So many hobbies!

Michigan Fiber Festival 2013 - Part 2

The classes were fun but not something I'd ever do again.  Still, I made some fun scarves.  Will they ever be worn?  I have no idea.

And the two bandanas:

I'm not sure this one is done.  I might take some rubber stamps and permanent ink to it.  Maybe.  What do you think?

I told myself I wasn't going to buy any fiber since I already have more then I'll spin before it felts itself.  But then I went and bought a new drop spindle:

And since I had to play with my new spindle, I bought some fiber:

Clockwise from the top:  2 oz. 50/50 baby camel/Merino, 2 oz. 50/50 yak/silk, and 1.5 oz. brown cashmere.  I orginally bought the silver yak/silk to spin on the spindle but then I found some 3/4 oz. batts that were pretty, fun and wouldn't take long to spin.  So I bought one.

One of the red ones above and spun it into a little skein.  Sorry, I didn't think to get a picture.  When I took the skein back to to woman I bought it from, I ended up buying the green art batt.  Then it occurred to me:  how about a trade?  She agreed and I traded the skein I'd just spun for two more of the red batts.  She now has a sample skein to show how the batts spin up and I now have two more batts to play with.  Everybody wins.

The one and only time I warped my rigid heddle loom, the warping peg cracked.  My friends found someone selling them so I bought these:

I really only need the one on the right but if that one ever cracks, I can cut the one on the left in half and I'll have two more.  Since they're made of red oak, I'm hoping that won't be necessary.

I really had a great time.  The weather was perfect, my classes were fun as was the shopping.  I learned a couple more constellations and that some of the apps for the iPad are way cooler than ones for the Nexus 7.  Sheri has an app called Go Star Watch (I think) that is brilliant.  All you do is point it at whatever sky body you want to identifiy and it'll tell you.  It'll even tell you the starts and constellations on the other side of the planet.  It uses GPS but doesn't need a phone/wifi connection.  I deeply desire that app on my tablet but there isn't a comparable one.  Darn!

Michigan Fiber Festival 2013 - Part 1

The last couple of weeks have been rather eventful for me.  Two weeks ago today was my birthday, spent with my sister.  It was great!  Last week was the Michigan Fiber Festival in Allegan, Michigan.  I had a great time.  The weather was perfect:  cool at night and not too warm during the day.  I learned how to find Cygnus the Swan in the night sky and where to find Aquila the Eagle and Lyra the Lyre.  I'm pretty sure I'll be able to find them from now on.

The Festival was fun.  I took two classes, New Batik and Advanced New Batik.  They were fun and I enjoyed myself but I know it's something I won't do again.  I'll have pictures of what I made later this week.  This year was the first year I didn't enter any yarn in the skein contest.  It's possible I may be over that particular phase.  Next year will tell.

There were four of us in camp this year.  My tent is the corner in the right side of the picture, Rhonda and Sheri shared the big tent in the middle and Pan stayed in her Scamp trailer (which is to the left out of the picture).  We were relieved when Pam arrived with a screen tent (on the left side of the pic).  Not only was there relief from any bugs but It had a 50+ UV protection on it. 

I realized that while I like the idea of Freezer Bag meals, in practice, not so much.  I have to, once again, reevaluate my meals and what I eat.  There has to be a happy medium between a hot, cooked meal and not too much work.  I have a year to figure it out.

Humphrey the Camel was at the Festival again this year.  It's hard to tell from this picture, but Humphrey is huge!  He's also sweet and he loves his "dad."  The guy in the ball cap is "dad."  He brought out some oat straw for us to feed to H.  The oats made us very popular.

I'll have pictures of what I made in my classes and the great stuff I got later this week.

Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival 2013: The shopping

I bought way too much wool to spin but in my defense, it wasn't my fault.  I was seduced by the wool side.  First I was seduced by color, and cute colorway names:

The colorway on the left is called "Serenity," a reference to the now-sadly-cancelled TV show "Firefly."  The colorway on the right is called "Bigger on the Inside" referring to Doctor Who and the TARDIS.  How could I possibly turn down a Doctor Who colorway.  See?  Not.  My.  Fault.  The roving was dyed by Into the Whirled and I really want to hang out with those people.  How could you not have fun spending time with people who come up with colorways with names like "Captain Hotpants?"  (Again, a reference to "Firefly.")  I almost bought that one, too, but I managed to gulp a breath of air free of wool fumes and came to my senses... sort of.  I kind of bought 8 ounces in each colorway. 

