OOOoooohhhh that burns me up !!!!

I just discovered that the setting concerning 'reader comments' has been sitting on "Don't allow" for probably several months. I know my blog doesn't have a big following but i have not had any comments on any of my posts since early summer.I was wondering if everybody had abandoned me. I love to get comments on my postings,or questions.That's why i got this blog in the first place , to share and get feed back from my fellow (wo)man . blogger has changed the way how you control your settings. Now you have to specify some settings for every single post. I DID'NT KNOW!!!
They also changed how to include pictures and i am not impressed.Before the change i could write on the blog while the pics where loading,( time saver), now i can't work on it until the pic is fully loaded and inserted. I'm still on dial up and that takes awhile, so the option to keep writing while loading was great, well, no more !!! Why don't they just leave things alone? If it works, don't fix it ! Always trying to improve but in the end complicate things.
 So, anywho.. from now on the comment setting is on "allow" and I've opened up my older posts too. So please feel free to comment on them too, i welcome any questions or input or just an "ata girl " here and there.

The goats are doing very well. They are getting along much better, at least the baby's. Lulubelle still butts Clyde any chance she gets. I tie them out every day and they eat and eat and eat. It's amazing what they can put away!!! They have gained some weight and are getting round and fat. I'll have to start watching them now and restrict them somewhat. Too fat is not healthy, not even for goats .

If you look close you can see Clyde peeking out of the dog house:

Knitting wise I'm on my last pair of black socks! I've been working on them steadily . I can't wait to cast on stitches for a pair of wildly colored ones, this black is really mind numbing!! Plus , the knitting is sooo hard to see!

After I'm done with them I'm going to bring my carder in the house and start carding some of my beautiful fleeces i bought over the past few month.I got several pounds each of corriedale, BL,Targhee,Cormo and Polwarth.I also have about 20 pounds of Alpaca in assorted colors i have to process that i got last year.So that should keep me busy for awhile.

finally motorized but....

Well, i finally got my pulleys i needed to motorize my carder in the mail yesterday. I could not wait to get it all put together and try it out.

The wheel on the grinder is 2" and the wheel on the carder 6".

It works great!! but, even though i turned the speed on the grinder to the lowest point it is still too fast. It works good on the more sturdier wool like Shetland or bfl but not the fine stuff like merino or the alpaca, it flies everywhere.So now I've got to find something else with adjustable speed but quite a bit slower than the grinder, i just don't know what !

I also noticed that because of the speed it really slings out the vm and dirt during carding, that's a plus.

Maybe if i attach a brush to the carder it will press down the fiber before it gets slung off.I'll just have to experiment some more , but i like it so far especially that i have both hands free to feed the fiber in and don't have to hand crank this thing. it really speeds things up.

washed and combed

I got most of the fiber from merry meadows farm washed and dried. i took a few locks and just combed them out with a flicker brush

staple lenght is between 4.5 and 5 inches, fiber is sooo soft, no scratch effect at all against the skin.

even after washing and brushing the hairs still have a lot of crimp in them, this fiber should spin up into a springy yarn, great for weaving shawls,scarfs and knitted socks.

I love it!! got to get some more!!

I can't wait for the long winter nights now, i'll be spinning, carding, weaving like crazy!!!

I used to be very fond of bright colors (and still am) but now i'm really getting in

to natural colored wool.

More ALPACA...

So i finally got to spin up a small skein of this scrumptious chocolate Alpaca i carded yesterday.

I experimented around a bit with different whorl sizes,speeds and yarn thickness.

I ended up with a very nicely balanced two ply with a wpi of 9 ,worsted. The color is just amazing, a deep ,rich ,dark chocolate.Yummy!

first i was a little disappointed about the feel of the yarn, i imagined it softer.

So i soaked it in warm water for a few minutes(with a little fabric softener) , squeezed it dry in a towel and whacked it against the counter a few times.And Bingo!! now it's the way i thought it would feel: very soft, no 'prickle effect ' on the skin and a nice drape. The yarn is light and fluffy, like a cloud but really strong ,i cant just break a strand between my hands, i have to cut it.

Yes, i think I'll be working a lot with Alpaca in the future, and why not? It is a lot easier to process than most sheep wool, is softer than merino(it has been compared to cashmere) and the price per pound is comparable or less than for most sheep wool ( at least on e-bay). It'll take me a while to process all this fiber, i got about 10 pounds in assorted colors (still looking for a good deal for a white fleece on e-bay).After I'm done washing and carding all of this i will offer some of it in my shop but i will safe a good chunk for myself, i really would like to spin enough up to use for weft for a big size shawl i can wrap myself into on cold winter nights (or days ).Maybe a variegated yarn with all the colors in it.

Next I'll be turning my attention to the fawn colored fleece,stay tuned...

Oohhh,heaven!!

I know I'm getting a little repetitive but i really can't get over ALPACA!!!

I won several auctions last week for raw alpaca fleeces and they are starting to come in.

this is 3# of a rich chocolate brown with a staple length of about 5 inches:

this is 1# of fawn with a staple of about 4 inches

and last but not least 2# of a medium tan with a staple length of about 4 inches.

I just cant get over how soft the wool is! Even unwashed and dusty its just heaven! I've heard that most people do not wash the fleece before spinning, i do because even though the fiber isn't visibly dirty it does contain a lot of fine dust and sand.Good thing is it comes clean very easy. Since it doesn't contain any lanolin it can be washed with lukewarm water and just a hint of soap.This is the water after the first wash:

So, not apparent but quite dirty after all.I dump the water ,fill up the bucket one more time, let soak for about 10 min., squeeze out the water,fill up one more time,no soap , rinse and spin in the washer.Dry it on a rack outside in the sun.I use those little mesh lingerie bags.Its a little tedious since the bags don't hold much fiber but they keep it from moving around too much and make the whole process a little more orderly.

