tdf day 5

This is beautiful in person but it's a slow spin.

More 'war wounds!'

Cara has been combing wool with me while I spin. This is what happens when you drop the comb.
Tomboy toes!

Watched: lots of classic VH1 stuff and Ferris Bueller.

tdf day 4

Very slow start to today's spinning. I slept in (after staying up until 3 with the kids watching Dr Horrible extras) and took to long posting and trying to keep up with boards.

This is The Critter Ranch's Monarch colorway in merino/tencel.

I decided to take pictures of the 'paper cuts' the Romney gave me because this is all about documenting my first Tour de France. They aren't healing because they were put there from the motions of plying, so plying the Black Welsh just tore them up again.

Have you ever tried to take pictures of your own hands?

With a dumb ass camera

That never wants to FOCUS

There. Documentation of my 'war wounds'.

Watched: Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog (I really have to take that remote away from my daughter ; ) a show about I band but I can't remember who it was, Whoe's Line old school marathon.

tdf day 3

..and I'm losing my mind.
I posted this last night but apparently I forgot to hit save.

Black Welsh plied

I love naturally colored wool and this is a deep deep black. Even the tips were black.

I bought 4oz of raw wool from the Spinning Loft, washed it up, and hand carded it into rolags. The VM fell out of it very easily.

The little white fibers you see among the Black Welsh are from my stupid idea to wash black and white wool together. I have at least 20- 4ounce samples of wool so to save time, and my brain, I washed a bag of black in the same sink as a bag of white so I could easily tell them apart. As you can see, that is not a good idea. I was picking long white fibers out of this stuff all the way through.

This stuff sheds like mad. It's been very hot and humid here and I had little bits of Black Welsh all over my hands, arm, lap, clothes, floor.... It got everywhere. It was like getting a hair cut and not washing the little cut bits off your neck. Only I had them stuck all over me. If you're going to try to spin this fiber do it in the winter or at least in air conditioning.

I spun 2 singles on spindles and then plied them. I ended up with roughly 150 yards of sport weight yarn.

I picked this fiber as my first raw to yarn sample for the Spinner's Study because of it's color. I love naturally colored fibers and was instantly drawn to this one because it was such a uniformly jet black. After spinning it I'm not so fond of it. I still love the color, but the wool isn't all that fun to work with (see shedding), and the finished product is course and scratchy. This yarn could be used for rug or needle point but I certainly wouldn't want a pair of mittens made from it.

Watched: a show on Tom Petty, a Walton's marathon, Silence of the Lambs, Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog (we love that movie in this house), and Shutter Island.

eta: Black Welsh yarn picks up any and all stray cat hairs, passing dust, and random dust bunnies like the plague.

tdf day 1 and 2

Day 1

Into the Whirled's June club. Romney 4oz "cerulean Dreams."

I spun a total of 20 hours that day. Cara stayed right along beside me combing and carding the freshly washed wool that I plan to spin for A Spinner's Study.

Two singles rolled into a plying ball and the beginning of plying. I took this picture at 11:50. Just in time to post it to the tdf day one thread. Cara and I worked for 3 more hours after this picture to get it plied.

It tried to ply itself.

It fuzzed up and created balls of fuzz that chain linked the two ply's together.
After many failed attempts, swearing, hysterical exhausted laughter, and paper cuts, we decided to call it a night at 3am.

Netflix and DVD's watched: Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog (3rd watching), Dr Horrible's extras, A Hard Days' Night (? watching), a bunch of episodes of Fraggle Rock (2nd watching), Styx in concert, Simon & Garfunkel documentary, M*A*S*H documentary, tried to watch Legend but couldn't stomach it, and listened to Dr Horrible's cd several times.


Day 2

I slept in, then started plying again. It took me somewhere around 3 or 4 more hours to get this mess plied. My fingers are covered in rug burns and cuts but it got finished.

160 yards of 2 ply Romney.
(entered in Phat Fiber, Spindle, and Spinner's Study teams)

Started on some Black Welsh for the Spinner's Study team.

Watched: Fraggle Rock, Styx.. and something else?

TDF day 1

I spun from 8:30am until nearly midnight with only two breaks for meals.
This is Into the Whirled's June fiber club. Romney 4 oz spun into 2 singles and just started to be plied. I had to take a picture of it at this stage so I could enter it in today's thread.

expletives go here beacuse I'm really hating the human race today

So for TDF you have to either downsize your photos or put them in a collage. I tried signing up on flicker but they wont acknowledge my account once I made one. It turns out you have to use IE not firefox. Ok, not wild about that disaster browser but I'll try. Nope it still won't work. I log in and every time it sends me back to the log in page. The same thing happens when I try to use my yahoo account. It's not a cookies problem either.

So then I try one of the free collage programs. Anything that is compatible to my old system (windows 2000) requires you to become a sheeple and join Facebook or use Flicker to upload your photos. HELLO Flicker doesn't work! And I have refused to get on Facebook for years now. It looks like I'm screwed though and will have to join the millions of like minded sheeples.

If Facebook tells me that I have to use Flicker or Windows 7 I will have to shoot somebody.








.........oh quit freaking out. It's just an expression. Something we used to be able to use back in the dark ages. You know, before people had to be politically correct sheeples.

I think I need to pet some fiber and calm down.