We're in "Lion" Mode!

So March came in like a lamb here in WNY, but right now it's definitely acting like a lion! Windy, alternating between snow and freezing rain and mud everywhere!!

My activity level seems to be matching the weather. Last week was slow and steady, while this week has been a whirlwind of activity! I've spend every last second spinning for a custome order and getting a new Fleece Study Club ready to launch. It's called "Are Ewe Well-Bred" and is FINALLY up for sale in the shop!

Here are my spinning adventures: My customer wanted a "sunset" yarn, and I gave it two tries for her to choose between.

And she wanted a purple yarn with lots of flecks of other colors. Here's what I came up with:

That's more spinning in week than I've done in a long time!!

For anyone interested, here's a peak at what the club is about:

It includes a 2.5 ounce batt, breed info card, spinner's notes card (not shown), a lock sample, and fun and prizes in my Ravelry group. You can check out the shop for more information.

It's Fiber Friday!!! Check out Wonder Why Alpaca's blog to follow along with other fiber artist's woolly pursuits!!

My Buns are Burning

I know I'm a bad cook, but come on!!! This week's attempt at getting my Phat Fiber samples ready has been fraught with problems.

I should have known better when the theme was set as "The Sweet Shop" to stick with a candy inspiration and not go for baked goods. But do I listen . . . noooooo!

I decided to make "blueberry muffins and coffee" roving. Let's just say, the first half of the rovings ended up heavy on the coffee. Or, as Brendan (I just can't continue using my kids' fake names!), put it, these were well done muffins. Yup, I sucessfully interpreted a burnt muffin.

But the colors are still great--I really like it a lot and these will go out in the box anyway. But, I still needed to dye the rest of the wool and wanted to try for the lighter look that I had originally  envisioned. So I threw in the remaining 5 braids of roving into two pots and started again.

Everything was going well, and I added the final "blueberries" on the final flip of the wool, put the pot back on the stove and got busy carding in another room.

Do you know where this is going?

Here's a hint: I started to smell the problem . . .

Do you know what burning wool smells like? It's not good!

Here's what burned wool looks like:

I literally burned my blueberry muffin wool!!! How bad is that?!!

The final outcome was three braids saved, one partially ruined (it'll become some handspun) and one completely ruined.

You see, I use a low-water kettle-dyeing technique for adding spots at the end of my dyeing process. And you shouldn't walk away from it and get busy carding in another room!!! Urg.

With the three saved braids, I did get some good muffins though:

Now, with the two ruined braids, I had to come up with something else to add to the Phat Fiber box, because I wasn't going to meet my 50-sample goal.

Luckily, I had some great colors already dyed up in Finnwool and made these "Skittles" batts:

There's only 12 of them, but I'll have some full-sized batts up in the shop next week along with some full-sized Blueberry Muffin and Coffee rovings. But that means I need to dye them. Wish me luck!!!

Now you need to head over to Wonder Why Alpaca and see what everyone else is up to this week!!!

Where for art thou Spring?

OK, so I know it's only Feb. 18, and here in the Buffalo area, we really aren't going to see real Spring for a few more weeks (ehm . . . a month), but the weather is teasing me today, and I can't help but let my mind drift to sunshine and daffodils. It's blowing hard, trying to drizzle, and is a balmy 56 degrees! Oh happy day!!

My plans for the day include dyeing a beautiful bfl fleece and re-photographing quite a few products, but the electricity is starting to flicker, so we'll see what actually gets accomplished.

I had so much fun spinning this week. I spun up some Corriedale-cross roving that I had in the shop, and will be dyeing more of today. The spin was fast, fun and completely enjoyable--I love spinning medium fine wool!! The finished yarn is fluffy, springy, bulky and squishy. I can see it becoming a little boy's vest. I have a nephew who's first birthday is coming up, if it doesn't sell, it just may become a vest after all!

I had fun photographing this, so bear with me!

Last one!

I'm also on basement water patrol. I soooo hope the electricity holds today!

It's Fiber Arts Friday, so head over to Wonder Why Alpacas and see what other fiber bloggers are up to!

Nerd Wars in ON!!!

Feb. 1 saw the kick-off of Nerd Wars on Ravelry, and as you all know by now, I'm on Team Browncoat, fans of the show Firefly.

Part of the fun is an optional 3-month long dissertation project, and I decided to jump in. I'm knitting the Pinwheel Sweater from Elann.com.

I'm using Noro's Cash Iroha, yum!!! I won over 2 pounds of it at a charity event quite a few years ago. Because Noro donated the yarn for the event, it was in giant hanks of mill ends, and all different colors.

The colors are beautiful (a bright purple isn't shown), but a little bright for me, and I didn't really like the flow. So I worked at over-dyeing them with a dark brown and here are my results:

I'm pleased as punch!!

I've cast-on and am making good progress, but shop, home and continued recovery are slowing me down just a bit.

And I did manage to get a skein of yarn spun. Here's the original batt:

And the finished yarn (it's going in the shop!)

It's Fiber Arts Friday over at Wonder Why Alpaca, so go check out all the other fun there!!

It's Been A Rough Week

Last week, while I was posting on Friday, I was ignoring a terrible pain in my stomach. Long story short, I had my appendix removed on Saturday. Recuperation is not as fast as I'd like, but I was able to get a lot of knitting done!!

I finished a 1X1 rib neck warmer for my daughter. I didn't decrease as I went up, I just changed needle sizes. And striped at random.

In the hospital, the log cabin squares came in handy as they were mindless, garter stitch knitting. I finished the one I started last week, then made another and got going on a third:

Then, with the large ball of handspun that I made with Phat Fiber samples, I made (along with the majority of that darker block up there) a cowl. It's call the Switchback Cowl from Kira K Designs. I worked it until I ran out of yarn--it's much shorter than what she calls for, but I tried it on and it works great for me.

The original yarn:

I'm off to lay in bed some more. I can't wait to get back to my dye pots and spinning wheel!!!

It's Fiber Arts Friday, so check out what's happening at Wonder Why Gal's blog!!