Wheelinsticks

The only thing I really dislike about my birthday is that it is basically the call to end summer vacation. Another week and the school starts back. Sigh. Fortunately I have cool friends and family to celebrate the B-day. My very good hearted friends went with me to make earrings (girly, I know), but I love earrings. I just hate buying them. Maybe this way I'll actually have earrings that I really like. Anyhoo, I drug Mindy, Kara, Shannon, and lovely dear daughter to Lady Bug Beads. The store was great. I have been there before and didn't have the best experience, but I wanted to give them another shot. They had another girl come in just in case we needed an extra hand. However, the woman that helped us was absolutely fantastic! She gave us help in the finer points, made daughter's earring cause she does not have any crafty genes, and put together both of my pairs since I boshed the one I was making up. After playing in the bead shop, we went to eat at the Roadhouse. Thank G...

I'm done, I'm done, I'm done! I finished carding, spinning, and dyeing my Shetland fleece. I started this puppy on the 4th of July and dyed today. Oh my, that was interestingly scary. I wanted a burnt orange with some subtle tones in there. I knew I would not get just one color because the fiber went from blonde, latte, and milk chocolaty brown. Gorgeous stuff. I have learned a lot working through the process. Carding gets easier with practice, kinda like all the rest of the fiber world. I love spinning the rollags because there so quick. The hard part was getting the amount of fiber onto the bobbins consistently in weight and in diameter. Overall, the thinness of the ply was pretty consistent. Point for me. Now I need to find a cute pattern for it. I have 1358 yards in 3-plied worsted weight, so a good amount of mileage for my $20 bag!

Lawn Guy has a niece that's getting married in August, so I have been working on a shower gift, and the wedding gift that I just put on needles. Needless to say, all other knitting will be on hold until then. Dishcloths are fun to do. Practicing new stitches that is just slightly over a swatch size gives ya something in the end. There are fairly quick to make to boot. Ballband, seed stitch, Bee stitch, garter stitch, basketweave Tomorrow spinning and lots of it!

That's right it's the start of the Tour de France, and the tour de fleece competition. I missed most of yesterday's due to the fact that only one station is carrying the coverage and of course I don't have that station in my package. Sigh. Hubby, on the other hand, called our provider and ungraded so I could watch it. Sweet truly he is. It just pisses me off to no end that we had to do that. Anyway, I really love watching the tour even though I don't get much spinning done while I'm watching due to the fact that a)I love the scenery and b)I get caught up in the action. Any ways, I have been working on some spinning and knitting some gifts for a niece that is getting married in August. The mauve color in the middle is superwash merino. The Romney is yellowish purples is called Pansy. A very fitting name, and the last is Shetland called Selfish. All are singles of different weights. Pretty. I think I'll just leave them on the desk and pet them for awhile.

Done!

Good ol' St. Louie. Who needs a summer to start off small? Like usual, Let's see if we can fry dinner on the sidewalk. Needless to say with the soaring temperatures and the heat indexes over 100 for most of the week, there has been a lot of inside activities. The doggies want to play outside, and they kinda look at me like really, do we have to come in? Yeah, it's hot. I have been continuing to work on a couple of items. The dratted socks that are starting to near the finish line. Not that I don't love the colors, it's just they seem to be taking forever. Anyhoo, they should be coming off the needles in the next couple of days. My Pi shawl is through tier 2, but I'm afraid I need to rethink this. I have only used about 2/3 of one ball. Hmm, I think not. I doubt it will be a pi shawl in the end. Looking for a different pattern. I love the reddish orange color, and I want to do it justice. Sigh, it might be a while before I consider that feat. As far as spinning g...

That's how it's been going on the PI Shawl. I decided that I really couldn't live with the wonky diamonds, so I ripped it out and reknit. It looks a lot better. I got back to the 2nd round of the 2nd tier and made a mistake at the beginning of the round. Ugh, back to unknitting 288 stitches. I would have not minded the one row reknit, but I did it again on the next 2 rounds. Pay attention already! No picture yet. I want to finish the 2nd tier first. Hopefully by tomorrow I can take a picture.