So many hobbies!

Michigan Fiber Festival

The day started out rainy but happily, cleared... and became really humid.  Despite that, I managed to drop off my yarn at the skein contest and do a little shopping.  I managed to surprise myself by leaving with money left over.  No one was more surprised than me.

 

My first purchase was 8 oz. of BFL.  The brown you see running through the braid is natural brown BFL.  I can't wait to see what this one looks like spun up.

 

My second and last purchase was two braids of Superwash BFL, both in the same colorway.  The colors in BFL seemed to be brighter and clearer than any of the Merino I saw.  I just have to slow down and be careful not to put too much twist in the singles or the finished yarn is going to be harsh.

I entered two skeins of yarn in the contest and I was pretty surprised when both one blue ribbons.  Yippee!  I don't have pictures yet; you couldn't pick up your yarn until Sunday and I was only there on Saturday.  A friend who was camping picked the yarn up for me today.  I'll have pictures as soon as I get it back.

 

The first bobbin of singles from the Merino/bamboo I dyed last week.  Not much progress has been made on my socks since I last posted a picture.  I'm still working on them, just very slowly.   

Maryland Sheep & Wool: Part 2

Because of the tennis elbow (which is healing!), I can't knit but I can't stand not having a project to work on.  Hanging out at our campsite, Sheri taught me to crochet in the round and I've been going nuts crocheting dish cloths.  Happily, crochet doesn't bother my elbow.

 

I convinced the girls we should get up early Saturday morning and get in line at The Fold.  Get in line early enough and you can get some of the Socks that Rock mill ends.  It's great sock yarn with one or two tiny flaws for about $8 less than the first-run yarn.  I got my hands on two medium weight skeins of sock yarn:

 

These are going to knit up into gorgeous socks... just as soon as I can knit again.

Michigan Fiber Fiesta

I participated in the first Michigan Fiber Fiesta this weekend.  The past week was filled with dyeing...

 

and sewing...

 

There weren't a lot of attendees, it being the first one after all, but I managed to sell 4 spindle kits (a drop spindle and an ounce of roving) and taught 4 new spinners to spin.  It was just a quick and dirty lesson but they learned the basics.  My next kits will include a list of books, websites and YouTube videos that new spinners might find useful.

 

Here's a shot of my booth.  I was threatened with pain and humiliation of I didn't take and post pictures.  I bought a belt rack to display my roving.  I'd been trying to figure out the best way to display and sell roving at fiber fairs; I liked this one.  The braided roving is threaded with a shower curtain ring and hung on the rotating rack.  My banner seemed plenty big at 2'x3' until I hung it up and realized I should have made it 2 or 3 times larger.  

Finally, I received a package in the mail a few weeks ago but forgot to blog about it.  I wasn't expecting anything and it came from my sister:

 

She sent me the "summer line" of fabric and thread for my spindle boxes.  None of these are fabrics I would have chosen on my own but I love all of them.  It was a box of unexpected love when I needed it.  Thanks, babe.

Maryland Sheep & Wool: Part 1

Do you know how hard it is to use the mouse with your non-dominant hand?  I have tendonitis in my right elbow and mousing hurts.  I moved the mouse to the left of the keyboard but I have crap fine motor control with my left hand.  Bear with me...

The girls and I left the Thursday before the festival and drove east.  The car was completely packed.  Sheri is a genius at the packing.  We camped at Patapsco Valley State Park which is a great campground. 

 

It was HOT and HUMID both Saturday and Sunday.  Notice Sheri's feet in the tub of ice water.  My feet were similarly treated.  Did I mention it was HOT?

 

One of the Jacob sheep breeders hosted a flashmob:  the goal was to teach 100 new spinners to spin.

 

Oh, Jessica.  You were ever so foolish as to declare that you just didn't have time to add spinning to your hobbies.  Didn't you realize that meant I had to put my enabling mojo into high gear?  Yes, I enabled!  Proudly.  She bought a beautiful turned spindle and about 12 oz. of roving.  And her spinning is pretty good for a newbie.  I'm so proud!

 

Because no photos from a fiber fair are complete without at least one sheep picture:  the Scottish Blackface.

 

I entered 3 skeins of yarn and 2 knitted pieces but only one item won anything.  My brown polwarth yarn won third place in it's class but won the special prize for the best spindle-spun skein.  Yay!

We saw some great t-shirts at the festival.  The best one said "If yarn were meth, I'd have no teeth."  I also saw more guys in kilts (7) in one place/event than I've seen since I last did medieval recreationism.  Oh, and I had my annual corn dog.  Yum! 

 

I'm incapable of resisting Seli sunning herself.  She is ever so happy the sun has returned to the couch. 

Gotta love, 'shrooms!

