the Akamai Knitter

Several people have asked me if I’m in a blue mood. I didn’t think this was the case until I took a long hard look at what’s been arriving at my doorstep.

Fiber Mosaic

You can see that for the most part there are little bits of blue in nearly every single colorway there.

For awhile there I was making a conscious effort to step away from the blues. Only I wondered if there was really a need. After all, there’s enough variation in what I’ve got up there so that there’s no chance of my becoming monotonous. I think this is just another case of following your bliss.

I can’t figure out a way to segue into the contest gracefully, so I’ll just dive in. I’ve already spun some of the above fiber into yarn. To win the contest all you need to do is guess which ones have been spun up. If you click the mosaic, you’ll go to my Flickr page.

Just leave a comment on this post by midnight eastern, Sunday August 10th. I’ll pull a random name from whoever has the correct answer.

The prize? A free set of stitch markers. You can see some examples here.

Hints may be given in the posts to follow. I’m not sure if that will happen as I’m not sure how difficult this is for you all yet. :)

Happy hump day everyone! Follow your bliss!

ETA: Thank you to Patrick and Sallee for pointing out the fact that this contest shouldn’t last till July 10th, 2009.  I have edited the post to reflect that the contest will end August 10th. :-)

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I can’t believe the weekend is over. It seemed to have passed in a blink of an eye. Seriously, one minute it’s Friday. The next minute? I’m sitting here and it’s Monday morning.

On Saturday, Veronica and I went to see The Dark Knight. I loved it! We also went for our traditional lunch of dim sum and Starbucks run. Good times.

Then on Sunday the unbelievable happened! I actually cleaned my house. Yes indeedy. I did some housework! Now my living room carpet is no longer littered with bits of fiber and cat hair. It’s quite a change.

Let’s rewind to Friday which was a plying day.  I managed to finish off two skeins while overdosing on BSG. I’m on Season 2 and I’ll eventually catch up to Season 4. Eventually.

The first skein was spun from some Merino from Moonlight Baker in her colorway Berry Pie Filling. I decided to call my finished yarn Amethyst Skies. This was a treat to spin! The finished yarn is super soft too.

Amethyst Skies - Roving from Moonlight Baker

The second skein is spun from the Queen Mermaid roving from Enchanted Knoll Farm. It’s another Merino wool. I think it just might be my favorite fiber. I just love how soft it is! This yarn turned into a heavier weight then I’d prefer, but I guess that’s all right. I decided to call the yarn Turquoise Splendor.

Turquoise Splendor - roving from Enchanted Knoll Farm

I’ve also been busy making more stitch markers to feed the shop. Here’s the latest set that I’m having a hard time parting with.

Polymer Clay Dragonfly w/ Swarovski Crystals

Finally,  I have “title” block. I cannot seem to think of titles for my silly blog posts. Isn’t that ridiculous?

Happy Monday everyone! I’m off to update the shop then I have a delightful visit with my dentist. I cannot contain my excitement. *blink*

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Since the opening of my shop, I’ve been in a state of shock and gratitude. Shock due to the sales I’ve made. I never really believed that anything would sell. (Can you say low self-esteem?) Gratitude over the support my friends (you know who you are)  have given me while I was setting the whole thing up and to my first customers.

I’ve also been busy trying to keep the shop fed. Apparently it is a hungry shop. Only I find that I want to keep so much of what I make. Like these “sock” markers.

mermaid with brown potato pearls

But I don’t want this to be a shop blog. So I’ll try to my best to keep the shop stuff off the blog from here on in.

Onwards.

The spinning wheel has been whirring.

blueberry pie filling singles ready for plying

queen mermaid singles - two down, one to go

It’s been a half-hearted effort on my part to keep in touch with the Tour de Fleece group, but Jen has informed me that today is a Challenge Day.  The only thing that I might do as challenge is to try and spin the third bobbin of the Queen Mermaid, then ply both that and the Blueberry Pie Filling singles together all in one day. It’s a rather large task so that’s pretty challenging don’t you think?

So the plan is to crank up the A/C to a tight 78F, watch more Rome and the season finale of the Deadliest Catch, and spin my legs off. Maybe that will block out the infernal noise and the awful smell that is the repaving of the parking lot right outside my house. Hrm.

Happy Wednesday everyone! Thanks for reading! I hope you liked my catchy title. :-P

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Have you ever wondered what Opal was going to do with all that yarn she’s been spinning? Wonder no more! Announcing the opening of Opalescence!

Now I really ought to get some sleep since I was apparently talking in third person. :-)

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I’m writing with only 3 hours of sleep so please bear with me. I really shouldn’t have had that Chai last night, but it was so good! Let’s see.

Wednesday was plying day so I  Navajo plied the singles spun from Lori’s gorgeous fiber. I’m calling it Midnight Sky.

Alpaca/Merino Blend

I decided to turn the fiber for my swap partner into a 2 ply. This one is going to be called Chocolate Espresso. I really hope she likes it.

Superwash Merino/Alpaca Blend

With the Beijing Summer Olympics drawing near, Ravelympic fever is running rampant. So a few of us on Plurk decided we should do the Handspun Heptathalon. It was only natural that we set up a team for us Plurkers, thus Team Splurk was born!

Since the Heptathalon isn’t just for spinners, we’ve had some knitters join us as well. All they need to do is find some handspun to knit with!

I’ll have 11 days of rest between the Tour de Fleece and the Ravelympics. The spinning never ends and I like it that way.

I really hope that was coherent.

Happy Friday everyone! Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!  :-)

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