Midnightsky Fibers Blog

Lounge Luxe

midnightsky@midnightskyfibers.com — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:15:00 GMT

whee! I was accepted to Lounge Luxe. So fun!

Crap

midnightsky@midnightskyfibers.com — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:19:49 GMT

I just realized I am leaving for vacation the 24th- which is a Thursday. Not the Friday I thought. So I will probably have to head to my parent's house on Wednesday so my car can stay here in Seattle. Which means that I have to have my laundry done and be all packed by then, and put notices in my shop that I will be gone..and...geez. I'm tired already and it is only 2 in the afternoon.

Also, state taxes suck. Setting up the new taxes for zone rates is even suckier. Especially since my hands hurt too much to type for more than a few minutes. Ack. O yea, and if one more person asks me when I am going to go get a "real job" (their words)...well. I don't even know how to respond to it anymore! I'm taking the LSATS soon, I work, and I runa business. My business is a real job!

In less stressful news, I think the bag I ordered for my wheel has arrived! I had it sent to my parent's house so it would be at the PO there rather than going MIA in my apartment complex.

I'm sitting in a coffee shop right now, and the owner's dog is sitting in the chair across from me, enjoying the shaded deck (it's in an old house). We are in these giant wicker chairs, and he keeps peeking up over the edge of the table to see what I am doing.

Fiber Friday: Vintage, and a yarn update.

midnightsky@midnightskyfibers.com — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:55:50 GMT

Duck Duck, thick and thin white wool slub with a stripe of naturally dyed wool at the end. I spun it up with really giant knots/coils in it- many of them are over an inch across. For Fiber Friday. (available on my website)

Also, there is a handspun yarn update! Including fibers! It's mostly large lot sets- yarns with enough yardage to make decent sized projects.

Fiber_Friday

midnightsky@midnightskyfibers.com — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 03:39:08 GMT

(part of a beautiful batt I am spinning...yum!)

Come resurrect Fiber_Friday with me! Pretty pleas with sugar on top! The topic for tomorrow is "vintage".

skulls

midnightsky@midnightskyfibers.com — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:34:40 GMT

...Having fun wrapping presents for friends birthdays...their 21st, if you can't tell by the wrapped bottle. Bonus for the paper being recycled post consumer content!

Cat involvement.

midnightsky@midnightskyfibers.com — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:32:59 GMT

I am sensing a trend of the cat ending up in the picture. He is actually glaring, not just looking at me in the picture.

Beset...

midnightsky@midnightskyfibers.com — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:02:05 GMT

Fremont was totally taken over by campaigners today. Notably two groups: Save the Children and another group that was asking people what happened to their souls when they died, who's name I didn't get because I was prevented from telling them what I thought of the question by a similarly minded individual reminding me I couldn't convince them otherwise. It was a rather interesting piece of social commentary,they were absolutely going after a specific stereotype of people- middle aged womyn with a slightly aging hippy flare- and only approached others (but still not the people in business suits etc) after exhausting their other targets.

Fabric Score!

midnightsky@midnightskyfibers.com — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 19:57:28 GMT

At the beginning of work today, my coworker was talking about getting out her sewing machine to sew some clothes again. In walks a woman with a pile of fabric she is giving away- "don't tell me what you do with it!" she says. Inside the box- which has a flick carder she was bringing for me, is yards and yards of this beautiful purple twill wool, matching buttons, and matching courdoroy purple fabric + lining fabric (for a skirt?). O yea, and matching thread. Enough to make a jacket. After some cinvincing, I get her to take the fabric, along with a pretty gray silk. Once upon a time she was a seamstress for a living.

Also in the box were some bits of neutra fabrics, perfect sizes for the manequins to wear as skirts, as we had a few nekkid ones left :)

Summer Foods

midnightsky@midnightskyfibers.com — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 07:19:51 GMT

What are your favorite summer foods? I have had an obsession with NOT turning on my oven or stove here lately (which sadly included much yarn dyeing) because I absolutely DETEST the heat. Which is anything over about 75. And I don't want to heat up the apartment any more than it already is.
Some of my current summer favorites- besides of course, copious amounts of iced tea and coffee:

-My favorite snack of all time is peanut butter mixed with dried milk and honey (thick enough with dried milk to roll in to balls if I am being nonlazy).
-Couscous, which only requires me to boil water.
-fried rice- with egg broken up in small pieces and peas, though I haven't been eating eggs lately at all unless they are in something I happen to be consuming. The same one lone egg has been in my fridge for...gosh! Over a month. I should probably throw it out.
-Calzones, baked when it is cooler late at night. Filled with only a bit of cheese, lots of garlic, and chopped onions + whatever else is on hand.
-Cabbage salad with ramen topping, though I never make it myself because a.) I just eat the delicious ramen topping off it and b) any cabbage salad you make gives you a huge amount of cabbage salad.
-sunflower seeds in the shell
-Biscuits and rolls premade and frozen so they can be cooked, or cooked and frozen and then and microwaved.
-Chilli with no meat of course
-Copious amounts of stawberries in lightly whipped cream, rasberries with cream poured over the top, grilled pineapple with basalmic, and enough watermelon I am trying to pickle the rinds.

