Crazyness in Mackeyland

It's been a while since I posted last. I'd claim it's because I've been busy, but there's always the chance that I'm just too distracted to type.

This month, the only other nurse at my work quit abruptly, leaving me to cover three clinics. They got a temporary nurse to help out for two days a week; as she's the woman who held this position before me, I'm confident that she's really good at the job. The bosses say that they're trying to fill the empty position as soon as possible, but given the reality of government budget cycles, it will probably be at least three or four months before they hire someone.

And then just as all the turnover and schedule changes were happening at work last week, our family got food poisoning. If you want to lose a couple of pant sizes, there's nothing like some spectacular gastrointestinal distress and no solid food for 60 or so hours to make it happen!

In the midst of all this chaos, however, I have found time for yarn. I may be spinning it instead of knitting with it, but yarn is yarn, right? The first few pictures are of my most recent dyeing escapade. I originally tried to dye the wool less saturated shades of pink, blue and grass green, but the dye struck much faster than I'd anticipated. I sorted the wool by color and intensity and then handcarded it. Then I laid out all the batts in order of color progression.

I'm about two thirds of the way through spinning it up, and I really like the way the color slowly transitions from green to brown to burgundy.

I also bought wool from a local vendor, Hungry Hill Farm, and intentionally tried to spin a big fluffy single on the wheel with a Z-twist.

I used my left hand as my dominant hand, as well as the modified short draw I always use. (My wheel has only one ratio, so that limits what I can do with it.) Making up skeins was more difficult than usual. As the niddy-noddy has broken, I used the baby gate instead.

I didn't quite acheive the lofty bulky-weight single I was hoping for, but it made a nice bulky 2-ply!

Enabling my yarn addiction

I lead a fairly boring life. When you get right down to it, so does most of the family. Even the ones who may have been a bit wild in the past now have respectable jobs, like being a substance abuse counselor.
The extended family does a Christmas gift exchange. Pick a relative's name out of a hat, get them a gift. You know the drill.
A couple of weeks ago, my brother in law announced that he'd gotten my name and asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I suggested a gift certificate to a local yarn store.
Then he had to ask the fateful question: "How much money do you want on it?"
Trying to be polite, I hemmed and hawed. But he persisted in wanting to know a specific dollar amount.
My sister in law knits, so I appealed to her better judgement. "Would you explain to your beloved why it's a bad idea to ask a knitter how much money they need for yarn?"
Since their household has close to 25 years worth of collective sobriety, she chose a metaphor that would be easily understood. "Baby, when you were on dope, how much of your income did you spend on it?"

Finished the sweater!

I finished the Sonnet cardigan!

I thought they were on vacation

I thought that, just as pretty much everyone else in the northern hemisphere is appreciating summer by slowing down and doing less, so would the Yarn Pixies. Apparently I was mistaken.

Last night, as I was trying to sleep and failing miserably (I'm going to go back to referring to myself in the first person plural, like I did when I was pregnant with Shirley. Except that this time "we" refers to "me and my sleep disorder.") I was accosted by the Yarn Pixies. They suggested that I could design a surplice-style wrap sweater that was loosely based on those tie-to-fit baby sweaters.

And being gullible and unable to sleep, I took them up on it. So, I'm trying to design a new sweater. Unfortunately, I won't know if it turns out at all like the pictures in my head or the drawings in my notebook until it's finished. But the yarn is amazing and sooo soft, and I'm starting to realize just how much I have under-appreciated the tactile qualities of well-done garter stitch. Beautiful aqua silk yarn to work with, and a lengthy vacation coming up.... yippee!

Dyeing mishap

I decided that what I wanted for my birthday was some purple silk yarn. Alas, I have no money in the yarn budget. But I do have a large cone of teal silk yarn. So I over-dyed it with a lot of red, and the initial result was a lovely eggplant color.
Then I washed it. It bled. And bled. And left purple spots all over the bathtub. And now it's back to teal. :( At least it's much softer after a good bath!

