Apple Season

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Late August around here means APPLE SEASON! Our crop was small but might this year but I think I have enough to do two batches of apply jelly.

It literally dangerously hot here in Kansas with 100-110 degree temperatures without the heat index. But apples ripen when they want. I took my time to wash and cut out the bad parts and pressure cook out the goodness.

After the juice is complete I made the basic cooked apply jelly recipe from the SureJell boxed instructions. This batch set but a very soft set. Not enough that I want to recook but I think I will make some tweaks for the second batch. It’s too hot for that!

OOOH! And I did something very environmentally friendly with the canning and sterilizing water. Stay tuned later this week!

Happy Canning!!

Demo After Demo

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I am questioning my life choices, I agreed to co-project manage not one but two software projects. I am accountant….on a good day. So here I am for four weeks watching vendor demonstrations. Silver lining….knitting time!

Not a ton of progress yet, but I am SUPER close to finishing the first repeat of the rainbow. These are my 2023 GFOA socks and that name means I have been working on these since the end of May. The first tube is complete except for the heel. So all combined that is not bad progress considering I have zero mojo lately.

Happy Knitting!!

A Bag Of Dirty Floof

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A friend of mine runs a local winery where they use sheep for natural grass control and fertilizer. They normally only get hair sheep but a wool sheep snuck in as part of a hair sheep lot. They shore the sweet momma before she lambed and gave me the fleece!

My friend has ZERO clue how to sheer and this bag may all be short cuts and non-spinable fiber. But I think it makes the perfect way to practice fleece washing! I just need a weekend where we aren’t scheduled to hilt!

Happy Fiber!!

Car Knitting

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This summer has NOT gone as planned and that’s been super hard and stressful. My crafting has been nonexistent but the fam headed out for vacation. So I’m using this to ignite my languishing WIPs.

For lack of any better preparation all I had to bring was my Chromatic Yarns Chevron blanket. I’m still in color four but it’s a little nubbin of yarn now. Should have had 5 hours of knitting but it ended up more like 3 hours of sleeping, one hour of knitting and an hour of giving kids snacks.

Something is better than nothing!? Happy Knitting!!!

Swimming Sock

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The kids are taking the necessary life skills lessons of water safety and swimming. I even managed to schedule both kids in the same pool at the same time. This means four nights a week I have 40 minutes of alone time.

My mojo has been sparse but I have been doing a little work on my purse project socks. Imm7 stripes in to the foot. I will have the full rainbow to knit on autopilot before I have to pay attention. Best kind of stockinette ever!

Happy Knitting!!

Time Out

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The dog crate and I had the misfortune to meet in the dark. Luckily I didn’t break anything but I have a doozy of a hematoma. So spinning and I are on a bit of a timeout until I have healed a bit.

It’s not summer until someone needs urgent care right?

Finished Purple Floof

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As promised, I let the fates decide. I had my children roll dice. Even numbers meant I would split the singles and make a 2-ply and the odd numbers meant chain ply. Numbers came up odd so it was chain ply!!

I don’t have a catchy name for this. I have been calling it purple floof spinning. My brain waves aren’t catching on to the theme here, lol. This skein still needs soaked and thwacked so I measure it. I’m guessing its somewhere between light and heavy worsted?

Now I just need the executive function to dig out my washing supplies from my disaster of a home office. Happy Spinning!!

Fresh Air Spinning

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We had a brief break in the oppressive 90/100 degree days here in Kansas and I took full advantage! After finishing the purple floof singles I pulled out the next fiber that I had on hand and headed for the patio. It’s a de-stashed braid of Spotted Circus. I don’t remember the fiber content (I’ll look it up in my notes in Ravelry here some time soon).

My sister has been visiting with her standard poodle Greer and I was mean and made the dogs play outside too. It’s shady on the patio and only 88 degrees with a nice breeze. I split this fiber roughly in half and my plan was to spin a two ply. The dogs divided all the sticks they could find into many pieces.

Did I weigh or measure the fiber? No! I’m winging it because that is all the brain cells I have. If I get any leftover fiber I will chain ply the remainder and make a little mini skein. Happy Spinning!!

Second Sock And Coffee

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Summer busy season is in FULL swing. We have golf, gymnastics, swim lessons, camp and daycare. Someone ALWAYS needs to go somewhere. I am surviving with purse knitting and coffee.

I got my second GFOA/Rose Apothecary sock tube started at gymnastics this past week. It’s a wee bit of a toe but I’m at least working the round and not on DPNs anymore. My coffee is an iced Brunette from 7Brew and its my summer favorite.

What is your favorite summer fuel?

Now What!?

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I have a four ounces of fiber singles all spun on to a single bobbin, now what?!

This is a sparkly fiber that is a mix of merino, rambouillet and sparkle. I just spun this fiber short forward draw and kind of let it do what it wanted with minimal changing by me. So now do I wind off these singles and split into two bobbins? Do I chain ply everything back on itself?

My work world has been incredibly stressful this summer and I just took on a HUGE full time project on top of the two FTE’s worth of work I already do. So I am decisioned out!! I legitimately may roll dice to decide this one, lol!

Happy Spinning!!