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This week I’ve been working the coil/knot yarn chapter.
Some of the techniques, I’ve been taking more of a step out approach.
Not for this one…. I just kept going, and going, and going.

Fiona
10 yards
2 ounces
Wool with copious amounts of recycled silk sari and nylon tinkle (with some mohiar for good measure.)

This was my Fiber Friday for today. (I haven’t participated in eons… Oy, the guilt.)
The topic was Enchantment. (This totally reminded me of Fiona in Shrek.)

With any luck, this will be headed off to the land of Oz, into the hands of a master; later next week.
Cross your fingers…
And shuuuuuuuuush. You didn’t see me here on the interwebs.

I haven’t posted a Fiber Friday in eons! (BAD! of me to neglect a place I love so much!)
This week the topic was Imagination:

Mine I call ‘Third Eye’

62 yards
1.2 oz
Handspun, hand dyed wool with silk cocoons.
apx DK/Worsted.

My feeling on my imagination fluxes. Sometimes it brings me great visions, that I can execute, other times, I fall on my face with it… Hopefully, as with all I do, I’m having fun with it. (Ahh, hope is strong!)

And, well, it’s Friday… Tyeing up loose ends over here, it seems like the more I tie up, the more I find.

I’m also attempting something I shamefully haven’t done in a while… I’m cooking a huge meal tonight. (Call the heath department!)
We have been existing on Amy’s frozen pizza and those Quorn “chicken” nuggets for far too long. I have to say, it is hard to get inspired to cook for my family, who all have such different tastes! Let them eat cake mac & cheese. (Maude forbid they go and eat anything Green!)

* Apologies, as I could not find one punny thing about this post!

Happy New Year!

It’s our James Bond year! (Was I the only fool suckered into going to see A view to a kill because Duran Duran sang the theme song???)

Yes, I know, I’m a few days late… But trust me, you would thank me for not posting a few days ago! After all, this is supposedly some kind of knitting, spinning blog, right; not some type of therapy.
Good thing I’m not superstitious about ‘New Years’, I spent the first few hours in tears, and New Year’s day covered in vomit. Sounds like it was a good high school party, no? Well, It isn’t what you think. Plus, I was never one of those types to get drunk and cry, I left that one up to Rob. He was the drama queen back then. The vomit came from my young, ah! the glamorous life I lead. The tears, well, apparently, I slid down the dark PMS abyss. Add the power of hormones to the magical change that is supposed to happen with the turn of the new year, multiply that by the expectations I have for myself, viola, tears.
If I was 20 years younger I would have been held up in a dark room listening to Cure records smoking cigarettes and writing bad poetry and doing stipple… (And you know, with having two sick kids to contend with, this seemed like a really great option.)
Instead, I threw myself at the mercy of my spinning wheels.

I’m not one for resolutions at the beginning of the fictitious calender change; but I do have a bad habit of looking backwards over the year and finding all of my faults. The thing that bothered me the most was I felt like I wasted the gifts that were bestowed on me in 05. It was a difficult year, but the amount of personal growth that was granted to me by the universe was astounding. I feel like I’ve almost betrayed my compassionate path. I feel like what I do is totally trivial given the state of the world. In my heart, I hope that isn’t true. And I know I can take steps to correct that, if it is the case.
Out of all that came my Fiber Friday.

It is called ” 58,408 ”
185 yards
10 ounces
apx 11 wpi
2 ply,
One ply of black wool top & mohair locks with an itty bitty ply of wool, nylon and silk sari.
The topic this week was Grief.
58,408 is the number of Iraqi civilians killed since the resident and his cronies decided to stomp up in there. For what? Money and oil? When the greed of a few men can cause that much human suffering, and not be held accountable for such shameful acts; we truly live in an unjust world. I wonder how they can sleep at night? (Perhaps large quantities of sleeping pills washed down with alcohol? )

I know, you must be thinking “……and this ISN’T depressed?”
Believe me when I say you would not like to have read anything I would have posted a few days ago, before my new favorite cure for hormonal induced insanity…
For those of you who want in on the cure, take 3 to 4 pints of neopolitan dynamite (I would highly recommend 4, just to be on the safe side.) Put this on repeat, (Thank you Brenda & Muggle!) and do something you find joy in. Stir well and often.
I think that will be a new mantra for this James Bond year; Find the joy.

