More Hats and Spinning

The next 11 hats for 642 rows. These will go to the Flowing Wells SD Clothing Bank. Below that will be yesterday’s spinning.

Summer Harzards

There is an awful lot of construction going on in our neighborhood. Since we are one of the few houses with no young children or pets we have some interesting new wildlife in our yards.  It seems we have more lizards than usual, this may just be the reason that the new succulent plants have been eaten to the ground in just 2 days.  We also have at least 2 new non poinsions snakes in the back yard. All I ask of the snakes is that hey eat as many pack rats as possible.  The lizards are doing a great job in keeping down the bug populations.

All these new wild life friends lead to strange summer behavior such as knocking on doors before I go outside. Or walking down the walkway saying human coming. This gives the rather shy animals a quick  spaces

Journeys

I really think that I like my doctor's office scale much better than the scale that I have at home. It shows that I am 2 pounds lighter than my scale at home.  With that being said, I have lost one sixth of the weight that I want to lose. I have only 2.5 pounds to lose before I reach my 1st goal of losing 5% of my body weight. I know it is all about baby steps and moving more. With that being said I have exceeded my daily step goal by over 2,000 steps today.

I have finished knitting another hat today and am closing in on 4 dozen hats knit for the year. I was lucky to be able to book my Stitches West 2019 classes and hotel today. I only had to live through 2 computer server overloads. Thank goodness I called and entered my classes when registration opened this morning. By this afternoon the hotel was booked and 1 class that I am taking is filled.

Well it is time to call it a day. Have a very productive day tomorrow.

45

Hat number 45 for the year was finished tonight. With any luck and a little time I just might be able to knit a decent number of hats this year. I currently have 3 more hats in progress. I even managed to make the ugliest shade of blue look pretty by combining it with other yarn.  There is no use trying to get rid of this cone of yarn either. Every time I try some one hands it back to me.  I think I have about 6 hats left on this cone of yarn.  Then I am done with it.

Zenning went well today, I managed to get 5 bags of recycling and 2 bags of trash out of the house.  I have also divided books to go to some of my knitting friends which should leave the house this week.

Physical therapy left my foot stiff and sore.   Hopefully I will be done with this soon.  Although there is one exercise that I can not figure out and neither can the therapist.  Three different therapists have said this one exercise is done differently.  Oh well.

I finished my knitting weekend with 5 hats completed and 3 more hats in various stages of completion.  I finally got Eric in for his haircut and 3 inches came off. It should be much easier to wash his hair for about 4 weeks and then the haircut fight will start anew.  I should have started this earlier but Eric was fussy. So I will leave the blog in the same state as my chores, incomplete.

Day Fail?

Things did not go as planned today. I was up with Eric for 2 1/2 hours because of a bad thunderstorm. There was an awful lot of thunder and lightning, but not much rain. So this is my excuse for only knitting 1 hat today.

Although I did manage 15 minuets of Zenning and a little house cleaning.  I am heading to bed early.

More Hats

I have filled a project bag the size of a large size grocery bag to the top with yarn. I have pulled out U.S. size 13 knitting needles.  I really want to see how fast that I can knit my way through this bag of yarn.  I think that I am off to a good start today with 2 hats from the large craft bag and 1 hat from the small craft bag finished today.  In the small carry along bag I am using U.S. sizes 6,7 and 8.

I want to see how many projects I can finish this summer to burn through my yarn stash.  My definition of a project is one item finished no matter what the size.  Although the larger the projects the more yarn is used.  Wish me luck in this adventure.

While John was taking his after dinner walk I spent that time Zenning the craft room. If I have the energy after dinner I think that I can make decent progress in tiny bits of time.

The Mad Hatter? Perhaps Not

Besides physical therapy and chores, today was all about hats. I bagged and tagged 9 hats for charity. I cast on 9 hats, yes I really have emough 16 inch circular knitting needles to do that with out using all my 16 inch circular knitting needles.

So I am really not crazy. I am actually teaching a technique called the jogless join at knitting guild tomorrow. So instead of taking out my work over and over again I cast on 8 hats, one set for each demo. They will go to my charity project.

if I am indeed mad, at least there is a method to my madness.

Zenning for Health?

Today was a BBD for me.  So what else should I do besides sitting on the couch and resting?  Well zenning the house of course.  I started of with my Wool yarn stash, I have a full bag of tapestry and needlepoint yarn that makes  great hats if anyone is interested in the yarn, as a bonus I will throw in a tote bag.

I did what I call circular cleaning today.  I zip all over the house. As I find something that goes to another room, I head there to put it away.  Then I find something in that room to put away sometimes I stay in one place for a while, sometimes not.  The end result is a lot of things are now in new homes or recycled.

I did find time to knit, spin, wash some newly spun skeins of yarn and laundry too.  I skipped Eric’s planed haircut today. By the time he was ready it was raining.  I decided a haircut was not worth dealing with the rain and chair in the rain. So I opted to reschedule it.  There is always tomorrow.

Yarn

First there was the beginning of the Tour De France. Then the Tour De Fleece decided to cheer on the riders by spinning along. So I have a little extra fleece that wanted to be spun so I join the spinners. Here are my first 6 skeins of yarn. 4 of the skeins are 4 ounces and the little bitty ones area half ounce. all I have to do is wash and set the twist on the yarn.

Tour De Fleece

Today I spent 4 hours plying the yarn that I spun over the first days of the tour.  I have decided that Shetland Wool is not pleasant to ply when it is spun to a lace weight yarn. Masham Wool is wonderful as a thick and thin yarn. It’s even better plyed.  BFL is always wonderful to spin and ply.

I am trying not only to spin as much of my fiber stash as possible.  I am also trying to spin as many different breeds of sheep as well.  Each breed spins a little differently.  I am also trying to spin as many British  Heritage Sheep fleeces, batts and braids that I have.

Eight skins were plied today. There were 4 four ounce bobbins and 4 smaller skeins for the 52 Yarn’s to Spin Before You Cast Off Book. I am really too tired to take them all out of their bags tonight, so I hope tomorrow will be ok for pictures.

I think that because of my sore Achilles Tendon I will do most of my Spinning on my classic Louet S-15.  I also found out today that the Louet S-96 in Oak is no longer being made and I will have to settle for an S-95. I also found out that it will not ship until Mid-September.  That means that I will not have it for the Sheep Thrills Fiber Retreat next month. All I can say is it’s a bummer to have to wait so long for a birthday present.

Tour De Fleece

I have 4 bobbins of yarn to ply tomorrow and will show off my first Tour De Fleece 2018 yarn. Now what am I going to do with 4 new skeins of yarn?

Busy

It has been very busy around here this month. The Birthday gift for Teri sent just in time. The laundry has won, I have not been able to catch up all month. It seems to take about 2 days to knit a hat right now, I am barely over 3 dozen hats knit for the year at the moment. I am still in the midst of deep cleaning the guest/craft room, a lot is leaving. My craft books are next.

For Tour De Fleece I have 12 ounces spun and it is waiting to be ply. So I can not count that yet. I have one braid on each wheel going. Yes, it has occurred to me that I can only use one spinning wheel at a time, but with my Achilles tendon still sore I need to switch between wheels as not to get my heel mad at me. I will post under Team Into the Whirled with the #ITWTDF2018 on social media. This will happen once the yarn is plied. I have spun every day of the tour, even if it is only a half ounce like today. Into the Whirled is a great indie dyer. Give her page some love*. I just love spinning her fiber.


*I have paid for all my own fiber from Into the Whirled. No payment or samples have been given to me.