i'm working on it.......really

i don't really let my new year's resolutions be known-as it often just sets me up for failure. my list is usually miles long as well-nothing you all want to witness anyway. but one resolution i will share with you. this year i plan on getting a handle on my addiction. my addiction of starting new fiber projects before finishing old ones. it's WAY out of control. what a bummer to never have the "fruits" to show for your labors-they remain unfinished in bags, boxes or baskets. i get bored quickly and get too excited with new ideas and inspirations that i can't control the impulse to start something new. there's nothing like the fresh exhilaration of casting on for a new project. it's a drug-what a high! those of you with serious startitis know this feeling. it's dangerous.

this year i plan on going thru my UFO's (UnFinished Objects) and evaluate. Seriously decide whether to frog it or actually finish it. finish up the projects and then-attack my "to do" list with a vengeance. i have sooo many groovy things i want to make. i also plan on spinning everyday-even if it's only for a brief moment. i need to destash my spinning fiber before it takes over the house!

okay-that said...

i have finished 5 projects so far this year. this a BIG deal for me. especially if you could see how many projects i have started. i won't even share that number with you-it's too embarrassing. here's a few pics of completion: i finished my everyday vest knit from Rowan Chunky Colourscape. A holiday gift from my dear friend anne.

and it fits!!! i love this simple norwegian pattern-knit in the round, no seams except the shoulders. not particularly fond of the pink stripe right across my middle though-ha!!!

my friend rowan turned me on to a great free pattern called "malabrigo hand thingies"-super quick knit-on size 7 needles (yes! instant gratification). i made it from some of my handspun merino. MMMMMMMM! been into this raspberry color lately-what is up with that??? hence the need to change the color on my blog.

a new favorite pattern! i strongly urge you to knit this pattern.

last sunday we had another dye day at willow springs to work on our dye books. we accomplished a lot and we even had a spur of the moment BFL dye fest. i really like the way mine turned out but i would love it more if i hadn't diluted the dye so much. you were right rowan!!!maybe to prevent some muddiness when plying i will dye a solid to match and ply with that. a soxchik technique. plus i will get more yardage. maybe if i choose a gold it will look less eastery.
new word, new word!!!

spring is sooooo close! this was taken at the end of february.

ta ta for now-gotta go spin!

fiber and turkeys and gnomes......oh my!!!!!

last thursday rhodi and i embarked on our annual pilgrimage to Stitches West in santa clara. for those of you unaware nonfiber folks, Stitches is a ginormous knitting/fiber convention. in anticipation of this event all year i throw my change into a canning jar to help off set the cost.

believe it or not there "was" $112 in that canning jar. a bit more than last years savings. i am very fortunate that not only do i share a birthday with the fabulous man in black "johnny cash" but STITCHES falls on my birthday every year. so my birthday is always blessed with tons of fiber and fun with friends!

we meet up and stay with our good buddy soxchik. believe it or not she puts up with us! rhodi and i don't get off the hill much and we can get a bit "over excited" you might say. the fiber market began with photo fun( soxchik and rhodi) -yes, those are a pair of Addi knitting needles!
at Stitches many of the booths have daily drawings for free merchandise. well, what a great surprise for me on my birthday when i won the drawing from one of my favorite booths!!! "A Verb for Keeping Warm" has the most exquisite luxury yarn and roving dyed with natural dyes. Kristine and Adrienne are always a delight! and you are sure to have a WonderMike sighting at their booth. there was much gushing, hugging and screaming when we walked by their booth and they told me i had won the drawing! here's the skein of superwash merino i won in the mermaid colorway.

delicious isn't it?! there are other favorite vendors that i must visit. Judy's Novelty Wool, Miss Babs, Lisa Souza, and Sweet Grass wool. to name a few. Judy is a wonderful woman who raises her own sheep and belongs to the "fiber outlaws" guild in utah. she is aways there with a bright smile, a story and good corny joke or two. rhodie and i bought a rambouillet fleece from her. the sheep's name is shadow and i am excited to send off her fleece to get it processed. sorry no picture-she's up at rhodie's. i reserved a merino fleece for next year-her name is darlin' and the sample was divine! this year i was determined to learn locker rug hooking from Judy. so i bought her kit. i love it!! i'm hooked! hahahaha!(i know i'm such a dork!) here's my almost finished little sample. now i can make groovy rugs!

here's my fiber score-i tried to think outside the box and not come home with pounds of swamp green rovings! OMG! yes, that is a PINK roving in the back-i fell in love with it! super soft merino by butternut woolens -one of my new favorites.

my yarn score was an accomplishment this year as i bought mainly for specific projects. the huge white blob is alpaca that i plan on dyeing for shawl. there are 2 bags of yarn not pictured that i got for sweater projects-i will show those on another post. the prices were too good to pass up!

