A Few Sheep Shy of a Farm

Free to a good home!

Lots and lots of silkworm eggs. They are in my fridge and need to come out soon to hatch . . . . I have decided not to raise silkworms again this year. It was fun and I’m glad I had the experience but I need to pick and choose my projects and this year I’m going to focus on gardening. So if anyone is interested I have a petri dish full of silkworm eggs looking for a home . . . yours for the cost of shipping and I’ll even toss in the bag of silkworm chow which works well for getting them started (and the occassional rainy day when you don’t want to spend time picking leaves). Just send me an email if your interested . . .

Not much fiber stuff to report. I spent last night doing some housework type projects and didn’t have a chance to do much with fiber. We spent part of the evening changing out how our bed is supported. The system that came with it wasn’t really working and it was causing a sag in the middle. DH has a bad back so that was just not good. Our “new” system is really our old system, milk crates under the platform the mattress is on. They actually provide a better support than the wood slats that came with the bed. . . . the down side is that there is a little less room for the containers of stuff I had stashed under the bed . . . oh well. One container is now under the futon in the living room, I got the rest of them back under the bed . . . .

While we had them out I reorganized the sock yarn collection. Turns out between what is in the sock yarn box and the stuff I got from Jen last fall, I have enough sock yarn to make 40 pairs of socks. And that doesn’t count the ones I’ll make from odds and ends which we know will happen at some point . . . thats just straight from the skein socks. And the ones for DH require 3 skeins as he has rather large feet . . . Guess I won’t be buying any more sock yarns for a while since it will take me a long time to knit 40 pairs!

Speaking of socks, I’m working on the cuff of the first one in the pair of socks I’m making from my own hand dyed, hand spun Romney. I really like the colors and the way it is working up. Not the softest socks but they should wear like cast iron. And they will be warm. Since I have chronically cold feet, warm socks are a very good thing . . .

No progress on the wheel, perhaps tonight after the buns get a brushing . . .

Wow! That weekend went by so fast!

Actually, it was a really good weekend . . . I didn’t get much done on Friday, I was so tired by the time I got home that I basically did nothing and I went to bed early to boot!

Saturday, being the official First Day of Spring, we spent Spring Cleaning! We worked on the first pass at cleaning up the screened in patio which was full of leaves, newspaper, dirt and other stuff . . . not that it is ready to use yet, but when the weather finally does warm up enough we should be able to clean it up fairly easily from here.

I also worked on getting more trays of plants started. DH brought home a 4th variety of Tomato . . . should be interesting to see how they all do. We have lots of herbs and tomato plants started so far and I’ll be picking up some annual flowers to add to the pots once things warm up enough (about 6 weeks from now). It should be a very green summer out on our patio this year.

Sunday, M and A and I went to brunch! Yummy! It was a very nice treat. Then we hit the mall. A now has a new Easter outfit; shopping for kids stuff can be such fun. Next we went to Wild and Wooly in Lexington for some yarn shopping. I’m almost embarrassed to admit, a couple of pairs of socks worth of yarn followed me home.

We made some slow progress on the wheel. Rubbing this stuff off is going to be a bigger time investment than I had anticipated. A helped and DH has worked on it as well. Hopefully we can get it finished sooner than later, I’d really like to be able to spin again! I just keep telling myself it will be worth the work and the wait to have the wheel properly protected . . . won’t it?

Oh! I found out this morning that one of my co-workers is going to be a Grandma! More Baby things to knit!!!!

Well, plenty to do today so I’d better get back to it. . . .

TGIF

Well, this finishing of the wheel is turning into a very big project indeed! I’m starting to understand why the guy that built it charges so much to finish them!

The wheel is still sitting on the kitchen table as I got home from spinning a bit too late last night to really do anything with it. I did pick up one of the treadles and try wiping it off. Turns out this oil stuff leaves a nice, sticky film on everything! Yuck!!! So I took a rag and rubbed at a section of the treadle. The good news is the sticky does go away, the bad news is it does take some elbow grease! It is going to take me hours of work to get the wheel rubbed down before I can go over it with the steel wool or put any wax on it. And the wax is going to take some rubbing in after it dries as well. . . . it may be the middle of next week or later before I can spin on this again.

