New House News

I don't have any fiber-y news today, but I do have house news! They put the stucko on last week! It is getting so close to being done. I checked on it today and they are still working on the wall texture on the inside. Saw a guy on stilts working in the garage this morning. They told us that when the cabinets go in, we will have about 30 days to go! No cabinets yet, but I will let you guys know when they get here.
And Yes Deedo, there is a Craft Room :D Well, it is more like a Craft Walk-In Closet, but it is mostly mine. See that little square of metal on the ceiling? That is the HV/AC vent. The closet is hooked into the heating and cooling vents, so it won't get stuffy or too hot in there! I have all sorts of plans for shelves, baskets and cubbies in there. We have even talked about having the computer in there too. It is much bigger in person than it seems in that photo.

So much News!

I have so much News to tell today! I will start with the house.

WE HAVE DRYWALL!!!

That is my Teeny there in the photo. After a 3 and a half week delay, we finaly have drywall! Now all we need is tape, texture, paint and flooring and we are ready to move in!!! I am beyond exstatic. We are hoping to be all moved in before Teeny's third birthday at the beginning of June.

This is a layer cake that Joe made out of drywall scraps. We also are situated so close to where the local airshow is that you can see the whole thing from our hosue. Here is a photo of the Blue Angels my Hubby took this weekend.

Now, on to the fiber. I finished knitting a new Lady Eleanor with the yarn I spun from the Forecast colorway from Spunky Eclectic.

It was made from about 1000 yards of yarn. On #10.5 needles with 10 stitch squares and is 7 squares across. It came out nice and lacy. You can see the Sunbonnet Sue peeking through the top there. It is warm enough to keep out the chill. The colorway was named Forecast because it is remenicent of snowy days with bright blue skies and bare earth where the snow has begun to melt. This shawl looks to me like you are seeing this day through a kaleidoscope or a frosted window.

And last, a tease for Liz. This is what I am making with the Maid Marrion yarn from Friday. It is on #9 needles, is 5 stitch squares and is 18 squares across. It will be a blanket for my Teeny

Fiber friday again!

I spent hours this week spinning. It was a compulsion, I just could not stop! I spun 3 different colorways this week from Spunky Eclectic . 12 oz of each colorway adds up to 2.25 pounds of fiber!! And I found a most amazing new tool!

First, the fiber

Maid Marrion in Merino

Berry Pickin' in BFL

Dogwood in Corriedale

Now onto the realy exciting part of this post!! This is my new best friend

This is a bottle of conditioner that I purchased thinking it would enhance the gentle waves in my hair. It didn't, just made my hair feel flat and heavy. Turns out it enhances curls and waves by being an anti-frizz conditioner. I was disapointed but didn't want to toss out a whole bottle of conditioner, so I tucked it away.

When I began spinning up the BFL, it was very fuzzy. I am not a fuzzy kind of person so I was very worried that I wouldn't like how the fiber looked when I was done. I had heard of people using conditioner to soften scritchy or dry fiber, but hadn't heard of anybody using it to tame the fuzzies. I decided to give it a try.

I washed the wool in Synthropol like I usualy do, wrung it out and refilled the sink with clean hot water. I put about a teaspoon, maybe half teaspoon, of the conditioner in the sink and agitated the water to distribute it. Then I put the fiber back in the water to soak for 10-15 minutes. I came back, wrung out the fiber and refilled the sink again with hot clean water for a quick rinse.

The fiber came out smooth and soft and the smell is heavenly!! The scent of the conditioner blends beautifuly with the smell of wet wool. I have tried it now on BFL, Merino and Corriedale. All have been heavenly when dry.

She is done!

I finaly finished the first Lady Eleanor! She ended up being 10 balls of Rowan Tapestry on #9 needles with eight 10 stitch blocks. I decided not to put the fringe on because I am not a very fringy kind of person. Here is a closeup.I blocked it on the carpet last night, and found my son curled up in the middle of it this morning. He had a nightmare and wandered around the house looking for someplace else to sleep. He said it was super comfortable, and he was right! I wore it around the house as I got people ready for school and it was like a second skin. I am completely in love!

