Thankful Thursday: Happiness is.....

a drawer full of clean hand knit socks



and some new ones for my feet.




Happy Thanksgiving!

Thankful Thursday: Snow!

It finally snowed here in Kansas this week.  I'm thankful for the snow , for the moisture it brings and the fun it brings.  There is something so pleasing about it's brightness that cheered me this week.

Especially when the house is full of good food and I don't have to go anywhere. 

Oh the weather outside is frightful,

 but the fire is so delightful.

 Since there's no place to go. 

 Let it snow 

Let it snow

 Let it snow!

Thankful Thursday

I'm thankful that I have hobbies I am passionate about and love to do.  

I'm thankful I have found friends who share the same crazy passion for fiber and yarns that I do.

Thankful Thursday

I've been struggling with my thankful posts.  So I decided to re-read some of my own blog posts on thankfulness  here and this one here.   I'm reminded that no matter how "small" or "big" that thankfulness is important. Having a day to bring my attention to what I am thankful for is good but even better I need to make it a daily thing and bring those things here to share.  As I write this my daughter is in her room laughing.

I love it when I hear my daughter laughing

 about something she reads or watches.  

I love it that she laughs so much.  

Thankful Thursday

I'm thankful the light is returning!

Thankful Thursday - An Uberlist for 2012

Why Thankful Thursday? It's one of my ideas for this year to write more on my blog and it's on my Uberlist for 2012 to express thanks. What does a to do list have in common with thankfulness? Because doing these things will enrich my life. Anything that enriches my life is something to be thankful for.

1. Enjoy cleaning house for me. I want a cleaner and more organized home. I don't want to resent doing it. It needs doing and it's better to enjoy it than to resent.

2. Be more organized and get stuff done I will say I will get done.

3. Play games with my cool kids.

4. Watch good movies and bad ones too.

5. Walk 3 days a week.

6. Knit a saddled shouldered sweater for Stephen.

7. Get the yoke sweater going for Jade that I will steek! Eeek!

8. Dye fiber and card it on the drum carder. Pick a color scheme. Spin it long draw. Enough to knit a sweater for me! -  I bought a lovely gray fleece.  I'll  dye some of it for the yoke.  

9. Work on long draw spinning. I want to spin soft lofty yarns. - Doing it! 

10. Go on dates with my husband.

11. Visit Wamego with the Fam - we have a coupon for the Wizard of Oz Museum

12. Take walks when it's beautiful outside.

13. Take a camera with me more often to take pictures

14. Dye with my natural dyes, indigo and cochineal.

15. Do some silk scarf dyeing with Jade using Safflower petals.

16. Dye silk scarves inspired by India Flint.

17. Zentangle on some clothes.

17. Make zentangle cards.

18. Get scanner set up in family room. Move printer into garoffice.

19. Set up garoffice so it's easy to put stuff away.

20. Get stuff off old computer and store things virtually and/or on thumb drives.

21. Get something to store thumb drives.

22. Save for Yarn School 2013!

23. Weave or sell the freekin' loom already and save up for the Wolf loom I really want. - Put the loom craigslist but not willing to sell at a loss. 

24. Get the color gamp napkin kit from Halycon or see if Yarn Barn can put one together for me.

25. Get up the nerve to sell my mom's 4H table loom. I can use the money for something fibery cool. - Also on craigslist.  Not takers so far.

26. Make beer for the first time.  - When to a friends house and helped brew and bottle some beer! 

27. Get out more and do stuff.

28. Shelving for the family room on either side of the fire place.

29. Start Blogging again. I have some ideas! 

30. Stephen and I need to get our ducks in a row like if the worst happens and now I take this out of the law. Nothing bad will happen. Nope not going to happen.

31. Start health care savings account. - Done! 

32. Roof on the house.

33. Paint some of the furniture I have around the house to revamp it.

34. New windows. For the whole house but we can start with the kitchen.

35. Read more about Zen practice and set aside specific time for it. - At the first of the year I was doing good.  I will get back to it.  I will. 

