Moving Blogs?

I am considering moving my blog to Wordpress, until further notice I will be posting the same things to both. I am fairly comfortable with Blogger, however I like some of the features that I think that Wordpress has to offer, so for now check either one. I will announce when I have made my decision. I have linked the wordpress blog above but just in case you need to copy/paste, or type it, WoolenDreams.Wordpress.com
Thanks

Shop announcement!

Ok. I really need to stop letting my emotions get the best of me. So I got my award letter from the college and for whatever reason did not notice that it was only for the Spring semester, not the entire year. This is because my hubby opened the letter and emailed me the results. I didn't go back and read it thoroughly. Why should I? I only got half what I needed for school. Yup. Half. So half for half the year is? Yeah. Classic example of I shouldn't let my emotions get the best of me and make sure I have all the information before getting down or upset, or heck, even happy! I got my letter on Friday. I was pretty well bummed most of the weekend, but decided that I was really going to hit this whole yarn thing really hard and get serious about selling online. Yes I understand that to actually make profit, it will take time and there will be ups and downs and blah blah blah. I know and despite all that (or maybe because of it, since my husband thinks I am O.D.D) I want to pursue it. Fiber makes me happy. We have discussed it in depth for about a year or so and we really want to open up an actual shop someday. Now understand that we are talking 10 years out, but it is still in the plans. We want to start selling online first, mostly handspun and hand-dyed fiber, but eventually also handmade spindles, stitch markers, project bags, maybe even handmade spinning wheels (that one is all my hubby!). We will be doing this starting with Etsy.com but hopefully will have our own website in about 5 years time. My Etsy shop is "up" but we (ok Hubby) is in the process of working on a banner and I am getting stuff ready for listing. Since I work a full time job and need time to, I don't know, continue working on inventory, I am taking my time with this. I know I hate when I see a site under construction thing, but I will have items up no later than January 1. I really would like to do like a big Christmas thing. I am thinking about doing a gift with purchase. I still need to do some thinking on that one. I have so many ideas and so little time and resources for the next couple weeks.

Spinning: I have had two really busy nights in a row, one grocery shopping and one watching a movie plus working late, so my spinning time has been short, maybe 15 minutes or less.  I know. I know. For someone who wants to open a shop, that sure isn't enough time, but I have had one of those weeks where there just isn't the extra time. Even in this small amount of time I have had, I can't seem to make it through this teeny tiny amount of fluff. I get that it is very wide roving so what looks small is acutally much, much larger, but still. I have said for two days, "I just want to make it through this little bit of fluff". Still hasn't happened. I think that my wheel is getting jealous. I completely understand, but I want about 4 ounces (or maybe 5) to be laceweight, and while I can spin laceweight on my wheel, it is a ton easier on the spindle. This is making the Matchless look even better. I really need to spin on one first though. I just can't seem to get my wheels tension right to not fight for laceweight, for plied yarns. On the spindle I can get 23+ WPI on a 2 ply, and it is lovely. But it goes so much slower on the spindle. I want to order more roving so badly, but I think I may hold off a bit on that.

Knitting: I haven't had much time for knitting. The second (4th) Fog sleeve is about an inch or so long now. I should have knit last night while we were watching the movie, but I got caught up in looking over financial aid stuff that I didn't I REALLY need to get this going because I want to have it finished before Christmas and I think I may rip back part of the other sleeve! I plan on doing nothing else tonight. Maybe someone else in the house will make dinner, so I can knit all evening. My plans for this weekend include dying and knitting. Nothing else, which means I probably won't have time to dye or knit! LOL! Also on my knitting plate, I really want to knit the New Pea Coat from Interweave Knits Fall 2008. I wish I already had it knit now that I don't know where my coat is from the move and it is starting to get cold! It probably will not be completed before the end of this winter. Actually I doubt it will be started before the end of this winter. And for the Ravelypics, I have joined Team Knitmore, and I will either be working on a project for me to wear to Stitches South (I haven't picked what yet) or I may go with a pair of fair isle mittens (also no pattern yet).

Kill me now! I just want to Dye!

I had a pretty good weekend for the most part. Some fibery goodness, some hanging out with my hubby. We went to dinner on Friday and stayed up WAY too late watching Jurassic Park. Then Saturday we watched The Wizard of Oz. We now have a gym membership. This is really good since I went to the doctor today and she was very concerned about my blood pressure, and asked me in a concerned way about my thyroid. Got my shot and went on. My arm is sore now. I slept maybe 45 minutes last night. I couldn't sleep. Nothing I did helped. I took a big nap yesterday because I had a headache. The headache came back last night only I couldn't sleep. Oh. My dog has taken it upon herself to attempt to hunt the "mouse" in our bathroom. I can't say for sure that it is an actual mouse, but I found droppings so that is what I think it is. She was up most of the night as well trying to get the mouse. I finally closed the bathroom door.

