Moss made me famous!

Hey guys! Just a quick note to let you guys know I was featured at athoughtfullife on her Friday Feature. She is spotlighting all different kinds of moss items from etsy, so my handspun moss yarn was picked. All the items are wonderful, you should take a look. It is quite an ego boost to be picked for something like this by someone who doesn't know me at all.

P.S. I want a terrarium! With a little mushroom or gnome!

Yarn for Sale!

Hey, everyone, I have two skeins of yarn listed and I'll be adding to them. The first one took forever, but now that I have a basic template for the descriptions it is going much quicker. I would appreciate your advice. Did I leave anything out, do I need to change something? I would love to have your opinions!

www.annellsannex.etsy.com

Am I done with Christmas already?

Seems like a few new people have been visiting this here little blog, probably because I've been interacting (commenting) on some new to me blogs. Who would have figured that is the way it works! It is good to get feedback on my blog too. I certainly haven't been serious about blogging, but I'm beginning to think that being serious might be the problem. I seem to make a big production about each post, which just stresses me out. If I just let the words flow without worrying about them being perfect things go much better. Adding depression into the mix just makes getting anything accomplished even worse. So, I'll try to keep things short and sweet but not perfect and see how things go.

I want to thank everyone who has stuck around for so long with such limited posting from me. And with very limited comments on their blogs! You know who you are. Specially Dana. It means a lot to me.

Karla came by today so I can finally show her and her son's Christmas gifts. For her son I used freezer paper to make a stencil and bleach instead of paint. Paint can fade and crack, though bleach is much easier to mess up. Specially with two sides!

Does anyone recognize the quote? It is words of wisdom from Xander on Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. I think he is my favorite character on that show, or Willow, or Oz, well, one of them anyway!

Rose's Wrist Warmers from Doctor Who. I used these notes for making the pattern using worsted wt. yarn. http://www.ravelry.com/projects/firespinner526/roses-wrist-warmers

Very involved cable pattern. There is cabling every row for the inside diamond pattern. Still very fun though. I would like to make me a pair if I could ever get around to it.

This is my leftover handspun I knit it from. Karla is a beginning knitter so I gave the rest to her so she could make a matching hat. Could probably get a cowl out of the leftovers too. I thought of making them for her myself, but really didn't know when I would get to it.

I'm working on posting some of my handspun yarn on my etsy shop. I'll let you guys know when it is done! And thanks for the interest!

Lovely Locks!

A couple of months ago Techpriest and I went to the Kansas Sampler Festival, where towns, attractions, areas of Kansas can set up a booth and tell you all about themselves.  There are also vendors, bands, storytellers, etc.  It's fun.  The sports car club Techpriest is a member of had a booth and in the same tent was a museum that had a guy(Garry) demonstrating spinning.  So I took my spinning wheel and had a good ole time.  We have since started a spinning group up in Minneapolis (KS!), there is only 4 of us, but it is fun.  It is only once a month, but since it is an hour away that works out good.  Gerry has a small yarn shop we meet in. The 2 guys have actually been spinning longer than the 2 girls! Garry has been spinning since 1973, one year before I was born!

Garry and I went to Abilene in June to an Alpaca Fiber festival.  There was only about 7 alpaca breeders, but there was a good selection and it was all good stuff! After much dithering, I bought a 2.5 lb fleece, for cheap too!  It was  just the blanket (back and sides) so it doesn't have much vm in it.  I'm in the process of carding it.  It only needs to be passed through twice. It is still dusty, but I'll wait to wash it after I spin it, much easier. 

Lady had to sniff it, probably has never smelled Alpaca before! Also shows scale. That's a big bag!

See that chestnut brown? It is beautiful.


Add closer...
Gorgeous locks!

Here is the lastest I've dyed and carded.  Already shipped off for a swap on craftster, will be getting a package of fiber in return here shortly.

1st side of 2 batts of woodland faerie.


2nd side.


Smoke on the Water. There is enough green in there that it should probably be Smoke on the Algae Covered Water, but oh well, I didn't want to think up a different name. 

I sold one skein of yarn at the store, helped me buy some more fiber! Once I get some more spun up I might try selling on Etsy. Just got an order in from Sheep Shed Studio.  Really good prices.  Bought 2 lbs of superwash and a pound of white mill end rovings.  Dyed 8 oz of the superwash today for another swap. 

I just bought a Flickr pro account so all my pictures can be seen again.  I know I haven't shown any of my yarns on here, but they are all on flickr.  I have a picture of my wheel in there too, which if I haven't mentioned it, I love! 

