Lovely Spin In Over

Yesterday was the summer spin in at Gemini Fibres. I headed up there bright and early and did some shopping before I pulled out my Little Gem. Last week I asked them to hole 2 spindles for me since I knew I would be back this week. This one is a Granny Forrester spindle in Padauk wood.
This one is another of his colourwood spindles. I just love the look of them. I have to get another one of his Pyrography spindles but he won't be making more of the colourwood, as I mentioned in a previous post, because he doesn't have the wood. This is the bottom of the spindle.
This is the top of the spindle. They are just so pretty and the colours look so nice when you see them spinning. There is one more colourwood spindle I wanted but the shaft was a little rough. I've asked that Mr. Forrester look at it and see if anything can be done before I bring it home.
I think I've figured out a way to store my spindles a little better than they are being stored at the moment. I have them in this plastic popcorn bucket that you get when you go to the movies. I found this wicker basket and I am going to put a piece of styrofoam in it and put as many spindles in there as I can. If I don't have enough room for all of them I'll get another basket.

Finally, I bought more fibre. You can never have enough. I've been spinning this same fibre in another colourway called cinnamon. It's an Ashford fibre blend of 80/20 Merino and Silk. I tell you this stuff practically spins itself. This colourway is called Juniper. It has purple tones in it and I love purple.They have another colourway called Mulberry that I want to get but someone else took all the fibre of that colourway that was in stock so I will have to get it the next time I'm out that way.

An Afternoon of Spinning

Yesterday we spent the afternoon by my in-law's and I brought my Little Gem with me. I finally finished plying the purple Lorna's Laces merino singles I finished spinning quite a while ago.I was a little afraid that since it's been so long since the singles were done the plying would end up being a disaster. I gave the yarn a nice hot bath when we got home and it looks really good considering. I have 122 grams but it's not totally dry yet so I am not sure of the yardage. I'll check that tomorrow along with the WPI. It took me about 3 hrs to finish the plying and boy did my knees hurt by the time I was done.
I was a little surprised I was still able to spin but I was treadling much slower with the spinning than I was with the plying so I was fine. This is just a little bit of the cinnamon merino/silk I bought on Saturday. I'm going to bring it with me to the spin in on Saturday and continue with it. I was also playing with my Golding tsunami spindle and spun about the same about of that I spun on Saturday during class. Now to try and keep it up and not put it by the wayside again.

Today I am going to finally cast on the February Lady for the Purple Purl KAL so I won't get anymore spinning in. For some reason I am really tired so I think I am going to konk out early tonight.

Where Does The Time Go??

My nephew Baruch is getting married today. Unfortunately, I was not able to get to NYC for the wedding. I spoke to my bother this morning and it's hard to believe that one of his babies are all grown up and one of the twins will be a married man tonight. Where does the time go? Don't ask me which one is which. I have not been able to tell them apart since they were babies. I know the twins are not identical but they sure look it to me. One is Baruch and one is Shmuel. The one getting married is Baruch.

Yesterday I went to Gemini Fibres for an advanced spindle spinning class. We got to play with some Fleece Artist BFL. It was great fun to spin. We did navajo plying on the spindle and other things. It was a great day with a group of very nice ladies. I had a blast.

If anyone knows me they know I couldn't possibly have gone there and come home empty handed. I prefer light spindles because I like to spin lace or sock yarn and Mr. Forrester found some more coloured wood that he was able to use to make more spindles. However, these are the last that he has of the wood so I won't be able to get more after this. I tried all of them. There was a very small one that I didn't quite get along with but I did love this one and the one below.

There are still two more that I want to pick up and I'll be back up at Gemini next week for their spin in so I'll probably get the other two then. One more is a coloured wood spindle and the second is a Padauk wood spindle.

I usually lean towards purples when I buy yarn and fibre. Once in a while another colour will hit my eye and I have to try it. This is one of those fibres. The colour is called cinnamon and it's a merino silk blend. I am looking forward to starting to spin this fibre but I am going to spend the afternoon trying to finish plying this fibre that's been on the bobbins way too long. It's about time I try and get back to spinning. It's been way too long.