Spinning: I couldn't help myself with the title. Cheesy I know. But it is true. I am itching to dye up some of my roving. I don't know what color(s). I just know it needs to be dyed. I need to purchase another pound (or 3) of the roving too. I am so completely in love with it. I plied some of it up on Saturday. Ended up being a lovely 2 ply and about 22 WPI. It wants to be a shawl. And 3 ply socks. It is soft and shiny and super lovely. My dog even likes it. She wanted to sniff it so I let her. She took it from me and laid it down and stuck her little nose on it. It was so cute. I got the part for my wheel so it is fixed, but I am loving the fine yarn that I can do on the spindle. I can do fine on the wheel too, but it is more trouble. I definitely want to get the 21:1 bobbins for it. I think I am going to see if my hubby will let me order another pound of the Merino/bamboo blend and the bobbins.

Knitting: I finished the sleeve. I am not happy with it, but it is done. I am kind of thinking about ripping back partway and work even all the way up. I think that there was just too much increasing. I may do that tonight actually now that I think of it. Then I can just figure out where it needs to be increased to and do that. Yeah. That is a good idea. It is amazing that I can have good ideas even though my brain is so sleepy right now. I can barely see straight! So I already have the second sleeve started and about 4 rows in. I will just run those off on a scrap yarn. While I was in the doctors office, I had my knitting. There was a really nice lady in there who, after watching me closely for about 10 minutes asked what I was making and how I got started knitting. She said she had tried her hand at it and decided she didn't like it. To each his/her own (what was she crazy?!?!) She was interested in it though, just didn't enjoy doing it. I suppose that is how I am about cooking. LOL!

*Pic is of Maddie snuggling the sample that I spun while laying on the sleeve of the Fog Sweater for DH*

One sleeve down (almost)

TGIF! Today has been a stressful week for me.

Knitting: Well I got all of the increasing done! Woo! So after the increasing you are supposed to start working back and forth for like 2 inches. I need to do some measuring because I don't think I need the whole 2 inches. I kind of hope not because I am getting close to the end of this ball of yarn. Of course when I finished the sleeve before I cut the yarn and then later frogged it, so I working with a sleeves worth of yarn and it is getting close! I have more and I am going to buy another skein anyway, so no worries, but still it makes me anxious to finish. It will be done tonight though! I am going to try to at least cast on for sleeve #2 tonight also so I can get that going. I have 21 days to finish the other sleeve, and hopefully crochet the blanket for my "nephew". The sleeve is coming first since I promised it for Christmas last year.

Spinning: Got out my spindle again last night. I am really trying to get better at spindle spinning. I don't have a lot done, but I am going to try to ply for the first time this weekend (hopefully). I sent out a tweet last night and got some nice tips on plying on a single spindle. I was sitting here a little bit ago and realized that I don't know if I spin on it clockwise or counter clockwise. I just do it and I can't think of how I do it without the spindle in my hand. I want to say that the twist looks clockwise to me, but I can't think of how I spin the darn thing. I will be investigating that tonight. It would really helpful to know before I try to ply! LOL! I also would like to weigh my spindle. In 2006 I went on a knitting retreat and they did a drop spindle class. We paid however much and we got to keep the spindle and the wool that we worked on. I know nothing about it other than it is wood. That was also when I decided I wanted a wheel, because the whole start-stop-wind-start-stop-wind got on my nerves. I wanted something that I didn't have to stop every minute or whatever to wind. That is still my biggest problem with spindle spinning now and why I don't do it very often. Also why I am not so good at it. Anyway I want to get better. I love that I can stick it in my purse and take it just about anywhere. Of course there are places that I would never spin. Fiber goes everywhere, so never around food, and no place with open top glasses. Straws and lids are ok. I just don't want someone to start complaining about fiber in their stuff. At my house I don't care, just pick it out!

Replacement part soon!

I have to say I am a little bummed right now. I was supposed to be starting school in February, and it is beginning to look like I won't be going. Because of the screwy way that FAFSA bases everything of of what you made last year and not of of what you will actually be making at the time of school, I don't qualify for much. It is like they don't take into consideration to go back to school full time, I will probably be quitting work, or not working as much. Plus we are making less money in Georgia than we did in Arkansas. Anyway, no decisions are made yet, but things aren't looking good and I am just on the bummed side.

Spinning: So because of all of this going on I didn't do much of anything last night, however I did get my spindle out the night before. I didn't do much, but I needed a spinning fix. I did get and email today from Nels and I should be getting a replacement part soon. That was the best part of waking up this morning was the buzz of that email coming through to my phone. It isn't that I don't enjoy drop spindle spinning. I really do. I surprisingly find it much more calming than wheel spinning. And more frustrating. I don't feel like I have quite as much control over it. I tend to spin finer on my spindle, but not quite as consistant as with my wheel. I also seem to have trouble getting enough twist. I am not sure if a different weight of spindle would help with that problem, but I do enjoy the finer singles. Ok Then there is the next issue. I have one spindle. I have never plied with my spindle before. I am not real sure what to do about that. I get how to if I were to have 3. That would make sense. But one? So I guess I need to do a little homework on spindle spinning, er plying. Oh and I am short. Standing or in a chair I am short. Usually about the same height. So I feel like I am constantly winding or hitting the floor (not dropping, just getting that long) This kinda irritates me because even though I don't have to stop/start anymore, I feel like I am still doing the whole start/stop thing. I need to work more on it. Maybe I will do that tonight.

