Finished Yarn!

Here it is, my finished yarn! Even though I can't (shouldn't) be knitting or crocheting at the moment, I'm enjoying my spinning wheel. I can do that without involving my thumb too much. :)

I finished plying the hand dyed 100% merino wool from Creatively Dyed Yarn, that I got from Chan for Christmas.

Would you just look at that HUGE bobbin full of yarn! I got all 8 oz. of fiber on there! Can I get a Woot Woot for the huge Heavenly Handspinning bobbins?! LOL

I ended up with approx. 480 yards of yarn, it should be just a little over that by my calculations. It's in the sink taking a bath at the moment, I'll take finished photos of my big skein of yarn once it dries. Turned out really pretty I think, all soft purpley & pink. :) Thanks Chan, I had so much fun spinning this up.

Now..... on to more fiber! Once my thumb heals up I'll have tons of new yarn to knit with!

Thrifty Spinning Tool

Here is a little thrifty spinning tool... my FREE Lazy Kate. I'm still hoping that the hubby will build me a pretty one, but until then this one will work fine. I used a free priority box from the post office, 2 large knitting needles that I don't use, and a scrap of cotton yarn. I left one flap on the box straight so it would tilt towards me for easier use. And there is room in there for a 3rd bobbin if I choose to do a 3-ply.....

Look Chan, I'm plying the fiber you sent finally!! :)

I have started spinning again like a mad woman. I've developed an odd injury.... a knitting injury! My right thumb has gone numb. This happened when I was trying to finish up my secret required knitting. I was using size 3 needles & knitting like crazy to get the thing done. I'm hoping that I've just bruised it or something. It's numb, but also sore & when I use it, it hurts. And sometimes I get a sharp pain, sometimes I get a tingly pain... So I'm forcing myself to not knit or crochet for about 2 weeks to see if it will get better. Which really sucks cause I have cast on a really cute pair of quick knit socks & was really wanting to get them finished. :(

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Even more goodies!

I have even more goodies to show you! Take a look at this great package that Kathy sent last week. I made a few sales in my esty store, so of course I headed right over to Kathy's shop to snag another of her beautiful fiber rovings, then I couldn't resist the yarn when I was there. :)
And just so you know, she has just listed a bunch of new yarns...

Here is the gorgeous BFL roving, the colorway is called Crayon Box. Now I just need more time to get all this new fiber spun up!

And here is my new Gypsyknits Sock It yarn in the Lovin Spoonful colorway. Makes me think of strawberries & cream....And here are all the great extras that she put in the box! I got a generous sample of more fiber & some yarn!! There is also a little sample of eucalan fiber wash stashed in the yarn sample. And then sweet Mr. Bettis & his pals sent Jazzy some toys & a sweet card. She was thrilled! Especially since Mr. Bettis put his extra bit of love on one of them. 3 of them are missing already so we know that she is enjoying them. LOL Another game of hide & seek, she hides them & I seek them out. I have to say though, Miss Jaz was just as thrilled with the Crayon Box fiber. I had them laying in the floor here beside my spot on the loveseat, and she was rubbing her head all over the bag it was in, smooshing it up against the sofa. The hubby & I got a good laugh out of that. I figured Kathy either rubbed catnip on it or maybe Mr. Bettis or one of the kittys had loved on the bag before it left her house. It was really cute.

Thanks so much Kathy!!! Of course I love your yarn & fiber, but the little extras you sent just made my weekend! And Jazzy's too!

I'm Phat!

I received my first Phat Fiber box the other day, and it is AWESOME! I have been contributing samples of my stitch markers for the box and I got my own box for March. Sit back, relax & enjoy looking at all these goodies, gonna be a photo heavy post here.......Such lovely goodies!

This is from Corgi Hill Farm, a few chocolate kisses, maple candy (YUM), and this gorgeous handspun yarn! The yarn is hand blended superwash merino & firestar.
Here we have all of the coupons that I got. Sorry guys, I blocked out anything relating to the coupon codes... those are mine! LOL And there are some awesome deals here!!

This came from Calizona Designs, super cute tiny green beaded stitch markers, a lovely tile pendant, and some gorgeous hand dyed yarn in Lucky Springtime colorway. Also included was a pattern for a headband & a $10 gift certificate!! How awesome is that?!

This lovely yarn came from Desired Haven Farm. It's called Maddy's Potpourri, made up from odds & ends, blended with Maddy's Charcoal Fleece. I never knew that odds & ends could look so pretty!

Here we have a gorgeous beaded row counter from In Stitches. While I might use this as a row counter, I believe it is destined to be a bracelet too, because it's just too pretty to hide in my knitting notions bag! :)And a generous 100 yd. sample of Kangaroo Dyer's handdyed yarn. (75% superwash wool/25% nylon) It's purple too! My favorite!! This is some really soft, squishy yarn, I can't wait to try knitting with it!Here we have some natural plant dyed merino top from Natchwoolie, in the Irish Moss colorway. Incredibly soft fiber, & the color is gorgeous, the photo doesn't do it justice.This pretty pink (Rhodium) yarn is Billy Shakes Sock yarn from Nerdclub 2000 Yarn & Fiber. It also came with a great coupon.Here are some hand dyed mohair locks in the Lugh Colorway, from Northern Lights Fiber Co. I can't wait to give these a spin, I've never tried locks before.

