Another Busy One Done

I thought weekends were for lying around and doing nothing? Sunday's in particular lately seem to be the day I fill up. Once again I barely left the kitchen.

I got some bread baked.

It's  a new recipe for me that requires a corn meal base to ferment over night. Hopefully it is as good as it smells. The molasses is giving it a rich heady smell. I always worry over bread. Always. I don't know why, I have rarely had bad bread. The two loaves with the cratered tops worry me here. No idea shy they did that but I'm sure they are fine.

While I was waiting for the loaves to proof after being placed in bread pans, I also whipped out a batch of cookies. The oven was already on, right? the Guy made some of those pre-mixed toll house cookies last night. They were nasty. So I threw them away and replaced them with a cinnamon tinted chocolate chip. They are wonderful. I am not bad mouthing nestle toll house pre-mixed cookies. Some of them are quite good and an easy fix for the sweet cravings. Just the triple chocolate ones are not.

At least one of the loaves is for the Guy's sandwiches this week. I was told this recipe made a wonderful sandwich bread. We shall see. I'll let you know how it goes. It's called Anadama bread. I wasn't up for making the requested rye bread. I mixed one rye flower in to give it a bit of that flavor so we shall see.

When I had mentioned before about the new Hansen Crafts E-spinner I purchased with a Wool-Lee winder, someone asked me about the Wool-Lee winder. I tried to explain what it was for but as they are a non spinner I think they continued to see it as a huge waste of money. I mean, you can buy yarn at Wal-Mart, right? Actually, I heard you can't anymore, though I would never heave gone there for my yarn anyway.

So, I figured a picture would be a better descriptor of what the Wool-Lee winder does.

This, is the single that I spun on my Sidekick. Which, will remain my main spinning wheel by the way, so no, I do not plan on selling her. You can see where the hooks on the flyer lay down the new yarn as it is spun onto the Bobbin. This requires monitoring the yarn building up on your bobbin, stopping the spinning, moving the yarn to another hook and continuing. As you can see, the one to the left is larger than the rest because I wasn't paying close attention. That's not unusual and to be honest, little differences like that is normal. Rarely do I really mess up and have one of those ridges get so carried away that  it collapses, but it does occur. That however can cause a spin difference in the affected areas yarn, so it's is preferable to not do.

When one is plying, or taking more than one yarn and twisting it together to make a larger and more durable strand of yarn, the build up of these ridges is even faster and should you not pay attention, the collapse happens even faster.

Enter, the Wool-Lee Winder. This is the same yarn now a 2-ply yarn on my Hansen. Which will become my plying wheel. Firstly, the bobbin holds almost 11 ounces of fiber. See in the lower right hand corner the bobbin of my sidekick? It only holds 4. But also, see what the Wool-Lee Winder did? There are no peaks and troughs to speak of because as you spin the geared mechanism moves the yarn smoothly up and down the bobbin to lay it out evenly across the bobbin. It is more effective in the fitting of the yarn on the bobbin, but also a more effective way managing my time as I ply. Not that I did so yesterday since I played for over 7 hours total between this yarn and the other one. I know, let's not discuss it.

Anyway, I'm off to fix myself some turkey leftovers for dinner. Hope you all have a more restful holiday weekend than I did for myself.

Well Now

After catching up on some blogs that I follow, I feel as though I have even less reason to not have posted recently. I have no excuse other than just not making the time. As usual, life fills up the time one has with the real priorities, over the things one tries to make their priority. So, the blog fell once again to the back burner.

We have been busy. Even now I am sitting here playing with photos and a way to present it all to you in a logical way and realize I have neglected to call my Mom to wish her a happy thanksgiving. Another item to throw on the list. I better get to it.

Remember this guy?

This isn't Sullivan, but the foster dog Dooley. I know, it's a crappy picture but he was always on the move and I was always making the poor abused boy nervous when the camera came out.

Here's another equally bad shot but you can see how skinny he is. He makes Sullivan look a little heftier than he is.

Well, this sweety found a new forever home.

Dooley and I never really bonded, but I am happy to hear that he is doing well with his new family (That's them in another equally bad shot above). He has done some counter raiding, but what can one expect from a starved giant of a dog?

As you can see, he found the Guy a more comforting present than myself. But then being the one that got to feed him most days, that makes sense. I on the other hand took him to the vet to get neutered, had to "cone of shame" his licking self before leaving for work, and constantly pushed the limits to assure we would not have another fear biter before giving him a green light to go to a new home.

That alone is a fuzzy enough feeling rather than getting to cuddle much with this one. I have my own cuddlers for that after all. Here you can see them resting while I create our Thanksgiving feast for the day.

And then there's our "special one".

