Tour de Fleece!

Yippee! I'm in the Ravelry Tour de Fleece and having a great time! Been feeling a bit tired and achy, but carrying on :) First order of fleecy business: add in the angelina I got from Loop to the Jacob fleece I bought at MDS&W. Now I'm almost done re-carding the batts; I had 7 and now I have 3 more to go. I spun up the white jacob (1.4 oz) and n-plied it into worsted. Unfortunately, I didn't get much out of it, only 80+ yds, but I decided to stop thinking about possible projects and just see what I've got when I am done spinning. Today, I'm done spinning the lt. gray singles and will n-ply and finish them. I'll probably have closer to 2 oz of this color. There are 3 more colors to spin after that, then I can play with my Oxford. One of these nights I think I'm going to tease them so they will feed into the carder nicely.

About the carder: when I first started using my drum carder, it was kind of a nightmare. I had crappy fleece that I partially felted when I washed it, the licker-in was a micron too close to the main drum, so I was getting tons of waste on it. After I got wise to fleece and washing and carding, my spinning life improved dramatically. I can't express enough how important it is to prepare your fibers for carding. Not only do the batts come off easier when the fiber is open, but they are smoother, easier to crank and easier to spin with less waste.

As for the Tour de Fleece, I am on three teams: Team Batty, Team Spin City and Team Verb. I hope to finish yarn for all of the teams, though right now, I'm working on Team Batty. Here's my first skein:

And here is a picture of the next color(lt. gray) on the bobbin:

So there's my progress so far :)

Fiberlicious!

So here are the pics of my finds this weekend, plus the carding I did. The mohair locks were a bit felty, but that's ok. They're going into an art yarn. The ribbons don't have a plan for now. I'm just happy I have them! The green batt is the first of the colorway "Forest" I will make. Don't know what for yet, or if it is done. I'm not fond of the way the glitz is distributed. Lastly, the green and pink was made from drumcarder waste, all carded together. Will probably end up as art yarn, too.

My blog is dying...

Poor bloggity blog. No one reads you. The blame is surely on me, as I have been slacking reading other people's blogs and therefore have not been publicititizing you properly! That's ok though. You're here for me when I need you. One week left before vacation and I'm holding on by a thread (probably literally because I'm surrounded by it anyways.) I'm a little dejected about vacation, as I always want to do a zillion things, and end up on my lazy bum doing nothing. Here's a list of things I would do if I were inclined:

• finish painting the bedroom walls and furniture that I started two years ago
  
• clean up the craft room so I can find the sewing machine
• finish sewing my bedskirt, my rockabilly fair dress, my swing top, the chair pads and make some more stuff
• work on fiber prep, spinnning and UFOs
  

I may have to make a schedule for myself. It seemed to work ok last time, so hopefully it will work again. It appears that if I don't do something in the morning, the whole day is lost, watching Clean House and Spongebob.

This week I've been obsessed with ripping fabric. So far I have two balls. I also am slightly obsessed with the idea of making rugs. I've been shopping for fabric to rip and plan on hitting the thrift shops later to get some! Maybe I found my niche on etsy? We'll see. I did some drum carding with some practically felted fiber and it's a dream now. I really like it but feel like it's not finished, so I have to go back to it. I'd like to finish carding that colorway up. It's probably going to be about 4 oz. I need a big diz to make a roving out of my batts. Pulling it worked OK, but I want it thick and even. Practice and the right equipment will improve my skills.

Also, today we're going to the Renegade Craft Fair and it's very exciting. I've wanted to go for a few years, but never knew about it 'till it was over. Thanks to Rav's new event calendar, I actually found out in time. Cool! What shall I wear?

Lastly, J and I went back to the garage sale and were in heaven. The lady charged us 50 cents a yard on all the trimmings and I can't wait to get pics of all the booty. And I also got a BCBG silk top for $4, from a girl who wanted it to go to someone who would look good in it. I was very flattered. She wanted $10, but I only had $4 left from all the trimmings I got, so she said OK.

In other news, Yippee! I'm a natural redhead, at least till my roots start growing in. I suck at dyeing my roots. I also made bananan bundt cake for breakfast from this recipe from Allrecipes.com. It came out pretty good. There was leftover coconut topping from my pie last week, so I used it in the middle of the batter. It was so yummy, I might do it again on purpose!

Vive la France!

Because it inspired me to make this:



I love all vintage lingerie, and when presented with the theme "antique" thought about the beautiful antique Parisian silk slips and camisoles in gorgeous faded colors, like dusty blues and peaches.





After watching some youtube videos of drum carding by rexanne , I was brave enough to try my hand at drum carding again. Success at last! I'm so freakin' happy! This is a wool, mohair and silk blend for "antique" on Fiber Friday. Flicker has more info on the individual pics.

DH and I went to eat bacon cheeseburger at the local coffee shop, and, boy, were they good! I found some stuff for my next two yarns-Pink Elephants and Carmen Miranda. I'm so excited!!!!