#ladya spins

[theoriginalladya]

Tour de Fleece 2024 - Day 6 - Spent most of the day having to work, but finally found an hour or so to do some spinning. Decided to pull out something fun to work on, so I pulled out my Sapphire Skies (which I got from the same place as the Pumpkin Spice Latte rovings). I love this blue so much! I've spun it up before and have never been disappointed by it.

[punwolf]

What a crazy week. I really want to get everything done before Night of the Nocturne on Flight Rising so I basically have about 24 hours from when I post this.

Everything has taken up more time than I thought it would - but that’s average for the holidays.

Finish Dad’s dragon (photos coming once I have time to breathe) - this took over a week longer than I thought. Good thing I gave myself some extra time when planning. I still need to pack it up for transport at Christmas.

Make out cards - only had 2 of them. My ex was also my best friend’s brother. She died of cancer and I got to know the rest of her family well before I ever met her brother. He wasn’t living there at the time. Their mom always sends out hand made scrapbook style cards for most holidays and my birthday. I sent her a personal Christmas card with a long note inside. I also sent one to a recovering soldier. Done.

Finish my snake’s cage. My adult ball python has been needing a smaller, easier to clean cage for a long time. I used to house 2 adults together (in ignorance.) I rarely even see him so he doesn’t need as much floor space as I have for him. Done.

Move and feed the snake.

Clean out rat cages. My eventual plan is actually to sell the snake. Long story but I didn’t actually want him. He eats only live (spare me the tips on how to get them to convert to frozen/freshly killed. He’s 11 years old and a ball python. I’ve been through so many finicky snake phases it would make your head spin.) I’d like to rehome him and no longer have to keep breeding pairs of rats. I really like ratties. They make good pets, too, and would just as soon get out of that part of snake ownership. I really want a couple of Crested Geckos someday.

Decorate the tree. Thank goodness it’s only 3 feet of warm festivities. I love it but I’m glad it’s not huge.

Make a casserole for Christmas dinner. Same thing each year. I have it down to a fine art.

Make dog food. I’ve got a dog with severe allergies and kidney issues. She’s also 14, so I cook for her. A lot of research and vet help went into this decision. At least I can take some of the rice from the slow cooker for my casserole because she eats the same food we do.

Replace a computer fan. Mine’s on it’s last legs and has been for weeks. I have the replacement.

Make a dream pie for Christmas day. This has to wait until about 24 hours before serving so it’s fresh.

Make rice crispies treats. Hot damn! I just found out they can be frozen!

Make candy. That was the easiest candy I’ve ever made. It involved dumping a ton of chocolate and peanuts and peanut butter chips into the slow cooker and stirring every 30 minutes. Unfortunately it also took more counter space than I have. We were held hostage until it set and I could pack it into the fridge. Done.

Make British cracker party favors. This sounded like so much fun and so easy. I’d do it myself so I didn’t have to pay expensive import shipping and pick the prizes inside. 8 HOURS LATER I rued that decision... but there’s 24 of them. They’re pretty. They’ll be fun. I’m going to take a savage glee in ripping them apart after being on my aching feet that long. Done.

Make homemade malted hot chocolate for the postal carrier and family. Sealed with a vacuum sealer in individual servings. This also took a couple hours longer than planned. Done.

Draw Blackwall for PixieDurango - started

Write birthday smut for LadyA - started ages ago and worked on. Probably won’t finish that until the first of the year. So much to do...

Pay bills - welcome to adulting, party of one, not doing it well but this is a must.

[tara-j-bass-player]

This is legit. #TwoForOne video is spinning on TV! @hurricane_highway January Featured Artists 💥 @kirstiekraus @shaniatwain @rascalflatts @kevinjacksonmusic1 @marcrobertsofficial @sherylcrow @ladya @brooksanddunn @owenmacmusic @joshturnermusic and many more. Tune in on @spotlighttv_ Sky 376 🎶 https://www.instagram.com/p/CJysMTJBC6M/?igshid=14zkrp6hlduds

[theoriginalladya]

Tour de Fleece - Day 11 - so the flyer was the wrong one after all. Finally located one that will work and ordered it, prepped this one to return, and got back to bobbin #3 of Sapphire Skies. Only had about 1.5 hours or so to spin before I had to start work stuff (beginning of the month is always super busy!) but my supervisor kept me on track!

[theoriginalladya]

Tour de Fleece 2024 day 2: working out much more consistently today. I also found another bag of rovings in this colorway, so I may be at this a while! lol. Ultimately, I will be switching to the rovings I bought specifically for this year's TdF, but since this is my first time spinning on my wheel, I wanted to practice on something else. This is what I will switch over to once the Pumpkin Latte is done:

A Song of Wool and Silk: Not Today by Paradise Fibers.

[theoriginalladya]

Tour de Fleece 2024 - Day 8 - Found two more regular sized bobbins tucked away in with my e-spinner! So, started a second bobbin of blue today. Spent about 4 hours spinning today after finishing up some beginning of the month work stuff. Still plenty more to spin, so hopefully will have three regular bobbins filled with blue by Monday or Tuesday...just in time for the new flyer to arrive.

[theoriginalladya]

It's that time of year again - Tour de Fleece! And this year, now that my hip is fixed, I actually get to use my kiwi spinning wheel!!!

