Knitty Summer Love 2008!

Yay! My summer love package got here yesterday, and am I ever spoiled!
I don't know why some of these picture are aligned right and some aren't, but they all were before I uploaded them and now I can't get them to upload correctly... Just tilt your heads and I'll try to figure out what's wrong later.
Overall, we have... Pretty Noro, needles, and pattern for a tea cozy. Maple tea. A wonderful hand-knit bag by Midnight Farm, book and CD contained within (she burned the CD just for me!). Pretty pretty BFL fiber in berry colors. Lots and lots of touristy information about Yellowstone & the Northwest Territories (I so want to come visit you now. And my husband is convinced he's found his version of heaven on earth). And a very cute Pinocchio tape measure.

Pretty Pretty Noro. My tea pot will be so happy this winter. And so spoiled!

Mmmmm... I love tea. And this smells so very good. I'm excited to try it. But it's 92 out right now, and the only tea I'm drinking is iced. But I'm taking a few bags to the coast with me for our trip at the end of the month, where it's plenty cold for a nice cup of hot tea.

Mmmmmmmmmmm... There are no words for this fiber. I'm beyond excited to start spinning it. But I need to get the green from the previous post off my wheel first. And then I have to figure out what this wants to become. Something nice and thin to make the most of it.
And so cute! His nose pulls out to reveal the tape measure.

So thank you, Midnight Farm. I love it!

In which there's sewing...

My birthday is in a couple of weeks. Over the 4th of July sale, the DH decided to purchase the nice, shiny new kitchen aid that I've been drooling over. And he got a really amazing price. So I've been baking like crazy recently. (and with the outside temperatures, that's not necessarily a good thing)

But apparently that wasn't enough. We went to a thrift store yesterday in search of exercise equipment. This particular store usually has a great selection of lightly used stair steppers and such. And with us both sitting at a desk all day, it was sounding like a good idea to have something in the house to increase our physical activity. Well, yesterday they only had a few very sad looking nordik tracks and some rather ancient exercise bikes. No love for us there. But, of course, I had to check out the crafty section before leaving. Every once and a while, they have some really nice wool or fabric there. No wool, no nice fabric (some very 80's hot pink sweat suite material, though...) but this little baby was peaking out from under one of the tables:
It's BRAND NEW. The sticky things that cover the LCD screen hadn't even been removed. Had everything except the manual with it, which was easily attainable through the Brother website.

I bought my first machine in college. I was sewing like crazy for our wedding favors and for my veil, and anything else that I found for the wedding that needed to be taken care of. So for about 3 months, my $60 Singer got a hard work out. And then, mysteriously, the bobbin started snagging. It wouldn't pull smoothly. Nothing had been touched with the tension, I wasn't doing anything different. It just stopped sewing smoothly. And got very loud. So I put it away for about a year, between finding knitting again and getting married, and moving, and all that jazz, I just didn't think about sewing. It stayed in the back of my closet, happily silent. When we moved last spring, we were faced with some very oddly sized windows. And I had to pull the sad little machine out and make it work for a living again. I messed with the tension, and got a semi-smooth straight stitch out of it. But it was still very loud. But I got 3 out of 5 curtains completed before I couldn't take it anymore. When I saw this little gem in the store, at about 25% of it's original purchase price, I couldn't pass it up. It may not be a top-of-the-line brand. But it sews well. Very well. And it's so very quiet.

And my front door finally has a curtain:
Now I just need to finish up the Last Curtain for our bedroom windows. And the quilt that I don't have nearly enough fabric to complete the top...

Handspun!

I'm alive. Everyone's ok. We're tired. We're overwhelmed. We're frustrated. But we're alive and surviving. I have lots of posts for you today. The first is my most recent handspun!

First up, 100% mohair. This was a blast to spin. It gets so nice and fluffy. And the colors are really pretty. This went to my downstream summer love secret pal.


And second is some wool. I'm not sure what breed. I got this gorgeous batt in a swap and it just said wool. About dk weight, plied with a rainbow colored rayon sewing thread. I'm at about 150 yards so far and have about 1/3 of the batt left to spin up. Should end up just over 200 yards total, maybe slightly more. I'm hoping to do a baby jacket out of this, might end up doing some contrast trim to stretch it. No, we're not having a baby. But with the way that my friends seem to be reproducing, it seems smart to keep a few things going just to make sure that my gift giving is covered. And we will, eventually, be having one. We just have to figure out where we're moving & how to afford the move first. Then we'll get to the happily ever after, one big family, part.

It's already July 1!

I'm not entirely sure where the last few months have gone, but they've just rushed by! They are just a blur of hotter and hotter days, learning a new job, sending out applications for more enjoyable jobs, spinning up a storm, and watching the weeds try to take over the world.

2 weeks ago I got a haircut, and I'm just now getting around to sharing. I love it. I think this is one of my favorite cuts that I've gotten in a while.

And while out walking Mill Creek after getting it cut, we found these HUGE dandelions. These things are massive!

But aren't they pretty? I have spinning to share with you, a really pretty mohair that I spun up this weekend. I'm starting to get a stockpile of hand spun around. I'm thinking about putting it up on Etsy... But I'm still not all that confident in my skills. Most of the hanks have at least one join in them where the yarn broke in the plying process, and I don't think I'm comfortable listing them that way. On the other hand, I'm never going to make my way through using all this fiber! I just can't decide if I feel "good enough" to sell it or not.

More pictures later this week, fiber ones next time!