Whatcha Doin?

"You are a stay at home mom, huh?  What do you do all day?  Don't you get bored?  It would drive me crazy to spend every day at home!"

Ugh.  I hate hearing those statements. 

Bored?  Seriously?  All you have to do is take one look at my craft room to realize I have enough projects ahead of me to keep me busy until I go home to Jesus!  Want to know what is catching my fancy right now?  Well, here you go!

First of all, I could play with fiber all day long.  This is a gorgeous Wensleydale fleece that Mama bought me two years ago at the Arkansas Fiber Arts Extravaganza . 

It came from Kate at Lowder Farms.  She ALWAYS has the best fleeces.  I have to stand back when I look at them so I don't get drool on her wool.  I have over 6 pounds of this gorgeous stuff. 

 First I soaked it overnight in cold water.  Then it was washed in detergent and very hot water.  Once dry, I flicked out those curls - which is almost a shame - and combed it.  Then I pulled it into rovings to spin.

I can't wait to see the finished yarn!  I will post a picture when it is done!











My other current project is a Legare 400 Circular Sock Machine.  Hubby and I bought this before Christmas, you should have seen it - I wish I had taken pictures.  It cost a pretty penny, actually several pretty pennies, and when I opened the box, I had that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.  The kind where you feel like you are going to throw up when you realized what you have done.  It was a nasty mess.  I just knew I would never be able to use it, and wouldn't be able to sell it and get my money back.  I had messed up real bad, or so I thought.  But after becoming intimately acquainted with every crack and crevice of it, and removing more grease and grime than ought to be located in one place,  I was rewarded with this:

If you had told me all that paint and shine was under all that mess, I would have never believed you.  I really love this machine.  It cranks so softly, and now that I have everything adjusted, I am attempting to make socks.  Yesterday I spent all afternoon cranking and putting on the ribber, and following the vidoes by icandyarn on youtube.  Here is what I accomplished:

Turns out, you really do need heel forks to make a heel.  Who would have guessed?  : )  I got this far (about 4 days of knitting by hand - all in one afternoon!  Wheeeeee!!!!), and got half of the heel done, and was redneck rigging up some heel weights.  They just didn't get the job done, and I wound up with a snarled mess.  But that is okay!  I never expected to make a functional sock the first time!

I want to share more fun stuff, so stay tuned!

~Lori