Well Hellooooo There

Well, hellooooo there my lovely. I see you've been lurking around my bag of handspun yarn just dying to be made into something. Here you are, all knitted up and looking fabulous. In fact, you're looking so good I think I'll smack a price on you and try and sell you to a new home... that is... if I can pry it off of my neck.

I am in love with this scarf. I knit it up from some yarn from Hobbledehoy (called Algebra) that I bought months ago. I used a random knit and drop stitch pattern on it to show off the hand spun nature of the yarn. I don't think I've ever used such beautiful yarn on a project. This is truly my favorite scarf yet (and I'm a HUGE fan of scarves, so that is quite the thing to say).

How about I give you a quick update from my craft fair. In short, it was fabulous. I sold more than I have at any show in the past and am almost out of scarves. I need to go buy some more novelty yarn that can be knit up into "inexpensive" scarves since those do very well at shows and I have 2 shows in November and the potential to sell at my place of employment for the Holiday season. I better get those needles cracking.

I want to let all of you know that I am unsure of how much blogging I'll be doing in the next week or 2. My mom had a wonderful 2nd opinion from a surgeon in Little Rock and we're heading down there this weekend to admit her for some surgery to attempt to remove as much of the brain tumor from hell that is taking a vacation in my mom's head. However, I will be hitting up the local fiber festival on Saturday before heading to Little Rock. I'm sure my mom would be upset if I missed it. I've been looking forward to it for a few months and she gets stressed if we put things that we've been looking forward to on hold for her. Perhaps I'll get some new yarn there to knit up while sitting in Little Rock.

So, for all of my Little Rock area AREtsy peeps - drop me a line. I'd love to meet some of you if I'm able to.

Until next time...

And I'm Spent

I just spent the better part of today running around gathering supplies for the craft show, setting said supplies up, battling rain, battling mud puddles 3 inches deep, avoiding not getting my mom's van stuck in the mud, driving, eating mediocre Chinese food, shopping, cutting out signs, and organizing. This weeks craft show is going down in the books as exhausting.

I usually haunt the local craft shows with my mom and my sister. As you know, my mom won't be up to sitting at a booth for 3 days and my sister is taking care of her (actually, she got in for a 2nd opinion down at UAMS in Little Rock with a top notch neuro surgeon, so they are headed down there tomorrow). Having 2 other people to craft fair with really does help you. You just have to worry about 1/3 of what you need to bring and you also have help putting up the tent and tables. Not today. Today I had to do it all. I almost asked for help, but how silly would that have been? Pretty silly. I can do a lot of things on my own, and this was one of them. The tent was pretty easy - the tables, however - not so much. They are the heavy, particle board tables that you see in schools, not a nice, light plastic one. It was muddy out so I couldn't really set them down to unfold them, so you can paint a nice picture of my struggles to set up tables. Eventually I got it and eventually I got everything out. I'll be sure to take pictures so you can all be impressed with my mad skills.

Today did bring one amazing thing to the table. It's fall guys. It got cold today (that's how it works up here, nice one day, cold the next) and the trees were BEAUTIFUL on the way through the Bella Vista country side. I hope to take pictures of that as well. I'll have to dig out some warm clothes to wrap up in for the mornings this week because I'm sure it will be a few feet on the other side of comfortable as far as cold goes in the mornings.

Because the fair is about 50 minutes away, I reserved a hotel room here for tomorrow night. I had a freebie because my job has perks, so I took advantage of it. Perhaps I'll take my computer and post wonderful things from the hotel room, or perhaps I'll take a book instead and just enjoy the quiet. Either way, a night in the hotel will be a mini-vacation and it will be fabulous.

Muffins Good

I actually did some baking this past weekend. Rawfish had posted a delicious recipe on her blog for some Pumpkin Oatmeal Chocolate Chip muffins and I could not resist. Let me tell you, they are DELICIOUS. You can find the recipe in her blog post here. I highly recommend these. They make a great breakfast muffin. If you are weird about eating chocolate chips with breakfast, I could easily see how dried cranberries or golden raisins would be great in these as well.

I'm not sure how much I'll be posting for the rest of this week. After working a half day tomorrow at work, I'll head out to set up for the Bella Vista Arts and Crafts Festival. I'll be there until Saturday evening. It will be a long few days, but totally worth it as I eat this craft fair stuff up. Hopefully I'll dip in to say "hey" on Twitter, but other than that, I'll be sleeping!

Blue Jean Baby

While watching some football this evening, I decided to work on predrafting some wool. Well, actually not having to predraft as much as I do to spin. I worked on a lovely skein today (spun from a couple of Hobbledehoy batts), seen here, and while I'm completely in love with it (my best thus far) it took me more than half of the UT vs. OU game. Okay, let me break that down: the spinning took not long at all, the predrafting took FOREVER. I took some "extra" batts that were sent to me with some orders earlier this year to work on the drafting.

I can't say that it was any better, I'll just keep working on it, but I can say that I ended up with something even more beautiful than I imagined when I started out. I just used two batts from Hobbledehoy that kind of matched (no blacks, lots of colors, and both had brown = matching). They were some freebie extras that she included in various orders. After spinning them up and plying them with some white thread (note to self - get clear thread next time you're out), I fell in love. This was the perfect yarn for a cowl or hat to wear with your favorite blue jeans. Hense the name "Blue Jean Baby". I'm really pleased with how spinning is turning out.

