My weekend was overall quite relaxing. Mr. Ink and I took our bikes out for a ride around a couple of lakes. I think I am ready to start a movement. A Slow Biking movement. I took the fat tire bike out, and just thoroughly enjoyed riding around the lake with no particular mph or time goal in mind. There were puddles. I, quite literally, rode through them like this. I was discussing with a friend who also just got a fat tire bike, saying that I feel it brings out a slower and more playful side, riding my fat tire bike. He completely agreed, having the same experience.

The other nice piece of that puzzle is that I can go ride bikes with people just beginning to take up the hobby and not feel too irritable about the pace. The fat tires hold me back and slow me down so significantly, and the ride is SO comfortable, that any pace a newer rider wants to take is fine with me. And thus, we’ll be riding around the lake with a newer rider tomorrow evening.

In dyeing news, on Sunday I dyed all the remainder of the commercial top, the entire pound. And then I threw in a handful of silk as well.

I love that olive green so much I ended up doing 4 ounces of it. While I had intended to use all of these for blending, that olive green isn’t ever going to make it to a drum carder.

I’ve got loads and loads of undyed locks that can be dyed at some point, but as of right now, I am done. I put the small amount of dye equipment I had left away in the basement. It’ll be back out in the future I am sure, but I am good for now.

I also finished up my skein of 2 ply yarn made from batts I created myself. It’s 1,085 yards of fingering weight yarn, and it’s extremely soft! Softer than my drum carder should have accepted, especially since I had to do a lot of extra blending to make it look good.

I love this yarn. I love it SO MUCH! It’s beautiful, it holds interest, it’s soft, it’s got bits and bobs and yet remains overall smooth. This is a yarn I am very proud of!

It seems like I am saying that regularly lately. I think that’s good, spinning continues to hold interest and I continue to learn new things.

I haven’t started anything new yet though. Because once I start a project, I really have trouble stepping away. And these two weeks I need to be concentrating on cleaning up the house for a visitor I have coming in, and the large conference is less than 2 weeks away as well. It may be knitting almost exclusively until after the conference! I can put knitting down just fine these days.

Yesterday was a day full of rain. All day rain. Not really overwhelming storms, just all day mostly gentle, but not gentle enough to be out in rain.

It forced an in day for us, and I think that was best for Mr. Ink and I. I did a bunch of spinning and knitting and dyeing. He pulled out the multiple boxes of paperwork saved from his mom’s house, as well as the stuff he’d brought home from her safe deposit box a few weeks ago, and decided to work out what needed to be saved and what could be let go of.

Now, she had a habit of making multiple copies of everything. When we were cleaning out her house, there were files all the way back to the 1960s and often there were 12 copies of everything. Mr. Ink’s sister in law and I went through that stuff back then and got it down to a reasonable level. However, that reasonable level, which entered our home, combined with what was saved from her apartment and entered our home, combined with the contents of the safe deposit box, means we had multiple copies yet again. Mr. Ink would sit there and exclaim “There are 3 copies of this pointless document!!!!” And I’d sort of roll my eyes because he has NO IDEA that 3 is a pretty good amount, all things considered.

He did manage to bring those documents down to a VERY reasonable level though. The safe deposit box hadn’t been cleaned out in probably 20 years, and there were a lot of pointless documents in there. What goes back will be so much simpler to sift through when it needs doing. And we’ve got a box that we will keep here at the house. There’s an envelope of stuff that’s family history that will go to his brother as well. And then there’s recycle and shred, making up the largest amount.

When I said I wanted to clean out the basement, I had no idea that these boxes would actually get dealt with. I just expected them to move from place to place. So I am WELL PLEASED. Plus, it’s just nice to be in the house on a rainy day, especially if you are doing what you love, and spending time with a person whose company you quite enjoy.

Did I mention the dyeing? I got a LOT of that done.

Using my crock pot slow dye method, it really leaves plenty of room for other activities. The top 3 are falkland wool, the bottom 4 are masham. The 2 darker reds are SLIGHTLY different colors. One being “vermillion” and one being “plum.” But, they are awfully close. Disappointingly close really. I shouldn’t be disappointed, after all, I am working on more dyeing today. I doubt I can get through the pound of BFL silk I’ve got up next, but I am hoping to make headway.

And, I did finish spinning the 7.5 ounces of singles I had on the wheel.

They are looking great, I think I am going to love the resulting blue yarn!

