We found another out door dining area with excellent food. It is the Tea room at Tohono Chul Park just west of Oracle, off Ina Road. Just follow the signs. The portions are huge. Most is locally sourced, some even grown on the ground of the park. Don’t forget to visit the park after your meal.
Also if you are looking for a scenic out door area for a wedding in Tucson be sure to check it out. They have areas for small intimate gatherings to larger areas.
We had lunch at a new to us restaurant with lots of outdoor seating. Teaspoon is in Casa Adobes Plaza. They serve breakfast, brunch and lunch. The food was excellent, everyone loved their meals. A definite go back in my book. While we’re we’re in the plaza waiting for out table we went to Bryn Walker for a few smaller pieces of clothing. The scale is not moving much but the inches are coming off. A new top and a few pairs of pants. I am hoping it will be at least a couple of months before they start falling down. All in a smaller size.
I just read that the COVID19 numbers are rising post thanksgiving holidays. So I will be spending a lot of time at home. If you have not had your 1st vaccine please consider getting it, once you have COVID19, you have to wait until you recover to get your vaccines. If you have not had your booster please get it as soon as possible. Would like to start going to in door events. I am so tired of staying home. Only you can make that possible.
My junk food plan is working. I have not touched or eaten any of if. I am no longer hearing but we can’t have it because of you mom. It’s a win win.
We went out to lunch today. We sat on a huge black and white granite rock to eat our picnic lunch. We were just up stream from this area. If you are ever in Tucson, pack a picnic lunch. Take the Sabino Canyon tram up to stop 8. Hike in less than 5 minutes. You will need sturdy shoes. Find a rock to sit on. Enjoy your lunch with wonderful views of nature at her best. If you feel like a good hike it is about 3 miles up hill.
Ok, so I got a little tired of the whining that people could not have holiday foods because of me in my house. So I went to Whole Foods and got a bunch of vegan holiday treats. I don’t plan on eating any of it. Instead I got myself a nice piece of soft goat cheese with lavender. It was wonderful with my big thick salt free crackers. I paired it with a serving of dates which are a low glycemic food. It was much more satisfying than their sweet treats. So I won the treat wars.
I did manage to get caught up on folding laundry if you don’t count the load that went into the dryer at bed time.
I am feeling a lot stressed out by the newest variant of COVID19, Omnisomething. Right now I feel as if it is never going to end snd I will be spending my retirement years at home. No traveling. No knitting or spinning with friends. Just the next 20 years stuck at home. I am sure I can not convince the anti vax morons just to get their dammed shots. I think getting the vaccines and protecting yourself, families and community is a very intelligent thing to do. I just can’t fix stupid so I am stuck at home.
A good day was had by all. I enjoyed some nice girl talk and knitting outside this afternoon.
A friend gave me a possible solution for the too big tank top that is not a tank top. I will have to get my quilting safety pins out tomorrow.
This is the result of dropping a few sizes between the start and finish of a knitting project and a poorly sized pattern. I only lost 4 inches around my rib cage. If you use the right computer program or use the right charts in a design books the calculations will be done for you. No need to randomly do it by hand anymore. It is a simple pattern by Bernat called the Garter Stitch Tank Top. Even if I had not lost 2 sizes the finished object ie the tank top would still not look like a tank top. Please note in the picture that I am wearing a real tank top under the sweater. You might notice a slight difference. After trying it on, the picture is below you can see that it does not resemble a tank top, but rather a sweater with capped sleeves.
After I finished the knitting the pattern and tried it on today I realized that the pattern was photoshopped. Plus it was tucked back around the waist to make it fit the very slender model. Now I have no problem with slender models. After all knitters come in all shapes and sizes. What I do have a problem with is deception in pictures representing the finished hand made item. When I think of a tank top, capped sleeves are not what I have in mind. When it is a simple pattern without shaping, I don’t expect the picture to show shaping in the waist. When I spend as money on yarn to knit 1 tank top as I do to buy 4 or 5 from tank tops from Chico’s or J.Jill, I expect the finished top to fit the description. When I spent hours knitting a tank top I expect it to look like a tank top.
My recommendations would include the narrowing of the shoulder as the sizes get larger. Being a larger size does not mean that we are built like professional football players like linebackers. Never ever photoshop a pattern picture to alter the finished look of knit wear. I have no problem with photoshopping it the background or lighting. Show the finished knit wear in all sizes. For goodness sake eliminate the many colors in the pattern instructions, it does not work well for low vision or older eyes. Also speaking of low vision or older eyes nothing below a 14 pica please. We don’t want to waste money on photocopy blow ups or pull out a magnifying glass just to read the pattern.
