robknits

Designing my space/Meeting knitters in SA

     With so much going on, and not much time or energy left over at the end of the day, there is lots of blog fodder but few blog posts.  This entry might be of epic proportions or the first of many... I am not sure yet.   Topics to come include:  Designing my space, The Itch, Finding the Inspiration Collection, Why "Studios" was a disappointment, Shelves Bags Shelves Bookcases Hooks Cubbies Rollers, Fiesta, Meeting Local Knitters, and Oops I bought a front loader and suddenly want to make felt coasters.

     Designing my space and Shelves Bags Shelves Bookcases Hooks Cubbies Rollers are, I suppose, the same topic.  As the infinite regression of unpacking rule explains, in order to do something that appears to be simple -- i.e., oh, I think I'll start knitting a scarf -- you discover you have to take care of approximately 6 preliminary actions.  These can include everything from finding which box has the laceweight yarn to building an addition on to the house.  The studio is full of intimidating piles of stuff (see the photos of intimidating piles of stuff) and I needed to figure out how to organize everything.

After much waffling and delaying, I realized that I was trying to create permanent sorts of storage and work areas in a room I had never worked in.  Instead, the room needed modular, movable, redefinable storage.  I moved a couple of units like that (otherwise known as a bookcase and a little shelf unit) into the humungous closet in the studio, and then ran out and bought an inexpensive freestanding garment rack.  Designing a huge closet of built-ins before I lived and worked here??? Nuh uh.  I clambored over and through the boxes til I found the hanging sweater shelves that worked in my last yarn closet, et voila .. began unpacking yarn and tools.  So a bit of progress has been made, and maybe 4 or 5 more boxes were emptied.  I have some more pictures of the developing storage space, but the computer has just informed me it does not recognize the camera, and I am going to leave that problem for another time.

     As mentioned in an earlier, entry, the magazine Studios, a special production of Interweave Press's magazine Cloth Scissors Paper, came out just as I moved and was the first new fiber purchase to come to the new address.  But it was, unfortunately, pretty disappointing. Their solutions and studio designs consisted of lots of white shelving and baskets with contents organized by color.  Well, yes.    There were a couple of good ideas provided by some of the fiber artists they interviewed, but all in all, it was not much help and not even the ads were tempting.  I could have used a good article about lighting, or vacuums for fiber.  Though there was one studio, built in a hayloft, that had me drooling.  So I am working on organizing the yarn closet in modular movable ways, and then, once most of the boxes are empty, I will try to figure out where to put the two tables I have, what kind of lighting I have/need, and ... don't get me started .. the chair issue.

     With help from a new member of the Knitters Review forum, I have gotten back to work on the Free and Easy Pie Wedge shawl, and that's what I took with me when I finally got myself together and went to my first San Antonio knitting group meeting. (See Kim?  I made it.) This group meets EVERY Sunday ( oh bliss) in a wonderful, casual, funky coffee house/wine bar/ brunch-lunch/live music cafe called the Candlelight.  I met Amanda, a serious dyer of yarns with an Etsy store -- www.LoneStarArts.etsy.com -- who was knitting socks, and showed off one of Cookie's Monkey socks. Amanda is also a nuclear engineer.  (Really.)  She also told me that there is a fiber festival, aimed at weavers, spinners and, of course, knitters, in the town of Boerne in the fall.  That's very near here!!!!   Juanita was there, knitting socks from Amanda's yarn.    She is a graphic artist who, in order to test some machinery at work, printed out two decals about knitting that are now among my favorite possessions.  I will scan them when I get the scanner hooked up.   Where would you put a decal that explained that you knit so that you don't kill anyone?  Amy, who is a teacher, was at Candlelight too.  She is close to finishing the fish blanket (these are someone else's fish -- I couldn't find a picture of a finished fish blanket).  Amy started the blanket as a new knitter, which was very brave.  The cafe was great, the knitting was great, the knitters were great and I realized as I drove home that the route took me past Central Market, a Whole Foods kind of place.  So this might be the beginning of a great Sunday routine.

