Eye Candy Friday

Handspun and plied on my Ashford Joy. My first complete skein! A little on the bulky (and slightly inconsistent) side, but that's fine by me.

Random Thursday

What better way to ease back into the blogging thing than a Random Thursday! Here's a look back at the last few months...

• Nice horsey outside the sugar house.

Visiting sugar houses during the Whitingham Maple Festival

• What's the best way to ruin a pair of sneakers? Walk through the snow/slush/mud of early mud season, of course!

• Nothing like spinning by the fireplace in a wonderful Vermont inn...

April knitting weekend in Vermont

• Hanging out at the old watering hole (which has since been renamed and under new management) with Punkin.

Monday open mike night at Bartini, Babylon Village

• The unbearable cuteness of Lily...

...even when she on guard duty!

Tour de Fleece update

It took me a few days to actually grab the camera (I'm so bad), but here are some pix of my progress on the wheel side of Tour de Fleece.

I started out with this on Saturday...


And as of today I have this...

Not quite four ounces, but close. Still a bit over spun, but not too bad. And the best part--by spinning every day I'm getting more and more comfortable with the wheel! Better control, more confidence, and definitely sucking a little less every day!

I am getting a little bored with the white though. Once I get done with my bankruptcy class I'm going to dye a couple of batches for practicing--both wheel spinning and fiber dyeing.

Unfortunately I can't take the wheel with me this weekend. I've got a Rev War reenactment, and my lovely wheel is just not period appropriate. However, my Bossies will be right at home, so the spinning will continue!

Tour de Fleece

The timing of this couldn't be more perfect...

I'm taking the opportunity to really work on significantly improving my wheel spinning skills by taking part in this years Tour de Fleece. My goal--to spin every day, primarily on the wheel, and on those days when the wheel is unavailable I'll spin with a spindle. (Ms. Moosie, to be exact.)

And so far, I've spent time on the wheel every freakin' day!!! And not only have I spun every day, I'm actually starting to suck less! Woot!!!

I don't have any pictures yet to show you, but I'll try to get some during the day tomorrow.

I'm having a wheely good time...

Sorry, but I just couldn't resist that pun...

Looky what I got today!

That's me, alright, spinning some basic white wool top on my new (to me) Ashford Joy. Yup, mine--not a loaner. Thanks to my spinning agent, Punkin, and Rosie, the previous owner of this wonderful wheel, she's mine all mine!

Isn't she lovely?


Single treadle, which suits me just fine.

And after a little shaky start, my spinning started to even out.

Some of that is Punkin's handiwork. (Of course, she had to try it.) I will definitely be needing more work with it, but I think I got some potential here to not suck too much at it.

Even Punkin's Lendrum welcomed the wheel into my life. My Joy just might be her new BFF--after Punkin, of course.


Being that I only got her late this afternoon, she doesn't have a name yet (nor did she previously have one). We'll see how she feels about it as we spend time together, but for now she will simply be called my Joy!

Eye Candy Friday -- the Happy Hour Edition

Cheers from Ms. Moosie!

My Moosie has arrived!

You know, I ought to be sleeping. After all, I have my last project management class bright and early this morning. But...

Would you want to sleep if you just received this?

Part of the March herd. I was lucky enough to receive my first choice in whorls:

26 g, 1.825" whorl
Gray, heavy mauvey mottles,
nibbles, gray-green undertone,
peppery speckles

This lovely Moosie has a Kingwood shaft.

And yes, in just minutes we have bonded. I [heart] my Moosie!

Moosie and I are heading up to Vermont this weekend, so there will be more pictures of Moosie in her natural element.

A very special delivery!

What a week for deliveries! First was the timely delivery of a textbook for my new Wednesday night paralegal class (Elder Law). Then my lovely Fibership made her way home with a big beautiful batt of fabulous fiber...

And today, the bestest delivery of all should take place--my very own Bosworth Moosie Spindle!!! Words cannot begin to express how thrilled I am, especially since I was supposed to be part of the July herd. (Thank you, Sheila, for the bump up!) When I checked Thursday afternoon, my Moosie was making a pit stop at a postal service facility in Bethpage. I'm so hoping that I'll find a well-rested Moosie waiting for me when I get home from work today. Fingers crossed...

And before anyone gets the wrong idea, there will be pictures.

Lots of pictures... :-)

Eye Candy Friday

From Grafton Fibers--a Fibership spindle (freshly notched--Thank you, Linda!) resting on a gorgeous Grafton Fiber batt.

This makes me very, very happy!

Leaning over the rabbit hole...

Punkin's been after me for a long time now to learn how to spin on a wheel. Kept telling me that both of us were going to learn how to spin and both of us were going to buy wheels. I resisted, preferring to stick with my spindles (once I started getting the hang of it). She joined our local spinning group, rented a wheel at her first meeting, and about a week later bought herself a Lendrum.

Yesterday I went over her house for the first time since the Lendrum arrived. She made me take my shoes off and sit down at the wheel. She brought out a ball of green roving, got it started for me (after I repeatedly botched it up), and then let me have at it...

A little lumpy here...

...well, that's a little less lumpy...

Gee, look at what I got...

Not sure how many ounces that was, but it kinda doesn't suck.

And... once I finally realized that you don't necessarily have to draft and twist at the same time (which is what I thought you had to do), this was actually pretty enjoyable.

