I made yarn!

It's not good yarn, and it's not pretty yarn, but I made it with my own two hands (and my spinning wheel). Take a look!

Here it is on the bobbin. Pretty nifty, eh?

Here it is skeined on the niddy-noddy that my dear dad made for me.

Getting a nice bath in the sink. I like the squiggley parts.

I then plied it and voila! Yarn! I used the wool that came with my wheel, which was kind of old. It had a lot of lanolin in it, and it felt like it had been sitting around for while, as it was very sticky. No worries though, it is nice and clean now.

This spinning stuff is really fun. I didn't think I would like processing the wool, but I do. It is truly amazing to take a raw material and turn it into something that can be useful. I think it's the first time I've ever done that before. Now I know how my dad feels when he takes a rough piece of wood and cuts it and sands it and nails it and glues it and polishes it, and it turns into a bookcase or a lamp or a clock. Remarkable!


Here are my two lovelies, WT and the Banana. Aren't they cute? I love them. :o)

Squeee! New toys!

Tee hee, lookit what I got!

This is a used Ashford Traditional which I ordered off of eBay. It shipped (quite quickly, in fact) all the way from New Zealand. I love it. I love spinning on it. I am going to ply soon. I can't wait. I have already spun three and a half bobbins worth of yarn, and on the second bobbin I managed to spin yarn with no squiggles due to overspinning! I am quite proud of myself. One thing that totally helped me out (aside from my wonderful friends Regina and Debbie) was the book Start Spinning by Maggie Casey. This particular wheel has scotch tension, and I had no idea what in tarnation that was. Ms. Casey's book explained perfectly and allowed me to find the tension that was right for me. I love spinning!

Here's my other new toy. Meet Poppy! Isn't she cute? She is a Piccadilly Encore, and I think she's just fab. Her stock clothes are totally awesome, and her coloring is beautiful. I just need to figure out how to make her hair perfectly straight. All PiccaEs are packaged in a way that gives them this weird bend in their hair, and I don't like it. But she's such a cutie.

And here are all my girls together, one big happy family. Left to right, we have Hibou, Twyla, Dulcinea, Capucine, and Poppy. At the bottom we have two unazukin (the little orange and white guys) and two jizo. Jizo are protectors of women, children, and travellers; I happen to be all three of those things. :o) My dad made the light colored jizo on the left, and he gave me the gray colored one in the middle. My dad rocks.

Be sure to check out the link to Doris Chan's blog in the side bar, because she is a master crocheter and she absolutely cracks me up.

Next post: fibery goodness!

Guess what I got?

I'll give you a hint. It has a wheel on it, and it spins, and you use it to make yarn. Yes, that's right, I got me a spinning wheel! Woo hoo! I am terribly excited. It's a used Ashford Traditional, and I got it off of eBay. It is actually being shipped here from New Zealand, where they are made. I thought I wanted a Kromski Prelude or Sonata, but the Sonata was too expensive, and I hadn't tried a Prelude, and after perusing different groups on Ravelry and reading their posts, I decided that the Ashford was the one for me.

I just came into some spending money, and I wanted to buy something worthwhile, something that I would have for a while, something that would be useful or a keepsake. Not clothes, not food, nothing like that. So naturally, the first thing I ordered was another Blythe doll. How could I not? I should be receiving my new Can Can Cat early next month. Yippee! She'll be my first fantasy hair girl (for you non-Blythers out there, that means she has ridiculously colored hair; in this case, it's blue).

I was then torn between a loom and a spinning wheel. The looms that I was considering (rigid heddle looms) would have been more affordable at first, but I would have had to learn a whole new craft, and with that comes a boatload of all new supplies, and that costs a boatload of money. Once I've paid for my wheel, then all I really need to get is roving, and then I can make my own yarn, which in turn feeds my knitting/crocheting addiction. So the wheel made more sense for me, don't you think? And wheels are prettier than looms. ;o)

My dear neighbor and friend Regina let me try her wheel out the other night, and I actually did a pretty good job. I also used my new drop spindle that my dad made for me, and I really like it. Regina was spinning Suffolk wool. Many people apparently look down their noses at Suffolk wool, because the sheep are bred for their meat, not for their fleece, hence the fleece is really rough. However, it was really good for me because it is really sticky and very easy to draft. Drafting (pulling the yarn out and making it thin right before it gets twisted into yarn) is really difficult for me - I either don't draft it enough and end up with a huge slub, or draft it too much and it pulls right apart. The Suffolk made it easy. And of course, Regina being the generous soul that she is, gave me some Suffolk. Yay!

