A Fiber-y Weekend

First, this is my merino I have been spindling for-ever. Finally finished it, plied it, and all washed up!

Here are the first two bobbins worth off my wheel, in my homemade lazy kate.
The make shift scotch tension on my wheel.
All shined up! Thank you boiled linseed oil!

I've had lots of fun this weekend with the wheel - we've repaired broken leather and one of the bolts (not an original one, something that's been replaced) has been giving me some issues, so the hubby and I are working on getting it smoothed out. I've been having so much fun though!

I plied up my first skein last night, then kool-aid dyed it. The dye didn't take great, but the skin isn't so great either, so it was more just play. I have no idea what I'm going to do with that loosely plied 65 yards of mysterious wool, but I'll find something!

Meet Grace!

Thanks to an ad in CraigsList, I am the proud new owner of a spinning wheel!


I picked this little beauty up in Cincy this morning for ...wait for it...$20!!! Holy Canoodle, can't beat that! Now I'm off to do some web research on cleaning her up and using her!

Coming along

Still chugging along on hubby's sweater. It's knit pseudo-in-the-round - it's a cardigan, and will zip up the front, but I knit the sleeves, then joined them to the body and now it's just raglan decreases all the way around...forever. Or at least that's how it feels. I love the yarn though, so at least it's nice to work with!

I just finished plying my merino roving that I've been working on since...before we moved! It's a solid lavender, very pretty. I haven't skeined it yet, but I think I got some nice yardage on it. I had a little bit left over and plied it with the little bit of alpaca I had left from last year - it's a very pretty 25 yard skein. Maybe it will be a coffee sleeve? LOL, it has to be something small!

The rest of it will get skeined tonight or tomorrow, then I can take pics!

I've started a sock with the yarn that I bought at the Wool Gathering last fall...they are going to be beautiful!

Also managed to hem up 3 pair of hubby's holey jeans into shorts this morning. Definitely not as much fun as other sewing, but eh, had to be done. Now that that's done, I can cut out the other skirt I bought fabric for. Though I'm thinking about looking for another pattern - I love the other pattern that I've used, but I already have 2 skirts out of it, and am thinking a little variety might be nice. Just maybe :)

I still need to tread Toby's slippers, and need to do a pair for hubby, Lucy, and myself.

It's also time to start thinking about Christmas knitting - I have a couple people in mind for handmade gifts this year :)

Mish Mash

I just realized I haven't posted on here since this Spring! It's not that I haven't been busy - I have - I just have been horrible at updating!

So here are some things I've been busy with:

Lucy got her first Barbie, so I made my first Barbie dress...super easy and quick. I found a basic template online and can use it to make many different things. Has a basic velcro closure at the back, simple for my 2 year old to operate (though she prefers her Barbies au naturale)

A new tee for Lucy - knitted with Patons Grace I had on hand. Very cute and easy, though the neck has a tendency to stretch out through the day and by the end hangs down. Cotton is a tad heavy for a toddler's abuse on clothes.
Not mine. Didn't make them, grow them, nada. I did however take the picture. I thought this color combo was gorgeous, and would love to find some pansies like this sometime. Or make an outfit for DD in these colors.
Lucy's Summerlin - I knitted the top with Lion Cottonease...super easy! Then sewed it to the skirt with some Pooh fabric on hand. Quick and easy - and cute!
Knitted socks
Rhubarb - black raspberry pie I made yesterday. It was a success!
These roses are in my yard - planted them a couple weeks ago. I love how the one plant has two colors of blooms! After planting, I cut away the blooms so the plant would put more energy into rooting at first, but I wanted to document the colors in case I kill it before it ever blooms again. LOL. But, it does have some new buds forming! Yay!
Knitted peas in a pod for the kids' kitchen.
My first needle felted animan - it's a sheep in case you can't tell. Sigh. The ones in the book were much cuter.
I've started a sweater for hubby, with PAtons Classic Wool. This is the cable band around the waist, then the stitches are picked up around the side of this panel and worked up. I'm now working on the second sleeve, then it will be the top. It will have a zip front (the pattern is Avast).
This was supposed to be a dress for me, but alas, I did not have enough yarn to make a dress. So it became a top...but it's not exactly flattering. Sigh. I'm still decided whether to wear it or frog it.
I'm also working on a set of modge podge blocks, covered with scrapbook paper. Need to continue this project!
Well, there is my update. I have a few baby sweaters I've finished recently, but haven't taken pictures of yet....and finished a pair of slippers for Toby last night - just need to get them felted. Next on the list!

