Spinning Away

Happy belated Easter! I survived my week without knitting. Maybe next year I'll have to modify and give it up for longer - maybe not. We'll see when Lent rolls around again. Easter was fun here - I made my nephews go on an egg hunt in the back yard. Holidays are so much more fun with kiddos around.Why yes, that is my Hidcote shawl in use. Still not great at the wearing of shawls, I feel all goofy and don't know how to move my arms, but I'll get used to it.And I have to say, that hiding eggs for toddlers is great - nice and easy. No worries about finding an egg in August that we forgot.

Just to get all the shamelessly cute pictures together, Friday I went out to play with the nephews, I love that it's getting spring-like enough to go outside a bit.

Mason likes to give the goats (who are very friendly and want lots of attention) kisses. He even tries to stick his head through the fence to do so. Cracks me up.

Onto the fiber. With no knitting last week, I was amazingly productive with the spinning wheel. Case in point - the Redwood Forest BFL. Finally done. Well, except for a good soak. I spent most of Friday night plying. Seriously. I spent about 6 hours plying it up. Oi. But, it turned out better than I had hoped for. Definitely a fingering weight (what I use for socks) pending how much it blooms during its soak.

I'll take a wraps/inch measurement after the soak. Should probably re-figure the yardage then too. As of right now I've got 570 yards. I'm pretty dang pleased. This won't be knit into socks however - it's not superwash and I'm not keen on a pair of handspun socks felting with the first wash. So I'll have to figure something else out. I still have some more singles left as well, not sure what to do with them. I might just take the easy road and 2 ply them, won't end up with much but I don't know what else to do. Hmmm.

I also managed to get almost the first half of the Air Fiber spun up. I say almost half, because I split it into 2 equal parts, but the first half didn't all fit onto one bobbin.

That's a very full bobbin. Had I tried to get any more on, it would have impeded the spinning of the wheel. So now I just have get the rest of the BFL single off the bobbins and get going with the second half. PS - it's really really thin!

Last Monday, I spent the night at Bridget's Seamus sitting, so I took along my spindles and the Terminus BFL. Yeah, haven't mentioned that in a while. A long while. Anyway, I managed to ply up the spindle full that had been sitting and waiting patiently for me to get around to it.

And then I wound off the spindle full that I had and started a new spindle full, which I'm hoping is the last spindle full. Today when I went to take the spindle out to photo - tragedy. Tuesday when I was carrying everything into the house, I had dropped the spindle box, straight down. I winced at the time, but didn't really worry too much. When I went to pull out the spindle off plied yarn today... the spindle came apart. The whorl and and yarn stayed behind and the shaft came right out. AAAAHHHH! Mom and I managed to put it back together and it wasn't broken or anything, just heart attack inducing at the time. Reminder to self, be nice to the spindles.

I also managed to get a lot done on the blanket for my soon-to-be niece. No pictures until it's gifted though. Need to keep working on it so it's done by her birth day. I plan on her being the only one of her siblings to get the blanket on time. Elliott was born earlier than planned, and I couldn't finish it before the shower the next day. Mason's blanket was delayed by a yarn shortage. So she will get her blanket on time.

Alright, onto the little bit of knitting I got done yesterday. I finished the first of the Rivendell socks, except for the kitchenering of the toe and sewing in the ends.

And then I got through the gussets of the second Interlocking Leaves sock.

I'm feeling the socks right now. Should crank out the Interlocking Leaves sock this week. And now that I've said that it won't happen.

And now I need to go eat lunch and go to work. Baseball game today, it'll be a cold one!

Wow

The last week and a half have just flown by. Sorry about the silence, but playtime with the kiddos comes before blogging. Where to start? With the kiddos I think. The Jersey family arrived the Saturday before Thanksgiving. And there was much fun. The pictures will tell most of the story.
C4 and Ellie made a cake in honor of the Charlie's recent birthdays - the fun checkerboard one from my birthday.
I gave Charlie his presents (finally revealing some of the secret knitting!) - a pirate fleece blanket and some scurvy pirate mittens to match his hat. Arrrrr!
Elliott and C4 helped blow out the candle.

Sunday morning, C4 and Sarah hung out with us. I had been spinning when they arrived, and C4 was most intrigued. I got him to try a little bit, but he was bored quickly - mostly because he couldn't do it all on his own. So then the fiber became a plaything.
Wrapped around train tracks as a kind of obstacle. Until it got stuck in the train's wheels and was therefore a hindrance.
Sarah mostly slept. Grandma didn't seem to mind.
Charlie is big into games right now. Sorry and Sorry Sliders being his favorite - and we introduced him to Battleship which was a big hit.
Sarah's favorite game happens to be "Where's the kitty?" She would put her arms out and shake her head and then wander to Maddie's likely hiding spots. She's quick. Maddie did not appreciate the game.
Charlie made a craft with Grandma, at some point that week. I'm still not understanding the pirate wand myself, but whatever.

Thanksgiving was wow. I don't know what other word to use to describe it. The entire clan was together for the first time ever.
And the last time that the then entire family was together was October of 2005. Crazy. So, Thanksgiving was loud and crazy and typical for us.
The boys.
The best picture of all 4 of them. Contentedly watching Backyardigans.
What's better for a late night snack than an Uncle Tom sandwich?
The Sarah-mobile.
That child needs a hand knit hat! Poor Mason!

Friday was the last day with the Jersey folk. So we decided to go bowling.
There is nothing better than watching a four year old bowl for the first time. He was so funny about it. Unhappy that he didn't knock all of them down.

Granted, we played bumper bowling, but I would like to point out, that I had the high score. And didn't need the bumpers to get it.



And that night Grandma and Aunts were left in charge. Which meant that there was a lot of screaming and dancing and running around and camera flashes and belly flashes and general mayhem.

But dang it if they're not cute.

I'll post later this week with all the secret knitting that I can now reveal, as well as all the stuff I've gotten done for me. This post is just too long already.