Random thoughts...

color makes me happy.
this is one drawer from my 3 drawer plastic stash storage system (whoo, say that 3x fast). when i was purging last week, i realized i finally did exactly what i set out to do early into my knitting - only purchase yarn that makes me happy. that means, buy the colors i really love (and that doesn't include "safe" colors), even if i don't think i'll wear them, buy quality not quantity, buy luxury when i can because hey, we all need to treat ourselves every once in a while and last, but certainly not least, never apologize or feel guilty for having a passion and a wonderful stash.

the only thing missing from this group is my collection of chartreuse/golden rod yellows/golds. i do love me some jewel tones. and although i do wear quite the bit of black and charcoal gray (i am a "creative"... i'd rather put that energy into my work rather than figuring out what to wear! isn't that what folks say?) i don't want to be surrounded by drab colors. my craft bookshelf is painted a bright kelley green (you can see a bit of it in the background) and my fiber stash is equally as bright and happy. loves it!!!

weekly wrap-up/finished object(s) current projects
on the needles
still working on my shawl... unfortunately nothing to share yet :(

on the spinning wheel
still working on the singles for my husbands socks.
i have about .6 oz left from the 2nd bobbin, and one more ounce and some change to go, then ply time!

odds & ends
what i love this week
real simple magazine. actually, i love this magazine daily. it's my go to for quick and healthy 30-minute and less recipes, in addition to home decorating inspiration and home/life organization tips. it's a really great magazine and what i really enjoy is the breadth of topics covered. as i mentioned above there is the home stuff, but there is also women's empowerment articles, health/diet/exercise, beauty, finances, meditation, relationships, really a great magazine that you can sink your teeth into. i've subscribed to it since it's inception, and it's never gotten dull.

ok, so my point with bringing the magazine up... when it comes to eating, i try to steer clear of anything in packages (save for pasta noodles, bread, dairy... you get the point) for the most part. anything that i can make myself, i typically do. and yes it's commendable i guess, but it's also a lot of work and frankly, exhausting. so in comes real simple... i can flip the auto-pilot switch on and just follow very clean, simple and healthy recipes that are easy to add personalized touches to. one of the quick recipes i made this week was the chopped chicken salad:

the chopped chicken salad was "real simple" made with mayonnaise (or a substitute if you like), celery, scallions (i used shallots), lemon zest and lemon juice (i used 3x the amount, yum!), and seasoned to taste. seriously, real simple, but it would not have been on my radar at all. the recipe had the chicken salad served over watercress, but i served mine over spinach :D who the hell has watercress hanging around anyway?! i rounded my meal off with a little more protein (if not, i would be starving 20 minutes after eating!), warmed pita w/ a little butter (yum! i love bread), some grapes, a little knitting (back left), and some soda. damn... all that healthy ish really does make me crave a little naughty! and who can resist an ice cold squirt!?

anyway, so yeah... check out the magazine if you haven't already. you will thank me because it is wonderful and additionally, beautifully laid out. and don't let them have an article on paint.... lawd, have mercy! hahaaaa i find real simple to be a very positive, uplifting and inspirational magazine. just the kind of easy reading one should read, right? we are inundated with so much garbage on a daily basis... it's hard to filter it all out. and besides, who wants to read about heavy, depressing, energy-draining junk? we all have enough going on in our own personal lives! i always feel that what you put out into the world (or blogosphere) should be light, fun, informative if possible, and most of all positive and fun! a little bit of escapism. and like the old saying... if you don't have anything nice to say, then shut the front door!

i forgot to mention (as i digressed)... on the same page with the above recipe, there were actually 10 quick boneless chicken dishes. no thinking! there are also more elaborate recipes in the magazine (read that as usually more than 30 minutes), but there is already 1 martha stewart, and dammit, i'm just trying to eat!