another new booth i really liked was Snicklefritz Yarns. it was too cool! yes i am partial to gnomes, but she had some amazing rare breed fibers and her gnome travels around the world and the colorways are inspired by his travels. Janelle let me take a picture of him even though there is no photography allowed.

the above colorway is called gnome in the sierras. she has an awesome fiber club i'm thinking of joining. oh and janelle's day job-she's teaches college level organic chemistry. i'm in awe as that is SO not up my alley. just ask my high school chemistry teacher.

the best part of stitches besides all the fiber is the laughter. it's a time to get away from it all and hang with fiber folks and just laugh and laugh and laugh. so good for my soul!!! we brought party favors to hand out. luci was the lucky recipient of some shrek or shall i say fiona ears. yes, barbara sue-i still have your vintage tatoo plastic bracelet. i have light blue or black left!

there is a lot of learning going on as well at stitches. i learned a few more ways to spin from a batt and how to make the most beautiful felted vessels/vases. i came back much inspired and ready to get off me arse and start creating!

on our way home we just had to stop off at a yarn store. ha! yes, we are that nuts! actually i was looking for a certain back issue of the spin off magazine which i failed to find. and also some jo sharp silk road-i only need one skein. i thought i'd find it at the "webs" booth but they sadly informed me that she no longer does north american distribution. total bummer as that is one of my favorite yarns!!! we also stopped next door to "beverly's" so we could get more rug backing for our first full size locker hooked rugs!! what a surprise to be in the city and to be greeted by a flirting wild tom turkey!!!


life is good. i'm home-back on the frontier. i just found out that where i live is not considered "rural" but "frontier." this makes me happy.

when life gets you down........

spinning too fast

as i sit here in my bed (yes i finally got the nasty cold hubby and the boy just got over) i reflect on how life is just spinning too fast for me. i can't seem to keep up it and feel a bit lost and confused. i can't seem to get everything done-i can't even update my blog regularly or keep up with reading blogs i enjoy. projects left unfinished- i seem to barely manage the daily essential chores-schooling, feeding the family, laundry, chicken care and some cleaning-if you can call it that. it never was one of my strong points. i am approaching another birthday and i'm realizing that i'm closer to 50 than i am 40-a sense of panic fills me. i know i'm not "old" but i can't help feeling a bit uptight that i'm not gonna do everything i want or need to. time seems to slip thru my fingers-and my "to do" list gets longer. i feel overwhelmed that i'm not finishing fiber projects, books are left halfway read and the dragon still only knows 2 commands. sigh. sigh. heavy sigh....... ick-enough of this reflecting!!!


yes, life keeps happening. my baby turned 12 recently. seems like yesterday i looked like i swallowed a basketball whole-i sure loved being pregnant.

having your baby growing inside you is the most amazing and wonderful experience. the actual birth for me was another story-for those of you that have not given birth-think about that basketball swallowed whole and now you gotta get it out. i still miss breast feeding and changing diapers!!!

remember the fuchsia and brown fiber from the previous post? well, i did manage to spin and ply it. i'm not usually a fuchsia gurl but i'm liking this. i had the perfect shawlette picked out for this yarn but i only ended up with 230 yards and i need 270 yards for the project-any ideas?

before the holiday craze i started this capelet:

i've wanted to knit this for years-it's from the book wrap style. of course i'm doing it in another color.....my favorite swampy green-the yarn is more yellowy green in real life.

i've started the lace section and had my sites set on finishing it for STITCHES. not sure if that is going to happen as the 25th is quickly approaching and i have to get the courier done before i leave.

a few weeks ago rowan, birdsong, lucie, rhodi and i had a wonderful dye workshop at willow springs with sara lamb. she is teaching us to make our own dye formula books. we had such a blast and were so engrossed in our work that we forgot to take pictures. i managed to snap a few shots at the end when we were putting our color cards together. this will be an ongoing project for us. here is lucie, rowan and birdsong arranging yarn color samples in order.

here's our days effort of mixing dyes and putting them on cards with their dye formulas. when the project is completed we will each have a large book full of colors and their formulas!!!

sniffle, snot, i really need to be napping so i will leave you with a picture of my fantastic baking ability-i made heart shaped brownies for the boys.

what can i say.....love is not perfect.

hark the harold!

it's a warm day here at wooly's house thanks to Harold our propane guy. "the" propane guy. hank hill would be proud of him. you see, our driveway is not the easiest for a gas truck. harold has to back the truck down a steep curvy gravel drive in order to get back up it. UPS won't come down-they leave things at the top. but harold....he's my hero as he comes down-even in the rain. i was worried we'd run out during the storm and i hate being cold!!

