I haven’t updated on my spinning in a while!

I have been busy with the bus, with felting and with spinning lately. Of course the kids get first dibs on my attention, but the house regrettably has been in dead last position.

So here are some of my yarns since the last time that I posted….

This is the rest a purple single that I had, plied with the rest of that coffee dyed single.

This one I call “Blueberry Cobbler” I have two Skeins like this… One is 226 yards and the other is 255 yards
both are 2 ply – Sport weight.

The next skein turned out SO soft and fluffy! It is an amazing Lilac colour merino and is plied with a thread weight weight merino.

Look how thin this white is!

This is also my largest single skein to date. 670+ yards of Sport weight bordering on Fingering.

And my last skein. This is the last of the Northern lights that I bought when I started to learn how to spin.
Check out what these same fibres looked like when I spun them just 2 months ago!
and here they are now….

428 yards… Sport weight.

I have to say that I knew the day would come at one point. Our family’s first broken arm.

On Thursdays I go out to a knitting group (well, I felt while they knit). I left at about 6 and stopped in front of the neighbors to tell the boys that Supper was almost ready and to start heading home and then headed to the group. After the knitting group I stopped at the grocery store and then went to get some take-out supper for Simon and I (sushi for me and Pad Thai for him) and then got home at 9. Right away, Khéna came and told me that he got hurt. Another neighbor asked if they could go hang out with her after supper they headed back home to ask Simon and then headed back to tell her the answer and on the way back there Khéna’s bike slipped in mud or he get the side of the sidewalk or something but he lost control and fell over. He had put his arm out to break his fall and he hurt his wrist. Now this is 3 hours after it happened, he had eaten, had his bath and even picked up his playmobils. The way he was holding his arm to his side and not wanting to move it raised the red flag for me. I wanted to see his hand but it hurt to move. There was no bruise, no swelling or anything but I just knew.
I told Simon that we should go and I hesitated for a few seconds because honestly, I hate the local hospital and I do not trust them. But we got him dressed and we left.
Miraculously, the waiting room was quiet. We took a number and were called right away to triage and the nurse put a splint on it and sent us straight Radiology. As I stood behind the screen with the radiologist, the x-ray popped up on the screen and it was very clear. He had definitely broken his Radius.

We headed to the waiting room and were called right away into a room and waited for  while there. The doctor on duty didn’t even come to see us but a nurse came in and said that we were to come back in the morning to see the orthopedic surgeon and we could just leave him in the splint for the night. So we left the hospital at about 11:15 and needed to come back at 8 the next morning.

I came home and with adrenaline pumping I didn’t fall asleep until about 3am and then had a restless sleep until getting up at about 6 to get ready. I woke up Khéna and Colin and Wilhelmina and left Xavier sleeping as he stayed home while I went to the hospital with the other 3. We got to the hospital at 8 and after waiting for a while we were told that the doctor would not be there until about 9:30. So we waited until he finally arrived at about 10. After looking at the X-ray, he informed me that both the Radius and the Ulna were broken which meant that he would need a full cast and he was looking at up to 8 weeks in a cast. The bone would also need to be set.

He brought him in a room and then they asked me to step out with the kids. It was so hard to step out and it was heartbreaking to see Khéna watch me go but I agreed that it was better that the kids not see it. I went into the waiting room and after about 3-4 minutes I couldn’t stand it anymore and asked a family that was there with us since the morning if they could just keep an eye on Wilhelmina and I went to be with Khéna. I opened the door and asked if I could go in and she smiled and said that he was sitting right next to her. And he was. Already with his cast on. He had tears in the corner of his eyes but he did not shed a tear at all. So brave and so strong. I gave him a big hug and I felt some of his stress release and we headed to the Radiology department again to make sure that the bone was right. We waited for while and again he went inside alone but he knew what to expect and he knew that there was nothing to fear.

With everything alright, they fit him with a sling and then gave us an appointment to head back in 3 weeks for another X-ray. If it is healing well by then, they will take the full cast on and fit him with a smaller one. That is what we hope will happen in any case.

We left the hospital and he requested Sushi so I picked some up on the way home and he of course made the first stain on his cast with soy sauce. Very fitting. Then he watched one of his favourite shows (America’s Funniest Home Videos) on Netflix and fell asleep for a well deserved nap.

Today his energy is back and he is trying to adjust to what he can do with one hand. Luckily he has amazing siblings that are willing to help, along with a little sister that bugs him just like before. So besides a few limits, life goes on as usual.

A stone troll trying to burst out of my crock pot? No… roving soaking up coffee. This was my first attempt at dying roving.

To be honest, it didn’t work out as planned. Not that the colour didn’t turn out, but my roving felted which is not a good thing when you are wanting to spin. Luckily it was a small batch so I tried again right after with a new batch and got a better result. It turned out a light caramel colour which I thought was a perfect addition to that purple that I still had.

What do you think? 210 yards of Worsted weight (8 WPI) in purple and coffee dyed merino…
 
My 2nd (or technically 3rd) attempt at dyeing was done with food colouring….

Here is the roving soaking in water and vinegar to prepare for dyeing (I was so nervous someone would come by and throw something into the sink… I think I will use a container next time!)

The roving is next spread out out on the table on plastic wrap….

Then I added the dye. I used four colours. Teal, brown, orange and green. Before wrapping it up I did press the dye down and make sure it was all covered but looking back, I should have used higher concentrations of dye.

I then steamed it for 30 min and at the end, most of the dye was exhausted but the coloured broke (which I expected) and I don’t think I left enough time for the green to really set.

This is what it looked like after coming out of the steamer…

And then the result once dried…

It turned out a bit more pastel than I wanted but I am pretty happy with the result… I can’t wait to spin it up and see what it looks like and I also can’t wait to try again!