Been A Long Time, Been A Long Time...

Our little Leah!

Okay now that I've got that song stuck in your head (and if it isn't - it just might be now), I'm ready to share a post!  It really has been a long time but with good reason.  I was pregnant which I had announced in an older posting.  Well I don't know about any of other pregnant women but with each pregnancy I became more tired.  I feel like this last pregnancy I had slept almost the entire time.  Taking care of a husband who works twelve hour swing shifts, a tween, and two toddlers had proven that it could get the best of me.  In order to get something accomplished I had to cut out my blog and I scaled back the momentum I had going in my Etsy shop.  It worked and we all got through it.  By December our little girl (yes, finally A GIRL) had greeted us safe and sound.  Another labor that went so fast I didn't they didn't have time to give me anything for the pain.  I'm not going to complain though, I was just happy the doctor made it to deliver her in time.

Aren't they just beautiful? 

Now that I'm finally getting some sort of a routine going, I felt it was safe enough to start blogging again.  We all know how routines go.  As soon as you find one you're comfortable with - it changes up again.  I've got my fingers crossed!  Lately I've even found time to cook real dinners and bake!  Yes, BAKE!  Anyone that knows me knows I can cook.  In fact I consider myself quite a decent cook.  Baking is another story.  Usually anything I bake will come out tasting really good but the presentation is awful.  Especially if it comes from a box.  Chocolate chip cookies from scratch usually come out decent.  If I have to use already made batter, forget it.  I don't know if it's because I pay more attention when I'm making it from scratch.  Check out these moon pies I made the other day.  My husband brought home the box kit so I felt obligated to make them.  The cookies are uneven, the icing is a mess.  The sprinkles are everywhere.  In all honesty though, by the time I got to the sprinkles I quit trying and opted for "easy".  I figured if I rolled these pies in the sprinkles, the icing wold get everywhere and the sprinkles would just stick to the icing that came off.  So, I literally just threw the sprinkles at the pies.  They stuck, it worked.

"Victoria" bfl wool waiting for dye to be set

"Victoria" all spun up and waiting to be listed 

The merino that is currently on my wheel

I've been able to start dyeing again!  I haven't done any large dye pot batches yet, just small batches here and there.  I had a pretty productive dye day a couple days ago.  Most of it was corriedale for felting that had to be done up.  I tossed in about four ounces of merino into the session to use up the rest of the dye I had made up.  I actually like the color combos.  It's on my wheel right now and I plan on turning it into a two ply yarn to enhance all the different colors it has by having the plies contrast against each other.  I have a bunch of more merino I would like to get dyed up and set aside as I'm in the market for a new wheel!  I am so stinkin' excited.  I like the wheel I have now but it came unfinished when I got it.  In my excitement to use it and learn to spin, I never finished it or tended to it the way I should have.  So now it needs some tlc if I want to keep it for many years to come.  Also it's great for novelty yarns and thicker art yarns but I would like something a little more steadier for medium to fine yarns.  I'm still searching on exactly which wheel I want and where I want to buy it from.  I know I would like a double treadle but I don't know if I would miss it if I got a single.  I  would like it to have scotch tension since my current wheel is set up for both already and I like the way my medium type yarns come out when I use it.  Yep, that's all I got.  Would love to hear any input on any wheels that any of you reading this might have.  I don't want to jump into anything and I'm hoping to take the next two weeks to make up my mind.  Whether I can wait that long is another story.

My dye day wools

Well, I need to go get something productive done before the kids get up from nap.  Laundry and dishes, here I come!

Dying to Dye In This Heat

Top:  Gray Alpaca in Dye pot.
Bottom:  Alpaca All Dyed.

Merino In dye pot.
A little bit of dye spillover into pot.

