Ashburton Beauty

As I've talked about before I had been working on spinning some Merino wool from Gritty Knits called Ashburton. I absolutely loved the colors which remind me of a rich, bold sunset so I handled the fiber in a way to keep those colors as they are, separate and beautiful. 

I spilt it the long way into smaller pieces then individually drafted each of them. I then spun them fine end to end. 

The roving split into pieces. 

On the bobbin.

This bobbin picture is when it was finished. It took a lot of spinning hours to spin it this way. I knew I wanted to chain ply it so I just kept going, spinning fine. 

I let it rest overnight and plied the next day. It's a good thing I was camping and had lots of spinning time because it took about 7 hours to ply!!

That is plied yarn going onto the bobbin! Doesn't it look great?! I love it.

The finished skein is a little overpriced, which is normal for me and I prefer that to under plied so I'm good with it.

I absolutely love the look of it though and the ply-twist did relax a bit in washing.

Here's a look at how fine it really is. 

These skeined pictures are from before washing, I wanted to show pictures of it washed as well but it was washed on Sunday morning and still isn't totally dry! The hazards of the spring rainy season, I guess. It's been so dark anyway that I don't know that I could get it to photograph well anyway. 

It really didn't change much in washing except the ply-twist softening a bit as I said and I'm very happy with the skein which is about 650 yards!! 

I can't wait to knit something amazing with it!

Knit Camp Recap

I'm sorry for the long silence blog-friends. I sort of flamed out on re-entry.

I was camping. Well, it was more like glam-ping. A knitting friend and I headed out to our third round of what we call Knit Camp. We rented a cabin at a Minnesota State Park. It's pretty comfortable actually with electricity and heat. You just have to walk to the bathroom. Which is a vault toilet. (Think mini biff in a solid little shed building.)

Here's a look at the outside of the cabin. We were in Maple at Lake Bemidji State Park. Even though it's a drive to get there we like the quiet atmosphere and being surrounded by the trees. So peaceful. 

Can you see George Fredrick IX there? 

He had a grand old time hanging out with the spider who lived on the porch, Milicent. 

William preferred to hang out with the drum carder though.

That's my friend's lovely Romney going onto the carder. Isn't it gorgeous? It has a lovely sort of shiny quality in real life. Since it was just the two of us this time we had plenty of space in the cabin so we both brought our spinning wheels and got so much done! It's lovely having no interruptions. 

I finally finished the singles of my Ashburton and even plied it but I will save those pictures for spinning Tuesday as it is still waiting for a soak and twack. 

We ate excellent food, relaxed and had a grand old time. We even slept really well thanks to the memory foam mattress pads we ordered and brought (the provided beds are a little hard for our taste).

We even had our Camp Knit-Til-U-Drop sign in our window. I'm not sure what the neighboring cabin thought!
Of course all too soon it was time to pack up and leave.

The cabin always looks sort of sad when it's cleaned up and we are leaving.
Despite all the relaxation and the great sleep, it was somehow still hard to come back to real life and get back into my usual routine. I was exhausted Monday, Tuesday was struggling with some anxiety which wore me out all over again and I'm finally starting to feel like myself again. 

I definitely recommend camping with knitting friend though. It was a blast as usual. 

Midori Weekly Set up

Today is Midori Monday but I thought it would be fun to show off not only the completed page from last week but also a little look at how I set up the current week.

So first up, here's week 14 all complete.

At the end I went a little crazy with the stickers in the blank space since I was so excited about the drive-in opening and I bought a bunch of stickers for the movies we were going to see. 

Last week is over now and it's time to start setting up this week. I try to do this before Sunday night but sometimes it doesn't work out that way. So here is a look at the blank spread when I first turn to it.

It isn't quite blank. I did put a sticker on it when I scheduled my day off so I wouldn't forget and that will stay so we will just work around it.

I usually start by drawing my little square for the weather.

Then on the right side I create my time tracker. I start with the long vertical line.

Then add in the other details.

Of course I had to write the pm a little wonky but it's fine. At the very top I have the days of the week, the times down the left and then space below to write descriptions. Mostly I track my sleeping patterns here which helps me make sure I'm not having other issues. (Too much sleep and still tired can mean depression and not enough sleep usually means I end up getting sick.) 

To the right of the time tracker, at the top I put my weekly chart which will track any daily tasks and tasks I try to do multiple times in a week. So, I draw in the base.

I should also mention that for all of this I sometimes use a ruler but often just freehand which is what I did here. To some it would be super messy but it's fine for me. I really don't mind if the lines are a little wavy. Once the base of the chart is in, I start filling in details.

I color code almost everything in my own system so as I fill things in, it's the right color. As you can see I also added our work times on the left here. 

Next up is decoration. I will be totally honest. Sometimes a I do this first, sometimes last. It just depends on the mood I'm in and whether I have a specific plan for the week. This time I had my lovely stickers from Happie Scrappie that I wanted to use. Aren't they cute? They're the stationery theme so I got them all together and then chose a sheet of Planning Made Perfect stickers that was similar colors. I also picked a washi tape that I thought went with them and started decorating,

The biggest trick for me in decorating the midori is to be sure and leave room for my task lists. Under my weekly chart I also set up some goals for the week. I try to do between 3 and 5 goals depending on how busy the week is and how long each of the tasks will take. I don't always finish them. That's something I'm working on.

Once the goals are filled in then I added a note that the remaining space will be used for notes. 

Then I'm ready to start filling in the tasks for each day.

So that's a quick look at how I get my week set up in my midori. I hope you enjoyed it!