The Last of the Spinning Class Posts...

Here's the last the post about the spinning class:

For the second week, I used the Louet S10 DT



and had several different fibers to wash and card.

Romney



Merino



Blue Faced Liester



Shetland



and last but not least, mmmm Alpaca



I blended them together with the hand carders they lent us and came up with this

Spinning Class Wrap Up

Last month I took a Spinning Class at Hank's Yarn in Gainesville. It was really educational.

I posted about my first weeks progress, the promptly forgot to follow up.

During the first week, I turned this



into this



It's a itty bitty skein of Navajo plied wool. I Navajo plied because I wanted the color changes to look like this.



And I just really wanted to try Navajo plying. It's pretty overspun because I was a little uncoordinated.

For the second week we had a bunch of diffrent fibers to wash, card, and otherwise play around with. I blended them together and spun some singles and some good looking navajo ply. Pictures later.

For the third week, I had the Ashford Traveler, and I learned what it meant to not like a wheel. I couldn't pinpoint it, but that wheel just didn't feel natural for me.



I spun two singles of different colors of Louet roving



and plied them together



During the last class, I turned some more Louet roving into



I learned a lot from the class. The next step is to get a spinning wheel for my birthday.

Yo Ho Yo Ho A Pirate's Life For Me

Today is that special day: International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

So have some fun and look up pirate vocabulary.

Else yer a bilge rat.

Crochet Liberation Front First Ever Book... And I'm in It!

It is finally here: The Crochet Liberation Front First Ever Book. It will be available at some Local Yarn Stores, at Create Space and on Amazon.

What's the Crochet Liberation Front? It's a Ravelry group dedicated to championing the cause of crochet. As of now there are over 2,200 members.

The first ever book has been organized and edited by the "Fearless Leader", Laurie, with contributions from the "minions" of the CLF. It is not a "Learn to Crochet" book, but rather a reference book with a wide range of patterns and articles.

Articles like the one I wrote. It is about using math and other technical tools, such as spreadsheet software, to write and adjust crochet patterns, and to just have a better understanding of crochet construction.

One of the main focuses of the article is to show you how to write a pattern that looks like this:



The numbers here are all automatically calculated and easily adjustable. It would be very simple to write a pattern in multiple sizes, or to make changes to a pattern as you go.

My main goal with the pattern was to make the math and "technical stuff" behind crochet more accessible to everyone.

I will probably be giving away at least one copy of the book, more updates on that later.

Two Tropical Storms and Ravelympics Wrap Up

I've been a bit busy the past two weeks. After the last post, one might think that I've been off creating. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Life has gotten in the way.

I've weathered a tropical storm and bits of a hurricane. First, Tropical Storm Fay slammed our fair city with buckets of rain and plenty of wind. Two days off of work were spent in my pajamas, mostly sleeping and reading.

Last weekend my family and I headed to the Keys for some snorkeling. Unfortunately, Gustave brushed close enough that the waters weren't clear. Even more unfortunately, we didn't find out how murky the water was till we had taken a boat tour into the ocean, through a squall. It was a rough ride, and a few times out there we caught enough air to scare even the seasoned sea-goers. I am not a big fan of being on the ocean, and I'm still not sure how my family managed to get me to go out on a boat during a hurricane.

Other than that, the trip was a lot of fun. There was a little rain, we've all lived in Florida long enough to not let that bother us. We got to feed the Tarpon at Robbie's, which is great fun even if you're not a fish fan. Beware of the pelicans though, because they're even more aggressive than the ducks in my neighborhood. They will try to take the fish right out of your hand.

In other news, Ravlympics is over. I made a pretty good start on the Curve of Pursuit.



It's probably about 25% done or so, which is how much I could realistically hope to get done. We'll call that a success!