     The itch mentioned above is not medical, thank you very much.  It is a creative itch.  I have ideas galore that I really want to get to.  But the half-done state of the house is depressing, so while I found some of the yarn I have ideas for, and found the needles, I am going to stick to the Free and Easy Pie Wedge shawl and focus the creativity and energy (such as it is) on the house.  It is hard at this point -- I am very ready to be over the process of moving.  And it was very hard not being with family last night for Passover (especially since a series of problems and issues meant they didn't call).  But I just did my first load of laundry in the new washing machine (who would have thought that could be so exciting, but finally, it is here and installed), and I am going to get a LOT more done before bed tonight.  So I can get to that gorgeous purple and copper yarn you can see in the hanging shelves above. 

Oops

    Well.  That's the first time this has happened, with all the times I have stuffed my knitting into book bags, suitcases, shoulder bags.  A size 1 Addi Turbo.  Think I had better jump over to the Knitpicks page and order some size 1 circular needles. [Ack!!  They don't have any.]  I have lots and lots of size 0s, but have become very comfortable knitting socks on 1s.  The Smooshy sock yarn-in-waiting is going to be knit on 0s, since there is no nylon in that yarn but I can't do without my 1s. 
    Here in Centre County PA we have what we are told is the last of the old camping county fairs.  The Grange Fair, every August, consists of the usual county fair activities: cows, goats, rabbits are judged and sold. funnel cakes are eaten, 4H projects of all kinds are presented.  There are country music concerts and craft displays.  Tractors are sold.  There are also camp sites, most occupied by big tents into which families move for the duration of the week-long fair (here's a picture of one of the "streets").  These tent sites are in high demand with a waiting list that is years long.  I was told when I moved here 8 9 years ago that you basically have to inherit or marry into a tent site, and I know folks who basically grew up camping at the fair every year.  As a discussion on Knitters Review has pointed out, there are a growing number of knitting entries into the craft part of the show.  Kim and I both put items into the knitting category last year, and Kim won Best in Show, and I took a First.   The deadline for entering is this week, and I sent in my form.  I told them I would enter items in several categories: adult hats, child's hat, socks, scarves and stoles, women's vests, women's pullovers with sleeves ... I think there was one more.  I did this really in an attempt to motivate myself to finish the neverending vest for my mother and the sleeves on the Pacific Grove pullover.  I was going to show the pink Meilenweit socks, but realized when I tried them on the other day that I had done an eye-of-partridge heel on one sock and a stockinette heel on the other.  So probably no sock will go in.  At the very least, I have a hat and a stole (the Scotch Thistle).  The actual items have to be delivered to them in, I think, 3 weeks.  The Sunday of the fair some of the knitters will be gathering at Kim's family's tent.    I like to visit the lop-eared goats and rabbits, drink some lemonade, and check out the crafts.   There is no weaving category, but maybe next year I will have some weaving to put in to the "other" craft category.
     And as part of a major purge event at my house, I sold some gorgeous yarn that had been in the stash forever -- the Cross Country Green  Brown Sheep Handpaint solid.  After I sold it, of course, I had a moment of doubt (so beautiful) but I am glad I did it.  Other yarn may follow.

