Stash Inventory

Well all but a few skeins (maybe a dozen or so) are accounted for. I bought plastic containers (I need one more to get rid of the cardboard box) and am using 2 comforter bags. I won't list it all, but I'll post pictures

Fleeces/Roving
On the bottom of this picture are two boxes of washed fleece, then atop that is the 2 pounds of Corriedale I wrote about recently. Above that is a bag of Romney. I have a large box upstairs of flicked Targhee and half a large box to clean yet.


The photo to the right has two unwashed fleeces on the bottom, both Rambos. I have another half box this size near the washing machine in the process (it's been stalled the past week and a half though) The top clear plastic box is filled with roving from Peace Fleece. I posted about it way back here. I've spun a bit of the Chickie Masla and used some of the Firebird Orange for needle felting. There are also some Peace Fleece kits in that box that I didn't account for as well as a thrum mitten kit. The cardboard box has roving from Spunky Eclectic and some samples of roving. And the little plastic bag has 8 oz of alpaca that I was gifted from a friend of DD's.

Next up is the wool.
The stack on the left:The bottom box is undyed wool... Vermont aran... it's old and some undyed 100purewool in both single ply and triple ply worsted weight and some Cascade. The box above that also contains undyed wool. Some that's earmarked to finish my poncho, KnitPicks Wool of the Andes (as well as some 250g of Asparagus WOA), Briggs and Little and my handspun.. mostly Romney from Fuzzy! The box atop this one contains my Peace Fleece stash... mostly all worsted weight. And at the top two queen/king comforter bags, one with recycled wool and the other with kind of orphan skeins, or dual sibling skeins.

The stack on the right: Bottom box contains Patons... almost all Classic Merino although there are a few skeins of Superwash English Garden and 2 skeins of Soy Wool Stripes. Above that is a box containing all my dyed 100PureWool and the few skeins of Manos del Uruguay that I own. The cardboard box contains lots of different skeins (Bartlett, Christopher Farms, etc) and the plastic bag abouve that has Lion Wool, Caron Felt it, Anny Blatt, some Cashmere Luxury yarn from A.C. Moore (only about 15% cashmere, blended with merino and microfiber... but still) 1100 grams of lace weigh mohair and a few skeins of sock yarn.

And last but not least, my cottons:
On the left the very bottom is Plymouth Fantasy Royale and Tahki Cotton Colori. The middle box has more Fantasy Royale and Bernat Casino. The top box has cones of Peaches and Cream, Sugar and Cream and 2pound cone of cotton chenille as well as King Tut and Tahki Cotton Classic, Knitpicks Crayon and Shine and some assorted other cottons. And the stack on the right is my kitchen cottons. The bottom box is the solid colors (Lily's Sugar and Cream, Elmore Pisgah Peaches and Cream and Lion Brand Cotton) and the top box is the varigated selection.

So there you have it. My name is Carole and I'm a fiberholic!


I have 2 cloths that are finished... just need to take pictures of them! I'll save that for another day though!

happy crafting

water, water everywhere

but it's not to drink!

Today was a wierd water day.
• We're redoing the back bedroom which was formerly an office into a bedroom for the boys. DH was draining the radiator but it wouldn't stop draining.
• My SIL knocked over a full glass of water onto the hardwood floor in that room.
• The swimming pool closed just as we got there (3 hours early)
• All the kids were thrilled with their baths
• They were also playing with tea party and DS2 insisted that real water be put in the teapot
• and the final straw, the heater blew it's top and water was everywhere in that room in the basement, which of course is where all my yarn is, fleeces too... fortunately in plastic bags or bins... but I moved it all out anyway. The heater man comes tomorrow but the heat is shut off now... guess it's a good thing that it's warm outside.

It's a good excuse to organize the stash. And take some pictures...