It's funny, if you had told me five years ago that I'd be knitting, crocheting, spinning yarn, and collecting Blythe dolls, I would have laughed in your face. And yet here I am. As I get older, I realize that I don't give two craps about what people think of me. I like who I am, and I am going to pursue my interests regardless of what others think of them. My friends like me for who I am, and I've made many good friends because of my interests and hobbies. What more could a girl ask for?

I have the bestest Dad ever in the world!

Lookee what he made for me! It's a niddy noddy so I can skein the uber thick and thin yarn that I am spinning! Oh my gosh! It's so cool!

More pics and posts soon.

Another something new!

Thanks to Carol, I see that we have a new online knitting magazine. Knotions is the work of SavannahChik, who has been knitting and blogging for quite some time now. The first issue will be coming out this fall, but in the mean time, go on over and take her survey. I already like the layout, and it seems that it will be a pretty comprehensive type of publication. Let's support SavannahChik in her endeavor!

In other news: spinning is going. I obviously need to practice. A lot. Right now, I am creating the world's thickest and thinnest yarn. Ever. But I am going to persevere, and dye it with Kool-Aid, and knit up the world's thickest and thinnest scarf when I am done spinning. The cats are not helping me spin - they like to eat the roving. Considering I already spent eight hundred gajillion dollars on Joey because he likes to eat non-food items, I will be keeping the roving well hidden. Pictures (of the yarn, not Joey) to follow shortly.

I am still working on the Peter Vest for WT, two BICOs (which I really need to finish, because their recipients should be entering the world at any moment now), and sundry other projects that have been in hibernation forever. I spent a good chunk of the day yesterday cleaning, so it is my fervent hope that I'll actually be able to knit and/or crochet today. We'll see. Banana will be attending her 9th birthday party since September today. This crap is expensive.

Later, gators!

Dad comes through!

As I knew he would. What a guy! He made me this wonderful little drop spindle. I can't wait to try it out. There is a great tutorial on YouTube by a woman named Abby Franquemont - she seems to explain the whole process rather clearly, so I need to watch it a few more times, and then give it a whirl (ha!).

So does buying roving break my yarn diet?

Uh-oh.

I currently have over 170 knitting and crochet projects queued on Ravelry. That's a whole heck of a lot. Some are small, some are big, some are easy, some are complicated, but they are all things that I want to make. So what's a girl to do?

Find a new hobby, of course.

I was looking at Lolly's blog, and she has taken up weaving. My dad made me a little loom when I was small - it was big enough to make a skinny scarf. I really liked it, and I think he still has it in his basement. I was thinking of fetching it and giving it to the Banana. I began to do a little research, and there are plenty of places (well, two to be exact) to learn to weave in southeastern PA - the Philadelphia Guild of Handweavers in Manayunk, and The Mannings in East Berlin. Both are reputable and have a long history of producing magnificent artists. Then, I posted on a Ravelry group that I was interested in learning, and dontcha know that there is a woman living not far from me at all who has volunteered to let me borrow her rigid heddle loom and book to learn before I buy! How generous is that!

And then I got to thinking, well, if I'm going to weave, and I already knit and crochet, why shouldn't I just spin my own yarn?

So of course I called my father and casually mentioned that a drop spindle would be easy and cheap to make, and how fun it would be to have one. ;o) My dad's good with the woodwork.

Why oh why can't I just sit at home and craft all day? Wah. This working nonsense is for the birds. I'm sure WT would agree - he would like to sit at home and play his guitar and watch Steven Seagal movies. But we sort of like to eat and have heat and stuff like that, so off to work it is.

At least I get summers off. ;o)