Spinalcat's Crafty Adventures

I have a bit of a headache that's slowed me down long enough to blog! I've been dyeing like mad for a wholesale order (more details on that tomorrow) and going to tons of shows. The future holds dyeing like mad for Lambtown and rocking out with my new ska band, haha. I just got 30 lbs of undyed fiber, mostly amazing luxury blends. Not much knitting happening except for a ribbed hat I whipped up in Silk Garden and still chugging along on the self-striping socks in my yarn. I realized last night that I guessed wrong when I marked the heel stitches without the pattern in front of me. Last time I used 60% of the stitches for the heel instead of 50%. I'll probably leave it, at least until after I use it as a sample at Lambtown! Bryan's birthday was about a week ago. I made him an Energy Dome cake. I bought him a Scooba and he ran it for the first time yesterday. The cats are pretty curious about it, but haven't gone for a ride yet. I made this sherbet with some m

I've been wanting to knit the ubiquitous Baby Surprise Jacket for some time, but never really had a good occasion. I've been really interested since Candace finished hers in Dream in Color Classy a couple of months ago. The shop carries the newer individual pattern with baby/child/adult sizing, counts for different gauges, and line-by-line instructions. One of Bryan's old friends came out to interview at Google a few weeks ago (he got an offer and took it! yay!)and asked me about commissioning a hand knit gift for a new baby in the family. Perfect! Ravelry details here . I picked Claudia Hand Painted Sport in the Oops! colorway. It turned out so great! The yarn was fabulous to work with. I'd used Claudia fingering weight before and loved it, but the sport is so springy and round with the added 3rd ply. It's a variegated and not striping yarn, but the color runs are long enough to make the changes in the direction of the knitting stand out. Then I realized

I made this necklace from a tiny portion of the milk protein fiber supercoils I spun from Beesybee fiber. Post with photos of the fiber and singles here . I really love it and I'm wearing it a lot. It goes well with a lot of pink and purple shirts I wear to work. I think I need to get some kind of stone or charm to hang from it to counter the weight of the clasp so it won't end up in the front all the time. I got the clasps at Natural Expressions in Los Gatos for about $2.50 each. They separate and clasp magnetically, so the necklace could be worn with the strands twisted together or hanging straight. I say "could" because after some time in the twisted position, it has a tendency to want to stay that way. The clasp has 3 holes on each side. This necklace uses 4 strands. I was going to do 6, but I got tired and went to bed. I've been wearing it with 4 and I think I'll leave it that way. I used beads to kind of keep the coils in place and cover some of