another thing i am loving this week now that it's cooled off a little is the small bit of activity in the pseudo-garden. i know i fell off on this one, but i promise, things are still growing and doing their thing in the backyard. my yield so far has been 2 tomatoes (one of which was enjoyed by one of the local critters), 3 really nice-sized anaheim chilis and 6 lovely green bell peppers (one of which was enjoyed by a daring insect). the latter of the 2 were chopped up for a 4th of july barbeque and grilled with a little olive oil and lots of lemon, spices and shrimp. very delish.

 itty bitty chili! so cute :)

baby bells. there are a ton of these on my six plants, so here's to a nice-sized crop!

i'm having the most success with the bell peppers and the chilis, no surprise here. they are the kind of plants that as long as you put them in full sun for most of the day and give them a drink of water, they are usually alright. they love the heat. and california, heat we have! i love hearty, bullet-proof plants.

another tomato even managed to show up. yup, only one. i'm watching this one like a hawk because low and behold, just on the other side of the plant was this...

yeah, sure... some kind of fancy butterfly perhaps. yeah, not even. it's the infamous tomato hornworm. gnarly looking, right? and in typical caterpillar fashion, they wreak all kinds of havoc on plants, specifically tomatoes and peppers. notice how there are zero leaves where this little bugger is. remedy: the hubster snipped off this piece of the plant and moved the perp to a distant shrub. he more than likely got picked up by one of the resident birds. hope it enjoyed its time while it lasted. anyway... such is gardening.

and now onto a new segment i'd like to call: "dose of dog" (you already knew this was coming!).

so, this week, we had a sick pup in the house - mr. tinsley enjoyed a playing around with a plastic juice bottle a little too much, and more than likely ate a little bit of plastic while doing so. unlike riley, he doesn't seem to understand that the non-traditional toys aren't supposed to be eaten! they just get kicked around. so he spent the rest of the evening throwing up, and then continued throwing up throughout the wee hours of the morning and into the next day. he was not a happy camper.

first thing in the morning, i took him to the vet to make sure everything was ok with him. he really is a big ole sissy so he does have the tendency to overexaggerate and make things worse than they really are, but i still wanted to be doubly sure that he didn't consume something potentially damaging. and yes, i am a worry wort when it comes to the dogs. the dogs are both 4 and thankfully, i've gotten much better about this. can you imagine me 3 years ago when they were really getting into everything?! ugh. the vet at banfield (the vet office located in many petsmart facilities) proposed the most expensive thing possible of course, an x-ray, to the tune of $300. *sigh* damn.

i won't go off on a tirade here, although i really, really want to, but in so many words, i asked the assistant why they always propose the most expensive treatment first?! they don't really try to troubleshoot, but they jump straight into pathology mode. and that is expensive! tinsley is in perfect health (and the vet would've known this had he just pulled his past charts!), so i ended up just having him stay at the vets for observation (more than 6 hrs) for peace of mind... add $70 to the bill.

the vet called me later on in the afternoon to tell me tinsley was doing fine, resting comfortably and had no additional vomiting, but he still wanted to administer an anti-nausea injection. you already know my response... "um... if he's not throwing up anymore, why are you going to charge more money to inject him with something to prevent nausea/vomiting?" in my head, what i wanted to hear... the honest response should have been, "because it's another $30 that i can charge you!" but after a ridiculously long pause (guess i caught him off guard) he said, "preventative measure"... fair enough. ok, fine. add another $30 to the tab. the vet then tried to sell me on taking home a few cans of prescription food because with all the vomiting, tinsley's system needed something bland, gentle and easy to digest, to which i responded, yeah... i can make that at home. it's called white rice and boiled chicken. the vet really wanted me to choke him out, right? lol

