It's UFO time, and  I'm not talking generally about my Unbelievable Fiber Obsession, but  am trying to attack a specific problem within my stash; a massive pile of Un-Finished Objects or as we fiber obsessed people (and crafters everywhere) call them, UFO's.

Anyone who knows me well (and some who don't) know that I have a case of "start-itis", a term I lovingly stole from another fiber artist on one of the many lists I subscribe to.  I come up with new ideas, sometimes write them down, and start them.  Finishing isn't my strength <----understatement of the year.  So the stack of UFO's in my stash is quite impressive, maybe 20+ ok, more like 30.  OK, lets be honest I just have no idea how many items are out there floating around, waiting for some attention. And if you counted all of the supplies I purchased with a specific project in mind and haven't started...well, let's just not go there now as I'm feeling good about progress made recently, and don't want to rain on my own parade.

In the past I've tried new project  "diets" that  required me to finish one UFO in between each new item started.  It worked for a while, but then I'd find that I needed something small and brainless to work on while at the PTA meeting, sitting on line, waiting during ballet class...so I'd grab some yarn and two to five pointy sticks and whammo...great plans out the window (but nifty new hat started, cool :)

So on the verge of the Spring craft shows, and updating Amy's gallery with seasonal items,  I am grabbing some of these bad boys and plodding through the pile, putting the proper Spring UFO's at the top of the heap. This past weekend I finished a beautiful sari silk triangle shawl that I started over a year ago.  Yesterday I finished a yarn necklace that's been sitting in my bead box for a few months, and I worked for a few hours on the hairpin lace scarf shown in the photo, started last summer?   I plan to finish that today.   As I finish each, I find new things hiding  and add them to my queue.  Some of them  only need a half hour of my time to finish up, and it feels really good to have completed things to photograph, sell, gift, and show off.  After a bit of progress I feel confident that my persistence will pay off.

Ooh...gotta run, I just got an idea for a new spinning technique and need to go try it out...

Hiatus?  Really?  No, not really, just no time to take pics or post new projects lately.  I've been working on an original technique that I'm not ready to share yet, trying to perfect it so I can make a kit to sell.  Craig is a big believer in "make it once, sell it over and over", and he's right, sort of.  My kit will include both a bit of handmade (by me) parts, commercial parts, and a pattern to put it all together.  So it'll still be unique to TemptressYarn of course.  Details coming in a few weeks, I hope--I'm not much of a graphic designer and not sure how to put an instruction booklet together for printing.  That part will be hard.  I may try to find someone to help with that part...will see.

I've also been working like crazy to get some Springy things made to take to my Sister Amy's gallery in Greenport, NY:  Winterharborstudio is on Main Street, open weekends and a few other days and for Greenport's monthly gallery walks. (And I need to update her web site to reflect all that and more!)   I've been doing some lightweight felting, knit and crochet handbags and I hope to finish a few spring shawls and scarf ufo's that have been kicking around here.  Will go pull the wintry things next weekend and swap them out, or at least that's the plan. My friend Jen has been making some new felt soaps to stock up there as well--so to add color to the site, here's a pic I swiped from her web site, LillyZoo.com   She is also on Etsy as Lillyzoo :

She has some easier technique that works in her washing machine for felting soaps so I envy her that.  Soap felting is work....well, maybe not hard work but lots of time for little profit, so anything that makes it faster/easier is the way to go.  Customers literally eat them up, so it's great to have a stock (well, maybe not literally eating them, but you know what I mean).  Anyhow,  my washing machine ate the soaps when I tried to make them in there...can you say "shrinkage?"  So I have to do them by hand, which means I rarely get around to it.

Off to finish our TAXES, eeeeeew.  And then housework and fiber fun (that should be sometime around Thursday, I think).  With luck I'll get some fun things to look at here in the next few days...

Last year I purchased two lovely, small Navajo Churro fleece from Barbara at Flint Run Farm.  I was attracted by the "rare breed" idea as well as the fact that she had a few smaller fleeces for sale compared to others I had seen available.  The thought of smaller amounts of wool to process really enticed me as someone relatively new to raw fleece (not wanting to get in over my head and all--I would never do that, grin).  This year, with my renewed interest in  fleece prep that came from a successful attempt in the washing machine, I decided to purchase a few more fleeces from Barbara,  despite the fact that I still have a fair amount of last years' left.  I inquired and ended up purchasing three small fleeces that arrived today. 

I heard the postal van transmission whining down my street, and then heard the telltale "thump" that means a package has arrived.  I looked out the door to see a giant plastic canvas bag like you might imagine Santa Claus carrying over his shoulder.  Strange, I thought....then realized there was cardboard inside the bag....even stranger yet.  Why would Barbara ship fleece inside a box, inside a bag?  After a bit more inspection of the package, I realized that her box was inside an "official USPS" bag because of some kind of  postal accident (the kind you can only imagine):

So there it was, in all it's glory.  Three fleeces in bags, each bag ripped somewhat with fleece peeking out.  And then there's this:

Thoughts on this accident ran through my mind, not necessarily in this order:

"How, where, and why did this happen?"  and   "Thank goodness I don't buy antique Tiffany lamps"  and of course the best of all "I wonder what the people at the post office think I do with bags full of greasy sheep fleeces.  I can just imagine the looks on their (very, very, suburbanite) faces"   That third thought made me smile...a LOT...in fact, I'm still smiling about it.

In all, no harm was done.  The fleeces (Faith, Nancy, and Grace) were intact and in great shape, well skirted without too much dirt or vm.  Even the invoice and photos of my new sheepy friends survived without a crease, despite being found in the bottom of that box!  And I immediately opened one of the fleeces up and here it is--from Nancy.  I put half in the washer and it's already halfway finished, turning from this to a nice creamy white as I write this:

I'm sure more Navajo Churro posts will pop up, since I now have so much to work with.  I do hope this  post is the last I need to make about postal mishaps.  Happy spinning and good night.

Just a vent tonight about a hat I've been knitting from my Winter Wonderland yarn.  I have frogged this freaking (frogging) hat so many times that I've lost count.  Tried to make a roll brim with seed stitch and it turned out to be big enough for a giant, plus the brim didn't roll much due to all the beads and sequins in the yarn, and my seed stitch sucked...pearls where there should have been knits, knits where there should have been pearls, aargh.  (Note to self--and others if you're listening--do not take seed stitch projects out and about to work on where you can't concentrate.  It wil not work out right and you'll be sorry.)  Next I settled on k3p3 rib changing over to stockinette, which went along fine.  I wanted to do some fancy openwork as a kind of top beyond the peak--a little detail to match the neck warmer I made with the other skein, and it's failed twice so far.  The latest version looks like a blender got hold of it.  Whose dumb idea was it to make those twisty dreads at the top edge anyhow?  Oh yeah.  My brain said "don't do it" but my hands did it anyhow.  I saw this technique on TV once and had to try it for myself.  Bad idea, I tell ya.  Like Dr. Seuss on steroids...which gives me an idea:  maybe congress can investigate my hat  and stop wasting time (and our tax dollars) on Roger.

Alright, enough baseball talk.  It will be summer before I get this thing finished, but I am so determined NOT to let another thing go into the UFO heap.  I love making things up as I go along, but this goes to show that sometimes a pattern is worth a couple of bucks, no?

Off to frog and give it one more try before I cash in the chips and make it a plain old beanie.  One good thing comes from all the cussing and griping I've put myself through for this hat:  I learned that my handspun can take the ripping, hold up and still look great.  That's a plus that I had counted on, but it's nice to be sure.