In gardening news, my plant light is all rigged up over my seed trays. Thanks to DH. I’ve got sprouts in my salad bowl, I’m assuming its the arugula from the looks of it . . . and I’m starting to get some sprouts in the creeping thyme . . . won’t be long till I have actual plants!!! This part of gardening is so much fun, watching to see what actually pops up! I’ll be planting a bunch of other stuff this weekend just as soon as I figure out how to rearrange things so there is enough room . . . wish me luck!

Well, we’re hosting a conference at work today and I’ve lots to do so I’m off to it. Have a great weekend and I’ll report my progress on the wheel and the garden on Monday!

2nd Coat . . .

Okay, so last night I spent 2 hours putting a second coat of Tung oil on the wheel. It is now sitting in pieces on our kitchen table drying . . . . tonight I’m going to spinning so I won’t be working on it tonight . . . but that is okay as it means a second day for it to dry completely. Tomorrow night the plan is to wipe down the wheel with rags to remove any extra oil that hasn’t soaked in, give it a light rub with some fine steel wool and then apply a coat of furniture wax. Once that dries, it gets wiped again and then I’ll apply a second coat of wax. Its a long process, but presumably one that will protect my wheel for a long time to come. I have heard that reapplying the wax every year or so isn’t a bad idea . . . . but we’ll see.

My order from Gardener’s Supply just arrived! I love this place. I used to order from them years ago when I had a garden . . . and now that I’m at it again I’m back to ordering from them! I ordered this stuff on Monday and it arrived today, by standard shipping, not express! I got 3 of their APS seed starting trays, 2 – 40 cell and 1 – 24 cell, some seed starting mix, paper pots to upgrade the plants to as they get bigger . . . and transplant mix for that. I also got a new garden trowel and wow is it solid! This is really a life-time investment and not the kind that will bend easily. I also got some compost stuff to heat up my compost pile so I can have some finished compost ready when I put the plants in the pots they will go in on the patio. So now, other than having the lights rigged up, I’m ready for my garden.

I actually planted a couple of trays of seeds the other night and a “bowl” type pot with some salad which is starting to sprout already! The salad stuff I’ll have to plant a few more containers of as they recommend planting it every couple of weeks to keep a supply going . . . but I’ve got 3 kinds of tomato plants, peppers for DH, several cooking herbs and lots of lavender started so far! I also plan to get a couple of window box thingys to put under the windows on the side of the house that faces the patio, which I’ll fill with flowers to add some color . . .

Looks like I’ll be spending a little less time on knitting/spinning this year and a little more time on gardening!

Long time, no post . . .

Well, as ususal the weekend went by far too fast . . . Monday I didn’t have a chance to post and yesterday I stayed home . . . and now its Wednesday already!

So I’ll start with Friday. A turned up on Friday evening after weeks of being a “no show”. Poor thing, she’s been quite busy with schoolwork from the sounds of it. We scoured a lb. of wool together while munching on Girl Scout Cookies, yum!

Saturday after doing a few things around the house we headed in to town to meet J & L and some friends of theirs for the Annual Spring Flower show! What fun! So many wonderful flowers and planting ideas. Now I can’t wait for SPRING! Not so fun was our car not starting when we left and then dying completely on the way home. We spent and hour waiting for a tow . . . . thank goodness for AAA! We missed going for Mexican with the others, but after we got the car to the garage we went home and DH made a very yummy pasta dish . . .

Sunday I scoured another 2# of fleece, Cotswold with a nice long staple. Not the softest stuff in the world but it has nice luster and looks like it will be fun to spin. I also dyed some of my merino/angora blend. This was my first attempt at immersion dyeing and it didn’t turn out quite how I planned . . . but then what does, right? I also tossed in some other misc. skeins of handspun and now I have a bunch of dark blue yarns . . . . at least 2 of them are likely to become hats in the hat box for next winter . . .

Yesterday I disembled my spinning wheel and we got Tung oil for it. I had put a little coat of wax on it when I got it, but it really needed something else. Now it has a nice medium tone cherry color to it. I have another coat to do tonight and then Friday it will get a coat of wax on top of that with perhaps a second coat on Saturday if time permits . . . so it will be the end of the week at least before I can spin again!

I hate waiting, but it should be worth the wait, the wood already looks so much prettier now, you can really see the grain which was kinda hidden before . . .

Plenty of knitting left to do on the baby blanket and any number of other projects so it isn’t like there is a real shortage of things to work on either . . . oh well. I’ll try to take picture with my new phone so you can see what the wheel looks like once she is finished . . .