in the meantime, riley and i hung out at home. we missed our mr. tinsley like crazy though. he really knows how to fill the empty spaces of the house with his silly grunts, warning growls to potential intruders and loud yawns. luckily, he came home around 6pm and got lots of love and rubs and hugs. he knew he was missed, and i could tell someone was loving up on him at the vets because he came back all smiley. the vet sent him home with medication, i guess it was some type of antibiotic... whatever it was, read that as another $15-20 added to the bill (bastards!), and my husband let the vet know we'd be making his food at home, so subtract $15. i guess when the d.h. asked the vet what ingredients were in the prescription food, the vet was completely stumped (again). when hubster looked at the ingredient list, it was totally indecipherable. so all in all we spent $100 for peace of mind, and saved $300. the things we do for our pets, right? mr. tinsley has been resting comfortably ever since and really enjoying eating rice and boiled chicken. they eat a really high quality diet anyway, but he loves himself some rice :D

but seriously... i don't have kids, my furries are my children, and i just can't resist these faces...

i just love them to bits-and-pieces and want them to be happy, loved more than they can handle and well taken care of because they bring me so much joy. and that has no price tag.

enjoy your weekend!
until next time...

more spinning, less knitting

my knitting mojo is m.i.a. oh where, oh where can it be?
this is no surprise... this has happened to me every year that i have been knitting, so almost 3 years, because i've been knitting for ages, right? har har! this year, i was able to keep the flame going till june! last year, i was over knitting in february. ugh.

i've been trying to find my mojo for the past couple of weeks; trying to get excited about finishing some of my wip's that are glaring at me from their baskets and/or ziplock baggies; and trying to free up some of my needles so that i can work on something fresh and new! failing miserably in all 3 areas. normally, just starting some new w/ amazing, vibrant-colored fiber is that quickest way to get me excited again... but this time it's not working.

so to that i say SPIN!

weekly wrap-up/finished object(s) current projects

on the spinning wheel
first try, navajo-ply. not much to say here... navajo-plying was very relaxing for me. it took a few yards to get a good rhythm going, but all in all, i really enjoyed this technique and will absolutely do it again in the future. i have at least a few more braids of fiber where color management would be very important, so i'm glad i had a few guinea pig bobbins to test this out on with first! i'm not happy with the colors on this (still). looks muddy to me.

not bad... just not good either imo

but it looks nicer in a skein :)

the d.h. loves this fiber nonetheless, and is adamant that i make him socks out of this (instead of hide it at the bottom of my fiber bin)... i probably should. i don't want to be wasteful. the yardage came out to about 150-160 yds... so maybe i can make him those small footsie type socks with reinforced heels and toes. i am actually a little curious as to how this will knit up, because sometimes it does in fact look a bit better.

not all the news today is as depressing (thank goodness).
i finally used a yummy braid from my corgi hill farm bfl/tussah fiber and enjoyed every step of spinning that fiber immensely. hope you are ready for a heavy post of few glamour shots!

three bobbins of lovely greens.

let the plying begin... love those colors blending!

almost overfilled the bobbin :D

onto the homemade pvc niddy noddy, and getting ready for a bath

 a bit overplyed... but this is sock yarn ;)

all finished.

a little sexy lighting here :D

this fiber was prepared nicely and spun nicely as well (bfl and silk = long staples)...
although (ugh... i hate "buts") i wasn't happy with the depth/saturation of color/dyeing. what i mean is... when i was drafting the fiber, i was hoping the color would be all the way through the thickness of the fiber, but the more i kept spinning, i noticed that only the top layers of fiber were dyed and the middle layers were the base color (creamy white). not a bad thing in and of itself, but i would've loved more lengths of the vibrant green.

i found myself spinning in an awkward fashion, where i was trying very hard to spin each color separately, pinching off colors i didn't want to use/grabbing what i wanted to use, rather then let all the different shades of green and white blend together and heather. my spinning guild is having their annual "dye day" this month, and it will be interesting to have a firsthand account of how the dyeing process works, including seeing the individual challenges that arise with the varying types of fibers and fiber preparation, the different dyeing methods and seeing the reactions between different colors. maybe there is a reason why the colors on some of the fiber i have used/seen don't saturate all the way through. i'll let you know.

here is my stash for dye day. gotta love knit picks!

