Knitter's Frolic & the TTC Debacle

So after I posted yesterday I started getting ready to go to the Knitter's Frolic. A huge knitting, crocheting and spinning convention. Waited for Shaggy to get home, got all dressed up and go downstairs to buy a day pass only to find the TTC is on strike. The Frolic was being held at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre (where we used to take Japanese Lessons) Which is very very far away from my apartment.

Now had the TTC given 48 hours notice like they promised or even 24 hours so it could have made that papers, Shaggy and I could have figured out a way there and back. (We don't watch the news. Shaggy gets the paper at work and I get it if I go out that day.) But they gave a 1/2 hour notice. They walked out at midnight, stranding hundreds of people. Let's just say I'm the only one who's not pleased. I actually sort of felt bad for some of the workers (some are just plain rude) I really don't feel so bad for them now. That wasn't a very nice way to do things. They claimed they didn't give 48 hours notice because the last time they did people were angry with them. I think the "better way" is going to be the "cranky and irate" way tomorrow. I usually go to Riverdale Farm to sit and spin with some of the ladies from the guild (and a few non guild members) I might not go if people are really bad.

Anyway, I still wanted to go to the Frolic. It's only once a year and there were a lot of vendors coming from out of town. I don't mind mail order, but it's easier when you can get an idea of what they sell. It can be pretty hit and miss on the net. I have gotten some lovely roving, but I always like to feel it first.

And you all know how stubborn I am ...

So Shaggy and I hopped on our bikes and biked/walked (especially with the hills around here) to the Frolic. We were on our bikes all day. We left at 11 am and got back at 9:30 pm! It was a 45 km round trip!

We biked most of the way there, only walking up steep hills, from Etobicoke to the JCCC. It took about 4 hours with a stop for lunch at the Caldense Bakery (Very good deserts. They have very yummy cake!) We took a bike path on Eglinton Ave most of the way.

I was tired, bit it was worth it. We got there an hour before they closed. I wish I could have spent more time looking at everything and talking with people. There were a lot of vendors with a lot of very nice things. Shaggy looked at the wheels (he still wants to build one) and I focused on spinning supplies (though there was quite a bit of wonderful looking yarn.) I was kinda in a daze for the first 15 minutes. My legs were not at all happy with the bike ride.

I did do quite a bit of shopping in that short time.

Blue Faced Leicester Dyed Pink and Undyed Soy Silk from The Black Lamb

Citrus Soak (and bonus care label) from the Soak Stand

A 1 1/2 oz Folklore Fiberarts Spindle from the Purple Purl

A set of Ashford wool handcarders from Gemini Fibers (unassembled. Need to get wood glue.)

And all the freebies from the Purple Purl and Black Lamb

We got an extra freebie from the Black Lamb when Shaggy didn't agree with the colour I picked. (I got the light blue, he picked out the purple) so the lady gave him one too. Taking Shaggy to a fiber event/store is kinda like taking a child along. He gets bored easy and the shop keepers spoil him sometimes. ;)

He's a little too spoiled it seems. He deemed the little calendar from Gemini and the free care label from Soak unsuitable freebies. Though the free tote and bits of roving from the Purple Purl seemed acceptable to him. He says he's going to spin up the purple, but we'll see if that happens. I'm probably going to keep those bits for needle felting. I might save the baggies from the Black Lamb to spin some lace weight someday.

I had a good time and hope to be back next year. If I can find transportation that is.

The ride back was more grueling. We stopped early on of dinner (and a daiquiri) at Swiss Chalet. There were more people walking about in the evening at a slower pace on the sidewalk and I didn't feel confident enough to bike on the street so we walked our bikes most of the way out of downtown. The we biked a fair bit (downhill) after Blackcreek Road and I biked almost all of the last leg down East Mall.

Of course I have been very very sore since then. Beyond just tired. My legs don't want to bend much and my butt hurts so I can only sit on soft things. Hopefully another nights rest helps.

Of course by now the TTC is back and running after being legislated back to work (on a Sunday no less) I'm still miffed though. Makes me want to go out and get a mo-ped or something.

We've been cat sitting Shaggy's parent's cats since January. They went home today. :( They were the sweetest polydactyl father son pair. The son was blind, but sweet as pie. The place will be quieter without them around, though Shampoo and Ukyou didn't like them too much so they will be happy. On the upside, I now have a bread maker. I traded it for my crock pot as my MIL's crockpot kinda died after they left it on our balcony. Shaggy promised me a new bigger one as I only really use it to dye yarn and it would be easier with a bigger one.

Have you any wool?

I know it's been too long since I updated when I have to read my last blog post to see where I left off. ;)

March and April have been very busy months indeed. I knew March would be busy. My sister came to visit during March Break so between getting the place ready, getting caught up at work in hopes that I wouldn't have to work during her visit (which unfortunately didn't work and I had to spend a bit of time in the den during her visit.) and of course the visit itself.

All in all though, it was a nice visit. She was an awesome house guest. We did way too much shopping (Is that possible?) and she got her hair done at the salon. It would seem testing the limits of what hair dye can do runs in the family.

The grand finale of the trip was the Toronto AnimeCon (not to be confused with Anime North) The con was a bit of a disappointment. It was way smaller then Anime North, there were no real deals to be had (and any that were to be had were canceled out by the $15 you had to pay to get in the door.) But we still had a good time.

We all cosplayed this time. Shaggy went as a Jedi like always, I went as Aerith Gainsborough from FFVII : Crisis Core and my sister went as Near from Death Note (and got Shaggy hooked on Death Note in the process.)

Of course what's cosplay without pictures:

I've also been really busy with my spinning, knitting and crocheting. I got some new equipment. I needed a lighter spindle. But I didn't read the item description properly and got a much lighter spindle then expected. It's a pretty spindle, but I need to practice with something a bit heavier first before I can use this spindle:

It's a .6 oz Rose Quartz Butterfly Girl Designs Spindle from Spunky Eclectic.

I also got a wheel :) I finally found a used wheel in my price range (wheels can be quite pricey!) Shaggy helped me bring it home on the subway as it's quite heavy. It's a really old Louet S10:

And here's my first yarn on the bobbin:

And here's that yarn all plied up and dyed:

1/2 pound and 190 yards of Grey Coopworth wool, dyed with Grape, Strawberry and Changin' Cherry Kool-aid. I'm knitting it into a purse at the moment. It's knitting up nicely. There are a few over spun and under spun spots, but hey it was my first wheel spun yarn.

Of course I spun a bit of yarn on my spindle before I found the wheel.

1/4 pound 82 yards White Coopworth wool, dyed with green & blues Easter egg dye

45 Yards of Faux Cashmere & Alpaca dyed with Icing Dye

I also spun up more yarn on the wheel. The wheel is much faster then any of my spindles. I like to spin while watching Star Trek in the evenings. Especially if I have seen the episode before (Shaggy hasn't seen a lot of them. And I like watching them again anyway.) I was able to spin my second skein in less then a week. I needed to get it done for Guild Day. I bought the wool a week before guild day and it was spun and dry in time for me to go.

1/2 pound , 177 Yards of Blue Faced Leicester dyed with Acid Dyes

I dyed the skien during the guild day dyeing work shop. I also tried my hand at needle felting. We made pendant necklaces. I really enjoyed the needle felting and picked up some supplies to have on hand. It's a nice way to use up little bits and pieces of roving.


Wow, that was one super long post. But now I'm up to date and can stop procrastinating about updating. At least until I get behind again. :)

Happy Valentine's Day

I hope everyone had a Happy Valentine's Day. Shaggy loved his dragon & Toberlone gift (I call it the Hobo Dragon, what with his cardboard sign.) Shaggy gave me the most beautiful pink, purple and white bouquet of flowers. :)

We did a bit of shopping today. Shaggy doesn't usually get Saturday off, but it's Family Day Weekend so I get him to myself for 3 whole days!

We stopped at Romni and bought some wool and some yarn I need to make a gift (not telling who it's for. :p) Shaggy spotted some beautiful knitting needles in the size I needed for my project (and only .80 cents more expensive then then the other not quite so spiffy ones) I picked up a pound of Welsh White wool to spin, but it's really scratchy! It's hard to tell when it's in a plastic bag. I think next time I'll pay the extra $2 a pound for the Coopworth like I did last week (in bit's right now being dyed as I type) Oh well, it spins well at least. I'm gonna see if it gets softer with some wool wash or something.