While still on my high from my yarn, I found a message that I had been featured in a blog. Designs by Vanessa (over at Etsy) featured my Autumn Splendor bracelet on her blog. It's a great blog and the post does get you in the mood for fall. I am truly thankful for all of the artists on Etsy that choose to feature other shops. It really shows the team and community that can be found on Etsy. Thank you.

That was me in grade 5 baby...

Okay, perhaps the original song is about grade 9, but by grade 9 I had left neon pink behind. I spun up my 3rd skein of yarn on my wheel tonight and it reminded me of one thing and one thing only, many of the outfits I sported in 5th grade.

Okay, before you laugh at me, admit it, if you are between the ages of 25 and 30, you most likely wore some neon pink back in the day. If you are shaking your head, you're a liar.

The colorful bit of yarn is from Cloudlover and is called Changeling. I loved it as a single but it had too many thin bits for me to use it as it was. So I dug up some hot pink wool (inspired by a jar of jelly beans sitting on my desk - seen at left) and spun that up pretty thin and plied the two together. I LOVE this skein. I love it more than the other two I've done. As I look at it, I think "Self, this is something you'd see for sale somewhere". That makes me feel good.

I'm happy.

I'm not only happy because of the yarn but because I've been give the opportunity to join in on a local trunk show at the beginning of November. NightSkyProducts, a local Etsian, invited people to partake in a trunk show and I jumped at the chance. Once I have more details after this weekend, I'll post them. Finally, doing something away from Etsy and away from HUGE craft shows. It's a new step for me.

Funk

If you notice that parts of your home smell a bit like a dead animal, chances are, there is a dead animal somewhere in your home. I noticed a funk yesterday when I got home from my sisters. My first thought was something in the kitchen had gone bad. After a small search (it's a small kitchen) I came up with no source of the funk. Again, today at lunch, I smelled the funk. The sweet boy said he threw away some turkey that had expired. Lunch meat can easily have a funk if it goes bad, so perhaps that was it. I walked in after work tonight and still, the funk was there.

After some deep sniffing, I decided only one thing can produce this funk, dead animal. I went straight to the basement in hopes that if there was dead animal, that dead animal was not in the main part of the house. It didn't take me long until I jumped out of my skin at the sight of a very large, recently dead, raccoon. It also didn't take long for a phone call to the sweet boy ended with "call the landlord, I don't do dead raccoons". I refuse to call the landlord about a dead animal. I will call him about the fact there was an animal in the house, but the dead animal was my problem.

Thankfully, I'm a girl with garden tools so off I went to open the garage/basement door, find my shovel and garden rake and go back to get the raccoon. I attempted to scoop him up which kind of creeped me out because he was soft but hard at the same time. Ugh, dead animal. I finally scooped him up with the help of the garden rake and carried him back towards the door. OH, wouldn't it figure. The garage door swung shut. I'd have to put this nasty thing down and open this door again. That was 15 seconds longer than I wanted to be dealing with dead raccoon.

I finally got him outside, carried him across the alley and put him in the back yard of the empty house behind us. I covered him up with some leaves. He'll decompose and make some good fertilizer... but not in my basement.

Now to go call the landlord and complain.

Tah-Dah!

I think getting a spinning wheel was a VERY good thing for me right now. I needed something new to do, a new creative thing to rejuvenate my crafting spirit. My poor jewelry table is very neglected, but I can't sit there and work on necklaces when I have wool to spin into lovely, lovely yarn.

I finished my 2nd skein of yarn tonight. It's another small one measuring only 39 yards, but I'm still proud of it. I used a bonus batt of wool from Hobbledehoy that she had sent to me with a previous order. Once spun up into a single (see below), I plied it with some rainbow, shimmery thread that a local art teacher gave. So basically it's a free, practice skein. I couldn't be happier with my 2nd skein. I can see some things I would do differently next time, but it was practice, and I refuse to be hard on myself.

I am in denile that the weekend is at an end. I spent Friday night and all day Saturday with my mom. We talked, we went to the store (that is a VERY long story involving wheelchair carts provided by the store that do more harm than they help), drove around, ate burgers and drank milkshakes in the car, and watched copious amounts of tv (any amount more than 30 minutes a day is copious to me as I hardly watch TV and usually stick to DVDs). It was a good visit but a very, very exhausting one. Until the radiation and chemo shrink that friggin' tumor down, my mom's lost the use of her left side. Basically that means any time she needs up, I have to help. I don't know how nurses do it because I'm beat.

Today was spent working for the man. Actually, part of it was hardly work at all. I was lucky enough to have (I say "have" loosely) to meet Itzhak Perlman at the airport. I almost got to go to lunch with him and his pianist, Rohan De Silva, but I had to get back to work to set up for a reception. Yes, ask me how pissed off I am about that. I missed out on fried chicken with Itzhak for a Sunday lunch because I had to set up for a reception. The reception was great, but I'm sure, very sure lunch would have been better.

Ah well. At least I met him and rode around Fayetteville for a bit with him. I'll at that to my list of why my job is better than most.

Well, I'm off to shower, pop some Advil (my back is killing me) and hit the sack. Goodnight, all.