odds & ends
what i love this week
in the garden... signs of life

 

after his workout... he should really think about hitting up a good salon for a pedicure! ;)

bell peppers are in full effect!

anaheim chilis getting ready to make their way to my kitchen!

and of course... to make this post complete... furry shots :D 

oh, you know you love it! how can you resist!?

what a sweet face! doesn't she just look like a trouble maker? 

i love those little rolls at the back of her neck and that little itty bitty nose! *squeak, squeak* :D

doing what they do best... holding the floor down!

being nosey, as usual!

helpful links
youtube: i must share the navajo-ply video i used with you!
it's done very well over a cream-colored spinning cloth and you can see the spinners movements very clearly. the video is actually a decent length (almost 6 minutes), so you don't have to worry about the video being over before it starts! i tend to work alongside videos in an effort to try to mimic the movements while the video is still going, so proper length of video is important to me!

and on that note...
let's hope i get my knitting mojo back. it's been on haitus for 2 weeks now. pfft! 

almost summer...

weekly wrap-up/finished object(s)/current projects 

on the needles
still plugging away on my socks, or sock, i should say. ugh. still have 1 more to finish after this is done. enter 2nd sock syndrome. not because i can't finish... more than likely because i won't want to! anyway, i was plugging away so intensely on my sock, that i blew past the instructions to stop decreasing on the heel! per usual... i ripped it back (i think about 7 rows, "think" because i'm trying to forget) and continued in my normal fashion. it wasn't as painful because i had a podcast to keep me company :D

on the spinning wheel
i forgot to upload a photo from my point & shoot camera from a couple weeks ago, so this particular "before" shot of my recently finished handspun was floating around in the memory card ether. anywho, this is what i planned to share on the last post. the before and after shots, and why it is important to wash your spun yarns after they are plied.

before washing; lots of active twist; very coily

this is actually the first time my yarn came out super coily like this. i plied this yarn just a bit more than what i've done in the past as my goal is to use this yarn for socks and i want them to wear well. after i took this yarn out of the bath, i snapped it once in each direction and hung it in the shower to dry. it hung loosely in a relaxed open loop, but there were still strands that were coily and not totally relaxed, so i added 2 plastic hangers to the bottom of the skein, and placed a hand towel on the hangers to add a little bit of weight to the skein to help straighten it out. the results were amazing. it's like magic!

nicely relaxed

twisted into a hank

so the moral of the story is, try to make it a habit to wash your plied yarn (or singles) to help set the twist and give your work a polished, finished, professional look. as i said before, these are the little details that take a project from a$$ to class!

color wonderful! the stuff dreams are made of.

in other spinning news, i've been flirting with the idea of spinning this beautifully, hand-painted braid of superwash merino from alchemy fibre arts. flirting and admiring from afar (really far) is really all i have been doing. i'm imagining it becoming a really fun pair of simple socks. it really needs to be socks, right? navajo-ply for sure to preserve the vibrant colors, and i don't really want to ply these colors with an existing yarn that i have, although i may do just a tiny sample to see what that looks like, but maybe when i start to knit with it, i could alternate rows of this, with rows of a solid yarn for a fun noro-esque colorful striping effect and to make the colors pop more. see... still flirting and admiring, i'm sooooo not ready to spin this!

honestly, yes i'm a little intimidated, and it really feels like too much work for me to think about. color has always made me a little uncomfortable for reasons unknown, so this is no surprise. as much as one may study and understand color theory, sometimes there are still surprises which one cannot predict when you see how certain colors react with each other! also... this is a one-of-a-kind braid... you know what that means.

so instead, on a whim, i decided to finally spin a braid from my corgi hill farm stash. i've been stock piling fiber from this fantastic vendor who kills the color game (gorgeous, saturated color) and all the while, i began believing that her fiber was just too pretty to spin. it is, but i need to get over it! i grabbed the first chf bag at the top of my fiber bin and started spinning it anyway. just jumped right in without a plan, spontaneous.

