Update and a Winner

The Shop has been updated with 24 skeins of superwash sock yarn.

Since I got so many great responses to name the bulky electric spinner I couldn't pick my favorite so I decided to enter everyone into a random drawing this morning - and the winner is....

SKYLAR I just went over to her site and her birthday just passed - Happy Birthday Skylar...what a coincidence! Email me to claim your prize!

Scant little knitting has been done around here lately but a lot of spinning and dyeing has. They dyeing you can check out on the sales page - I've got a lot of new colorways - I've got to change up every now and again so I don't get bored with doing the same colors over and over again. Although some colorways are just too popular to not do - like Chocolate Covered Cherries!

This is the new way I've been dyeing a lot of my roving - I used to do a lot of saran wrap sausages and then steam them but it's way too time consuming when you are trying to dye 8 oz to a pound at a time. This way is much faster and you get great results. Both of these roasting pans were done similarly but a little different. The pre-soaked fiber was first randomly placed in the pan trying not to overlap much the with the orange one I squirted the dye in sections the covered the whole thing with foil to keep the steam in and put it in the oven for 45 min at 340 degrees. I added a little more water to the Blue and purple then covered it and stuck it in the oven - after about 20 min I took it out and squirted dye on it - this I think is called the hot pour method and I love it. The dye strikes the fiber immediately right where you squirt it...I think I can get great results from this method with more practice!

I've also got some spinning done:

From left to right is a green merino and sparkle supercoil, Multicolored Optim plied with a thread and lurex sparkle, Spring colored Merino plied with a rayon thread and sparkle, Two ply merino with sparkle in pink, and Natural Fawn Alpaca plied with rayon and gold sparkle lurex. These are Giant skeins each over 150 yards except for the pink one. They are all spoken for but these are the styles I've been spinning up lately.

Ohh take a look at this here is a comparison of bobbins

again from left to right a regular louet bobbin which holds about 6 oz, a bulky louet bobbin, and the babes bulky electric bobbin...Whoa baby that thing is huge!!! I LOVE IT!

Car update - the insurance paid off the remainder of the bank note since we were still financing and we only got 1,000 back. With that and what we had available to us we went out and bought a 2001 Dodge Stratus. So far so good, it's a nice car and very roomy. The best part about it? It's not on the stolen lists!

Finally some breathing time! and a Contest!

Ok, so I haven't posted in over a week - getting close to 2 weeks (have you missed me??)- don't delete me from bloglines just yet! I've been busy but I have been taking pictures so I'll get ya all caught up in photos - here we go.

Last week I had the pleasure of meeting the lovely lolly - she really is lovely and so sweet! I met Lolly and Carrie (I'm always happy to get a chance to hang with a fellow spider!) We went right for the yarn and took a stroll over to School Products - Here is a great picture of Lolly and Carrie in front of a full color spectrum of yarn - very fitting!
From there we got a bite to eat. I wish we had more time to hang out - we'll have to plan another get together soon ladies! Maybe at Sheep and Wool??

Here is proof that yarn is officially taking over my apartment it has escaped from the craft room and is thinking of starting it's own blog! Don't worry I've remedied this and shot down the mutiny by sending most of these unruly skeins off to Kpixie for relocation! Take that yarn - you will never get the best of me...bwahahaha

Please welcome the newest member of my spinning family - He's a bit on the chunky side which makes him even cuter. This big baby is a Babes Bulky Electric Spinner with electric skeinwinder attached. Don't worry I haven't neglected my little Gooch the Louet - she gets plenty of action when I spin silk! So what should I name the Bulky Spinner? Any suggestions? Free skein of Brooklyn Handspun Superwash to the winner...come on I know you can get creative...

Last but certainly not least my SP7 sent me some fabulous gifts. There are earrings, pins, stickers (hmm I'm thinking she is from london!!!) some Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn and the creme de la creme - one ounce of Cashmere! It's soo soft - I've never spun cashmere and I have a feeling I'm going to have to buy more of this stuff! I'm loving the luxury!

I'm off to catch up on the 400 new posts on bloglines that I've neglected - if you haven't heard from me in a while don't worry I'm back - and will be commenting away!

Update time!

The Shop has been updated - go take a look!

Ok I can't belive I haven't blogged at all this week...well I do have a lot on my plate right now...you wanna see the state of my craft room?

this was taken a few days ago - it's much much worse now!


I don't have time for an indepth post but here is something for you to laugh at - me as a soildier in the first act of the Opera -

As you can see Soldiers costumes are not normally made for busty gals like myself!

More to come soon!

Performance time!

Sorry I've been such a poor blogger as of late but it's time for another Opera. This weekend will be the first performances of L'Elisir D'Amore! I'm having a great time, although I'm stretched a little thin and feeling just a tad of stress. Hopefully I'll have pictures of the show on Monday to show everyone.

Considering the above, I really haven't had much time to knit but I did get a little spinning done.
Here is a sorbet handpainted merino 2 ply with, of course, some sparkle lurex thrown in. I've still got about 2.5 pounds of dyed fiber to spin up so there will be plenty of pictures to post. I've also spun up some plain tussah silk that I will be dyeing. This stuff is so soft...like buttah. I'm thinking dark burgundy with some purple thrown in maybe a little olive green...we'll see what happens when I get to the dyepot! I've got about 3 more lbs of of this, so you'll be seeing silk a lot.