Fat Cats Corner

 In 2020 restaurants and retail stores were closed, office workers, where possible, were sent to work from home.  Businesses closed, many, many people lost jobs. Supply chains dried up and people hoarded toilet paper.  Here we are 21 months later and some businesses have never re-opened, many people are still out of work, ships sit outside our ports waiting to unload the things we think we need.  And many, many people have died. I think people in general were naïve about the effects of COVID-19 and how long those effects would last.  My husband and I are both under the age of 65 and in good health.  We have been very fortunate to not have become sick and do not know of anyone in our family or among our friends who have.  We are fully vaccinated and plan to get our booster shots as soon as we are able.  We continue to wear masks in stores and whenever we are in close quarters with the public.  It's the safe thing to do.  It's the RIGHT th...

    Here we go again, well sort of.  Due to COVID-19 the actual bike race in France did not run as scheduled.  We Fiber Spinners 'rode' the TdF2020 anyway.  And we are 'riding' again this time "with" the guys on bikes :)  I have a tendency to purchase Polwarth, Merino, Bluefaced Leicester or Alpaca and I tend to spin them all in the same way/method. Hence this Tour Challenge. I started with the 1 ounce sample of Devon from my 30 Breed Sample from Wool Gatherings . As the sample doesn't say, I am assuming it is from a longwoolled (left) sheep and not a closewoolled (right).    " The Devon Longwoolled is a breed of domestic sheep from the United Kingdom. The breed is raised for meat and its long wool. They were developed by crossing Leicester Longwool with Southam Nott and Bampton Nott."   Wikipedia " This wool is attractive to spinners for weaving rugs . It can also be used for dolls hair, needle felting and to create a variety of home furn...

I've been trying to spin thinner.  I'd like a 2-ply yarn that is smaller than DK but I've been unsuccessful .  I haven't really been prepping my fiber at all, just pulling off a strip and spinning, thinking I could draft out just what I needed.  Which has been resulting in a DK/Worsted/10wpi 2-ply.                                          It's just a bit too bulky for knitting garments suitable for wearing in South Carolina. So for my second fiber of the Tour de Fleece 2020 spin   I dove into my stash and came up with a very nice Suri Alpaca from Fawkes Farms Studio 'pencil roving'. From Wikipedia: " Pencil roving  is a type of  roving  that has been drawn until it is the size of a fat  pencil . It can be used by spinners with minimal drafting (withdrawing fibers from a clump). Knitters also use  pencil roving , si...

Every thing is different this year. Every festival (canceled), every event (canceled), every outing (mask up!).  Even just grocery shopping is a challenge (one way isles and 6 foot social distancing).  Thank you COVID-19.  But we must try to continue on as normal as much as we can. So, since I don't actually have to leave my house to join the Tour de France Fleece, I dusted off Fanty and joined the Ride.   Fanty sounds kind of decrepit in the video but IRL he has a very soothing clack, clack, clack. I'm not getting in much mileage but I am spinning every day.  There are no hard and fast rules, just guidelines:  Spin every day the Tour rides, if possible. Saturday June 27 through Sunday July 19th. Days of rest: Monday, July 6th and Monday, July 13th. (Just like the actual tour.) I don't spin a lot.  Actually I usually only spin during the Tour. I decided to start with a couple of the 30 different Samples I picked up from Wool Gatherings  a fe...

Or Blankets for the Whole Family.  Some 9 years ago a Dear Friend asked me to make a particular knitted blanket for her daughter 'ET's 13th(?) birthday.  Well I didn't knit at the time so I crocheted one. Add caption 'ET' loved it and used it every night on her bed.  Well apparently her younger brothers 'MT' and 'BT' loved it too and would sneak into her room and steal it!  They needed blankets of their own so, I used the left overs from ET's blanket and made them each a blanket of their own. Add caption Eight years after the youngest boy was born, My Dear Friend gave birth to another girl 'ST' and of course she needed a blanket (or three) as well. Add caption All this brings us to the point of this post. 'ET' is now 22 and has had a baby of her own!  So the tradition continues.  I knit these for ET2 in May during the COVID-19 (continuing) Isolation Period . All of these were made with acrylic (Caron and Red Heart) so as to be mac...