Furballs

Post Shepherd's Harvest

No pictures.  I do not want to incriminate myself.  

The very same people who were SUPPOSED to shoot me if I bought a fleece were very eager to split "a few" of them with me. This is a great way to do it, though - who really wants an 8lb fleece??  I lost a couple of auctions so I came up short of ridiculous.  (One was getting pretty competitive - snarly knitters after a fleece is a dangerous thing.)

The woman I've bought a shetland/something fleece from for 3 years no longer had that sheep.  I did not ask for details, but my heart broke a little.  She has converted her flock to Wennsleydales and was selling the lamby fleece in 1lb bags for $7.  Now, every Wennsleydale I've ever spun has been kind of itchy and not my favorite by a long shot, but this stuff is like shiny floof.  What the heck, I'll try a pound.  And ONLY a pound, because - seasoned shopper that I am - I arrived with $7 in my pocket and no checkbook.  Doh!  I would have come home with lots more if Visa didn't make it so expensive for small vendors to take the cards! 

Saturday was great fun - I met up with my friend Melissa from work, who learned to spindle spin last week over a lunch hour.  She picked it right up!  So we got her all set up with a beautiful Mielke Emily out of tulipwood, and she got some hand painted rovings.  So much fun to see it all begin!  She had her three little boys along (who *I* thought were perfectly behaved) and the oldest and I bonded over our love for alpaca.

Soon after they took off to see the critters, I started running into more friends all over the place. I spent the rest of the day with spinning friends Celeste and Rebecca, who have the same acquisition philosophy I do: "I want more!"  I do love the fiber, but it's so much fun to hang out among crowds of people who "get" you.  I talked about fiber and wheels with people for hours and hours and it was wonderful!  

Sunday I took a class on spinning for lace.  The location for this class was pretty bad - we were right in one of the market buildings so it was noisy and there were lots of distractions.  Not a good place for trying to learn something new.  Since much of what I spin is lace weight already, I planned to learn how to spin cashmere, which has eluded me, and try to get some more consistency.  I got some cashmere on the bobbin, so I'm feeling confident enough to try some more.  I also spun cotton for the first (and probably the last) time.  We also had samples of yak, kid mohair, and flax(which I didn't try because I'm allergic to it).  I liked spinning the mohair, but it kept breaking on me when I was pulling it off the bobbin.  Same with the yak.  I have spun piles of merino and silk before, but while I was there I wasn't spinning for a project, I was playing with how much twist to put in, monkeying around with my tension and take up, and I was able to see a real difference in what I made.  

Today at work my fingers were twitching.  Hard to get back to the real world! 

Pre-Shepherds Harvest

I am so antsy for the local sheep and wool festival this weekend that even I am finding myself a little tiresome.  Single focus.  At work:  Server is running out of memory.  In my head:  Need more memory? you need more crimp.  At work:  WiFi networks.  In my head:  Why Fiber?  REALLY?  

You get the idea.  Worse than a kid before Christmas.

I have challenged myself to complete a new shawl by Saturday morning.  I started Monday.  I have not been so very dedicated, so I am hoping to take Friday afternoon off because knitting is the best use of vacation days that I can come up with.  I'm making the Tuscany shawl from No Sheep For You out of some handspun merino/bamboo.  Progress thus far:

Here's my other latest WIP - Blossom from Lavold book #11 out of Rowan CashCotton:

And no, there's no reason to mention that once again I have started two projects that are basically the same color.

But if you need some color, I just finished my first Lorna's Laces socks: 

The yarn was really nice to work with but for some reason required lots more stitches than other yarn knit on the same size needles.  

And my other FO, which was an exciting project in so many ways...

This is Norwegian Woods by Sivia Harding out of Ivory Sea Silk.  Wow.  That alone is enough.  But this shawl kept me up nights with suspense.  I had about what you see in the second picture remaining when I ran out of yarn.  So I debated ripping back and taking out a repeat of the second and third sections, which really didn't thrill me that much.  So Ravelry to the Rescue!  I searched on the yarn and found a woman in Iowa who had a skein to trade!  So we did our trade, but the dye lots weren't even close.  While hers was just as beautiful, it had a pink and gray tone to it.  Right about the same time, a brand new friend from a yahoo group I had joined just days before posted a comment that said she had some of that color left from a project if I wanted it!  She sent it right away and it was a great match!  You would never see the change if you didn't know about it.   THANKS AGAIN, ANN!!