Check out this cute Itty Bitty sock & lace stitch marker from Oddish Creations. How adorable, & I'm sure it will get plenty of use here with my knitting.I received a couple of great patterns in the box. I've got the Bocca Baciatia, a beautiful hair comb pattern, from Bohemian Knitter Chic, and a Felted Cat Toy pattern from 7 Yaks Design. I'm sure Jasmine is wanting me to make that first before anything else! LOLFluffington Farms sent some lovely Easter Dress fiber, a blend of two different merinos, angora, firestar & slik. This fiber is just heavenly to touch & the pastel colors are so sweet. She also sent some of her great smelling bath salts. I can tell you that those will be put to good use in a very timely manner!This great little bag is from Ruddawg. Extremely well made little bag, it'll be perfect for my spinning goodies!Here is a lovely sample of handspun yarn from Simply Twisted Yarn. Another one that I can't wait to knit up. I have to say though that a lot of these little yarn samples are just so pretty like they are it's gonna be hard to unwind them. :)

Here is another gorgeous yarn sample from Tactile. This is superwash merino sport weight sock yarn, and it's soooo soft!And here is some beautiful fiber from Tracy Rios. This little batt of fiber is awesome to pet. LOL And if you do nothing else you have to go check out her angora bunnies! How adorable!This lovely fiber blend (50% alpaca/30% merino/20% Tussah Silk) is from Whorling Tides. Great color & fiber blend! Definitely makes me want to go buy more! :)This little sample from Wooly Hands is another one that the photo doesn't do justice to. It's much more green, but it's a pretty soft, mossy green. I love it! And yes, that's another coupon there that I blocked out. Everyone was very generous with the coupons!!And last but certainly not least, we have some Silk top w/noil from Zebisis Designs. This fiber is absolutely gorgeous!! And another one that I can hardly wait to spin! I've never tried silk before so I'm really looking forward to it! They also have lovely spindles in their shop!WHEW! That's it! Really guys, if you see something you like go check out the shops. Everyone in the contributors group is super nice & their products are just awesome!

You gotta go look!

Squeeee!! I'm so excited I can hardly stand myself!! LOL Jessie at Phatfiber featured my shop on the Phatfiber Blog!! I'll wait while you go check it out..... hmmm, hmmm.....

Isn't that just the coolest?

And here are the new orifice hooks.

I'm so glad that I thought of this before I started listing the suckers... my sweet Heavenly Handspinning wheel has a larger orifice hook than most spinning wheels. So I had to go back to the drawing board & make some skinnier hooks. Now I've got hooks that will fit most commercial wheel orifices. The hook & dowel are 1/4", so you would need at least 5/16" for your opening.

And on the good news front, I've finally finished my secret knitting project that I HAD to have done this week! I can't show it to you yet, I will though. The good news is... now that the secret project is done I can get back to spinning & knitting for myself! Woohoo!! And I'll hopefully have more time to keep up with my blog reading & Ravelry stalking. LOL

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Whiskers on Wednesday

The Princess is famous! Jessi & Monica featured Miss Jasmine on the WoW site this week! Go check it out.

I told Jazzy that we needed a few new photos of her to celebrate the occasion. Well, evidently she has been talking to Ace over at Robin's blog, and he gave her a few tips.....

This is the new photo I got! LOL I guess I need to make an appointment with her (like Ace), now that she is famous & has such a busy schedule. he he

I have to say that this is how she spends most of her afternoons, napping under the comforter. Silly cat, or should I say Silly lump. :)

Don't forget to check out the WoW site to see Jazzy over there! And there are a lot of links to other kittys to check out too, even though Jazzy says that they aren't important this week. She's such a diva!

Italian Chicken & Pasta

I've got another new recipe for you! This one partially (I changed it some) came out of my Biggest Book of Slow Cooker Recipes book. I tried it in the crock pot, let me tell you something.... this is NOT a crock pot recipe! I burnt the whole mess in a dang crock pot! Can you believe that?! LOL
So I adjusted the recipe & did it on the stove. It tasted really good, hubby approved, & it was fairly fast to put together. Maybe took 30 minutes.

Italian Chicken & Pasta

2 large or 4 thin chicken breasts (cut into small, bite size pieces)
1 can french cut green beans (optional, but we liked them)
1 cup or so of sliced fresh button mushrooms ( I just used up the small pack of them that I got from the grocery store)
1 small onion, sliced
1 can (14 or 16 oz, can't remember) diced tomatoes with Italian seasoning
1 can (regular size, not the tiny one or the super large one) of tomato sauce
1 tablespoon of Italian seasoning
3 or 4 cloves garlic, minced (the recipe called for 2 but that wasn't enough, could hardly tell it was in there!)
Fettuccine noodles

In a large sauce or frying pan, put about a tablespoon or 2 of olive oil, cook the mushrooms, onions, & chicken until the chicken is done. Add the rest of your ingredients & bring it down to a simmer. You can add a little water if it's too thick to start off. And cover it if you have a lid, it'll make a mess otherwise!