36. Attend more events at the UU fellowship in Lawrence.

37. Play piano. Take lessons. Practice. Something!

38. Make amigurumi. I have the urge to make toys again. - Made some toys.  It was fun.

39. Make some picture shelves like these here.

40. Review this list when I get bored.

41. Sew pajamas pants for me and the kids.  - Boy kids are done, girl kids are cut and ready to sew.

42. Sew some aprons - have this idea brewing to use old jeans.

43. Help Jade make jeans skirt. - About halfway done with this.

44. Play more video games with Corbin - at least talk about it lots.

45. Remember to breath.

46. Call and chat with my sister.

47. Keep in touch with family.

48. Go to an unschooling conference.

49. Get a job to pay for it all.

50. Build a time machine so I can do it all. That or find the time turner Hermione used.

51. Remind myself that this list doesn't have to be done this year.

52. Have fun

53. Enjoy life

54. Knit a sweater for Corbin. He said he wants blues.

55. Help Corbin sew some bags.

56. Blog about the uberlist.

57. Dye fiber in colors that work with the sweaters and things I have so I look less like a crazy yarn lady OR stop worrying about it and embrace crazy yarn lady person.

58. Keep going with the budgeting for the most part it's working.

59. Keep using google calender and getting reminders. It helps with number 2.

60. Budget some money so the kids and do some decorating for their rooms. Things like posters etc.

61. Finish painting bedroom doors.

62. Finish bathroom - fix tile - supposed to be on Stephens list.

66. Keep going to swing dancing with Stephen because it's fun.

67. This list doesn't have to end. I can add more to it all year long and cross things off if I decide it's not something that needs doing.

68. Celebrate Summer Solstice this year. I keep saying I want to do that and don't. It would be a nice balance to our Winter Solstice celebration.

69. Return to Uberlist regularly for inspiration. This is on here twice. That's a good thing.

70. Have people over to do more with fiber with others. - Had a Fiber Day at my house in April.   There was six of us.  We are going to do it again.  Yay!  

71. Be thankful. Express thanks.

added after posting

72. Finish working up spiral sweaters and get the pattern written up too so I can sell it!

73.  Get the garden in shape to do some with it this year.  We cut down some trees so we have more sun. 

Walnuts

About 30 plus walnuts. Steeped over night in about 4 plus pints of hot water from my electric kettle.



Here it is cooking up in the crockpot. The dye liquor was very dark and did not exhaust at all.

The fiber in the bottom left was dyed first with peppermint then overdyed with the walnut. It’s hard to see but it has a touch of green.


Dye notes:

• 30 plus walnuts - poured hot water from the electric kettle about 4 pints
  
• poured the dye liquor into the crockpot the next morning and filled it about 1/2 way.
• Then added the fiber that was soaked overnight with a bit if dish detergent.
• Raised dye bath to 180 deg F and soaked for 2 hours. Let it cool.
• Started at about 10am and rinsed and drying at about 7pm
• There was about 2pints of dye liquor left that still had lots of dye potential left. I have 2 more pints I haven’t even used yet.
• Done in crockpot.

More Walnut dyed yarn. This is some of my very first sock yarn.

Before:

After:

Hand Dyed and Spun Scarf

Lacy Baktus pattern, If you get your google on you should be able to find it online or a search on Ravelry. My handspun corriedale and hand dyed yarn about 3.6oz.

The yarn:

Neon green and neon purple 2 bottles each. Then overdyed green section with 1 iceblue koolaid and 2 of lemonade. Overdyed the purple with 2 grape I think. I'm not sure why I used so much dye with this. I'd like to try this again with less dye.

I really like how this turned out. I used too much dye as it's tuning my hands pink while I knit.

The yarn in it's undyed glory after being washed and whacked:

This is some of my first handspun yarn that I successfully plied, about 358 yards.

Hand Dyed and Hand Spun Mittens for Me!

Lowder Colours Farm Teeswater X

2 ounces - approx. 60 yards
I really like this fiber but the batch I got was either very compacted or somewhat felted because it was hard to draft. It still came out soft and would like to try it again.