The bad part is that now DH KNOWS how much yarn there is.... My DD said "mom, why do you have so much yarn? You have to stop buying yarn....." She's right. It's time to lose some weight... sigh

The final cloth…

for the August birthday


Pattern: Mason Dixon ballband cloth
Yarn: Lily's Sugar & Cream and Elmore Pisgah Peaches & Cream
Color: Pumpkin and Butter & Cream
Needle: Susan Bates size 6
This makes a half dozen and with that I think I'll stop. Time to get the needles clackin' on something else again!

It was like Christmas at my house today. I got a package in the mail with double the amount of this lovely Corriedale cross roving... two pounds of it. I bought it from ebay but it orignally comes from Ashland Bay. Now to decide what colors to dye it. I think I'll dye before spinning, then braid it and look at it for a bit.... it feels lovely. DH just rolled his eyes. LOL

I'm thinking of printing one of my sunflower pictures to put on the top of set of 6 cloths after they're wrapped. The colors would be perfect... too bad I can't just put a sunflower on the top! Maybe I should consider a sunflower hot pad to go with the set.... I really am addicted to knitting these small projects, they go by so quickly and are so satisfying.

On a very sad note, I learned the other day that a dear friend of mine who moved away from me a couple of years ago was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. She has had a full life, but I still feel so sad. The prognosis isn't good, they've predicted about 8-12 weeks left. So prayers for a peaceful passing would be appreciated for my dear sweet Gene. She is my surrogate mum in the best sense of the word.

Muchos fotos

Por que la lengue, preguntas? Well my SIL arrived today, so the house is filled with Castellano, and switching is difficult for me...
As promised, I have some pictures of the 5 finished cloths. The ballband is still OTN, it's a bit over half done. I took pictures withouth blocking since I'll block all 6 at the same time, but it will give you an idea of what has been clicking on my needles. Without further ado…

Pattern: Hot Chocolate by Alli Barrett at Knit Wits Heaven
Yarn: Lily's Sugar and Cream
Color: Softly Taupe
Needle: Susan Bates size 6
This is larger than I was hoping, but the picture is too cute. I thought about changing the border so the size would be the same as the others but that would leave out the beans... so I left it as is.


Pattern: Chinese Waves Circular Cloth (sorry I can't find the link right now)
Yarn: Lily's Sugar and Cream
Color: Yellow Ombre (?) I'll check the band later
Needles: Susan Bates size 6
If I make this one again, I need to remember to cast off a bit looser... since the last part is seaming the radius of the circle.


Pattern: VW cloth by Maude Beaudreault
Yarn: Lily's Sugar and Cream
Color: Yellow
Needles: Susan Bates size 6
A has a yellow bug, so I thought this cloth would be perfect for her!


Pattern: Rhonda White's The Infamous Darrell Waltrip Cloth
Yarn: Peaches and Cream
Color: Butter & Cream
Needles: Susan Bates size 6
I love this pattern... I really never tire of it with a varigated yarn.


Pattern: Sunshine by Andi Worthy
Yarn: Lily's Sugar and Cream
Color: Sunshine Yellow
Needles: Susan Bates size 6
This was the KAL for July in the Monthly Dishcloth KAL group. One of the group mom's designed the pattern. Visit her site to see her other designs

I'll try to finish ballband by tmrw and post that picture. But as I said, my SIL arrived this morning from Argentina, we haven't seen her for a year, so there's a lot to catch up on. She of course came bearing gifts. Here are just a few!
These are buttons from a local fair. Literally it's just around the corner from her house. They put up shop on Sundays and all kinds of taller (artists) are there selling their wares. From leather goods to wooden buttons, wooden trays, spoons, jewelry, paintings.. you name it, if it's artsy you'll find it there. Each part of the city of Buenos Aires seems to have one, Recoleta is the most famous, but the one near her is in San Isidro close to the tren de la costa. She also picked up this wool yarn for me, thinking I can use it as an accent on a sweater or scarf or something. It's incredibly soft and I love it. The colors are all natural from the wool. It's 3 ply thick and thin, where the thick part is like pencil roving... I have to think of something really wonderful to showcase this yarn!


