Distractions and Catch-Up

This has been my distraction for the past week. We got him on the 7th, and he is growing quickly and has tons of energy, but by the 13th I figured out how to get my knitting done. I don't have great photos, but I have been able to catch-up on my 2 rows a day and even get a few days ahead. So here is the progress so far, sorry for the poor photos.

It's starting to look like something...

  Though at this rate, I'm concerned that I won't have anything to enter into the fair. I mean I can always get a few skeins in, but we'll see about a knit item. I'm going to try to start knitting my "second time around" shawl in the evenings, as I have been doing a pretty good job getting my 2 rows done during the day. We'll see.

Fiber Club Monet

Wow, another shipment from the PF Fiber Club. Man these guys are good. I know I'm a shipment behind, but I promise I have those photos on the camera. Anyway, March.

This is some amazingly dyed Polwarth and silk, 75/25 respectively. It is sooooo pretty! I want more! I'm not sure how I'm going to spin it, what I want to make with, or if I just want to leave it as is and look at it.

Anyway, I also got some grey Romney and white BFL. Good stable wools, but not much to photograph. I might go ahead and spin the BFL for Etsy. Not sure if I will try to dye it or not...
I've never worked with Romney before, to that may prove interesting, but if it's good for fingering weight worsted, we're certainly in business (it may be headed for Etsy too).

That's about it for now. Gotta keep chugging on the blanket!

Blanket Updates

So it's not a very good picture I know. Still haven't found the card reader, so I'm taking photos with my phone which randomly gives pictures an orange glow, or rather randomly doesn't, but this is the progress on the B-I-L's blanket. It's not much. I'm 52 rows into a 376 row pattern. I have roughly 180 days to finish it. That means at least 2 rows a day. Yesterday I did three. If there is a future post with a solitary number, I'm probably sharing how many rows I completed that day. Hopefully I will find a time of peace soon and be able to knock out 10 or so rows a day...right, but I can dream can't I?

I did start a graph for this blanket a while back, I guess I need to break it out again...well, I should go knit.

No more excuses and a disappearing cat

Ok, so I found a way to get some photos. Before the cat comes and goes here's a quick peak at a rug I have been making sow but steady progress with.

 I have a friend who is teaching a class to his guild on fractal spinning. He wanted some specifically dyed yarn to help see the stripes a bit easier. I'm still a pretty new dyer, so I did a bit of practicing. I went to my fiber stash and grabbed some Dorset and Whitefaced Woodland and began to dye. So then I have 8 or so ounces of this very oddly dyed wool (some sections came out better than others, and I used different colors on some parts because I got bored and wanted to see what all the colors I got for Christmas looked like).
Well, I am also in the process of using all of my long wool to make a rug to go in my slab basement with ceramic tiles set directly onto the concrete. I figured that this was as good a place as any to use all my test wools.
Over the course of about 4 hours I spun and plied the 8 ounces (it's not even close to fair quality and a bit thicker than normal). Then I joined it to the rug. Pacman was quite pleased.
I'm actually quite happy with the overall look of the yarn. Especially that fact that I paid absolutely no attention to any of the colors while I was spinning. 

A few days later, I decided I needed to comb some more of my friend's wool. I'm getting a new puppy soon (yeah, there might be another pause in the posts) and decided that the wastes from my combing would make a good bed, so I stuck them in an old pillow case. My cats felt it very important to test this new bed. They approved. This one liked it so much, she didn't even care that I had more that could go into the pillow case/bed.

 This was the final result of my combing. I know you're supposed to draft the fibers off the comb, but I wanted to see what would happen if I didn't. And yes, my cat is still under the wool in that last picture.