Its all true, the boogie girl is real, and you've found her. She knits, sews, spins, does pottery and writes it all down in this blog.
Friday, July 28, 2006
They're coming!
Who?
Miss Anj and Sue will be here at the Boogie Abode tomorrow night. YAY! They are the whole reason I'm taking time off next week. Not that I didn't sorely need it but it helps to have friends to take time off with.
I did promise to tell you about what I did with my club sample this month. Did you all get yours? This past month's Fiber Club was silk in "The New Black" colorway. Once again it was a combination of colors I wouldn't necessarily make for myself but it was so pretty together that I fell for it. But what to do? How to spin it?
I have 2 silk projects going at the moment already. One on the spindle and one on the lace bobbin on the wheel. Both are being spun very fine and will be plied into lace weight yarn. I wanted to do something different.
I settled on making a single and adding some BFL to it.
I would spin a length of silk lace weight thin, then pick up my BFL in white and spin it in bulky weight. I alternated between spinning lace weight silk and bulky BFL. Now I have a couple hundred yards of this:
My plans are to make a lacy/lumpy scarf. Unfortunately you can't really see the beauty of this idea unless I knit a sample. I've not had time to knit anything but work related stuff. Just a couple more weeks and I'll be knitting for me again.
Now I'm off to work and then I'll try to tidy for the arrival the gals. I'm so looking forward to seeing them. Have a good weekend all.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Remind me, ok?
Getting the club out, and getting a new update done at the same time, is not easy. I repeat, NOT EASY. In fact it's hard. And now I'm tired. I swear I'll catch up on personal emails and reading blogs soon.
Let's start with the update....
Bags-
Collegiate Bags are 15% off
Fiber -
BFL, Merino, Superwash Merino, and Wool Blend.
All on sale!
Yarns-
Sock yarns
Nothin New has been added but I'm extending the sock yarn sale until August 14th
EDIT** - I think my email notification and notice of vacation was a little ambiguous. Place your order for in stock items now and they will ship BEFORE I go on vacation. But place them while I'm on vacation then they will ship when I get back.
Ok, back to regularly scheduled programming. - amy
And for the club.
CLICK HERE if you want to see at totally ruin your surprise.
Friday I'll show you what I did with the fiber. I did something a little bit different this time. I ordered some special stuff that I don't currently stock for next month. Always something new. I'm enjoying playing with something new along with all of you.
Now I'm going to continue working on my Cormo socks.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Monday Cleanup
Ahhh, stash.
The beginning of this year I had to figure out how much stash I really had. I even made a little page, HERE so I could keep track of it. It hasn't gone down but then it hasn't increased much either. It has migrated. Over the years the yarn migrates from the stash closet (or ceiling) in the basement to be moved into the main part of the house. I made a little map for you:
You will notice that there is at least one piece of stash in each room. Yes, in every room. I don't know why, but it always makes it's way around. My stash is a traveling tramp. It goes everywhere and has no shame.
So you see my map up there but I don't need it. Because I know where my stash all is and thanks to my stash page, I know what I have (even if all of it isn't exactly on there). For the most part, I can find it when I need it. Although there are always a few surprises and a few runaways.
Today we're going back to that freezer for a question. I came up with this one as I tried to fit something in my big chest freezer, you'll see next week about my defrosting adventures or woes.
As for knitting....
I'm still on my knitting honeymoon with the Elsa Cormo Wool.
On to Soap... (I figured it fit in with "Clean Mondays")
Evermore Soap Factory finally opened a webshop. This stuff is so cool. I ordered last week and this is what came:
Is that not gorgeous?
Each one was wrapped in it's own pretty paper and labeled nicely. But when you unwrap it....
...It gets even better.
I started using the ylang ylang one and it's so nice. Tiffany is someone I've known online for a few years but that has no influence in what I'm about to say about her soap. Knowing her is what got me to buy the first order. Loving the soap is what got me to place a second order all ready. The soap is so nice and my skin feels softer. Really it does. Some handmade soaps leave the skin a bit tacky, not these. SOFT. The scent lasts a while on my skin, that's really nice. Everytime I get a wiff of myself (instead of passing out) I want to go take another shower. I feel all girly.