My MIL sent along this lovely cotton yarn for me. The hanks are HUGE. You can see that as they compare to the size of my laptop. I LOVE the colors. Do they know me or what??? My SIL made the kids T-shirts. I'll post pictures of them later, but she is an incredible artist and it's amazing that she drew the pictures herself! What talent that woman has. I'm in awe.

I leave you with one of the sunflowers from my garden. I didnt' plant any this year. The seeds had dropped from one of the plants I DID plant last year. Now the plants are about 12 feet tall. My DH teases me that one day I'm going to disappear up into the clouds like Jack and the Beanstalk.

4 down, 2 to go

I have 2 cloths to make yet for A. I hope she likes them. I think I'll give them to her before we leave for the shore cuz when we get back, she'll be on vacation (I think) My idea is to do the hot chocolate cloth (in disguise of coffee) and a ballband yet. I wanted to keep a yellow theme, but the hot chocolate cloth will look kind of dumb in yellow so I'm opting for softly taupe. I promise pictures soon.

I've been spinning as well. I've decided that I much prefer the flicker to carding. I'll card the stuff that I pull out of the flicker to get a few rolags when it's all said and done.

I opened up Lily... a rambo/shetland cross fleece I bought a few months ago this morning. My goal is to have her washed by Friday. Guess I should get started on that as well. I have 3 more fleeces to wash and then at least they'll all be ready to pick/clean. There were 2 bags with fleece in the box. At first I was disappointed. The first bag I opened had LOTS of vm and the skirting had left some sheep poo in the fleece.. so I was bumming until I opened bag 2 and that was an incredibly beautiful fleece... OMGosh, I can't wait to spin that baby! I have to add, she's washing up so incredibly.. the nice part is all I've gotten done so far. 12 lingerie bags worth... it's like a cloud! should be easy to clean and flick too :-D

I've been freecycling like crazy, but people say they'll pick up and never show... I mean why respond if you aren't interested?

DD and I started to decorate a wood magazine file today. I bought 3 of them at IKEA on Sunday. We also got a bookshelf like this but only 4 shelves instead of 7, since our other broke, and a dresser for the attic so that my SIL has a place to put her clothes while she's here. Slowly but surely, the back room is emptying out and looking less like an office. I hope to have it all finished by the end of the summer so those sweet little boy babies of ours can sleep in their own space! We found the perfect bunks for them at IKEA as well. Well the picture doesn't look like a bunk, but they had a mattress under the loft, which is perfect for DS2, so we'll be sure to make a return trip while the SIL is here!

I'm really working on getting this place together and that eventually includes my stash. ;-)

Please excuse the interruption

just a funny thing. While taking the kids to swimming lessons today. I was walking DS in to the first class and a lady came up behind me and said, " I remember you. Aren't you the one who knits?" I replied "yes" But funny how some people remember you a year later for something you did, whether it is magnanimous or insignificant (not that knitting is neither, but I'm sure you understand what I mean)

I wasn't knitting today though, I was flicking Romney from Fuzzy that I want to finish, so I have at least fleece from one sheep completely spun!

And now, back to your regularly scheduled program.

tagged

OK... a blogger buddy (sorry I can't remember where I saw it :-/) Tagged me for this birthday thing. I won't tag anyone. Try it if you like!
Instructions:
•Go to Wikipedia
•Enter your birth month and day (not the year) and hit search
•LIst 3 events, 2 births, and one holiday that occurs on your birthday
Even if you don't post it, it's fun to see!

My birthday has this in common:

EVENTS:
1932 - Hattie W. Caraway becomes the first woman elected to the United States Senate.
1966 - Batman the TV series debuts on ABC.
1969- Led Zeppelin releases their first album.