Knitting night/ Sock night

     A fun night was had by all at the Centre Hall Public Library yesterday.  Their knitting group -- the Penns Valley Area Knitting Group --  meets the second and fourth Thursday of every month, while the State College group meets the first Thursday.  The half-hour drive to Centre Hall is well worth it and I am going to try to remember to go to my more local State College group next week.  I appear to have created Lacy Mock Cable desire in the group. Several went home to Google the pattern and I have promised to bring it in to the group in two weeks.  Here's a picture of my latest lacy Mock Cable, in some handpainted Opal.  It does remind me that I do not like the way the colors arrange themselves -- flashing, I guess this is -- and in fact I like the way the lacy mock cable kind of mixes the color up.  As usual, this is working up quickly but I do have to remember to wind other hanks of sock yarn into two separate balls so I can do both socks at the same time. 
     Great socks last night at the group.  Nancy was working on a great sock pattern from One Skein Wonders that really showed off a handpaint sock yarn with a slip stitch design.   Barb had her sock project too -- a gorgeous rendition of Knitty.com's Monkey sock by Cookie A.  I had gone right past that pattern since I really dislike the yarn in the picture.  Barb had one done in a gorgeous red colorway of Tess's Designer Yarns sock yarn that she bought at Maryland Sheep and Wool.  I immediately decided that I would use the Monkey pattern for one of the new sock extravagances that arrived over the weekend. 
     Yes, the loot arrived.  My mind is shying away from the total cost of a luxury sock yarn spree, but after years of buying Kroy, Blauband, etc on sale I just could not resist.  So here is the line up of beauties, or, as I named the picture, my sock loot :
     From left to right, Cherry Tree Hill Sockittome, in Moody Blues.  Dream in Color Smooshy, in Wisterious.  Lisa Souza Sock! in Mother of Pearl, and Schaefer Anne in Mint Caramel Frappe.  I can't wait.  The sock I am working on now has taken over all my knitting time, since work has been intensive and I have been coming home looking for relatively mindless knitting.  So while the Lacy Mock Cable does work up quickly, it is also working up quickly because I have not been working on the Japanese Feather stole, the Campanula cardigan, or, of course, the wool and mohair Bamboozled.  As Stephanie pointed out, her cardigan is moving slowly because she is not working on it!  This weekend I am hoping to finish the back of the Campanula.  And wind this sock yarn, each skein into two balls.  One of them will be Monkey, I think, reworked for a toe up sock.  One maybe.... Wendy's new  River Run sock or something like it. 
     Speaking of socks, I just couldn't resist and fantasized that it was mild enough to wear my running shoes with an actual pair of socks (I really live in sandals but...).  So I put on the finished pink socks.  Loved 'em, but since I couldn't find the second running shoe and then admitted it was going to be in the 80s and humid (central PA at the end of July, after all), I took it off and put it back in the drawer.  After admiring it, of course.

Knitting in DC and more on sketchbooks

     Along with 29,999 other librarians, I will be in D.C. for the American Library Association meeting this weekend.  I actually am supposed to be there now, but am still running around getting packed (actually I am on the computer but I am supposed to be running around getting packed).  I met up with Martha in Seattle at our midwinter librarians meeting -- she was there with her librarian spouse, and we hit So Much Wool together.  So we are meeting in DC on Sunday, at 4 pm, at StitchDC's Capitol Hill store.  Sigh, a yarn store open Sundays.  A working knitter's dream.  Martha is bringing at least one friend from her knitting group, and I am hoping Lanea can join us as well.  If you read this in time, and are in the DC area, please meet us there!
     More on sketchbooks: Leigh and Robbyn, this is attempt number Gazillion for me.  I think what is helping me this time is a completely exploded understanding of a sketchbook.  The "sketchbook" consists of those index cards residing in a shoe box, pictures cut from magazines and printed from the web, random pieces of paper, and, for moment anyway, my new little sketchpad, all of which will -- might -- or might not -- come together in a looseleaf binder.  That way I can shuffle things, don't need to have one specific book with me when the mood or an idea hits, etc.   So far so good but hey, it's been a week.
     Gotta wash the dishes, load the car, double check my list, buy gasoline and hit the road.  To meet up with 29,999 other librarians, listen, talk, visit the Textile Museum, StitchDC, Martha, eat good food, maybe hear live jazz....

Creative focus

    