Today is supposed to be clear, cool, and comfortable. I do believe that outdoors time will be in order. I can’t wait!

I went back and photographed yesterday’s fiber again, along with two new bumps. Let’s see if this looks a bit more accurate!

For the record, the two new bumps are the ones on top. The one that LOOKED like the one on the top left yesterday, is the middle left. I think the colors look far better here. It always takes some time to adjust to the different light when it starts to get dark faster.

I also took a new picture of the handspun I finished. It’s also more accurate, so I can post now.

8 oz of fiber, which is BFL and silk, 290 yards 4 ply yarn. I may have no idea what to do with it, but I do LOVE it. I love the roundness of a 4 ply, and the way the colors mix up. I don’t love picking a pattern. 🙂

I got two more fiber bumps dyed yesterday evening. I had thought that all I had left of commercial top to dye was a pound of undyed BFL silk, but when I went to open the cupboard where I store that, numerous bumps of undyed commercial top fell out. So, I might be at this a little longer than I had anticipated. That’s ok, despite not enjoying dyeing all that much, I haven’t found the crock pot method I am using to be too terribly irritating. More of a set it and forget it process.

The whole point of getting this dyeing done is to get rid of some of the dyeing supplies and dyes because I am not in love with it. I want to scale back majorly. I have already been able to throw away 2 small dye containers, despite having far more dyes than I had actually realized. I have paired down my equipment as well, though there’s still a little more work to do in that department.

Having moved to a new house has really scaled back my desire to work with dyes as well. In the old rented house, I can’t say I cared much about screwing up my kitchen with dyes. After all, it hadn’t been remodeled since the 50s and desperately needed to be. But now? I have to live with the kitchen I have for awhile, and it’s my own. So dyeing has been relegated to the unfinished basement. It needs a clean out, and a year of living has created a fairly buggy space, as is typical for an unfinished basement. There are cobwebs hanging from everything. It’s…unpleasant. And, my only water access down there is the creepy basement shower, which works but isn’t particularly enjoyable to use for dye purposes.

As I write this, I think to myself that maybe finishing that basement WOULD be a good idea. Finish it into a studio, rather than a rec room that would never get used. But, it’s probably a bigger job than I’d like to take on at the moment.

In any case, now I’ve blathered, and bored my readers. Suffice it to say, there’ll be a lot more pictures of dyed fiber in the near future as I work through the undyed stash. That’s all.

That should be my motto I think. It’s how I act on a bike, no matter how tough the ride gets, and it’s how I go about my time at home too, if I’ve got free time.

I’ve decided to wait to show you a picture of my finished 4 ply. The picture I took yesterday turned the entire skein blue, and that wasn’t happy for me. Instead, I’ll show you what I got done in the dyeing department.

The green and the gold are on a light grey romney, the wine color is on a dark grey romney. Another great addition to my collection. I dyed up two more yesterday, but have to wait for them to dry to take photographs. That leaves me with one more 2 oz. bump of dark grey romney, and then I’ll be working through a pound of BFL/silk.

Since I finished my 4 ply, I needed another wheel project. I kind of try to alternate between wool top and batts, since I like batts better, and the danger is failing to work through the tops in my collection that I DO love, even though I tend to spin batts more readily. Well, the 4 ply was 8 oz. of top, so now I get to spin some batts, and I chose the over 7 oz. of batts of my own creation. The story of their transformation from some pretty lackluster top to great batts is here. I read that I had originally intended to spin those batts as a 3 ply, but I’ve changed my mind. These are becoming a 2 ply. I am quite pleased with the singles thus far!

This one? The photo looks just as rich and beautiful as it looks in real life. I think I’ll just keep spinning.

I had that kind of weekend where I relaxed so well and stayed in so much that coming back to work felt like it was actually ok with me. That’s exactly what I was looking for. We are less than 3 weeks out from the big conference, I have two grants due between now and then, and I need to feel eager and inspired to get to work. So my weekends are going to be all about hibernation from now until the conference is over.

Yesterday I was able to begin plying my 4 ply yarn:

It’s actually done now, but hanging to dry. It turned out great, and I’d say it’s an aran or even a bulky. Certainly not even as light as a worsted weight yarn.

I also decided to begin doing some dyeing. You see, awhile back I experimented with dyeing my own yarn and fiber, but even when only doing so about once a year, I realized that I just didn’t enjoy it enough to keep it up. However, I do have plenty of undyed fiber laying around, and I DO love blending fibers on the drum carder. So, I have decided that it’s time to use my dyes and dye up 2 ounce portions of different colors in anticipation of using them for blending.