so this is what i'm spinning now...all kinds of goodness that would make a leprechaun weep.

so far so good... after i started spinning, it donned on me that i hadn't figured out what i wanted this to be... so i decided to do a 3-ply and focus on color management, i mean, this shouldn't be a problem here considering this is a green-scale, monochromatic braid, but i'm still working with about 3 or 4 shades of green, and it would be interesting to practice only spinning with a certain color, rather than letting adjacent colors blend into the drafting triangle and mute the colors or heather them out. so i'm playing with that. i'm also trying to make spinning a regular habit and build up my endurance... more on that later.

oh... did i do this already? show progress shots of my spinning journey?
it's hard to remember what i've posted, you know... because i ramble. i tag my posts, but i usually don't reference back to old posts unless i'm having a deja vu moment and want to link to it in a post (and avoid re-writing the experience). i did look at past posts the other day as i was trying to remember which spinning wheels were in the running for becoming my next 2nd wheel. calm down... i'm still in the beginning stage. lets just say, i'd love to have another wheel (a stay-at-home wheel) and i love the wheel that i have. i'm not trying to replace her, because she is perfectly fine and makes wonderful yarn happen. i'm not getting a wheel now, as in right this moment, but again, i am back in the research/planning/budgeting phase checking out my options.

i met my personal goal which was to have something spun every month after purchasing my wheel. basically, my feeling was if i produced a skein a month, it would clearly mean that i stuck to spinning and it wasn't just an activity/hobby i picked up on a whim. makes perfect sense, right? i'm up to about 7 skeins of handspun now, and i'll have at least 3 more by summer. i'm coming up on my 1 year spiniversary with my girl renaissance, and as i did with dog number 1, i eventually found her a companion. it's nice to have a companion, right? :)

to answer my earlier question (ohhhh how i distract myself) of if i posted progress shots, the answer is no, unless i didn't tag the post "spinning" (which is absolutely a possibility!). so i'll do it now. basically, it's just a picture of encouragement to those out there, who may be a little intimidated, or who may be feeling a bit discouraged with the spinning process, or [fill-in-the-blank]. it's to show that things do get better with patience, practice, and lots of cursing. i'm also doing this because i am sifting through a massive folder of past photos and i am realizing i missed out on sharing some of these photos! i took them, so why not share them?

so, from left to right... 

the creamy white skein is my first 2-ply yarn out of polwarth which is by far the most luscious fiber i've spun to date. it was very lofty and forgiving, with quite a long staple length, if i remember correctly it was between 5-6". even the d.h. hopped on the wheel and spun some of this, so his bits are in here too! but notice here, and it's hard to see on this photo, but this skein is all kinds of wonky. folks like to call stuff like this "art" yarn - maybe to make new spinners fell less bad about their product - but the reality is it is beginner's yarn. it doesn't need to be called anything else. it is what it is! it wasn't my favorite, although i enjoyed learning experience i gained from it.

i kept all my skeins because i like to track my progress. it's encouraging to see where i came from. it's humbling and it's a nice reminder to not be so hard on myself. look at what things used to look like, is what i tell myself often. ok, the second skein is another 2-ply (yup... there is a pattern here), but this time with black BFL (bluefaced leicester). see... already getting better; a little more consistent. the teal blue skein is 2-ply merino (much better looking) and the final skein is 2-ply merino/silk/yak. out of these skeins, the last skein was by far the most enjoyable to spin with - it was easy as hell to draft after several adjustments to the way i was spinning and the wheel itself to get used to spinning such a slick fiber, but it was a pleasure and again... look at the progress. my yarn looks better each time. well, better to me, and that's what matters.