Ruth Lantz, Judy Ditmore and Maureen Mason-Jamieson taught great classes at the Knitters Connection, the new knitting event in Columbus OH.  This first event went very well, so they are already scheduling and planning next year's.  It was very well organized, and those who preregistered got an amazing goody bag when we signed in -- a zippable clear tote bag filled with magazines (4) and 7 or 8 skeins of different yarns.  So I have a skein of Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride to add to my knitter's palette collection, as well as samples of Twisted Sisters new yarn and Claudia Handpaint (in bronze and yellows), a skein of Wisdom Yarns Poems (the space-dyed one in blues) that would work very well with Lamb's Pride (same gauge and also a single).  That yarn was new to me, but I see it advertised in the current magazines.   A full skein of Nashua's Creative Focus Superwash (aran weight, the first time I have seen this yarn in person), a skein of Plymouth Fantasy Natural cotton, a skein of Ella Rae Classic wool (5/in) in a light olive color.  That's a new yarn to me too.  And a skein of Berroco's Ultra Alpaca Light,  a DK/sport weight that is half wool and half alpaca.  And all that before the classes even started.
    Ruth Lanz's color class inspired all kinds of creative thought for me.  She distributed a handout and I thought, "Rats, a whole class of sampling slip stitches??!" but no... I apologize Ruth!  We were experimenting with slip stitches but even more than that with color.  She lays out an entire palette of yarns on the table (very possibly Lamb's Pride, or at least something very like it) and then she taught about color progressions, and designing with TWO color progressions working "against" each other.  So, for example, a progression of my blues and purples AND a progression of naturals.  A progression of greens AND a progressions of yellows.  So as you do your simple slip stitch design, you move through both progressions.  The results were very interesting, and her samples were fascinating to look at.  When I got home I began pulling out colors and trying to build these progressions.  My problem with color design is in value -- while I choose different colors, I tend to choose the same values.  That may work (I am going to sample that with my stash of Lavold Silky Wool) but it really works better if you have some progression of values as well. 
     The next class was Judy Ditmore's designing with strips class.  First thing I learned was the very interesting trinity stitch, which creates a lot of texture.  Then she taught us how to knit a second strip right onto the first strip.  And then she talked about designing with strips.  We had knit some sample strips that we never go to use -- I think she intended to show us how to knit them together.  She had one WIP that she was going to connect with I-cord, which is a great idea.  She also taught us her basic rule: Always use Fibonacci when designing!  So I left her class with a partial design for a strip jacket using Fibonacci and Ruth's progressions with the Silky Wool.  Oh, next rule, shared by both Ruth and Judy -- odd numbers!  Odd number of colors, odd number of strips.
     My last class was with Maureen Mason-Jamieson.  Amazingly, the first thing she asked was whether I had taken another class with her.  Wow.  I did, years ago, at Stitches, when I took her Collar Obedience class.  Considering how much teaching she does, that was amazing in and of itself.  One of the things I like about Maureen's classes -- and this was true of Judy's and Ruth's as well -- is that they are very well organized and with useful handouts.  This class of Maureen's was about short rows.  That makes this the second or third class I had taken about short rows, but it was worth it.  For one thing, we did a swatch comparing the three types of short rows --  using YOs, wraps and the Japanese method.  She had very useful tips for all three, on both right and wrong side rows.  I finally understand how to convert stair-step shoulders to short-row shoulders too.  Then she taught about designing with short rows.
     A very useful set of classes.  I finally feel I have a full understanding of short row techniques and how to use them, and I had three classes with significant design elements.  So I am ready to go!
     I also understand that designing a sweater the way I want to takes time and sampling.  So I am going to continue to work on Campanula (very slowly) and on the Bamboozled tunic I pulled out of the closet.  I spent my knitting time at Knitter's Connection tinking the front back to the seed stitch border, since I saw I had made a major error in the lace panel at the center that had jogged the pattern over to the right.  So I am going to switch off between those two projects.  A week with no Campanula meant no sign at all of the tendonitis.  And I repeat, that is a great pattern.  And the designer dropped by my blog!  And while I work on those patterns, I am going to work on a strip jacket pattern, using Fibonacci and color progressions, with the Silky Wool, sampling madly.  Oops, that's weaving-talk.  Swatching madly.  Stay tuned for pictures of the samples.