Dyed with neon pink and neon blue fool coloring, 1 tsp of blue and 2 of the pink. I now wish I had done 1/2 tsp of each. I dyed it with another larger hank of yarn which turned out more purple, see below. This turned out cherry red, kinda like I use cherry kool aid.

Started with 6 cups water and a glug of vinegar in the bath with the yarn got up to 120 degrees then added yarn. Heat until 180 deg. for 30 minutes. Let cool down then rinsed.

Dyed with neon pink and neon blue fool coloring. 1 ts of blue and 2 of the pink. I now wish I had done 1/2 ts of each. I dyed it with another smaller hank of yarn, see above, which turned out more reddish (kind a like I use cherry kool aid) This one is more purple.

Started with 6 cups water and a glug of vinegar in the bath with the yarn got up to 120 degrees then added yarn.

Yay ! My very first pair of handspun and hand dyed mittens. All for me!

I used up every last bit of the yarn and a tiny bit from another skein in my stash. Since it was purple you can hardly tell. This yarn also turned my hands a bit pink but not quite as bad as the other yarn. It will be interesting when I wear them for a snow fight.

I did a twisted rib for the cuff. Used the pattern I found here. It’s also called a yarn over cable. The pattern is a multiple of 5 sts. I did 8 repeats so I cast on 40sts. Then followed Ann Buds basic mittens. My knit gauge was 6st/inch. I think I followed the pattern for 7st per inch.

Rainbow Sherbet Coin Purses

Materials
Rainbow Sherbet Handspun Handyed Yarn
4.0 mm hook
1/2 inch buttons

Are you a spinner or do you have some aran/heavy worsted yarn in your stash? Then checkout the free pattern here.

Rainbow Sherbet

Sorry not the yummy treat but a fiber treat instead. I card blended some leftover kool-aid dyed roving and spun it up on my Schacht Drop Spindle:



The pink post it notes are for scale and are the mini ones. The color of this photo is not quite right. The yarn it's not as orangy as this photo.

Wound up in a center pull ball.




I tried to ply it on the drop spindle but gave up and did it on my wheel. Plying from well spun singles from a center pull ball is a pain in the patooty!

This last photo is a bit blurry but gives a better idea of the color.

Emerald City Hat

How cool is this. My first knit hat from my very own two ply hand spun with some colorwork no less.



I like and it will keep me warm this winter for sure.

I cast on 80 sts with the size 7 needles then did 1 inch or so of k2p2 rib. Then switched to size 9 needles. I still have some yarn left but likely not enough for another hat unless I spin more yarn about the same weight.

Handspun by me!

My first 2 ply yarn! Before dyeing:


Spun from Merino wool roving on my Ashford Traveller. I didn’t keep good notes on my Z twist singles. Singles spun at 6:1 ratio. I didn't change the ratio for the plying as I didn't know that many do that. The yarn as a whole is a heavy worsted and in some places bulky with 8-9 wraps per inch. I’m not sure if I plied right or not. I found it hard to get the yarn to take up. I let the twist build up in the singles then fed it. So I guess there was some take up but it wasn’t like I thought it would be. I kept repeating that checking everyone once and while to see if the yarn was balanced. I tried to check to see how many revolutions I needed to get the twist I wanted in the ply. It was somewhere between 3-4.

After the dye bath:


So I'm calling this yarn Emerald and Purple City.

Dyeing Method crock pot with 3+ oz of Jacquard acid dye stuff 1/2 yellow and 1/2 blue also included was a skein of Paton's SWS which you can see below.



It's interesting how this took up the dye. It has more of a heathery look to it. It dyed pretty evenly too considering I kept it in the skein then turned it into a hank to dry.

Purple Craze Hat and Scarf Story

First I had roving that I spun into singles:



Then I added dye which created Purple Craze:



Then with my hook I made the Purple Craze Hat and Scarf:



Both are made using a 9mm hook and half double crochet. On the Scarf I crocheted into the the back loop on the front of the work and into the front loop on the back of the loop. I also made a "key hole" so the flower motif acts like a button. The flower was made with my handspun and Elann Luna. I might add some beads to the hat and scarf to bling it up a bit but that will have to happen later as I have lots more holiday yarning to do.