Daily Fiber

Some green seawool ...



Something fun coming soon to Rocket Yarn ...

Linkydoos ....

Mochimochi Shop - some really cute knit toy patterns.

Crafty Alien - really fun knit and felted animals and such

Rocket Yarn Update

Seawool pencil roving ... PLASMA DIP - PURPLE



More pictures on the new Rocket Yarn blog.

Crafty Events to Share

Holiday Art Market
at the Satellite Magazine Building 111 SW 3rd Street, Gainesville
Friday, December 5, 7 a.m. - 11 p.m.
Saturday, December 6, 1-6 p.m.
If you have cool stuff of any sort (paintings, drawings, prints, photography, woodworking, mixed media, crafts, clothing, jewelry, baked goods, music…) that you want to sell, please get in touch with Laura Predny . A $3-5 contribution is requested.

Handmade Holiday Bazaar
Parking lot of Loop de Loop, 205 NE 16th Avenue, Gainesville
Sunday, December 7, 12-5 p.m.
If you’re an artist or crafter, please consider signing up for a spot. Registration is $15 and proceeds benefit Peaceful Paths. It’s a B.Y.O.T.T.C.H. event (bring your own table, tent, chairs, and handmade goods). Vendor Registration: http://www.loopdeloopshop.com/registration.htm. Questions? Call Cat 352-284-4672 or Kim 352-871-0574.

Uncle Tommy Came to Town

My brother stopped by in his "big truck" last night. The boys were determined to stay up to see him and were literally bouncing off the walls by the time he got here. We all had a good visit ... the boys took him out back with flashlight in hand to see the chickens. We ate some muffins I made and sent some off with Tommy as well. The boys were up so late that it was really hard to get Houston up for school but they loved seeing their uncle so it was worth it. Houston was so tired today that he fell asleep around 5:30 pm this evening and I think he is out for the night. Brody was the lucky one and got to sleep in until almost 10 am this morning.

Fall Fiber Festival

Click the flyer to make it readable. See the list of vendors? :)

Sock Yarn Update

Here's the yarn headed to Hanks today. The five on the left are 100% superwash merino and the five on the right are a 75/25 blend of merino and nylon.



I listed a bunch of yarn in my Etsy shop yesterday and here are three more that I reskeined last night and will be adding to Etsy later today. I just can't say enough about how much I love this new base yarn. It's so soft, squishy and generally yummy! :)

Rocket Roving

Superfine merino top I listed on Etsy today.

Sneak Peak

A sneak peak at some of the sock yarn coming to Rocket Yarn & Hanks this week.

On a Fiber High ...

I've been surrounded by yarn and fiber, by spinners and knitters ... both in person and online. And ya know what? I have this constant smile on my face that follows me everywhere I go. I made a big decision recently to try and really make a go of this Rocket Yarn thing. And as soon as I did all sorts of fibery things starting falling in my lap. My sales really picked up on Etsy, I got to go give a spinning demonstration at a knitting class here in Lake City last night, I've met some other fibery people in the area and I'm going to have a table set up at a Fiber Fest in Trenton next weekend. Seriously ... I'm in heaven. :) I'm really looking forward to meeting everyone there. The woman in charge, Elle, is in a string band and they will be playing there that day. She keeps nudging me to bring my viola but I don't think I'm ready for that quite yet. Either way, even if I don't sell a thing I know i'm going to really enjoy it.

And remember that crafty group I started here in Lake City in hopes of finding some other fiber lovers in the area? Well last weekend a few of us brought our wheels and we were quite a hit at Starbucks. We had people stop in their tracks when they walked in the door. It was so funny. Several people came and sat and watched and asked a bunch of questions. It was great. And we had a new knitter join us as well. She saw my post on the Lake City Reporters online calendar. How exciting is that? There ARE other knitters here and I am finding them! The ladies at the knitting class I went to last night were really nice too and it sounds like they are going to join us as well. Yipppeeeee! :)