Mmmm, Cremini mushrooms, sliced, sauteed and added to spaghetti sauce.  My favorite sauce is Classico Tomato and Basil.  I have spaghetti a lot.  It's easy and fast after a long day of work and very yummy covered in fresh grated parmesan cheese.  It's what I had for dinner tonight.

I forgot my camera for the Fiber Expo, but someone took a picture and sent it to me.  My roving sold the best.  The handspun, not so much.  A number of folks had some nice things to say about my spindle boxes.  Next year I'll do somethings differently:  order a banner with my logo to hang on the back wall; make up small signs, particularly for the handspun; I'm trying to decide between a real cashbox and just stuffing my earnings in my pocket; possibly a rug to warm things up; lights; and some kind of system (lattice, pegboard, wire rack...) to hang handspun and/or roving at eye level.

I was forbidden by my sister to buy more roving after we de-trashed my condo.  She told me if I needed to go shopping, I had to go through the large bins of roving in the basement and shop there.  She was a bit annoyed with me when I told her I bought this:

 

It's Merino/silk/bamboo and it's soft and luscious.  It's also brighter than this crappy picture:  blue, green and aqua.  It's the purchase I always make so I have beautiful, cheerful winter spinning and I always buy from Winterhaven Fiber Farm.  I just love the way Jenny dyes.  Plus, it's the only roving purchase I've made since May (the May roving is already spun) so I don't feel guilty in the slightest.  The rest of my spinning this winter will be from stash diving.  There's some really nice stuff in there.

 

I've given myself a mission to complete as many of my UFO's as possible before the end of the year.  I've already finished spinning and plying the Cormo roving I bought in May.  The spindle above has the third quarter of the graduated purple roving I dyed earlier this year.  One more singles to spin then I can ply.  The rest of the UFO's are:  fingering weight socks from Socks that Rock, the sport weight socks from my handpainted yarn that I haven't touched since last winter, a handspun shawl, some Polwarth I'm spindle spinning, the last 4 oz. of Polwarth/angora to spin and then ply with the Cormo/silk singles that I've already spun.  I'm not knitting any Christmas presents this year so Christmas knitting isn't a concern.  (Everyone is getting jam and/or cookies for Christmas this year.)  It'll be nice to start the new year without any old UFOs hanging over my head.

I haven't forgotten

I have been crazy busy lately which is only part of the reason I haven't been posting.  My home PC has slowed down to an absolutely crawl (remember dial-up?) and between that, my sister and I doing a clean-sweep on my condo and getting ready for the Fiber Expo, no blogging has been happening.  I'm pretty sure, since my virus software is up to date, that my PC isn't infected but beyond that, I don't know how to figure out what's wrong.  Last weekend, my sister stayed with me and we spent three days doing a clean-sweep on my condo.  The three days was supposed to deal with the entire thing but instead, we spent nearly the entire time on the basement alone.  The end result was two loads of recycling, two trips to Salvation Army and 7 bags of garbage.  I got rid of crap I've been carting around since high school.  We're only about a third of the way through the whole process but it won't be until spring that my sis comes back (she lives in Pennsylvania) to help me finish it.  It was such a huge job, there's no way I would have tackled it on my own. 

The prep for Fiber Expo hasn't been going at the speed I would have liked but considering some of the crap I've been dealing with, personal and other, it suppose things aren't too bad.  I'll have 10 spindle boxes finished.  Did I tell you my oven died?  On the day I was planning to dye roving, I go to turn on the oven to bake said roving and nothing happens.  This prompted the purchase of a far too expensive replacement which was only delivered yesterday.  I won't have the roving stock I was hoping for.  I did go through my stash of handspun and pulled out the yarn I'd spun because I loved the roving but did't have plans for.  Most of my handspun I'll never use so why not sell it to someone who will.

I haven't disappeared and as soon as this weekend is over and I figure out my computer problems, I'll be posting more regularly. 

Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival, Part 2

There are 20 breed names on my list from the weekend.  Unfortunately, I can't use all of them.  I'm new at this game and it took someone pointing out a flaw in my plan for me to see that some of the pictures I'd taken, wouldn't work.  I need photos of sheep in all their fleecey glory.  I wasn't thinking when I took pictures of sheep that had already been prepped for showing.  These sheep had been clipped to make them look pretty but in clipping them, they lost the look that defines that breed.  Here's an example:

 

This is a Blue-faced Leicester sheep in all her glory.  This is a sheep that's been clipped for the show ring:

 

I think this is a Corriedale but I'm not sure.  It's a beautiful animal but he's lost all his breed distinction.  Sadly, I've got a number of these photos and no matter the breed, they all look pretty much the same.  Luckily, I have some great photos of happy, unclipped sheep.  Like this Jacob:

 

Isn't he amazing?  Yes, he has four horns.  On rare occasions, some will have six horns.  It's believed by some that Jacob sheep are the spotted sheep mentioned in the Bible.