Thank you all for the wonderful birthday greetings. M is very happy to be 6 and she gets to go shopping today with my Mom, which I think makes her feel even happier.
Friday, July 21, 2006
It's someone's Birthday today
And she's SIX
Yes, that would be a Barbie head on a spoon. We don't ask questions, we just make sure the knives stay locked up.
Monday, July 17, 2006
My Knitting is Blah
I was all set to tell you about how blah I feel about my knitting but I can't do that now. This arrived:
It's Cormo from Elsa Sheep and wool Company. I first read about this stuff in the Knitter's Review review of the yarn. You need to read the review and see the pictures there. The yarn was fully tested and ultimately loved. Also it's well written and I'm not able to do any writing well.
I believe what Clara writes about in her yarn reviews. I trust her review. However, there is something magical about this yarn. Something that when you touch it, you want to marry it. You want to strap it you in some way so that it never leaves. You want to squish it's buttery lovely goodness.
I need more. I may not be able to send this project off.
I want to make all my sweaters and socks from this. No, I don't want to make anything from it, I want to lash several skeins together and create a lush bed to sleep on. Then I'll make a qiviut blanket and I'll be toasty floating on air.......
Now that we've already joined the realm of the insane... Husbeast sent me something else. Don't be fooled by his comments, he's the one that sent me the naughty cow. He's not as innocent as he may seem
Do you want to Hallucinate without drugs? It's pretty cool. Hallucination without the headache.
Friday, July 14, 2006
Monday Cleanup
I love the 5 second rule. I grew up on the 5 second rule. The dogs don't seem to understand the 5 second rule. They're rule is about 1 second if it even hits the floor before they get it. Really, anything that hits the floor is gone instantly. Sometimes it doesn't even need to be food for them to eat it.
If I did by some chance get to pick up a piece of food, I'd wash it, wipe it, blow on it. I have to do something because there is dog hair down there. Not just dog hair. A ton of it. These 2 always seem to be shedding. I swear I could knit a brand new dog each day from the hair piles I pick up. So yeah, food gets washed, tossed or fed to the hairy things.
And because I'm utterly (ha!) blah about my knitting at the moment.
I'm a Cow
As with all the video clips I post, some will find this very offensive and others will pee their pants. There, you've had fair warning.
Next post maybe I'll gather up all my projects and tell you why I feel so blah about them. Or at least explain about my problem with that thing called counting.
Hiding and knitting
Taking a look at the Weather Forecast and seeing the little 84% next to humidity, makes me want to run and hide. Run and hide someplace with strong air conditioning. I'm going to find a comfy cool spot and knit. I have more sock needles that need to be put into some yarn. No, I didn't finsih some socks. In fact I haven't touched my socks all week.
I got these fabulous needles from Jillian. Thank you Jillian, you are awesome. Now I don't have to finish a pair of socks before starting another one. Which is especially good since I got this:
I made a quick trip to the LYS to buy new needles for a special someone and the owner mentioned that yarn up there and how she wanted to make socks from it. Socks from Bamboo yarn? Count me in. I bet you can guess what I plan to cast on for this weeekend. Yeah, so what if I have a ton of socks on the needles. Is there a problem with that?
I need to get to work and then run to hide in Air conditioning so I'm cutting this short. Because the humidity is washing away my brain and I keep forgetting Saturday Sky:
This was the clouds that rolled in right before a big storm last week. I uploaded them all to flickr but thats as far as I've gotten with Flickr. I haven't done much else nor figured out how to do things with it. I'll get there, but right now with dealines and extra work, I haven't even been reading blogs.
I hope you all stay cool and have a good weekend.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Chasing Children
I'm updating the shop today but I have some children to chase first.
You see, my Mom helps out at my cousin's wife's daycare. We're pretty close with them. I grew up with him and he was always like an older brother to me. My cousin and his wife have 3 awesome kids, 2 of which are same age as mine. J got pregnant right after I did, both times. This last time was a pretty big surprise to both of us. I have made a solemn promise to them that I won't get pregnant again.
To cut this down from being a long story, since Mom isn't here, I'm helping out. Mom and Gram will be flying in later tonight but in the meantime J needs help. I think there are 10-13 kids at the daycare and it's usually a fun time, even if it's tiring. I just need to cover time until J's Mom is able to work.
