Last weekend

We went to visit Lauren and Bill last weekend since it was Lauren's birthday and Zach's parents came down to visit too. I made Lauren a Pretty Puffy Slouchy hat. I do love that pattern. I used a thicker yarn and it turned out very stiff. It worked out well. Lauren liked it. Of course, no picture. They also got their Christmas presents and Bill got his birthday present. So everyone sat around on Sunday playing them.









I also got a birthday present. Of course mine isn't until August so I was quite surprised. I think I mentioned earlier about how much I was drooling over the fact that my MIL was getting a needle felting machine. Well, I drool no longer because I have my own. Squeee I think I might have to make some DPN and sewing needle cases to sell on Etsy. Very exciting.









We also got to do some hiking around Hocking Hills. Very very pretty. We started at the visitor center and walked down to Old Man's Cave, down to the lower falls, then back up to the upper falls. It was beautiful. And except for the rain it was very enjoyable. Although it really didn't start raining hard until we were leaving. Oh and those wooden steps up to the next level where it felt like we were climbing out over a precipice. Thankfully Zach walked behind me and I could close my eyes to walk up it.

And we also got some Avalanche Pizza. Soooo good. My favorite is a tossup between the pepperoni and roasted garlic or the The Loaded Baked Potato Pie. Damn, I got drool on my keyboard. :) The two main reasons we go to see Bill and Lauren, besides getting to see Bill and Lauren, are Avalanche Pizza and a worn out puppy. Awww...look at the passed out puppies. That would be Heidi on the left and Lucy on the right.

How Biology Relates to Knitting

and other ways to justify my degree. Well not other ways. But this is interesting. I found a blog that has the best demonstration of Z and S twist in spun yarns. Go here, she has an awesome picture and everything.

I had been having trouble remembering the difference between Z and S twist in yarns. I have finally figured out why. Z-DNA is a left handed helix. It goes the opposite direction that a Z twist yarn would have. So now I just have to remember that Z twist yarn is the opposite of Z-DNA that I spent 4 years learning (well it was probably just covered in one lecture but still)

And she even has information about that sort of twist knitting vs. crocheting add to a yarn. Good to keep in mind when spinning for a particular project. Especially a single. Would hate to have my yarn fall apart in the middle of a project.

Blarg!!!

It is 1:30 am here on the East coast. I am unfortunately still awake trying to force myself into an uber stage of sleepiness so I can actually fall asleep. I am convinced this conference will be the death of me. Most of the reason I can't sleep is because I roll over every 5-10 minutes to write something that needs done that I just remembered on the post it note pad that I have taken to setting beside the bed. At least this way constructive things will come out of my not sleeping and if I write it down it is one less thing I have to worry about remembering. Any way, time for fun things?

Wednesday was a fun lunch time. The local SCA group Shire of Port Oasis was taking part in a Renaissance Faire on campus. Grace was there in her viking garb demonstrating how to spin on a spindle. I decided to head over there to hang out for lunch. I got to spin some, teach some others how to spin, play on her wheel, get a nice sunburn. Seriously, my maiden name is McCrady. I should know not to sit in direct sunlight for more than 10 minutes without sunscreen. 20 if I am. How long did I stay out? Oh about an hour and a half. So I have a nice red ring around my neck on my left side. The left side of my face is a bit pink and my left ear is red. You can also tell where my hair was parted. I should just carry around a parasol whenever I am going to be outside. Oh well, all in the name of spinning and teaching others. I really need to collect my faire costumes from my Dad's place and join SCA. I have a freakin' wardrobe of outfits.

Have I mentioned Zach said I could get a spinning wheel? I can use part of that economic incentive thingy. I have it narrowed down to two wheels (new).
First is the Ashford Kiwi- It is a castle style wheel with a double treadle (my two requirements). It has two ratios. Comes with three bobbins and a lazy kate. The Yarn and More over in Ashland, KY actually sells Ashfords and I could buy it from her. Support my LYS and all. I would by it unfinished (it is an extra $100 to get it lacquered) and finish it myself. It will be about $300 dollars, plus a Niddy Noddy ($15) and any extra bobbins I want to get. But being able to buy local means if I have problems I can get them fixed local.

