The dreaded "C" word, and Lambchop

For some reason I was under such stress during finals that I couldn't even *gasp* knit. Seriously there was some form of mental block that disallowed me from even remotely knitting. So I started a crochet afghan out of scraps from the baby log cabin blanket. This will make me happy when it's done because I will have learned a new skill and used up a bunch of superfluous acrylic.

In the mail on the day of my last hand in final a lovely man with a box appeared. In it was this:

This gorgous fleece came from AuntieAnnies from a lovely sheepy named Lambchop. Now I have to say I have never processed a fleece before, a chunck I got at Agribition for free but really when it came to doing the whole partial fleece thing I was perplexed.
I have been reading SockPr0n for a while now, and have watched several fleeces transformed in her blog so I researched and backread her blog (which was really thee best informative source without a book that I found). I started by diving in. I wanted to know the fleece, I wanted to see what it had to offer. So did bebop. He's very much a fan of sheep.

So I decided to be nitpicky and I got some laundry bags so I could keep the lock formation. I contemplated the Yarn Harlot method, but as my kitchen heats up like crazy when the stoves on and I am one to walk away unsuspectingly I opted for the sink. I layered the locks in the bag after fluffing them out a bit and picking any VM out.
It should be said that this fleece is well skirted and was jacketed so really there isn't a lot to be picked but I find that if i pre-fluff the fleece before washing then I get more dirt out with less washing. And I am super paranoid about agitation so clearly I wanted to do everything possible to minimize that.

The lanolin just came off, seriously, this was the first wash, Look how yellowish that water is. I really should have uploaded a picture of the finished product but as I feel it's ongoing I haven't. Because of space constraints etc I can only really process a little at a time without compromizing quality. So as I truck along slowly I have a pile of fleece that is clean and joyous.

Now the only thing will be if I want to dye it, spin then dye it, leave it plain (this probably won't happen as me and white are mortal enemies). But I'll figure that all out when I have this whole thing processed.

I have been knitting... I swear

Just because it seems like I haven't doesn't mean that is the case. The February Lady Sweater is still on the needles and I'm almost done the body, it just takes so frelling long. Seriously. It's out of a recycled sweater that I found at the Value Village. The sweater itself was hideous so I felt no remorse (except maybe that someone worked hard on the orginal sweater only to have it discarded to VV). I'm guessing by the amount I have at the moment that it's going to be a three-quarter lenght sleeve that I go with for the sleeves.
It seems everytime it gets warm I want to spin, spinning and spring/summer go hand in hand in my world, I have no idea why. But I have been spinning a lot lately. Here is the skein of the lovely stuff I did at spinning day (navajo plyed and weightin in at 4. something oz). I call it "Sparkle Motion", and if you catch that referance know that I love you.

Remember the stuff I was carding during the power outage? Ya well, I used it to bait myself to get through a paper and ended up finishing the carding and spinning and plying it. Thusly volia (Approx 139 yards) Blueruin was born. Both skeins need to be set but I think I'll wait until I have a few more that need setting before I do it, I prefer to do a schwack load at once

When there's papers due, and the power goes out, I turn to.... carding.

Around 2 pm this afternoon the power went out. This threw me into some form of crazed insanity the likes of which have not been seen for a while. With the coffee maker and all the lights out on this here gloomy april day I set about on some busy work, I put my textbooks away and cleaned the bookshelf, and then with time still standing still I decided "f this noise" and pulled out the handcarders.

I recalled a bag of locks that Amy had given to me during the spinning day leftover swap. The locks themselves have a fair amount of VM in them and they are severly felted in some areas but free locks will not be over looked. I started picking and teasing. And as i did....

I remembered that in the roving stash lay this, 110 gr of similarly dyed romney. The great workhorse of spinning fibers. I got it out and compared the colors, they were nearly spot on, having come from the same place this didn't shock but made me happy.
I set about carding the two together at a 80/20 split in favor of romney, as I didn't know how the locks would look with it.

The conclusion: fabulous. The deep blues and hot pinks were netrualized a bit and in some cases gave a purple hue that is very nice. I'm not usually a blue/pink person, I like hard colors, generally, or heathered greys and browns. It's carding up fabulously, and I'm guessing it will spin with ease. It will however take a while as after the power came back on I had about 10 rolags and made barely a dint in the bags of fiber. This could be a lenghty process.

dyeing and spinning

Okay lets start this off with HANDSPUN, I started this on the drop spindle when lana was here and then put it on the wheel last weekend at the spinning day, and I plied it yesterday and thusly, a skein of prettyful yarn with a bit of sparkle and loads of fun. I hand carded the rolags for a kind of heathered run look. Minimal glitz but enough.

