Easily Distracted (Oooh! Shiney!)

It has been some time since I've posted and that is primarily because I've been spinning more than knitting. I admit that I can become easily distracted and the spinning took up a lot more time over the last month or so that I had anticipated. The little wheel I got from New Zealand has been given away since it just did not spin fast enough for me. I loved how it looked and if I had been a more patient person I could have just made lace weight singles very very slowly on it. Grass grows faster! So off it went. In the mean time, I picked up some Wensleydale X and Teeswater X fleece from Lowder Colours Farm . The grey fleece is the Wensleydale and the sheep was named Madonna. The White fleece is the Teeswater X and that sheep's name as Tal. I don't know why it matters to me that I know their names but it actually adds a little something to the spinning experience :-) That's not all the fleece I've got lately but I'll show them as I actually get to using them. I used a flick carder on the locks and spun from the tips for a nice two ply lace weight. As an experiment I'm making a doily pattern on US 1 needles and I can already tell that twisted stitches don't stand up with this as they might with thread which is more rigid. The detail on the flowers is lost. If I make a shawl with this yarn I will change the twisted stitches and perhaps replace them with a cable cross so they stand out more. The pattern is from an old Anna magazine from August 1996 and is referred to only as "Mitteldecke" I've also been spinning a nice lace weight from batts of "Goblin Market" that I bought from Enchanted Knowl Farm that has Merino, Angelina, Silk and bits of Sari silk. I have continued to buy spindles at a frightening rate but I just can't help myself. I purchased the first two from Spunky Eclectic. The first is a spindle by True Creations in Chakte-Koh the next a Jenkins Turkish in Ambonya. Next we have two IST spindles. The first is Oak burl with brass shavings in the cracks in the wood and the second is Ambonya, The next three are by Brandywine Woodworking and are labeled. The last one is a Spalted Tamarind Turkish Delight purchased from The Wheel Thing. Whew!

As you may have noticed, I have done a little housekeeping. I have given up on the Princess Shawl for now and also trashed the Dragon of Happiness shawl that I was going to make for my niece. I just could not get interested in either so my niece will be getting a version of Aeolian instead. I'm still working on Goldregen but have a long way to go on those US 000 needles. I'm going to try to force myself to stop with the spinning and weaving so I can get a little more lace done!

Sinusitis = Tedium ( Lose your voice, lose your mind)

It doesn't happen to me very often, but sometimes my allergies get the better of me and I end up with a sinus infection and loose my voice. To say that I hate this is an understatement. I snot a lot, have to grunt and point at things in response to questions and the codeine in my cough syrup makes me fall asleep over knitting or reading. Still, being home gave me time to work on some things. Since focus is a challenge, I only did a little bit more of Goldregen. The first shots are up to row 109, about half way up the chart. I really enjoy knitting this pattern but I'm going to wait until I feel better and the antibiotics kick in to do more of this. I went on Etsy and bought several sets of Diz and threaders from GVPencheff (curly maple, Corian and Red Oak Diz and threaders of maple, Oak and Corian) I got the Corian set to use with dyed fleece. I spent time processing fleece and using the Diz sets to make rovings off of my mini combs. The CVM lamb fleece is another acquisition from The Fiber Denn as is the blue Cormo below it. The light colored roving is also CVM and the Grey/Brown is Rambouillet. The bobbins show the singles from the Rambouillet that I'm spinning. I also have shots of the 50/50 merino silk lace weight I made from the roving I got from Blue Moon Fiber Arts in the "Iris" colorway. as well as the lace weightPolworth locks I purchased from A Verb For Keeping Warm in the "Butterfly Wings" colorway. Lastly, my final shipment of the Team "B" fiber club from Black Bunny Fibers. It s a Border Leicster and Kid Mohair called Red Maple II. I now have so much fiber that I guess it was fortunate I was too sick to go to "Colors, A Fiber Festival" this weekend. No hyperlinks with this post as I'm just too much of a mess to focus. I hope to have more to show for myself once I get over the crud.

Cashmere and Camel and Lama Oh My! (Color: A Fiber Festival 2008)

For those of you who are not into spinning and fiber, you might just want to pass on this blog posting. The only thing that saved me from utter madness was the fact that I ran out of cash and resisted the urge to break out the credit/debit card. For those of you who are interested, view on :-)

Let's just say that Colour: A Fiber Festival was a lot of fun for me and my sister. Yes indeed! The last three pictures of fiber are my sisters purchases . The orange and orange green roving's were from Girl On The Rocks and I think they are Flame, South African Finn (the orange) and California Poppy also in a Finn (orange/green). The three roving's together are all superwash Merino from Tactile Fiber Arts and the brown/grey roving is polworth from A Verb For Keeping Warm.

At the top of the blog you have a selection of "exotic" fibers that I got to sample/taste which we kept in order with this handy plastic card holder they gave us. You can make notes, keep a sample of the fiber and a sample of the spun yarn. Very neat! Color had classes, some spinning, some knitting and some fiber "tastings" where you could try rare breeds, exotics, etc. Whatever you were interested in. I took the course from Kristine Vejar who was really great. She provided different fibers and we all spun them trying to get yarn to highlight the best characteristics of the fiber. The exotics consisted of cashmere, baby camel and silk tussah, baby alpaca and silk, baby lama and baby alpaca. I did not bring a wheel, I just borrowed a spindle from my sister. Though I have spun all but the cashmere, I did not know that you could get more fluff by spinning from the fold with a larger drafting area to catch the air, that spinning it looser would help maintain the fluff factor and that either long draw or supported long draw would work the best. My singles really came out nicer so I will try to remember this when I go to spin all the stuff I got. It's a small festival that has big potential. there were about 4 vendors. Tactile, Girl, Verb and Pigeonroofstudios. Let me just say, that Pigeonroofstudios sold out of fiber in the first 45 minutes. I was lucky to get anything at all. That said, I did not go begging for fiber!

Now for my haul. The Brown roving is baby alpaca from A Verb for Keeping Warm. The colorful green/pink/yellow stuff is merino from Girl On The Rocks. The two small bundles of roving are two colorways of baby camel and tussah silk from A Verb for Keeping Warm. The "snail" of braided fiber is baby alpaca/merino from pigeonroofstudios. The red/orange roving is Gradient Dyed ie from lighter to darker and is superwash merino from Girl On The Rocks. Below that is BFL that is indigo dyed and then BFL that is Madder Dyed, both from A Verb for Keeping Warm.

Whew!

Knitting Baby Stuff (Lace Down-time)

I'm afraid no pictures of lace for you. I'm currently knitting Baby Stuff for a niece who is "expecting" so I'm in the middle of"lace down-time" with very little lace being done. I've made three more points on the edge of Princess, plied up the Camel/Silk and bought beautiful fiber batts from "Spritely Goods" after seeing her lovely shawl in Spin-Off Magazine. The batt is made of Merino, Alpaca, Angelina and Firestar in a colorway called Palo Verde. It's the first fiber I've ever spun with sparkle in it. I usually don't go for that type of thing but this is really very subtle so I'm interested to see how it comes out. I also could not resist buying yet another Sharon Miller pattern as you can see, even though I have not yet finished any of those projects I've started with her patterns. I'm beginning to get a complex! Still, I can't resist them. I will be back to knitting lace shortly since I have another co-worker about to retire. It so happens she likes to garden. I imagine you know where the International Shawl is going to end up. Tomorrow it's off to "Color: A Fiber Festival". where I hope I will not just loose my mind and buy more fiber. Faint hope I know but I will try. Until I have something better for you all to see, I hope everyone has a great weekend.