As far as my happiness and sense of accomplishment, this ranks right up there with my first day of work as an aerospace engineer. Driving up to Kennedy Space Center that day and going into the high bay to help run some tests on several elements of the International Space Station ... I was on cloud 9 that day. And again when I ran my first test in the cockpit of Space Shuttle Endeavor. And yet again the same with my first day after transferring to Johnson Space Center and walking into Mission Control. That sense of having done something great ... that I did all on my own. The acceptance and love of my hand dyed yarn and fiber makes me just as happy. Happy in a different way but has the same effect (affect? i can never remember which of those to use) on my mood. I honestly haven't felt this sense of accomplishment since we moved here to Lake City. I have always had an artistic side but I haven't had the perfect way to let it out until I started dyeing yarn and fiber. The engineering accomplishments say "i'm smart" or "i'm motivated" ...but the artsy stuff ... the side i've had to supress in the name of doing something "smart" that makes more money ... I just can't express how happy and fullfilled that makes me. Art comes from the inside and to have people accept it and love it and pay good money for it ... well that just makes me giddy.

What's this you ask? That would be 17 pounds of undyed yarn and fiber. And I have about 20 pounds more on its way to me.


And this funky looking pvc thing? This is a skeinwinder that my awesome husband built for me.


And I will leave you with some crafty pics ...

Amendment 2

I try to avoid politics on the blog other than a little button of support or so but there is something I feel I really need to say ...

They call it the "marriage protection" amendment. Really??? Sounds like the "make discrimination legal" amendment to me. Gay marriage is already illegal in Florida. Why in the world did we need to add it to our state constitution as well??? How in the world have we come to a place where we can elect the first bi-racial president (and he is just that, not black ... he is both black and white ... somehow people seem to have lost that) yet we also vote to make discrimination legal and put it in our constitution? I'm so confused here. What does it matter to you if a gay couple wants to share in the same rights we straight couples share? Does this really affect your life at all? Do you think this is going to stop people from being gay? Who are we to tell them that the person they love and share their life with can't be listed as immediate family to be able to see them in the hospital should something bad happen? And the amendment couldn't stop at defining marriage as being between one man and one woman ... no it had to go and say something to the effect of no other legal union being given the same rights as a marriage. I'm honestly more upset about this than I am about McCain losing the election.

And that's all I'm going to say about that ...

Well maybe one other little thing ...

PALIN 2012!!! :)

Handspun Merino/Nylon Pencil Roving

I spun up some roving from my shop this weekend. Can't wait to start knitting with it. I went for a fairly thick sock yarn to make some quick socks for the boys for Christmas. Dave Ramsey says "Christmas is a craft" while you are dumping debt and this will definitely be true for us this year. :)

Here's half of the dyed roving.


Here's the other half already spun on my Julia.


And after plying the two singles together ...


WALLA ... we have yarn! :)

Halloween

What a busy day! First Houston had his Fall Festival at The Blake School. That was really great. They sure know how to put on a festival. The theme was superheroes and Houston's group at school is named the pickles. So Houston decided he wanted to be "Super Pickle" for Halloween. He came up with this all by himself too. I was amazed. He was going to be spiderman but then one day a couple weeks ago he came up to me and said "mama, I don't want to be spiderman anymore ... i want to be a superhero pickle". So I drew up the logo for his shirt and used one of those print your own iron on transfer things. I've been playing with a new graphics program lately making some ads for Rocket Yarn so I had fun making this logo. And then I made him a cape and ironed a bunch of pickles on it. I think it turned out pretty cute. Everyone at his school certainly got a kick out of it.





Here's Houston enjoying some popcorn at the festival. (i ate a bunch too, those people know how to make some popcorn!)



Here is Houston's class before we headed out back for the festival.


Here's Houston showing off the pumpkin he decorated for the contest at school.


Ready to go!


Brett got to man the octopus slide. See him in the background?


Now to the evening festivities. We joined some of our friends in Alachua for some trick-or-treating. Then we all went out to Kazbors for dinner, kids and all. I think we had 10 adults and 6 little ones. Amazingly we all left with our bellies full and our sanity intact. Our boys were especially well behaved ... probably because they were worn out from the day and too tired to want to run circles around the restaurant.



Nemo was a huge hit! We had at least three different people stop us and ask if they could take a picture of Brody. It was really funny.