On beyond MDSW

     For more on the sheep on the bus, here's the story from one of the passengers -- with a picture of the unusual passenger. 
     For a while I suffered from my usual post-MDSW feeling of overwhelm.  So many ideas, so much material and equipment and the need for some focus and some production.  The results are better (in my own humble opinion about myself) than usual:  I did not immediately jump into 4 new projects.  Instead :       -- I actually managed to get the second half of the Scotch Thistle started.  I must have messed up the first two rows 5 times, no idea why, but finally got going and am through the first section (first 28 rows) of the pattern.
       -- On the bus to MDSW I decided to try a garter rib on the sock-in-progress.  You know, the one that appeared to be doomed to be only a toe forever.  On the way back from MDSW I decided the garter rib looked boring.  So I frogged back to the ankle and started the leg pattern from Kim Salazar's Pine Tree sock pattern.  This may not be the best combination of yarn and stitch pattern ever done, but it is good enough and I am making progress. As usual when I am working from a large skein of yarn I miss doing both socks at once but haven't bothered winding off another ball of yarn.  This is going quickly now, so this pair will be done sequentially.
       -- The Spindlitis Yahoo! group's May challenge is to organize your spinning.  Since I went through lots of my spinning fiber before heading to MDSW, I decided that was a great idea, especially since I couldn't remember what fiber that dark green roving was made of.  So I found a little notebook, and went back through the blog, which is of course my journal of fiber arts stuff, and now have an inventory of fleece and roving.  It also reminded me that the light green roving I had been spinning on the Columbine was only part of the Bridget fleece I bought last year at MDSW at the Hatchtown booth.  So I went downstairs and found the rest of it -- some more fleece dyed that light green using Cushings dye, and some, a yellower color, that I did not dye.  So I did some more hand carding yesterday, creating more green rolags for spinning.
       --  Copper yarn.  I want copper-colored yarn, and mentioned a while ago that I bought a Jacquard dye that might get me close.  I was thinking of using it to dye either the Pingouin Silk I recovered from the stash, or some Knitpicks Bare lace I bought.  But doing the fleece inventory made me realize I had other options.  First, I have some fleece I tried dyeing with a yellow dye. Came out hideous. And I have some orange top (what was I thinking?  Oh yeah, of my mom, who loves orange.)  And some burnt orange top.   After studying Color in Spinning I confirmed what I remembered from my first reading of the book.  I am going to overdye those with violet.  The yuck almost-but-not-quite-gold fleece is going to be overdyed with a bit of red and violet.  The two orange batches of top will get overdyed with violet.  I think I can get copper(s).  It will be a fun project and I will keep notes in my new spinning notebook and experiment till I get the colors I want. 
     Cats. Finally, a portrait.  Cat on an extension cord.  This is Frannie, usually camera shy.  As you can see, she is quite a bit bigger than my calico Maggie.  When she jumps off a window sill you can hear the thud across the house.  She gets exactly the same "healthy weight" food as my little Maggie.  Who was caught in the act, on the dining table wondering who knocked over one of my displays of sun images.

