Springtree Road

Family Time

When we hit that point in V's young life where she no longer wanted to go to bed at the appointed time, I knew I had to think of something good - she doesn't trick, this girl.

So now we have Family Time - a half hour of whatever quiet activity V wants that we all give our full attention to, sandwiched nicely between getting ready for bed and her usual bedtime routine.

We color

play with tracing paper

build with blocks and/or the train set

put puzzles together

play Balloon Bop

snuggle on the sofa with a video

just talk and laugh

These are things we'd do anyway, but somehow giving it this name has elevated it in all our minds. Family Time makes us all happier. Life is good.

Any fiber dyers in the house?

I have a special project coming up soon and I will be in need of a couple of fiber dyers (not yarn though, just fiber). If you are an ace fiber dyer and would like some steady work coming up in the next 1-3 months (and for the next year or so) please send me an email: springtreeroad (at) yahoo (dot) com. Whether you're an established shop or just getting started, it's ok with me - if you're interested just send me a note and I'll explain everything.

Thanks!

Today I'm...

I started a little photo album on my Facebook Fan Page called Today I'm... Going to put in daily-ish photos of what's going on in my little fiber studio.

So, today I'm...

...opening a package from a friend. When I told Nikki that I'd never worked with llama before, she generously offered to send some to me. Really made my day.

(If you'd like some of your own llama wool to try out, you can find it in Diantha's shop - that's Nikki's daughter.)

Only 10 days, 11 hours, 16 minutes to go!

Did you know it's almost Pi Day? Math geeks & math dolts (like me) alike love Pi Day! Why? Well for the geeks, it's a good chance to revel in the wonderfulness of an unending number (ok, so it's not exactly a number - it's "the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter" but, dude, I don't really know what that means so you'll have to cut me some slack. I told you I was a math dolt! Lizi? You there? Help me out, girl!)!

Ahem... For me, it's just a good excuse to bake a pie. I might even try cutting out a little π in the crust just for fun.

I looked around for some things on Etsy that might make Pi Day even more enjoyable.

My friend Kim makes these cute little Pi guys!

I also found custom made Pi Keds.

Here's a nice looking Pi wallet:

Or a t-shirt for your little math geek in training:

What about you? Do you celebrate Pi Day at your house? What sorts of things do you do? This will be our first year celebrating and I want to do it up right!

The Sandpit

A friend just sent me this and I had to share. Best at full-screen.

The Sandpit from Sam O'Hare on Vimeo.

I'm so excited. And I just can't hide it.

I know! I know! I just talked about fiber incessantly for days and here I am again with it. You would think that nothing goes on in this house but the dyeing and the yarn spinning.

And you might actually be right about that.

Anyway, I just got this great new fiber that I'm so very excited about and I've dyed it up and I'm sorry I didn't buy more. Next time I will buy much more.

Because look!

Seriously, I would eat it if I could. Or marry it and have its babies. Do you know how much I hated my editing job? Gosh, did I ever. So. Very. Boring. But this thing? This handspun yarn that takes so much of my time and energy? On days like today when I go downstairs to find this loveliness all dry and ready to spin - it's so very exciting.

As my grandmama would say, Goodness gracious, great day a'livin'!

UPDATE:  I've been toying with the idea of selling my hand-painted roving occasionally, just as I can, no custom orders, and possibly one of a kind. I thought I would start with one of these since they're so pretty. It's in the shop right now.

Pt. 5: Taking the pictures

Well, I started these handspun yarns last Wednesday and now it's Sunday and they are all ready to list. I've photographed them, taken the stats, edited the photos - next I just have to write the listings.

I have 5 yarns to list. I'll write some of the listings tonight and probably some tomorrow and then I'm planning to put them all up in the shop at the same time, sometime on Monday during the day (hopefully!).

If you'd really like to know exactly when they'll be for sale in the shop, you can email me at springtreeroad (at) yahoo (dot) com and I can give you a small bit of advanced notice. If you see one you love and you miss it though, I take custom orders - just ask!

This concludes my handspun yarn video diary! Yay! I had fun making the videos and I'm sure I'll do more in the future. I don't want to repeat myself, but I have a few ideas for videos down the road...