I did just a little bit of spinning this week. I got some fiber from princesskaytm over at fiber freaks and she had hand dyed it! There was an ounce of BFL dyed in beautiful blues and purples. It was super fluffy and drafted like a dream. I named it Wild Blueberries

My Name is Amy

And I am a Hobbit. I am geneticaly unable to wear socks and I have a physical aversion to shoes unless they are absolutely neccesary by law or hot pavement. This is terrible as it seems that all the other knitters out there are addicted to knitting socks. I look at the socks, I think they are very pretty. I have seen some elaborate socks that would be very impressive. I think to myself "that would be such a cool challenge!" But I know they would never get used. I have thought about making them for other people, but I don't know anybody that isn't super rough on socks. Yet, I am one of those ladies who could be under an afghan and asking for the Air to be turned off in the middle of summer! I have a sweatshirt on if it gets below 72 degrees.

This put me in a quandry. Living in the desert there is no need for hats, gloves, scarves or sweaters. Due to my Hobbitish tendencies, I don't need socks. I have gifted the people I know in cold climates with enough winter wear to outfit a small village. What do I do now? ENTRELAC!

My childhood training was in quilting and embroidery. I think this is what draws me to entrelac so much. The color shifts play across the squares in such interesting ways. And If I spin thin, then I can make entrelac wraps that are lightweight enough to wear any time of year. I have found my bliss. I have even been thinking of ways to jazz up the entrelac besides the colors, things like cables and such.

So begins my newest obsession in the crafting world! Here is what I started this week.

This is the fiber from this month's Spunky Fiber Club. It is called Forecast and has a wonderful blend of white, ice blue and tan. I spun it in a thin single in an attempt to get 1000 yards. I surpassed my estimation by 25 yards! I couldn't wait to get started using it, so I began immediately on my next wrap.

This is a very rough picture of the first 6 inches or so. The colors are playing across the squares beautifuly and I can't wait to finish it and show you guys a better picture.

Take a stitch

Here is my sad little sampler for the Take a Stitch Challenge

I have been a very lazy embroiderer recently. I joined this challenge back in January, but I had never given myself the time to sit down and actually play with the stitches. I finaly decided today that I had to put everything else aside and catch up on this. I have a stash of even weave linnen tea towels that I decided to use. I got one out for me and one for my son. They were great for freehand work, but terrible for counted work. The weave wasn't even enough. I had just about decided to finish this week's stitch and then pick up next week on some adia that I had in my craft closet, when the fly stich caught my imagination.

I rushed to the closet and busted out with the adia and started experamenting. I came up with two different versions of a flower that I think are stunning.

I had been atempting to make a fractal snowflake pattern thinking it would be a great way to cover the fabric completely, but I came up with these instead. They work great all by themselves or as a border.

My son decided he didn't want to follow the stitches in the challenge, so he drew his own pattern and went to town embroidering it. He says he wants to make a pillow out of it when he is done.

Green Moss

Here is my son's first attempt at spinning his own yarn! It is a green wool blend that he picked out of my collection himself. It is a collaborative work, sometimes I treadled while he drafted and sometimes he tried doing both himself. This fiber was a challenge to draft, I think we will try something a little more slippery next time. He was very patient with the whole process and I think he made great improvements as he went along. We are going to take on the Take a Stitch Tuesday Challenge next, because I have been terribly lax at keeping up on that.

Fiber Friday 2/23

I have been super busy this week with fiber-y things. First, I finaly finished frogging and re-knitting my Lady Eleanor on the #9 needles. I am glad I did too. On the #7's, with 4 balls used, it was about 20 inches long if I stretched it. Now it is 36" long and has tons of extra drape!

I think I might be able to finish it in 7-8 balls instead of the 10 I had originaly estimated.

I also did some experamentation this week with spinning self striping singles. Ever since I started making the Lady E, I have been obsessed with self striping yarn.

Shag Carpet - just 1oz to practice spinning singles. I love the way it came out!

Plum - 4 oz of wool blend. The color changes are so beautiful and subtle on this one and its mate, Arakis

The last one I am working on is a combination of a bunch of different colors from SmokyMountainFibers . I also got Plum and Arakis from her shop. I cleaned out her shop earlier this fall and I have had all this wonderful fiber sitting around waiting for me to figure out what it wanted to be. The self striping experament seemed perfect for this fiber. I am calling it Shade Garden!

