One Down, Three to Go

I'm very happy to announce that I had my first oral exam yesterday, and that I passed with a magnificent 1,7 despite of the translating a Middle Egyptian text part. Looking back on intermediate examination (same subject, same examiner, lots of anxiety, bad feeling, not a good grade - about five years ago) I'd never have believed I could ever overcome my exam nerves and be this good :-)

My next exam will be in December, and it will be a written one, on the subject of megalithics in Ireland. Since that's only one subject, contrary to the Egyoptology exam with three different subjects plus Middle Egyptian, I think there might be some time for spinning and taking care of the shop.

Oh - I also handed in my thesis last week, so double yay! There will be two more oral exams in Februrary and April, so it will still take me a while, but right now I see a light at the end of the tunnel :-)

Just a quick note...

and picture of my freshly knitted Cupido cowl :-) I found the pattern on Ravelry, but there's also a blog post about it on Please Don't Eat the Daisies if you'd just like to see a few photos. I finished knitting the baby blanket some time ago (but haven't blocked it yet, and time is getting short...) and there were two skeins of yarn left. I had had no idea how much I'd need and decided to be on the safe side. I thought about putting the two remaining skeins in the shop, but when I saw the pattern for the Cupido cowl, I just had to knit it and the yarn seemed perfect. I absolutely loved knitting with the yarn (it's so fluffy and soft!), but since the colours really don't look so good on me I hope to trade the cowl for something I can't make myself. I might put the last remaining skein in the shop, though, which is white, blue and yellow. I'll need to take photos some of these days.

In other respects I'm spending pretty much of my time studying, my first oral exam will be at the end of the month. It's freaking me out and alternately filling me with joy since it will bring me closer to the end of my student days...

The Space-Time-Discrepancy

I haven't blogged for so long I really hope you all haven't wandered off to someplace more interesting! Much has happened here, but nearly all of it good :-) We have spent these past months renovating and at the end of August, my husband and I moved into our new flat. Sadly, there has been some delay concerning the basement flat, which will be the temporary home of Twisted and her husband until their own flat will be vacant. There is also still a lot to do before they can move in, so we'll have some more fun renovating... 

There has been not much spare time for spinning or tending to the shop, I've also been preparing for my final exams and I'm afraid shop updates and blog posts will be very irregular until April. BUT I have my own spinning room now! (which I won't be using much until next year, hence the title)

I originally planned to use the rather small room as a storage room for fibre and things to spin in, but it turned out there was still enough room after filling the shelves and putting up the drum carder, so I can actually spin there. This way, the living room will stay tidier ;-) And I still can move my wheel into the living room if I have company, but as long as I work during the day, I'll be very comfortable in my small woolly empire.

Spin like a Pirate

Meet Captain Jack Sparrow, and his beard, which was a huge part of my inspiration for this yarn ;-)

This is finest black alpaca fibre, corespun, and containing bone skulls, bells, sea shells and pieces of some Pirates of the Carribean merchandise (a replica of the red kerchief Captain Jack wears). Arrr!

Tour de Fleece - Day 21

I haven't had much time for spinning lately, as was to be expected with all the stuff that's going on. We spent the past weeks renovating, and I spent the last two days studying for my exams and trying to squeeze in some house time (renovating again, and also getting some bills in order) in the evenings. Today was reserved for shop work, but I watched some documentations about Ancient Egypt while spinning :-) Twisted and some other friends gave them to me years ago, and I had already forgotten a lot, so it was nice to watch them again. It felt reasonable to combine spinning with some kind of learning/revising stuff that might be helpful. But enough about my studies, I'm going to show you the yarns :-)

 I carded some batts first thing in the morning and hoped to be able to spin them all up, which was indeed the case. I love the colours of all of them!

 Snow Daisies

I always love to use white fibres because their quality is somehow different than the dyed variety. Also, I don't have any dyed bluefaced leicester wool the texture of which is heavenly, so I like to use the pure white stuff. I combined it with only a small amount of green and yellow merino, shiny white alpaca and white lambs wool, and I spun in shimmering snowflake sequins and textile daisies. There's also a bit of commercial eyelash yarn in this one, and I used mother of pearl thread for even more of a shimmering, snowy touch.

This one is still without a name. I was thinking of naming it Koi Pond, but I think Twisted had a yarn once with this name, so I might want to use a different one. Maybe Sparkling Koi would be good since there is a lot of heavenly, peacock angelina (glitter) in this one. It's light fingering or even lace weight, though it looks sturdier in the picture.

 Bubble Gum

I'm not entirely satisfied with the name, maybe I'll think of something else. Bubble Bath is already taken, though the Bubble Bath yarn would also make a great Bubble Gum yarn due to its colour *g* Both the bubble yarns glow in the dark and feature these cute little glittery pompoms.

It's Tour de Fleece time!

I was so looking forward to this year's Tour de Fleece, and I thought I could make quite some time for it this year - but my plans have been thwarted once more. Not that the thing eating up my time isn't  a good one, but I'll come to that in a minute. I'll try to participate in the tour sporadically, and today was a good day (no, not to die - in case there are other Klingon fans here - but to spin!):

120m / 90g of heavenly soft corespun, with beads and sparkle and sari silk threads. I like corespinning, and though I have done it often in the past, I am astounded every single time at how long it takes and how wonderful the texture is. Can't get enough :-)

And now for the big stuff: Apart from polishing my thesis and learning for my final exams (hello, Middle Egyptian, among other things) we're very, very busy renovating. Not the flat we've been living in for the past ten years, but our very own house. Well, it will be our own once we pay off the loan ;-) We, in this case, means Twisted, myself, and our husbands. We have searched for a house for two years, and we finally found it. It was hard to find a house which could be split fairly, since the four of us don't want to live together but in two separate flats inside the same house, sharing the garden. Anyway, we're currently in the process of doing all the paper work, renovating, planning etc, and since my husband was able to take some leave, the Tour de Fleece time span will be filled with removing wallpaper, hanging new wallpaper, building a kitchen and a bed, and other fun stuff. If you'd like to see pictures, please come and visit our blog. It's in German, but if you want to know what we're talking about, maybe google translate can help. It's always hilarious to read the translations, in any case ;-)

Yummy New Yarns

As promised, here are a few pictures of my latest projects :-)

I thought of naming this first one something to do with twitter, since the bird charms remind me a lot of the twitter icon, but I might also name it Frozen Sky, in the style of two other yarns I named Frozen Sea and Frozen Lake. It's of a similar colour scheme, so it would fit nicely.

Now this one I spun with a clear idea in mind: this yarn I call The Huntress, after a comic book figure. I have to admit I never read the comic books, I only saw the (very trashy, yet somewhat entertaining) TV show "Birds of Prey". I took the idea for the colour scheme from pictures of the comic books, though. I also added strips of black silk, alluding to a super heroine cape.

I don't have a name for this last one yet. I spun it with Ireland in mind, as you might have guessed from the colours and the shamrock charms ;-)

I have also spun a Hedwig yarn, inspired by Harry Potter's owl, but it's still wet and photos will have to wait.

In other news, we have a new listing in our shop which is no yarn, but yarn related: the Surprise Stitchmarkers. The listing is for one stitch marker (for $1,50) which we will pick at random. They are all handmade by us, of course, and they are all made from silver plated copper wire and will fit needles up to 5,5 mm (US size 9). The other materials vary, as you might know we are partial to semi precious stones and bone skull beads ;-) But there are more possibilities than that. We started off with listing a quantity of eight markers, but we're able to make more. They will be shipped for free if bought together with another item! :-)