-I make my pizzas with a slightly thicker crust than a thin crust pizza, but not so thick as most of the delivery places, and thinly slice the cheese instead of grating it, so I can get a more even "cheesy" coverage without much cheese. And using parmessan. I partially prebaked 4 of them a couple weeks ago, so all I have to do is pop them in the oven long enough to remelt the cheese. It is really more like bread + veggie topping as it is mostly caramelized onions and garlic (sensing a theme there?) with generous smattering of capers.

-I've had to lay off the bread making, and make flat breads and the like instead, as they can be cooked more easily on stovetop. Pita and flatbread is easy to make, and good for dipping in hummus or other bean dips (put beans, some oil, and spices in a blender). I like stuffing my flatbread with potatos and onion mixtures.

-And finally: Frozen bananas cut in to slices (either direction) and then dipped in chocolate or peanut butter or put in a blender with milk- like icecream, but better for you. I am not a huge fan of bananas, but they are SO GOOD frozen.

Bedframe

midnightsky@midnightskyfibers.com — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 01:27:58 GMT

I had over 20 responses to the bedframe before I managed to turn it to pending pick up, and people are still emailing me hoping it is available- nope! Picked up by someone while I was at work. Called to tell me that it was much nicer than they were expecting- yay!

Bedframe...

midnightsky@midnightskyfibers.com — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 04:40:56 GMT

Hey everyone, if you are in the Seattle area and need a bedframe, I have one for free here that someone has abandoned and I have been charged with getting rid of! (If the post is no longer up someone has picked it up!).

Color blending

midnightsky@midnightskyfibers.com — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 03:21:08 GMT

Whee... I have been having way too much fun with color blending, I seem to be in an indigo and purple phase!

Cats...

midnightsky@midnightskyfibers.com — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 03:12:45 GMT

Despite the cat's help, I did manage to get some good pictures of yarn I am going to be listing. Yay for lightboxes!

Heat

midnightsky@midnightskyfibers.com — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 03:11:14 GMT

Despite the heat, the cat sees fit to sleep on the pile of yarn I am trying to photograph. Note the fulled (Local!!!) Clun Forest yarn!

cashmere fiber

midnightsky@midnightskyfibers.com — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 03:35:19 GMT

Best find yet at the market today...cashmere!

Local cashmere (even within the US as "local") can be pretty hard to find! This is cashmere that has not yet been dehaired from a local farmer in Washington. I was able to get 2 ounces of each a white and a natural brown. I am not sure yet if I am going to offer any of it for sell yet (it would be about $15/ounce, and only for retail- drop me a comment though if you are interested.), though I foresee more of it possibly in my future. Expensive stuff that it is!

I immediately dehaired a bit and spun it up and a lightweight spindle, plying it quickly and knitting it up before blocking the yarn. I'll show you the sample once I have blocked it a bit. The yarn was almost 30 wpi, but will probably be more like 25 after blocking.

Boats!

midnightsky@midnightskyfibers.com — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 06:48:34 GMT

I can legally drive a boat! Again! Hmm...not that I couldn't before...

They changed the boating rules to require people in reverse age (i.e. youngest to oldest) to have a license to prove they know the rules of boating. I found it rather amusing, as many of my questions related to towing a boat or sewage disposal- both of which I consider pretty obvious, but maybe it isn't? I would be more concerned with whether or not people can dock a boat, personally (something I avoid doing on larger boats, even with bow thrusters and video of what you are backing in to...I mean...docking against.).

I'll be going on the boat for a couple weeks coming up (*3 weekends off!*), and we plan on bringing all four kayaks with us (a couple of which are inflatable). Afterwards, I am bringing one down to Seattle to live in the bike room- which already has other people's kayaks too. My parent's cats get to come on the boat with us. They even wear harnesses when outside- mostly tp prevent the one from taking his usual flying leaps overboard. My cat has to stay home though, since he doesn't like other cats! (umm, the boat has more sq ft then where I used to live. And more storage too. People wonder why I want to live on a boat!)

Ok, you are proably as confused why I am getting mail with "Hazardous Materials" papers stuck to the outside (which incidentally, wasn't allowed in a plane, it has to go via ground). I wasn't expecting the package, as it was early. My soda machine has arrived! Complete with two giant (16 inch tall) CO2 canisters, which apparently make it dangerous to transport.

I don't actually drink much pop (in fact, I drink diet 7up and diet pepsi, and that is really about all I will go to any effort to seek out). I do however have a fondness for fizzy water and dry soda. The slightly sweet, naturally flovered, herbal undertones do me in. Not don't get me wrong- I crave a Coke or Root Beer now and again. But on the day to day, I just want fizzy water. Seattle water is good, but tastes like chlorine to me, and is well, boring. However, I hate paying for pop in cans I then have to recycle (and worse, lug back from somewhere) or expensive albeit very tasty dry sodas. I refuse to by actual fizzy water most of the time since it always seems silly to by water I could carbonate myself with a CO2 cartidge. I just never got around to bringing one of the siphons down.