I had 2 grey undyed colors of romney wool, one lighter grey and the other darker grey. I started with the light grey, threw it in the crock pot in 2 ounce portions and added dyes. I actually got 4 light greys and a dark grey done, and I plan to continue tonight, but I only got photos of two.

I think those will serve their purpose quite well! I’ll photograph the others tonight.

Miss Butterfly spent the majority of the weekend at her friends house next door. She ended up helping set up a large consignment sale with the neighbor, and for all her hard work (All day long those girls worked!) She earned herself a Halloween costume that she loves. Well, since she’d spent most of the weekend away, I decided it was time for her to spend some time with me. We went to a local lake and took a walk around it, looking for pokemon. We saw pokemon, and we saw other real life fun stuff too! Most notably, this baby snapping turtle (I think it was a snapper, I was told it was a snapper.) which Miss Butterfly INSISTED I pick up so she could see the underside of it. I tried to tell her she could pick it up, but she was having none of that. In any case, we moved the poor thing off the trail in hopes that it would head toward the water rather than get run over on a busy recreational area.

It’s a pack in and pack out park, but I can see from this photo that many are not packing out. Next time I go, I’ll grab a bag and pick up some trash while I walk. I say *I* because Miss Butterfly decided there are too many grasshoppers for her to return just now. But they don’t really bother me and I fully intend to enjoy another walk there soon.

And now it’s back to the daily grind! No telling if I can make it an entire week!

Since yesterday was a surprise alone morning, I took full advantage by doing house chores and crafting. And a tiny bit of gardening. Once Mr. Ink got home, we hit up a garden shop and a hardware store for a couple things and then I got back to it with the crafting.

I’d say it went well! I am hoping to finish the 4th bobbin today and perhaps start on some plying. But, I would also like to get a load of stuff to goodwill and take a nice long walk. But for now? Coffee, blogging, and relaxing.

While at the garden shop, I was enjoying all the glorious mums, they look so amazing this time of year. However, I’ve got three different kinds of mums in my garden already, and I didn’t feel an overwhelming need for more. Until I saw these red mums.

Mr Ink was in total agreement that they were glorious, and so we got them. At the end of the season I’ll divide them up and put them in the garden to see if they make it another season. All we have in there is pink, purple, and white so I think the red are a wonderful addition. There was another I really liked that was cream into coral, but I figured one a year with the mums is plenty!

My day was exactly what I needed yesterday, so we will see if I can manage the same today!

Miss Butterfly, Mr. Ink, and I all had/took yesterday off. Mr. Ink has been on vacation all week, getting various projects and yard work done around the house. Miss Butterfly had a scheduled day off school. While I could not take the entire week off due to work projects, I was able to sneak in a Friday off. This will be it, I think, prior to the large conference coming up mid October.

Mr. Ink had suggested a zoo visit, but, while I don’t really know what’s wrong with me, I never really enjoy visiting the zoo. We have an amazing zoo here! But, it makes me feel hot and sweaty, it’s stinky, because that’s the way zoos are, and I always feel like the hot sweaty stink clings and I come home with it all sticking to me. Seriously, I have no idea what’s wrong with me, but it doesn’t make a pleasurable experience for me. So instead, I suggested the local botanical garden. Mr. Ink and I never had been there, and so he said maybe we could do both. I didn’t think we could, so I said “Let’s start with the botanical gardens.”

We got in there, and Mr. Ink realized just how large it was. We spent all day, we ended up leaving for lunch around 2 p.m., eating at a local long established restaurant, then headed back for more botanical garden fun. At the end of the day, Mr. Ink decided that a membership would be in order for us, as we are all quite interested in plants and gardening, and it seems likely that we could easily go at least once each season, enjoying different blooms.

I didn’t take many photos during the day. Most of Mr. Ink’s photos were ones of labels on plants for future reference. Mostly though, we just took it all in and came home full of beauty and ideas. And we didn’t even see it all!

Once home, and after I took a quick nap, I got to do some spinning. I finished up a bobbin. This is another 8 oz project, and it’ll be a 4 ply yarn.

The early morning light has this looking a little more neon than it appears in real life, but I am just impressed I got some spinning done!