Please note my picture was photoshopped to trim out some of the background. The picture of the sweater was not retouched.
If any of this is not clear to the people at Bernat Yarns, please email me and we can talk about this at length. Thanks for listening.
We have a couple of pair of extra feet for the week. We will be relaxing and having fun family time. Have a Happy Thanksgiving.
I have spent a lot of time since my last post not being in total agreement with my body. Unfortunately my body won, so I rested Whether I liked it or not. Except for an afternoon nap I think I’m back on track. But then again naps are kind of my thing.
I did finish my 25th scarf and 89th project of 2021. Maybe I should try to finish all my UFO’s by the end of the year. We all know the odds are stacked against me because I love starting new projects. My knitting needles hate being empty, they get cold. Well wish me luck.
Okay my body and I are at odds. I spent a lot of time sleeping. I did fold yesterday’s laundry and clean out a Fibber Maggie and Molly worthy cabinet that has been on my list for while. I was to tired to knit tonight so I binged on jigsaw puzzles on my iPad. I finished 5 tonight, some were partially done.
We are almost done with our fall cleaning spree. We only have a few things to do. This will give me time to finish up the bits and pieces of projects that are almost finished. A few rows here. Weaving in the ends. A Kitchener finish for a scarf. Fixing my stitch markers. Maybe even spinning and weaving. I want to see empty project bags.
The end is in sight. I have gotten to the minutia of the cleaning spree most of the check list is gone. Right now the devil is in the details. My body has decided that I have over done it and I am taking involuntary afternoon naps. I hope to finish tomorrow morning. If I get up early I will start with the fridge and laundry. I have decided to take a few days off doing laundry. I guarantee that it will wait for me.
Well I think it’s time to call it a day.
I know that I have been over doing it when I reach my weekly exercise goal by Tuesday by 3:30 pm. My goal is 30 minutes of exercise a day over 7 days. That is quite reasonable. 155 minutes in 2 1/2 days not so much. I did 95 of those minutes today, so far. I still have 2 rooms to put back together. No wonder I am exhausted. Off to mop another floor. Ok, I gave up and left the steam mopping to John. I think I will rest for a bit and then put things back together again. I am glad that all of my fiber storage drawers are on wheels. Rolling, rolling, keep those drawers rolling.
After a brief rest I put 2 rooms back together. We only need to add a table and chair to make a temporary office space. The space will have the pantry so course that means it has its own MK Snack area, minus the drinks. I landed up with a total of 138 minutes of cleaning time, for the day. Ok, it’s 2 hours and 18 minutes. Is it any wonder that I was too tired to do much knitting tonight?
I have also crossed out a few of tomorrow’s chores, because being the over achiever that I am today the work is done. I really think it would be wonderful if my body let me sleep tonight. Wish me luck.
This is what craft room number one aka the guest room looks like when all the crafts are finely put away. The room is dusted and vacuumed. John did the dusting and vacuuming. This is usually the only time you can see all the carpet
On the left side of the room is the Murphy Bed. It folds down to a queen size bed. A nice cozy spot to hang out in.
The sewing tables have been folded up. The sewing machine put away. I am leaving John in charge of vacuuming and dusting. I just have to find a home for some blankets. They are washed and bagged. They are too small for the V.A. , Project Linus does not take cotton blankets. So I will call a friend tomorrow.
I just need to wrap a few things , put some baskets away, fold up one table, sweep and mop the floor’s, clean the bathrooms along with my usual chores and we will be ready for company. I am exhausted just thinking about it.
The best part of this companies coming is that I tossed a lot of things rather than just put them in boxes and baskets for later. I hope that this puts me ahead of the curve.
Sometimes the perils in pattern writing is the the letters and numbers dance around the page like a Conga line dances through a room. My current pattern fits this to an exact T as in T Square. Today I tried to figure out if I hit that magic sweet spot of pattern section repeats. I simply could not figure it out. So I will keep knitting and working the pattern out row by row. I just have to have things add up to my magic number and maintain the angles, it’s really not that hard until I can no longer walk, talk and knit at the same time. This sitting down to write patterns down is sometimes very hard work.