Well, that's all for now, take care all!

New Jersey Bound

Headed to New Jersey to see hubby's family so I thought I would make a quick post to get caught up.  
Charity afghan squares for the Dr Who group on Ravelry, profits to go to Doctors without Borders, made with scrap sock yarn.

Chain Chomp Hat (rav link), made for Danny (pictured).  Chain chomp is from the Mario video games, basically a big ball and chain with eyes and teeth that tries to eat you.  

My first hand spun yarn all dyed up!  Joined Karen at her guild dye day and had loads of fun!  Was a very poor blogger and forgot to take my camera.  I used acid wash dyes, but most of the ladies used natural dyes, I learned so much.  Met many great ladies, I will probably join that guild, I want to repeat the experience.  I only dyed 2 skeins, but wanted to show all the colors off, that is why there are so many pictures.





Guess who wanted to be in the pictures too?


New member of the family.  He is supposed to keep Zoey company, to bad Zoey is afraid of him. No, Dana, he name isn't Wash, but trust me, if he had been an orange cat, he would have been. As he isn't I let Techpriest name him.  So, of course, his name is Japanese.   Takun (Tock coon), from FLCL(fooly cooly) an anime show.   

I'm going to post an email hubby sent to his Dad, it is so true.

Zoey is opera.  When she is given food she looks at it and walks away.  She comes back to it later and eats it, just to be polite.  She sharpens her claws on the cardbox we gave her, she was not taught that, she just knew.  When we let her out she watches nature and when we call, she comes back in.

Takun, Tock for short, is heavy hetal.  When given food he eats it as fast as he can, growling the whole time.  He sharpens his claws on the furniture.  I am afraid when he is old enough to let out he will rob a liquor store.

While typing this I have my shirt off because it is a little warm in here.  Tock just jumped off another chair and landed on my back, dug in his claws and bit my head.

Faren had a dream that I wanted to take him back.  I told her it wasn't me, it was Zoey whispering in her ear while she was asleep.  "Send it back.  Send it back."

The last few days have been quite something, let me tell you!  Well, I'm going to go for now, I'll be back in a week, hopefully I'll have some new yarn porn to show you all.

New Obsessions

I have been having a lot of fun lately.  Well, when my headaches haven't been too bad I've been having fun.  Monday Karen and I went to Lawrence to the Yarn Barn.  What should have been a 2 1/2 hr drive took about 4 hrs because of the weather.  Torrential downpours (and I do mean torrential) and nickel size hail made us wonder if we were going to make it to Lawrence.  We were actually lucky, not very far away from us there was baseball sized hail!  We stopped at Ottawa for an early lunch so hopefully the weather would pass on by. When we left the restaurant it looked like it had stopped, but after a couple of blocks the rain started again, worse than before!  Could not see a thing, so we stopped along main street till it finally cleared up.  We were only 20 miles from Lawrence and we were determined we were going to get there.  Karen had Christmas shopping to do, buying yarn for all her Christmas projects.  She bought a lot of yarn!  And don't you feel jealous she is already that far ahead?  

Me, I  was determined I was going to come home with a spinning wheel.  Tried all of them out, from the cheaper ones to the ones I knew I couldn't afford.  Majacrafts are nice!  I was really hoping though that the one that looked like the best match for me on paper would live up to my hopes of it.  At first it had a squeak I really didn't like, but oiled it up and it was a dream.  And they had the color I wanted.  I got home at 8:30, 12 hours after I left the house, I really over did it that day.  The headache told me so, specially the next day.  After I rested I had to put it together, with help from techpriest to pound in the legs, while I held them in place.  Started about 9:30, finished at 10:30.  Take a look at this beauty!


A Kromski Minstel, walnut finish.  Isn't she pretty? 


Single on the left, first finished plied yarn on MY wheel on right.  



I have been thinking about a name for her.  The first two I came up with were Kaylee from Firefly(same show where Zoey got her name) and Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Well, it has to be from some Sci-Fi/Fantasy show, doesn't it?  Those are the two I identified with the most from those shows.  But right now I am also obsessed with Doctor Who (though that one isn't very new) so was wondering about picking a name from there.  Rose, Martha, Donna?  Though I love the Donna character, the name just doesn't seem to fit.  What do you guys think?  Which one would you pick?  Or do you have another name I should consider?  Ann liked Willow, but she hasn't heard about the others.  

My other new obsession is lace.  I am knitting Convertible (rav link) and it is so much fun.  It is my first lace project but it hasn't been too bad so far.  I will cross my fingers though.  The repeats are over 13 stiches and 12 rows, with ever even row purled.  

Zoey, of course, had to help take pictures.  Her tail is in the picture up above, and there she is below glaring at the camera.  Some of the closeups I had to take without flash because it was so bright.






The pattern calls for button holes on either side and uses cufflinks (buttons sewed together) to hold it closed.  That's great, but I knew I would loose those first chance I got.  That was holding me back from starting it, but looking through all the ravelry projects on it I found one that solved the problem I thought.  She had crocheted buttons for it with the same yarn.  I thought it was brilliant.  Almost invisible and you can do it as you go along.  Yeah, not quite.  She sewed them on after she finished knitting it.  Well, that doesn't mean I can't do it, right?  I found a pattern for them online, struggled with making two (it was quite a pain in the pattotie) when I realized I had forgot the buttonholes on the other side! Aggh!  But, in the meantime, the ladies at knit night at Yarns had given me a brilliant suggestion.  A bobble.  Why wouldn't a bobble work as a button?  So simple, so brilliant!   I would have never have thought of it!  So started over again and having lots of fun.  

Hopefully I'll talk to you again soon!

Results

Well, not the results of all the lessons I was talking about last post, just two.

Ann and I had our spinning lesson today with Karen, and boy did we have fun. Of course, I was a bad blogger and forgot my camera. Don't feel to bad though, it wasn't just you guys I forgot. If you can believe it I actually forgot the roving! Good thing Ann remembered hers! They can't tell me my headache hasn't effected me, my short term memory is shot! Ann took pictures though and said she would email them to me. So, I'll wait till then for a full report of the day. But, once I got home I could take pictures of the results! Look, I made yarn!!!





Not to shabby!  Love that last picture too.  Oh, yeah, Karen had us start on spindles so we could get the hand motion down before we had to worry about using our feet too.  

Since I had the camera out, I took a picture of the results of my crochet classes too.  I think Mr.Tweety is pretty cute.  Here he is in his new home, my messy computer desk.

Lessons

Around here it has been lessons all the time, well, at all the time on the weekends anyway.  

I've now had two crochet lessons on Saturdays at Yarns.  Doing good, don't think I'll go back until(unless?) I have problems with a project.  Right now I'm working on this little birdy.   Finished all the crochet and am just sewing it together.  The only problems I have crocheting is making sure I'm using the right stitch.  I thought I was using single crochet when what I was doing was half double crochet.  Ah, well, it will come to me.  I'm having fun with it, but I can't really watch TV at the same time yet.  

On Sundays I have been teaching Karla how to knit.  Two lessons so far and she is  doing pretty well.  Her tension is mostly nice and even, not to loose, not to tight.  Though she did decide to redo her long tail cast on when she tried to knit a few! Her first project is a Mark scarf from the musical Rent.  It is really just the original Harry Potter scarf in navy and white.  I've had a lot of fun passing on the obsession! 

Next Saturday (I can't wait!) Ann and I are having our first spinning lesson!  Isn't that too cool? Remember the lady I met inline waiting for the Yarn Harlot?  Yeah, we are finally getting together.  I've been researching online and I think I know what most of the lingo is talking about.  Maidens, mother of all, footman, doesn't spinning have the coolest names for stuff? I have also been looking into wheels, I keep changing my mind but I've definitely narrowed it down to four.  Ashford Kiwi and Ashford Traveller are on the same page. Kromski Sonata and the original Lendrum.  Aren't they pretty?  First I wanted the Sonata, now I'm more leaning towards the Traveller.  I certainly won't buy any until I spin and I do want to go to the Yarn Barn in Lawrence and try some wheels out.  Hopefully the three of us can take a road trip up there soon.  

Last, but certainly not least, I will be teaching a couple of classes at Yarns.  That is just amazing, isn't it?  And just a little bit scary?  Yeah, I thought so too!  Carla(not Karla!) one of the owners will be teaching with me.  She will be doing knitting in the round with magic loop, I'll be doing it with double points.  Two small classes of just the basics and one on a Saturday on socks.  We are even going to the Italian restaurant two doors down for lunch.  I'm fairly excited about that too.

Well, I do have other stuff I want to share, but this is all the important stuff.  I've really enjoyed immersing myself in different fiber pursuits.  It's a wonderful world!