Saturday, April 29, 2006

Yarn Heaven!

Mom and I ventured out to Warrenton today for a pre wool festival fiber fix. We went to My Favorite Yarn.

OMG! Tons of great yarn and fiber at decent prices. Lots of sales and they carried fiber, looms and spinning wheels in addition to yarn! I helped myself to a skein of Louet kid mohair for $5! I also got some dyed locks and yarn bras. I had to put a rein on myself so I'd still have money for the festival. They even sold handspun. Their own store brand in plain white worsted was only $5 for 180 yds! They even had the spinning wheel that I want on sale. It's too bad they are an hour away. Perhaps I should be more loyal to my own LYS, but I WISH my yarn shop had sales this good and fiber to boot.

Mom picked up a small lap loom to play with, and I'm trying to convince her that I need a wheel so that I can spin yarn for her to weave. It hasn't worked so far, but let's hope for the best come birthday time. :D

Friday, April 21, 2006

Why I hate doctor's offices

Thursday I went in for a CT scan for some issues I've been having since my surgery. My appointment was at 12:40. I left the dying workshop early (it was wonderful BTW, but more about that later) and arrived at the imaging office at 12:20. According to the nurse at my doctors office I just had to pick up and drink the barium solution and show up. So I drank the hideous chemicals and went. When I check in, I find out that the doctors office never sent my prescription over. No prescription, No CT scan. Easy enough, the office can fax it over, except they close for lunch

from 12 until 2.

Honestly, who in this country gets a 2 hour lunch? With the obvious exception of my doctors office, NO ONE! One of the receptionists suggest that I go across the street to the office to see if someone is there. I jaunt over to find the doors locked, so I knock. As I'm peering desperately through the glass door I see a nurse. Now I know she can hear me knocking, but she just walks off. RAAAAARRR!!! Back to the imaging office. The very nice and very pregnant receptionist asks me who my doctor is and groans at the response. She is a patient there too. We swap stories briefly about the wonderful doctors and the TERRIBLE office staff. She tells me to try to hang on. They'll try the back office line, and they'll have the answering service fax something in to them to get the scrip.

I'm getting nauseous now. I haven't eaten and the barium and I don't get along well. I sit in the waiting area knitting. Have a pleasant conversation with a crocheter. 1:40 rolls around. I know the barium is passing through my system and they won't be able to do the scan. No word from the doctors office. I go back to receptionist to reschedule. As I'm standing there, a very pleasant radiologist comes running out. She tells me that if I can wait a few more minutes, the office manager is paging the doctor personally on my behalf. They can give me just one small additional cup of barium in lemonade and still take the scan. I agree and sit back down. Another 10 minutes. I feel like shit. The radiologist comes back out and tells me the the office managers wife is also a patient at my doctors office, they were there the day before and the office was open at this time, maybe they'll be open now.

Sure enough when I get to the office, the doors are open and they are admitting patients BUT THE PHONES ARE OFF. They've apparently been sitting there for the past 45 minutes with the phones off and ignoring the urgent faxes from the answering service. The nurse I talk to says that she'll get the prescription for me, then wanders away to talk to someone else. Another nurse comes up and asks what I need, I tell her I'm looking for my prescription. She opens the drawer they are kept in, and looks through, comes back and says they don't have it. WTF???? I tell her that their office MADE the appointment for me, there better be an order for it. She looks again and it's the TOP THING IN THE DRAWER!!!!

I stifle the urge to pin her down, pour a gallon of barium down her throat then jump on her head for several hours, grab the order and run down to the imaging lab. They rush me back and I drink not one small cup, but 2 large cups of barium, then they put in my IV for the contrast solution. They rush me into the scanning room and get my scan done. Once the contrast agent hits my system I start to feel like a truck has hit me. I go home and the headache hits, then the horrendous gastric effects. Hubby looked at me pathetically wallowing in misery on the bad and said "you're stinky". Sigh. I still have a headache today. Utter misery, and all because my doctors office staff SUCKS. I wonder what my doctor (who I simply adore) would say if I told him that I was firing him because of his front office staff. I may just do that.