If I take this pattern row by row it is a very delightful knit. Just enough change from row to row to keep the pattern interesting. My student whom I am writing it for, loves the pattern so far. She is on section 2 around row 8. She likes the fact that after so few rows knit and purled stitches a pattern is visible. That makes me so happy. I am only 2 full sections ahead of her so I have to find more time to finish this.
In other news the bathroom is now painted. I just have to pull the tape off the grab bar. Give it a few days to dry. This is where a second shower is very helpful. Then put everything back where it belongs. Also just a few projects to go before craft room 1 is ready to become the guest room. My new storage containers for craft room 2 are somewhere in Phoenix. Hopefully they will arrive tomorrow, they were supposed to be here today, alas this is the season of shipping hiccups.
I also came up with an innovative way to put my shoes away. I slip on one pair and walk to my closet Take the shoes off and put them away. I repeated this process until all my shoes were put away while bring laundry from the clothes line to the closet’s. I got 2 chores done at once and added steps to boot.
I am hoping despite be sore all over, all day that I will sleep tonight. Wish me luck.
Here I sit at 2 a.m. waiting for the aspirin to kick in. All because I. choose not to wear my tendon isolation band while knitting last night. As you know I have chronic tendonitis do to arthritis. It just seems to jump all around my body. Currently I have knitting elbow also know as tennis elbow. Since I do not play tennis anymore, I call it knitting elbow.
My arm was feeling good all day. So I thought that I was lucky That it went away very quickly. Yeah, I am not that lucky. So here I sit at 2 a.m. waiting for the aspirin to kick in. I am wide awake.Pain has away of doing that to me. So I might just do some chores while I wait. Since I did not get many things done yesterday. I was having a bad body day except for my elbow. Then again I can feel the aspirin starting to kick in, so I just might be lucky enough to go back to sleep. So maybe I will just get a jump on the day and start a load of. By the way, I am so predictable that the prediction program on my blog had picked out I was going to start a load of laundry before I even had it typed in. A very good algorithm, way to go programmers.
Will the deep cleaning ever stop? That is a question that I have been asking myself a lot lately. It seems the more I organize and the more I get rid of the more there is to organize and get rid of. It seems like when I get one layer removed another layer pops up.
I was very clever in my organizing today. I managed to combine 2 boxes of quilting supplies into one box. That gave me a free box to bring sewing supplies to the garage. I also combined all my fabric into one box that already had a space in the house. That leaves the odds and ends to land in the right shoe box storage containers. Then I can find a place for them. I also started a new box for Goodwill. No new boxes were needed today which is a very good thing. Less boxes equals less stuff. Which equals more organization. Which equals more progress. Which equals more time to make and creat more donations and new patterns.
For the other room, I have ordered 2 storage chests with 3 huge drawers each. That will give me room for my spinning supplies and other loose fiber related items. One is almost a direct transfer, the other will hold additional items. I hope by Friday I can have both rooms finished.
I am 1/3 of the way Into a new scarf and have already used 6 skeins of yarn. I must admit that 2 of those skeins were started tonight so I still have at least 6 skeins more to finish this scarf. Hopefully it will be finished soon
Then maybe I can take an online course Saturday and play with some beads after I put other rooms in order.
This is my 86th completed project for this year. I really like the colors. The pattern is They Stash Dive Scarf by Summer Lee Designs. This scarf is over 5 feet long. It’s meant ti be folded in half which makes it great for my knitting guild project. It’s going to northern Arizona where it gets really cold. This also brings up the question: can I finish 13 more projects by December 31st? This year I might not make my goal of 100 completed knitting and weaving projects in 2021.
I really don’t know why I am still using a to do list. Lately I am half way through and have no more energy to finish my list. It seems lately that it is wishful thinking that I can get everything done in a timely manner. I think it is more appropriate to call it my wishful thinking list of things that need to be done. I know some things need to be done in a timely fashion and other things not so much.
I know that I am supposed to give it a month or so for my latest life style changes to kick in. Let’s face it, the last change was 3 days ago snd I should in my humble opinion be up to full speed and then some. My family would say give it time. I am just to impatient.
So I am wondering if I should return to setting priorities and ranking items. I will have to think about that. In the meantime I think that I will call it a day.