Now I'm headed back upstairs to start the dyepots. Hope you're having a lovely day!

Pt. 4: All spun up

Ok, bored yet?

Here's the yarn, all spun up!

I've spun all 4 yarns. After that I set the twist and let them dry last night. Today we went to the aquarium, so while I listed a new handspun yarn last night before bed, I'm not doing anything with these 4 today. Next up - tomorrow morning I'm planning to photograph them and take the stats so I can list them ASAP, either sometime Sunday but definitely by Monday. In the meantime (and off-camera because it couldn't possibly be interesting to go through the cycle with me more than once!), tonight I'll be planning the yarns I want to spin this week and tomorrow I'll get as much of that dyed as possible - probably 8-12 batches of wool.

This is how I spin

The wool is dry!

In this video, I talk a little bit about how I dry the freshly dyed wool and you can see a tiny bit of the room I call my fiber studio.

You might notice that the wool I said I was going to dye in the "Seaglass" colorway, is most definitely not! I decided to use a different brown - one that I'd never used before and that came from a different company that what I usually work with. Maybe not my best idea. At the very least, it didn't give me the color I expected, but I find that wool is very forgiving and we'll see what it looks like in 1-3 days, once it's all spun up.

Step 1 - dyeing the wool

I thought I might try making a few videos of my process from start to handspun yarn. First up - dyeing the wool.

Let me know what you think!

If you'd like to win some lovely handspun yarn...

Well, all our snow is gone - except for the big snowman bottoms in all the front yards! Makes me laugh.

Do you know my favorite part of snow? This right here:

I know now that I have not knitted nearly enough mittens for my family and that I must get on that immediately.

Another thing I know is that Oma Rules is a brand new blog written by Chris. She's just getting started, getting her blogging feet wet, and I'm happy to welcome her to our little virtual world. Sometimes it seems so small and cozy, doesn't it? Tonight it feels small and cozy to me because Chris is Alexis' mom and, if you didn't know, Alexis is wonderful and I love her to pieces. And so one last thing I know is that Chris is giving away two skeins of my handspun yarn. How wonderful is that?

A decent snow

Yay for snow! We finally got a decent amount of snow. We're having a great time playing in it, trying to sled down our small hill, building a snowman with a mohawk, and drinking hot chocolate with heart-shaped marshmallows.

Hope you're just as snug in your part of the world!

Yarns for tonight

So today, after working like crazy since last Saturday I realized I didn't have that much to do. But since I'm in go mode, I felt like I needed to do something. Sure, I could clean the house or do some laundry. Or I could make a video. So here's a video of the yarns I'll be listing tonight. Not terribly exciting, but I'm just feeling it out to see how I like making such videos and I'm thinking I'll do more in the future. Just for fun.

Tee hee

Finally got around to carding those batts today! But this picture just cracks me up, so I thought I would share.

When you blend the fiber on the drumcarder, it goes all the way around. You have to separate it so you can take one end and roll it off. So you've got all this fiber held in the carder's teeth and when you release it, it just puffs right up, terribly proud of itself.

The pain in my brain today

I'm still figuring this thing out - this how to have an at-home business while staying home with your little one and trying to keep the house and everything else in good working order.

I decided it would be good to set up a schedule and do things the way the Big Girls do them. You know, list all your items at once, once a week or so, and let everyone know about it beforehand.

So I am planning to update my shop this coming Thursday, as I did last Thursday, at 9:30pm Eastern. And I'll do that this week.

But you know what? I just don't think that's working for me.

I think I'm more of a random happening than a regularly scheduled program. Because see this wool? I'm supposed to have it already spun up, twist set, photographed and ready to list by Thursday and I just don't think that's going to happen. Maybe by Friday or Saturday, but I'd be afraid to put a deadline of Thursday on these two. So that would mean they'd have to wait until next Thursday and that's hard for me because I'm really excited about them, especially the one on the right. I love that one. I've never put pink on Corriedale wool before and I can't wait to spin it.

Once they're done, I want to list them, not leave them sitting around in a bin waiting. I get too excited about the yarn to wait for Thursday at 9:30pm. And that's a good thing, yes?

