Work is crazy, I am playing too much WoW, and not crafting enough. (But it’s so nice to finally be able to do runs with people instead of just watch them do stuff without you!)

However….
I bought a new sewing machine on Friday. The Huskystar E10. I have managed to get it unpacked but have yet to even put it through it’s paces on scrap fabric. Maybe I’ll get to it tonight.

Just when I thought I wouldn’t have a post this week due to long meetings downtown at work, HHHH puts out a questionnaire for me to answer. Serendipitous!

1. How long have you been spinning? What skill level do you consider yourself?
Over 2 years. Intermediate- Novelty/Art yarns are still a huge challenge for me, and I am often not sure what I’ll do with them when I am done.

2. What kinds of yarn do you create (singles/2-ply/3-ply/art yarn)?2 ply lace-fingering, and 3 ply sport for socks mostly.

3. What do you spin with (spindle/wheel/both)?
Mostly wheel now. I do keep my spindles and a bit of wool at work for really shitty days though.

4. What are your favorite fibers to spin with? Anything you don’t like?
My favorite right this very moment is bamboo. Merino/Tencel is always an “ooooh, shiny!” for me too. Really, anything.

5. Who are your favorite crack dealers fiber sources (etsy or otherwise)?
Etsy sometimes. Usually I just stock up at MSW, and then order other things during the year as they catch my eye. Most likely I will order from Creatively Dyed and The Ranch on Etsy next, and possibly Materials Whirled online. I really need to spin up what I have now before being tempted elsewhere however.

6. What kind of fiber do you want to try?
silk, but I already own some, just haven’t gotten around to it yet.

7. Is there any techniques you would like to learn?
The wrap and roll technique that was in Spin Off recently.

8. Do you dye fiber? If not, would you like to learn?
I have done.

9. Do you have fiber prep tools (and like to use them) or would you prefer ready to spin fiber?
I have combs, but generally just use prepped fibers. The combs come in handy when something goes wrong with the prepped fiber however. (I once had some bfl age rather badly in my stash.)

10. What do you do with your handspun? What projects have you completed?
Give it away. Make socks or Lace. Pet it.

11. Are you in need of any spinning gadgets (WPI Gauge, threading hook, etc)?
not really, I don’t use the ones I have that often

12. What colors “fall into your shopping basket”? Any colors you just can’t stand?
I am a sucker for blues and watery type colorways. But I also end up with a lot of brown/green because those are colors that shmoo likes.

13. What is on your wheel/spindle right now?
Erm….some Bamboo from Loop

14. What other crafts/hobbies do you have?
Knitting, Soaping, Sewing

15. Other than crafts, what are you passionate about?
I play a lot of WoW, and listen to a lot of audiobooks.

16. Do you have an online wishlist?
Nope.

17. Is there anything that you collect?
Little turtle figurines.

18. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What magazine subscriptions do you have?
I have subs to IK, SpinOff, and Piecework.

19. When is your birthday?
In Nov.

20. What book or movie character do you most resemble in personality?
No idea.

21. What is the climate like where you live around this time (need to know for careful shipments of anything meltable)?
Hot and humid.

22. Tell us one weird fact about yourself!
I always have painted toe-nails, but hardly ever will I paint my fingernails. And when I do, it’s with clear or a very very pale cream.

Favorites
favorite painting/picture(link):
Leighton’s Flaming June
Really, I have a strange fondness of all the Dutch and Englishmen who painted Greco-Roman scenes in the 1800s. But it all started with Leighton.

Candy:
Those mint 3 Musketeers

Food:
anything not fish or mushrooms really.

Drink:
Sweet Iced Tea.

Movie(s):
Hard to say…we don’t watch a ton of them.

TV Show(s):
House, CSI, Bones, L&O: CI

Book(s):
Stuff by Eddings, C.E. Murphy, Garth Nix, Maria V Snyder, Christopher Moore, Tamora Pierce, Lois McMaster Bujold. There’s more but that’s off the top of my head.

Guilty Pleasure(s): Those cheesy reality competition shows. You know, Bravo hosts a crap-ton of them. Project Runway, Top Chef, Shear Genius. Currently I watch the New Elle Woods one on Mtv too. That’s probably the one I feel guiltiest about.

Not much on the knitting front is happening. I’ve been trying to make a point to spin any time I sit down in front of the T.V. however, so I do have some spinning to show.