Night off

I have tonight off work, and my sister in law Meegan was crazy enough--I mean kind enough--to watch the Mimi overnight tonight. Brian will be out at a meeting until late tonight, so a traditional date night is slightly out of the question. I'm thinking I'll bake some cookies, watch random things on Netflix, and spin more yarn. Currently I'm trying to spin enough lace weight yarn for a cardigan. 600 yards down, much more to go!

In other news, I joined Ravelry, but have no idea what to do there. Any tips?

Babies steal yarn

As evidenced by the security sock (which you can spot in all of these pictures if you know where to look) Shirley likes soft fuzzy objects. (Except for this teddy bear, which she ignores.

Perhaps it's the fact that it's bigger than she is?)

She regularly grabs yarn, roving, and WIPs if I'm unwise to leave them within her reach. (And now that she's learned how to balance on tip-toes, arm's reach is much higher up than it used to be.)

While I promptly tell her no and take the WIPs out of her hands, (Most of my projects are socks on sharp DPNs. The potential for baby self-inflicted injury is pretty much endless.) I don't mind near as much with the yarn and roving.

Until she puts them in her mouth. Which means that several times a day, I give the following soliloquy:
"No, we do not chew on yarn! We can admire it. We can pet it. We can say 'Oh, what lovely yarn! What pretty colors... It's so soft on my skin...' We do NOT put it in our mouths!"

And as I was giving this speech for the umpteenth time the other day, Brian chimed in with a few thoughts of his own:
"All yarn belongs to the mother! Pay homage to the mother and her yarn stash!"

Look on my fiber, ye mighty, and drool.

Tour de Fleece

Le Tour de Fleece begins today.

And while I'd like to do something outrageous like spin 1200 yards of the amazing cashmere/silk Brian gave me for Christmas, I don't have the luxury of taking three weeks off to do nothing but spinning.

So I'm setting somewhat more (hopefully) manageable goals.

1) Spin at least 200 yards of silk

to use as a reinforcing ply for when I get around to using this

superwash wool to make sock yarn.

2) Spin something every day, even if it's just 5 yards.

Sleep on Shirley, sleep on!

A tale of two spindles

Last week, I received a package. A very nice package, from Brian's little sister Jessica. (Here is a picture of Jessica at our wedding reception a few years back. Note the intent expressions as her then-fiancee (now husband) and Brian's brother Brad send out the traditional "she is very important to me and if you hurt her, I will beat you to a bloody pulp" manly signals. Also note Jessica's amused expression at this process.)

Jessica had told me that she has an un-wanted drop-spindle at home, and was more than willing to arange a trade with me. (I also acquired a very similar one from Becka two weeks ago, but that's a story for another day. ) So we aranged that I would knit her socks in her size and color (I'm 3/4 of the way done!) and she'd send me the spindle.

She definitely sent me the spindle, alright. And five gallon Ziplock bags filled with fiber to ease the learning how to spin process. And a book on how to spin! (The socks are by far one of the most complex designs I've ever created, but I definitely got the better end of the bargain.)

My nocturnal work schedule means that on my nights off, I wake up at about 3:30am and can't get back to sleep until around six. And while I can't get back to sleep, I'm also too sleepy to knit. But apparently my body/brain can handle spinning with a drop spindle, so I've decided to embrace this time as "my spinning time." (Because as we all know, it's much kinder to Brian for me to get up and do something and let him sleep in peace than lay there saying "I can't sleep... Can you sleep?")

Here is the spindle, loaded up with a fingering weight single spun out of acrylic. (If you ever run out of money for spinning fiber, Lion Brand's Homespun yarn is basically acrylic roving plied with two strands of sewing thread for stability. Ponder this.)
Some of you might wonder "Who sent you this particular spindle?"

And the answer is: "It's four am, you should be pleased I remember my own name at this point!" (I should probably post pictures of both spindles, as they are loaded with sport-weight gray and white yarn, but I'm really just too lazy to get the camera out right now.)

I'm delighted to have both of them, because I haven't really figured out Navajo plying and having two spindles makes making two-ply yarn much easier.

So, thank you Jessica, and thank you Becka, because you have both made my insomniac holiday season much more enjoyable!