Plying and Coca Cola

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Confession, this blog post is brought to you by two snacks and Hotel Translyvania. I had to distract my children in order to get my Corriedale singles plied on Sunday.

I turned a podcast on in my headphone, grabbed an ice cold coca cola and set to plying. I really really enjoy having my Ashford lazy kate. It’s really helping me to keep better tension on my singles and make a more consistent plied yarn.

By looking at my bobbins, I think this will be a heavy worsted finished yarn. This took about two hours and my finished yarn filled two bobbins. I have those resting before I skein them off for their wash and set. It’s set to be a pretty crazy week so I’m not sure when I will carve out that time, but I’m interested to see how these skeins turn out!

Happy Spinning!!

Resting Blue Corriedale

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Chipping away at my spinning turned out to be the best motivation. I now have two full bobbins of my blue Corriedale complete!

Each of these bobbins holds 4 ounces of the total 8 ounces of roving I had. Theoretically I will have equal amounts and it will be super easy to make a 2-ply. However, I know that this fiber was a little felted/compacted and I wasn’t super successful at keeping my singles consistent.

I plan to let these bobbins rest for about 24 hours and see if I can sneak some spinning time in over the weekend, fingers crossed! Happy Spinning!!

Sunset Knitting

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The hubs and I cleaned up after a thunderstorm rolled through this week and we had some scraps to get rid of. Even though its 1,000 degrees I convinced my husband to start the firepit with me and sit outside after the kids went to bed. I even popped open a bottle of champagne to watch the bats come out to eat all the mosquitos!

My UniZebraCorn Vanilla Socks are swimming right along. I am past where the heel will be installed so I think I am now officially in the leg part of the sock. My plan is to knit until it feels right to start the ribbed cuff and then knit the cuff in the self-striping yarn.

Happy Knitting!!

A Second Trip To The Frog Pond

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I think I may be slightly cursed…..my Connections Beanie (Dark) is taking a second trip to the frog pond…sigh.

I was recovering from my previous mistakes and doing SO well. And then I thought I was done with the colorwork and started working the crown. Nope….I was missing the last bit of yellow to finish off the colorwork. So I pulled out the needles a second time to rip back to the mistake.

The stitches were not to bad to get back on the needles and I added the last two missing rows of color work. I am truly now ready to work the crown and decreases. This hat is really trying my patience.

And yes, my original mistake is still there and I’m leaving it as an unintended design feature! Happy Knitting!!

Y’all It’s Hot AF

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Kansas is currently set on “Devil’s armpit hot” and we are all melting away. We were gifted a pool from the next-door neighbor who is decluttering and no longer has littles. So after a quick dinner we all hopped in the pool last night and swam until bedtime. That counts as a bath right?

I pulled Victorian Mauve Vanilla Socks and started up the leg. I finished the heel a little while ago but stalled on working the leg. My sock got a few splashes but I think I added about one inch to the leg?

Now I’m off hide in the basement, the only place where I can stand to be these days. Happy Knitting!!

The Hat and The Frog Pond

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Whelp, my knitting while drinking did end in disaster. I made not one but TWO mistakes in the charts. Sigh.

The first one towards the beginning of the chart wasn’t so bad. Stuff is lining up where it shouldn’t but doesn’t look horrible, just now how the designer planned for. But the wheels REALLY fell off towards the top. That shit just doesn’t eve make sense, sigh.

I got REAL brave and pulled the needles completely out. I used a DPN to catch the first stitch of the round where I wanted to rip back to. And then to the frog pond I went! I have all the stitches back on the needles and nothing ran too badly. Just don’t have the energy restart and redo today.

This is a future Rachelle task! Happy Knitting!!

Yet Another Bad Idea

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My Connections Beanie (Dark) is FINALLY past the ribbing of the brim. It felt like that took forever and I was never so happy to get to the colorwork section.

Last night I chose to poor myself a lovely glass of red wine and sit down with my beanie after the children crashed for the day. I sent a Snap to my friends that surely this would be a recipe for disaster. What can go wrong with reading charts while consuming alcohol?!

I haven’t checked my hat yet this morning to see how I did. I’ll let that be a little surprise to myself later! Happy Knitting!!

Coffee and Spinning

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Back to school is here and work is, well crazy as ever. I took some time yesterday morning o drink hot coffee and spin for 15 minutes before getting ready for work. PB and Jellybean are getting big enough that they need less TLC to get out the door for the day. So I feel like I can start claiming some of that space of the day.

I had previously been calling this BFL. It is not. This is in fact Corriedale and 100% Corriedale, lol. This is harder for me to spin consistently the same and I’m getting a lot of thick and thin runs. But its fun nonetheless.

I’m on the second bobbin and chugging away on the second 4 ounces of this 8 ounce spin. The solid color will make really cool yarn but it does make for a monotonous spin. Chipping away at this 15/20 minutes at a time is probably the best plan to get through this fiber.

Happy Spinning!!

Chicken + Knitting

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My emergency sock knitting has become my purse knitting. I am calling these my UniZebraCorn Vanilla socks. The kiddos and I decided no-one wanted to cook so we hit up Chik Fil A this week for dinner. The hubs has started having evening meetings so it was a little treat for all of us. The kids mow down chicken nuggets and then run themselves silly in the play place.

I think I am about five inches into the foot. These colors are crazy and I think I am going to install an afterthought heel instead of a gusset heel. I’m considering using the self-striping but also maybe a solid black or pink heel to offset off the wildness?

I have some time to decided as I plan to knit this sock through the cuff to make a tube and then start the second one. Likely saving the heels for last. Nothing like decision procrastination!

Happy Knitting!!

A Second Blue Bobbin

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Well, time go away from me and I’m just now starting my second bobbin for my blue BFL spin. It has been so long that I needed to clean and oil my wheel to get it spinning in top shape.

This second bag of roving is just as compacted as the first bag. So I take some extra time to pre-draft and open up the fiber as I spin. It slows me down but it seems to be making better singles.

Now I need to keep my spinning mojo up so I can finish this project. I have a ton of fiber calling my name from my stash!

Happy Spinning!!