I come from a family of savers. Nothing should ever be wasted so we save things, sometimes even at the expense of their intended purpose. My mom saves half Q-tips if only one end is used. My grandma once tried to save her diabetic testing strips, and she used them so sparingly that they expired. I have fought long and hard to break free from that particular family curse, and I recently realized that I was hoarding my fiber. "Oh, I don't want to waste all my copper sparkles at once, so i won't put too much in this skein." NATASHA, YOU IDIOT! The whole reason you bought the copper sparkles in the first place was so you could have coppery, sparkly yarns, not so the fiber could sit in your drawer taking up space.

So today I sat down and pulled out 2 garbage bags worth of fiber and just started grabbity-grabbing. Almost all the ones I made have a wool base, with some combination of recycled sari silk, hemp, angelina, metallic, and other mystery fiber in them. They are LOADED with goodies. If I keep this up much longer, I will have no use of my left thumb. I spun like a crazy person and have 4 skeins I finished, one's drying in the tub, and I have 2 more batts still to be spun after Adam goes to sleep tonight.

I am finally going to have a crack at spinning the horse mane. I got the fiber ages ago and I keep pulling it out and thinking about it, but then putting it away after I get creeped out because it looks exactly like human hair and reminds me of something from that movie The Ring. But I'm really going to do it this time. We'll see if I can make it into anything knittable since it doesn't look like the twist will set very well.

It turns out, I am really bad at this blogging thing. And also this self-motivation thing in general. And probably several other things, but I'm not motivated enough to list them all right now. (Pam at the Woolie Ewe would have my head! Blog 3 times a week, she says!! I'm going to try, Pam. I plomise.)

We've settled into the new house and I have been having a very hard time finding the ideal daily routine. Should I get up early even though I'm not a morning person? Should I stay up and craft all night instead? Does it matter what I choose, since I'm stuck on these stupid pep pills for another 2 weeks and I couldn't go to sleep before 5am even if I tried? The world may never know. Or maybe it will. In two weeks when I'm done with my pills. Ugh.

I recently became interested in ATCs (artist trading cards) and that helped jump-start my brain back into creative mode. I'm NatashaFatale over at atcsforall.com. You can see my measley (so far) gallery on that website or email me if you want to make a trade.

I got off my duff and did some dyeing and spinning this week and it felt so great to be back in the swing of things. Here are the results of my most recent spinning session:

If you're interested in buying one before I get them up in the store, I can send you the specs for whichever skeins you like. Of course, in the "dammit, I knew I forgot something" department, I acid-dyed all these without the benefit of vinegar, because I am incapable of remembering things. It took me SIX dyeing sessions before I stopped and wondered why the colors were so much paler after drying than they looked in the oven. D'oh!

One last announcement before I go: I am giving raw alpaca fleece another go. My 'Ewe coworker Caryl put me in contact with a friend of hers that has alpacas, and I just bought 20 lbs from her that should be arriving this week. Now that I have a house with a backyard, there will be no need for grossness in my kitchen sink, and therefore no need to give up like I did last time. I plan to go to Home Depot and buy a large tub and do the soaking and cleaning on the back patio. With any luck, I'll have some yarn spun from Mr. Smiley here soon:

I'm too tired to make a real post, but I just wanted to update everyone on the goings on around here. 1.) The closing went smoothly and Adam & I moved into our new house in Houston last week. My family's glad I'm back home. 2.) Got some sad news on the day we got here. My grandpa "Hombre" passed away :o( and I've been a zombie this week trying to wrap my head around it. I haven't touched my knitting in a couple of weeks, nor have I touched anything related to my store, the boxes needing unpacked, or the book I was planning to submits designs to. Meh.

5 Lucy Neatby classes in a row was total information overload! I thought I knew a lot, and then along came her DVD series. Then I thought I learned all there was to know from those, but the classes were even a step beyond that.

Hello Cinderella: An Introduction to Intarsia
This lesson definitely gave me food for thought. I can now weave my tails in as I go, perfectly disguising them and preventing me from having to do all of them at the end. The most interesting use of this technique involves needing to carry a yarn across a large number of stitches, and weaving the float in with each stitch until you get to the place where the strand originated. Intarsia was never something that excited me before, but I will definitely be adding it to my project list some time soon.

Short Row Wizardry
I had done tons of short row shaping before but I have now perfected my technique. Small things that never occurred to me before now seem so obvious. Japanese short rows seemed to be the class favorite, but I am a fan of the wrap-and-turn now that I know how to do it properly. Not only is there a right and wrong way to knit the wraps, slipping the first stitch of the new row makes the extra rows totally invisible.

Cool Socks - Part A
I am proud to say I can now do the Channel Island cast-on without any trouble at all. I love it for so many reasons, not the least of which is that it looks best when done tightly yet it still has amazing stretch. I am also newly intrigued by the garter stitch short row heel. The different skill levels of our students in this class didn't throw Lucy's game off at all; she came prepared with a side-project for those who had finished the main assignment.

The Contented Stitch: Self-Sufficiency for Knitters
My only complaint is that we should have scheduled this class first. It really dealt with the physical characteristics of knitted fabric that help you understand why certain things happen and how to correct them. I had heard of the mysterious "alternative purling" but I didn't realize how much it would help me. The good news is I have an arsenal of tips to improve my knitting; the bad news is that I now plan a total re-do of my completed TKGA master knitter swatches.

Hallelujah Grafting
I cheated a bit and learned most of this stuff from the DVD's, but it was still very exciting to be able to make a seamless cabled wristband. She gave us a great tip about shoulder tops: Bind off one edge but not the other. That way you can do a perfect graft that will connect the pattern, and the 1 bound off edge creates stability without adding the extra bulk of 2.

Lucy introducing us to the contented stitch:

Displaying a double-knit scarf:

Short-row shawl:

Me, Lucy, and my pink streaks (that I may end up keeping):

Preparations are complete! I now have both pink and purple streaks in my hair and all my swatches knitted for Lucy Neatby's workshops this week. Starting tomorrow, I will be working at her 5 classes held at the Woolie Ewe. If you're coming, say hi to me. I'll be hard to miss.

Before putting in the fluorescent Manic Panic dye, I had to bleach the streaks out to a yellowy blonde, and my husband immediately quipped "You look like Amanda Overmyer." Now that I have the pink in, my threat level has been downgraded to a respectable, "You're too old for this."

(Thursday afternoon as soon as the classes are over, we are leaving to drive to Houston to meet with our home builder and the inspector. Hopefully they don't take one look at me and back out of the deal.)

Since I'm trying to pass my Master Knitter test, I figured I would do some test swatching to find out the truth about my gauge. I've suggested this technique to a few customers before and I decided to try it for myself. Make 2 swatches (in my case 3), cast on 12 stitches and knit every row or purl every row (I also knitted backward) for 24 rows, then bind off. The smaller the square, the tighter the knitting. This is what mine look like:

My square of backwards knitting is the tightest, followed by plain knitting, and the loosest by a long shot is purling. This would explain the mysterious "rowing out" on the wrong side of my stockinette fabric. I'm going to play around with more swatches until I get 2 that are the same size, so's I can become a master. My next step is to purl with extra finger wraps to see if that tightens me up a little.

The redesigned website and swank new logo have now been revealed for all the world to see. I love my little yarn ball 'R'! (See below) I hope you like what you see. I will gradually be adding new brands and items as I move to doing this site full time.