The rest of my free time has been spent playing warcraft. We recently switched guilds to one that raids during our hours and has a site for which neither shmoo nor I am responsible, nor are we officers. OMG y’all! It’s so nice to not have to worry about the stupid shit other people do online. We have been playing more, doing more when we play, and enjoying ourselves immensely. Yay us.

But you came for pictures, so let me give them to you.

Loop’s Iridescence, a black alpaca filled with firestar. This was my first time spinning with firestar. I *think* I like it, but the jury is still out. Perhaps I’ll have to see how it knits up.

iridescence

singlesandplied

firestar

And finally, a photo of Bri actually being NICE for a change.

nicebri

Our couch and tables came. We absolutely freaking love them. And then we went and got some nice lamps to go with as well, which we also freaking love. We picked up a big big doggie floor pillow too for Daisy, that took Bri all of 5 minutes to take over and make his. Which we predicted. The only thing we were wrong about was how fast it was. We expected a day or two at least.

Knitwise, I started Hanami, and am on the 2nd repeat of the 1st chart so far. I am not pushing to get it done or anything, just kinda trucking along on it. I did do beads for the edging, and added extra rows of them.

Spinning…. Here’s the party roving I did up. I’m not done with it, but it’s down by half so I feel better about it.

And finally the past two days I’ve been working on some Loop batts. It’s her Confetti batt, which is silky black alpaca that is oh so very soft and was just a pleasure to spin AND bits of sari silk all in it. I navajo plied it a bit looser than I normally do, and it’s so soft and fluffy and wonderful, and I have no freaking clue what I’ll make with it. I haven’t even bothered to figure out the yardage yet!

confettibatt

confettidone

confettipliedbobbin

confettisingles

confettiskein

The randomness of many things!

First off, dinner with Helena was wonderful. We met at the Convention Center at 6:00pm, and immediately hauled off to A Good Yarn to make it before they closed at 7:00. Then we strolled down to Todd Conner’s for dinner, and I was happily surprised by the place. It’s rather publike, but was perfect for good food, casual atmosphere, and all our chatter. Shmoo went with me, and the 3 of us had a grand time. I feel that I was lucky in who I ended up with as my sockapalooza pal last year, because Helena is one of those people who turned out to be on the same wave-length as shmoo and I. So it wasn’t just “oh another knitter!” but “ooh! another knitter who thinks much like I do!!”

Second, Argh to this weekend. Thursday we got rid of our old living room suite (hooray freecycle) to prepare the way for our new couch and tables coming in on Friday, that we got at furniture store on Memorial Day weekend. They were having a half off sale, which we were unaware of when we decided to go. It was nice to find a sale when we were looking to buy regardless. I love our new couch, and the tables too. And it’s actually LESS furniture which means our tiny apt won’t be so crowded. And it’s a sofabed! So there’s actually somewhere for a guest to sleep! But I digress…

Friday night we rented a Rug Doctor, and used it Friday night and Saturday day on the carpets since it was an ideal time to do them. We even decided to stay home from a party some friends of shmoo were having to keep cleaning. I’d like to say it was saintly of us to sacrifice our fun, but really it was long overdue and just needed to get done. Oh, and the cable went out about 12:30 pm.. both internet and tv…. and as of this posting, it’s still not back on. It’s comcastic, no?

Sunday I did some major cleaning out of things. I tend to horde stuff away like a pack rat, and honestly we just don’t have room. Shmoo and I both want an uncluttered live-able space, and with all my hobby/craft stuff it can be difficult. So I had to accept I needed to part ways with some stuff and reorganize what was left. You don’t get that nice clean-edged uncluttered look by holding on to every little knickknack you have acquired. So far I’ve filled 5 trashbags, and I hope to have 4 more before it’s all over. Which reminds me.. does anyone have kids that play Neopets? I used to collect the little plushies but they’ve been in a box since I moved up here, so they need to find a new home. Email me if your kids are into Neopets and I’ll see about them coming to live with you. As a bonus to all this cleaning and sorting… I found my passport, which I thought I had lost. Whee! Or at least.. yay saved money! Now to just get shmoo to actually get his done and we can travel the worlds! The worlds I say!!!

If you have a PSP you may want to check out Patapon. If you ever played PaRappa the Rapper and liked it, well then I highly recommend Patapon. The song does get stuck in your head though, you’ve been warned.

