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: