Busy Week

It’s been a busy week. I spent all of last week moving the loom and yarn room from the small upstairs bedroom to the larger basement bedroom. The new room looks great and there should be room for the loom I’m buying Saturday. The down side was to make this move Himself wanted all of my wool out of the other basement bedroom so he could set up his new computer. Well even though my new room was larger than my last it isn’t big enough to hold all of my fiber from both rooms. The only thing I could do was to send all of my raw fleeces off to Wooly Knob to be professionally washed and carded. I sent off 3 boxes the largest of which tipped the scales at 30lbs. I will get them back mid April all clean and fluffy ready to be spun.

So did you notice that I’m buying a new loom Saturday? It goes with the new computer himself bought. We brokered a deal. It was time for us to upgrade but he really wanted a top of the line gaming computer, more power than our little family needed. So he got his top of the line computer and I get a new loom. Now shhh don’t tell anybody I think I will be coming home with 2 used looms on Saturday. Don’t worry I’m not being sneaky. The two looms cost less that himself and I agreed that I would spend on one. The sneaky part is where will I put this other loom. The living room? the bedroom? If both come home with me I will have jumped from only having one loom for 7 years to 4 looms in 2 months. Not bad. Actually it worked the same way with my spinning wheel. I had the same Ashford Kiwi spinning wheel for 5 years and when I finally let myself buy a second wheel it was less than 6 months before I had my 3rd. However, I did end up selling my Kiwi and I find 2 wheels to be a nice even number.

Even with all this talk about looms I’m not weaving much. I’m still working to weave off the yardage that came on my table loom. My Norwood still stands empty but I have measured half the warp needed for some kitchen towels. I have spent all my weaving time moving my fiber room. I’m still spinning. I’m back to going full force on that cotton linen yarn to weave into clothing cloth. I may be able to finish that by June, I hope.

Knitting is stalled. Although, I did finish knitting my odds and ends vest and I finally tucked down all the ends in a sweater I knitted last spring so I could finally wear it. Of course I spilled some soup on it right away but it should wash out fine. And I finished a pair of socks and I started working on one of my UFO sweaters and I’ve started the hers in the his and hers sweaters I’m making. But really not much knitting the last two weeks.

I decided my yarn diet was officially over this month and that buying a new loom needed to be commemorated with some new ½ priced yarn. However, in moving all my yarn to a new room I realized that after working nonstop for 6 months and giving over 20 fiber gifts at Christmas I still hadn’t touched the surface. So I called the fiber diet off as pointless. Seeing as how I still shouldn’t be buying more yarn I just declared 2005 the year of the book and equipment. This year I have given myself permission to buy the books and equipment I always thought was too expensive. Well No More! Now I just have to save longer between purchases but I think it will work out well. It will also make driving home from fiber fairs easer. Instead of spending $50 on wool fleeces and not being able to see out the back window, I can buy $50 in books and it will be a little stack on the front seat.