anyway... my skeins may not be "perfect" in the eyes of a more seasoned spinner or someone who may do this as a profession, but the point is, these skeins are usable, they are yarn, and i made them myself. there is something very satisfying about this whole spinning thing... it's relaxing, it's challenging, it allows one to customize a knitting/crocheting/weaving experience by taking control of said fiber and prepping, dyeing and/or spinning it the way that best suits the project intended. it is work (some days way more than i'd like to admit), but at the end of the day, it's up at the top of my list of the best instant gratification activities ever. i've been bitten, and there is no turning back. greeting from the rabbit hole.

on the sewing machine  
well... not on the machine, but i did have something briefly draped on my mannequin last week.

the makings of a summer top. i haven't draped in almost 10 yrs and i forgot how much fun it can be. i finally broke down because it's almost summer and i'm still stuck with a very limited amount of weather-appropriate, comfortable clothing. my dilemma with clothing is that i want a custom fit and something that is flattering on my curvy body. and honestly, the reality here is that i know what i want so i might as well just buckle down and do it myself because i can do this (i finished a 2-yr fashion program) and i've made clothing before. the problem i run into is that because i have to customize a pattern so much, it becomes a daunting and unattractive task; i usually just want to walk away from it and do something that requires less thinking, so to speak, like spinning or knitting.

so with that being said, one morning i woke up and was like... you know what, let me drape something. and i did. i scratched my head for a few minutes as i was trying to figure out my approach, and then i just went with it. without a plan, just experimenting and letting my brain remember how i used to do this. i stopped draping this top because in addition to falling short on fabric, it really needs to be draped with the intended fabric - jersey. draping it out of muslin gave me the gist of what i needed to do, so from this point on, i've stopped with the above top and will start a second draped summer top very soon. this time, one that i've sketched/planned out, rather than an impromptu drape like the one above. and this time, muslin will actually be a good idea. 

odds & ends 

what i love this week
tour de fleece! it's that time of year again, and this time i get to participate! yay! last year i had a couple of spindles that i was too impatient to use, and i ended up purchasing a wheel shortly after the tour ended! talk about great timing :P

the tour starts july 2 and ends on july 24, with two days of rest on the 11th and the 18th.

the tour is essentially a great way for a spinner (whether on a wheel or on a spindle) to set a personal goal or challenge for themselves and use this block of time to complete it. i believe the overall feel is to really push yourself with these challenges; the same way that the participants in the tour de france push physically push themselves. i think it is also a fun way to put those new year's resolutions back in check, in case if you've fallen off.

i've set a personal goal of spinning one hour a day. achievable and simple. on the "off " days, i plan to wash/set any plied yarn that i may have. i'm excited, as i like to set personal goals anyway (something about checking things off a list makes me really warm and fuzzy inside), and i also really enjoy the process of prepping  - digging through my stash and choosing the fibers i want to spin, how i want to spin them, and which project i will have in mind for the finished yarn (mostly socks!). prepping also gives me a chance to dig through my stash and do an inventory on the types of fibers/colors i have accumulated, assess what i'd like to see more or less of, and also what i may consider de-stashing. de-stashing of course, to make room for more!

and that leads me to the other fiber event that has me pretty excited - black sheep gathering!

Mission Statement: The Black Sheep Gathering is an annual event during which participants exchange their knowledge and appreciation for handcraft fibers and the animals that produce them.

Goals: The Black Sheep Gathering strives to provide an environment dedicated to education, cooperation and participation, an atmosphere of fellowship and fun, and celebrating natural colored animals and their fiber.

i will be on vacation/anniversary with the hubster during bsg, and we will be making a trip to check out the festivities, which include workshops (both free and paid), a sheep show, wool & mohair show and judging, sheep-to-shawl competition, fleece sale, fiber arts displays, and lots of vendors for shopping! i am hoping to purchase my very first fleece (or 2) as well, which is exciting and i'm sure will be an experience in and of itself.

i'm really excited to see this whole process of sheep to fiber in hd, listening to the judges discuss the fleece of the animals, participate in the activities, shop for goodies, and most important meet new potential friends.

anyway... you know i'll be posting more info as the event gets closer.

until then...
health and happiness to you all!