Second is the Babe Production wheel- Not really your traditional looking wheel. But it is castle style and can be a double treadle. It is $239, plus $10 for a niddy noddy. It comes with 6 bobbins in three different ratios. I've used a single treadle Babe and liked it. The treadle moved a bit and the wheel has a bit of vibration to it.

So I am torn. Part of me really wants the traditional looking, wooden spinning wheel. But the frugal side of my brain is going "the babe is $60 cheaper. Imagine all the starter roving you could get for that". Mitzi, the head of the fiber guild, has a Kiwi. I think this will all come down to how that wheel feels when I get to try it. The extra $60 won't mean a thing if I fall in love with it.

I have been tormenting my husband, friends and knitting group with this dilemma so I thought I would share with everyone else too. Well, it is now 2 am and I should try sleeping again. I think I am sleepier. Who knows? I might be back down here in 20 minutes getting some knitting done. I did finish my SIL's birthday present tonight and need to remember to take pics before I wrap it. And the yarn I made at the Fiber Fiesta is getting made into a shawl. The Sunday market shawl to be exact. I will let you all know how it goes. Maybe a row or two before I head back upstairs.

Donation Month?

A few of the blogs I read and even Ravelry is having a donation drive this month. It is enough to drive a person to the poor house. I would love to give money to everyone, unfortunately then I would need to have a donation drive to pay the bills. So what does all this mean? It means that I am going to plug another place to send your money. Although it isn't really a donation, since you are actually buying a t-shirt or something from her Etsy store. But it does raise money for her.

The blog is I'm a Craft Artist. It is run by Marian and her mom. Marian is an adorable little girl undergoing a bone marrow transplant. She is an amazing craft artist and makes soaps, little felted food, heck her most recent blog post shows her making a stuffed bunny. The money she raises from the sales of her t-shirts and crafts goes to buy her supplies she can use in the hospital (since her immune system will be down, she has to have super clean stuff). I know if I was stuck in the hospital, I wouldn't want to be without my knitting. And now that she has raised enough money to keep her craft closet stocked, she is sending the extra money to an organization that makes craft kits for kids in similar situations.

Now I understand that not everyone can donate or buy stuff. But I will ask one thing, send Marian a card. The address is down a bit on the right hand side of her blog. She is going to be in the hospital for the rest of April and probably quite a bit into May.

Look I made more yarn

Ta dah. Made on my lovely new Greensleeves Spindle. I used about 1/2 an oz of merino donated by Cathy at the fiber retreat and dyed it with Easter egg dye. I realize I forgot to stick a dime/penny/quarter in under one of the strands so you all can tell how thick it is. Sorry. I'll learn as I do more of this. but it is super skinny cause the spindle is very, very lightweight.

I even made my own Lazy Kate to make it easier to ply. I suck at doing Andean Plying from my hand. So I need to buy a wooden one or I could just skip all that and use the lazy kate that comes with my spinning wheel that I will get someday soon hopefully. But until then Soulful Hues Knits had some good instructions for a cardboard one. I just need some straws and it will work perfectly.

Although looking for a link to Andean Plying gave me a Knitty article about Handy Plying. Interesting. Maybe I need to spin up some roving to see how this works.

Oh and on a side note. I apologize that my posts come in spurts of like 2 or 3 in one day. Usually that is the day I get the pictures off the camera. I do try to split the posts up so it isn't just one huge post of how my week was. You can just pester me about it if it annoys you. Or come get the pictures off my camera and edit them for me. The biggest problem this week was I couldn't find the cameras for the battery. **giggle** I was having a bad Monday and totally said that instead of finding batteries for the camera. It was totally nap time

I lucked out

Have I ever mentioned how lucky I am? I hear people's horror stories and jokes about awful Mother-in-laws and I am very thankful to say that they could not be farther from the truth when referring to mine. (now I've jinxed it or something) Personally, I think she is just excited she now has "daughters" that she can be crafty with instead of just two sons. You all remember that lovely blue sock bag she made me? Totally wasn't my birthday or Christmas or anything. I got a box the other day. In fact I got it Thursday evening when I got back from my interview right before the stressful comprehensive exam day(not mine, I was just giving them). Perfect timing. It had a movie for Zach and then a bunch of stuff for me. Again, just cause.

