All About Fiber

I spent the Saturday at Grandma's Spinning Wheel here in Tucson. I took 2 classes with Donna who is a wonderful teacher. If you have a chance to take any of Donna's classes consider yourself very lucky.  The first class was all about dying fiber. We dyed every type of protein fiber a beginner needs to know. We did use acid dyes which are almost all off my hands today.  We started off with adding a little color to a dark fiber with streaks of white in it. Then there were roving's, silks and yarn. With the yarn we did a dye over on an orange hank of yarn and had a blank hank of white yarn. Once everything is dry I will take some pictures.

While I had a terrific time and learned quite a bit, my fiber friends who dye my yarn and fiber need not worry. I don't think that I will be doing this at home any time soon. That being said I can't wait to see how it all spins and knits up.

After lunch I took the most wonderful class of the day. I learned how to comb fiber into top. I did  not realize how much physical labor combing was and can now understand why in the English Guilds the skill was passed from father to son. I also learned to use a diz. So now I can properly play with my dizes. A thank you needs to go out to everyone who has sent me dizes knowing before I did how much fun they would be to play with. I do have a small bag of combed top fiber to spin and I cant wait. Since this is so much fun yet so physical for me I think I might have to limit myself to about an hour a day. I noticed that when I got tired my quality went way down.

Grandma's Spinning Wheel also has a large selection of classes, knit ins, spin ins,  yarns, fibers, knitting and spinning supplies. For your first casual visit I would recommend planning to spend at least an hour in the store. If you are undecided  which spindle or spinning wheel to get, buy a bit of fiber and take a floor model for a test spin. If they don't have what you want in stock just ask either Vicki or Michael to order it for you.

If you are not from Tucson here is all you need to know about Grandma's Spinning Wheel. It is located at 6544 E, Tanque Verde #150, Tucson Arizona 85715. All the other pertinent  information can be found at www.grandmasspinningwheel.com.

This is my disclosure paragraph. John paid for my classes on Saturday and took care of Eric to boot. Isn't he wonderful? I did not get paid to write this blog. All opinions are my own. I did not ask permission from either Vicki or Michael  the owners of Grandma's Spinning Wheel to write this blog post. So I hope that they do not ask for a take down.

Hats

Today was all about hats. I finished 4 of the hats that I mentioned in yesterday's blog.  I only have 26 to go to make the knitting guild presidents challenge of 30 in 30 days.  Since each hat is taking about 1 skein of yarn do to using 2 strands of yarn to knit with at a time.  I should have 30 less skeins of yarn in the house when this challenge is finished.  This might sound like a lot of yarn, which it is by any standard, but I doubt this will make much of a dent in my yarn stash. 

So here is a picture of the first hat I finished this morning. All 32 rows.  Mixing a white yarn with a variegated yarn has a nice look to it.  

A Really Good Day

I had a very busy day today. With Eric at his day program, I was able to go to knitting guild today. Barbara Moore gave a lovely talk about the history of hand knit caps. She also gave us a pattern for a quick hat for charity that is a real stash buster. It uses 2 stands of worsted weight yarn. With about 1 hour total knitting time this afternoon I am half way through with my first hat. John made a suggestion of making a whole bag full for the next guild meeting to burn through some of my stash. The question I should have asked was what size bag, before I said that sounded like a good idea and agreed to it. Since the hat is not my own design I can not post the pattern here.

I also think that I may have insulted a few people at lunch by asking one person at the table to use her inside voice when she started yelling at the top of her lungs during lunch. I was ready to crawl under the table because I was so embraced to be with someone that rude. Not to mention that the entire restaurant was staring at our table. Teri would have loved being a fly on the wall when another person who did not know all about Eric, commented that we should not let Eric be such a slacker (her words not mine). We needed to motivate him  to be more like his older sister. I told this lady who is new to our group that we were content to have Eric in his day program ( I could have not drop a bigger hint), and we had no problem with him staying home as long as he wanted. Not everyone has to go to college.  I think the final round of me insulting the world came about when the server came over to offer us desert and I turned it down for the entire table.

After lunch, but before afternoon car pool I also managed to get some lovely fruit for snacks this weekend and get a 20 minuet nap.

John and I also went to a retirement dinner tonight. It still seems odd at times to think that we are retired.  The speaker was a Retired Air Force Major General. It was a great talk, that was surprisingly short. I should have written down the name of his book so I could read it.  Afterward John and I went to Frost and had a nice walk to help me get to my 10,000 steps for the day.

It is time to call it a day so that I can fill my day tomorrow with knitting, cleaning, laundry and hopefully some spinning.

Hump Day

The house is slowly returning to normal. Eric is feeling better. Which left me time to do some shopping today. What I found shows me that the economy is not rolling as it should be. I went clothes shopping and found sizes to be limit and less items in stock. This might make me change my policy of buying Halloween candy on the 31st.

I also found time for cleaning, laundry ( when do I not find time for laundry?) and knitting. Some days I think I put to much on my plate. I really feel that I should be able to get more done than I do. But I am also learning to say no.

Can I Have a Do Over?

First off we would like a do over of Monday here,that being said Eric had a better day today. John is hoping to get Eric out the door tomorrow. Me I think one more day.  

Every one slept well last night lets hope we can do 2 nights in a row.  Maybe I will get more done that way on Wednesday.  It is quiet so I am calling it a night.  

And the Answer Is...

We went to the doctors today and it is an ear infection. This is why Eric has been so sick and miserable the last 3 days. I was 100% wrong. I thought clammy kid with a fever, who was throwing up had a tummy bug. So we have changed course and started the antibiotics. He should be feeling better in a day or 2.

In the mean time I hope to have Eric sleeping through the night again in a couple of days. I promise not to give any sensible answer until I have had at least 1 full nights sleep. I will continue to try to knit until I can't see straight any more and after that all my knitting would result in is a lot of frogging...rippit...rippit....rippit...

I am not happy with myself for only hitting the 4 mile of walking mark today. With only 20 minutes of house work. With these pathetic numbers you would think some one around here was sick or something. But with it being almost bed time with me wanting to sleep tonight I will not partake in any more exercise for the day. I am also to tired to knit so I think I will find something mellow to do for the rest of the night.

Eric is Sick Again

This is night 3 that I am in Eric's room.  The first night was Friday, Eric was sick I managed to get 4 hours of sleep. Not enough by anyone's standards, but still doable. This was followed by a full day and a retirement party on Saturday. I was certainly not ready for another almost all nighter. 

Eric's plans were a lot different than mine. I got to sleep at 6 am on Sunday morning.  I cancelled all outside activities.  I also managed to keep up with most of the sick kid laundry.  It is now the wee hours of Monday morning. I am hopeful that I will be able to get some sleep soon. 

Even if Eric is still home on Monday I will need to get out and get a little shopping done. We are down to 1 bottle of pedialyte and out of children's tylenol. The fruit drawer looks a little on the empty side too.  

Guess what. Eric has fallen asleep. So I will end the blog here so I can get 6.5 hours of sleep.  At least that is close to normal.