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Rain, gloom, cold, paradise. I am not one that complains about housing prices in our lovely paradise. But today amidst rain & gloom I am complainin’ damnit! Come on! I suppose I shouldn’t complain, it gets me more time to wear hand made lovelies but at this point I am thinking I need to start knitting fun, cotton, lacey items just in hopes that it will bring on the sun!

I have a wedding coming up in a couple of weeks & I have the perfect dress that shows off the not so perfect complexion of acne on my back. So I am crocheting a short sleeved lace cotton coverup to go over. I will have it done tonight & then post pics of me wearing it with the lovely dress! So happy to have a 2 day project that is not a sock!

I love to treat myself to bubble gum. The real stuff, Hubba Bubba in original bubble gum flavor. Unfortunately last night at Sav-on Drugs they only had the sugarfree kind. Fine! I will buy it anyway. So as I am meandering through Craft Essentials with Tracy blowing my bubbles I am blinded by popped bubble! Aah! Right on glasses! So I not so slyly pry it off & continue chewing, blowing, walking.

Not until this morning, 10 minutes ago to be precise, did I notice that there is actually gum stuck on the top rim of my glass frames! That is just gross, wrong & gross! I will now be more attentive to my bubble blowing & popping  while wearing glasses.

Okay, I admit it, there hasn’t been much knitting happening here at the andreasen household. I spent yesterday building a new cage for Fuzzy to go in the boys room. With Rose living outside Fuzzy has been pretty lonely so being with the boys will get him more playing time.

This morning Tracy dropped by on her way on her way out of town. She is spending a long weekend at her parents house & Christy’s wedding in Tahoe. I think that will be a lot of fun for her! She left me with all the ingredients to make another batch of lotion bars. This time I am using a massage bar mold and a truffle candy mold for the perfect shaped bars.  You can see the bars on the right have grated orange peel in the bottom of the mold. I think the texture will be nice & add just a soft scent of orange.

Of course those two molds didn’t hold all of the liquid so I did some more bullets & used an ice cube tray for the rest. Then I busily scraped all molds & the pan & the measuring cup I used for dispensing for every last little bit of this magical lotion! Into my little tin it went! Okay, the tin isn’t so little, it’s 2″ across & an inch deep.

I also am working on other items, some are gifts so they cannot be put on film or talked about just yet! Graduation gifts are a difficult thing to come up with. And just to remind everyone, please do a circular gauge swatch in pattern when you are coming up with your own sock pattern! I had to rip another sock completely out last night because the eyelet rib pattern I did it in stretched out almost an additional 3 inches!! Only 44 sts and it would have fit an 11inch calf!! No thanks! By the way, the recipient of said socks has an 8inch calf, not happenin’! So thank goodness the sock was only 2 hours worth of work before ripping. sigh. I guess I am going to have to start over & I am considering using a different yarn & pattern completely to better match the recipient anyways. It’s all good, it works out well in the end!

Tonight is knitting & man do I have alot of stuff to bring, Thuy!! I will bring both yoke sweaters, my spinning & I don’t think I will bring any other knitting. I have books to return to Mary too & I don’t want to forget those! I will hopefully be there around 6:30, maybe even earlier if George is home sooner than that!

Thuy is defenitely right about the crappy weather being the reason for a lack of APAD’s lately. I can’t get inspired to do any photography! I don’t have anything new or spectacular blooming around here so I can’t do an nature pics. I am in no mood to do any self portraits & the kids are just about as grumpy due to the gloom! Alas, no apad’s. I may just have to bring my camera tonight to knitting to get some fun group pics to post on the sbknitters site. We’ll just see about that! I always forget to pull out the camera & take some shots.

Finally the sun is out here!! I am going to go spin in the sunshine & absorb all the wonderful light while I can! If only it were warm enough for a skirt, ah well! My day has brightened!

I am considering selling all, I do mean all, my scrapbooking supplies. I have a lot of papers, patterned in fun colors for kids scrapbook pages. Ebay is where I would sell them unless I can find someone that wants to buy them here in town. I don’t have a lot of fun tools & gadgets but I do have paper coming out my ears! Some 8.5″x11″ but mostly 12″x12″ packs. All Close to my Heart. If you, or anyone you know, might be interested email me chauntel@verizon.net and I will get pics or descriptions sent out to you.

I sold a few stamps on ebay not too long ago, that is how I was able to get the roving that I am chomping at the bit waiting to arrive in the mail.  Being broke is no fun!

This weather is something else that is no fun. The lack of sunshine is having a serious effect on my brain, Vitamin D defficiency is not a good thing. We haven’t seen sunshine out here for almost 2 weeks. It did peek out two Sundays ago for a few hours & there was one clear night last week but that doesn’t count at all! At least those of you in Santa Barbara are getting little peeks at the sunshine, it’s not clearing out here on the little peninsula of Winchester Canyon in Goleta at all! What a downer.

