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.