I have to say...I am impressed! I was dubious at first, as the pieces are plastic (the bottles are PET plastic, which I am not concerned about as they are not going in the dishwasher or other high heat), but it seems sturdy enough when all is in place. I like that the cartridges are giant (about 100 1 liters/cartridge) and returnable. Plus, I can have multiple types of soda/juice/flavored water in my house at once. I immediately sat down and made lime soda with a mixer I had in the fridge, lavender soda (my all time fav flavor) with a simple syrup, plain fizzy water, and tried once of their soda mixes, which tasted a lot like Dr. Pepper. Good thing it was hot out today, as I have already had almost 2 liters!

Want to make your own soda but have no carbonation? Do you have yeast? Then you can make soda. That site also has some good cheese recipes- try making panner/panir if you never have before.

I found a really nice low key coffee shop to sit in for awhile today. Most are Starbucks around here, which I don't actually really mind, but they aren't places I can sit to just work or read for awhile. The place reminded me a lot of a coffee shop in Austin, TX that I used to hang out in a lot, and actually made a decent iced Americano. Unpretentious, with low key (thrifted?) seating, perfect for reading my new library books.

(eta: Did you check out my butter bell in the photo above? It actually still works, even in the hot weather!)

midnightsky@midnightskyfibers.com — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:27:52 GMT

Is anyone else having problems with loading yahoo mail? Everything is loading fine for me but yahoo, which seems like it is trying to load a very large ad or something?

Hot out!

midnightsky@midnightskyfibers.com — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 07:12:41 GMT

...This is how hot it is here. Of course, you could also argue that he was just trying to be cute, which is also quite possible. I finally broke down and put some of the "soft paws" on his front claws (accidently forgetting one on each side) since I have been really sensitive to him lately, the minor scratches really making me itch. He was, of course, not impressed by having things glued to his nails, but seems to be leaving them alone otherwise.

More hot weather food. Panna Cotta with rasberries made with agar agar.

Figs in season!

midnightsky@midnightskyfibers.com — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 07:08:52 GMT

Figs are in season! My appetite in the hot weather totally disappears. However, that doesn't stop me from eating a pint of figs in a sitting.

Sweater in progress. I actually started the Dale sweater this is based on and got several inches in before going "wait a minute, I want this in a me size!" Done in Baby Ull, 7 st/inch.

One of the last batts on my drum carder. I need a larger one, still have to order it though. I really want to order an electric one, but I think I will get one that I can electricify later on.

I blame this for getting me hooked on strawberries several weeks ago. Whole Foods is a really dangerous place for me to go! I have been eating a pint of strawberries or raspberries pretty much daily (or twice daily!!) for quite some time now.

Fennel and lavendar with sage in the front. I have a matching vase to this that I use as a doorstop to keep the cat's cupboard door open to the litterbox. They used to be in my grandma's house, which is pretty cool because everyone in the family recognizes them.

Agar agar is an awesome jeller. I rediscovered some powder in the back of my cupboard, and have been going a bit crazy with things that can be jelled. This is toasted carob and coffee flavor, in layers. With raspberry on top.

Succulents 2

midnightsky@midnightskyfibers.com — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 07:00:56 GMT

My newly potted plant tipped over slightly in the car on the way here- just barely- and I have been finding hens and chicks in the car ever since. Whoops! But still far easier to pot it at my panret's house where I can work outside and not worry about the dirk getting in to my carpet.

Cat inspecting plants

midnightsky@midnightskyfibers.com — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 06:59:25 GMT

I am trying for some plants inside that I cannot kill. We shall see. The black bit on the left is the cat inspecting everything closely.

Shuttles 2

midnightsky@midnightskyfibers.com — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 06:58:21 GMT

The shuttle in front has silver inset to it to allow it to be bent to make winding on easier.

Tatting shuttles 1

midnightsky@midnightskyfibers.com — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 06:57:16 GMT

I don't remember blogging about these when they actually arrived... These were handmade for me. My favorite one is the birdseye maple on the bottom.

Pride Parade!

midnightsky@midnightskyfibers.com — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:30:31 GMT

No Pride Parade for me today since I am at work, which I am a bit releived by, as it is really bloody hot here, and the idea of heat + standing around to watch a parade doesn't really appeal! Even with all the windows open, my cat was still sleeping in the sink, which was probably the coolest place in the house.

Nudists

midnightsky@midnightskyfibers.com — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 05:06:53 GMT

The nudists were at the Fremont Solstice. I wish I could say that they inspired me to be a nudist, but it was really quite the opposite. Not really anything else very unusual there, sadly. Looked like LOTS of the same stuff from booth to booth.