I spent yesterday cleaning up, moving things around to not feel so cluttered in the living room so I didn’t get any knitting or spinning done at all. I thought a trip to Ross with Tracy would boost my spirits but we couldn’t even joke about the ridiculous shoes & items we normally laugh & scoff at. sigh. That is just sad that Ross didn’t even lift the spirits. So today I am going to try to think positive, not focus on cancer, mania or any of the other crap & just live in the moment. A moment of sunshine would be nice but I won’t let the clouds get me down any further, damnit!

I don’t normally post when I feel this way but I am feeling the need to spread the misery I guess, sorry ’bout that! If you see the sunshine today, think of me please!

Friday & Saturday I spun my little fingers off. I almost finished the first roving dyebatch, Tracy was too impatient to see it balled up so I have just a tad bit of roving left to spin. I decided not to ply it once I pulled the ball out Sunday morning. It had relaxed the perfect amount for sock yarn.  

 320+ yards sockweight singlespun

 I decided to cast on first thing Sunday. I really, really thought I could stretch the yarn far enough for a pair of ankle socks. Here is the socktop.  I used a pattern out of Stitchionary for the eyelet ribbing. I love it! Unfortunately 6 hours later I realized that I didn’t have enough yarn for even ankle socks. With a foot of 5.5 inches knit I ripped it all out. That is okay, it was a nice knit & the yarn makes me happy so I will either ply it with another lightweight yarn & use it for something else or I will just dye myself some more roving (as soon as I get some natural roving) and just make myself some full socks.

Happy late Mother’s Day to all you moms out there! Here is what I was gifted, but will not receive for another week or so, for Mother’s Day!

 I can’t wait to have it!!! My huge, purple chair and a half has given me back trouble for the last few months & I am just tired of the behemoth thing!

I also got lots of amazing handmade gifties from my chillins. Stationary, crocheted jewelry (out of lion brand woolease thicknquick, not the daintiest of yarns) and other sundries. Overall it was a great Mother’s Day!

Here is the second dye batch of roving from Friday.

I started spinning it Saturday night & then a little bit after ripping out my sock last night. It’s a really fun yarn! I think it’s going to be plied with some fantastic lettuce green merino

roving I have to make a worsted weight yarn. I also got a really fun sampler of new for spring Ashland Bay rovings off Ebay.

 Gorgeous yeah???

I also got just an ounce of this Hollyberry roving.

 I only got one ounce because I am afraid it’s going to get muddy when spun up thinly. I will play with it & then decide if it’s worth buying more. Samples are fun!

If you have never seen, felt or used the handpaintedyarn.com merino roving you should check it out. It’s a fantastic roving for the price! Gorgeous colors & SO SOFT!

Shout out to Erin & Thuy for reminding me how fun spinning can be! Thursday night will be rather fun I think!! I am hoping my new rovings will be here by then so I can mess with them.

Here is the first bit of yarn, it will eventually be plied, from the first roving I dyed today.

And since it looks exactly the same, colors that is, as Thuy’s gorgeous yarns I decided that I should not be such a copy cat. So I just dyed the other half of the roving I had & here it is.

That is how sparingly I put the dye on so as not to have complete mud after cooking it.

Here it is rolled up & ready to steam.

Here it is cooling off. I will rinse it out as soon as I am done with this post. I think it’s just what I am looking for! I am thinkin’ I will ply the two batches from today to get some really funky sock yarn.

You would think since green is my favorite color that I would have started with projects for the theme of May much sooner~ no, not this time. But I did cast on for a green pair of socks today, that is my project for this month’s spectrum. Pictures will come once I get past the first few inches & you can see the actual pattern.

I do like socks. I also like to make them so it’s rather handy that I am not in any kind of mood to work on sweaters. I would much rather just make myself & a few others a dozen pair of socks before diving head first into my huge pile of sweaters that need finishing. I also have a wedding gift to be making so my ass better get in gear here real soon! I have 3 weeks until it is ‘due’. That is how I feel about it but I do think my plan is rather awesome. I will tell all when it’s finished.

After knitting last night I broke out my drop spindles that haven’t seen any action for over a year & prepared myself to start spinning again. Thuy has been making some bad-ass roving & yarn lately so I thought I would bust my way in & try some too. I dyed some natural merino roving & it’s drying now but as soon as it is done I will be spinning it up. Here is the progression of the roving. Of course I forgot to get pics of it freshly dyed before heat setting it.

 Undyed natural roving soaking in the sink.

Here it is all dyed but still wet.

Here it is fluffed out a little so it would dry faster, it’s in the dryer with warm air circulating throughout. I am way too impatient to wait for it to air dry! I am rather happy with the fact that I didn’t felt it at all while dying it. Pat on the back Chauntel! Good job!

Look at the pretty roving! I used the smart & final food dyes on natural merino roving, cold dyed then sprayed with vinegar & heat set in the microwave. Now it’s drying. I can’t wait to spin some of it up! Now remember, I haven’t spun with my drop spindles in almost a year so who knows how well the spin will turn out!

I posted a new photo to apad2.