First time trying to spin up on the kiwi and it's definitely a learning experience. Going to take some time to get the consistency back to what I'm used to with my e-spinner and drop spindles (ie: thin. lol), but a good start! This is approximately 2 rovings spun up in about 2 hours.

Colorway is Pumpkin Spice Latte.

Bonus: pictures of my supervisors. lol. Cullen is definitely interested, thinking it should be his since it matches his coloring!

[theoriginalladya]

Tour de Fleece 2024 - Day 21

Sometime over the next week or two (maybe after I've finished up the plying of all the yarns, maybe before) I'll share a pic of all the spinning from this year's Tour de Fleece, but for now I ended it with plying the last of the two bobbins I started yesterday. BARELY fit onto the bobbin, too. I'm amazed at just how much yarn I got out of this for just one set of bobbins! It's going to be an amazing amount of yarn to play with over winter!

But for now - I did it! (and I now remember why I usually save my spinning for Tour de Fleece - once a year is a LOT! lol.

[theoriginalladya]

Tour de Fleece 2024 - Day 20

Top left - finished the first bobbin of plying color for the Big Project (tm) yarn

Top right - started bobbin two

Bottom - Couldn't wait to try plying them together, so here we go. This is HALF of each bobbin (plying color and Big Project bobbin) and overfilled a bobbin when plying.

Gotta say, I do love the color match! It's going to end up as a LOT of yarn, too. Not sure yet what I'll make from it - probably will wait to see just how much I end up with - but oh my, is it going to be nice!

[theoriginalladya]

Tour de Fleece 2024 - Day 18

Top picture: Finished spinning up the Big Project (tm) fleece today.

Lower left picture: Big Project (tm) fleece with the two options I ordered as possibilities for plying.

Lower right picture: Decided to try the lighter camel color and started to spin it up.

[theoriginalladya]

Tour de Fleece 2024 - Day 12

Finished spinning up the blue while watching Critical Role tonight.

[theoriginalladya]

Tour de Fleece - Day 10 - Finished the second bobbin of blue and started the last one (there's about 6.5 rovings left or so). Should be receiving the new flyer and bobbins today, though I have a sneaky suspicion that it's not going to work with my wheel. If that's the case, I'll switch over to the e-spinner for the Big Project and also start plying the Pumpkin Latte and Sapphire skies to free up the regular sized ones. Either way, I have a plan to move forward.

[theoriginalladya]

Tour de Fleece 2024 - Day 16

After all of the spinning I did yesterday (some 6-8 hours, I realize now), I only managed about two hours today before my wrist and thumb started acting up. So, rather than push things too far, I called it a day. I'm nearly halfway through this bobbin and still plenty of fleece left to go. I'm thinking I should end up with 2.5-3 full bobbins by the end of this. A quick look at the tracking info on the fleece assures me it should be here by the end of the week, which should time out just about right. Once it's here, I'll spin that up. Looks like that might get me to the end of the TdF this year, so plying will happen post-TdF.

[theoriginalladya]

Tour de Fleece 2024 - Day 19

Gosh, it's been a day, y'all. Got woken up after only 4 hours sleep by the Ex (filling in for the boss while boss is on vacation) calling from work about something I was supposed to email yesterday (which I did and told him the time) and then the person looking for it shouting behind him, "It JUST GOT HERE (14 hours after I sent it across town)". Fell back to sleep, woke up and wrote an unexpected 1300 words for a fic that's been stalled because I just couldn't get the next chapter started. Also noticed at that point the crap going on with all the Tech today (probably what caused the email issue). But the kicker was when I came down to do my usual Friday work stuff, I could NOT get onto the website (also probably a Tech thing), so I did what I could without it, then went and spun for like...four or six hours until the website DID come back online (about 8 pm here). Finished up work. Spun some more. Made dinner. (kiddo's on second shift, so I've sort of gravitated to his schedule).

ANYWAY, finished up the first 200 grams of the new fleece to pair up with the Big Project (tm) spin. My goal is to fill as much of this bobbin as I can by tomorrow end of day so I can spent Sunday plying up some of it to get a better idea of how it's going to look. And that, as they say, will be the end of TdF for this year. (not really. - going to finish up and get this and a couple of other yarns I spun up plied before I totally put stuff away, but you get what I mean).

How can we be at the end of Tour de Fleece already???

[theoriginalladya]

Tour de Fleece 2024 - Day 17

Finished bobbin #2 and started bobbin #3! Man do my fingers ache. Granted, I spent a good 6-7 hours spinning, but I'm quite happy with the results! Tomorrow I'll pick up with bobbin #3. Picture #3 shows how much fleece I have left to spin. Started with 16 oz. Guessing about 5-6 oz left.

[theoriginalladya]

Tour de Fleece 2024 - Rest Day

As you can see, I did not rest. lol. I spent most of today spinning to make up for the two lost days over the weekend. Doing so, I finished the first big bobbin of the Big Project and started bobbin #2. I'm really loving the colors! I also ordered some fleece to spin up to ply with it. I ordered two colors (Knitpick's Bittersweet Heather (dark brown) and Mink Heather (very light brownish)) to see if either match well enough. If they both do, I might just blend them together to compliment the shifts between shades. We'll see when it gets here.

But for now, we'll call it a day so my hands have time to rest before spinning begins again tomorrow.