Maryland Sheep and Wool/a sheep on the bus

    First I have to tell you about the sheep on the bus.  I go down to MDSW on a bus chartered by my LYS.  As we were clambering, exhausted, on to the bus at the end of the day, we saw someone walk a sheep up to a neighboring bus, pull a dog crate out of the luggage area of the bus, and try to convince the driver the sheep could travel under the bus.  We were watching this, aghast and agape, from our own bus.  Kim already had her cell phone out and was dialing a fair number to report this.  (Did I mention Kim does animal rescue?  Her specialty is golden retrievers.)  The bus driver, we could tell, was telling the idio person who had bought the sheep that no way was the sheep traveling under the bus.  The dog crate, by the way, was about half the size of the sheep.  To our amazement, we watched as the new owner of the sheep got the animal to go up the stairs into the bus.  Then the bus, with New Jersey plates, and the sheep lying on the back seat, pulled out of the parking lot.
     We are talking about traveling anywhere from 2-4 hours, on an intercity bus, with a sheep on board.  Poor sheep.  Poor passengers.  Poor bus driver.  We saw the person who delivered the sheep to the bus pat him on the shoulder consolingly as she walked away.  Our LYSO told us that when she gave us her "no livestock on the bus" rule that she had believed she was being a wise ass.  Turns out the rule is necessary.
     I also found myself thinking that anyone who thought 1) that sheep was going to fit into a dog crate, and that  2) an animal could travel loose in the luggage area of a bus had probably not thought about zoning laws in New Jersey.  I wonder what she will do with the sheep once she gets it home and the neighbors get a look at it.
     OK.  Now that the truly wild MDSW story is out there, here's the rest of it.  Up at the crack of dawn to get to the bus.  (That was pretty hard, since I had been up til midnight the night before at a concert -- Greg Brown and blues guitarist Bo Ramsey.)  Three hours of talk and knitting on the bus.  When we arrived, I took off as if I were shot out of a cannon to get to the Hatchtown booth, only to discover that they had not come.  The guy at the information booth said I was the 5th person to ask that morning already (which is why I racewalked over there in the first place. If you want a choice of spindles, you have to get there early).  It was nice to see that all the other spindle makers and sellers at the fair were concerned and hoped all was well with the Spindleguy.
    This however left me with a mission -- to find another lightweight spindle, since I love spinning silk.  My 1 oz. Jenny is doing the job with the fuschia silk, though as I have said before I thought an even lighter one would be better.  Lucky for me, I found the Turnstyles booth in the Main Barn, and after convincing myself I could buy only one (there were two others in serious contention), I bought this beauty.  It weighs between .8 and .9 ounces, and has a beautifully turned shaft.  I asked what the whorl was made of, and the maker told me it was holly.  Holly.  I have never seen anything made of holly wood before.  (All obvious jokes aside.)  It doesn't have a notch, so spinning with a notchless whorl is going to be a new addition to my spinning skills. 
     When I got back to the bus in the late afternoon, by the way, I discovered that Molly (the LYSO) had bought one of the ones I had regretfully put back.  I explained to her that it was supposed to be mine.  She made a snorting sound.  I wonder what she meant.
     Buying a new spindle for spinning silk meant, of course, buying some silk roving.  And yes, the one on the right is in teals and purples, but there was method to my madness.  I like the idea of using the silk yarn I am spinning as an accent on wool sweaters.  Like my wardrobe, which is now coordinated because I buy (almost) everything in shades of teal and cool greens.  Anyway, I also fell in love with the intense  reds and dark purples (so dark it is almost black) of the roving on the left.  The exposure here is washing out the red at the bottom of the picture -- the actual color is darker and more saturated.
I was also looking for lace weight yarn, and there was not a whole lot to be found.  I found some very expensive handpainted alpaca lace weight at the Misty Mountain booth.  The colors include, yes, my teals and purples, but also shade into copper.  The colorway is called Navajo Sunrise (I think).  Beautiful and expensive, I bought two skeins, which gives me 1000 yds.
     And as I was leaving, and heading to the bus, I walked past the Tess Designer Yarn booth, as packed with people at the end of the day as it was in the morning.  As I thought, what a shame she doesn't have lace weight, I saw a display of... merino lace weight.  I fell in love with this stuff, in violets and grays.  My few summer clothing purchases have had shades of violet in the them (as well as a few copper-colored tops.) Here is a good picture of the Tess merino lace.
     So, a great day.  I made a careful choice not to attend the fiber tools auction. 
    Oh, one more thing.  Someone on Knitters Review said that she avoided the Brooks Farm Yarn booth in the path because of all the sheep poop around the booth.  Sheep poop, the rest of us wondered?  Turns out the ground there is littered with spiny oval burrs of some kind from the trees in the area!  Oh, and on the subject of Knitters Review -- I got to meet Bethany, Glccafar and... someone who has rabbits and sheep and thought RobA was a guy.  I'm sorry, I used to be good with names but that part of my brain appears to have broken a couple of years back.  It was fun to chat and put faces to KR names.  I will definitely be on the bus next year.  And while I had plans to wash fleece, spin silk, and knit today, I think I am going to go back to bed.

Um, gee...

    This is kinda awkward.  Yesterday I talked about how I submitted something to the Grange Fair, just to be a good knitting citizen, and that I had to ignore the competition side of it, think of it as a exhibition of the work of local crafts....
     Today I went into work.  And found this on my office door.

      One of my coworkers is part of a family that has camped at our Grange Fair and Encampment for generations.  She went through the crafts exhibit hall and went looking for my hat.  And then printed this up and taped it to my door. 
     It has been raining since Saturday, and they are predicting we will get an inch of rain today.  So I hadn't gone back to the fair.  After all, the day I handed in the hat, I visited the Nubian goats and the lop-eared bunnies, my favorite part of the fair, avoided the funnel cakes and spiral fries...   This is so funny.  And so cool.

WOW! Again!

     I was working away when the mail carrier rang the bell and gave me this huge box.  Mystery gave way to amazement when I saw the return address: 2000 Socks!  It was my prize from the 2000 Socks campaign. Amie was interested in seeing how many socks we bloggers knit in a year. (Hey Kim, add yours to the count!). I blogged about having knit sock #2000 on May 18.
I opened the box to an explosion of color.  I love color.  The first thing I found when I moved aside the gorgeous packing materials was a skein of yarn in my dominant colors -- teal, purple and black.  I also found a card from Amie, and it turns out that skein is her handspun, her first cablespun.  I'm speechless, again.  Embiggen the picture -- this stuff is gorgeous.