This book, I was ogling when I stayed with them for AAFS. She bought another copy so she could send me one. Now I just have to find some freakin' quilling supplies. Perhaps a good reason to place a large order to a craft store online. hmmm...look at that. She not only gave me a book, she gave me a reason to buy stuff. "but honey, I have to get it because she would be hurt if I didn't use it. And I wanted something else and I thought it silly to pay shipping twice so I went ahead and got that too."






And Crochet patterns. Some Gourmet Crochet ones. And an adorable animal bracelet pattern you crochet with thread. I totally started the purple bear the day I got it (came separate from the box a week or so later) It did help that I already had the thread and the hook I needed. "Be Prepared" You never know when someone will send you an awesome pattern. :)


My only problem with my MIL, her son came trained with entirely too much crafty knowledge. We were running errands and we stopped at Michaels in hopes that they had quilling supplies. He stayed in the car, but informed me that he "knows what quilling supplies look like and will know if I come out with something that isn't them." Hmmm...this could be a problem. :)

some new acquisitions

You all remember that crochet pattern challenge I had you all go vote on? I won the People's Choice Award. Wooooo. I won a Jojo the Giraffe pattern and some Jo Sharp merino, alpaca, silk yarn.
I would like to thank you all for your help.

Did a little shopping for myself. I totally blame Aimee. She showed me these two magazines at SnB and there were a couple patterns and techniques that I felt made these issues quite indispensable. I have taken a strong liking to both Interweave knits and Interweave crochet. And since I'm learning how to spin, Spin-off has lots of techniques, patterns and tempting ads. Speaking of patterns, I've already started a shawl/wrap thing in this months' issue. I am going to use sage green, lavender, eggplant, forest green colors in different yarns. Do a big chunk of sage green, some eggplant stripes then a chunk of lavender then dark green then start doing random sets of stripes. We'll see how it plays out. It is going quick now, but every other row you increase by 6 stitches. We'll see how long I go before I decide to make a very short shawl.

Why I adore Ravelry

On a board called "Remnants", on a thread called "I have a feeling Poe would not appreciate this" one of the finest bit of knitting literature has emerged and Bits 'n Bobs has documented it on her blog. "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe translated for knitters. Only on Ravelry could I find other people who would do this and also find this thoroughly amusing. They are now working on ‘The Pleasure-Dome of Kubla Khan’ and "the Mariner". Fabulous.

Door Prizes and Goodies

So not only did I have an awesome time, but I got lots and lots of goodies from the door prizes. You gotta love free stuff. And tons of people donated items to our retreat.

First we started with goody bags. Two of them. One was a lovely tote bag filled with brochures, catalogs, post cards. The second with filled with samples. Lovely lovely samples. Fiber, soaps, lotion, more fiber, yarn, buttons, loads of stuff.




Then came the door prizes. All night and some the next day. I think about 6 rounds total. Look at all this stuff. It was awesome. I think my favorite part though was the trading. In case you ended up with something (since items were given to us) you weren't too fond of, they highly encouraged trading. Oh my. I think I only ended up with 2 things that I actually started with. And I got 7 items from the door prizes (they ended up with extra stuff and the end of 6 rounds and had a raffle type drawing)


So for some close ups. Some Creatively Dyed Yarn's sock yarn in a lovely blue-green color way. The sock yarn started out as a set of square knitting needles. I traded those for a felted bag kit. I traded that for the yarn

Some Kollage Yarns Hope-USA 100% cotton worsted weight yarn . One of the two things I started with.

