I love the Phat Fiber theme this month – Gems and Minerals.  February, of course, being my birth month and just the love of all things purple and amethyst, how could I not make these batts?

Also going out in the February boxes are my January samples which didn’t quite make it time last month due to Priority Mail not quite living up to my expectations.  These are Peace and Prosperity and I have 3 flavors currently listed over at Spincerely yours.

There are lots of very lovely offerings by all the Phat Fiber artists this month, and isn’t this perfect weather for spinning and knitting?  Hope you have fun checking them all out!

Can you believe it? A 1o day forecast full of sun in Connecticut!  This week, I’m dyeing for the September Phat Fiber box which has the perfect theme -  Farmer’s Market.  Last weekend, I took my camera to one of our local markets to gather some inspiration…

“Zinnia”  is already out “baking.”   I want to do at least one more theme color – I can’t decide – I like the Heirloom Tomato and oh – those apples!   I think I’m really ready for fall.  One more week of summer weather with the girls back at school will be perfect, then give me the clear skies, cool breezes, and glorious days of autumn!

Just one more quick “advertising interruption.”  I just want to talk about the “August Superbox Giveaway- BUY PHAT incentive” for a moment.  This is a prize you can enter to win if you purchase anything in the month of August from either my shop or another Phat Fiber contributor’s shop during the month of August.  All you have to do is post what you purchased and from whom in the above linked forum threat to be eligible to win.  I think the Superbox is like a regular box, only with a set of larger than average samples in it.  At the top of the first post int he thread is a link to the video.

I’m off to the “dye pots.”  Hope you have a great weekend!

Mama Jude’s “Moon Shadow – Merino and Milk Fiber” which is very soft and plant dyed.

into low twist (relatively) singles:

AND

Moonwood Farm’s “Moonbeams – Holiday Pudding” which is a soft and delightful blend of alpaca, milk, bamboo, merino, and a bit of angelina.

into a light weight 2 ply.  Here is the first bobbin:

Total time spinning today...  about 1.5 hours

Any particular challenges… Today, I started very low key with some of my small amounts of fiber.  I’m working on figuring out how the Tour de France works and trying to interpret Sports Announcers seems to take quite a bit of attention.

Outside my window… Beautiful sunny day!  Not too hot yet either.

I am thinking… I wish we had somewhere to take the girls swimming.

I am thankful for… The time that I have to spin, garden, and do the things I like to do.

From the kitchen… not much today.  I did clean the floor today in preparation for the upcoming heat wave.  No central air here so when it is humid the floors get sticky so it is better to start with them clean.

I am wearing... my dyeing clothes.

I am creating… a blog format special to Tour de Fleece as I would like to post everyday and need to keep it simple.

I am going… to hopefully see my friend Jenny tonight before she heads back to Michigan

I am reading… A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore

I am hoping… that it doesn’t get TOO hot!

I am hearing… the Disney station which is not my favorite. Apparently when I left the room after the Tour de France, wrestling came on next and ew so they changed it.

Around the house… very quiet.  Dave is reading, K is sleeping, J is watching TV.  Agent B is at camp.  We did get a letter from her today. She was so happy to have made a Blue Level swimmer!  Now she can do all the fun stuff in the lake. She is also taking cooking, ceramics, and outdoor living.

One of my favorite things… Gorgonzola cheese

A few plans for the rest of the week… not too much for this weekend. I’m behind in some volunteer work which I hope to have done soon.  I think I will feel much better when I catch up with that!  And of course spinning and blogging everyday.  As for the rest of the week, I have work and a couple of concerts, but more on those later.

Format adapted from The Simple Woman’s Daybook

For the last month or so, I’ve been doing R&D.  (DH loves when I say that, btw.)  I’ve been the proud owner of a set of Greener Shades dyes for about 6 months and finally happened across a really nice supply of organic wool top to try it out on.  I did some testing and voila!  We have a new product line to play with!  This new line is called Spincerely Naturals and thus far is is composed of exactly *one* product.  But, it is an awesome product!

What is Spincerely Naturals? It is soft, white (prior to dyeing), wooly and makes fantastic yarn that is squishy and elastic. (And it smells heavenly!) Here is the description from the supplier that just says it all,  ” Fine wool top. Imported for one of the United States’ few certified organic spinning operations, and sourced from a leading European certified organic wool topmaker who worked with a South American organic wool grower, we’ve been able to secure a supply for handcraft use. Specifications: organically grown and sustainably processed top, white. Staple length 2.2-3.5 inches (55-89 mm). Fiber count 74s (19.5 micron).” Did you notice?  19.5 microns??? 74’s????  Yes, this stuff is as soft as merino!

