Humongous post about everything imaginable...

Well, I obviously haven't blogged in a while. This is mostly due to the fact that I've been busy. My summer job working at the Severson's farm has been going well. I've been enjoying it as much as anyone can enjoy a pretty repetitive, on-your-feet-half-the-day job. However, the pay is good and I've been enjoying building up my fiber stash.
       My birthday was on August 3, which you probably all know already. I picked the meals, as usual, and chose pancakes for breakfast. Then I went to work from 9-2. Most people might not want to work on their birthdays, but I decided that would be my birthday present to myself. I couldn't really think of anything else in particular that I wanted to do, so I went on a shopping trip to Le Mouton Rouge and spent my own birthday money. I bought this for myself:

It's Polwarth, a breed of sheep, in the colorway 'Chipotle'. This is my first time spinning Polwarth, and I'm definitely enjoying it. I think I'm going to make a pair of socks for myself. I also added on to the order Rebekah placed on KnitPicks.com. I bought roving in the color 'Salsa Heather'.

I don't know yet what I'm going to make out of this. I also placed an order for some silk and sparkle, but the company emailed me to say that my order had been 'slightly' delayed and would ship in 6-8 weeks! I decided to cancel the order and keep the money. As it turned out, I didn't keep it for long... More about that later.
       As many of you know, last week I had opening night for Annie Jr. I made only one mistake: I sang the wrong line. Since then, I've messed up a couple times, but I haven't forgotten any lines yet. Interestingly enough, the part that I was most worried about was the costume change at the end. I was worried about not having enough time, because I am arrested by a secret service agent who takes me out the front, and then I have to run around to the back of the building to change back into my original costume in the amount of time it takes to sing two songs. So far, that has gone really well. I've decided that I really enjoy acting, and for whatever reason I don't get very nervous at all. I asked one of the directors who also directs at the high school if I could audition for high school plays, and she said that I'd have to ask the principal. Also, the Morris theatre guild is going to be performing The Miracle Worker, which is about the life of Helen Keller, early next year. I'm thinking about trying out for that. I forgot to mention that Rebekah and Mom went to my opening night. When they came out of the door to congratulate me etc., I noticed that Mom was carrying a tissue wrapped parcel. I was expecting it to be flowers, but when I looked inside... :

Fiber! I was super excited! Rebekah had gone to Le Mouton Rouge earlier that day, and while she was there Mom bought this for me. It's merino in the color 'Swamp Thing'.
 As I already mentioned, I've been buying and acquiring a lot of fiber. One of the biggest shopping sprees I went on you may have already read about on Rebekah's blog:
Stitches Midwest!

Stitches is a big event! There were lots of vendors there, including almost every fiber shop I've been to (i.e., Esther's Place and The Fold). I had researched thoroughly which vendors had the cheapest fiber, and so I went with a plan: a printed map of the booths with all the ones I wanted to go to named and a path drawn to each one.
I bought a russian supported spindle from Carolina Homespun (I didn't have one of those):

Merino/bamboo/silk roving and Blue-faced Leicester (another sheep breed) from Lisa Souza Dyeworks:

 A few sample braids of roving (Blue faced Leicester, Polwarth, and Merino), of which I already spun one and some of; and a full sized braid of BFL in Cider House (last picture).

 And last but not least, a big ball of Potluck Roving in 'Party Time'. I love the colors but I'm not sure what I want to make out of it since the colors aren't quite my type, there's too much pink and purple.

 I think that concludes the biggest blog post I've ever written, and I think in the future I shall try to split it up and blog as things happen!

Annie

        So far, my rehearsals are going well. I'm really enjoying it so far, and I'm glad I decided to do it. I've realized that I really enjoy the singing and acting, but I don't enjoy having to memorize all the choreography.
       
        We haven't started working at our friends farm yet, but we are hopefully going to next Monday.
       
        I had a lot of fun on vacation, and I might write more about it later.

