Ahh, a clean apartment. . .

Yep, this past weekend my dad and I gutted and cleaned my entire apartment. It's nice having it clean again. i just need to keep it this way for 2 months until I move into the larger condo. The main part of the other condo that I am looking forward to, besides the fact that the dryer works, is the basement. it will become my studio for MacKintosh Yarns. I am going into the business full-time. Yay!

I received my second pair of mannequin feet yesterday and need to start knitting the socks for them. I am knitting up examples of my yarn to be shown at conventions. I am only knitting up one sock per yarn base. I also need to knit up my lace weight yarn and the two worsted yarns that are being shipped to me soon.

Granted I have been knitting quite a bit lately. Below is a random hat I'm knitting out of some of my handspun. I'm still trying to destash.

This is also a destash project, as this yarn has been sitting in my stash for over a year. It is Spunky Eclectic's Super Sport in Mud Season. These are going to boy. I'm going to be knitting him a few pairs this summer, during the destash.

And there has even been some spinning! I dyed this fiber up over the weekend and while trying to braid it, it ripped. Sooo, I figured I might as well spin it up. It is superwash corriedale and it just beautiful!

Knitting and shop update soon. . .

Here are two new colourways that will be in the update on the 19th. We have Lich and Crystal Flowers. These are both in the woodland base and each has 1 knot in them so they will be placed in the sale category.

I also dyed some roving a while back and will be putting it up also on the 19th. We have Pop Rock, Autumn in Door County, Blue Jay, Sacred Grove (Shetland) and Eire.

I have been working on holiday knits. I have a little more of the month to finish them. Yay. . . This hat is for my brother's girlfriend Alicia. The yarn is Cloud 9, a merino/angora blend.

These mittens are for my mom. They are Ohio State colours and will say OSU and the year she graduated.

This may sound odd for a lot of people, but this is a great source of fiber. . . my dog. Yes, this is Mac fiber. It is as soft as cashmere and I am trying to "harvest" enough for some handspun yarn. This way I will have him with me forever. This is quite a bit of fiber and it's only .65 oz!! Yeah, it's gonna take quite a bit.

Also, just to show you guys how part of my apartment looked before it was cleaned. This is my computer room and this was midway through cleaning. . . .yeah pitiful. Gotta love Mac's look there. . .it's clean now though. boy has also challenged me into keeping my apartment clean. . . oh this should be fun. . .!

It's Autumn. . .

Here in the Midwest we have been having autumn weather even though it technically doesn't start until the 21st. I'm actually enjoying it and so is Mac. Boy really isn't because he's sick, but that happens in dorms. =P
I've been knitting and spinning lately. Below is my dummy sock for class and then boy's second sock (which is actually a little farther now). The orange sock is Artyarns supermerino? It's not superwash, I know that.


And my spinning. On my birthday last week i taught myself how to navajo ply. It's actually really easy and it looks nice. =) I like it! The first one is BFL from Fatcatknits.

This one is natural Romney that I bought at the Fold. It spins up soooooo nicely!!!


Oh yes and we beat Iowa State on Saturday. =P Hawkeye State baby!

This is going to be a short post with lots of pictures. I'm tired and want to go to bed soon. I have been dying up lots of yarn for Stitches Midwest and even had to order more. I'm mainly dying yarn back in Rockford because I have things the next 3 weekends. I hope to see some of you guys there.
Talking about dyed yarn, the yarn below needs to go. I'll sell each skein for a low discount of $13. Each skein has 400+ yards and are all superwash. Message me if interested.

My otherorder of Handgefaerbte.com and Spunky Eclectic club packages were waiting for me when I got back to Iowa yesterday. I love the Handgefarbe colours and adore the Romney wool Amy sent. *drool*


While I was home I took a visit to The Fold and found this, a Blue Moon Fiber Arts skein of sport weight with 620 yards. I heard holiday gifts for Boy, my dad and brother. 620 yards!!! Yeah, it came home with me.

I have been knitting a lot lately. I have a plain vanilla pair in my handgefaerbte.com Merino extra fine. The colourway is Raptor's Tower. You get 574 yards! I may have enough left over for another pair. Wow. . .

I am also trying to finish some of my holiday gifts before school starts. Ugh! Below is the first, yes still first, sock of my mom's Brigids. I love how they're turning out and the colour is perfect for her.

I have also changed to the handspun given to me by Sarah of Bellaknitting.com. The colourway is Tulips from Spunky Eclectics fiber club. I believe it is from 2007. The wool is corriedale and I LOVE how it feels. I wish it would stripe more, but oh well. She'll like them anyways,

It is now 6 days until I see Boy again. I miss him a lot. =/ I also miss Mac who is in Rockford staying with my parents while I'm gone for a few days. It's soo lonely here. =(

Ahh. . .Holiday Knitting. . .

Yes, I said it. It's July and I have until Thanksgiving to finish all of my projects. Most people will be receiving socks or a hat. My dad will hopefully be receiving a sweater and socks. We shall see if that is a little over ambitious for me. Below is a picture of most of the sock yarn that hopefully by November will be in the actual shape of socks. We shall see.
The red Sparkly yarn (Tempted Glam Girl inRoxanne) is for my mom, the green STR being knit into Brigid's is for my sister, the purple and yellow (spunky eclectic) is for my grandma, the yellow is for my grandpa, the Numma Numma is for my brother, the pink is for my brother's girlfriend, and the other green ones ended up being for me. Not pictured: boy's STR in Lucy in the Sky in mediumweight, dad's sweater, and cascade heritage that is still in the mail.

Here is a close up of the Toasty and Glam Girl yarns. This was my first order from Loopyewe.com.

Below we have three beautiful balls of merino/mohair blend fiber from the Spunky Eclectic fiber club. It;s beautiful when it's in a ball, but when I drafted it and started spinning it, YUCK. The balls of fiber are not the same and it looks bad being spun because the colors don't blend well. =( So sad, such soft fiber too.

Sign-ups for the next MacKintosh Yarns Sock Club are up in my etsy store. This is limited to 25 members. The sign-up will be up until August. Thank-you!

I don't really know. . .

I've been feeling blah lately and yet the weather is beautiful. But, the funny thing is, I've been getting out of bed and been living. In the past 3 days I've baked 3 loaves of bread using the no knead bread recipe. It's an awesome and easy recipe! Anyways, onto yarn goodness. I have also been cleaning my apartment, it's almost done.  Even though I feel like crap things are getting done. Boy comes on Tuesday, so I still need to clean my car, vacuum, and finish the computer room. Oh and change the sheets, Mac isn't going to be sleeping on my bed anymore for the rest of the summer, poor boy. =/
Below is some Sundara sock yarn in Peach Nectar and Graphite. Yummy!

I also received another skein of Mountain Colours in Elderberry. Love this yarn!
I've been spinning a lot lately also. I don't know what it is, my nerves or my body just feeling like crap. But oh well, more movies, spinning, tea, and sleep for me.

I gave myself the challenge of trying Tiennie's scarf pattern that she just posted. The yarn is Yarn Treehouse Luster Alpaca in orange. It's very soft and you get 330 yards in each skein. I have 4 skeins. . . I seriously need to get rid of it.  Talking about getting rid of yarn, your sock yarn shall be in the mail tomorrow ladies. Sorry for the delay.

Mother's Day is coming up and in my baking mode I thought I would buy my mom this book.  I don't have it myself, but it's supposedly just like the no knead bread but with tons of recipes.  There's even a recipe for Challah, and being Jewish, most store bought challahs are dry and ew.

To live and love or never love at all. . .

To be honest it had been almost exactly 2 years since I had a boyfriend when Steve and I got together. Yeah 2 years of me being me and accepting the fact that I am void of love and feeling. Okay, not completely true, but I had gotten used to being single. I have always had the habit of pushing people away and not wanting to deal with them, not a good choice, but I do it at times without even knowing. I don't really trust many people either. I guess it's youngest syndrome where everyone is against you. Its kind of weird having a bf again. I have been pushing away, but he's kind of sticking around. . . .funny eh? I owe him a lot and want him to stick around I'm just not used to this frame of mind of having someone outside of my family who actually cares about me. I just need to calm the fuck down and let life be life. It's hard though. I don't know, I'm going to visit him on the 14th, and we're already making plans for him to go to Gencon with us in August. If we're making plans that far ahead, yeah I think he'll still be around then too. He's a genuinely sweet guy. Amazing eh? I really love him and I just want my behavior to change, cause I REALLY value him.

Okay, enough of the boyfriend banter. Onto KNITTING! and spinning. . .
Lately I've been spinning up my fibers and my spinning is actually becoming more consistent. Below are two skeins I spun within the past week. The red, green and blue one I spun up last-night. it is superwash corriedale from Spunky Eclectic's fiber club. I love being part of the club because it gives e the opportunity of spinning with fibers I normally wouldn't spin with. The other one is superwash merino that I dyed a few weeks ago. Both around arounf 160 to 18 yards in light worsted weight.

Here's a close up:

Okay, sooo my brother finally asked me for a pair of socks, this is Alicia's boyfriend. You can see her socks on an older post. I don't trust most men with wool. Sorry, but no. So I went to Crazy Girl Yarn Shop today to pick up some lace needles and saw that they FINALLY got the Cascade Superwash 220 in! OMG, I pounced on it and grabbed 3 skeins of the navy blue for 2 pairs of guys socks. 1 pair for Mike, 1 for Steve. Blue is blue.

I also grabbed some yarn that was in the 50% off bin, funky scarf I would say or hat or something nice and warm to help with the weather here. Yeah, it snowed AGAIN today. . .

Almost done with the second "Half Blood prince" sock, which then means I can start a new pair!!!! Yes, life is good.

And we have finished projects! Yay!

Yep, I said it, finished projects. Two of these were on a whim and were knit in the past 24 hours. . .I need a hat, it's COLD! Anyways on with the pictures. Btw, I'm really tired, so I apoligise ahead of time for everything I say in this post.
Below is a picture of my mom's Hannukah gift, Ohio State socks. Yes! I finally finished a pair! They're knit with worsted weight, so they should be nice in the winter. The pattern is a mock cable pattern that I forget the name of right now.

Okay, yeah this is the Yarn Harlot's "Unoriginal hat." I knit it on 6.5 mm soooo I am not sure if it will fit my sister. If it doesn't I'll knit one on size 11s. I don't own 7.0mm or 7.5mm. Oh well, we'll see.

I said I needed a hat, well this would be the one below. I knit it with some handspun I did when I first got my spinning wheel. I'm shocked at how much I have left! Seriously, I'm amazed! I like it, thick, bog, bulky, love the colours, and it covers my ears. =P I can wea it with a ponytail also. Yay!!!! Sweet eh?

And another that includes a very tired me, oy. . .

Anyone watch tonights Greys Anatomy? Sad eh?
Oh, we play Minnesota Saturday and Wisconsin plays Michigan. GO HAWKS!! GO BADGERS!!

ATTENTION!!!! Plied Yarn!!!

Below is a picture of my first ever 2 ply yarn. . . .I'm getting better! I put in a quarter to show the size. Sweet, eh?? I just spun that tonight. I'm so proud of myself. It's not perfect, but I think I'm improving. =) Yay!!!!

Spinning round and round and round. . .

Sooo these past two days I've mainly been spinning wool with my spinning wheel. Yep, I finally figured the sucker out. I just needle to figure out how to ply now. . . help? Below is 96 yards of bulky camo coloured merino I spun yesterday. I have a whole nother bag of it to spin up. I got this for free when my mom bought the wheel. I like it. Maybe a hat? Hope there's enough. Fun eh?

Below is some thinner yarn I spun today after I bought this at around noon here in IC. I woke up at 11:50 if that gives you any idea of my spinning time. . . .It's thinner and I'm getting better at spinning thinner yarn. =) Pretty isn't it?

I didn't take the two days off completely from knitting. I knit my first of two footies in some hand-dyed yarn I bought off ebay. I am going to start the second one tonight. I just took a break from my sockapalooza socks. That's all.