I'll be washing and carding this soft goodness in the next week or so and start offering it in batt form in the shop.So come on by and maybe you see something you might turn into a next to the skin soft yarn!

Prices will be very competitive and Ravelers,remember there will be a 10% discount for you !!

I will post pics of the carded fiber later.

Now back to washing ALPACA :)

Luscious Fiber

After two hours of blending these fibers on my carder i got these two big piles of 'Oh my god this is soooo soft ' batts:

BFL/silk/mohair

and merino,silk,superwash merino

now i have to blend all those together as consistend as i can .

That will be several more hours of cranking the carder,and then... the dyeing.

another pair...

Just showing off another pair of patchwork socks i just finished. I already listed them in the shop.

I love to make these even though the sewing in of all the loose ends is really a pain.

I'm slowly running out of leftover yarn though ,so i probably will be able to make maybe one or two more pair and then I'll be out. I really don't know how to get more leftover yarn in bigger quantities in a hurry.Most of the yarn I've been using has been collected over the past three years. Any ideas anyone?

I'm washing fleece right now ,a big bag of rather dirty merino i bought last year and had forgot about.Run across it this morning looking for something else. So i hauled it in the house and washing it in little laundry bags by the hand full. It cleans up rather nice though and is sooo soft and... no vm at all,just dirt!!

Must be about two pounds or so.I think I'll mix it with the Cormo i have to make a really soft,lofty spinning fiber,they have the same staple length,about 4 inches. That would make a great bobble yarn, all squishy and soft.I just wish i could get around to put a little motor on my carder,that would speed up the whole process considerably (and save my poor arm!).

I also found some BL lamb locks i bought several month ago.They are already washed and i think I'll dye them the way they are. The locks are just gorgeous and soft.These i will also put in the store.

I've carried my loom out into the 'studio/hold all' building.I'm going to start weaving again soon, just right now i want to work with the fleece/fiber and spin.I also haven't found a low table yet to set the loom on and it's really killing my back when i have to stand to weave.

more fiber carded

just spend a few minutes on the carder (had to get away from the wheel a while, my back felt like breaking in half).

I found some more superwash, supersoft merino in a soft, soft baby blue:

and then i took my bag of very bright leftovers from previous cardings and put them all together and got this crazy batt:

That should make a cool yarn!!! i think when i'm done with the periwinkle/denim (got two and a half bobbins so far) i'll spin this one next.

Spinning challenge

so here is some more fiber i am fixing to spin up for Dave's Summer Spinning Challenge:

I've got about 4 oz of the dark and 8 oz of the light . It's a superwash merino and the colors are light periwinkle? and a medium denim. The fiber is supersoft and has a lovely shine.

I'll try to spin it a thin as possible(maybe i can get it in a lace weight?) and then i'll probably ply it with some very thin mohair in a like color (or close to it) so it will full and stick to each other when woven.

I've got some Lyon Brand Moonlight Mohair that i'm going to separate, using the mohair strand to ply with.

Off to the wheel i go...

And so it beginns...

Well, I finally did it,I joined the masses and jumped in the blog pool!

I'm probably not going to be very good at this,at least to start with,but maybe as time goes on I'll get better(hope is eternal ).So if you will bear with me i"ll give it a shot.

Mainly i started this blog to share tips, tricks, links and information on anything i found helpful or might be helpful for someone knitting, spinning, dyeing and fiber preparation .

Also i will use this blog to rant and rave about the cancer monkey riding my back and last but not least to promote my little online shop at http://www.skimpysmom.etsy.com/ where i sell my handmade wares.Well you didn't think i did all this just for selfless reasons ,did you?

So, before we go on I'd like to introduce SKIMPY since i get asked a lot who skimpy is and how in the hell that poor child ended up with a name like that.

Behold "SKIMPY" also known as "SKIMPMAN", "SKIMPERS", SKIMPYDOODLE" and some other names i really don't want to put down here(never know when kids might look in).

I started knitting when i was about 6 years old. My mother ,who is a crafty lady( in more ways than one), also taught me sewing and needlepoint/cross stitching.

I got away from needle arts in my early thirty's, until i got reacquainted with knitting during my radiation treatment for breast cancer (more about this black time in my live later). Starting with scarves(about 25), sweaters(4)i finally got hung up on socks.
Of course that branched out after awhile into dyeing my own yarn into spinning my own yarn into preparing fiber from scratch(fleeces, mostly raw) so i can spin and knit it . Of course that involved a spinning wheel, a drum carder,lots of wool and... nowhere to put it. Our little house started busting out of its seams. Wool,yarn,needles,dyestuff covered every flat surface in the house.One memorable afternoon when my poor suffering husband almost sat on a pair of dpn's we decided its time to get a "STUDIO" for my stuff (not the word my husband used).So we acquired a 12x24 ready made cabin and had it set next to our house. It's a diamond in the rough yet,it still needs to be insulated,wired and piped but...it's my little heaven where i spend most of my time until hubster gets home or it gets too freaking hot in here (no air conditioner yet either)

I got all my "stuff" in here now,except my dye things,since i have no water in here yet.
Speaking of dyeing, i better get to it.More later....