I have over 20 oz of different shades of green, blue and purple in random amounts. So I layed them out in order and I am spinning it all up into this yarn!

new hat

Here is a hat that I made this week using the pattern from The Girl from Auntie and some yarn I spun back in October. I have been nervous about the cables for months but I decided that I needed to just sit down and do it! The yarn is actually a little greener than in the photo and was begging to be used. I still have quite a bit of it left over and I am trying to decide what else to make with it. On my short list right now are wrist warmers, socks, leg warmers or another variation of this hat. I just can't make up my mind.

I was also working on my Lady E this week. I had been using #7 needles and I was beginning to worry that I was not going to have enough yarn. I had seen other Lady E's made with the same yarn and less balls, but they were very long! I did some reading and found that one person had used #8's and the other had used #10's, so I decided to split the difference and use #9's. I am frogging what I had made already and the new Lady E is much bigger already! What I realy want to do is make one in every color of Rowan Tapestry ;)

Which Harry Potter person would you get along with best?

Turns out, according to this quiz that I found over on Lucy's blog, that I would get along with Dumbledore the best!

You scored as Albus Dumbledore. You are very wise, observant, and analyctical. You have a very "well-organized" mind, which makes you function in a calm and fair manner. Though you get angered easily, its rare of you to ever act our of temper. You are constantly seeing the good in people and are naturally forgiving because of it. You're easy to please and a great person to learn from. Albus Dumbledore 91% Sirius Black 72% Harry Potter 72% Luna Lovegood 69% Hermione Granger 63% Oliver Wood 59% Bellatrix Lestrange 59% Neville Longbottom 56% Remus Lupin 53% Lord Voldemort 47% Severus Snape 47% Percy Weasley 41% Ron Weasley 41% Draco Malfoy 25% Harry Potter Character Combatibility Test created with QuizFarm.com

Fiber Friday

Today is Fiber Friday!!!!! I love this day. I have been awful about updating my blog, but I am going to try much harder. I know, I know, I said that last time. But I have a realy great excuse! We are in the process of building this house and moving out of the apartment we have been in for 8 years! Lots of packing and organizing going on. Well, on to the fiber!!I spun this yarn this week. It is Vineyard from Spunky Eclectic in Merino. I have a pound of it and a little over half of it is spun up. It seems to be spinning in a self striping way, so I am trying to get enough yardage to make myself another Lady Eleanor shawl.

I splurged on some Rowan Tapestry in the Pot Pourri colorway and started on a Lady Eleanor. I am three balls into it so far and I am loving it!

I have a feeling that this pattern is going to become my favorite. Here in the desert it isn't often sweater season, but sometimes you just get a chill and need something around your shoulders. I imagine I will have stacks of these to choose from.

Well, back to spinning for me

Snow!

We got snow last night!! Here is a photo of my son trying to catch a flake. It only lasted for a few minutes on our side of town and my husband was taking all sorts of photos. Here is the snowman he made this morning

I haven't been crafting very much recently. I am in the process of making a Lady Eleanor shawl, but that is about it. I have been very busy getting ready to move. We are building a house and it should be done in a couple months, so I have to start packing!!

And here is one of the photos that my husband took last night that is so beyond cool! I have spent some of the best video game hours of my life playing Silent Hill. It is inarguably the best horror video game series out there. When I saw this picture, I immediately said "look, He is in Silent Hill!"

Journey

This little turtle is for a beautiful brand new baby named Journey. Her Aunt wanted something to give her that she could keep for ever and ever. This little turtle takes her Blankie and her Teddy Bear with her everywhere she goes.

See my yarn at The Yarn Museum!

I wanted to tell everybody about the Yarn Museum! It is a website that has been set up to honor the artistry and beauty of handspun yarn. Photos can be submitted in several different galleries. It is free and open to all levels of spinners. There are several galleries that are currently open for viewing. I have been spending hours looking at all the AMAZING yarns hung in the galleries and peruzing the websites of the spinners. What a fantastic way to bring the spinning community together to celebrate their artistry!

You can see my yarn in the First Skein Gallery and the Inaugural Show: Anything Goes.

Sorry this was so long in comming

As I was reminded recently ;) It has been a couple months since I updated my blog, so this will be a very LOOONG update. I have done so many things in that time! For a few weeks I was burried in custom orders and unable to spend time creating new babies. And it was about the time that I was getting out from under all that when SHE walked into my life.