I won a 1 year membership to the crochet guild of America. That is their magazine. I actually initially won the Knitting Guild membership. But the lady who sat next to me won the Crochet one but doesn't crochet. So I traded her. Since I do either.

That bit of orange sticking out is a KnowKnits bag. The second original item. Currently holding the leftover bits of fiber I found at the retreat and after I am done spinning so I can keep track of it for when I needle felt.

Mmmmm...spindles. The larger one started life as a fingerless glove pattern with yarn. This Kokovoko was actually a part of Deb's personal collection. I haven't spun on it yet. I've been busy with the other one.





The smaller one is a Greensleeves spindle. I cannot remember the name. Maybe the Mjolinor. I heard someone say they didn't know how to pronounce it and that it wasn't available for sale yet. I am spinning some very fine merino on it and love it to death. Pictures will follow shortly. I traded with Sarah (a non-spinner) for quite a bit of yarn. And I did this very happily

The best thing I got, in my opinion, was my Namaste bag. Which started out as a different Namaste bag. A grey project bag that looked more like a purse. Although I liked that one, I decided to see if Deb would want to trade. This pink one wasn't a door prize, it was one of the raffles. In fact it was the raffle I dumped pretty much all of my tickets into. So I had no problems trading a door prize. What makes this bag special, you ask? Besides the awesome color, butter soft leather and convinient size? Let's look inside.



Oh yes my friends. This is an organizer. It has binder rings with removable (and addable) inserts for super organization. It has needle holder pages, pouches (both leather and see through mesh) and pockets on the inside of the bag. I was able to switch from my tool box organizer to this lovely item. Now I just have to get some more inserts. I used the needle pages for my crochet hooks and need a place to put my knitting needles. Well the straight ones, the circulars are in the solid pouch.

I used a wheel

So my favorite part of the Fiber Fiesta, Mitzi let me borrow a spinning wheel. 7 hours straight. But I made a skein of yarn, 178 yards. **Squee** I loved it so much. I am now fiercely determined to get one of my own. So many decisions though. I know I want a castle style double treadle, probably single drive. But they are a bit pricey. Hopefully Mitzi will be able to go to the Maryland Sheep and Wool show and be able to get one for a decent price at the auction. **fingers crossed**

And wouldn't you know that is exactly what I got to use. A Louet S51DT.



But look at the yummyness I made on it.

Fiber Fiesta!!!

The Fiber Fiesta River Cities Fiber Clan spinning retreat was this past weekend (4th and 5th). I don't know if I've ever had more fun. It was great. Somewhere between 25 and 30 ladies were on hand to spin, knit, crochet and have fun. Of course I have pictures. Now I am horrible with names so I will try not to use too many so I don't make a goof.
left to right: Aimee and I think part of Judy, Grace (who I sat next to), a row of lovely ladies from I beleive southern West Virginia. Part of another guild who came to spend time with us. Janet is the one on the end. She taught Grace and me how to make felted beads. Very fun




Left to right: Crystal (a new spinner, but you've seen her in other posts), Ellen?, Deb (the woman who first taught me how to spin), Trish (answered many questions for me on the Yahoo group and it was great to meet her in person), Cindy (a weaver and dyer, her hand-dyed stuff is amazing. I had to miss her last class, but plan on taking the next one she teaches), Dana, Aimee, Judy and Grace's legs. See that table in the middle. All the stuff on top of it were doorprizes. There will be a seperate post with door prizes.

Dana, Aimee (with her new wheel) and Judy

And a note. You see those baskets behind Dana and Aimee. Those are full of drop spindles. And they all belong to Deb. All...Of...Them. They were like flower baskets, they even had flower foam in the bottoms so all the spindles stood up.



Cindy, Dana, Aimee. Look at them go








The other table of door prizes. I think we had 6 rounds of door prizes with a few extra and a set of raffles. It was so much fun. I want to do it every weekend. Except for that part where I sat at a spinning wheel for 7 hours straight. I was a bit stiff the next morning. And tired cause I went to bed about 2am and got up about 7:30am.