After previously dyeing with the wide array of acid dye color choices, it is a bit different to work with the limited colors available from Greener Shades.  But I think I’m getting there with my mixing.  The photos in this post show mostly the pure dye colors as I wanted to see what they were all about before starting to mix.  Greener Shades also doesn’t come with much instruction on hand painting, but fortunately most of the acid dye techniques I’ve used work very well.

Are you ready for photos?

This:

Turns into this:

and this:

turns into this:

This:

turns into this:

and these:

Oh wait!  What ARE those?  Phat Fiber samples?

Yes! Sixty samples were sent off for the Midsummer Night’s Dream box for June.  The color?  Lysander, picked and named by Agent J who happened to be reading it just when color advice was needed.  She picked the green, black, and purple because she said that “everything happens at night.”

I’m happy to announce the official product launch of Spincerely Naturals 74’s Organic Wool Rovings.  Watch for them to appear in my shop soon!

This December, I participated in a Secret Santa Swap among Phat Fiber Contributors.  I was absolutely and completely spoiled by my Secret Santa Roo, of Moonwood Farm!!!!  Roo is an amazing fiber artist and exceptional alpaca farmer. I spent some time today at both her Etsy shop and website and if you have a chance to go visit them, they are well worth the time.   It is amazing how much the package that Roo sent me is just so, well, just so me! I have to confess that it arrived a few days ago, but as the days are passing in a blur, I haven’t been able to post about it yet. Anyway, the day it arrived, I opened it with Agent K and even she was like “oh my goodness, Mom, she really KNOWS you!!!� Everything was wrapped beautifully and labeled with care. Roo  sent a letter describing her choosing and shopping process.  Roo’s son even contributed part of the gift!

I’m not sure that these photos are really going to show these items in all their glory, but I hope they will show a little of the joy that was found in my box:

From top left:
a bag of ultra soft first shearing baby alpaca from Hercules who was a rescue from Texas (seriously soft!)
Moonbeams Holiday Pudding, 45% alpaca, 25% milk, 25% bamboo, 5% merino, and angelina (I love these colors!)
“Tamara� handpainted combed bamboo top (This is the one that is really, really, really me!)
“Snickerdoodle� handpainted Milk Protein Fiber  (I’ve never had any milk fiber before and I’m very excited about spinning this!)

These are some of the non-fiber items.
A water bottle with a butterfly on the front and a caterpillar on the back which I love!
A “real� Cadbury Milk Chocolate bar from England (!!!!!)(Yum!!!!!)
A hand painted stone by her son  in green, purple, and gold for my garden
A book on Composting (and yes, Roo, I do compost!)

My only problem now is that I want to have time to SPIN!!!!  One more week right?  And then there will be time?  I know. Who am I kidding?   I going to have so much to catch up on after Christmas. Where does all the time go?

Thank you so much Roo for these splendid gifts!

As I was writing my last post, the mailman drove my Phat Fiber box up the driveway!  For the last couple of boxes, I never got it together enough to post any blog pictures, but I think I will try to squeak in a post here before I have to get ready to go to work.

Here is everything all together, overall a lot of pinks, blues, and multi’s:

Here are just the yarns (two of these look perfect for sock blankie!):

just the fibers:

and the everything elses:

I’m starting to accumulate a lot of fiber samples. I have them in a bag with my drop spindle, perhaps they will be coming with me to the girls’ fall sporting events?  Of all the sample though I have to say my  favorites are the sock yarns because they can become another square in my sock blankie.

So I better run for now, a billion things to do before work.  Have a great evening!

I really do love candy, I just finished up a bag of M&M as a matter of fact! (Not a good thing to do, but chocolate was needed.) The very first time my sister ever showed me wool roving I just could not get over how much it looked like cotton candy. I wanted to eat it SO much. I still believe that fiber looks like cotton candy, and last year I even made some Ravelry ads that featured my roving dressed up to look like cotton candy.

The Phat Fiber theme for this month is “Meet me at the Fair” so, of course, I had to do cotton candy:

So what do you think? Real or not?  Okay – that’s the real thing–we went to Dave’s company picnic last night and the girls favorite “activity” there is eating the free cotton candy

My cotton candy is not quite that authentic, but I think it is pretty darn close!