This past Friday I finally ordered some new dyes I was itching to try out.  However, the weather has been extremely brutal (especially on pregnant ladies) and running a stove in my kitchen was the last thing I wanted to do.  Luckily since they were ordered and I opted to have them sent first class mail it meant chances are they would take a while to come in.  This spared my family of the added heat from my excitement and impatience.  Imagine my surprise when I found them in my mailbox on Monday!  An added bonus is that by Monday the heat finally broke and we were welcomed with on and off thunder showers throughout the day.  A perfect day to play with dye.  I grabbed some gray alpaca roving that I had an abundance of and some superwash merino and went to town.  As I assembled my materials, I realized I was out of saran wrap.  Bummer!  I really wanted to try out some progression dyeing on my merino and I felt hand painting it would be the easiest.  Then it finally it me, d'oh!  Why not do immersion dyeing similar to canning.  To my surprise, it worked great.  Next time I'll need to use larger canning jars.  Notice the white splotches from the fiber being crammed into the smaller jars?

Merino Hanging to dry

Merino Dry and Braided

Another accomplishment on my weekend to do list:  I finally got my upgrade that I ordered (and received last Feb./Mar.) onto my Blue Bonnet wheel.  This upgrade now allows me to use my wheel as a double tension or a scotch tension with only having to change out the whorl and smack on the correct belt.  What should have taken maybe an hour or so project took about five hours.  No lie!  It wasn't the installing of the upgrade that was the problem.  It was finding all the correct tools as I needed them.  Instead of assembling everything I would need ahead of time, I waited until I came to the step that I needed to use them.  I would have to drop what I was doing, go on a manhunt (anyone who has seen my husbands garage or the organization of his tools would feel sympathy) and come back and have to fix any adjustments the kids made to my wheel while I was gone.  All the kids were cranky as we were feeling the effects of the continuous days of excessive heat.  They had been lacking in naps since their rooms were too hot.  They had decided it was more fun to play in the A.C. rooms that were offered as napping alternatives.

 I was beaming when I finally finished it.  I tweaked the settings and spun my first roving on it.  I am ecstatic that I can now do lace weight yarns!  My double tension set up was perfect for art or bulky yarns leaving my options limited.  Now it does about everything and in about half the time!

Rhubarb Pie

Late Night Stroll

I also got the unnamed superwash merino spun up.  It was aptly named Rhubarb Pie because, frankly, it reminded me of rhubarb pie.  I decided to enter it in my Blue Bonnet's summer SAL challenge through Ravelry.  I dyed up about 8 oz of it, this picture shows one of the skeins.  I also dyed and spun up a little over 4 oz of alpaca that I named "A Late Night Stroll" that I entered as well.  We were allowed up to three entries but with me wanting to hone up on my upgraded wheel and play with my dyes I know that's all I will have time for.

Husbands (at least mine) don't understand these little deadlines we put on ourselves.  They are very important to us.  When these are going on that means all cleaning is on hold.  Dinners will be quick made portions.  Phone calls will neither be answered nor returned right away.  The fact that your favorite clothes aren't clean are of no importance to me.  We need groceries?  Best go down to the basement and see what goodies are in the chest freezer.  It's really not that he doesn't care, or doesn't support.  It's more of a "Are you feeling okay?  You've got me worried." Obviously he cannot understand the excitement those of us can get over these simple things.  I also get, "I think you need to get out of the house for a bit.  Even if it's just for a ride".  Then I have to try to compose myself from showing what I'm really thinking:  "No!  Please!  That means I will have to leave all my "work" and get nothing done!?".  If my face showed how I really felt it would cause him extreme worry.  Somewhere on the lines of I think you should see professional help worry.  To avoid all that my usual response is, "Eh.  That's okay.  It's such a pain in the butt to load the kids in the car just for a ride.  If you think of something else we could all do though, I'm all ears". It works as a great save every time.  It promises me at least another two hours to wrap up whatever I was finishing. I admit getting away is healthy.  It gets me away from this stuff and out enjoying time with my family.

