Here's my craft room!

I cleaned up my craft room a bit today and took pictures before I had a chance to mess it up again! Now it's not perfect, and I may have too much stuff, but it's as clean as it been in weeks if not longer. Besides it's hard to be creative without at least a little bit of a mess going on!
This first picture is what you see standing in the doorway.

This picture is directly to the right of the door when you enter. You can see some cards I have on disply above my computer table. You can't see my laptop because it's hiding behind the comfy chair I got from my hubby cuz he wanted me to be comfy while working in my room! :) To the left of the table is the printer and a bunch of scrapbooking paper.

This picture is of my sewing nook. It's in pretty bad shape right now. I'm WAY behind on MANY many sewing projects! LOL Oh and the little TV tray there in front is the kid's crafting table. It works out perfectly when the room is clean because they can put what they're using on my big table, and when they're done it all goes back on the tray. That way it doesn't get in my way when I'm working.

This is the table where I do a lot of fiber and yarn dyeing as well as fiber blending. And this is aldo the table where I use my knitting machine. I haven't spent much time with my kitting machine since I got the drum carder though. Oh yeah and you can see all the boxes and bags under the table. Most of that is where I store my fiber stash. But some of it is fabric. The fabric is trying to take over! But the yarn, spinning fiber, and paper are definatley giving the fabric a run for its money! Oh yeah and the red bin is full of yarn!

This is my spinning corner and closet. The big tall wierd looking thing is my macine quilting frame. All the white drawers are full of fabric as is the shelf above that doesn't show very well. The hanging shelves are full of yarn both hand spun and commercial. The pink drawers on the Left are full of MANY other crafty things!
This wall is where I keep my stamps (the cabinet is full of stamps too!) and my ribbon. My ribbon collection makes me very happy!

And last but certainly not least this is my scrapbooking desk. It is packed full of stamping and scrapbooking supplies. I think it's about to explode! LOL!!

Oh and you can see a little bit of the table that is in the middle of the room in this picture as well. That is where I really work on current projects. This table has many different things going on at any given moment. Seeing as how there's no space on my scrapbooking desk this is where I scrapbook, it's also where the kids work on their crafts, and where friends scrapbook with me. I've also used it to wind yarn into balls, and dye roving. And it used to be the kitchen table so it's been through a few canning seasons, and hundreds of dinners. Awww, I think I like this table! Too bad you can only see a few inches of it huh? Oh well. Anyway I hope you liked this little tour of my room. You can see there's a LOT going on in here. Maybe I need a bigger room? Oh hunny!

5 kids + a full time student for a husband = crazy

Holy cow! It's been forever since I last posted! It would appear that I've not done anything, but that is just not the case. I've done a LOT, I just have had a hard time finding the time to post about it lately. You see, my very hard working hubby has just gone back to school full time, and I have realized how utterly lazy I was b-4 when he was a "normal" husband that came home from work every day and didn't spend all night doing homework. While I was pregnant with the twins and basically threatened to be put in the hospital indeffinatley if I did anything around the house my hubby did a LOT! And I'll be honest, I liked that! So I kinda let him continue to do whatever I didn't want to do for a while after the twins were born (I had to recover right?). Well, now he doesn't have time, so I'm back to doing just about everything I did b-4 the whole twin pregnancy thing (he still helps out a lot though), only now there are 5 kids to keep out of the dishwasher (though only 2 of them really try to climb in), and read to, and feed, and wash laundry for, and help with homework, and keep track of who went where etc. And somehow with all of this I do find time to do stuff, just not much time to post about it though. I'd like to change all that! So, I'm taking back my blog! I plan to post much more often than I have been.

Hmmm... now as I recall I left off at some yarn and batts? Well I'd like to finally share with you what I knit up with that first VERY bulky yarn that I spun on my wheel (I'd also like to note that I'm really happy with how this dyed up). It's a Quant, you can find the pattern for FREE online at http://www.knitty.com/ in their archives.

I did have to alter the pattern a bit to work with my yarn though. My yarn is MUCH more bulky than what was called for, so I used bigger needles, and took out one of the square repeats across. And it's a good thing too because this thing turned out just the right size. I think it would've been too big if I'd followed the pattern. Well, that and I would've run out of yarn. I only had about 90yds to begin with. So to anyone looking for a great project to knit up that doesn't take a lot of yarn I vote for this one!

Then there were some batts. Well I finally dyed them, and I must say I LOVE how they turned out! Just LOOK! These spun up like a DREAM! I spun some super fine singles, and navajo plied it (for those that don't know what navajo plying is it's a plying method that creates a 3 ply yarn with a single strand and can help to maintain colors for striping. You can see how it's done on http://www.youtube.com/) for a really pretty fingering weight yarn with really long stripes. I think the stripes are about 10 yards long or so. I have only spun up half of it so far, but I have about 220 yards so far (that's enough for ankle socks). Here's the yarn I ended up with:

And then last but certainly not least there was that roving that I dyed. Well I'm happy to say that it turned out to be 513 yards of a fabulous fingering weight yarn! It'll make some really nice socks one day when I find just the perfect pattern. I'm calling it "Pink Lemonaid"


Well I think that's it for this post. I have lots more yarn to share, but that'll have to wait for another day. Now I have to go find the new stuffed doggy that my 3yo got for her birthday.
Have a great weekend!