I know, I hear you thinking, "But yesterday was Thanksgiving..." And it was. I was nicely surprised to find that I did not have to work for it so I volunteered the Guy and I to serve a free Thanksgiving feast to those that needed it. It was great fun. A long but joyful day. After which we went to see "The Book Thief" with friends. It's a good flick but we got home just in time to go to bed.

Then this morning I got a little time to spin before digging in to work on our holiday meal. I hope to find a bit more time to spin today and throughout the weekend. If I don't, I do have to scratch out some additional time to bake.

These were the rolls I baked for todays dinner. They came out lovely and lofty. I don't know what happened to the one in the upper right hand corner, but it tasted lovely though a little bit ugly.

I figure you can tell they are homemade by the amount of variation in my hand rolling of them. If they all look the same you know they cane out of a machine.

The rest of the dinner including the turkey, stuffing, herbed mashed potatoes and fresh green beans with almonds was lovely. I'm sure the Guy would have preferred a little less vegetables, but hey, I have to have some green to go with my meat and potatoes.

Other than that we have just been busy with life. We still don't know what the future holds for the Guy's job, so we have been just kind of in a waiting pattern. The kids had their photos last week for the holidays and I volunteered an afternoon there too to assist Black Dog Animal Rescue in another fundraiser. That is also one of the rescues we foster for frequently.

I have done some more spinning, little knitting and no weaving. Again, it's all a time suck.

I tried adding some sparkly nylon to the final ply that I currently have resting on the bobbins before making it a three ply yarn.

I only did about a 100 yards because I didn't like how it made the ply feel. We'll see what it does to the finished yarn. I have plenty more of it if I like it.

Anyway, I better go help finish up dishes and call my Mom. Hope you all have a good rest of your weekends.

Q

It's a short one

Whew, the weekend is over. Isn't it supposed to be, "Whew, the weekend is here?". Yes, yes it is, and on that note I will get here and blog and have photos in a couple days, but with the busy busy weekend and now the Monday I just had, I am going to go spin for a bit before bed and restarting this all over tomorrow again.

Have a good night,
Q.

Not the plan, but ahead I go

So, this was not the planned post. I was going to get the big camera out and move some outdoor photos over. But today started at 0400 with the lasagna sauce getting started and continued with bread baking and went from there.

See?

Today we had the first gathering of the Wyoming Fiber Skeinks. Okay, let's be honest. The first Official gathering.

And it was fun.

As you can see.

But it left some of us wiped out.

And that includes me.  So off to walk the dogs and then to bed. Have a great night guys.

Sore Fingers

I guess I over did the spinning yesterday in my efforts to sit back and just relax about it all. I am taking a bit of a break and just checking in while listening to our regular Saturday morning NPR shows.

I have dug into the blue merino/silk/bamboo mix whole heartedly. It was special order from Huckleberry Knits, and as usual when it first showed up I thought, "Well, that isn't quite the color I wanted." And as usual, I was wrong.

I will never be a dyer and know the hue magics. Because as I've spun it, I have realized that once again Scarlett nailed what I wanted. As you can kind of see from the above picture, as you spin your fiber color darkens and get's richer in it's color. I ended up with the very color I wanted. You can see the variation in the blue from a corn flower to a steel blue and it is EXACTLY what I was wanting. And the fiber itself? It is a dream. I am spinning it down very fine. How fine? It is easily holding up at 60wraps per inch.

Now, like Smudge here, most people don't know what the heck that means. So, let me tell you. I have a little tool that I use to find out the actual diameter or my yarn, or more appropriately, how many times I can warp the thread of the yarn around the tool in a given inch. And the answer is... 60. And yes, that is actually as small as it sounds.

There are some issues with spinning so small. One, it takes forever. Which I don't mind, I love the act of spinning. Two, it's fine enough that the area of my finger the spun thread runs across, gets sore. That can be an irritation. Thirdly, the fiber often breaks when spun this small. Or at least that has been my experience before. However, the added strength of the bamboo and silk content has been making accidental breakages almost nonexistent in this yarn. Seriously. It has been spinning up like a dream. Scarlett has once again provided me with a superior product for me to play with and it has been lovely to work with.

Unfortunately for my kids, this time suck of a project leaves them absolutely bored with me as you can see.

I think I caught their excitement level with my project well, don't you?

I think this was my favorite. He looks disgusted with me.

Actually, they still got their walks in. They had a morning walk when we got up. The midmorning walk after I dropped my car off for its fall oil change. And then a post dinner walk while The Guy did dishes. So they have not been neglected. I promise. They are just having an afternoon nap while I spin.

Then The Guy came home from the gym while I was trying to get a shot of Emmitt and Sullivan cuddling. Ruined the entire cuteness of my shot. Oh well.

