I think he may be on to something. This is pretty cool.

Posted by midgeling at 05:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (25)

So here's Kassie modeling the first 1.5 oz of handspun from Crown Mountain Farms. It's hand dyed Blue Faced Leicester Top from Dicentra Designs in the Eomund colorway. I just loved how the colors ran so nicely from one to another. I wanted to Navajo ply it to show the color gradations better, but I kind of suck at Navajo plying. I got better as I went, but it isn't that easy to keep a hold of the ball of singles, spin the spindle, pull the loop through and keep the tension constant. Especially since I haven't been at this spinning thing for more than a few months now. I have some overspun areas, some areas that are just twisted all funky, and (very) short spurts of absolute perfection.

Here you can see some detail of my irregularities. But I am improving, so at least that counts for something!

I have the other 3/4 of the fiber left to spin. It's been fun!!! I can't wait till I am done and can actually knit something with it.

Posted by midgeling at 09:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

See? I have actually been somewhat productive in a fibery way these days. I actually finished spinning my Vacation Fiber! They were supposed to be 2 oz each. I bought what were said to be 1 oz balls of roving, 2 of each color. After it was spun up, I got 2.1 oz of the lighter color and 0.7 oz of the darker. Something tells me they need to get better at eyeballing fiber amounts.. And you even get to see bits of my newly installed kitchen floor as a backdrop.

Okay, so I actually finished spinning these like a month ago. But so much has been going on in my life. A trusted person turned out to be a dirtbag who likes to hit on women that aren't his wife. One friend who claims to be impartial is now trying to screw another friend via a court affadavit, or some such nonsense. But then this is the person who dismissed me a while back by saying "I'm apologizing in advance for ignoring you..." because she got a new friend "sent by God". I had to make a tough decision about switching churches. All the kids cried over it. Work is screwing me out of $660, and my boss lied about making sure I would be paid for all the hours I worked. So really, I was screwed out of much more than $660.00. My mom's birthday socks are ruined. I made the middle of the night drunken sock yarn purchase that I forgot about until it arrived on my doorstep (okay, this one is really sort of a LOL). Oh, yeah. I have been fighting an allergy-induced sinus infection for a couple of weeks now. So this morning, Kassie and I woke up with colds. Of course.

So I have been knitting, spinning and making Weavette squares. Like mad. Enough to make my fingers and hands hurt. But it soothes the soul. And my soul has been tested these last few weeks. I am disappointed greatly in one of my friends plus an acquaintance. Hurt by another, though I understand why she hid things - trying to protect me. Infuriated by my place of employment. Disappointed and hurt by my church. Things have been coming at me from all sides these days. But I know it will get better.

I can't believe that after all that I have been going through, I am still okay. I have a few great friends that I know love me. (Yeah, that's you Marti, Joy, Magy and Wonderful.) And also thank you to immediate and extended family that helps me deal with the freakishness that is my life. Nathan has been pretty damn supportive through it all. He could be saying "I told you so." but he hasn't.

Thanks to everything left in the universe that isn't trying to kill or maim me. I really do appreciate it.

ETA: The trusted friend that hit on women? No - he didn't hit on me. I'd have hit him back.

Oh, how I love Linkin Park. You're never too old for a little LP.

Linkin Park Lyrics

Posted by midgeling at 10:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Yup. I have been spinning a bit again. This is 1 oz total (off and on the spindle) of a rose colored wool. I have one more ounce of this same fiber, plus 2 ounces of a darker rose colored wool that I bought in Ashland, OR at Web*sters. It's vacation fiber. I am liking it.

Then we have the socks. I will be ripping them out shortly. Too tight. Pretty, though. They are Wendyknits Southwestern Socks. I'll try again in a different yarn.

Sometime in the future I will post photos of our Saturday with the family at the Ballard Locks. That was fun. Unexpectedly fun in strange ways. The whole day was really nice. I got to spend time with my aunt and cousin that I don't see nearly enough.

Posted by midgeling at 05:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So Saturday, Kassie went out with me to run some errands. We dropped HK off at Pacific Science Center to go watch Harry Potter with Weebug and Fee. Then we ran to try to find a new seal for my espresso maker. Didn't get it - not in stock. On the way home, I had to find a restroom, and Kassie was hungry. So what did we do? We stopped at Weaving Works, of course!

As soon as Kassie saw the bins of fiber in the back of the store, she started ooh-ing. She saw this ELECTRIC pink roving and started grabbing hunks of it and throwing it on the scale. "Is this enough for a scarf, Mama? I need you to make me a pink scarf in time for school. I love this color!" So in a total frenzy, she grabbed about 2 oz of shocking pink roving and stuffed it in a bag. So I grabbed about 4 oz of natural brown BFL for myself.