This all means that the update will be between 3 and 4 pm EST. Can you believe it took me that long just to say that?
In the meantime...
Let's talk about knitting!
Angora. Oh Angora.
This sweater is almost done. I've been taking my time with this one. Well, that and my time to knit has been after 9pm lately. It's the last project I have in the series. I thought I was going to have more but I never received the yarn so this one has lasted until the deadline. It's a gorgeous yarn and a really nice knit. I expect it will be finished in the next day or two.
Did you notice the tissue box? I haven't been crying my eyes out nor have I had an allergy attack. It's holding my rolling ball of angora. These balls aren't skeins and I didn't want to roll them all into center pull balls so thanks to a tip on Knitter's Review, the balls get put into a tissue box. No rolling all over the place.
Remember how I freed up some needles? Of course I had to cast right back on.
This is the mountain silk blend I showed off a little while ago. One ply of a blend with nylon and silk noils. The second ply is of a semi solid yarn. I'm loving these and I've only just started.
This yarn is a blend set of one ply of wool, hemp, nylon, and silk noils. The other ply is my Nova Scotia wool. I have a sister set that will go up for sale later. I love this yarn. It's amazing and I think these will be fabulous socks for Dad. He noted that he has 2 pair. Absolutely not enough for a Maine winter. I'm going to see how many I can get done for him before winter hits.
This is not a knitting project. This is a baby at meal times. Cute isn't she? I finally got the hint that she isn't fond of peas. Either that or she is convinced that it makes a good facial, it's good for the hair and well, we all like pea green clothing.
Monday, July 10, 2006
Monday Cleanup
The question about cleaning cars came up because I realized that I have this car for over a year and not once have I cleaned it. I keep the trash off the floor (most of the time) but I let the rain take care of the rest. If there was a lot of mud stuck to the car, I'd clean it for sure.
The car isn't used much. in fact we've only added 5 thousand miles to it this year. Not much chance to get it dirty. I'm sure if I used it more, it would be dirtier. But then, I can't guarantee that I'd wash it more either.
This week I want you to think about the last time you dropped a cookie, a piece of carrot or something else that is salvageable if you pick it up. Do you have a rule as to whether you can eat it or not?
I got some prime knitting time this weekend sitting with Gram. She's making a big trip today. Her son in California is quite ill so she's heading out there to see him. Of course she isn't going alone, Mom will be helping her make the trip. Her first question was "Can I bring my crochet hook on the plane?". I assured her that she'd be fine and then I think she felt settled to take the trip. I know I wouldn't want to make that trip without my knitting.
So I sat with her for some time over the weekend. I'm working on a sweater on size 4 needles at about 300 sts per row. Gram is crocheting an afghan that is 4 feet wide on a size J hook (I think) For every 2 crochet rows Gram would make, I'd get one knit row done. Not that it was a race, but it was just interesting to see her speedy fingers going zoom zoom zoom.
This week I'll be knitting and hoping that Gram and Mom make a safe trip to California and back to Maine later in the week.
Friday, July 07, 2006
FREE!
I have freed 2 sets of needles from long languishing projects.
First I finished my stripey sock so I could show off the way that some of my yarn stripes.
Pattern: Basic toe up sock
Yarn: Spunky Eclectic Superwash with Nylon
Needles: US1
No, I'm not making a second one. I only dyed 100 yards of this so I need to either dye more or move on. I'm choosing to move on. I will make another pair of stripey socks but they will be in colors that are more "ME". Like black and lime or pink.
And I freed my favorite needles from these:
Ziggy Socks
Pattern: Boogie
Yarn: REGIA 6ply
Needles: US2
Did you notice the sock blockers?
I never block socks. Well, I used to be able to say that. I had a couple of socks to do that needed a more professional look so I invested in these. I had a choice between these and those green plasticy ones. Of course wood always get more points than plastic.
Then the wooden ones also had another nifty feature. If you notice the middle of the foot, they adjust to different sized feet. They don't get particularly huge, but they do get bigger. It's enough of a feature to make me give them ALL the points and walk out with them. Well, I paid for them before walking out with them.