♥

What I’m about to show you may hurt the eyes and sensibilities.
Nonetheless, I’m going to show it anyway.. Based on principle.
My Fiber Friday for this week.
(topic=Recycle)

spun plastic grocery bags, with one strand of wooly nylon & one of some mystery thread that i knoped up and down the length as i went along.

• 26 yards
• 11 WPI

An interesting spin. Odd memory issues.
I got about 2 yards per bag. One day, when I have some ‘free time’ I think I’ll spin up more to knit up a market bag out it.
A true testament that one can spin anything.
These bags will be in landfills for many generations; so we will never be out of things to spin… (granted, I wouldn’t want to wear a scarf or socks made out of plastic like this…..)
It really gave me a good pause; thinking about how much “disposable” stuff we have.

Anyway, I’m still in the land of procrastination.
I’m working on getting Pippi updated today; so stay tuned!
It just might take me all day to do, as the kids seem a bit bonkers this morning. Whoopeee! Good times, good times!

♥

It’’s Friday, and time for Fiber Friday (and by that I mean, the real Fiber Friday, the conceptual community. It isn’t some random flash your stash on Friday type thing that I’ve recently seen on the intraweb)
Wooldancer recently asked how to join… It’s easy, I swear! just click the link that says “click here” on the community info page.

This week, the topic was Fire & Ice I used that analogy to do some kind of polarized spinning.
on the left, a very lofty, lightly spun, merino single; on the right a tightly wound coil, with recycled silk sari augmentation. (Both born from the same hand painted merino.) Today this started it’s long voyage to that swag ragein’ mama in New Mexico,Scout. (It’s okay, I’m not ruining some surprise for the sake of Fiber Friday; she’s already seen it.)

Zorn
(named after John Zorn, because I find his ranges very polarized, in that interesting blow your brain cells type way…)

Happy weekend!
♥

I didn’t get a chance to post on Wednesday, but, if I had been able to, my WTF Wednesday would have been all about the Mr. Clean Magic eraser. I’m not sure why they work, and I’m not too sure I want to know. There can’t bee Good Things in them. (surely not my usual brand cleaning solution~ vinegar and baking soda.) But I needed to pull out the heavy ammo against the dirt and grime that lives in my house. Now, maybe you are asking why on earth would I do such a thing and upset the natural balance of life here? Well, as with most of everything in my life, it was for the kids. Bell’s new pre-skool teacher was coming for a “home visit” on Thursday. (That went well, thankfully. The kids weren’t too crazy, and Bell’s got to meet her new teacher.) So, the house is now was cleaner than when we moved in. To not upset the laws that govern this house; it is back to trashed chaos.
I’ve been super occupied with preparing for September… and Poof, here it is!
I really love fall, and the cozy feeling it brings, I can start thinking more about knitting and cozy sweaters & fireside socks.
September means both the kids birthdays, and this year skool!
Izabella, in preparation for starting skool, decided to take a pair of scissors to her hair. good times.
September also means VTSW. They changed the dates this year, to the second weekend in Sept. (9 & 10). Hopefully, I’ll be going both days this year. Who else is making the trek up?

Summer came and went so quickly.
It zoomed by at lightening speed.
All of a sudden, it is time for my Bitchin Mittens to be done.
I have yet to start them. I blame too many ideas and not enough hands. I’m a great procrastinator. If there was an award for that, I’d win!
This is the yarn i plan to use for them

I just might finish them on time if I cast on Right Now!

Today also is Fiber Friday!
I haven’t been able to be participating as much as I would like to. (Mostly due to the fact that I’m perpetually thinking it is Tuesday.)
The topic was Inner-Space

echo
6+ oz
142 yards
bulky thick and thin.
~Because sometimes, at the end of the day, all that is left is an echo
… don’t think that one needs any further explanation. But it is summing up how I’m feeling about Stuff and Things, as of late.

