Where've I Been?

Ara knows I've been spending the last few weeks chained to the kitchen table while I worked on the swap item for Sans. I had to stay away from the blog to prevent any temptation of blogging about the project. Unfortunately mum is still the word until the big unveiling on Halloween.

On top of that our washing machine decided to die the day before my birthday. We went and looked at some and ended up getting one I wasn't overly fond of in favor of the high energy efficiency idea. In short, the new machine sucks rotten eggs. I hate it. The only thing good about it is it looks cool. We have since gone back to the store and told them they are going to take it back from whence it came and trade it in on a new washer dryer set that is more like what I wanted in the first place. Not sure when this drama will officially be over, but I believe it will be sometime after the hE washer is gone and the new set is delivered and installed. Here is what my hallway looks like right now and it will only get worse as the days pass.
Even Confetti is afraid to go down there. The piles of laundry are scary!

My workroom (glorified craft closet) is also terrifying.
But I have no intentions of dealing with it for at least a few weeks.

I also have been stealing time to work on the lighthouse cross stitch. Luckily one of the special interest groups for our Stitcher's Guild is "Counted Threads" so I was able to stitch at our meeting last week. As of this moment I just need to finish the rock at the bottom with one color and complete the remaining back-stitching. I have to have this finished, blocked, and framed by Friday.
Somehow I found the time to work on more of the layette I showed you all a few weeks ago. Here's the bonnet. I still need to make the ties, do the trim, and do the decorative motifs. The recipient was born Thursday morning, but this won't fit her until Easter so I don't have to rush.

Yesterday was the Annual Spin In for the Bishop Hill Fiber Guild. It was an extremely productive day. I met other people on Ravelry, did the work on the bonnet, learned how to use my spinning wheel, bought a fleece, picked up a nice skein of Merino, played with Angora bunnies, and took a class in microwave dying.This fleece is from a sweet little ewe lamb named Beyonce. If you click here you can hop to the website with her picture. She is a Romney crossed with a Border Leicester-Wensleydale cross.I am going to enjoy this once the new washer gets here.

The dying class was a lot of fun. We learned how to use acid dyes, Kool Aid, and Wilton Cake dyes for fibers. These two pictures show fiber I dyed with acid dyes.This one shows fiber I painted with Wilton Cake dye.
Once the color is on, you wrap the fiber in saran wrap and put it in the microwave. I took these pictures after the fiber was cooled and rinsed. I plan in spinning the actual roving at some point. I'm not sure what I will do with the mixed yarns from the first photo.

Tuesday our Guild's quilters are meeting to discuss what types of techniques we want to learn and see who wants to teach them. If I can get to it, I may take the purple and blue quilt to get basted...maybe.

I do have some minis that need to be made before Christmas. And an ornament for the Stitcher's Guild ornament exchange... and gifts for family, etc to be working on for the next several weeks.

That's pretty much everything worth mentioning. Here's hoping the washer issue gets resolved quickly so I can quit making phone calls and dealing with it. I know I have some new followers to welcome and a couple of awards to accept. I will try to get to that Monday. There's just so much to do and so much to catch up on.