The spindles are Bosworth spindles and I had absolutely planned on buying those.  The one on the left is a Moosie spindle.  Why is it called Moosie you ask?  Because the whorl is made from moose antler.  Yup, moose antler.  (In case you didn't know, moose shed their antlers every year, growing a new pair in the spring.)  The spindle on the right has a whorl made from Red Cedar.  Believe it or not, the spindle on the left weights more than the one on the right.

Again, not my fault, this one was truly evil and sucked me in with a glance.  Seriously, could YOU resist silk caps that look like this? 

This one did it with some amazing crimp and soft locks.  This is a bit over one pound of raw Corriedale wool.  I really wanted to come home with an entire colored Cormo fleece but that would have been completely insane so I settled for about a pound of raw wool to play with.  See, I was able to rise above the wool side on occasion.  I also came home with 8 ounces of white Cormo roving not pictured here because white roving isn't that exciting to look at and I didn't think I could properly photograph "soft."  It's virtually impossible for me to turn down anything Cormo.

Also purchased but not shown was the book "Knitting on the Edge" by Nicki Epstein (which I just saw was discount priced on Amazon and I paid full price... grrrr!),  a needle gauge/knitting gauge, a bar of wonderful lemon ginger soap and kitty snips.  Mine are in blue.

As if my vacation wasn't fabulous enough, I come home to find most of the flowering trees are in full bloom, including the Kwanzan Cherry in my front yard:

The individual blossoms are stunning:

Now if only I could figure out a way to work at home...

Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival 2013

The Festival, as usual, was great!  The weather couldn't have been more perfect:  no warmer than 73F during the day with a nice breeze and low 40's at night so the sleeping was great.  It was a bit chilly getting out of bed in the morning but it was a small price to pay for such a great weekend.

This year was the 40th year of the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.  Those of us who were lucky enough to win a ribbon, got a special one that declared the 40th.

My skein won first place in the category:  100% wool prepared by spinner from raw wool - Medium plied yarn.  This was the yarn spun from the New Zealand Corriedale.

The day before we left, Sheri noticed there was a category for a group project.  I had spun the purple yarn above on my drop spindle a couple of years ago and gave it to Sheri for her birthday.  She, in turn, knitted it into a shawlette.  Our group project won first place.  Woot!

Sheri's knit bunny, destined for a baby soon to be born, won third place:

Most of my shopping time happened Saturday morning (purchases to be disclosed later this week).  Saturday afternoon and part of Sunday was spent spinning on my new Bosworth drop spindle.  I lucked out two days in a row and had some wandering musicians pull up some chairs in front of me and start playing:

Having some nice music to listen to while I spun was one of the high points of the weekends.

Our campsite on Friday.  Friday was our slow day:  all we had to do Friday was drop off our stuff for the skein and garment competition.  After that, we hung out at camp, Sheri knitting or crocheting and me carding the wool that I spun Saturday and Sunday at the Festival.

Another high point of the weekend was seeing a Pileated Woodpecker!  Don't let the picture on the link fool you, that bird was huge!  The adults can reach 19 inches in length and their wingspan can reach 30 inches.  I have to say, he (or she) was beautiful.  We saw him Sunday and again on Monday was we were striking camp.  It was a rare treat.

I had a blast as usual.  I just adore camping!  Our third partner in crime, Rhonda, couldn't join us this year.  She was waiting for lambs to be born and had a new granddaughter who's mom needed some help with the other little ones.  She was with us in spirit, though, through copious texting.  My next big event is the Michigan Fiber Festival in August.  I've already signed up for my classes.  Between now and then, however, there will be strawberry and blueberry picking, jam making, berry freezing, a crafting weekend and my birthday.  This is my favorite time of year!

Michigan Fiber Festival

Sorry for disappearing.  The fiber festival kind of snuck up on me and I found myself rather unprepared for the event.  There was camping and food to prepare for, classes that needed equipment gathered, and catkids to be taken care of.  Nothing bloggable happened, so, no blogging.

We drove out to Allegan, MI on Tuesday.  Wednesday was my first class which was Indigo Dyeing.  Oh.  My.  God!  It was so much fun.  We dyed silk scarves, cotton bandanas and socks.  Yup, socks.  We used something called Instant Indigo.  They take a dyepot of indigo, get it ready for dyeing - a horribly smelly and complicated process - and when it's ready to dye, they freeze dry it.  So, it's real indigo but all you have to do it add water and get the pot up to temperature (115F).  I bought 8 oz. of the stuff.  Blue being my favorite color and all.