Perhaps it is a little pinker than the real life cotton candy and it doesn’t “melt” nearly as quickly but I think it is cool.  I think the darker pink will make it a bit more fun to spin than the paler real life company picnic cotton candy was much closer to white which is good for food, bad if you are trying to advertise your dyeing.  (I wish I could get a matching photo with the girls pretending to eat the fiber candy, but the weather and our schedules are not cooperating.)  So I’m sending off 30 of these cotton candy samples and then a bunch of “Tilt-a-Whirl” samples.  Before I send them though I need to hunt down a bigger box, as you can see they overflowith from this one:

Here are what the labels look like on the backsides:

Did you notice how I had previously alluded to the weather not cooperating?  Well, it is totally crazy! On this, the last day of July, we have already (before noon) had 2 inches of rain!  This is the month where we have already had over 10 inches of rain!  If June was the cloudiest month ever, this July is certainly the rainiest month ever.  This is just not the best of situations for a solar dyer!  And as I’ve said every month so far this year, next month has GOT to be better!  We are counting on you August!  You are going to have shine!

Second blog post in a row!  I have such a back load of yarns and fibers to blog about.  I’m starting to think I’m just going to have to move forward and not try to blog retrospectively.  I spent some time on Picnik tonight.  I’m considering upgrading to the Premium version.  It is only $2.00 a month. Has anyone done this?  What do you think?  I think that my girls would really enjoy it so I think I will show them and see if they would use it. Summer is coming and they are going to need things to do.

Etsy Stuff: I participated in my second Phat Fiber box. The May theme was “showers and flowers.”  I was in “shower denial” so I chose flowers.  The fiber samples are in a colorway called “Chloris” and the yarn samples are in “Narcissus.”  I hope to get some Chloris listed in my shop tomorrow, and the Narcissus is already there in case you were wondering.  Feel free to go check it out!

I’m also participating in the June Phat Fiber box.  The June theme is “oceanic.”  The colorway that I’m dyeing for that is called Sandpiper.  I had some out in the sun today–to be rinsed tomorrow. I can’t wait to see how it comes out!   I had dyed a couple of rovings in this colorway a couple of months ago, this version is very similar – just a couple of tweaks.  We’ll see…

Children Stuff: The other day when the Swine flu was on the news continuously, Dave said that he hadn’t realized that so many people had died due to the Spanish Flu in 1918.  Agent B said, “Yeah Daddy, that’s how Edward’s parents died, don’t you know?”  (And you didn’t know that Twilight was educational, did you?) When we commented on her connecting the two things she said “Well, you know, that is how I learn everything I know, from reading…” And if you know Agent B, you would be able to insert the proper tone and eye rolling to go with these statement (of course, don’t you know???).

Since we are on Agent B, I can bring this whole topic back to yarn (of course, don’t you know???)  When she went to Sturbridge last week, she thought of me when she saw this:

I think I would like to make her a little case to hold her Bella Sara cards.  It is a very nice handspun and natural dyed yarn.

Reading: I read a couple of memoirs for my book clubs during the last couple of months.  Now, I’m not really one for non-fiction or biographies and I started these with such an attitude that I was NOT going to like them, but I was SO wrong!  The first is  The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer I was convinced that there was no way that I was going to like a book filled with sports and gambling references that takes place in a bar on Long Island, but I loved it!  It was interesting and funny and there were nights that I couldn’t put it down.  The second is The House on Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper.  I didn’t finish this one in time for the book club meeting (which was weeks ago and I just finished my reading last night), but once I started, I wanted to finish.  I thought that I would never like a book about war and politics in Africa and that it would all just go over my head, but Helene Cooper has a clear and concise writing style and she explains the history of Liberia from the beginning and in a way you really feel like you understand.  These 2 books are similar in that both authors are about the same age (Moehringer b. 1964, Cooper b. 1966) and they are both reporters for major newspapers. They are different in that in J.R. Moehringer grows up poor in a wealthy society whereas, Helene Cooper grows up wealthy in a country full of poverty.  I recommend both books and even reading both books together, as I did, as I could go on and on with the compare and contrast.

What’s next: Oh-so-much to write about when the weather rocks!  I have fiber, yarn, and  upcoming knitting projects. I have some nature photos including an audubon trip to Bartholomew’s Cobble and a Jr. Audubon trip to the Livingston Ripley Waterfowl Sanctuary.  I have tons of gardening photos especially now that I have a super-addicitive macro lens…  Oh so much to photograph and so little time!

I’m on the Phat Fiber blog!  Click here to see.  This is so exciting.  I just wish I had more time to add things to the shop today.   My sample for this month is called Caireen, and don’t worry she will be popping up in my shop for sale as soon as I get the listing together.  Here is another sneak peek until she is all set for public consumption: