Søndager er Spinne

Or Sundays are for spinning!

On Wednesday I talked about how there was a super secret plan afoot and today you get to learn what that is.

Well I got a lovely Little Peggy Spinning wheel made in 1974 by Rappard. About 20,000 wheels were made before the company brand was sold to Ashford, who produced 1 batch of them before basing their Traveller off of it. Its a castle spinning wheel, so when your reading about sleeping beauty or Rumpelstiltskin, this is the type of wheel they would have been working on.

A Duncan Drumcarder, which needed a new drive band and when I called to order one I got the make's wife, who was very sweet and they've already mailed the band:

Jay was kind enough to give me all this and a book on spinning! I have to replace all the drive bands and the wheel needs a flyer, but Gunilla bought enough yarn that I can justify getting a flyer. I find its common when I see used spinning wheels, that have not been used in a while, for the fly to be missing. While one can search high and low for an original flyer, or get one custom made, I've decided to go a route less traveled and ordered a standard Ashford double drive flyer. Its the same flyer that was used in the Traveller, which was based off the Little Peggy, and after calling for some details, it sounds like it'll fit just fine. If its very close I plan on making new maidens to hold the flyer in the place it needs to be.

So please welcome my new tools to Radioactive Rabbit, and I'm going to spend the day dyeing roving to blend for the shop and for my own spinning!

Little Late

Sorry the Friday post is a little late. I was planning on writing it up last night but instead I stayed up till 4am reskeining yarn from my large winder to the smaller one because of my appointment at Gunilla's Emporium of Wonderment and Yarn, who is now the first store to carry my yarn!

Here is Gunilla holding the basket of my yarn that she had just bought:

What you can't see in this picture is that she bought almost all my Baby Star sock kits, which a few will be going up in the store tomorrow with a bunch of new yarn!

Also, on Wednesday night I went to see George RR Martin at the Fox Theater in Redwood City. I had him sign a hardback set of Song of Ice and Fire for me, and Tad Williams was hosting him so I have both their signatures in Game of Thrones!

I was actually introduced to George RR Martin's books by
The Dragonbone Chair

There has been much fun and excitement this week, but little sleep. So good night and there will be more tomorrow... Yawn

In the Works

Last night knit night was all about plans!

Plans for businesses, Lydia's wedding plans, Meghan and Caren's Sock Summit plans, plans for people moving, and plans for yarn.

Penny and I had a great conversation on the yarn selling plan since I have an appointment on Saturday at Gunilla's Emporium of Wonderment and Yarn (previously known as the Golden Fleece). I scoped out the place and she has some great art yarns and some roving, but I don't think any of it is local and most of the roving is single color.

Meghan and Caren are going to Sock Summit. They decided at the last minute to go, all the classes are full, they are currently learning the flash dance, and they have no plans other then to get there, go shopping and to take up the feel of it.

Caren has also promised to wear the Bird's Nest Smoke Ring Cowl she knit with one of my yarns and she might be dancing with a skein I'm dropping off to her tonight!

Yes it is that pink and she's that pretty

Penny is also going to get to pick some of the yarn before it hits the stores because I had some fun by myself and there are a lot of pastels and yarns that I was trying to dye to match pictures I've taken. The idea of matching yarn to pictures is part of a huge business plan that I've been loosely following (see, another plan).

(ignore the dye rag please)

I wonder what all those little
skeins on the far left are for....

Shhhh... Penny's yarn is the
middle green and pink one!

The far right on is my favorite!

Also, there are super secret plans in the works that will be unveiled next week!

Back to Part Time

Well I have a week of work left. Yep, 1 week.

As some of you may know I currently work at West Marine in the Visual Merchandising department as a temp. I've been working there since the end of March and I've applied to another department for a position, but they have yet to begin interviewing. I don't want to jinx it so I will not say more about this position but any good mojo you can send would be appreciated.

Luckily a friend has an opening at a paint store about 30 minutes away and he thinks he can get me in but it looks like that would not start for two weeks and is only part time.

This means I'll most likely have 6 days of no work then only part time after that.

I'm not sure whether to be happy for nearly a week off or scared.

On one hand I'll at least still have work and time to focus on the fiber, on the other I'll be strained financially till I can find a second job or a better one.

I'm really trying to focus on the fact that I'll a few days to clean the house, reorganized some stuff in storage, maybe get some sewing done, finish designing some patterns and knit. But I tend to go a little off the deep end when I'm not working enough. There was this one episode a few years ago when I went on a huge cleaning spree while testing out my new blender by making margaritas. It ended when I finished repainting a hallway because I could not get the walls clean.

Does someone see how horribly wrong this can go? Me working at a paint shop and having extra time on my hands... yeah...

Anywho...

Tomorrow looks like the day I'll be getting a spinning wheel and drum carder. The guy in the department, who is hiring for unsaid position, has been storing some spinning tools for over a year. He knows I knit and had them from his mother, but no idea what they were for or how to use them. Yes, he knew what a spinning wheel was and what it was suppose to do, but not how to use it. He called the drum carder "a box with prickly wheels in it" and was amazed when I explained to him what it does. I think I might knit him some mittens.

If all goes well I might have lots to do the 6 days I'm off!

A Sneak Peak

On Sunday I will be dyeing over a dozen new skeins to go into the shop, some roving that has special potential, and a bunch of these little mini skeins:

It is one of the final steps in creating the "Baby Stars" sock kits! I'm super excited about these kits because it allows you to play with a variety of colors, they are baby sock which are quick and easy to make, and its the first pattern I designed. I have been working on the pattern for 2 weeks trying to get it just right and knit a total of 4 socks. That is 4 individual socks, never a pair, because I'd finish one, look at my notes and cast on the next one in a different yarn. Now I get to go back and knit the mate to all the socks. Lets not even try to guess how long that might take me to do.

I will be introducing a new blog schedule (actually "the" blog schedule since there has not been one).

Sunday will be for spinning
Wednesdays will be a recap of knit night and projects shared
Fridays will be what I'm doing over the weekend because I'm usually dyeing or working on a single project

I will also add one more some weeks if something super exciting has happened!

Like how I've joined Phat Fibers as a contributor! I'll be sending out fiber with September's Sampler Box and the theme is Enchanted Forest. Hopefully I'll have my drum carder in the next week and be able to start playing with it to make mixed color bats!

Tuesday are for...

KNIT NIGHT!

Last night was super fun as I taught Caren to spin, looked at Cookie A's book, Knit.Sock.Love, and tried to finish knitting the final baby sock for the kits that comes out next week!

Caren, Meghan and I have agreed to do a KAL of the German Stockings. I think I might do them in light blue or pastel green. Let me know what you think!

Claire also brought some stuff for show and tell. The first below is her Entrelac mitten and hat set. She admits the mittens are large, but she'd actually knit them twice because the first time they were even bigger then this.

Caren having fun posing

 Next are her amazing fair isle mittens.

They got passed around a lot

I love the flowers and little details

Can you see the thumb?

And here are picture's of the hat I made for Cody (Kristin's Hubby)

Its hiding my tea cup

A little snug

This is the hat that Ben liked so much he has requested I make him one in his size. I have just enough yarn to pull it off I think!

What is everyone else starting?

One Bottle Please

You know those days when you just want to call it quits and eat chocolate and drink a bottle of wine for dinner?

Well this was one of those days and I realized that losing my phone was caused by a domino effect of things.

It all started Thursday when I got off work early and had planned on taking a nap before driving up to Redwood City to see Harry Potter with my dad. I skipped the nap because I was too excited to sleep and drank lots of coffee to stay up.

I ended up in bed at 4am on Friday and did not sleep well because I was worried about sleeping through my alarm clock and being late to work.

I went to work and when I got home I packed up everything I thought I would need for camping. I forgot my hat and a few other things that would have been nice to have (but I had more then enough knitting, let me tell ya). We stopped at a gas station to gas up the van and to get drinks.

Well we got to the campsite up at William's Hill and unpacked in record time. I casted on the traditional hat to knit while camping and Ben and I went to bed early.

The next day Ben turned on his phone and there was a voice mail from my dad. Seems that when we had stopped at the gas station I had dropped my phone. Being that I was basically the walking dead from lack of sleep on Friday I was not too surprised this happened. I was not thrilled either when I called it and it went straight to voice mail. I texted my phone from Ben's instructing the person that had it to call Ben's phone.

We enjoyed our view:

And read a lot:

I decided to enjoy my day and just read and knit. The point of us being there was to have fun and relax. I had no computer, no work, and now no phone to distract me. I finished two of the Sookie Stackhouse novels and read through most of Dead in the Family while knitting Jared Flood's Turn a Square. Simple knit with jogless stripes and Ben likes it so much he's put in an order for one in the same colors and everything. I think he would have stolen it right then and there if it was big enough for him.

Next day I tried calling the phone a couple times in the morning and it would ring through but no one picked up, so I decided to stay calm, I could live without my phone for another afternoon. Ben and I packed up, I finished the hat before we left camp and we agreed on stopping at the gas station hoping the person who found it left it with the clerk.

Well no phone at the gas station and when we got home I called it again. This time someone did pick up. After they said hello I introduced myself and then they promptly hung up. I tried calling back several times and when they would not answer I checked my phone records. Seems the asshole had been texting, making calls, and downloading shit to their hearts content. I suspended my phone service at once and began filing a claim. Luckily I have things like unlimited texting, downloading, and they had only used about 30 minutes.

I really just don't understand this person's logic. Why call my dad to let them know they have my phone? Why would they have gone through that trouble when they were just going to keep it? Why couldn't they have just given it to the clerk at the gas station? Would they have done the same thing with someone's keys or wallet? Why be polite enough to make a call to my dad and then do this?

I just don't understand this person, but I do understand I will be going to Tmobile tomorrow and getting a new phone, and that they have a useless phone now unless they get a plan and a SIM card.

I'm now going to go play with the 4 drop spindles I have because I'm teaching Caren to spin on Tuesday and I want to make sure one of them is good enough for her.