I got my camera back!

Finally! Here are some pics of my hand-dyed wool (which I dyed about a month ago) -- I used the Easter Egg and sun-bake dying method, loosely following Vicki's instructions.

This first one is kind of a Stone Soup color -- you know, use whatever dye is left in the spray bottles and just cover all the wool and the result will be cool. I'm not sure what the spun up result is going to be -- right now the singles are looking a lot like peas and carrots...

This next one is much more of a colorway -- sort of a seashore at dusk kind of thing. I think this is going to look nice. These are both some wool that Janet gave me back when I hung with the Frog Pond gang.



Lastly, displayed by the lovely but often grumpy Mango, is some yarn that I spun out of some of the hand-dyed wool.

Time to Share a Picture We Are Proud of...

Yep yep yep, that's our baby! I am 13 weeks pregnant and due on January 18. We are so psyched and I am so happy to FINALLY be able to share the news with everyone! The ultrasound above was taken at about 9 weeks. We went to the dr. today but we didn't get any take home pics, although we did see the little jumping bean moving all around. It was really, really cool.

Happy news! Happy news!

Live Earth

If you were watching the concert last night -- did anyone besides me wonder why Ann Curry kept punching all of her guests during the interview? She punched Trudy Styler, she punched Anne Thompson and I swore she was going to punch Al Gore, too -- instead she kept grabbing his shoulder. She was way too animated, it was scary -- she was just coming at her victims with her arms flailing and face very very close to them. Ms. Curry is lucky Sting didn't knock her shiny shirt self down with his big bared arms after she punched his wife.


Also, didn't Jon Bon Jovi look a little crabby during his interview with Carson Daly? And Shakira was pretty awful...


And really, Phil Collins looked an awful lot like John Locke...are we sure Genesis doesn't have a new front man?

This is really random stuff but I felt like sharing my thoughts. I'm sure there were more Curry punches and bad performances but I fell asleep before it was over. It's a great cause, but I couldn't help being a bit snarky.

The un-illustrated post

I've been doing LOTS of stuff lately, and I've wanted to share it here. But my camera is broken! Stupid Cannon -- the lens won't retract. I have to find the warranty and get it fixed, because we haven't even owned it for a year. You all will have to settle for a textual description of my activities.

Over the weekend I dyed a bunch of roving using the Easter egg dying method that Vicki described. It was so fun! Now I'm spinning some of it up to see how it all comes together -- plying is my favorite part. It was kind of a colorful experiment -- there's not much rhyme or reason as to which colors are next to each other, but now that I know it works, next time the color combos can be more intentional. The colors came out nice and bright, even after rinsing, which I believe is due to the fact that I mixed the tablets with vinegar only, no water. And I left the roving out in the sun for 2 days before rinsing it. I can't wait to share pics!

Also, we had a little 4th of July party with my cousins, and it was so fun to see all the kids playing together! The fireworks display my brother loosely planned was postponed, since it was raining all afternoon. The weather and an incident with a sparkler and a 2-year-old were enough to make us not mind about the night light display cancellation.

David and I found a couple of houses that we like up in Simsbury, CT (aka the Nutmeg State, for all those who asked) and we're going back to take another looked this weekend. We could be homeowners by the end of the summer!

Now if I could only get my camera back in operation, this would all be so much more interesting to look at...

The Guru's Wedding

This blog has been sorely lacking in knitting/spinning content lately, and there's a good reason for it -- I haven't been doing either of those 2 things at all! We've been so busy traveling around and now getting settled back at work, I haven't had any time to indulge in my favorite hobbies. But that will soon change, I promise -- because I owe the guru some handspun sock yarn as part of her wedding present, and I want to send it to her before she returns from her honeymoon next week. Let's see how far I get with that.

We were in DC this weekend for the aforementioned wedding. It was such a blast. I got to hang out with lots of college friends and lots of the guru's friends I knew from visiting her in various geographical locations (Nepal, DC and Jersey). We had yummy Lebanese food at the wedding, and since the guru is also a veg, the selection was GREAT!

Now we're looking for a house somewhere in the Nutmeg State. I want a big yard so we can have a garden, and Dave wants anything but a raised ranch. I grew up in a raised ranch! Hmmm...

By the way have you read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle? It was really a delightful book, and I don't use that word lightly (or often...or ever). But that is seriously what it was, all about getting more in touch with where our food comes from and the reality of what we eat. I want this woman to be my friend!

Vacation continues

Here's where we are now -- one of my favorite places on earth, Hatteras Island, NC. We used to come here as a family every year when we were younger (my parents still come every summer for 3 weeks!), and I was glad to be able to bring Dave here now. One of his friends got married on the Outer Banks, so it was a perfect place for us to end our vacation. We're staying in Buxton at the Cape Hatteras Bed & Breakfast -- seriously the most wonderful, relaxing, perfectly located b & b I've ever stayed at. We were supposed to stay 3 nights, then we extended to 4, and now 5...you get the picture. But they're booked up after Friday so we have to leave then! 500 ft from the beach (which is too windy to lay on today, so you get a blog post!) Here's Dave & I on the soundside last night, waiting for a table at the Sandbar & Grille (used to be located down the road a bit in Hatteras but Hurricane Isabel destroyed it in 2003). And here's a shot of us strolling on the beach.

We also visited my cousins in Charleston, SC and had a great time playing with their young ones -- but neglected to take a single photo of them (oops!) Prior to SC, we stayed in New Orleans for a few nights. Such a beautiful city. But the areas that were hit by Katrina are extremely sad. I'll post some pics of the devestated homes, but not today, it's really depressing. You can look at Dave eating a beignet instead. Just know that the tourist areas (French Quarter, Garden District, etc.) are fine and welcoming visitors, and the city really, really needs it -- there are areas (like the lower 9th ward) where the houses are 90% uninhabited and almost every other yard has a FEMA trailer in it. If you can get yourself down there, do it, support the city. It's really beautiful.

High rolling to high climbing

Our trip has been varied so far -- we started out in Atlantic City, where I had the best roll of my life in craps (and it wasn't even that good) -- and I managed to win a little money. The secret to winning at craps is to find a table where a little old man, preferably with really thick glasses, has the dice and just bet your heart out -- he'll make the point! Dave had fun too, but ended up in the red so not quite as much fun as me! When we left our cushy AC room in Caeser's, we headed towards Gettysburg, via Pennsylvania Dutch Country. It was so pretty out there, and in the Amish Town of Bird in Hand, we randomly spotted a wonderful spinning and yarn shop called Labadie Looms, which was completely stocked with hand-dyed, hand spun local fibers. I bought some multi-colored locally grown roving to play with, and almost left with some hand cards but managed to resist.

Dave is obsessed with history, and so we had to stop in Gettysburg. We found a monument to Fair Catch Corby, and also stopped at The Gettysburg National Cemetery. It was amazingly peaceful, with tall, wonderful trees (Gingo Biloba, Sassafras, Magnolia, Cypress, Maple, etc., etc.) and birds and just a very respectful place. The battlefield there is huge and within sight of the town, but I was even more moved by the battlefield at Antietam, site of the bloodiest day in US History. It was beautiful -- fields and farms and sheep (yes, sheep!) but spooky for it's pastoral simplicity when you think about what happened there less than 200 years ago. It was so well restored to the time of the battle, it was just too easy to picture the bodies piled in the fields, and the men shooting at each other at close range.

We moved on to Charlottesville, VA, home of TJ's Monticello and UVA -- one of the most beautiful campuses I've ever seen (yes it gives ND a run for its money). Then onto the roughing it part of the trip, when we camped in the Smoky Mountains. We saw a bear sleeping! Not in our campground though...It's amazing to camp out in the middle of a national park, where birds wake you up with the sunrise. So different than the city! The diversity of bird calls is really cool -- you can count the different birds just lying in your tent, listening to their voices -- starting with the owl just before the sun comes up, followed by one after another variety of call.

Next on to New Orleans -- I'm not sure who's more excited about that part of our trip, Dave and I, or Becca and Ryan, who are at this moment excitedly and generously preparing a list for us of what to do, where to eat, drink, etc. in the Big Easy.

Back home again!

I've been a really negligent blogger, but I wanted to post a quick update. Dave & I arrived safely back in CT last Saturday. We were all set for our big 1 month "Out West" adventure, when I had a little mishap -- on the train to NYC on Tuesday, I sliced open my toe and had to go to the ER and get stitches and part of my nail removed. That is exactly as gross as it sounds. So we postponed the trip a bit, and are leaving today -- changing the theme from "Out West" to "Down South". Atlantic City is our first stop, and I'll try to post some updates as we go.