The ladies that worked there were impressed with her insistence that I was going to spin the fiber she chose into yarn and then knit her a scarf. It wasn't a request. It was a statement of fact that I was going to do it for her.

So by Sunday afternoon, I had the 2 oz spun up and plied into something resembling a thin fingering weight yarn. And here you go:

Yes - it really is this bright of a color.

I am getting better. Better at plying, too. Now I get to start the lacy scarf from the One Skein Wonders book. Wish me luck.

Posted by midgeling at 09:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So I actually started and finished a spinning "project" (are they spinning projects in the same way as knitting projects?). I really like my hand spindle, but I have realized that I am someone who really likes to have long, continuous hanks of yarn. That isn't so easy to do on a spindle. I suspect I may need a wheel.

So after I was done, I ended up with 3 skeins of yarn that was generally fingering weight (occasionally going a bit thicker and thinner depending on how much my spinning was sucking). One 50g, and after some tangling, breakage and cursing, one 40g skein + a10ish gram skein. I bought the fiber from SPACE!Romantic Fibers. It is hand dyed BFL and was really nice to work with. The roving was gray with pink and purple sections. I am sure my amateur spinning skills didn't really do the fiber justice, but I did my best. Besides, I had a lot of fun with it. That's what counts.

So here is a closeup. You can see that I am not entirely consistent with how I spin, but I am working on it. Overall, I am pretty happy with it. I just need to decide what to knit with it. I am thinking maybe socks, but maybe a scarf. I am not entirely sure yet.

Posted by midgeling at 09:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, Nathan and Chace are off on a Boy Scout camping trip this weekend. Harley had a tournament at her TKD school today. It was their annual in-house they put on to raise funds for the team. Harley won silver. And of course there was drama - one of the parents and coaches from the sister TKD schools was being a total ass - completely lacking in goodwill and sportsmanship. I think he really is pissed at our team because he lost a good athlete to our team. At least Harley wasn't part of the drama this year.

I was supposed to go there to help out this year, as always. But I couldn't. Kassie was sick. Harley was competing. Nathan was out camping. I had no alternative short-notice childcare options. So I dropped Harley off in the morning and told her to help set up since i couldnt make it. It was probably better that we stayed home. Kassie was supposed to compete, but she couldn't. She still isn't eating much, but she is a lto perkier today. I am sure people talked sh*t about me not being there, but oh well. I don't care. Kassie is more important to me.

So since I was home, I played around. I bought a Cascade Ranier spindle on Thursday to replace the one that Lexa broke. So now I have 10 yards of 2 ply mystery fiber dyed with Kool-Aid (given out in the spinning class). The color comes off on my hands a bit and washed out quite a bit when I set the twist. But it was fun to play and get a feel for the new spindle. I like it much better than the Little Si. I also had better luck with plying when I let the spindle just hang off the front porch and keep on spinning as long as it wanted. It liked the extra distance. Wheeeee! Fun!

Posted by midgeling at 05:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Happiness is a having new mad skillz and realizing that you really don't totally suck after all.

ETA: I totally did NOT put in "mad skillz". The Husband did that while I was enforcing tooth brushing time with the kidlets.

Posted by midgeling at 09:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This came in a box on my front porch today:

It was from Woolgirl, and inside was this:

It's Happy Fuzzy Yarns and the Zen String Lotus Toes that I have been coveting for a very long time! Lexa decided that Jennifer meant the chocolate for her, but she was feeling generous, so she shared with me. But she gave me the broken up piece. It still tasted good.

And here is how I spent my Saturday:

I took a spindle spinning class at Reniassance Yarns. It was a lot of fun, and I splurged on some fiber and the starter spindle from Cascade Spindle Company. It's the "Little Si" at a very reasonable $20. Since I took the class, I got $5 off. So the lump on the upper left is thinner stuff that I Navajo plied, and on the right is some 2 ply that ended up being about bulky weight. Weebug says that for stuff I spun on my first day, it looks good!

I had been resisting taking up spinning for a couple of years now because I knew since it was fiber related, I would get hooked. And that assumption was absolutely correct. Last night as I was spinning some thinner stuff I hope to make into socks, Nathan said "Um, when will that turn from a compulsion back into a hobby? We kind of have a lot of stuff around here we need to get done."

So Weebug and her kidlets came over last night for a hang out session. Being the absolutely wonderful and enabling friend that she is, she brought me some mystery fiber to play with.

Harley had to make dinner for a class project that she was doing. She made Asian orange chicken. It came out quite good, but I would have tweaked the marinade to be a little saltier. But she followed the recipe as given and did a great job of cooking it, once she and Fiona made it back from the skate park. Dinner, knitting, spinning and hanging out? It was a lovely way to spend a Sunday evening.

Posted by midgeling at 06:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)