Yesterday was the meet and greet for my play. Unfortunately, I didn't find out about it until it was over because I didn't get the e-mail. However, I went after it was over and got my script. I had a pretty crazy day yesterday. First, I went to help our friend unpack her storage facility so she could decide what to get rid of and what to send to California, where she moved to a few years ago. Stephen and I droving down to the building around nine am. Since she wasn't there yet, Stephen and I loaded a futon that she offered to us into our van. Then we helped her move stuff around so she could figure out what to take. I'm super excited, because she gave me a thirty quart turkey fryer/steamer/boiler that I'm going to use for dyeing! Stephen and I came home at about twelve-thirty. After I ate lunch, I gave Cuddles a bath. Then, about an hour later Mom made all of us lay down and rest because Katherine has been sick. Much to my surprise, I fell asleep and didn't wake up for two hours, at five-thirty! I needed to go to a piano lesson at ten til five, so I let out Cuddles, and ate supper. Then, I was off in the car to my lesson, which was at our church. After I finished my lesson, I helped with the sound system for someone else, then I went downstairs for prayer. About two minutes before it ended, I was startled by someone tapping on my shoulder. Mary Ann was standing there, and she hadn't even come to prayer as far as I knew! She motioned to me to leave, and I was even more surprised, but I left anyway. Mary Ann told me on the way out that there was a meeting for my play that night that I had missed! Mom told me that one of the organizers said that she would stay at the Morris Theatre Guild until I came to get my script, so that was why Mom had Mary Ann get me before it was over. We drove over to the theater, and I picked up my script and the schedule. I'm very glad to report that there aren't any rehearsals until the eighth, which is the day we get back from vacation. Finally, Anna, Mary Ann, and I went over to another friends house to help her stuff bean bags for the game in which one tries to throw the bags in the hole. It was nice that I was able to see how exactly she did it, because I offered to make a set for my uncle. Well, so that was my crazy day. We're leaving to go to Tennessee on Monday early in the morning. I'm super excited, but I feel like the vacation is going to be over in a flash. In addition to all my other activities, I'm starting to write a novel. We'll see how that goes. 

Softball again

Well, I forgot about softball until now. Ugh! Anyway, we won, and I hit the ball well but didn't make it on base ever. I played catcher again, and didn't really do anything worth noting. The wind was really crazy, and the ball was blowing all over the place, so there were a lot of foul balls.

Softball

Today began the softball season for my church. This year, I decided that I wanted to play, I wasn't sure before, and I wasn't old enough, but I played today. I didn't do as well as I'd like but I had one base on balls out of three or four at bats, and I caught a foul tip when I played catcher. Julia's birthday is also today, so after the game we went and had Oberweis ice cream. Except for Kristian, he chose raspberry sorbet. Mint Chip was my choice, and Julia wanted Birthday Cake, which I thought was appropriate for the occasion. I drove to the game and back, so I'm a few hours closer to getting my license. I'm still not sure if I like driving in general; I like spinning or reading in the back seat too. Our next softball game is next Monday, so I'll probably blog about that too. We lost today, by the way.

Fiber and a new spindle!

On Wednesday, a new spindle arrived on my doorstep. Ok, well it didn't actually touch the doorstep; I grabbed it right out of the mail carriers hand. Politely, of course. It's a spindlepop, and it fits inside a mini M&M's tube.

I dyed the fiber on it with easter egg dyes. Here's another picture of it next to one of my other spindles:

 The other spindle in the picture is also 'wearing' fiber I dyed with easter egg dyes. I've been doing a lot of easter egg dyeing lately:

That's about 10 ounces of fiber that I dyed. Hopefully I'll spin it up soon and post pictures here.

 

Local Yarn Store

So, yesterday I brought about six of my hand-spun yarn skeins to Le Mouton Rouge  to try and sell it. Hopefully this will turn into a profitable business!