So is there a way to be ok with that? The randomness? I mean, my head is telling me that I should be on some sort of strict schedule. That if I'm not nothing will ever get done. That if I can't stick to a schedule it's because I have Shortcomings. But my scheduling is for the birds because it just stresses me out. How do you balance things if that's not your natural inclination? Do I have to keep trying? If I don't, what will happen?

And that, my friends, is the pain in my brain today.

Love her

I just came across this - it was taken at the end of October. I was shooting pictures for the banner for November in B&W.

I love this picture. She's holding in her hand these little nuts from one of the trees in our backyard, giving them kisses. Sometimes she'll pick one or two up off the ground and bring them in the house to take care of them - she calls them her Nutbabies. She'll give them a bath in the sink and some felt food and then tuck them into a little blanket she has so they can sleep.

Better On Black

How I love her.

Buzzkill

We went to our friendly neighborhood Waffle House today for brunch. We ate some excellent waffles and eggs and grits and toast and jam and I took some fun photos and V had a great time there, as usual (she loves watching them cook).

They're always Super Nice there, at this particular one - which is why we go there rather than the one that's right down the block from our house. They're nice at that one too, but not Super Nice.

So I wanted to write a Super Nice post about how much I love Waffle House; it was already taking shape in my head. But one of the guys working there (Super Nicely) asked me what I was taking pictures of. Then he told me I wasn't allowed to take pictures and that the rules say that he's not even allowed to serve food to someone with a camera.

Good thing I already ate.

It's not his fault, and he was nicer about it than he needed to be. But it completely soured my brunch and my feelings for Waffle House. I know I've taken loads of photos at Cracker Barrel and they've never given me a hard time. I'm not sure I want to go back there. They have an interesting culture, good, reasonably priced food for the Average Joe, but they don't want Average Joe to photograph any of it. Because that would be ... bad?

Disappointing. I feel like a kid who just got her hand smacked with a ruler.

Soup for breakfast

I would never consider having soup for breakfast, but then I'm not really a fan of canned soup on any occasion. Only having breakfast foods for breakfast is really something we learn to do, right? When V wanted noodle soup this morning my first thought was ewwwww, yuck!

But really, who am I to say what's good for breakfast? She was very, very happy with her warm, double noodle soup.

And I was very, very happy with my small bagel, cream cheese, and chai tea with almond milk, which I will confess is more than I usually eat for breakfast these days.

I'm wondering if you love to eat any non-breakfast foods for breakfast? Anything good I should know about to break the fast?

And goodness, I should probably think about changing that banner up there. Oops.

Carding

Carding fiber for a new yarn. I made a sample for it a few weeks ago, but it's taken me a while to get back to my carder.

It'll have (bottom to top) juniper green firestar, sari silk, some of this blue/yellow Merino, golden BFL (Bluefaced Leicester - my favorite spinning fiber), green Romney locks, juniper green BFL. Hoping I have time to card it tonight and spin it tomorrow.

And I'm also hoping you're having a wonderful day!

Winter bubbles

V has forgotten about bubbles just because it's winter time.

POP!

Yeah, they're a little harder to blow now, what with all the chilly wind, but we're up for the challenge.

Sometimes the sky feels lonely

Mudslinging

Hi, my name is V.

I love playing in the mud.

Okaybye.

Loves to ply

I have made two New Year's resolutions. They don't involve losing weight, decluttering, or saving money.

One is to read this (hated to get it on Kindle instead of a real book, but come on! $3.19!).

The other is to spin more 2-ply yarns. So...

sky blue...

plus plum, gray, and golden yellow...

equals Sky at Dusk...

I love plying! You can dye up the craziest colors and spin them and you think they won't go together plied, but they do! It's like a crazy experiment every time.

Oh the joy!

Nest

There's an empty nest in the tree in our front yard. I waited all of autumn for the leaves to fall off so I could get a picture of it. I believe it was a Mourning Dove's nest and that it should come to good use this spring.

This month the robins have taken over the bare branches of the tree. For a good hour or two in the late morning, I hear them bantering back and forth and flying about. Yesterday I raised the blinds a bit so the cats could enjoy them too.

