Evolution.....

I love fiber....it's like magic! First you take some hair, wash and comb it, and add some colours, and it looks like this!
Then you pull and twist it, ad double it back on itself and you get this...All ready turned into something by waving a couple of sticks around! Well, I think it's magical.

Also, French revolution=Teh Interesting! It combines so many of my favourite historical things(Les Mis, Sharpe, Jane Austen) so i'm predisposed to like it, but after watching the Marie Antoinette movie(yes, I know it's not historically accurate) and a documentary on the French Revolution, I gotta say I'm almost as hooked as I am on Les Mis, Sharpe, or Jane Austen.

Though, you must be sure to notice the "almost" ;-)

Batts and Baking

Today I made peanut butter cookies....Wanna know how good I am? I didn't eat one bit of dough or cookie, until I sat down and had a planned cookie snack this afternoon. And none since. Oh yeah!

Some batts i ordered came in the mail today as well. Beautiful, lovely things. I ordered them from Etsy.

This is a colonial wool/bamboo blend in a colourway called "Grasshopper", purchased from Fibermonster. This is so soft it's practically nonexistent. I think it'll be turned into a small and basic sort of scarf, which will likely end up going with almost everything I own!!

This one's also from Fibermonster. A Colonial/BFL wool blend in "sunrise". I started spinning this one right away. I'm thinking maybe a beret.

This is from Enchanted Knoll Farm, the colour is mermaid(all the fibers are uber blended together) It's mostly wool, with some bamboo, silk, sari silk threads and angelina(sparkly bits). I LOVE LOVE LOVE it, and it is already destined for a certain finished object.

This is a sample that came with the above batt from Enchanted Knoll. I don't know it's composition, but it definetely has sari silk and angelina, and it seems pretty woolly. It's probably going to spin up into just enough yarn for a small knitted flower.

this 'n that

This was dinner tonight...Stonyfield farms fat free vanilla yoghurt with frozen and thawed berries(raspberries, blackberries and strawberries) on top. Eaten with a graham cracker. *sigh* diet food. Yep.

Anyways, I spun a whole 'nother bobbin of singles(I'm filling my four bobbins and then making them all into two-ply, as opposed to spinning two and plying them) Once I get all this roving spun up I'll have a lot of yarn, assuming everything I make from now on is usable. Still have no idea what to make of it though. I'll figure it out.

Oh! Very happy news! One of my favourite directors, Baz Luhrmann, is *finally* coming out with a new movie, Australia. His previous movies were Strictly Ballroom, Romeo & Juliet and Moulin Rouge. All Brilliant and very original movies. Not everyone's cup of tea, though. I'm very excited.

Oh yeah. Nutritionist appt tomorrow...back to Rochester :-P Then baking for church (cookies+diet=bad, but i'm going to try very, very hard to be good)

turn, turn, turn

Spinning, spinning, spinning.

I'm not good enough at spinning to spin without looking yet, so I listen to music while I spin. No surprise there. I'm a music addict and I have music on most of the time. usually it's my mp3 player on shuffle(A Dell Digital DJ at 5GB , a few over a thousand songs, which is unfortunately just a fraction of my CD collection) which produces some fairly interesting combinations. Ben Harper to Les Mis to Chris Thile to Nellie McKay. Kids' songs, to traditional, to experimental, to opera metal. I love music.

It's a good thing music and yarn don't have calories, or i'd be in trouble(day three of diet ing to lose the twenty pound for surgery. Doing good so far.) Spinning keeps my busy, and it's really, really addictive. Soon i'll be good enough to order some pretty and nice rovings(instead of the coarse stuff I got to practice on) And then I'll have yarn to make things with....ooooh boy!! That'll be really exciting!!

(BTW, I watched the last season of Black's Books today. It's a British comedy TV show. And it's brilliant. And hysterically funny. The only bad thing is that they've stopped making it!)

*proudness*

I'm so proud of myself right now! I have actually produced real, usable, two-ply yarn on my wheel. Ohmigosh. Seriously. This is the coolest thing. I set the twist and took a picture, and the yarn is now comfortably drying over the heating vent. It's nice and soft yarn, too. Not overplied like I thought it would be. No idea what i'll do with it. We'll see!

My doctor's appointment went well. Very well. Actually, I suppose I should mention what I was going in for. I've been considering/researching/praying about the option of weight loss surgery for quite a while, so I took the plunge and went to see a bariatric surgeon. Well, it went well. Very well. I'm on the path to get gastric bypass surgery in several months, unless God closes the door(which I really hope he doesn't, but I'll accept it if He does)

The good, the bad, and the knotted

Sometimes, you just gotta go back to basics. . Like the batch of chocolate chip and walnut cookies I baked for church this week. Simple, comforting and oh, so delicious!. I watched "Stranger than Fiction" again yesterday and, well, it makes me want chocolate chip cookies. Especially ones that are just a little undercooked. Mmmmmm.

On a completely unrelated topic(I couldn't figure out a segue any less abrupt) This is my first attempt at plying my now passable singles. It's supposed to be one strand, but, erm, well, i plied a strand that was spun to the left with a strand that was spun to the right, so instead of twisting together and making yarn, they twisted against each other and back onto themselves, forming, in effect, a giant knot. Which is okay. I'll chalk it all up to the learning process :-)

Now, if you'll excuse me, I believe there are some cookies calling my name.....

It's spinning wheel day!!

It came!! *squeeeee*


There it is! (Amelia is in the background playing Guitar Hero. Excuse the mess. I was so excited I started taking pictures while all the packing material was still strewn about the living room)


And look!! Stuff resembling yarn! (sort of) But I haven't shown you the cool surprise my wheel had for me!

How awesome is that!!! I love it so much...I want it next to me all the time! It's "portable" but not portable enough to carry back and forth several times a week. *sigh*

Oh. I think she needs a name....any ideas?

(Now i'm going back to playing with my wheel!! Yay!!)

Oh yeah. She came with a lazy kate, 4 standard bobbins, a plying bobbin, head and flyer and a fast flyer. So many new toys!!

Good news and a crappy picture

The good news being that the Hufflepuff scarf is *finally* finished! I finished it Saturday, swatched for my current project that evening(I only swatch when the gauge is crucial....heresy, I know!) I cast on Sunday morning, and I'll probably bind off this evening(while watching the second season of SNL-Hurrah!)I needed a quick knit to recoup from the scarf, and Calorimetry is perfect.

The picture is crap, but as there is no decent light to be found anywhere 'round here at 6PM, it'll have to do. I'm using Green Mountain Spinnery yarn, 45% wool, 55% mohair, in a lovely heathery, tweedy purple. I'm knitting it on 8's, incidentally, a pair of Knit-lite knitting needles, that light up at the tips so you can knit in the dark without bothering anyone(like in the car at night) and they work very well for this purpose. I cast on 108 stitches instead of 120 as well, to remedy gauge issues. I can't wait till i'm done!

Oh yeah. I ordered a spinning wheel!! A lendrum folding double treadle. And it comes with 2 1/2 pounds of wool....It should be here Thursday-Yipppeee!!