I also bought a spinning book called Spin Control by Amy King. I've only had a chance to glance through it but I am looking forward to reading it cover to cover. Next I can't wait for Abby Franquemont's Respect the Spindle book to come out later this year.

Last but not least, to all the dads out there, Happy Father's Day.

World Wide Knit In Public Day

WARNING, rant below and really no knitting content. Feel free to skip.

Yesterday was WWNIPD. I left the home bright and early to head off to the Purl for a wonderful day of fresh air and knitting. I stopped for a salad on the way and discovered (or so I thought) that my debit card wasn't working yet again. So off I go to the bank to try and find out what's going on. I'm told my card is fine. So I try to use it in their ATM and do a balance check and almost had a heart attack. Next I do a transaction history and I find out that sometime between 4PM on Friday and 9AM on Saturday some miserable bastard managed to get into my account and withdraw $500. Now that might not seem like a lot to some people but it sure is a lot to me. Now I have to wait 10 business days while the bank conducts their investigation before I can get my money back. This is the second time money was taken from my account and the 5th time my card was compromised. I don't use my card at the gas station, or no name ATMs. I only go to one banks bank machine and that's it. I was so distraught yesterday I almost didn't go to the Purl. I called there and spoke to Miko and she was so great on the phone. I was quite hysterical. I must have given her quite the fright. I didn't get much knitting done and the park was pretty cool until the sun came out in the afternoon so I ended up spending the day inside the Purl. I managed to spill someone's tea and that caused me to have another melt down. Oh well. I'm feeling better today. I know the money will be re-deposited into my account once the investigation is over but I am furious. Furious that NO ONE will tell me where this keeps happening. The bank says they don't know. They are not given a place where the cards are compromised. The police say it would hamper their investigation. Well, what about when the investigation is over? Don't I have a right or do just the F**KING criminals have rights? I've tried figuring this out and still haven't managed. Obviously, it has to be places I go regularly. I ALWAYS cover my hands when I put in my pin but I understand that doesn't even matter anymore because they have other ways of figuring out your pin. I am just sick of these damned criminals. GO OUT AND GET A F**KING JOB AND LEAVE MY HARD EARNED MONEY ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Knitting Away

I've been busy knitting away on various different projects. I think I have too many right now, if I am going to be honest with myself. After I finished all the knitting for Leah and Adam I got back to the Mandala Shawl I was working on. I don't have new pictures but I finished clue 4 and I have to start on the border.

I also started the KAL for the Anniversary Mystery Shawl 09 and am in the middle of clue 3. I only started this last weekend so I'm behind the rest of the group. Clue 4 came out today and I hope I can get started on it sometime this coming week. The yarn is Classic Elite Silky Alpaca and I'm using size 3 mm needles. It is so soft and nice to work with. Unfortunately, the needles are too short to stretch out the shawl so you can't really see how beautiful it actual is.

The Little Needle Lovers group on Ravelry has a KAL every other month. Different patterns are voted on and then you decide which one of the onces chosen you want to knit. One of the patterns is Jabot. It's beaded and I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to make something beaded. I guess you could call it a beaded bag but it isn't going to be very large. I bought a bead spinner a few years ago at the Knitter's Frolic and this was my first opportunity to use it. I have to say I love the thing. It made stringing all those beads almost painless. I believe I have less than 20 rows left before this is done and then I need to decide what I want to do about the strap. The most annoying part about knitting this is moving the beads along. Other than that, I am really loving it.

I'm always hesitant about exchanges because I once had a very bad experience but that didn't stop me from joining a "Gifts From Your Local Yarn Shop" exchange on Ravelry. I received my package today and I have to say I am so glad I decided to take the plunge and join. I love every single thing I received. The Yazzii is going to be great for knitting notions. It opens up and has 4 clear zipped pouches inside. I can never have enough tape measures and even though I've already had the sock blocker key chain I love it so much and I have seperate house and car key chains so I'll have another one now. Both yarns are so soft. The rest is laceweight lambswool and the other is 4 ply. I think I am going to knit the Hydrangea pattern Nan sent me using the lace yarn. I just have to decide if I want to try and double it up or not. I'm not sure what I will make with the second skein of yarn. I'll decide once I do a swatch. I'm leaning towards a scarf, or cowl and fingerless mitts.