A brand new blog for a brand new year. I'm returning back to school this week and Oliver started daycare this past week, so there's lots of change in the air for everyone.

In the spirit of learning new things, I learned how to spin with a drop spindle over Christmas. Katherine came over, spindles and fibers in hand, and we spent a lovely few hours while Oliver napped. My crash course in spindling was incredibly useful and I now have a few fat little skeins of my very own yarn to show for it.
That's my first one, over on the left, spun, plied, and prettily twisted in that way I'm so impressed with. No clue what I'm going to do with it, or any of the others I've got, but they sure are cool.

In fact, this spindling is so darn addictive, I may be tempted to throw my money into fibers and spindles, as opposed to baby carriers (much to Oliver's dismay, I'm sure!). I've alreayd bought myself a new turkish drop spindle (from The Bellweather, absolutely beautiful and came smelling of pitchoulli and incense) and entirely too much beautiful fiber for someone who is supposed to be studying for exams or sewing baby hats for sale. Of course, I tell myself that it's all in the name of the future business plan, that if I'm going to be selling my own stuff, I might as well learn how to spin it and dye it, and then knit it, and have something really unique and wonderful for the money.


The fabulous fibers on the right came from Grafton Fibers and they are just so soft and amazng in person, I'm absolutely terrified to spin with them. I have a few oz of silk caps, too, that I'm sure shrink with fear at the thought of being touched by my ragged cuticles, so I'm working on getting them cleaned up before I play. I'm doing some plain white at the moment so that I can play with dyeing (my cupboard is stocked with Kool Aid and soon, hopefully, with Wilton's Cake Dye as well).

And the little business is really taking off. Lots of requests for my pretty little hats. I've named the Noro colors that I'm using, since "159" isn't a very exciting name for the beautiful blend of purple, green, aqua, and red used in Bubby's hat. "Oliver" is much more descriptive of a name!

And isn't he cute in it? He looks a little turtle-ish in that picture, I must say, lower lip disappearing and all. But wow, that noro just knocks my socks off. I tried making myself a sweater out of that same colorway, but it just doesn't do it for me and it's bound for the pond so that I can turn it into still more hats (a girl's gotta eat, right?).