Summertime

Ok, even I will admit that today was hot...but in all fairness, "hot" in NC means hot at 7am. Hot here means we had an awesome morning outside, and by 1 it was getting kinda hot.

LOL.

We headed out to Hueston Woods this morning...I wanted to check out the beach and get out of the house for a day. We packed a picnic lunch and had a nice morning. The fun and no sleep translated to a rough afternoon though!

The sky from the morning storms we had earlier this week.
Zucchini bread I made last week -
My new roses...I love how there's two colors on one plant!
The front of our house - we planted the new tree and roses almost 2 weeks ago.
Toby and Lucy at one of the Metroparks last week


We made astronaut outfits a few weeks ago :P

We've been keeping busy, that's for sure! We're looking forward to the Air Force Tattoo this weekend and all the festivities of the 3th coming up!

June is blooming

And we've been playing outside!

The kids and I have made several treks to Englewood Metropark - they love hiking to Patty's Falls, and at a half mile, it's just the right hike for them. I've also taken the bike and trailer over twice in the past week and we've had some nice rides through the park. This week I'd like to hit up the Wolf Creek bike trail and I've found that there are a whole lot of bike paths around the area.

We've been playing in the yard too - Toby's been learning to throw a frisbee -







If I could just get Lucy to poop on the potty, the summer would be a dream. As it is, she is completely pee trained - just an occasional accident when she gets too involved in what she's doing - but poop eludes us completely. I'm at my wits end and sick and tired of cleaning out gross underwear! BLECH!

We put up our hummingbird feeder a week ago and have 2 little visitors vying for position on it :) We have it so we can see it from the computer.

I made the kids a puppet theater out of an old box yesterday and they are having tons of fun putting on shows...I took pictures and video yesterday, just need to get them on the computer.

We still have a lot to do around the house - it's a chain reaction sort of thing. We're still waiting for reimbursement for our house sale in NC, so everything hinges on that. But once we get that, we can start on the shelving downstairs to store all the stuff. And the shelving in the laundry room (which I desperately need) will be made from the scraps from the downstairs shelving. THEN I can unpack the last couple boxes sitting in the living room, which will go into the laundry room as soon as I have space. THEN it will be bedroom furniture, and I can get rid of the boxes up there. I'm happy we have a new mattress now, but I desperately need some furniture! As soon as we have bedroom furniture, we can move the smaller storage units we have up there to my craft room and I can finish putting away everything in there. And THEN we can hang some pictures. To me, that's the last step, and I don't want to do it until I know we're finished moving furniture around, and I can't be sure of that until the to do list gets done! Whew, it makes me just tired thinking of everything that still has to be done. I just feel like we should be settled in already and we're still so far from it. It's frustrating.

And that's not even mentioning the yard. There's a dead tree out front that needs to be dug out and replaced...and of course, tree planting season is almost over. When we dig it out, we'd like to add a flower bed around it, and I'd love to get a tea rose out there. But that is some hard manual labor, and C and I can't even agree on what kind of tree we want out there. There is no shade on the back side of the house at all, so I'd love a patio set with an umbrella to at least offer us a place to eat out there and some shade...it's been so sunny this year, and in the afternoon it's unbearably hot back there in the sun!

Well, lunchtime has snuck up on me again...so I need to get some food for these hungry monsters!

Water Balloon Weather!

Sorry, no pics with this one - I had my hands full enough just filling water balloons. It's rather...entertaining...watching two kids who love the concept of water balloons, but don't want to get wet. Really? What is the point if you don't want to get wet???

But they had a blast, even after getting shot by the hose a couple times :P

We've been busy around here. It seems like the grass always needs mowed, and we've improved the study by adding bookshelves and my craft room by adding a wall shelf system. Pretty snazzy, but still needs a lot of organizing work.

The kids are good. They were waking pretty early, but blackout curtains in their rooms seemed to have curtailed that nasty habit.

We had an electric fence put in a couple weeks ago, and have been training the dog on it. So far he's been pretty good...and I know he loves just chilling in the yard.

I'm pretty excited for the holiday weekend coming up. C has a 3 day weekend - woohoo! - and we get to drive to Cincy with no kids (gotta return some things at Ikea, and while we're at it we're hoping to visit a newborn babe, and hit up the flea market - something that's just not fun with kids!) Then Monday is our 7 year anniversary :)

I had been doing some running, but a leg injury has had me out for almost a month now, and doesn't seem to be getting much better. I have a dr appt in 2 weeks so I'll bring it up then. Ugh, I don't even feel like starting over running at this point!

Alright, just wanted to post a quickie update...sorry I haven't been posting much!