here he is-in action! go harold!! but the chickens were not happy with his loud truck so close to their home- they were desperately trying to get out!

he could only back in so far today because of the mud. luckily he has a long hose. minds out of the gutter- JEEZ!

been busy on the fiber side of life. i did finish carey's holiday mitts-which became belated b-day gifts. thanks to my "fiber gals" for assistance in understanding the pattern! free pattern here for you ravelers.

carey is pretending to be a hand model. i knit them out of washable merino-18 year old guys are not to hip with the "handwash" scene.

been making fingerless mitts for little people-great for using up little balls of left over yarn. these traveled all the way to sadie in louisiana. brothere max got some too but alas no pic. i hand-dyed the yarn. washable merino as well! another great free pattern here.

here's how my "everyday vest" is coming along. my first one is getting pretty ratty looking and i've been wanting another. my friend anne in minnesota sent me this wonderful yarn for xmas. i'm almost done.

i'm also going to be doing some stash reduction this year. so i also started the "icelandic star" sweater in the current interweave knits with some merino frappe i had in my closet. love the pattern so far as it is seamless.

the yarn is so light and fluffy-very cloud like. soft as hell too! merino-yum!!!! the colors look better in real life-as there is a sage green by the blue that you can't see very well in the photo. the dark diamonds are not black but dark green.

i'm finally being able to spin as my back is finally better(knock on wood!) and i'm challenging myself to spin everyday-even if it is just for 10 minutes. i dyed this BFL (blue faced leicester)
and wish i had dyed more!!! i just love the crimp of BFL-reminds me of my crimping iron from the 80's. here's my bucket-o fiber.

all spun and plied. maybe i have enough for a cowl?

i already started a new spinning project. a while back i tried to dye some merino really ugly to see what would happen when i spun it. i dyed it fushia, rust, and for some strange reason there are bits of pale lilac-almost silver that i did not add but mysteriously appeared after steaming.

it is actually spinning up really cool. it's funny how sometimes gorgeous rovings don't look that great spun up and ugly ones turn out cool. i will post picture when i finish.

time for some poirot. i think i'll turn on the heat:)

Carey's 18

Carey, i met you when you were just three years old. you came into my life and changed it in the most wonderful ways! and with a blink of an eye you have turned 18. how in the world did this happen? seems like just yesterday you were calling me "girlfriend stephanie", telling stories and wearing a tail.







You were six when Liam joined our family. You wanted a little brother so badly! what a wonderful big brother you have been from the very beginning!



Liam is very lucky!

You've always had the most beautiful smile! and still do!


i've watched you grow and change thru the years and my heart goes out to you as you cross this threshold into adulthood. Be brave and true to yourself. life isn't easy Carey, but it is a story.....your story. live it well. don't ever forget: we LOVE you and are ALWAYS here for you!
p.s. don't forget to brush!

Happy Birthday Carey!

welcome 2010

we had a grand daytime new years eve gathering at rowan's studio. us gals gathered for a productive day of picking, spinning, carding, knitting and of course eating. i was very excited to finally do something with my over felted dyed fleeces that have just been taking up space in my closet. in fact, this fiber is so old it comes from the days when i used to process the dirty fleeces myself! trust me-that was a long time ago!!!

rowan had an ancient torture device called a picker that worked wonders on my clumps of felted fiber! this is one bad ass machine! leather gloves are a must!

check out those sharp nails! oops! better get my gloves on!

the top part swings back and forth like a pendulum. couldn't help but have poe-esque visions. thank god my boobs don't hang THAT low!
the picked fiber just fall out of the picker in the back.


look at all the fluffy cloud like fiber----ready for use! much better than pillow stuffing as i had planned.

looks like a maxfield parish sky! now i could have spun it from the puffs but i really wanted to try out rowan's electric carder! yeeha! the machine of my dreams!

this carder rocks more than homebrew! i got about 8oz. of dreamy ready to spin batts!

impressive. here are rowan, lucie and birdsong gathered around the woodstove. rhodi is busy using the carder at this moment-got a great(hahahahaha) picture but i think i will save it for black mail purposes. we got a lot done with much laughter. ended our afternoon with a new year's count down-pretending we lived in norway.

back at the homestead we had another gift opening forenza(is that a word? sounds cool) belated holiday gifts are the best. anne and my mom know what i like and always send me fiber!!!(they haven't seen my closet-heheheh! shhhhh!) i will post more photos later-but i already started a vest from some yarn that anne sent:

it will be a quick knit as it's knitted on size #10 needles. this is rowan chunky colourscape-yum!

thank you mom and anne!! Happy new year everyone-i hope 2010 is all that you wish and hope it to be!!!

i hope you ate your black eyed peas! i made a crock pot version with home grown greens-the addition of 3 whole cloves really made them yummy!