One Less Appendix

Was it only a week ago that I was writing about the heat? I feel like a lifetime has passed. To make a long story short, if you're reading this it's likely that you already know that there is one less appendix in the world this weekend than there was last. Getting a diagnosis was not as easy as one might think, but once I had it I was having surgery about three hours later. A couple hours after that I started knitting some mittens until I could fall asleep again. All told, it was a bit of a surprise but really a good thing as it seems the appendix was trying to tell me it wanted out for quite some time.

I'm not supposed to do anything exciting or fun for a few more days, and I hope to have a lot of knitting to report at the end of it! Oh, and I've been spinning the Younger Yarn Punta roving too. I decided to go ahead and ply the singles I've got and see how I like the finished yarn and how my spinning holds up as a yarn!

It's hot here too

It seems like everybody is either unseasonably hot or unseasonably cold right now, and we're definitely hot. Think twice about picking up the knitting hot. Felt the spinning fiber in your hands hot. Don't want to turn on the lights after sunset and heat the house further hot. Which is why I'm typing in the dark.

Happy July!

The State of the Stash: 2010 Reality Check

If you've been reading along here surely you've caught one of my monthly Stashdown Reports. If not, the goal that I'm reaching for in 2010 is to use more yarn by yardage than I acquire. We're working as a family to organize our home and make things work better for us, and my husband and I decided to purchase a dresser during a visit to Ikea last May to neatly store some of my craft supplies in the craft room/office. We have a list of household tasks that need to be accomplished before we unpack each room's Ikea things as a reward, and this weekend Paul and Spike put the dresser together and I moved the yarn in.

It's not crammed completely full, but I did want to maintain a sense of organization. Here we have the leftover drawer:

which is mostly leftovers but there is some random yarn in larger quantities. It's loosely organized with wool on the left, acrylic on the right, and cotton, blends, and novelties in the middle.

Drawer two is fingering (sock) weight yarn. Yes, the whole drawer (oh, and one skein of laceweight - you got me). There's an Alina Shea Creations section there on the right and a Knit Picks Palette sampler filling out the left side nicely.

And then holding the dresser down with its own gravitational field we have the Everybody Else drawer.

Highlights are quite a bit of alpaca yarns and just about everything that I bought at the Yarn Yard Sale.

It feels great to have this stuff organized! But in the interest of full disclosure, you should know that there's also the matter of this in the basement.

The bin behind the barbells and the bin on the seat of the rocking chair are fabric. Everything else (save the holiday lights) is yarn.

And that, my friends, is why I'm trying to buy less yarn.

Mmmmm, Pancakes

My search for a pancake recipe to adopt as my own has been a long process fraught with a lot of mediocre pancakes. I stumbled onto a recipe at one of my favorite recipe sites, allrecipes.com, for Good Old-Fashioned Pancakes and it was absolutely a winner!

(don't worry - there was more bacon!)

I double the recipe (with a few adjustments) for our family and we have enough for a few mornings. I also like to tuck some into the freezer for later!

Double-Fashioned Pancakes

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp plus 1 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tbsp sugar
2 1/2 cups milk
2 eggs
5 tbsp butter, melted
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Combine flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the center of the mixture and add milk, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla. Whisk the liquids together in the well, gradually incorporating the dry ingredients until everything is mixed together (batter may be slightly lumpy). Use a 1/4 measuring cup to scoop batter for individual pancakes.

I just got a Presto griddle and I really quite like it. For pancakes I set the temperature to 350 degrees and brown the pancakes on both sides. In a frying pan, I would set the burner to medium-high and probably have to use a little butter in the pan (which I don't need on the griddle). I can also do six pancakes at once! Can you tell I really like it??

June Stashdown Report

Although I feel good about controlling my yarn stash growth at the moment, the numbers for June aren't really inspiring. Let's not dwell, shall we?

My friend Pacasha opened her Etsy store, Younger Yarn! Naturally I showed my support, getting some lovely yarn and some fiber since I'm a spinner now. (I've decided that handspun yarn and the fiber to make it does not count as yarn in or out for my purposes here. There just isn't enough of it to make a difference!)


Kaylee Sock String, Punta roving in Charlie Pace

Our Pennsylvania trip included a stop at a local yarn store, The Yarn Basket in Chambersburg, PA. I got a couple souvenirs of my visit of course.


J.Knits, Araucania Copihue, Araucania Ruca

I won a skein of Skinny Bugga! in a drawing.



My Alina Shea Creations club shipment for June, Peace at the Beach. You can see that it's beautiful, but you can't feel just how soft it is to touch!




I also made a visit to The Spinning Room for some fiber to spin and some yarn for a specific project I had in mind.


Bluefaced Leicester top, Colonial top in dark blue-based multi color

And the yarn...

Ella Rae Classic for colorwork mittens, Queensland Collection Super Aussie superwash merino that was on clearance. Clearance!

June yarn in: 3,384 yards
June yarn out: 1,253.9 yards
Year-to-date in: 31,998.75 yards
Year-to-date out: 10,460.7 yards

Yards to go until I break even: 21,538.25 yards

And yet somehow, I still have hope.

I'm a spinner

A couple weeks ago my family went on a trip to a family wedding in Pennsylvania. We had quite an adventure, given that we're trying to do anything or go anywhere with a 3 year old and a 1 year old, but we did have a good time and we got everywhere we wanted to go safely and eventually. Part of our trip included going to visit the Gettysburg National Military Park, and as a souvenir of our visit I bought a drop spindle kit in the gift shop to teach myself to spin.

It came with a little fiber in two colors and I spun them into a continuous single, first one and then the other color. I wound the single off the spindle and into a center-pull ball, and then plied the center and outside strands together to get this:

I love how it looks! It's about 7 yards of 2-ply, approximately heavy worsted weight yarn. And I MADE it! So I grabbed some needles and knitted it all into this bottle cozy.

The buttons are two of the many I have from my grandmother's button stash.

So now I can say I am a spinner!

May Stashdown Report

May was a long, rough month for me. I was sick with a variety of ailments through most of May, plus Spike, Zee, and I all celebrated birthdays, my sister graduated with a masters degree, we had a weekend out of town, my parents visited for a week, and we took a pilgrimage to Ikea to further our effort to be real adults with an upgrade in decor and storage from combined college apartment furniture. It's not hard to see how those 31 days could slip by so quickly.

I attended a yarn yard sale by Karin of The Periwinkle Sheep. I just got all of my acquisitions loaded into Ravelry. Here are some of the highlights!




Yards in from the sale alone: 5933.

I got my first month's Alina Shea Creations club yarn, which is a 50% merino 50% silk blend that is incredible to touch.



I also bought two skeins of her Belladonna Berries colorway.



And Shannon of Alina Shea Creations and I also had a bit of a swap, in which I received the Earth Day 2010 colorway.



(it makes me want to recycle just a little more...)

On the other hand, I did make some things in May too.

A dishcloth and some flowers:



I designed my own washable reusable Swiffer cover.




Made a couple flower hotpads:



And who can resist some ninja bunnies?



Step away from the beer, ninjas!

I also got to destash some yarn to a Ravelry member in need who found it in my stash there. Yay!

So here are the stats!

May yarn in: 7,563 yards
May yarn out: 750.7 yards
Year-to-date in: 28,614.75 yards
Year-to-date out: 9,206.8 yards

Yards to go until I break even: 19,407.95 yards

Right.

There are quite a few projects in progress.

Maybe it's time to freeze my wallet in a block of ice? ;)