Put your Fettuccine noodles in a pot to boil. Let it all cook until the noodles are done. Your ready to eat!

We had some garlic bread (toasted hamburger buns with butter & garlic salt on them) with ours.
This was really yummy. I was afraid that it would taste too much like spaghetti but it didn't. We will have this one again, it was a keeper.

Simple Meatloaf

Here is another quick, economical & delicious recipe for you guys. This is my Mom's recipe. A lot of people like to fancy up their meatloaf, don't do it! Trust me, give this simple one a try, I promise it's really good! :)

Simple Meatloaf

1 lb Hamburger (ground beef)
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup ketchup
1 small onion, chopped up really good
Leftover bread (I like to use leftover hamburger buns, about 4 or 5 of them, or hot dog buns or sandwich bread), pulled apart into little pieces, stale bread works great for this!

Put everything into a glass meatloaf dish, or whatever glass baking dish you have. Squish it all up with your hands until it is mixed up really good. Press it into shape, like a loaf of bread. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes, or until it is done all the way through. Don't want any pink meat in there.

We like to serve it with some ketchup on top, with mashed potatoes. Or just let it cool a bit & slice it up & eat it as a sandwich with ketchup & cheese.

And if any of you don't have a Pampered Chef Chopper you really need one! Makes super quick work of chopping onions & other stuff. If you want to give one a try let Chan know, she sells them. :)

Surprise Package!

Look what came in the mail today from Grace! This was a total surprise, I had no idea that she was going to send me one of her beautiful shawls!! Along with some yummy chocolate & a sweet card. Thank you so much Grace!! I can't tell you how it made me feel to open up that box & find this beautiful shawl inside. It means more than I can say to know that you put your heart & time into such a lovely item & sent it to me.

It's such happy colors, it makes me smile. And it's toasty warm, I'm snuggled up with it right now as I type. :)

Oh, keep a look out this week, I actually have new photos of Jazzy for WOW! Believe it or not!

And I'll soon have my new & improved orifice hooks ready for thier debut. I didn't think about the fact that most commercial spinning wheels have a smaller orifice than my wheel does. So I went back to the drawing board on that one....

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

First Attempt

Here is my first attempt at dying fiber.... Superwash wool, purple/aqua. I'm sending this to a swap partner, we had to dye our own fiber to send. I've only tried dying once before with some yarn & all I made was a mess. LOL Luckily, Kathy sent me some great instructions. So this weekend I got the koolaid & RIT out & went to it. I had intentions of dying the whole thing with koolaid but I didn't like the purple I got from the grape. I used the RIT purple instead, the teal & blue I did with koolaid. I think it came out ok. However unlike Michelle, who seems to have a natural knack for it, I think I'll leave the dying up to the professionals (so to speak). I will dye up the rest of the fiber that I have, then I'll go back to shopping on etsy! LOL

New Goodies!

I have received some great packages lately... First let me show you the swap package that I got from Renee. This exchange was from the Knit & Crochet Dishcloth Exchange group on Ravelry. This was the first one that I signed up for here & boy did Renee spoil me good! Two beautiful cloths, cookie recipe, gummies, coffee, 2 balls of lovely cotton yarn, handmade soap, and some wonderful lipgloss with a cute purple cover. Thanks so much Renee, the whole package was awesome! :)And here are the cloths that I kept in the Dishcloth Round Robin exchange, another Ravelry Group. On this one, there are 5 cloths in the package & a goody... you keep 2 or 3 cloths & the goody, then replace the cloths with ones you've knitted & a new goody, then send it on to the next person. Lots of fun, and I got a couple great cloths & notepad out of the deal!And I got this beautiful handspun cotton yarn from Sheeps of Egyptian Cotton on etsy. This yarn is absolutely gorgeous! And what a spinner Betty is, amazing! She also included the pretty white cloth that she knitted out of cotton that she spun, soooooo soft! And I can't believe that I got such a great deal on handspun yarn!
Hope everyone has a great week!

Finished Projects & A New Gadget

I have a couple finished projects to show you! I'm still working on a few more larger projects.... but here is what I have done so far.

The first two cloths are from the Harvest Moon Itty Bitty Cloth Set. The first one is called Fence Posts.

This one is called On The Side. I liked both patterns, knitted up quick.This one is from a little Leisure Arts book, Dishcloths by the Dozen. The pattern is the Variegated Cloth, by Sue Galucki. I used the Sugar N Cream stripes yarn for this one & it came out pretty neat with the color changes I think.Now for the new gadget! I had an idea for a new orifice hook for my spinning wheel. If you guys know me, you know I like cute & silly things... well, here is my new orifice hook. I used my wood burner to draw the sheep on there, he's pretty silly, so I like him. :) I'm presently thinking about whether or not I want to list them in my etsy shop. It works great too! LOL

Now I'm off to the grocery store to get all that done before the race starts!