Anyways, they dying workshop was fabulous and everyone was so friendly, although sadly, I can't remember anyone's name now after my trauma. We did shaving cream dying. I got some great results on the muslin I brought in, and I saw some awesome work on a couple of silk scarves. I can't wait to go to the sit and spin in May!!! Hopefully I'll have saved up some money to have a wheel by then. There are also spinning classes. And their workshop is fabulous. Spinning wheels, looms, carders, Fiber, and a little giftshop. It's inside LibertyTown and it's very inspiring being around so much art and workshops. While we were dying, other people came out to see what we were doing and joined in!

Well I'm off to bed to hopefully sleep off the rest of this headache. I'll try to get pictures of my shaving cream dyed fabric up tomorrow.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Destash time at Casa de Frou

Help me destash myself and save up for a spinning wheel! All Yarns are now for sale on eBay.

Destash Sale!

4 balls Bernat BlingBling in sassy Sparkle (blue, pink, green and purple)

2 balls Crystal Palace deco ribbon 1 in black and white stripes, one in navy.




8 balls Moda Dea Fur-Ever 4 in blue and 4 in lime.


6 balls Moda Dea ChiChi in sahara




12 balls Moda Dea Kickx 2 in Fever, 4 in Amazing, 6 in Lucky

3 balls Pierre Cardin 21 (bulky Boule 100% wool) 2 in maroon, 1 in green.


3 1/2 skeins Red Heart Grape Ivy

3 skeins Lion Brand Homespun 2 in Edwardian, one in Corinthian.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Spinning Happiness at Knit Night

I've started attending Knit Night the the LYS and tonight I met a member of the local spinners guild!!! Apprently there is a really nice studio in town and I was invited to a dying workshop on thursday morning! Sooo exciting. Maybe now I won;t have to go all the way to alexandria to try out some wheels!

They are doing marbling at the workshop this week, I think I may just take some good muslin to try it on. I have some really pretty heavy weight satin, but I'm sure I won't be able to dye all of it there, and I don't want to screw up good fabric.

I took my latest knitting project with me tonight and I had a lot of fun with it. Hubby wants ugly socks. They are to be red and olive green. Red tops, heels and toes, everything else in green. The knitters I sat with tonight all agreed that they are going to be hideous. He will be very pleased.


I also read the Yarnaholics thread at Craftster last night. I was inspired to begin cataloguing my stash. The results are tragic. Looks like a stash sale may be starting up soon. I need to get rid of some of these oodles of novelty and acrylic yarns and start purchasing more of the quality yarns in smaller batches. I'll be drawing up a list soon, and hopefully i can sell enough to make a good dent in the stash.

Saturday, April 15, 2006






I am a sucker. I just signed up for this. The lure of trading yarn to strangers is better than sex.

yummy.

OMFG!

I REALLY love my hubby. I was heading out this morning to get Easter treats for our kids, and the boy we mentor who has been spending the week with us. On the way out the door, he told me to stop by the sporting goods store and grab him a gift card. WTF? Can't you just use the debit card like a normal person? Then he explains.

He went to the LYS and got me a $50 gift certificate. "We need Easter presents too." he said.

Best. Husband. Ever.

Another attempt at handspun

I few months ago I picked up a babe handspindle off ebay. So far my attempts have been abysmal at best.

The first, Which I shall call "Salt and Pepper" is made with some mystery wool which came with my spindle. It was very soft, but also very overspun. Oddly though it's relatively smooth.















The second, Called, "The Ed Sullivan Show" (black white and pink, how very 50's" Is a miserable little skein of wool blended with pink dyed cotton. It's raggy and again, overspun. For some reason I love it, but I'm afraid to knit anything with it for fear it will fall apart.