In one corner of the box I found a lovely silky bag, a sock bag from Trek casts on.   I found a gift certificate to Dea Terra Creations.   And a color-it-yourself mug (from Amie, I think). 
    There was also  MORE YARN!  I found 440 yards of C*eye*ber Fiber sock yarn in the colorway named for Amie's blog -- arosebyany.  Sunny summer tropical colors on 100% merino.  There were two skeins of Spunky Eclectic's  handpainted superwash sport weight merino in colorway Tahiti (that's it on the left -- a lovely sunny colorway), a toe-up sock pattern to go with it, and two skeins of Koigu in gorgeous purples.  WHEW!

     And of course, this lovely fellow, who is a riot.  I haven't yet decided where exactly he is going to live, but at the moment he is hanging out in the living room.
    I am overwhelmed and overstimulated.  I can't stop touching all the new yarn.  When I had to choose a category for this blog entry I decided this was definitely a knitting event!  Thanks again to everyone who contributed to this gift.  And don't forget to send Amie info every time you finish a sock -- doesn't even have to be a whole pair!
    And there are even more events here.  Additional knitting-related events -- the successful pick up of 472 stitches, two rows of garter knit, and one row of purls knit on the Shetland shawl.  And... Frannie hanging out and playing after being fed her breakfast. She runs for cover if I stand up or if I open the door, but this is major progress.
    And, to top it off, I called the taped message everyone called for US court jury duty here is supposed to call before reporting, and I do not have to report, and my jury duty is considered complete.  And the sun is out.  And all this on a Monday!

more MDSW - spinning

   I kept working on the pictures and have some to share now of the fleeces that I bought.

On the right are two samples of the huge Romney I am going to be sharing with a friend.  These are the two dominant -- and lightest -- colors.  There is a section of it that shades darker, into a taupe.  It will be hard to decide what to do with this one: blend the colors, separate the colors, dye it, use it in its natural colors...  We will be getting 5 lbs each, so I will probably be able to do both! 
     On the left is a shot of the whole fleece:  you can see the darker colors.  A new experience for me, working with beige, caramel and browns -- we'll see how it washes up.  We are dividing it up tomorrow -- we're going to lay it out like you do for skirting to see what we got, and to figure out how to divide it up.
     I think I now have a picture of the Hatchtown Coopworth -- the clear white shot through with black.  It has a gray-ish look in the thumbnail on my computer, but I think if you click on it you'll get a glimpse of what it's like. (Actually, no, you won't.  It just looks gray.  The white, though, is a very clear, very cold, very bright white.)  This one, as I said yesterday, I think, is going to be dyed with Cushings very light Ocean Green.  I think it will make a very interesting yarn, and at the moment I think I am going to try for a 2-ply worsted weight yarn.
     And there is also (below left) the Stony Branch Farm white Coopworth -- a soft warm white color and a soft hand.

     And of course I could not resist trying to spin the silk.  I pulled out my Jenny spindle -- from Red Barn Farm, 1 oz.  I love this spindle. The silk is pretty easy to handle.  The only problem I am having is that I am getting breaks in the roving -- I think I need to think of it as a shorter staple.  The color is just dynamite.   This is not a bad representation of it -- the only place my digital camera could read it was nestled on top of the caramel Romney.
     So... I am once again back in my usual state of overwhelmed.  Too much.  I wasn't tempted by any of the yarn at MDSW.  Isn't that amazing?  I now no longer want to simply accumulate yarn.  I know believe that yarn will not suddenly disappear, that I will suddenly find myself with any to knit.  (Ahem.  Yes, I did fall off the yarn wagon with sock yarn last week, but that always seems so minor-- only one or two skeins per project, and at sale prices...)  But I was very alarmed at the idea of coming to the end of fleece to wash, dye and comb.  That is NOT going to be a problem for a long, long time.  So, since today has been a good day, I have already gone for a walk, had a cello lesson, gotten the fax function of the new printer/fax/copier connected.  To make it a perfect day, I am off to spend some time cleaning and organizing my study, knitting, and spinning.