Random thoughts with minor craft relatedness

I can't even think of how to begin this entry. The last few months have been sucktastic at the highest level. Lotsa junk. I had a stinkin' flu for like 2 1/2 weeks before I had to go to the ER and get a breathing treatment. I was barely up to doing daily stuff w/o sweating and breathing like I ran a marathon. It was stupid and I am glad I'm finally better. Still have to take maintenance inhaler which sucks, but ah well at least I can live normally again.

A cool thing happened though. I discovered legal crack. Yep it comes in the form of a Starbuck's Chai Tea Latte'. It is seriously my crack. I begin to plan when I can have it, I think about it when I don't have it. I'm giddy when I get it. Okay maybe it's not quite that bad, but it's pretty darn good! I also found that it's just a box of tea (Tazo) that you can buy in the store for around $5 instead of 3 1/2 for a cup. So I make my own crack now. It's awesome. Try it if you haven't. I'm almost convinced they put something in it. LOL

Now one more thing before craft stuff. WHAT THE HECK??? Cirie and CHET are still there????? I cannot believe anyone would listen to her. And she's so super smug about "controlling" her tribe!! And the blond from the "outcasts" who keeps Chet around. Why????? She's clearly digging her own hole there. UGH even Ozzy, who up until now, I thought was a really smart player. Why didn't they keep Joel? Get rid of him in the merge, but man he's needed for brute force. WHY OH WHY would they listen to her?? She knew she's next. I don't care for Joel's lack of compassion about dragging Chet, but he [Chet] gives up every time it's tough! Clearly Ozzy's judgment is clouded by his hormones. Which is another @@ moment. I had high hopes for Yauman and they got rid of him, I had thought I'd support Ozzy. Now I hope the little blond ice cream scooper kids wins. He's the only one that doesn't seem so arrogant. I think the "favs" are getting big heads. Big question is , why do I care? LOL

Crafty stuff. I love me some poppets. I don't even know when it happened but now I'm slightly obsessed with them. Still knitting. Did a super awesome hat recently. But I had to hurry and ship it and as usual I forgot to take a picture. It's the Transformer Toque. You can find the link in my Ravelry account I think. If not then look at Craftster. The lady who made up the pattern is a genius, and if I wasn't so lazy I'd find her name. I'd say I'll find it and put it up, but...yea. It was fun and I made it with baby alpaca. MMMM alpaca.

I got a couple of lbs. of fiber from Sheep Shed and some from Babetta's recently. Fun fun.
Here's some stuff I've done recently. All the stuff being shown has come to me via swaps. Can you say Craftster love??? yeah. The black/pink is about sock weight. I spun it from some lovely rolags sent to me by Raynbow. The other came from Astormorray. The middle rope is mohair. It's wonderful! I'm combining it with some angelina and some rust colored roving.

Catching up!

I have been falling behind on my blogging, it's no wonder nobody reads it. So without further adieu here is a monster "look what I've done" post.

My wheel, I've named him Wylie. Sitting there on his lazy-kate is my first navajo plied yarn. I love my wheel!

Next, my yarns. I'll just add the group shot, if you want closeups you can look at my crafster posts.

I suppose the picture loading isn't working right for me, oh well.

A couple of pics of Lola, hem still unfinished. One closeup of the necklace and belt. I loves me the belt!

The last pic is a sweater (aka the five hour sweater) I made for a friend's baby shower. I ran out of yarn and couldn't find anymore of the purple so I got the bright idea to add some fur to the ends of it. It went over well.

Yessssssssssss!!!

:::Insert maniacal laugher and odd jerky movements some might recognize as the "happy dance"::::: Oh yes indeed I am happy. Happy doesn't even begin to cover it really. I'm ecstatic, overjoyed, a little insane maybe. I GOT MY WHEEL. Oh yes my friend, I will have a wheel soon. Thanks to my honed stalking abilities, and also to the fact I can "hold it" for 45 minutes while fighting with some other person who thought they would snipe MY wheel in the last 20 minutes. Oh no, not MY wheel she won't! Okay so I'm slightly dramatic. I'm pretty darn excited. I've had "wheel fever" for while now, but this dutch company on ebay keeps selling them so cheap with hand carders, a lazy kate and even a skein winder. I won a Louet s60. squee! I wish they had a "get it now" button, kinda like the "buy it now" one. That would be sweet. Now I have to wait two weeks. Who knows what kind of madness may ensue over at Sheep Shed or the various etsy shops now that I know I will have a wheel. My LYS is getting silk hankies and more dyes. Okay, I'll quit ranting but this was news that couldn't wait! I'll post pics when I get it. Along with the pics of Lola's outfit if I ever finish it. ha.