OK, one more picture.  I have wanted one of the Forrester Dervish spindles ever since they came out, more out of curiosity than anything.  I finally broke down and got one, and BOY OH BOY, do I love this spindle!!  

All for now!  See you on the flip side of Shepherds Harvest!

Cruisin' for Bruisers

Hi!  Remember me?  

Last year when I was at the Madrona festival, my friend Mel and I split a Blue Moon Sheep to Shoe kit in the Bruiser colorway and had a little sock-a-long.  Now, Mel is an amazing spinner and can spin perfect fingering weight sock yarn, so I'm just going to accept our differences and try not to be too humiliated.  

So here's Mel's in-progress spinning 

See what I mean?  Here's her description of what she did to spin it:

 

I stripped the top lengthwise into three and spun the first one onto bobbin #1.  The next section I stripped lengthwise into two, and spun those two lengths onto bobbin #2.  The last section I stripped lenthwise into four and spun those onto bobbin #3.  Then I plied from the three bobbins, and voila, Bruiser three ply.

I just left it as it was and Navajo plied.

Here's Mel's completed skein: 

And mine, which is almost sport weight: 

We decided to use the same pattern, a basic 3x1 rib.  She used 2.25mm (1US) needles and 68 stitches, I used 2.75mm(2US) and 72 stitches.  We got to compare at Madrona this year!

 Mine are floppy soft and fuzzy, Mel's are more like real sock yarn socks - soft but definitely much sturdier.  Mine probably won't last more than a couple of seasons, Mel will have her momento forever.

This is what I knit as my New Year's sweater:

It's an out-of-print pattern by Michelle Wyman called Casual Cables.  I knit it out of Berocco Ultra Alpaca, which was wonderful to work with but is very pilly as a sweater.  

Anyway, this was the first time I started a new sweater on NYD and I think I will keep up this tradition!  It made me want to wrap up a few projects at year end, though I was in the middle of Flyindales and I have yet to get back to it.  

Here are a couple of other projects I've completed recently - already with supplies I brought home from Madrona this year!  

Socks That Rock in colorway Treehugger:

~2 oz of 50/50 cashmere/silk:

There's a shawl that's been completed, too, but right now it's pretty raisiny and needs blocking.  

It's looking like spring is finally here!  The grass is green and the trees are starting to wake up!  

A very good week.

I'm so very happy about the presidential election!  Obama's speech last night was perfect, as always.  I wish our senate race was final and favoring the other direction, though.  

Look what came today!!  Two great things in 24 hours that I've been waiting for forever - it's a little overwhelming!  The red inlay is darker in person, as is the wood.  It's a cloudy day and the flash really brightened things up.

  

When people see this picture they think the flowers are painted, but they're real flowers laid in resin:

    

Look at the grain in that wood!!  Honestly, I can't believe this is mine.  I've done a little spinning on it and it's very different from the Lendrum and it's going to take some getting used to.  It's going to be great, though, I'm so excited!  The first thing I spun was almost invisibly fine, so I envision some lace projects coming up!!  

Here's a spinning project I just finished... it's Lisa's superwash merino roving in Petroglyph.  Came out a little thicker than fingering weight.  This roving was WONDERFUL to spin!!

Public Service Announcement

Poor Crockett is walking around all tilted now.

Overnight he developed something called Idiopathic Vestibular Syndrome, which is an inflammation of the nerve between the eardrum and brain.  Basically it takes away balance and makes your world spin around like a tornado for a couple-three weeks.  And you walk around with a tilted head and run into things.

Very scary night, let me tell you.  He went to bed at midnight completely fine and woke up at 4 a.m. unable to walk without falling down, throwing up, peeing all over the house, and both of us in a complete panic.   I talked to an emergency vet at about 4:30, but we both thought it was his back.  I loaded him up on aspirin and doggy painkillers and waited it out till morning, when it was considerably worse.  I started thinking he'd had a stroke because he couldn't even stand up and his eyes looked like he was about to have a seizure.   My sister drove down and we got him to my vet who pegged it immediately as the inner ear thing.  Apparently this isn't uncommon - he sees half a dozen cases every fall!  Did you know about this??  I sure didn't.

When I got him home he wanted to go outside.  He ran in circles, falling down over and over again. Oakley thought it was a great new game and romped around and flopped herself down on the ground to play, too.  THAT was hilarious!