Now, this does not mean that I'm gonna run out right now, at least and buy myself a wheel. Not anytime soon. But... things may be different come festival season--after I get my Moosie...

Less knitting, more spinning

What's more mindless than a stockinette sock? Why, a little spindle spinning...

My new Grafton Fibers FiberShip, purchased at Foxfire Fiber's Open Studio/Barn event on Saturday. (The fiber I'm spinning on it is some of the Jacob that I had left from Rhinebeck.)

This weekend I finished spinning up the BFL that I bought at Rhinebeck. Slowly but surely my spinning is getting more even. See...

That's 3.3 ounces of singles there. Spun with my Golding Tsunami, which I have renamed The Big Kahuna (all 1.9 ounces). I'll have to see what the yardage is, but I'm pretty sure it's around 70-80 or so.

What am I going to knit with it? I have no idea. Right now it just really pretty to look at and touch.

Oh well, time to catch some sleep. More on my visit to Foxfire Fibers later...

Yes, I'm still alive...

I know, I haven't blogged in a really long time, which makes me a very bad blogger. And there's all sorts of stuff that I've been wanting to blog about but haven't, which makes me a really suckie blogger. Especially since it's NaBloPoMo, which I was going to do again, but since I've missed the first nine days of the month I've blown that too. Sigh...

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I've got a lot going on at work right now. Like two huge projects that are full time jobs by themselves. And then there's my paralegal classes, and I'm already behind on work there because of problems getting the textbooks and, of course, the work stuff.

Don't even ask about the knitting. It's been replaced with studying (or dozing) on the train.

So, for the next few weeks there won't be much posting. I'll do what I can--maybe a picture or two--but it may be a while.

I'll leave you with a picture of the one thing that I've been able to do in really tiny doses--spinning!


This is some BFL roving I got at Rhinebeck. I'm using the Bosworth mini (Walnut) I got at the Franklin Fiber Twist last year. Little by little I'm getting the hang of it. And I'm really liking it...

Look what I'm making...

...from a couple of my Rhinebeck toys.

It's pretty lumpy, but I think I'm getting the hang of it.

And I keep picking it up to play with it. Looks like the beginnings of a new obsession hobby, yes?

Fetching progress

The nice thing about a small project is that it doesn't take a whole lot of knitting time in order to see a little progress. Three days ago this is what I had done.

As of this morning, I've got this.

All that's left are the thumbs and weaving in the ends. Can I get a WOO and a HOO? Unfortunately, I won't have the time to finish them before tomorrow's classes unless I can pull a couple of written assignments out of my butt, but I will have them for my Sunday class after the Thanksgiving break.

I have to say that the flash picture doesn't really do the yarn justice. The color is much lovelier in natural light, and the stitch definition--even lovelier! I'll take some proper pictures over the weekend.

Just one more thing before I get back to my books--I upgraded to a new cell phone this weekend. Nothing ultra fancy, but it does have a camera in it. And you know what that means--stealth photo ops! All I need is a USB cable, but then watch out world!

About that "to do" list...

Here's what's left from that delusional lovely to do list I made on Friday:

• Insulate 12 4 windows.
• Fill holes and cracks around the house with that expanding foamy insulation stuff.
• Replace doors sweeps.
• Mow grass. (Damn! It's still growing! Even with this cold!)
• Prepare membership lists for LHA's annual meeting (which is tomorrow in Deerfield).
• Finish reading assignment for Litigation class; re-read pages.
• Read four cases. Write 30-minute essay about them for Litigation class. (Time limitation imposed by the instructor so we won't obsess about them and will concentrate on the reading assignments.)
• Write demand letter for Legal Writing class.
• Finish citation assignment for Legal Research class.
• Go into town for a little food shopping.
• Replace screens in storm doors with glass inserts.
• Pick up mail at post offices.
• Make dinner for my betrothed.

Uh... yeah. That's a done list, alright. :-(

Actually, that was the list as of Saturday morning when I left the house. I did most of the school stuff when I got back to L.I. Saturday night. (Not all of the reading assignments, though.) So here's what that list really looks like:

• Insulate 12 4 windows.
• Fill holes and cracks around the house with that expanding foamy insulation stuff.
• Replace doors sweeps.
• Mow grass. (Damn! It's still growing! Even with this cold!)
• Prepare membership lists for LHA's annual meeting (which is tomorrow in Deerfield).
• Finish reading assignment for Litigation class; re-read pages.
• Read four cases. Write 30-minute essay about them for Litigation class. (Time limitation imposed by the instructor so we won't obsess about them and will concentrate on the reading assignments.)
• Write demand letter for Legal Writing class.
• Finish citation assignment for Legal Research class.
• Go into town for a little food shopping.
• Replace screens in storm doors with glass inserts.
• Pick up mail at post offices.
• Make dinner for my betrothed.

OK. That's a little better. The house stuff will have to wait until my next visit, or maybe Jim can do one or two things. (He has his own big list of stuff to do, so we'll see.)

At least my trip wasn't all house work and meetings. I went to the Franklin Fiber Twist for an hour!

Jim even came with me! Doesn't he look thrilled?

Seriously, he was just kidding. He was OK with it. And if you look closely, you can see he's carrying something...

Nearly 6 ounces of Coopworth roving (plant dyed--madder and cochineal) from Woolies of Shirkshire Farm and a new Journey Wheel drop spindle! (It's mine, not his--didn't want anybody confused.)

Aren't they beauties? Now if I can just learn how to use it properly...