Anyway, I got my spinning in this morning but the left hand let me know it was about done with the abuse so I thought I would come say hello over here before continuing with the day. It is a beautiful cool autumn morning that I will share pictures of as soon as possible (they are on a different camera). I forgot a camera when I ran out to look for the massive flock of geese I could hear flying over. It was possibly one of the largest flocks I have ever seen numbering a couple hundred. Absolutely beautiful in the early morning sun.

We had the joy of Great Harvest Bread Company finally having their grand open yesterday. Of course we could not resist partaking. And let me tell, you, that blueberry cream cheese scone in the middle... delicious. And i don't care for cream cheese. I can't wait to dig into the pumpkin bread to the right. Hope you have one of these locally for your own carb fix.

Have a great weekend guys. And for the local readers that are fiber enthusiast, if you haven't gone over to Ravelry to see the news, next Saturday at one o'clock, I am hosting a fiber gathering. I will be cooking lasagna and baking bread. Bring a side dish and your fiber craft of your choice (spinning, knitting, crochet, felting, it's all welcome) and join the fun. It's the first official gathering of the Wyoming Fiber Skeinks. If you're interested and don't know my address, shoot me an email. I won't post that here guys. Sorry.

Checking In

No photos today, again. So sorry. Actually, let me go grab one quick of what I've been using to de-stress with.

Okay, back. As you can see I've spun a little. I finished up that larger bobbin on the lower left and it is now in it's rest state until I n-ply it later in the week. The smaller bobbin in the upper rights is the merino/silk/bamboo mix I started last night in a continued effort to be quiet and relaxed. I am spinning it quite small for a finished three ply. I'm hoping to weave with it. And, I figured out I need to wander away from the blues for a while.

So, what I really came here to say... I went to the Doctor, and there really was something wrong. Not major anymore since it appears that I am already in the recovery state, but I am still working hard at feeling better. I managed to get viral meningitis. No idea how. As I've thought about it I realized that my neck pain that I was experiencing a couple three weeks back was probably an early sign that something was wrong. Instead I had to wait for the passing out and fainting to get the clue.  Anyway, Just wanted to share that with you all. For anyone that is worried, it is not near as severe as bacterial meningitis and rather difficult to contract. Yes I managed it, now will Publisher Clearing House knock on my dang door! I could use it to pay off some bills!

Anyway, hope you all have a good night. I just wanted to let you all know how I was doing after that last post. I will slowly bring the anxiety level back down. Now, I'm going to go offer the dogs another walk before spinning for a bit again before bed. I have a 12hr workday tomorrow. And on that note, Happy Halloween!

I love Halloween and I didn't even buy a pumpkin for a single jack o'lantern. What does that tell you of my mind set as of late?

Later,
Q.

Stress Ball

What's a stress ball? I think I am.

I have never felt like I am overly stressed before. I have felt run down, tired, and at times angry, but never overly stressed. Maybe it's a sign of maturing that I let the anger go, but it's left me with just the overwhelming stress lately, and I'm sick of it.

Quite literally I think. I have had a couple health issues this last week, and it dawned on me as I lay sweating like a pig in bed last night that I think I'm doing a lot of it to myself. Now, I think there is really something join ton and I'm being seen by a doc, but I don't think I'm helping it.

What's stressing me? Well, a lot of things, many that I haven;t brought up here. Some of them are personal, like any american, some are financial. Some professionally, and some are professionally but not mine. And obviously, some are medical, which leads to the financial. See the looping?

The guy even noted the other night that he hadn't seen me work on any knitting, spinning, or weaving. And he's right. I haven't. I can't seem to relax enough to sit and do it. And since that is one of my greatest stress relievers, what does that say?

So, here I am. No pictures, just saying, "I'm stressed" in hopes that realizing it, stating it, and owning it allows me to take a deep breath and relax a bit tonight so I can get some real sleep.

Today, was a crazy day. I am finished with structured training. For those who don't know, I changed jobs. I am working as a call taker for 911 dispatch, and I so don't feel ready for it. Can you spot one of my stressors? I have even been dreaming of it. To throw in that we have some serious ambiguity as to our future here in Casper...

This is my plan. I'm going to warm up with some warm mint tea. I'm join got spin for a bit, then I'm going to take a hot shower and go to bed. Fingers crossed. It always looks better in the morning, no?

Thanks for e-listening. I'm sorry about the vagueness. Part of it is due to some issues aren't mine to share. Part is due because I don't have answers to share. And another large part I simply can't share yet until I know more. It's that damn reclusive streak in me. But soon, I hope to have some semblance of a grasp on my idea of how the world should turn and be able to fill in some big blanks.

G'Night,
Q.

PS: I will work on getting some more pictures! Maybe if we feet good snow I can get doe kids our snowshoeing on Friday of the world stops spinning so fast (seriously, I'm having vertigo issues).