I Promise I Didn't Go Into Hiding, At Least Intentionally

Well, after a long hiatus of my blog and twitter posting, I'm back. The lack of posting was for good reason, which I will get into later. I didn't intentionally mean to leave any kind of cliffhanger with my last blog either.  For that, I apologize.  I did write the blog and saved the draft but was in a different sort of mood when I went to post it.  It was very cathartic to type out but I guess it was something I wasn't ready to post, yet.  For that I apologize a million times over and I am sure I will share eventually.  For now I promise no more cliffhangers without solid intentions to deliver promptly.

As for the hiatus, the demands of the kids have been crazy.  With my husband's crazy work schedule, an 11 year old, a toddler and a newborn it was impossible for me to find a routine. Especially with the newborn changing to a crawling/almost walking nine month old and the toddler hitting the terrible two's.  On top of that our house was "gifted" many small illnesses that everyone couldn't help consecutively sharing.  The biggest reason for the hiatus is we found out we were expecting...again. Just when I thought I was on top of this routine thingy. I couldn't figure out why I was so tired and sleepy all the time.  All I wanted to do was nap and I never felt rested.

 The thought of having three under three sent us into complete panic mode.  We are feeling extremely blessed and grateful (I have always wanted four children) but quite overwhelemed.  Each stage the children reach we get one of those "can we still keep up with this and have another one" fears. Each time we couldn't prevent a boo-boo or would find crayon mysteriously on the wall it would escalate.  Now the panic has pretty much settled and the excitement has started to set in more.  After having all these boys, it would be nice to have a little girl.  I do have a strong feeling it's a little girl.  I'm not sure if my feelings are correct or in the back of my mind I'm wondering what the odds would be of it being ANOTHER boy.  Trust me, I would be just as excited for a healthy boy.  In a couple weeks time I should know!  I usually find out the sex.  It's still a surprise to me and I can rest assured being a little more prepared.

As far as the spinning, knitting and crocheting goes I have been busy on my downtime!  I have a lot ready to go list in the shop but I'm having a hard time with picture taking anymore.  We don't get very good natural lighting in the house.  I have a tot who loves to be outside and once he's outside it is impossible to get him back in.  So unless I've got everything squared away inside to spend my whole rest of the day outside, I can't get pictures done.  Lately I've set everything needing pictures in a separate area so I can utilize time better and  take a bunch of different things all at once.

Benjamin Green Studio Combs with prime alpaca.
(Notice my redneck spice cap diz?)

Lately I have been taking in a lot more raw wool and fleeces.  After my first Ebay purchase of raw wool, I realized I had been had.  All of my other purchases were no where close to the horror or that first shipment. Since I don't own anything to align the fibers with and a tight budget to do so, I researched the best product for my desired results.  I knew a carding machine was out of the question.  Especially not knowing if I would actually like working with raw wool.  That pretty much left hand combs and hand carders.  I tend to like working with combed wool better than carded wool.  I prefer more of a worsted over a woolen when working with yarn so that's what I wanted to make.  On Etsy I found a beautiful hand comb set through Benjamin Green Studios.  I loved the looks and design of the set and the price was in my budget.  I've been using them for a couple months now and I absolutely love them!  If you're looking for a really fine hand comb, these may not be for you but they hold up to the toughest of wool I have.  Very strong and durable and they look pretty too.  I'm extremely satisfied with the job they do.  He has even provided a youtube video with instructions.  At the time I was unaware that diz's even existed and realized I needed one so I came across a witty idea of using the caps on the little supermarket spice canisters.  For now, they work fine.  My husband is right now in the process of designing a couple and making them for me.  Thanks to the confidence these combs have given me, I have too much raw wool and alpaca fleece now waiting to be washed and combed.  The jacob's wool I mentioned in a previous post wound up under the tree for birds.  I am content to know that I did not give up on it, it's just that it was complete unworkable garbage.

Speaking of garbage, mine needs taken out.  Dinner needs started, floors need swept, yadda yadda.  Hoping everyone is enjoying their evening!