 

This is a Finn sheep.  She looks like a powder puff.  Finn sheep don't just have a lamb or two, they have litters.  The record for number of lambs in one birthing is six.  Six babies.  Yes, I'm serious.

 

These are Tunis sheep.  I don't think these girls have been trimmed by I'm not sure.

 

This is a Karakal.  This breed is double coated.  The outer guard hairs are coarse and help shed rain keeping the animal dry.  The undercoat is warm and soft.

This wasn't the most ideal way to get the photos I need but where else am I going to find so many breeds all in one place?  I'm hoping that the photos that I can't use, I can replace with new one from the Michigan Fiber Festival in August.  Oh, and I learned that some sheep that have been socialized with people will stand there for hours while you scratch their necks, blissful expressions on their faces.  Some of them are far more social than you'd expect.

Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival, Part 1

I had so much fun, I don't really know where to start.  Let see... I learned for myself on the drive there that books-on-CD are FABULOUS.  I hardly noticed the nine and a half hours of driving.  In case you're curious, I listed to Sherilyn Kenyon's "Dark Side of the Moon" on the way there and "The Hobbit" on the way back.

The campground - Patapsco State Park - was a very nice place.  You need a code to get in so the only people there are fellow campers.  My campsite was very close to the showers and had electricity.  Very convenient for blowing up my air mattress.  I got my tent up before a brief rain shower but I needed help from a nice park ranger to get the rain/dining canopy up.  I'd forgotten how big it was.  Most of the canopies you can buy now are 10ft. square but I'm pretty sure this one is 15ft. square.  It was plenty big enough for the picnic table and camp chair with plenty of room left over on either end of the table to stand and cook.  Sorry guys, I didn't get a picture of the camp.  Why you ask?  Because it rained virtually the entire weekend.  It was a bit of a drag but I had a great time camping.  The tent mostly stayed dry and the only reason there was water in it was because I didn't trim down my ground cloth and water get between the floor of the tent and the ground cloth.  Thank goodness I found the rain canopy or I would have had a very different experience however.  Once I got home, the tent, tent canopy and rain canopy got tossed over the railing on the back porch to dry.  Most everything was wet.

Saturday morning I started hunting sheep photos but I'll save that for the next post.  I got in line at The Fold to get some Socks that Rock Twisted yarn.  I've been to Maryland twice and both times the line to get Socks that Rock yarn has gone out of the barn and around the corner.  I was determined and got my yarn:

 

Once I finish this post, I'm casting on for this shawl. 

After The Fold, I headed over to the Bingo Hall to see how my yarn did.  I was both happily psyched and rather puzzled.  Check it out.

 

The Merino/bamboo yarn didn't place at all which was puzzle #1 because I thought it was pretty good.  I thought the judge's notes were rather cranky.  That wasn't the main puzzle though.  Puzzle #2 was that the purple 100% spindle-spun skein one a blue ribbon but the cashmere/Polwarth skein that was only 2/3 spindle spun (one ply on the spindle, the other on my Elizabeth, spindle plied) won 5th place but got the special prize for the best spindle-spun skein.  That's was the fancy purple ribbon is for.  I'm trying really hard to wrap my brain around the whole thing.  I'm completely thrown because the skein I spun specifically for that award didn't get it but the skein that's not even completely spindle-spun did get it.  I'll wrap my brain around it eventually.  Sometimes I just very slow.  Hey, I just realized I won both 1st and 2nd in the same class (yarn from roving chemically dyed by the spinner).  Cool!  The Cormo yarn got 3rd place.  I need to practice carding and spinning from hand carded fiber.

Whenever I sat down somewhere, I'd chat with the folks next to me.  That's how I met a group of ladies who were playing with their new spindles.  They asked me if I was going to the Spin-in.  I hadn't been planning on it because I was pretty tired by 6:00 Saturday night but they were fun and I wasn't ready to go back to my campsite.  Unbeknownst to me, there were contests and prizes.  I won a Festival t-shirt because I came the farthest.  Yay!  One contest was the longest singles while spinning blindfolded.  I didn't think to pull out my camera until the contest to see who could spin the longest singles while wearing plastic grocery bags on your hands.

 

These are two of the ladies I had met earlier.  I'm not positive, but I think they tied for the longest yarn.  It's hard to see but the spindles they're using have, instead of a whorl, three spokes sticking out with glass knobs on the end.  There's no ring or whorl.  They're pretty cool looking but I tried one and it didn't spin as long as I like.  I stayed for a couple of hours before going back to camp.  Once there I was in bed by 9:00 and slept until 7:00.  I was a bit tired.