I have 2 tiny complaints. Number one is the splinters. I've had to sand one of them down a bit because they snagged the socks. Number two is that the heel is weird when the sock is wearing them. Ok, it's such a minor whine. Once the sock has been blocked, the heel looks fine. I would still recommend these. Just make sure you have a little sand paper on hand.
Now that I've freed my favorite pair of needles I need to work at freeing my second favorite set of needles from these:
River Rapids
Pattern: Sock Bug
Yarn: Fortissima Colori
Needles US2
But there is more than knitting on tap for the weekend. This weekend is the MOXIE Festival. I have plans for watching more fireweorks, catching candies in the parade, and doing a bunch of other stuff. I hope you all have a great weekend too.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Noils in Charge
Noils in Charge
Of our yarn day and night
Noils in Charge
Of our spinning so right
And I sing, I want,
I want Noils in Charge of me.
Anyone remember Charles in Charge?
I've got Noil fever. And I got it so bad it's good.
Since I have the big bad noil fever I thought I'd talk about spinning a good noil filled yarn. I've read forum posts and heard people complain about noils. Well, they have a point. You can't always do what you want with Noils. Sometimes as in the title "Noils in Charge".
It may be in charge but that's not always a bad thing.
Take this stuff (all pictures can and should be enlarged):
Good carding/blending takes several passes through the carder. With the batts above I added the noils in at the last time through the carder. This meant the noils weren't broken up and sat on top of the yarn. This type will never be a fine yarn. Well, I should qualify that. You can take all the fun out of spinning it and force this batt to be a yarn that you want. The batt will want to be novelty. The little sample that I spun up is a novelty single thick and thin, which is what it told me it wanted to be.
Now here is this stuff:
The multicolored noils were added in the first pass. They're much smaller and will make a more normal yarn. I spun it woolen so it has lots of loft. In fact, it wanted to be lofty. I could have spun it worsted but it would have lost some of the tweedy look making the noils pop a bit more.
Finally for today I'm showing this stuff:
The white silk noils were added in the first pass. Again you can see they're much smaller. I sold some roving with this batt. As in the yarn I showed off a couple of weeks ago, this one has one ply of noily yarn and one ply of straight up wool.
The yarn I spun last week will be for socks. The noils are small enough not to be novelty and force you into a certain yarn but add enough interest to be a fun yarn. Doing one ply in a plain wool makes for a solid yarn.
Do you want to spin noils yet?
Or have I turned you off from Noils all together?
Monday, July 03, 2006
Monday Cleanup
Hopefully some of you are really on vacation this weekend (holiday weekend here in the US) and you won't be working. I'm only working a half day today and tomorrow so that's the extent of my vacation time.
Quite a few of you last week let me know just how much you would not like to be covered in mud. I know others that have the same aversion to uncleanliness. I, however, do not live in that camp. I love mud. I'm perfectly happy being dirty. I'm not entirely happy with it when it's not of my choice. The mud sinking quicksand deal was NOT of my choice.
So how did I handle the dirt?
I stripped in my backyard, frightening birds and small mammals. I then hosed off my pants after I took a long hot shower. The pants have been washed twice and they still have a brown tint. I'm glad I at least rinsed them or they'd be all brown.
This week, I take you outside to think about your vehicles. Car, truck, van, bicycle, motorcycle, scooter, etc.... How clean do you keep it?
On to knitterly things...
I'm trying to free some needles. I want to start new socks but I can't unless I buy new needles. Again. If I didn't already have a gazillion sets, I would have no problem buying new ones. Obviously, since I've done that before. Quite a few times before.
I've decided the smart thing to do would be to finish up some projects. Particularly I want my favorite needles free from these:
Now that I think about it...Wouldn't it be more sensible to buy more of my "favorite" needles. Since I like them so much, it would probably be good to have at least one more pair. Right? See how I can justify anything?
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Saturday Sky
Yes yes yes, I know it's Sunday
Again.
I can't seem to do this one on time.
But it's a good thing I waited a bit.
This was Friday's sky
Yes, that would be more storm clouds moving in.And Saturday evening:
A faint little rainbow.
We've had lots of grey sky but the rainbow makes up for some of it.