This morning was a bit of a surprise. Miss Butterfly headed to a friends house last night for a sleep over. And then I realized that Mr. Ink returned to work this morning rather than Monday morning like I had expected. So, I ended up with a surprise quiet morning! In which to do laundry and other various household tasks. But, there’s still something quite delicious about doing those tasks in a thoroughly quiet home.

How’s your weekend going?

I am not sure if I felt that this project went quickly or the week went quickly. That’s still to be decided. Could be a little of both. However, the two batt project I had chosen for my next spinning project is already spun and plied!

The batts were from BeeMiceElf. And, the yarn has more add ins than is showing up here I think! It’s a 2 ply yarn, and I got 305 yards from  it. I tried to spin a thicker single again for these, as I figured that would even out the chunky stuff, and it seems to have. I would say it’s about a dk weight, but I didn’t actively measure it or anything.

Anyhow, it was a good little project! Lots of fun, very quick, and the colors are lovely. Time to choose another spinning project! (Though I seem to actually be suffering from a case of castonitis right now.)

Yesterday morning I kept after those singles, sitting out on my patio in the cool weather for awhile, then moving inside when the sun came out. I had invited Miss Marja over to keep me inspired, so she came for a visit, and by that time I was plying.

I ended up finishing, soaking, and hanging the yarn to dry in the sun and wind yesterday.

I ended up with 300 yards of a 3 ply dk to worsted weight yarn, I am not sure which, I need to get out my WPI tool. It turned out pretty well, and I kept the allergies to a minimum I think. And I am quite pleased with the resulting thicker yarn!

It stayed a pretty quiet day yesterday. We got the mowing done, we wandered off to a plant store where Mr. Ink picked up 3 more tiny evergreens at 75% off and I drooled over a rose but didn’t purchase. Yet. They are having a big sale soon. Miss Bug was out and about with friends all day, despite having had a sleep over the night before, then she was off to watch a football game with her dad. Only to return and go nextdoor for another sleep over. We will be insisting she spend a little time at home later today and tomorrow.

This, naturally, left time for me to work on more plying.

I know I kept talking about my CMF singles and how I thought I would 3 ply them due to the crazy colors. Guys? I don’t even know if I will ever get my hands on another CMF superwash merino bump, and I REALLY wanted some 2 ply laceweight out of it. So that’s what I ended up doing. And I am pleased with the result so far! I started with 11 spindles, I’ve now got 6 left to ply. So, it was a pretty decent start!

We are supposed to have another fairly gorgeous day. Maybe not SO gorgeous as to find that I need a jacket to sit on the patio in the evening, but certainly not miserable either. Tomorrow it’ll be in the 90s again, so we are taking what we can out of today, hopefully going for a bike ride, and spending time outdoors. Then maybe we’ll just swim tomorrow. But, we ARE achieving restful I think!

Yesterday, a day off for me, was absolutely lovely. It was a comfortable temp, and I drove out with a friend to see an exhibition at a gallery in another city. I’ll have some photos of that at some point, but I haven’t gone through and picked the best yet. We also walked around quite a bit and played a little pokemon. While Miss Butterfly has been playing while we walk sometimes, that was the first time that I had played myself. It was fun!

Once home, after a nap and while I waited for the girls to come home, I decided to start spinning on the porch. Yes, girls, because Miss Butterfly was having a sleepover.

I powered through the second allergy causing batt last evening.

It’s the one with the pink. I spun outdoors since the weather was so pleasant, and that did seem to help!

Mr. Ink and I also cleaned the gutters, a job that fills me with fear even though he’s the one on the roof. Then I sat back down, and worked on the third batt.

The girls made chocolate chip cookies, and Mr. Ink made dinner, and I kept spinning. The girls went to the neighbors, where another sleep over was taking place with 3 other little girls, and then decided to stay there for the night. That mother must have more patience than me, or they have a much larger house. 5 little girls, 4 of which are not your own? But she was most agreeable to the idea even so.

Mr. Ink put in an episode of Fargo that we are working our way through, and I kept spinning.

And now I am halfway through the third batt as well. I am a little sniffly this morning, but the intention is to power through the rest of this today, if possible, and then put it to rest. Thankfully, it’s again gorgeous outside, so I’ll be able to work more outdoors until the sun hits the patio.

I have two more projects from this same company sitting in stash. I don’t know if the next two projects will cause the same issues. I am not overly eager to find out. But, my optimistic brain says this project is a one off, and it won’t happen again.