Ok, it was more like She was lugged to my doorstep by a very understanding Mail Lady, and she hardly ever leaves my side now. She is a Majacraft Little Gem II named Aurora. I know, totaly cheesy name for a spinning wheel, but in my mind it was the perfect name for a wheel. I have her set up next to the computer so now it is like one of those L shaped desks you see in those big office stores, except instead of having drawers or a printer I have Aurora and a table for holding the wool bits I am working with.

She is my constant companion and my new obsession! I have now accumulated enough wool to fill two of those XXXL zip lock bags to the top ( I think they are about 3" tall ). I found such wonderful wool from online sellers, or dealers as I have affectionately named them. My husband is so understanding about the two complete sheep I have squirreled away in the closet. He has even started calling dibs on his favorite rovings when they come in the mail.

And after reading all of this, I am sure you want to see what I have been doing! Here are some of the yarns that I have spun up.

This one is an Orange/Pink/Red combination. It was from my favorite Dealer, Spunky Eclectic ! She has the best colorways for her rovings at the best prices! And she is evil too. She sends out emails to let you know when she has new things in her store. EVIL TEASE!! I love it : ) There was 3 oz of bulky weight wool blend in this skein. It was about 100 yards and has found a nice home

This one is Corriedale in differerent shades of Green. It is 3 oz of worsted weight yarn, about 114 yards. Also from Spunky. It still needs a home.




This is 3 oz of a Merino worsted weight spun yarn combining Blue, White and Purple. There is about 147 yards of this available in my shop currently.






This is 3 oz of a Purple/Pink BFL combo that found a home earlier this week. It was a worsted weight and there was about 100 yards. It was so soft!




Before this one was even off the wheel, my Son had called dibs on it. There was 3 oz, so I made him a hat.

This is a wool blend of three different rovings I had. They were all about the same value, so I combined them as I spun. They came out so wonderful together, and there is a TON of it. 774 yards of worsted weight available.



This one is for ME! I called it "Still Life With Yarn" because it reminded me of a bowl of fruit, apples, grapes, pears. I am spinning it in between other yarns. I am planning to use this and some deep burgundy that I have to spin still to make a shawl for me!


I had called this one "Atomic Cherry Cordial" because it was this nice chocolate brown color mixed with SHOCKING Pink. It looked irradiated! It has found a home too.

This is Freckled Lemonade. It looks like Lemonade with Strawberries in it! So fun and bright. There is 2 oz of worsted weight yarn, about 100 yards available currently in my shop




I have two different skeins of this color. I called it Cherry Limeade. One skein is 4 oz of a sport/DK weight, about 276 yards. The second is 4 oz of a worsted weight, about 200 yards. Both can be seen at my shop.

I didn't know what direction I wanted to go with the yarn in my shop. Then I decided that there are lots of small skeins of yarn available, but not many skeins with lots of yardage. I asked some people that I know what they would prefer and they agreed that larger yardages would be nice. I decided I would focus on spinning 4+ oz skeins from now on. I still need to purchase a jumbo flyer, but I have my second mega skein available!


So I present to you Swimming Lessons! It is my favorite colorway by far! It is Superwash Merino. There is 8 oz of it total, 424 yards. It is such a beautiful combination of blues and greens. So cool and SOFT like you would not believe!

So, if you actually read through all of that, that is what I have been up to the past few weeks. I have also made custom orders of my pre-existing designs, but mostly I have been focusing on the spinning.

Little Prince

Prince, originally uploaded by Amy's Babies.

I am sorry it has been so long since I posted something new! This little guy has been requested over and over by people. I tried several months ago, but I could never get it exactly right. It is hard to figure out how to get the head on the body. I think I got it figured out this time.

He stands 6" tall and has metal bands across his hands so he can grab onto a Magnetic Katamari. Now there is a Prince to help you roll up the world!

All Dressed Up

I found these little turtles going door to door in my neighborhood. Because they move so slowly, they had gotten an early start on Trick or Treating! They want to go home with you and see all the Trick or Treaters in your neighborhood!

This little witch has brought her best friend with her. She stands about 3" tall and her friend is 1.5" tall.

This little turtle has dressed up as a pumpkin. He has a stem and a little bit of vine on his head.

This is a turtle dressed as a Ladybug. He even has little antenna on his head.

This turtle dressed up as a Zombie! He is Trick or Treating for brains this year. AAHHHHGGG HE'S COMMING RIGHT FOR US!!!! . . . . very. . . . slowly