I think that’s it. It’s hard to know for sure. I need to go plow my inbox and sort through bloglines now. Hooray for interwebs at work!

Tonight I am going to meet and have dinner with the fabulous Helena from Knit-Nurse Chronicles.  For those of you who don’t remember she was my pal for sockapalooza last summer, and for whom I designed the Skyscraper socks.  Woot.

Lace Leaf Shawl by Evelyn A. Clark
Started: August 2, 2006
Finished: May 26, 2008
Yarn used: Dale Baby Ull, in darkish true red, no idea about the number anymore, and some of my first handspun. 117 yarns or mohairy purple goodness.
Why I would ever mix red and purple: Because my mom is into that whole red with purple thing, and this was done for her. I don’t think she knows that I was doing it for her, and it’s good thing because it surely took me long enough to get around to finishing it.

blocking

blockdetail

edging

moneyshot

beautyshot

And if that’s not enough, I’ve got some spinning photos for you. The gold singles from Loop were done ages ago and I just finally got around to taking a photo. The stuff on the bobbins is Party Roving from MSW last year.

goldloop

partybobbins

partyplied

I actually finished something! After a mere *cough* 2.5 years *cough*!
Lace Leaf Shawl is actually finished, and is blocking now. I just need to take a beauty shot and I’ll have an actual post for it.

Just a hodge-podge of random unrelated things.

This lolcat makes me laugh:

more cat pictures

And this lolrus reminds me of me in the ocean (I am paranoid about sharks thanks to watching Jaws at an impressionable age.):

more cat pictures

Though it has been two weeks the results from the wooly competition are not in yet. I am getting a little antsy. I don’t think I will win but I
do want to have done well.

We had a guild member die of cancer in my Warcraft guild last week, and we had a memorial service for her yesterday. Her husband is also a guild member so he attended and had her family watch with him from her computer. So often, people forget that there are actual people behind the other moving pixels of this game. I am glad to be in a guild where we do not.

My music collection seems to grow from songs I hear on the TV shows I like. A cover of Massive Attack’s Teardrop from House last night. A cover of Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill by Placebo from an episode of CSI this year. Previously due to CSI I picked up Gary Jules’ Mad World. As someone who used to be fairly on top of the music scene thanks to an innovative and outstanding radio station (now defunct), I think I am a little disappointed in myself. Maybe I’ll go buy a Belly album or something to soothe my elitism.

Oh! I am knitting, just not much.

Weekend before last, shmoo’s dad and wife came to visit. They were very nice and I enjoyed meeting them. They didn’t get to see much of DC but then again there is just so much to see you can’t do it in just a couple of days. I did use their visit to make a list of stuff I want to see on weekends with shmoo. We most likely won’t live this close to DC forever, and I’d like to take advantage of it while we can.

This past weekend, I went to a hairpin lace class at a local yarn shop. It’s not the one I normally choose to go to, but it is the closest, and the class intrigued me. And since we had decided 2 weeks ago to skip Wine in the Woods this year, I went. (We skipped WitW because, while it’s fun, we have already used it to find “our” wines and so we just went to Corridor and bought a case of wine instead. Solomon Island’s Mango Symphony goes with almost everything btw.) I learned the technique I went to learn, so I shall deem the class good. I would have preferred a better supply list other than “oh you get 10% off supplies before the class” and “just bring a light colored worsted yarn” when I KNEW I’d need a crochet hook, but that’s ok. I got over it. I plan on using this technique to make something for my mom from the noveltish yarn she fell in love with and handed over for me to “do something” with.

The dog got in trouble for getting into the trash last night. The cat still likes to sleep on my side of the bed and then get pissy when I make him move when I come to bed. For someone who insists he doesn’t love me, he is always in my space.

How do you use Ravelry?

People keep commenting how the boards are great, and they spend so much time there, and it’s slowly replacing knit blogging….
But is it? I mean… I still blog. Yes, I am blogging less often but I just don’t have as much to talk about lately. When I do, I post.

Here’s how I use Ravelry:
I go to the site, I click on friends, and then I click on friend activity. If look at what is being completed and added to queues that way super quick, and super easy. I decide if I like any of it and add it to my queue if I am interested in doing it myself. Sometimes, I do the pattern search if I want to see what people have done with a pattern. After I finish up some projects and clear up some queue, I plan on using the experimental pattern search as well. Of course by that time, it probably won’t be experimental.

How do you use it?