When a bad body day collides with a highly emotional day there is only one thing to do. Spin art yarn. Why art yarn? Art yarn does not have any parameters. If the yarn is not perfectly balanced who cares. The idea is to have fun. I make bumps. I spin thick and thin. I spun for 2 hours. Yes my new medicine is helping. I make my art yarn batts from bits and pieces. I play with color. I never know how it will turn out once it is plyed and washed. Hopefully it will go with some other art yarn to make a fabulous new shawl for me in a smaller size. I thought that my shawls would still fit after losing a lot of sizes, not so much. So I need new shawls.
I also figured out why my Lendrum Spinning Wheel was acting up, it literally had a screw lose. So rather than get my tool kit for my spinning wheels, I borrowed a pliers and flat head screw driver from John. It took more time to locate the tools than to fix the issue. I guess this means that every so often I should check all the screws out.
I then changed spinning wheels to my Louet Victoria. After cleaning and oiling the flyer I was ready to spin the core for plying the art yarn just because I can get about 10 ounces on the bigger bobbin. Once the white is spun, I will ply all the art yarn that I spun today. From right to left. Pale pink, purple, red and a green yellow blend.
Today was pretty good. I spent some time working on the new pattern. Finished one scarf, pictures to come later. Fix someone’s blanket and taught the difference between leading and lagging legs. If you are a knitter and don’t know what this is we need to talk.
Came home and made dinner. Turkey burgers, yummy. My hands were too tired to do much knitting tonight, but there is always tomorrow.
So I will call it a day.
Not my best day. I let the stress get to me. Although I did manage to reorganize part of craft rooms 1 & 2. Tomorrow will be better.
Today I had more plans than energy. So after an early morning run to get groceries, putting together dinner and putting the rest of the food away it was nap time. I was really to tired to even eat lunch before my nap. So the rest of the day I did small chores in little sprints.
On the good news side, I finished the first 3 sections of my new pattern. Now that I don’t have to do the math for every row, it should go much faster. Yes it’s one of those geometric patterns that I like to walk, talk and knit at the same time it’s easier that way.
We had a good Halloween day. We did just in time decorating. The Halloween decorations were out for less than 12 hours before they were put away for next year. We only had 3 bags of candy leftover, so John agreed to take them to work to leave by the coffee pot. I also found out that kids don’t like marshmallows for Halloween candy treats. They still loved the pencils, pens, animal erasers, bubbles and assorted Halloween toys. We had about 40 kids this year.
I have enough pens, pencils and assorted Halloween toys for next year. All I need to do is buy more candy. Hopefully next year we will be back to normal for Halloween. I really like handing out the candy and treats. I have had enough of this no contact Halloween stuff. This was my Halloween set up for tonight. I kept putting out more candy and bags.
I was in the mood to clean today. So I am filling up a few trash and recycling bags. I also included 2 loads of hand wash and 3 machine loads of laundry. I am still not 100% so I took breaks for knitting. I also found my box of stitch markers to repair, so that will be added to my to do list. I also put a few things away, but more is leaving than staying.
Since we are not on a busy street I made 50 Halloween gift bags and have the candy ready to put out. We are doing a no contact trick or treat again this year. John will decorate in the morning. I have decided that John will bring all the left over candy to work with him to leave by the coffee pot. I just have not told him yet. I am sure it won’t be a problem.
Since I over did things yesterday, I tried to take it easy and have a slow day. I almost seceded. Unless I am sleeping my inclination is to keep moving and going. To that end I used a bag of poly fill in the craft room as a desk. I then proceeded to empty and throw away or recycle most thing. I did find a pair of circular knitting needles that I did not realize that I had lost. Filled up the to be shredded basket that I just emptied on Wednesday.
I did a little knitting on 2 different projects. One were finished. We also tried not to watch every show that dropped today. We did save a few for tomorrow. Well it’s getting late and I am going to call it a day.
Almost everything that I have worked on since January is leaving the house today. The count is as follows: 50 hand knit hats, 21 hand knit scarfs, 4 hand woven scarfs. I acquired 33 pairs of socks and 12 backpacks. I really think the volume of items Surprised John this morning. I know that I fell short of my yearly goal of 60 hats, but I must face the fact that it was a bad hand year. The fact that my hats are knit on US size 6 & 8’s verses the scarfs which were knit on no smaller than a US size 11. By the way the larger the number the bigger the knitting needles are. This makes them easier to hold on a bad hand day too.
I used John’s couch to lay out everything for one last picture before they left the house. I almost covered the entire couch. Everything is now packed up to drop off at The Flowing Wells School District Clothing Bank. It makes me very happy that I can use my idle time like this.