Dirt & sparkles

What do you want to do when your 4-year-old wants to play in the dirt with her sparkley silver shoes on?

Well, I let her. The shoes will only fit for about 3 more minutes anyway - and what's better than playing in the dirt with your sparkley silver shoes on?

Hot Chocolate

Just right for a winter's day.

Gorgeous handmade mug by Illyria Pottery, a Christmas giftie for R.

Snow!

Just a little bit of snow - we'll take it!

Hot chocolate coming right up.

An average morning

Routine: a January morning 2010

R is up around 6, showers, dresses, wakes me by 7. V is usually up by now, but not this morning. She was up at 4am last night and I think the night before as well. She'll wake in the night 3 or 4 days in a row, until she's sleep deprived enough that she has no choice but to sleep through for a night or two. She does this in cycles, but doesn't share the secrets of her sleep cycle with us to it's impossible to plan around.

We're perpetually tired. Every morning when I open my eyes my first thought is tonight I'm going to bed early.

I shower and dress quickly, hurrying to be ready before 7:30 when R has to be out the door for work. When I come out of the bedroom they're watching Handy Manny, snuggled on the sofa together. "I'm ready for Mama Style!" I say and plop down on the sofa. Within two minutes I'm handed a cafe-worthy cup of coffee with whipped cream and pumpkin pie spice on top. Then they go back to the kitchen so V can have some baby bird, which is what we call a squirt of Reddi-Whip in your mouth.

After hugs and kisses and whines and cries about wanting Daddy to stay home with us all the time, R leaves for work. V immediately wants to start doing things. All I want to do is drink my coffee. She grabs a yogurt and I get a 10-minute reprieve. She starts chasing the cats - that's my cue to get a move on.

Downstairs to check two email addresses, convos, stats, Twitter, Etsy Treasuries, and update my shop announcement. I should've brought a load of laundry down with us so we can do our one a day as the Fly Lady preaches. I forgot, but I'll do it in a minute...

Upstairs I have a craft ready for V so I can dye wool. Usually it's Playdoh or anything having to do with glue, but today she's super excited about the Fun Fusion beads she got for Christmas. Doesn't take her long to tire of her still-kinda-clumsy fingers knocking the beads off those tiny little pegs though, and she asks me to finish putting them on. Then I iron it, let it cool. It's packaged as a suncatcher, but she calls the big plastic heart a cat toy. She tosses it to Roxy, who sniffs it twice and then continues to snooze.

Next we move to my bedroom, where I spin two really quick and bulky yarns while V crawls around under the quilt pretending she's Baby Wylie, digging a kitty burrow, and having cat fights with a few of her favorite stuffed cats. She takes any scraps of wool I deem unsuitable for my yarn and saves them in a pile on the bedside table for her collection. I contemplate going outside for pictures of the three yarns I have ready to list but it's cold and windy and I've waited too long now - the sun's in exactly the wrong place. Will have to try to remember to do it this afternoon. I think about how nice it would be to have a light box inside my warm little house so I could take pictures anytime, but I know that with my current equipment the photos would just look flat and I can't have that. That would make me crazy. I will brave any temperature to get a shot at the perfect photo. V, on the other hand, would poke her little nose out and decide she'd rather stay in with her cup of hot chocolate and marshmallows shaped like snowmen.

It's starting to feel like lunchtime, so we go to the kitchen to unload the dishwasher from last night...

***

I also wrote about my morning routine in July 2008, if you'd like to see how things have changed since then.

Simple Small Bear

I'm imagining a really quiet week, this last week of the year. I have just a few yarns in my shop and they're all 10% off. I'll start adding new ones again as soon as the calendar flips to January. But until then, I'm taking some deep breaths, playing with the new marble run, reading a book or two, drinking some really nice coffee, and knitting the Simple Small Bear pattern from The Best-Dressed Knitted Bear.

R says that when I finish this one, I could go on to knit the Bear of Unusual Size Likely to Win in a Battle of Wits, perhaps followed by the Gigantic Misunderstood Bear. I'm not sure there's that much time left in the year, but we'll see.

How are you spending this last week of the decade?