The mohair/merino/nylon yarn is drying too. It's plied, set and ready to dye. I only got 50 yards out of it though 0.o I'm waiting for some more roving to arrive in the mail. I'm gonna ply that with the Coopworth and use both yarns to make a stripy scarf.

We then went on to the Eaton Centre and found some beautiful tins for $1 each! I would have bought the whole lot of them, but I don't think Shaggy wants 10 plaid tins about the apartment (He hates plaid >.<) so I only got two. I'm going to use them to store crafty things or even just to store the small strips of roving I spin from.

I finally found a copy of Katamari Damacy. Shaggy thought it was interesting. He's actually better at it them I am, but I'm sure I'll get better with practice.

I *heart* my new drop spindle

After a few attempts at finding a decently priced spinning wheel on Kijiji and frustrations with my current drop spindle I picked up a new spindle at Romni Wools. A shiny new lacquered 3.0 oz Ashford top whorl drop spindle.

My biggest complaint with my Ashford Student spindle was that the yarn wouldn't stay put in the hook. It would come off the bottom part of the shaft and I'd have no tension while spinning. Two little notches in the whorl solved that problem!

That and well, it looks a lot nicer. :)

I spun some organic mohair/merino roving on it. The spindle doesn't even seem that full even with 3.5 oz of roving on it. And I'm sure if I had wound it better I'd get more. The yarn seems to be spun a bit better too. I'm was able to spin and draft at the same time, rather then park and drafting (spinning the spindle, stopping it, then letting the accumulated twist travel up the yarn instead of doing it pretty much simultaneously)

I'm going to ply this with some faux cashmere for a 2 ply yarn. I have some spun up, but I'm going to transfer what I have done to my new spindle and spin it on that.

It's snowing a ton outside right now. I'm so glad that I don't have to go into the salon to work this week. (I'm so glad I can work from home now!) Shaggy hasn't come home yet and I hope this snow doesn't make it hard for him to get home. I think I'm going to make some muffins tonight, it's a bit chilly in here (the living room have huge windows, so the air in front of them gets cold easily). The oven will warm the place up quite a bit. I baked a "chick'n" burger with rice "cheese" for lunch and the place stayed pretty toasty for a few hours. Usually it's quite warm in here, but our heaters just can't keep up with the cold and the wind. The rooms with smaller windows seem to be fairing much better. The pigs must be so glad to be in the den.

Shaggy and I spent the weekend in Waterloo attending our niece's birthday party. The snow didn't really help that either. :P We went laser tagging and I did ok (I placed third) I didn't feel very well, so that didn't help things along. We accidentally got her the same gift as her parents so we just ended up giving her $40 and some fun girly hair stuff. And now I have a copy of Pokemon Battle Revolution (copy of said game was opened before we knew so it's not like we could return it. Besides I was kinda wanted a copy myself.)

And people wonder why I tend to stick to gift cards. You can never have too many of those!

More fresh yarn

Ok, so I kinda sorta stayed up past midnight making yarn last night. :P But hey, who doesn't want to wake up to a nice yarntini?

The two skeins ended up making 54 yards. Not enough to make much of anything. :( But I think I'll have just enough to make a bag for one of my smaller tarot decks. What better to wrap your divination tools in then something you worked on for hours? Forget sleeping with your cards under your pillow, think of how much energy, focus and cursing went into the yarn and the resulting knitting.

And now more shots of the yarn, just because I can. :P

Now I just have to wait for it to dry a bit more so I can wind it into balls and start knitting with it. :)

Hopefully my next yarn looks better. I want to make thinner yarn and ply it so it looks a bit more like well, yarn. The vast majority of yarn is plied, and plied yarn is supposed to be a lot easier to work with.

That and I like the idea of dual coloured yarn. :)

Fresh Yarn

I finished a small bit of yarn today. The roving came in 2 oz braids so I'm dividing the yarn into balls that way. 2 oz doesn't quite fill up the spindle, but it comes close. I figured I'd rather process two equal halves then one really big half and one small half.

I've spun other bits of roving before, but they end result really didn't look like yarn. And I really didn't want to post pictures of it. So this isn't my first try at spinning but it's my first somewhat successful try. :)