I miss all the Frog Ponders!

Farewell to friends, part 1

Tonight 8 Frog Ponders got together at Fiesta Tapatia for a little goodbye dinner. I can't believe I'm leaving South Bend next weekend. I am really going to miss these women. And I was totally and happily surprised by presents! Janet (the spinning wheel goddess) gave me a home-made dying kit. Carol gifted me with Broad Ripple socks, in a color that made her think of me because it reminded her of avocados. I love that avocados make people think of me! I need to spread that association around a little bit more. Sandy (who is rapidly falling into the spinning vortex with the rest of us -- she was playing with my wheel tonight and I bet she'll have one of her own before the summer's over) gave me a most elegant and classy gift -- a sheep that poops brown jelly beans. Yeah!

I also meant to take a pic of the spinning wheel charm that E! brought me back from Israel, but it, along with the orifice hook that Vicki made me, is attached to my spinning wheel now and I'm having a hard time getting good shots of these. Check out Vicki's blog entry for good pics of the orifice hooks, and get one for yourself, too! Mine has my name on it in beads, it's very cool.

Tomorrow night is the last Bella Vita meet-up I'll be able to attend. So it's goodbye part 2. Really sad. I am completely excited about moving back east and being near my family, but I didn't think it would be so hard to say goodbye. Once again, fiber people rock -- they are an international clan, and you can pretty much find a family member anywhere in the world you look. I'm sure I'll find some black sheep of the family in CT, too -- and they'll be great. But not the same as the friends I'm leaving here, or the ones I left in NYC last year. Anyway, I'm already working on convincing Vicki, E! and Jess to come to Rhinebeck with me -- and I bet a few other froggies could be convinced. And I think the Guru may be talked into it, too. That would be a true convergence of my worlds -- the Guru, the Frog Pond and the NYC SnB ladies, all at the same wonderful fleecey place. I think the planet might temporarily tilt out of orbit or something if that happened...

Spring Is Really Here!

Babies are everywhere!

And David's man crush finally got a job...

How to Wash a Fleece

Subtitled: A backyard full of sheep can't be far behind...

My spinning instructor Pat showed us how to wash a fleece in class, and then sent each of us home with a 1/2 lb of fleece to wash ourselves. I took some pics of my homework assignment in progress so I could create a little tutorial on washing fleece, for those of you who, like me, just want to keep getting closer and closer to the source. So buy a raw fleece from your local shepherd or at the next fiber festival you go to, take it home, and then do this!

Step one...cut a hole in the box.

Okay, really...step one is to fill 2 basins with water as hot as you can stand. You're going to put your hands into this water for a few seconds -- don't be a martyr, just make sure it's hot to the touch. It's hard to be a fiber fiend with 3rd degree burns. Add a little bit of Dawn dishwashing detergent to one of the basins only (the other one is going to be for rinsing), just enough until the water feels a bit slimy (you don't need frothy bubbles). (NOTE: You can use some fancy fleece washing soap if you want, but Dawn is cheap and cuts through the grease quite well!)
Next, take out just enough fleece to fit comfortably into whatever sized basin you are using. You can't wash the whole 4 - 8 lbs at once, unless you have a REALLY big basin. You want the fleece to be able to fit loosely in the basin, not be jammed in tightly.

Put the fleece into the Dawn-tainted basin, and push it down with some authority. Make sure all the fleece is completely submerged, but DON'T agitate it -- that can result in a singularly un-useful felted fleece! Let it soak for about 20 minutes. Then you'll have some really gross-looking water.Now gently, gently gather the wet fleece up against the back of your basin and tilt the basin so that the sheepy water pours out. You can gently squeeze your fleece to get out some more water, and then submerge it into the rinsing basin full of clean water (no soap). Now here is the reason you filled both basins at once -- the rinsing water should have cooled at the same rate as the washing water, and they will both be approximately the same temperature. Significant differences in temperature can result in fleece felting, so if you let the basins cool at the same time, you're golden when it comes time to rinse.Let the fleece soak in the clean water for just a few minutes, and then again gather it up against the back side of the basin and tilt to let the water pour out the other side -- target is minimal agitation of the fleece. Gently squeeze again, to release more water.

Repeat from step 1, re-filling both basins (one soapy, one clean), trying to make the water in the 2 basins the same temperature as the water you just removed the fleece from. In other words, this water will be a little cooler than what you started with on the first wash.

After the 2nd wash and rinse, lay the fleece out flat on a large towel.Gently (do you notice a trend here?) roll the fleece up in the towel and squeeze the towel. If it's big enough, you can even step on it to get the towel to absorb more excess water.
Lastly, lay the fleece out flat on some sort of breezy table-like structure. I used this mini slatted bamboo table, but your best bet is a sweater rack, so that the air can dry the fleece on all sides. Leave the fleece laying out for 24 hours, then flip it over for another 24 hours so that the other side can dry. You might have to let it dry a bit longer, depending on the fleece.Now you're ready to card and spin! But that post will have to wait until I save up to splurge on some wool cards. Right now I'm just using the ones in my class, and it is so relaxing to card. I even spun about half of this self-washed, hand-carded fleece already. Rolags! I love you!

I didn't include any advice on actually choosing your fleece at a Fiber Fest or farm, and that's because I don't have any expertise to share on this. I'm just learning! At the Greencastle fest, I just stuck my hands into every bag of fleece I came across, and finally settled on one that felt great and was affordable. At the very least, your hands will be silky soft from all the lanolin at the end of the day, even if you don't walk away with a fleece. Make sure that whatever fleece you buy is skirted, which means most of the Vegetable Matter has been picked out.

Starting her off young

Sam, this is a sheep. A sheep is a wonderful animal that gives spinners like your Aunt Michelle wonderful fibers to twist into yarn that can be knit into fun clothing for little people like you! Sheep should be treated with respect and NOT eaten. Don't eat the sheep! Pet the sheep, love the sheep, shear the sheep (gently and preferably only in the summer) but don't eat the sheep!!!Watch out -- if you do try to eat the sheep, their bodyguards will get you!

Greencastle!!!

I spent Saturday at The Fiber Event in Greencastle, IN. This was my very first fiber event where I didn't buy ANY yarn! Can you imagine a more deadly sin? But spinning has completely risen to the forefront of my obsession. On the 3-hour drive home, all I could think about was getting back in front of my wheel (she really needs a name, by the way) and letting the fiber slip through my fingers and twist into its new yarn-y incarnation.

I had an awesome day with Jess, who had a pretty wonderful time herself -- she went home with a beautiful Jensen production wheel, named Hazel. She told me I had to either talk her out of it or into buying it, and I told her it would certainly fit nicely into the back of my car. I'm not so good at talking people OUT of buying things, you see. And neither is Jess, by the way. I kept telling her to make sure I didn't buy anything else, and she replied by promptly showing me something else wonderful to buy.

I bought a LOT of multi-colored roving, because I love to see how the colors spin up together. Jess and I picked up our Corriedale x Romney fleece, which came from Lola at Praire Winds Farm and had been processed for us by Wooly Knob Fiber Mill. And I bought a whole fleece! It's from the lovely Alfreda, a Cormo x Border Leicester, almost 5 lbs. after some skirting. I'm going to try to wash and comb it myself...we'll see how far I get with that. But this is the real deal, a sheepy-smelly bag of fleece, freshly sheared off its previous owner.

We stopped at Stitches & Scones on the way home (braving snow and sleet and rain). What a cute store! That's where I redeemed myself, by buying some lucious Malabrigo. I don't know what I'm going to make with it, but once I touched it I couldn't leave without it. I also picked up some Fleece Artist merino roving -- as if I hadn't bought enough fiber earlier in the day.

In spinning class, our instructor, Pat, showed us how to wash a fleece. She gave us some raw fleece to take home and wash before the next class, where we are going to comb it. I washed mine last night, and took lots of pics of the process. I'm going to post a little tutorial with pictures on how to wash a fleece in the next few days.

White Easter

We had about 2" of snow blanketing the ground this morning, and I swear if ONE MORE PERSON comments that it's more like Christmas than Easter, I'm gonna blow!!! Although...are those REINDEER in the front yard? We did have a nice time with David's family, cold or not.

Since my PG friend Phillipa received her package (thanks for the nice note, Phil -- I'm glad you liked it!), I can share pics of the basketweave baby blanket I knit her. Props to Kimberly Chapman's Knitting Gallery for the pattern. It was really basic and simple, but knit up with organic green cotton, the blanket looks very nice and was really soft. Perfect for wrapping up a little baby!

In which MUD goes farther into the vortex...

Now everyone has to die someday (hey, can that really be incontrovertibly proven?), but with the escalating spinning infatuation my day to dye was obviously just around the corner. This is my first attempt, and it won't be my last. I followed the instructions for Kool Aid dyeing on Knitty, and learned a few lessons as I went along. Number one being don't tie off your handspun with hand dyed yarn and then immerse it into a pot of boiling water...you'll get some bleeding. This is most likely destined to be a hat for Sammy or Anika. It's some mixture of 5 packs of pinkish-red flavors. The yarn has a nice slightly variegated look to it (I KNOW green is not a variety of pink. Just try to ignore those parts, please). Do you think the pink will bleed more when I knit and wash it? I boiled it until the water was clear, and then rinsed it forever until the water ran clear, but it still smells kind of fruity...

I think my next plan is to try to dye roving in several colors before I spin it -- it's wicked fun to watch how the colors blend. This multi-colored proposal will involve quite a lot more mess than simply boiling a skein, so I might wait until I can make use of the great outdoors to spatter instead of Kool Aid dyeing the kitchen counters.

Here's a little sock update (Claudine, I'm glad I ripped it back last week no matter how much it hurt at the time...)

This week is a gift!

Someone ordered up a near-perfect week for me after a couple of fortnights from hell. So many things happened to make me happy -- I really don't know where to begin, so chronologically seems like the right way. Well, we can start here, with Jess -- I met her last summer and we instantly bonded.

Last Saturday was the second Frog Pond Fiber Frolic, hosted by the one and only Chocolate Princess. Picture yourself in a room full of friends with wheels and fiber, and hours of un-interrupted spinning. Then, imagine that people start giving you things. Wonderful things you never even asked for, like an expandable hand-made fiber/yarn/etc. bag from Vicki, or massive amounts of free fiber from Liz, or a wonderful cake from E and Jess! These women are the most wonderful spirits in Michiana (and beyond!!!) They all welcomed me into their group, submerged me in the fiber world and I resurfaced as a spinner, really truly spinning wool into yarn! And they never asked for anything in return, just wanted me to be happy. I love them and am going to be so sad when I leave for the east coast in May. Man, am I digressing from the fiber-post at hand, but I can't say enough about these ladies.

So back to the frolic re-cap...Charlotte was there with bags full of Shetland Icelandic cross fiber from her own flock for sale, and I bought a pound of white wool. I was also lucky enough to win Charlotte's door prize of home-grown honey, home-made bath scrub and more fiber! Janet, the spinning wheel guru, solved a tension problem on my wheel with a literal turn of her wrist. My drive band kept on spinning without driving the wheel -- and that's its job, to drive the wheel! I was so frustrated. Janet told me to turn a knob that I had previously thought was just for decoration...and this magic knob raised the flyer and spindle and adjusted the tension and relieved my main wheel problem. By the way, Janet knows a LOT about wheels, and she has a lot of them too, and she's selling some...so if you want to buy a wheel, let me know and I can give you Janet's info. She's the procurer of Charlotte's walking wheel, which I previously posted about.

Beyond the Frolic, the weather has been gorgeous! So much so that Dave & I had to get out of town on Sunday and drive up to Saugatuck, where we wandered the streets wearing nothing but a skirt and a honeymoon cami -- well, that was me, Dave was otherwise attired. The day was so beautiful!

Monday afternoon I headed to NYC for work, and this time I got to go to see my girls at NYC SnB! I stayed with the gracious hostess Claudine, and we did a lot of knitting (and frogging -- well, I did the frogging, Claudine did the convincing...I think I really did need to rip back that sock that had a few too many decreases after the heel flap...although I had the opposite conviction at the time). #1 needles are really really small...I had to buy impersonal metal dpn's because I kept snapping my hand-loving wooden set with my brute strength while knitting. These socks are coming out really nicely now, though, and should fit Dave's feet. Thanks to the guru for the yarn and to Claudine for putting my stitches back on the needle (and for letting me cuddle with Murray).