The two on the right became the two bandanas in the middle in this picture:

The silk scarf on the left is mine but I didn't take a picture of it all folded up.  This class was so much fun.  I will definitely take it when she offers it again.

My second class was Drumcarding Basics.  That's my "station" in the lower left-hand corner.  All those bags in the center are filled with dyed Columbia locks.  This one was a lot of fun, too.

Camping was fun, as usual.  We got rain, as usual, and, as usual, somehow water got into my tent under my mattress.  Everything else was dry and there weren't any leaks that I could find but the water made it onto the tarp under the tent and soaked through the tent floor.  As leaks go, I'll take  it.  It could have been so much worse.

Sheri and I entered yarn in the skein contest.  Her 2-ply, wheel-spun yarn won first place and mine won second:

I was absolutely floored to find I'd managed to win Best of Show with my spindle-spun yarn.  When I saw it in the vase, I thought they'd just displayed it to make it look nice.  I didn't realize that the vase WAS the award:

The picture isn't very good but the vase is etched.  It says:  Michigan Fiber Festival, Best of Show, 2012.  They had to tell me I'd won something special because I was thinking I'd won 1st place because there weren't any other spindle-spun skeins entered.  I still can't believe it.  I've never won something like that before.  Wow.

So, how was your week?

I may be off-line the rest of the week

My sisters have been helping me rearrange my condo.  One of the results of this is the computer is now across the room and no longer near the cable.  The TV has the same problem.  I need to either buy or borrow some long cables to snake around the room so I can use my computer and watch TV.  I should have this done by Sunday.  I hope.  This morning, back at work, is the first time I've been online since last Thursday.

I have a few pictures from our trip to the Great Lakes Fiber Show in Wooster, OH.  We had fun but it was HOT!  Sunday, when we struck camp, it was 95F!  Poor Sheri fought a heat-induced migraine all the way home.  Thank goodness for air conditioning!  Friday night a thunderstorm blew through and for about 10 minutes we had huge wind gusts that nearly blew our tents down.  All three of us were in our tents trying to hold the walls up.  Rhonda was laughing so hard she could barely stand.  Fortunately, the wind only lasted a short time.  We did, however, have a fantastic lightning storm.  Just beautiful!

This coming Sunday I'm hoping to pick Strawberries.  If the weather is good, I'll be picking for jam, dried strawberries and fruit leather.  I wish I had more liners for the fruit leather but my dryer only came with one.  I'll be ordering more.  Hmm, I wonder if I can fudge the drying liners and use plastic wrap. 

Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival 2012 - part 2

I did pretty well in the skein contest:

It's interesting to me that the yarn I thought would do well, didn't.

My spindle-spun skein didn't win the prize for the best spindle-spun skein.  This is actually a good thing because it shows me that I'm not the only one entering.  I'll just have to spin better so I win next year.

The shopping, as you might imagine, was lots of fun.  The first thing I bought was the replacement for the spindle I dropped and shattered.  The next day I bought a Bosworth spindle:

The Bosworth spindle, on the left, is made from Bird's Eye Maple and spins really well.  The Spin-a-Bit spindle on the right is an identical replacement for the broken one.  I really need to find a good way to store and display my spindles.  I'd be grateful for some suggestions.

Next I bought a couple of gorgeous batts:

Unfortunately, this picture doesn't really show how beautiful these batts are.  Once they're spun up, I plan on using the yarn for weaving scarves.

Thanks to Sheri and Rhonda, I bought a 24" Kromski Harp Rigid Heddle loom.  The girls sat through the auction held on Saturday and bought my loom for me.  They bought stuff for themselves, too.  It was just so hot there was no way I could have sat outside for 3 hours while the auction was under way. 

Okay, it's a crappy picture.  Sorry.  The Harp folds up for easier storage and transportation.  It'll hold 5 yards of cloth up to 24" wide.  I'll be weaving scarves and probably a table runner or two.

To play with my drumcarder, I bought some dyed Merino roving, sparkly fiber and some Merino/silk roving.  I should get 2 or 3 batts out of what I bought.  Playing will likely commence this weekend.

That's red Angelina on the left and Firestar sparkle on the right.  One of the things I was looking for in Maryland were things to add to batts to make them more fun to spin.

So that's the last of the trip photos.  We had a great time this year.  Part of the fun was my sister joined us for the weekend.  Fortunately for her, she missed the thunderstorm and the rain since she didn't arrive until Friday.  A good time was had by all.

Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival 2012 - part 1

Thursday morning, packing up the van.  It was a great start to the trip.

Friday, after dropping off our yarn for the skein contest, we stopped at Michael's and bought some visors and the stuff to decorate.  We found some cute sheep stickers and letters to spell out our Ravelry names.

Finally, after waiting a whole year, we were back again!

These pictures were taken on Sunday but Saturday was packed with people.  There is a HUGE field next to the fair grounds that covers probably 6 acres of land.  The field was completely filled and cars were parked across the street in the overflow parking.  I have never seen so many people at the Festival before.  I'm curious to find out just how many people were there on Saturday.

They used tractors and wagons to cart people from the parking lot to the Festival.

We passed a fair goer who had purchased this amazing felted horse head puppet.  Someone did some incredible work on this piece.

We had a great time camping.  Friday night we kept getting molested by this butterfly.  Anyone who was still in the sun was a potential landing spot.  He hung out on Rhonda's head for a while.  And my head, my shoulder, the chair Rhonda's sitting in.  It was a welcome change from mosquitos.

We had great weather with the notable exception of Thursday night.  Starting about 9:00 and lasting at least until midnight, we experienced the biggest thunderstorm I have ever be in the middle of.  It was LOUD!  And when the heavens finally opened up, the downpour was impressive.  Happily, my tent didn't leak a single drop.  I highly recommend Eureka! tents.

This was the packing portion of Monday.  Sheri managed to get everything you see, and a few things not in the picture, all into the van and still left Rhonda with a clear sightline.  Sheri is the master packer!

We had a really good time this year.  My yarn did pretty well in the skein contest (although I didn't win for the best spindle-spun skein, which proves that I'm NOT the only person entering spindle-spun yarn), I bought a rigid-heddle loom, a couple of spindles and some spinning fiber.  I'll have more pictures later this week.

Fiber Expo

The Expo was fun, tiring and sadly, slow.  Saturday was a bit better than Sunday, but overall, it was a slow weekend.  Many of the vendors said the same thing.  Rhonda's and my booth, however, looked great:

Each of us on our own, we wouldn't have had enough to fill a booth.  Together, we put together a nice display.

I hand painted some canvas bags but this was the wrong market for them.  Still, I think they look pretty nice:

Rhonda and Sheri surprised me with the castle I told you about, all nicely painted by Sheri.  The big sheep in the picture is Darby, our mascot:

Finally, most of my sales came from the roving:

I made back my booth fee and a bit more so I guess it was a successful sale.  And we had fun.  (One of the best things in the booth was a bunch of flowers I picked up.  Flowers which Galen is currently trying to eat.)  Rhonda and I have decided to do more shows together.  This show was the last one of the season so the next will be the Michigan Fiber Fiesta next May.  We have lots of time to get felting, spinning, dyeing, painting, shearing and sewing.  I'm looking forward to it.

Gearing up

The Fiber Expo is next weekend.  I have a lot of work ahead of me to get ready for it.  There's some Merino/bamboo and Merino/Tencel roving in the basement waiting for some color and I need to get some spindle boxes completed.  I had been thinking of abandoning my Etsy store but I have all this wool and dyes and fabric that I need to do something with.  Might as well turn it into something useful for my store.  Besides, it gives me more things to play with, which I count as a win.

I filled out an inventory sheet tonight and labeled each piece of roving and yarn for sale.  I'm getting pretty excited about this sale.  I have a friend, Rhonda, splitting the booth with me so we'll have more stuff in our booth, which is always a good thing, and I'll have someone to talk to between customers.  More importantly, I'll have someone to watch the booth when I need to use the bathroom.  Rhonda found this castle dollhouse kind of thing at Michaels that looks a lot like my business logo.  It's one of those bare wood things that you need to paint.  I'm thinking a quick sanding and a coat of black spray paint and then a couple of bud vases on top with single red roses in them to look like flags.  Yeah, it's hard to picture and I don't have a photo yet but I'll be sure to post one when I do.  I'll be taking pictures of our booth so hopefully the castle will be done by then.  I'd really like to have it done by the show.

Aside from the Fiber Expo, I'm still deciding on the sashing to go between the squares in my Halloween quilt.  My sister thinks a dark green would look good but I'll have to audition different colors first.  If I have time this weekend, I'll visit my quilt store to do some shopping.  I'd like to have the top done by the last Wednesday of the month which is when the Ann Arbor Modern Quilt Guild meets.  It's nice to show off what you've made to people who know the work that went into it.

Have a good weekend, people!