Right now I have about 4 good hours to get things done before i am too exhausted to work. I just have to decide Whether it’s errands or cleaning. Life can be so simple.
I have had my most productive day in a while. I even started 2 loads of laundry and put things away during the 8 minutes that my breakfast was cooking. Not one spot got cleaned, instead a whole lot of things got got trashed or moved to where they were supposed to be.
I was going to take a walk when I got frustrated by my new design. I am not sure how, but it is easier to walk, talk and knit this pattern than it is sitting down at a table with pen snd paper, writing the pattern as I go. There was just one little glitch. There was a coyote wandering around. I make it a point not to venture far when wild animals are roaming the streets. So I did the sensible thing and watered the new cactus we planted last weekend.
When I came back inside, I was a little more relaxed. I figured out it was not the written pattern that was the problem rather I did not count right when casting on yesterday. So I tinked it. Cast on again and everything is ok.
I picked up some wonderful salmon for dinner. It came out perfect. Nice and buttery. No, I did not use butter when I baked the salmon. I use the juice of one lemon, salt, white pepper and dill. I let it marinate a few hours. Add a bit of water before cooking. Bake at 350f for about 35 minutes. I buy enough to cook once and eat for 2 nights.
Charity knitting happened after dinner. The scarf that I am working on will take at least 7 skeins of yarn. It is called the Stash Dive Scarf by Summer Lee Designs.and is available on Raverly. This is number 4 with this pattern.
I am finally feeling better. For real. Sadly no tea seems to be working. I have started a new table runner pattern at the request of my student. It would have been so much easier just to walk around the house knitting this pattern. However, since it is for a student I have to do all the math, gauge swatches, and write every line of the pattern as I knit this pattern. To me geometrical patterns can be done mindlessly. Once I start writing things down, I am amazed at how seamlessly my mind seems to knit them.
I managed to get to the grocery store today. I was amazed at all the Snowbirds who were not wearing masks. Most of these people looked really old. I know some people think I am very old, but I could have been their kid. Some were even frail. Yes, I wore my KN95 Mask from inside the car to when I got back inside the car.
One other thing I noticed was how many people were treating the store staff as personal assistants. Not many thank you's or have a fantastic days. This is just so wrong these people work hard and don't need to be trampled on. A few kind words to everyone who helps you goes a long way.
I found fresh tomatillo's so I got every thing I needed for fresh tomatillo soup, The recipe will follow tomorrow. Shopping and making the soup wore me out. Yes, I did over do it. I spent 4 hours on the couch not moving. Just waiting for the pain in my shoulders to go away. Next time I will wait until I have help with all the prep work before I start the soup.
Well my typing is becoming very dyslexic so it must be time to call it a night. Just let me know if I need to make corrections.
I woke up at 5 am with a headache, since it was too early for breakfast I tried the caffeinated tea route. While I was waiting for the caffeine to do it’s job I woven in the remaining ends and did the last seam of the scarf. Since the scarf seemed dusty, I washed all 3 in that series by had. I did the right thing the wash water and first rinse were muddy looking. By the 3rd rinse I put them out side to dry.
By the time John woke up my headache was gone and we had breakfast together. We did a few chores and worked in plenty of rest time. John installed a new toilet seat to replace the broken one. I got 4 loads of laundry done. This included folding the sheets and putting them away. I have to admit that around 2 pm. I was too tired to move, so I binge watched some Downton Abbey.
John brought in dinner and I cleaned up. Then we relaxed until bedtime. Yes, I am feeling better than yesterday, but not 100%. I guess I am looking fo baby steps on this one.
I am just starting to feel better. I found getting things done 30 minutes at a time helped a lot. 2 plants got new pots and John planted a cactus out front for me. My new sheets got washed replacing a set that I wore out. I also started but did not finish a new organizing project, I have finally found a place to put all the masks and stuff. I think COVID19 will be here for a while.
I did start a new scarf today, so far I am liking that it is a stash buster. I am 20 inches in and have almost used up 1 skein of sock yarn. Yes, at one time I thought I would be knitting a lot of my own socks, not so much. So I am always happy to find a pattern that uses sock yarn up. I have also used up 1 1/4 skeins of worsted weight cotton yarn. The cotton yarn is good for 17 inches between color changes so I think 5 skeins should just about finish the scarf. After I finish the skein of sock yarn I will start on partial skeins to change things up. I will have to finish weaving in the ends of the scarf I finished yesterday so I can drop it off for a friend to take to guild for me.
