pointysticks.net

I thought that it would be fun to show off my area out in the shop. This is it:

As you can probably tell, I have recently tidied the area, in preparation for some woodworking.
And for some color, let us now turn 180° and look at Matt’s station.

Does this even need comment?

In his defense, sometimes he does tidy up after most of his tools are completely hidden from view by kerf and little tiny torn up pieces of abrasive paper. The rest of the time I tidy his space when I go to sharpen his tools.

I had to give spinning boucle a second chance, then a third, then a fourth.

I seem to be getting the hang of it now, although it’s still a little more uneven than I like.

I am glad that I did just this as a sample before I really dedicated myself to spinning major yardage, because upon inspection I have a few spots that I distinctly don’t like (the really poufy bits are just begging to be impaled with a knitting needle.)

I’m making little teeny sockies–

Because sometimes the smallest sock pattern I could find is just not small enough.

Due to a chat conversation about Douglas Adams and a somewhat wry and silly sense of reality I started a Towel-A-Long over at YarnPorn, if you want to join just send me an email (or leave it in the comments) and I’ll send you an invitation. The guidelines are pretty simple: be silly, knit or crochet a towel (or towel-ish object), share progress pics and have some fun. If you can work the answer to life, the universe and everything into the pattern somehow that’s pretty nifty but not necessarily required.

On other fronts my sister’s family just moved to Florida, in the path of the hurricane so they have evacuated to North Carolina. Of course my mom and her husband live here in Oregon, but her husbands mother (who lives in Florida) just had a heart attack and is in the hospital there, so they are there (in Florida) with her until her condition is better and she can safely go home (which, given my family’s luck in such matters will probably be torn into tiny pieces by the hurricane.)

Back to the fibery silliness.

I’m blind! I’m blind!

Remember that peach flesh merino I dyed, then I made the mohair to go with? Well, um… this is the mohair version as hairy as it gets.

A little bit of the green fire star and some of the bottle green wool (that I didn’t blend with bamboo top.)

I think the worst part about spinning silk is that I’m simply not motivated to keep update pictures of it on the flyer. Here’s some undyed silk, here’s more of it, here it is being plied, here’s a hank of it.

So I dyed some silk– I was actually going to save my pennies and get some real dye for it, but I was impatient for some color and decided on KA and EE dyes in my faithful little crockpot.

Blue/green and light green silk.

I also dyed the last of my undyed merino and I’ve been (heresy of all heresies) spinning novelty yarn.

And by “novelty yarn”, I mean actual well constructed muppet vomit and not just poorly spun yarn. Mostly mohair muppet vomit a little wool muppet vomit, I’m testing right now– so there are copious amounts of different flavors in very small lengths. Testing is good right? Right?

Orange silk thread on the flyer.