Now I had to dye a pound of roving for the spinning day so I took pictures, because well I was bored when waiting for the stuff to do it's magic. First off it all had to be soaked in its stuff for optimum absorbtion. I went with Deb Menz's instructions.

Here are some packets in the steamer, I did them in approx. 1 oz. intervals. this was the red orange yellow set, there was a blue green black yellow set as well. I got three packets in my steamer at a time and it served well.

While I waited for the steamer to do it's magic I preped the second set and let them absorb prior to packeting them up for the steamer. (And for the record magic eraser does remove dye from lino - just sayin).

And when they were done it was hang to dry overnight. Which left my place looking like a yarn harem. I think people enjoyed the colors. I myself didn't really like the red yellow, too bright for me, but it worked. I did however fall in love with the blue colorway, it was nice. The black took forever to wash out, and even after a good hour it probably still will bleed when they set their stuff. Tis the downfall of black I guess.

Purple and beyond

As you can see here, I heeded the purple call. It's kinda nice, I always miss stupid hair when its not around, and now I remember why. It's fun!

And this is the Arbacia or whatever its called by wooly wormhead, knit out of handspun.
I'm still stuck in this hat buisness, and am working on *gasp* fingerless gloves.

pre-purple, poe club, hats and the exploding plastic enevitable

So As you can see my Poe club came today (well it came on friday but I picked it up yesterday and am reviling today). This here is Cables and Lace Lizard Toes in "Nights plutonian Shore". I think Lindsay summed it up best when she said "we're poe-ple" For some strange reason Poe is close to a lot of people hearts, and I understand it as he is in mine as well. So we all understand why I had to jump at the club and get it. Plus the smell that came with it makes me wanna rub it on my dirty bits. There are some men I could slather in this and then take to bed for the weekend. Trust me the temptation is strong.
And somewhere along the lines of insanity having ten things due in two weeks research paper mayhem and darling lana coming home I managed to finish Ziggy (by Wooly Wormhead). I knit it out of handspun BFL on 3.75's to get gauge and although I was scared by the sheer amount of kitchener it turned out marvelous and does exactly what I want.
You may have noticed the title of this entry is pre-purple, that is because as we speak I am dying the front half of my hair purple (it was okayed by my boss so why wouldn't I take compleate advantage of it) so this is the last pick for a while that is going to be purple-less.

The big plan for today aside from the boring and mundane is to get the bags finished for the spinning day we're putting on (by we i mean the local SnB) For $30 you get nine ounces of fiber a drop spindle and a hand made reversable reusable bag to store all your goodies in. Quite frankly the swag is worth double that so it's a good oppertunity to get some stuff and to learn to drop spindle. I still have to hand dye the merino and split it up but that shouldn't be too hard, I'm predicting next weekend that will be my plan as it's the last weekend in march.
I think march is trying to kill me, seriously, I got clusterfucked all last week with stuff and now I'm trying to breathe amdist this spinning weekend and the research papers that are hounding me. It's okay though, I will make it through as long as I don't catch a cold or anything. And I'll do it with purple hair.

Shirkin homework (or at least taking a break)

Oh blog, the homework clusterfuck from hell descended on me with a wallop. And while I trudge through it I decided to take a break to display what I've managed to accomplish in the interm (a lot can be done while visiting family and takeing time for ones spinning)

This here is the HungryforHandspun (from Etsy) in Cornucopia. It's Ramboullet, and I have to say, this is my new fave wool, it's soft and it spins so well. Like butter almost, and the colors. Well if you can't tell by the throw on my couch, I'm really into these colors right now. Even if Yellow looks attrocious near me.

An overhead shot of the Bonnet I knit out of handspun (pattern in knit one embellish two by cosymakes). I used two different skeins and then did the embroidery (which is hard to take a good shot of let me tell you) on the solid colored side. I kind of really like the way it's two toned, one side all crazy colors the other muted yet vibrant. It still needs a button and some strings but all in all I'm loving how it turned out.

Okay so you can't see the embrodiery that well but I loved the look of this picture. I needed to just sit in the sun for a little while after spending a few hours pumping out 1/3 of the midterm that's due thursday. I can't wait to block this and get the final parts put on. Then I might just wear it until all the snow is melted.