My name was on the silver screen tonight

My DD was only 4 when The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship first came out in theaters. Needless to say she's never seen it in the theater. She's watched our DVDs countless times, but she's never seen it on the big screen.

Tonight, after saving up (12.50/ticket x4 = 50 bucks) she took the whole family to the special, one night only theater screening of the extended version with a new opener with Peter Jackson.

We are all huge LOTR fans in this house so this was a big deal for us. Especially me, who was kept in the dark about the whole thing until we got to the theater.

When the movie was over we all sat there waiting for my name to show up on the screen. We waited and waited and....I missed it. Yep, the kids saw it but I didn't catch it in time. Oh well. I know I was there and we all had a wonderful night out together. That's what matters.

There's still The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. She's saved up all the money for all of our tickets for all three movies. I love it that my daughter is as much a fan girl as I am. (Not to mention very generous)

tdf

Oh My God, I just joined Tour de Fleece's rookie and spindle teams.
What the heck was I thinking? Now I have to wash an entire fleece, card that and the rest of the coopworth before the 2nd of July.
That means little to no spinning until that gets done. ; (

Someone please tell me this was a good idea. This isn't something I should be panicking over, right?

eta: Well now I've done it. I've added the spinners study team. It'll be a good excuse to get through all those breed samples I've been hording, and it'll keep me from being bored by spinning only 2 kinds of wool in 20 days.

Goals:
Spin every day of the tour using a spindle.
Spin all of the coopworth (gray and white) into 3 ply yarn for the area rug.
Spin the merino/targhee fleece
Spin several samples of breeds I've not worked with before.
Extra challenge - Spin a good, well balanced, 2ply lace weight yarn. I'll have plenty of practice with all of that merino/targhee fiber yumminess.

6-19 eta:
I joined the Phat Fiber team after realizing that my original goals were way beyond what I could comfortably handle. After a week of doing nothing but washing wool, I still have to comb it all and get it ready and I'm just not going to be able to do that. So, new goals:
Spindle team: Spin everything on a spindle.
Spinner's study team: Spin as many of those 4oz samples as I can.
Phat Team: Spin as much phat fiber as I can get through.

Phew, now I might be able to relax a little bit.

Live and Learn

I've been on a roll this week. I spun up Beesybee's 100% merino Fossil colorway and Fiber Fancy's 100% Falkland in Tiger Swallow Tail colorway.

I had a high learning curve. I'd never drafted and spun 100% merino before, I learned a new way of plying, and I've never INTENTIONALLY spun a chunky yarn.


I took this fiber (shown half spun and half waiting)

divided it in half, and spun each half on a drop spindle (Ashford student spindles), then I wound them together into a plying ball (thank you Abby Franquemont of Respect the Spindle), and plied them together into 174 yards that falls around the DK/light worsted and sport weight.

I knew it would barber pole but I thought I could manage that much better than I was able to. Most of the lavender color is solid while the rest of the colors poled. I love the lavender color but in hind sight I'd rather have pulled that color out to spin by itself because I also love the poling colors, just not with the lavender. What I really should have done was to wait until I'd learned how to Navajo ply this. Live and learn.

What I did learn though, was that I want to get some of this blue and some green and spin them separately with white. I love that look. Also, this is the most uniform spinning I've gotten so far, as sad as it is to say that. It's over spun in places but I can forgive that since I learned a new trick. Usually when I ply, I let the spindles roll around on the floor as I ply them together, using my feet to keep them from tangling. The cats just LOVE days like this. I've tried using the lazy kate that came with my spinning wheel, but quickly found that that is only good for holding yarn. I've also tried making my own out of Kleenex boxes and that never really worked well either. My plying has always been uneven and nothing to write home about. While it's still nothing to write home about, it's much more even this time using the plying ball method.

It's over plied but, as mangled as this yarn looks, I'm pretty proud of it. Live and learn.

While I was drafting this fiber out (and I wish I had taken a picture of it first because it was yummy), it told me it wanted to be spun chunky. I agreed since I really don't have any chunky yarns. I tend to spin as finely as I can. I divided the fiber in half and lightly drafted it out and spun it and plied it up in one evening. I didn't even try to keep the colors together, just let them fall where they may. This yarn is soft and squishy and yummy. I have no idea what I'll do with it. I didn't measure it, but there's not much there since it's chunky. I love to play with it though because it's so squooshy.

The only thing I'm disappointed in is that the red ran when I washed it. Oh well, live and learn.

I think I've decided what I want to do with my phat phiber samples. I love the idea some people have of spinning them up and making a samples blanket. I think I've said this before but, I'm really not so much in love with knitting, so I've decided to use my small wooden hand looms and weave a samples blanket.

Here are two squares of North Star Alpacas 25% suri, 75% Huacaya in the April phat fiber color Scarab. I've said before how much I love this yarn. It's so soft and the colors are gorgeous. She gave a generous 20 yards sample so I still have enough left to make the 3rd sized square too. Not much with the learning on this one, just the living.

100% Merino by beesybee

Where does the time go?

It's been more than a month since I last posted?
Where does the time go?
Let's find out.

I did some spinning

crocheted a little

took a nap or two

enjoyed a little light reading

helped throw a "Free Loki" party

cleaned the frog tank

enjoyed the (very few) days of no rain

and some of the wet days as well

and was kept in very good company



How did your month go?

Phat Fiber Fun

I got my mixed box today.
The fluff

The yarn

The stuff

So much fun crammed into one little box. I had tried for a fluff box but couldn't get one so I'd thought I'd settled for a mixed box. Wrong. There was no settling. I love the mixed box. I'm spending too much on larger portions and some things that I didn't happen to get in this box. Next month I will have to hold back and not go nuts with the shopping because the month of June is science fiction and there will be no stopping me then.

Some of my favorites from this box are:
North star alpacas
Scarab color way. I didn't think I wanted yarn in this box but this sample is amazing.

There are more yarns I'd buy if I didn't spend all my money on fiber.

Bitsy Knits
Blue Morpho

And The Critter Ranch's
Monarch

There's lots more that I love in there but I've had to turn the light on to see it all and now the tree frogs are all upset. They thought they could take a quiet dip in their water dish by moonlight and now I've turned a spot light on them. They are very embarrassed and would prefer I turned the light back out, so you will just have believe me when I say HURRAY for phat fiber sampler box butterflies and flutterbys!

Fulfillment Friday

Things accomplished this week include:

Three more rows added to Fugly

I'm not looking forward to weaving in all those ends. It's gotten wide enough now that it gets used, so I only get to work on it on warmer evenings.

Combed llama (left), combed merino/targhee (center), and more mohair washed and awaiting picking


More merino/targhee goodness washed and waiting to be picked and combed


Samples spun, more fiber and yarn cataloged


Gee. When I look at it like this it looks like I actually got something accomplished!