So here I am

Once again NOT doing yarn today. Well that is, not doing recycled yarn. My BIL called wanting to borrow Artemas' muscles. I had to go out to the PO, so of course I should drop Muscleman off at their house and haul all the rest of us to my oldest daughter's for a day of sewing, eating, and all kinds of other fun.

We usually go there on Wed. nights while a couple of my kids are at youth group. It is closer to her house from our church than back to mine (12 miles instead of almost 20) so we go hang out a while, let the kids all play together, exclaim over babies, make dinner, knit a little while together.

But now it is dark earlier, so it was fun to go earlier tonight and let the kids play on the playground out in the circle of apartment buildings. And it gave us more time to play with quilt blocks, yarn, and a spindle.

DD #1 has decided she wants to ply some fabric with some handspun yarn and bits of stuff to make "art yarn" for an upcoming project. So she figured she should play with a spindle to see if she could actually spin something.

I had brought along a spindle and a batt of Blue Jeans merino that I got from The Ranch at Etsy, along with some Cotswold locks I had hand-dyed. Granted merino isn't the best yarn to learn to spin on, it is slippery. I had in mind that I was going to spin it. But hey, I love it when my kids want to learn something new! I spun a little to show her the movements and turned her loose. She sure did spin up the entire 4 oz. of that batt, into what looks to me like darn good yarn for a beginner.

So Congrats Desirée, and here is a pic of your diligent evening's work.

And, dd#2 made chocolate chip cookies. Yummmmm!

BIG News

So I have been looking over my shop lately, and I noticed something.

My first sale was 24 May, and I have had over 100 sales. And even though I have had recycled sweater felted items in my shop that whole time, and hand knit items (or offers for custom hand knit items) for a couple months, I have only ever sold ONE little felted cozy.

Apparently the people who come to my shop want recycled yarn, yarn, big fat handmade needles, and lots more yarn. Just about as fast as I can unravel it, dye it, and list it.

So I got to thinking, if I were looking for yarn, I wouldn't want to page through 5 felted items, a few yarns, then some more felted stuff, to get to more yarn. As a consequence of all these thought processes, I got a crick in my neck. No. I went and created a 2nd shop, call Heart Felt Fun. Oh what fun it was coming up with a new name. But since most of the items are felted (we who DO that really know the term is fulled), and most of them are just for fun, and some of them have a little felted heart sewn on them, I thought it was right clever. As a matter of fact, I might sew a little felted heart on everything from now on, as a trademark. Wow, am I smart.

So over there on the left below my regular Etsy shop feed, is a small one for my new shop. Stop in and take a look sometime!

Some completely different notes:
My 6mo grandbaby Hannah growls like a pirate. Now she also eats food. And my daughter says that while she feeds her, Hannah is the Cookie Monster. All growls and "num-num-nums." Which is pretty funny really.

Today I was riding shotgun in the car, knitting, while Artemas got to practice more driving, in the rain. The song "Into the Night" by Chad Kroeger and Carlos Santana came on the radio, and we were all riding along singing, with the rain streaking down the windows. Being a singer myself, I noticed that the lyrics are sung fairly rapicly, and then go directly into the chorus with no break in time or bridge of musical licks. So I said, "I wonder how he does that, sing all those really quick lyrics and then go right into the chorus without taking a breath."

Artemas said, "He is just gifted, I guess." To which I replied, "I am sure he IS."

The cheeky kid threatened to put me out of the car. Imagine.

Not my fault at all if a person is easy on the eyes. And it would be weird for a woman who has managed to make 10 babies in her lifetime to not notice that a person is easy on the eyes. LoL!

New Yarns, New Yarns, New Yarn

Wow, this has been a yarny day. I sold 10 skeins of yarn and a felted eyeglass pouch since Saturday. It brought me down to like 5 or 6 skeins left in my shop! So with a sense of urgency, I went thru my sold items and relisted anything I had more of. And, I started putting up my A Christmas Story series of yarns.

I just love the classic movie A Christmas Story! This year is its 25th anniversary. You can look up trivia, see the restored house, and buy memorabilia at http://www.achristmasstoryhouse.com/. I am not affiliated but it is a lot of fun.

So here I am, I have like 7 hand dyed yarns ready and about 4 more in my head. I list 6 of them and sell 3 of them within 2 hours. The customer says she might get more of them but wants to wait and see what else I put up in the next couple days. I have Ralphie's Bunny Suit, Randy's Snow Suit, Dad Has Cursing Down to An Art, Fah-Ra-Ra-Ra-Ra and some more. Tonight I am too tired to list more, and want to get pics in the morning for natural light. So impatient needlers everywhere will just have to wait.

I started spinning another batt. The good ladies on Spindlers advised me to spin something that wasn't merino, because it is so soft and slippery. So I bought this gorgeous batt called Shenandoah and started to spin it. So far I am able to draft it better and the spinning is going quickly, I did about half the batt in about 1/2 hour last night.

But so far I don't like it! It just looks mousy brown to me. Some people are fans of brown... my dh likes it, says it is very calming (imagine my dh needing calm). But I am a Color person, and this yarn isn't turning me on at all. Not to mention that it isn't as soft. I could make Richie a pair of slippers I suppose, his feet aren't very sensitive and he likes BROWN. LoL.

First time in a week I didn't take any cold meds, vit. C or aspirin. Now my throat is sore and I am tired. So I think I will go prop up on the bed with some pointy sticks and string, and call it almost a night. Ecclesiastes 5:12, The sleep of a laboring man is sweet...

Stop by my Etsy shop and see the A Christmas Story yarns before they all disappear, ok?