♥

it’s friday again, and of course that means fiber friday! this week the topic was critters (and i hope no one caught on, but this was a repeat. i didn’t realize it until after i posted it… but, well, we all need more critters, right?!) remember these ‘unicorn breath’ batts from the other day?… i was unable to keep my hands off them, and i figured; unicorn breath is ‘close enough’ to being a critter; at least it is critter-esque; right? (oh, a stretch you say? well, yea; but come on, humor me!)

unicorn breath
170 yards lace/fingering

• 40% recycled silk sari
• 35% vermont alpaca
• 20% hemp
• 5% nylon

(pretty textural due to the nature of the materials, but shockingly soft, even with the high hemp content.)
really pretty!

and another close up…
if you don’t already participate in fiber friday! a weekly fiber extravaganza i suggest you do, or at least add it to your bloglines. it is fun and inspiring! (and i recently started a photo pool on flickr)

i’m glad it is friday and not thursday. i hope i don’t have a “groundhog day” type day.
yesterday was ONE of THOSE days. the kind of day where once in a lifetime runs thru your head, over and over…. my kids were just off the wall. they don’t often make it so hard on me. by 3pm, you could have stuck a fork in me, because i was d.o.n.e. ~ i needed to retreat to the only sure fire, tried and true method of lowering my BP and catching some inner peace… knitting…

the yarn is some of my worsted handpaints, of seconds quaility… (i was trying for a choco bird but it didn’t come out good enough to put up on pippi)

one really nice/neat thing that happened yesterday…
josi sent this out in her news letter the gist, she is offering a coupon to her customers if they purchase something from pippi or croshay design! ~ (remember croshay made this awesome hat! from some of my hemp yarn??) anyway, my yarn was used in making some pieces for josi’s upcoming book, in the loop… let’s hope her new editor lets her keep it in there! (click on this linky to see the hat/scarf set from my yarn)

i’m going to try to keep it mellow today.
as soon as i stop this tap-tapping; i’m going to return to my knitting.
then dishes and pick up the joint a bit. SIL is in from oregon and i would hate to have her over come with dirty dishes when she walks in the shack.
♥

as dead tired as i have been, i managed to finally put up a wee small shop update. (all handspun yarns.)
next time, there will be more to go ’round, i promise! (or at least that is what i keep telling myself.) amazing, i’m not doing nearly as much as i was last year. i can’t help but feel ‘lazy’, even tho my intellect tells me otherwise. *see the bottom of this post for update detalis.

i’ve got fiber on the brain this friday.

first, this weekend is the maine fiber frolic. boogie has a booth there. so if you are going be sure to stop by to say hello to her and adrian.. you will know their booth from the mob scene out front. (i suspect it will look much like the wedding dress sale at filene’s basement.)

secondly, i’m wickedly excited about dave’s killer *along bitchin mittens. i have a few ideas already, narrowing it down may be tough. do i go for function, fashion or total art? humm. hard choice.

third, this week’s fiber friday kicks tookass! the theme is chaos everything that has been posted thus far is stunning. i love the intellectual aspects of the topic that everyone touched on. i ran out of steam this week, so, i didn’t post a yarn. but it is a fun place and i suggest you go! join! post! there is also a flickr group/photo pool.

~ thanks to everyone for the great rhubarb suggestions!
i’m totally going to make the preserves that the mafia mentioned.
and the sauce that jammin recommended. we have 5 or 6 apple trees too, so i suspect they would be a good combo. (now i’m wondering when rhubarb expires, if it will still be “good” by the time we have apples…i guess i should look that one up.)

*shop-y news for those of you who stuck out this wordy post.
i’ve added 4 handspun bulky thick and thin singles
1 extra special 2 ply blend
and 1arty type yarn

i’ve been a terrible hollar back gurl, please forgive my lapse; some days it is all i can do to read my bloglines, let alone comment on everything i want to. between the kids dragging me off the puter, and being so tired lately; it’s hard to spread the love! so big XXOO!
♥