It Begins

So, today I signed up for a gym membership at Planet Fitness. It's been a long time coming and I am glad that I finally did it. So, I went up there today after a few setbacks that were quite irritating. I ended up not able to use the weight lifting stuff because the entire area was swarming with young men, but it appears that it will suit my needs perfectly. Anyway, I ended up spending my visit on a stationary bike (which, by the way, I have one at home why I decided to use that piece of equipment is beyond me) and scoping out the equipment. 

In great news, I got a new watch. It lights up fancy colors! 

 

Spinning in the New Year!

Okay, so I have various things to report, but my favorite will be the subject of this post. I spun awesome yarn. It looks absolutely amazing. I got my fiber, pretty much as per usual, at NaturalObsessions. Her fiber is of EXCELLENT quality and I would suggest her products to absolutely anyone.

4 oz of BFL arrived at my house and I began working with it in, like, November...

So, the singles looked really great:

The yarn looked really great and came out to 510 yards of light fingering weight with only two knots in it. Yay!

And my typical "gauge swatch" for handspun or hand-dyed yarns looked really great in my sock yarn blankie:

I, sadly, will have no other FO for this particular yarn, as I spun it up for a friend. It turns out it goes perfectly with the yarn we dyed for her birthday and will be the perfect counterbalance for a knit dragon she is making. Huzzah! (See? Perfect!)

So, please enjoy my yarny porn!

Unfuck My Habitat Challenge

I have to admit... I live in a total mess. I need to clean up my living space. It's causing mental distress and it's just damn wrong. I deserve better. So, starting today, I am accepting the challenge to unfuck my habitat. There's a lovely tumblr group out there and even an iPhone app.

My goals are simple: get something done every day. Three things in my bedroom that need to be done before work each and every day. Whether it's changing my sheets or reorganizing my books or cleaning off my bedside table. My goal is to have my bedroom looking like a person lives here by January 1st. On my days off, I will be doing either additional things or more difficult and time consuming ones.

The whole idea behind unfuck your habitat is to do 20 minutes of work at a time and then rest. This helps avoid burn out and you get more done doing a little a few times every day than you do in a cleaning frenzy. So, wish me luck!

Today's unfucking included putting my clean work uniforms away in the closet, put my new sheets set on the bed, and wash one load of clothes. I'll be staying up long enough to pop my things in the dryer and then go to bed. I feel rather awful and I'm afraid I'm getting sick or something.

Tour de Fleece: Days 16 - 20

The past few days have been quite eventful for me as far as spinning goes! First, I started plying my rambouillet yarn. It looks great!

So far, it's come out to 580 yards of fingering weight 2 ply yarn. It's smooshy and soft and I'm very much looking forward to dyeing it. I'm going to save that mini skein, which is about 25 yards, and knit a square of my sock yarn blanket before and after adding dye. That's the plan, at least.

I have been spindling up a storm, as well! I have a few pictures here and there, but I haven't been posting them. Woops!

This is the 1 oz amount I spun up on the spindle and have now wound off and started the last ounce of the braid. Woo!

It's kind of awesome, because Dax helped and held the spindle while I wound the yarn off of it. It was very sweet and and helpful of him.

Anyway, it looks like my TdF progress is going very, very well and I'm interested in seeing how this targhee turns out once it's plied. It's not as uniform and even as my wheelspun yarn, but I really haven't had too much practice with the spindle. As it is, I'm just thrilled to be on the show. :)

Tour de Fleece: Day 15

Success!

I have finished working with half the fiber for both of my major projects and wound everything up into balls to be used for plying once the other half is finished! Yay!

The targhee looks good. The two amounts I spun up on the spindle are not equal, but I'm hoping I'll be able to join them up during plying since yardage is not going to be the same between the two of them, anyway. I wish I had bothered to get a picture of the cop on the spindle before taking it off to wind, but I was so excited I didn't think of it.

The rambouillet is my pride and joy. During the winding process, I realized exactly how consistent it was and was pleasantly surprised. Yes, it has nepps and it's a bit bumpy, but the overall consistency is pretty even, so yay! Also it looks like it'll ply up into a lace weight yarn... considering this is 4 oz already, I am actually rather upset about this because this is only the first half of the fiber. I have 4 oz left. No one in their right mind needs 8 oz of laceweight yarn. Anyway, I may end up plying this on itself and leaving it at that. I'm also excited about the prospect of dyeing this because it's my first time really spinning an undyed white yarn.

The little bit at the top is what I worked on with the tahkli. It got full pretty fast, but I think I was just not winding the cop on evenly enough. I will continue to mess with it here and there and report the results, but it's not a priority right now.

Tour de Fleece: Day 14

Today was a decent day for spinning for me. I spent some quality time with my wheel and some Battlestar Galactica. I think the yarn is turning out great so far and I'm looking forward to finishing up the first four ounces. That was the goal for today, but alas I was distracted by the humidity. I had more than one moment of desperately wanting to lay down spread eagle on the floor under the ceiling fan. It rained this evening and the humidity in the air is just awful and it makes everything feel sticky, so working with wool was not a terribly attractive idea. I did get quite a bit spun, though, so it wasn't a total loss.

Tour de Fleece: Day 13

Wow, I can't believe it's been thirteen days already! I have gotten quite a bit of spinning done today, I think. My main task was to get my fiber all portioned out and really get a good look at how much I've done as the tour is now more than halfway over. I'm about where I expected to be, halfway or so. I'm hoping to hit the halfway mark in my fiber for both of my main projects tomorrow.

I spent the entire day with my two good friends and their daughter and I had the opportunity to spindle a teensy bit while we were at an indoor playground. It was a fun place and I'm looking forward to going again sometime.

Anyway, a picture!

I love the red of this fiber. Andrea at Natural Obsessions does such a great job! I also spun a bit on the wheel, but not enough to take a picture of, really. It doesn't look too terribly different. Anyway, I'm going to have some free time tomorrow so I'm looking forward to getting quite a bit done. It's the second bit of the tour, now, I have to get a move on and push toward my goals!