The third are two skeins called "PlayDoh Ice Cream". The colors are lovely but the turned out very loosley twisted and scratchy. I bought the roving from ebay from someone who recommended it for felting. Probably not the best choice for spinning, WHen I set the twist though, it seemed to firm the yarn up. I also spun one color at a time and blended the two colors as I joined a new one. I'm hoping it will stripe. I know this yarn is dextined to become a small felted bag though, from it's scritchiness.















My 4th attempt is andean plied. I just spun the wool in the natural color. I have some berries that my kids picked for me last summer that managed to stain every child in the neighborhood a lovely purply-magenta color. I have no idea what the berries are, I'm sure they are poisonous, but I'm going to attempt dying the wool with these. If it works out well I will be doing a major mystery berry harvest this summer. As for the yarn itself, It's inconsistent and unbalanced, although setting the twist seemed to really help the balance issues. I still have a few overspun places and a few underspun places, but I'm hoping the plying will hold everything together.



















Overall, I'm pretty frustrated with drop spindling. perhaps it's my spindle. I bought a different spindle recently at the Yorktown Victory Center gift shop. It requires me using a half hitch to tie on my yarn, and I just haven't been wanted to be bothered by tying knots every time I store the yarn, Especially since I prefer to keep a long length of pre drafted roving twisted around my left arm as I spin. I can just see the knots tht will ensue. Poor hubby will come in to find me in a tangle of wool fiber.

Hopefully I can get up to springwater sometime soon to test out some wheels. I'm really hoping for one for my birthday. (Please, Please fiber Goddess, inspire my family members!) Using a wheel seems to make much more sense to me than a spindle. Hubby is convinced that he can build me one. Oddly, he is fascinated by spinning, but he thinks knitting is garbage (I did teach him how to knit, though). He'll sit and watch me spinning for hours. I've told him that I want one good commercial wheel, and he can have unlimited time studying it so he can try building one. I'm so generous.

Sunday, April 02, 2006

Alrighty kids

Here is a LOOOOOOONG overdue update to the bloggy thingy. Things have been insane around here and blogging has unfortunately been the last thing on my mind. My favorite uncle came up to see us, I haven't seen him since I was my daughters age. We spent a wonderful week together catching up, and he left his dog for me to take care of for a month or so until he gets resettled in his new house. Doofus Rufus is an Amreican bull mix and so loveable. He is a big-time cuddle dog and will sit in any lap available if given an opportunity. He also brought an unexpected treasure to me. He brought a sweater the my grandmother had knitted him when he was in high school. It's not in the best shape, or the manliest color. (teal green mohair? I think granny was a bit tipsy when she chose the yarn) it is, however, an example of grandmas excellent cable work. It's also simple enough a pattern that I intend to remake a MUCH manlier version for my uncle for xmas.
















I'm about two thirds done with the hubby's aran, but I started to get bored with it and refuse to look at it until I complete another small project. I'd originally chosed the Yarn over steek vest from loop-d-loop by Teva Durham but it same out badly. Well, I don't know if it was the shirt, or just me being insanely fat from hormone replacement. Instead, I started on socks (feet don't get fat!). I already frogged the Regia socks due to an incredibly bad pattern, so I started over with a pair made from Opal Rainforest in Chameleon to match my blue and lime green chucks.


One down, one to go. I am in LOVE with handknit socks. I put this on my foot last night and never found anything comfier in my life. I can't wait to get the next one done.












Also, Hubby and I decided to sitch our bedroom and the craft room. The craft room had gotten so crowded and junky that it was unuseable. The room that it was in is the smallest bedroom in the house. I was worried about making it our bedroom, but it is excellent as a bedroom. Quieter since it is further from the street, cozier, and better light during the day. It has more restful energy too. Maybe that's why I almost fell asleep at the sewing machine one day. The new craft room is ginormous. I've almost got everything organized and put away, and it looks like I'll even have room for an easychair for knitting. I'm so excited! My sewing machine thinks I've abandoned it, and I'm sure that the serger has long since plotted to break needles and snap thread in retaliation for my long absence. I'll post pics when it's completed.