There were some things I just couldn't pass up and ended up coming home with me.  Some sock yarn:
 

The skein on the left is mill end Socks that Rock, the middle skein is SW Merino and nylon and the right skein is SW Merino.  There was also some roving:

 

The braid at the top is BFL.  On the left is 50/50 Merino/silk.  I just couldn't pass up those jewel tones.  The roving on the right is Cormo and while I love the color, I'm very disappointed with the quality of the roving.  It's full of nepps.  (I just tried to find a definition for "nepp" and I'm thinking I'm using the wrong word because I couldn't find one.  By "nepp" I mean little wool pills caused by the fiber being stretched too far and then released.  When it's released, it springs back and makes a little knot of wool.)  This roving is full of those little pills and it's impossible to spin a nice, even yarn.  Well, not unless I want to stop every couple of inches and pull out the nepp.  I don't so I'm not even trying to spin an even yarn.  This one's going to have character.  Here's what I'm spinning it on:

 

This is the one purchase I really shouldn't have made:  a gorgeous Golding ring spindle.   Am I the only one who has those kind of purchases or is anyone else afflicted, too?   This one put me over my budget.  Oops.  I just can't bring myself to regret buying it though.  It's beautiful, hand carved and spins great.  And I've been wanting one for a while now.

I had so much fun this past weekend.  The rain really wasn't bothersome.  I slept great on my air mattress.  Fortunately, I bought a down comforter with me because the double polar-fleece blanket just wasn't enough.  With the comforter, I slept in the lap of luxery.  And my new toys were a joy to use.  Here's a shot of my new camp stove and camp pan cooking up sausage and mushrooms for a breakfast burrito:

 

It's tinged green because the rain canopy is green.  (Yes, that's my morning dose of caffeine and carbonation to the right there.  Hey, you drink coffee in the morning, I reach for a Dew.)  Let me tell you, when it's damp and chilly out, a hot breakfast is wonderful.  I can't wait for next year. 

Three more days

All my yarn was packaged up and sent by Priority Mail to Maryland on Monday.  While I reminded myself during the day to take a picture of the Cormo yarn, in the rush and anxiety of getting everything together and packaged for mailing, I forgot.  Sorry.  You'll get to see it when I get it back.  Of course, now I'm completely paranoid that the package will get lost or will show up a day late (it has to get there no later than the 30th).

This afternoon, I bravely ventured into my icky, spidery crawl space to retrieve the cooler that's been in there for the past 10 years.  I was rewarded for my bravery with the rain canopy I forgot was in there.  Yay!  This means I don't have to buy one.  Eventually.  The discovery is especially nice since they're predicting rain all weekend at the Festival.  Camping in the rain is no big deal but cooking in the rain sucks.  I'm hoping for a reprieve Monday morning so I'm not packing up in the rain.  That sucks even more.  Regardless, I'm so excited about this weekend I can hardly stand it.  Oh, if only I could leave tomorrow!  If things go as well as I'm hoping, next year I may leave on Thursday so I can have an extra day of camping.

Any suggestions on what I can cook for dinner?  Saturday night I'm having spaghetti but I'm drawing a complete blank on Sunday night.  I'm having cereal for breakfast and I'll have carny food for lunch but that leaves me with one unplanned dinner.  I really want to break in my new pots and pans.  Please, my peeps, give me something good!

A slow week

 

Sorry, peeps, I've got nothing.  I'm throwing up the shell shadowbox (those are Buttercup Lucines, BTW) so you have something to look at even though this post is mostly a bust.  I love the Buttercups and even though I have a couple hundred of the darn things, I can't pass one on the beach without picking it up.

I've run into some snags with my trip to the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival.  The hotel where we had our reservation closed permanently in January.  Yup, we currently have no place to sleep.  The search will begin again.  Wish us luck.  This trip is very important to me because I plan on taking sheep photographs for my slowly-developing breed specimen book.  The Maryland show is the largest sheep and wool festival in the country and will have the largest variety of breeds in one spot.  I've given myself the deadline of mid-October by which I need to have a sellable version of my specimen book.  I've picked mid-October because the Fiber Expo, which is local, is at the end of October.  I plan on renting a booth/stall at the Fiber Expo to sell my roving, spindle boxes and specimen books.  Again, wish me luck.  I haven't given up my dream that one day I can quit my regular job and work for myself and this specimen book is another step along the way.

Saturday is my guild meeting in the morning and afternoon and in the evening, I've been invited to a knitting/Wallace & Gromit-watching party.  Should be fun.  Sunday, alas, I have to make myself do my taxes.  I hate dealing with numbers and my taxes and I always procrastinate until the last moment.  I know.  I have issues.  I'm working on it.