Knitting: I have about 5 rows left on the never ending sleeve. Plus the 1-2 inches after. It is never going to get done. And somehow, though my gauge hasn't changed, I feel like it is gigantic. Wrong needle size? I don't know. It fits my husband. May end up being slightly long, but it is a rolled cuff sleeve, so it is SUPPOSED to be a little long. Anyway, it will be done by Saturday. Oh and I have been knitting it on 2 circs. Until Tuesday night when I accidentally picked up the wrong other end and worked out the other circ. Yeah I realized that I could have stopped with the second circ about, oh 20 rows ago. *eyeroll* I am such a dipstick. It would have been going much faster if I had realized this sooner. I will be starting the second sleeve and the blankie for my favorie little 3 year old this weekend, hopefully. The blankie is crocheted so it won't take me near as long as it would if I was knitting it. That is the only thing that I absolutely love about crochet.

Changes

I just wanted to write a quick note to mention that I am doing a tiny bit of revamping of my blog. I imported posts from my old blog, and I  will be doing some reorganizing with those and stuff. I am trying to get everything all pretty and all in one place. I still have another blog that I need to figure out if I can export and reimport since it wasn't a Blogger blog. I have been kind of bad about blogging for a while and I intend to change that. This also means that my posts will probably get shorter in the future! LOL!

Thoughts for today

Well despite my horrible toothache/jaw pain yesterday, I had a nice birthday. Jim took me to dinner at Ruby Tuesday. We don't have a lot of choice in LaGrange on restaurants, especially on a Monday, but I like Ruby Tuesday so it was fine. After dinner we went to Wal*Mart to get a movie, or 4. We were going to go see Planet 51 or whatever that movie is, but it didn't start until like 8, and that is too late for me. We got the entire Jurassic Park trilogy, Pixar Shorts Vol. 1, and Wizard of Oz. Yay. We watched Pixar Shorts because of the time. OMG I love the sheep one! Too cute. There is a sheep, clogging, shearing, and singing. Absolutely adorable. Also for my birthday I got a sheep robe and slippers from Bath & Body Works. Very soft and fluffy and comfy. I highly suggest it to anyone looking for a robe. And now my dog has a Snuggie, so that is too much fun. She loves it. She snuggled up in it and was so cute. She didn't even give me the humiliated look, like normal. And for the tooth, I gargled with both peroxide, and salt water. Ew. But I was able to sleep last night so that is really what matters I suppose.

Knitting (related anyway): Well I obviously had a full day yesterday and did not get any knitting done. The sleeve did look at me sadly though and said "Finish me!" Really my mouth hurt too bad for me to focus on much yesterday anyway. Also I have a serious lack of knitting podcasts. I am rationing the ones that I have. Ok so when the last update came out, I couldn't get iTunes to download it. I called Apple support and she said that I needed to uninstall/reinstall iTunes. I uninstalled. I tried to reinstall. Didn't work. It kept saying that I couldn't install because it was already on there. So I did what the website told me to do. I deleted all the things that said iTunes. Apparently in doing so I deleted my music back up file thingy. What was the problem? Apparently I had some Windows updates that needed to be done and if I had just done them in the first place I would have never had to delete iTunes. I am more than miffed about this, because the lady didn't even ask me if I had all my updates done. So yeah all the music that I have on my iPhone, will be lost if I sync it. I don't know what to do. The stuff that is on Jim's iPod that I bought on iTunes is now on there again, but I can't even get the stuff I bought from my iPhone to switch back to the computer. All of our CDs are still in Arkansas. So do I lose all my music so that I can listen to podcasts? And of course it won't let me download any without WiFi. Starbucks run maybe? I don't know. I am so behind on podcasts. And even if I get my CDs from 800+ miles away, I still lose the stuff I bought on my iPhone, because it will delete when I go to sync my phone. I guess at least it wasn't a lot. Just like one album and one song or something.

Spinning: I emailed them on my part and I haven't heard back yet. I figure this is because of the holiday, because last time I got an answer back within an hour or so. I really want it to be fixed. I also really want a Schacht Matchless. Jim mentioned something about making me a wheel last night, and I would love for him to do that, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. He works 12 hour shifts and is pretty well exhausted when he is at home. I need that replacement piece so I can spin. As much as I really want a Schacht, my Babe does everything I need it to do, plus it is familiar to me. The matchless has different tensioning and I would have to learn how to use that. But still, it looks better than my Babe, and functionally there is more that it can do. I can spin laceweight on my Babe, but I think it would be so much easier and potentially finer if I had the Schacht. Am I just being lured by the looks? I don't know. I keep going back and forth on it. The price is really what turns me off. And my Babe, when all in one piece, does work well. Darn indecisiveness. Really though, we just don't have the money to spend on it. I am going to go back to school in February and therefore I won't be working full time anymore. Plus we have a kid to fly here for spring break, which being a minor, won't be cheap. And we have a house to fix. And we really could use a second vehicle in the next couple years. Ok. What I really need is about $500,000.00. Anyone want to donate? Yeah. I didn't think so. What if I beg? LOL!