Woo!

Alrighty then, I know I am officially a dork. I got my ravelry invite and now must decide to play on it or go to bed so I can get to church at a decent time. I don't currently even know all about what I can do on ravelry. I know there's a chat room. A CHAT ROOM for knitters!! (and Crocheters I hold love in my heart for both!) can you believe it. Though it seems slow, probably because everyone is knitting and has not figured out how to type with their face. (I personally find this a hysterical visual! A bunch of crazy fiber enthusiasts with busy hands bashing their faces into their keyboards and looking hopefully at their screen to see if they formed actual words...) Okay it's late. I'm tired but oh so excited. It's like sitting at the cool kid's table! LOL

I am in fact a clutz and a slacker

Okay, so I bet you're wondering why I would say that?? Well, first, cause it's true. I don't know if I fractured my ankle or sprained it really bad yesterday. Why is that a big deal you say? Because I was jumping off my fireplace ledge. LOL Don't ask...

Why then am I a slacker? Because I've failed miserably at my hopes to compete in Tour de Fleece. No I wasn't doping...just dopey! LOL I started off strong. I blame it on the purple beast. I had to break from it, dig out another spindle and dye some Bombyx silk to keep from going mad. Then life just got crazy. I haven't spun in like two days. The silk is lovely tho. When I can find my camera batteries ( I think they're in my cd player) I'll take a pic of it. It turned out nice w/lots of green, brown, orange, and as a nod to the Tour yellow. Though the brown and green seemed to swallow up all the other colors. Oh and wait'll you see how Lola's been dressed! ( my dress form) I got this pattern I'll edit in the number when I'm feeling less lazy, that is a totally cute 50's style dress. And it's done in a cherry pattern! I love cherries. And a big red patent leather belt! I'm in love! I just need the right shoes and jewelry! Anyway, more later.

Tour de Fleece

Okay, so it's taken me forever to start the blog I said I was going to do. I haven't had nearly as much time as I had hoped. Nor did I win the wheel I was bidding on. >:-( . I really thought I had it. Sigh...Oh well. I'm getting better on my drop spindle anyway. I have tons of purple roving. That's what I'm spinning right now. Thing is, I don't like purple. My mom is uber obsessed w/it tho, so I'm going to ply it with something lavender and make her socks for Christmas. I'm sick of purple but I have 3/4 lb , maybe less. I have lots of Sheep Shed Studio's mill ends in red tones, I love it. I may order some black so I can ply it for something for me. What I don't know, maybe something done in entrelac. I also am considering joining Spunky Eclectic's fiber of the month club. I've seen lots of beautiful stuff come from there. I want it. LOL.
So here's the purple stuff.

Yay!

I'm so excited! naelany helped me out! I needed bar thingies. I got 'em! Woot! (does anyone say that anymore? If not all the better! Why be normal??) I am beginning to like crafty blogs. Unfortunately the only crafting I'm doing is for swaps. And it would kind of give away what I was doing.

I can talk about the handspun swap a bit though. I am rather please with how things are turning out. And it's kind of weird to be able to say what I'm working on. And it just so happens that I was in my LYS and bought a bunch of roving! 1lb!! And how very fortunate for me that it was in some colors my partner would like. But that's all I have to say about that.

On a side note, I've been teaching needle arts (primarily knitting) to a bunch of kids at my kid's school. I love it so much. I'm sad that Friday was the last day. :*( But the cool part is, well there are two cool parts. #1 I get to go back next year. I will miss the girls I taught tho. Esp this one girl I'll call Sam. She was funny and different. She reveled in it though. She had a really dry sense of humor. Every time I saw her it seems she had needles and yarn in her hands! And this other littler girl, I can't even remember her name. She had SUCH a hard time knitting. The first session she actually left with her yarn in knots and in tears. It broke my heart. She was the youngest. 3rd grade I think. So the next session I sat with her the whole time. The next time I saw her she had used up all the yarn we gave her and made her mom go buy her some more. She had completed MOST of a scarf. In a week's time. Someone who the week before didn't even know how to knit. Gives me warm fuzzies. All the girls had made something by the end of teh 6th week. Most scarves, some more than 2! Okay #2 I got flowers (that were gorgeous!) a thank you card from the teacher (who was super nice) that I worked with and the students, some gorgeous wool yarn, cotton yarn, and a gift card to Joann's!! Right before a big sale! Can it get much better??? I can't wait for next year!