I spent most of the day feeling awful. This however is no excuse not to get things done. So when I had energy I managed to do a little picking up around the house. 3 loads of laundry, put away most of today’s deliveries. I almost finished a never ending scarf, it is just over 5 feet long, good for the northern Arizona winter. I have enough yarn for 2 more, but they will be delivered next fall. After dinner I started feeling better. John brought in Japanese food for dinner. I had my favorite cold tofu for dinner.
I will have to see how tomorrow goes. I am planning another light scheduled.
Today was an off day for my body. So all I accomplished was shopping for dinner, very early with an N95K mask, 3 loads of laundry, listing a few knitting/ Crocheting books on eBay, working on the endless scarf and I Cubii2 workout. I spent most of the day resting.
Since it was a bad body day I skipped cleaning the guest room and any unnecessary work.
Today I had a system for cleaning up craft room 1 aka the guest room. I started out with one bag for trash.. one bag for recycling..lastly one box for charity. I spent 1 1/2 hours going through everything that I swore I would never touch again. I had everything in boxes to be ignored forever, I don’t think my family agreed with my plan of moving the boxes out of the way with out going through them. So I meticulously went through everything bit by bit. I threw out projects that were never ever going to be repaired. I put beads in their places. I cleaned off resting places for things that I had just not put away. I put all my broken stitch markers in a box to be repaired. I stacked boxes for future delivery. I worked until I was too tired to move. Most importantly I managed to empty one box. That box will help organize my knitting projects stacked on shelves, so they don’t fall as often I have one more box that I hope to finish tomorrow. At least with that part. The whole process should take about a week to finish. I might even try to get a bit of sewing done before I need to set up the guest room.
At the same time I was washing the last 3 skeins of yarn from Spin Together 2021. Once they are mostly dry and can be moved into the house for the final drying, I will take a picture of all the skeins. Some colors did change drastically, others were about the same. Then I will play with the order of colors to make my next shawl. I might even spin a few more skeins to get the colors just right.
I even had time to add 6 inches to the never ending scarf..
I usually count my yarn and batts by the quart or gallon. I know most people count by skeins, ounces of roving or yards. So for last week’s spinning for Spin Together 2021 I emptied 2 , 12 quart sweater boxes of hand carded batts. Since I spun 12 skeins of yarn that works out to an average of 6 skeins per box. Of course as you have seen from the pictures, the skeins were spun with 1, 2 or 3 batts. That’s the great thing about art batts, no 2 are alike. Some can be singles while with others just more go together.
Don’t worry about the empty boxes. They will be filled up again by tomorrow night. I am in the process of cleaning craft room number 1. My crafts are currently divided between 2 rooms. I have it on the best Authority that craft room number 1 aka the guest room might just have some guests. So I do need to finish my top to bottom cleaning of the room. I got off to a great start today. Just so we are clear craft room number 2 is shared with our pantry. At least I have all the snacks when I am working in craft room 2.
I also learned today that my body no longer likes kale. So my go to vegetables are carrots, celery, salads, squash, sweet potatoes, daikon radish, soy beans, Lima beans, lentils, Garbanzo beans, beans in general, radishes, yams, corn, peas and seaweed. Yes I now count seaweed as a vegetable. It goes great on tofu.
Below are my empty storage boxes. I was going to stack them the other way but the kept on sliding.
I woke up feeling great.
Which lead to a lot of chores getting done.
Which lead to over 10,000 steps.
Which lead to a total fat burn workout on my Cubii2. That was 30 minutes.
Which lead to 2 out of 5 knitting work in progress projects getting finished tonight.
All in all a good day.
Now for another goodnights sleep.
Which will lead to another almost pain free busy day tomorrow.
At the end of day 6 of Spin Together 2021 I have spun 12 skeins of mostly art yarn for a total of 2,184 contest yards or 1.24090909 miles. Not a bad week of spinning. I did not over do. I included plenty of rest time. The first picture is of the last 5 skeins. They are smaller because they were spun with one art batt each.
These are the last 2 skeins of day 5 of Spin Together 2021. With a total contest yardage of 480 yards. I like the colors of Bees the best. Bees is the yellow green and light blue color way. This. brings my contest totals up to 1,578 yards. Since a mile is 1,760 yards I just might have a chance at spinning a mile of yarn this week. No wonder my calf muscles are protesting.
