Guidelines (NOT RULES):

1. Spin every day the Tour rides, if possible. Saturday July 4th through Sunday July 26th. Days of rest: Monday July 13th, Monday July 20th. (Just like the actual tour)
2. Spin something challenging Wednesday July 22nd. (The Tour’s densest mountain stage with 5 mountain passes)
3. Take a button if you want one. Then we can use the button on our blogs in show of solidarity. Take it from here or grab a clean one from the flickr pool. Come join the flickr pool!
4. Wear yellow on Sunday July 26th to announce victory. Why not wear yellow on any day you feel particularly successful? (Yellow is the color of the race leader in the Tour – but here we are all ‘race leaders’)
5. Other colors if desired: Green (sprinter – think FAST), Polka-dot (climber – as in uphill), and white (rookie)

Teams: Join one, or many, or none.

• Rookies (first years)
• Sprinters (fast and/or high mileage like lace)
• Climbers (conquer mountains, big personal challenges)
• Breakaway (Art yarns)
• Peloton (The main group. Everyone is in the peloton at some point)
• Lantern rouge (You will participate as much as possible but you may skip days here and there. Cheerleaders welcome.)
• Wildcards (This is for people who want to form their own team. This includes sponsored teams, like those affiliated with a specific fiber shop or people who live in the same town, etc.)

This is all done on ravelry, and it’s not too late to join so if your interested head on over to here(ravelry link)

Do I have pictures? No. Why? Cause my camera battery dies and i have yet been able to buy a new one yet.

I also started a new craft. Digital Scrapbooking or Digi-Scrappin which is.. well addictive. I have been doing lots of layouts and having lots of fun. I started a digital scrapbook(aka another blog) which you can view here. I am also on a Creative Team! but more about that in another post. So I’ll be posting updates about that all and about my designers new kits and such. there may even be freebies for Digi-Scrappin available here on this blog sometime soon.

I guess that’s all for today.

Hopefully I will be back soon!

I hope you have been enjoying the made mondays as much as I have they are really cool I think and I get to explore etsy and other shops like that. If you have bought something from one of our sellers let me know. I would love to share some of YOUR experiences with the other readers.  Also if you want me to feature your product please feel free to contact me via the contact button on the upper left.

I have been spinning, I recently got Jacey Boggs‘s DVD Sit and Spin and dug out some fibre and went to work.  An hour later I had this wonderful Corespun wool with cocoons which you can all learn how to spin with her dvd.

As you may have noticed I have been doing a lot of spinning lately, mostly on my Ashford Traditional wheel which is really something new for me and I’m really enjoying it. It does mean tho that I am getting flooded with all this new information, and fibres and techniques. As I was trying to remember how each item felt as I spun it, what I thought of the finished yarn, how I plyed it, and how it knit I realised I really need start keeping track of all. So I dug through my box of journals and journalling material and found the perfect journal.. only it wasn’t a journal. It was a hardback copy of Diana Diamond’s Good Sister which I picked up slightly damaged at a local library for 20 cents.  So I got down to work and dug through my Art Journal/Altered Books supplies and came up with the supllies I needed.

I removed the dust cover and saved that for later art projectsand decided that this great three dimensional cardboard “dream” sticker that is meant for a wedding page was perfect for the cover. Using some other accents from the same pack to add some zing to cover. Next I wanted to cover the previous title along the binding, so i dug throgh all of my book binders tapes almost went with the black until I saw a tape that had been trwon in the box by accident it was silver and shiney. It was Duct Tape.

I knew that once this journal started getting big I was going to need a way to keep it closed, after a few thoughts I got out my drill. Using a 2mm drill bit (in retrospect  I should have maybe went with a 3mm) I drilled a hole through the front cover  and using a vintage shank button and a medium four holed button from and old shirt and elastic thread I attached the button.  On the oustide and on the back of the book in the same place using a 6mm drill bit made a hole atthe same height but a bit further in and attached a piece of leather thonging with a bit of glue. I made the leather long enough to wrap arounde the whole book once and a half. Closure done.

Next came the title page/ splash page of when you first open the book. Using two differnt but coordinating scarpbooking papers I  I went to covering the existing pages. I then wanted to put some kind of title page digging through some of my random free graphic I got from Smashing Magazine and fun fonts from Dafont I made this simple image in GIMP(free equivilant to photoshop).

Then last thing to do was start the actual journalling so I dug out the left overs from my first handspun and start the entry for that. I had decided that there were a few things I was going to write about for at least each yarn I could write about more if need be. I also needed to cover the old writeing so I used some more of my scrap book papers also to combat with growing thickness I ripped out three pages after this one then glued those two pages together. That is that and my spinning journal.

This is some of her hand dye which you have to wait up and stalk the the site obsessively when you find out she is doing an update(she alerts you via her rav group) and literally the first top will start and you will have a frenzy of the shark like spinners going for their tops, you find the one you wanted click on it a four others that you think are pretty and then check out to find that two of them disappeared from your order snatched away in the last moments from your cart. That’s okay though because that’s why you put four in your cart.  Then you get it and realize that Mandie has dyed your yarn by mixing crack in with the dye and a bit of LSD too, it is nearly impossible to spin up just a little bit of this wool you MUST SPIN IT ALL!

This was my first experience with EGMTK and I have to say I was addicted, I mean I ‘m a sucker for  alpaca to begin with but this this was absolute divine goodness, it was like angel alpaca. So soft drafted like a bloody dream, and ZOMG amazing colours. When it came to plying I knew I wanted to ply it with something else cause I wanted max meterage, problem was I had no other wool to ply spin with and I was stuck. A forage through my stash for other purposes came up with a 800g cone of aqua sock wool a friend scored from the sallies. AH-HA! I took that out and ran it quickly through the wheel to give it some extra twist, let it sit for a bit then plied it all together.

I named this Otsego Lake because it reminded me of swimming in the lake at dusk and the angle of the sun and colours in the sky on a calm night looked as if they were coming from the lake it’s self. I ended up getting about 300 meters out of it and decided that I wanted it to be a simple scarf, so soon as it dried  I balled it up and started knitting. I decided to use my favorite stitch seed stitch so that it would show off the beautiful colours so well.

I am so happy with the way it look sI often find myself staring at it and going my how pretty it is… I have about a 45cm done on it and it keeps growing. It is sooo soft too, I just can’t believe it.  I renamed the scarf water lily because it reminds me so much of Monet’s work around his gardens. I have more to talk about but i will leave that for another post, I have a new WIP to show off and a lace one none the less!