BIRTHS
1876 - Jack London, American author (d. 1916)
1954 - Howard Stern, American radio host

HOLIDAY
Tanzania - Zanzibar Revolution Day

On the knitting front, as I type I have 2.5 cloths finished for my friend's bday. I want to get at least 6 done this week. So I'll post pictures when all of them are completed.

They're a pair!

Pattern: Yarn Harlot's sock formula from Knitting Rules
Yarn: Plymouth Sockotta (this color in fact!)
Color: 5612 Bold Stripe
Needle: Size 2 bamboo dpns

The only change I made was to use 60 stitches instead of 64, since the only thin parts of my body are below my knees!

This is 8 lovely, yummy, soft, fluffy ounces of light fawn fiber from an alpaca named Franchesca who resides at Bay Springs Farm in Cape May NJ. This is what DD's friend convinced her mom to buy me while they were on vacation at the beach... I think I'll make her some mittens from it. Now I just have to figure out how to clean it! It's super soft though... really, really soft, like a cloud!

I'm plugging away on the Lucy Bag... and before I go to bed, I'll have finished the Monthly Dishcloth KAL.. and I'm happy to say that my prediction of the picture pattern was right on :-)

My SIL comes in one week... If I'm going to do that möbius scarf for her I better figure out the cast on, cuz I have a feeling it will take every free minute of time to finish it in one week.

Happy Crafting

Do I need more WIPs?

I guess the answer to that is YES, since I have more....No, I didn't find my dpns. Instead, I won an auction on ebay for 11 pair of 5" bamboo dpns (new) and paid less than I would have for 2 sets. I was certain that after I started the second sock on these new needles, I'd find the missing ones. But they're still AWOL. And we had a party yesterday at the house (more on that later) so if they were going to show up, they would have for sure... I guess the Borrower's really do live at my house!

This is the start of the Lucy bag. I only have about 12 rows of the straight section finished (there are 120 rows in this section) If I do the math correctly 120 rows of 120 stitches is 14400 stitches... youch! Then there is the handle after that...It's such a cute bag though. I love the way the handles are the purse closure. This picture doesn't do the color justice. It's called Petunia but is a really lovely blend of lavender and blue more lavender than my dye of blurple... I guess this would be lavendue.

And the last new WIP is the monthly dishcloth KAL that started today. I have a sneaking suspicion what it is! How can I tell? Well I can't from the pattern, just a guess. I'll keep it to myself. I'll gift this one to my friend whose fav color is yellow and who will be celebrating a b'day in August. I think for her special day I'll make her a bunch of them... not the same pattern but I have my patterns chosen for her already!

Back to the party. We had the 'family' party for L's birthday. Had to get it in before the last day of June or I couldn't very well call it a birthday party. The theme was going to be monster trucks, but they had no monster truck plates etc at Party City, so he settled on Power Rangers (which he is nuts about anyway) This is his cake... (my great picture taking skills chopped off the Red Ranger's head) I had also gotten a number 5 candle, but do you think I could find it when it was time to put it on the cake? In fairness to me, that was on Tuesday right before I went to help teach spinning, and I didn't put the groceries away. I'm sure that will turn up with my knitting needles. LOL As you can see DH was having a good time once the pinata was empty. Good thing the batting was finished, no? The kids at this house were exhausted by the time all the guests left. L has been so excited about this party all week... he's so cute sometimes I can't stand it.

On the fiber front, one of DDs friends was at the beach last week. The mom (who is a friend of mine too) called today and when we were chatting mentioned that one of the days they went to an alpaca farm and the owner was doing some spinning too. Her daughter is in DDs class and remarked to her mom that I also spin and they should get me some alpaca so I can make DD some mittens. How sweet is that? So they bought a half pound of alpaca fiber for me to spin. I'm so excited because I've never spun alpaca before. I don't know if it's raw or ready to spin... guess I'll find out later and report on it :-)

OK... off to knit and tidy up the family room some more... it was, let's say, well used at the party yesterday. I already spent over an hour cleaning it up today, and there's still more mess.