Sorry for the second post you know is coming tonight.
As you can tell from the picture below I spent the afternoon spinning mini batts. I managed to spin 5 mini batts today. With the 3 batts from yesterday that is 8 spun in 2 days, waiting to be plyed. These are 4 ounce bobbins and I managed to get 6 ounces on the front left bobbin. I will try to get them all plyed and skeined after dinner. Usually plying goes fast for me. I would have spun more but ran out of bobbins for my woolly winder.
You might have read or seen pictures of all the mini art batts that I made a few months ago in a bid to get my fiber stash under control. Well I do have my first empty box that I am filling up with hand spun yarn. I have 4 skeins of yarn in the box I emptied. As per Spin Together rules I have 552 yards. Each time the fiber goes through the spinning wheel orifice it counts, so if I spin 2 singles and ply them together I multiply the total yards times three. To get my actual yardage simply divide the above number by 3.
I also have 1 skein waiting to be plyed and am currently spinning one of the larger batts. I did not get much spinning done today. I usually slack off after an eye doctor appointment. Somehow getting my eyes dilated just discombobulates me so I always sleep afterwards. I can knit while I am asleep, but I have not been able to learn to spin while sleeping. I am really hoping to have a second box of batts emptied by noon on Saturday when the contest ends. Wish me luck. As you all know it depends solely on how my hands are doing in any point of time.
All the art batts are going into hand woven scarfs. The mohair with the exception of the pink skein will go into a shawl for me. I really did not consider that losing the weight, inches and sizes would mean that I would need new shawls in smaller sizes. I just assumed that they would fit me better. Some fo,
I have other skeins in progress. This is my first completed skein of art yarn. 35 yards multipled by 3 give me 105 yards for the contest. Tomorrow will be better. I had a very bad body day today.
As you can tell from the picture below I am super into Spin Together 2021. On the right side is my Louet Victoria I am currently spinning a white single to ply with my art yarn. I will also doing my plying on this wheel. I have never noticed before that undyed arm is smoother and easier on the hands than dyed yarn to spin. It must be something in the dyes that effects the fiber and how it feels. Now I now why so many spinners spin the raw fiber and dye it later.
In the middle is my Cubii2 so that I remember to get my exercise in. On the left is my LendrumDT for do my first spins. I might even do some art yarn singles on it. On the fireplace are my 2 baskets of warp and weft for weaving. Since all my Spin Together 2021 yarn will be for charity work I had better get my loom running too
I currently have 4 bobbins that need to be plyed. I have also found that 1 1/2 hours seems to be my maximum amount of time that I can sit and spin without hurting. So I am sad to say that I won’t be adding much yardage to my team’s total.
It’s time to get some rest so that I can try to have a productive day tomorrow.
My body and I are not, not on speaking terms, more like a major disagreement today. Since it is fall I did not think it was weird to put a shawl on my shoulders and cover myself with a blanket after dinner. Being all nice and warm really helped with the aches and pains.
My first day of Spin Together was pretty good. I filled 4 bobbins. Now I just have to spin some white ti ply with the art yarn. The are going to be small skeins of yarn. I am starting with all those bits and pieces of fiber that I made into mini batts. The yarn will go into hand woven scarfs and maybe a shawl or two.
It has been a busy day so I am officially calling it over.
I did get a lot of things done today. I managed to get 1/2 my to do list completed and a few extras too. I have a busy day planned for tomorrow so I am hoping for a good night’s sleep.
I woke up feeling fantastic today. I had a good day and taught 1 knitting class. I got help from Michael in fixing my Lendrum Spinning Wheel, the squeaky footman are gone. If you are in Tucson or just passing through Michael at Grandma’s Spinning Wheel can help you with most of your spinning wheel problems. Also for those of you who plan to do the Steven West Make along shawl, Sandy the fantastic in house dyer at Grandmas Spinning Wheel has dyed up several different colors that have been put together in sets for your convince. If you would like to choose your own colors that is an option too. This is something that needs to be done as soon as possible because Sandy is dying the yarn to order.
If you are in Tucson the group will meet in Friday’s at the shop. If you are in an area without a Local Yarn Shop you can still get together with friends for this make along. You can also order your yarn from Grandma’s Spinning Wheel for your project.
Just to let you know, Grandma’s Spinning Wheel has a large selection of yarns, fibers, weaving supplies and notions for all. Just use the link for you shopping convince.
Happy Fiber crafting to all.
