How cool is this.  http://wollymanor.com/adopt.html  It is like a CSA but for wool!  You adopt a sheep at the beginning of the year and get a picture of it and letters "from" it and all and then at the end of the year, they shear the sheep and wash the fleece and mail it to you.  How awesome!

Sorry it has been so long since we posted anything.  Things have been boring on the Fiber Front because they have picked up in the Real World.  I got an internship at a small parochial school in Azusa, about 350 miles south of Santa Cruz, so I have been both without the time or the fiber to spin or knit.  My semester is winding to a close as well, so there is a lot of homeworking happening.  I did bring some Christmas Knitting with me so there is some inching foreword.  I'm working on Jaywalkers for my cousin.  

I finish this internship after Thanksgiving and then Hedgerose and I plan to get together and take a trip to the Fiber Front.  

Pennies

So, turns out using pennies for dyeing is a bad idea.  The copper coil is coming along very nicely, it is a light shade of blue green.  I think I will let it sit a little longer to get darker.  however, the pennies just made the vinegar really really dirty and then disintegrated.  No, really. Like some of them are just a little hollow circle and some just crumble into little bits upon being touched.  Kinda cool really.  But not very useful for yarn.

Craft Day

Today we had a crafting party!

Hedgerose and some other friends came over and we watched movies and chatted and worked on our crafts.

Hedgerose and I spun in the morning and dyed in the afternoon.  We also had people there sewing, and crocheting, and drawing.


   Kathleen took lots of pictures for us!  Therefore there is also a massive update on our Etsy store.  We now actually sell yarn, imagine that.  

yarn porn

So part of the yarn diet binge got here this morning and yum. The rest should be coming in a week. And then hopefully I can resist temptation.

So I've been doing this thing this year, where I decided that everyone is going to get socks for Christmas, and because the economy stinks and I am paying a lot of money to be able to tell people I am a librarian, I am knitting them all from stash. This is different than normal because a) I decided early what people would be getting, b) I followed through and actually knit at a rate that wouldn't leave me crippled, and c) I didn't buy a whole bunch of supplies for Christmas. This had the effect of leaving me sane and with functioning wrists, allowing me to still pay for January's rent, and reducing my stash into something more manageable.

However, I was struck last night when I combed my stash for sock yarn and finished socks. I have almost enough socks for everyone and an entire Trader Joe's bag full of just sock yarn. This post a 80 day yarn diet. Sheesh. It looks like there will be more yarn dieting. I cracked a few days ago, intending to only get yarn for a pair of socks for a friend (he wanted a particular color I didn't have) and suddenly there was a lot of yarn. It was like when you take a spoon of ice cream and then the carton was gone. I would blame it on the wool fumes, but you can't do that online.

Craft/No Craft?

I haven't been doing a lot of spinning recently-- I think that summer really doesn't lend itself well to spinning, at least for me. Fall has been absolutely insane; I'm teaching a class that is entirely new to me, picking up another one on Tuesday (7th grade grammar and vocab! Whee!), and still trying to find the time to do an after-school craft course. I think I'll probably try to get it started in late November or December-- in time for the holidays, but not by a lot. :)

I *have* been working on socks: I have about three socks in various stages of completion scattered around my room. I forgot to bring them with me to LA this weekend (I was at a linguistics conference-- yes, the mild-mannered teacher is Just a Disguise), so they're not as done as I'd like them do be, but hey! socks! There's no bad there. I'll try and post some pictures soonish.

While I was in LA this weekend, however, I did go to PaperSource, that Store of Vile Temptation. I picked up an awesome awesome swingtag kit, which I then proceeded to hammer together on my brother's table. I also picked up some book blocks and some really nifty paper for making some more hardbound books. Again, pictures will be up when I, er, magically gain a camera. My plans for House Christmas this year involve making lots and lots of books, so we'll see how that goes.

And now, I go to make dinner. Mmmmmmmm, pasta.