MSW, part 2

Be warned, this is a very picture-heavy post.

First thing that really struck me about Maryland Sheep and Wool was the sheer number of people everywhere! Saturday was crazy with all of the lines.


The next thing that strikes you are the animals. I loved looking at all of the different sheep breeds, the sheepdogs, llamas, alpacas, and rabbits. If you are every going to go, don't miss the parade of sheep breeds!





I didn't take any pictures of the various booths because there were just so many! How do you choose what to look at first? So I'll leave you to take a look around the blogsphere to see others' pictures which are a whole lot better than I could have taken.

I really enjoyed watching the Sheep to Shawl contest. No, I was not there to watch the sheep get shorn (that is 8 in the morning, people!) but I did watch the spinning, weaving and finishing of most of the groups.

This brightly colored shawl was the overall winner.

And then there were the purchases. I definitely was going through a green and blue period, wasn't I?


I ended up with a lot of fun stuff, mainly fiber with some yarn thrown in there, too. I bought a bag of completely non-natural, human-made fiber because it was sparkly :) Two different kinds of tencel/merino blends one of which was a purple-blue and the other which was called peacock and was a bluish-green. I couldn't wait and started spinning up the peacock tencel on Sunday night on the new wheel. I also got a silk hankie which was dyed in greens and blues.

I've never worked with Socks that Rock so I bought a skein of the medium weight sock yarn (of course in green). Then I couldn't wait to start knitting on it so I bought some DPNs and got some help winding the skein into a ball. Then I fell down and bought 3 skeins of sock yarn from Tess Designer Yarns (I think that is the name, it isn't in front of me). It is a really pretty mix of light and dark blues and grey. I also fell down and bought a cone of some silk to work up into another lace project.

Luckily, by the time we waited in line for the festival gear, it was way down. I picked up a canvas tote with brown edging and I really like it. The tote, I decided, was a better route than a T-shirt. I'll probably get more use out of the tote.

Of course, I didn't need another drop spindle but I found a really nicely carved one so that jumped in my bag. Speaking of spinning tools, I bought a wheel!


It is a Majacraft Little Gem and is so cute! I tried a lot of different wheels while at the festival and it was a tough decision between a couple. This one folds up very small and is really easy to transport. I'm smitten!

I'll leave you with the picture of my STR socks. I'll pick them back up after I've played with the wheel for a bit :)

Spinning my wheels

I filled one bobbin with handspun this morning so I immediately put it on my niddy noddy to skein up and set it. We have a roaring fire downstairs so the yarn was almost entirely dry 30 minutes after I hung it down there.



I'm really happy with this yarn. It feels so nice and the white corriedale was a DREAM to spin up. I had heard people describing spinning up some roving was like butter and now I fully understand. It just flew between my fingers. I still have 4 oz of it to spin up but I don't have any empty bobbins right now other than the one I am plying on.

This skein is 242 yards and I'm hoping to ply up another bobbin tonight. That or get a good start on it.

Progress!

Look! Progress! I've been plugging away at my Double Bordered Scarf from Victorian Lace Today and it is slowly growing. I'm coming to think of it as my escapism project. Whenever something gets too hard or boring or overwhelming, time for the simple and yet complicated looking scarf! The cashmere yarn is soooooo wonderful feeling. I waffle between really liking the colors and only sort of liking the colors.


I went to the Appalachian Heritage Festival on Saturday. It was the first year for this event but they had a pretty good turn out of vendors. It gave me a chance to do a lot of Christmas shopping. I also went a tad nuts over lotions and handmade soaps. One vendor had lotion bars that can sit out on their own little dishes. I chose a French Vanilla bar and dragonfly dish for Mom (she loves dragonflies) and a tube of Coconut Cream lotion for me. I was sorely tempted by the sheep dishes. You can't even imagine how wonderful this lotion smells. I might have to get on their website and order more. Then another vendor had chocolate hand lotion. It smells like you are putting the most delicious hot chocolate on your hands without the whole risk of burning yourself. Probably shouldn't use these when I am hungry, huh?

The many different vendors, demonstrators and animals were very interesting. I would have taken pictures but my camera doesn't have any batteries. One of the llamas looked very disgruntled by all of the people. There were so many spinners around and so much roving. I bought my first little bit of roving, 2 oz of Shetland from a ewe called Faith. I'll play with this once I know a little bit more about spinning. Speaking of spinning, there were so many spindles, wheels and roving there. Very interesting :)

There was also yarn there but I didn't buy much of it. Just this skein of sock yarn in OSU colors for Dad. This yarn is 70% superwash wool and 30% seacell and feels like silk. It should be a lot of fun to knit up.


I also got a couple of jars of honey for Christmas presents. It is amazing the kinds of things you can learn at these festival things. Two ladies were talking to the man selling the honey telling him about how they put honey on cuts and burns and it helped heal it right up. He said that many studies have shown how honey is a natural antiseptic. I also learned that the lighter honey is the honey gathered in spring. The darker kind is gathered in fall. He had just harvested the fall honey that I bought a couple of days before. Talk about fresh! He was also talking to another person about how taking local honey each day can really help with allergies.

In other news, I received the yarn for and cast on yesterday for the Brennan Cardigan. Don't you find making the sleeves last seems like they take forever? You are so close to being finished with the sweater and then you still have to finish a huge chunk of knitting. So this time, I cast on for the sleeves first rather than last. I've already finished all of the ribbing and almost finished with the increases. It's kind of amazing how quickly they are going. Guess if you are determined, things will go faster. I've also been practicing my backwards knitting for this project so I don't have to keep turning it back and forth. Very helpful :)

All wound up

Not helping me get packed! I wound the glorious yarn up this morning. The beads in the pill box next to it are called Gunmetal and look great with the yarn.


Close up! I think the pill case is going to be very helpful on the plane.

OK, now I am really going to finish packing. Really.

It's here!

Look what came!!!!!!!!!!!!!


2400 yds! The color is just gorgeous and I love the feel of Cherry Tree Hill yarns. One of the beads I got will match it just perfectly. I can't wait to wind it up and cast on!

Getting ready

I can't wait till my yarn arrives for the Mystery Stole 3. The first clue came out on Friday and the charts look like a lot of fun. A ton of the other people have already finished their charts and looking at their pictures makes me really want to cast on.

I went to a bead shop in Columbus the other day. It was something else. A whole lot of incense and lots of crazy stuff as well as tons of beads. I fell in love with these three colors. The one on the left is more purple than blue, the one in the center is a lovely green, and the one on the right is a clear pewter-lined bead. I can't wait to see what they look like with the yarn!

Speaking of my yarn, Kim has been moving heaven and earth to try to get it to me. It is a hank of pewter Cherry Tree Hill lace-weight. The dyer said it really turned out well. It is somewhere between here and VT. I'm hoping it will be here by Monday. Ah! The suspense!

I've been running around like a chicken without its head recently. I can't believe I am leaving on Wednesday! The time has gone by really fast. I'm almost finished packing, though. I picked up some really nice Eagle Creek "cubes" and clothes folder on sale the other day at the Container Store. They've turned out to be a great asset. They organize my clothes really well. The Sainbury's bag is where I have been throwing the miscellaneous stuff that I need to take.


I'm off tonight to meet up with some friends from high school who are in town for the 4th. We've re-organized the meet-up 3 times now. It should be nice to see people. Some I haven't seen since last June and others since Christmas. It should be fun to exchange stories. I'm just glad we're able to do it before I leave.

Spinning wheels

OK, I totally didn't think of the spinning wheels as in "making yarn with a spinning wheel" when I wrote this post title. I was thinking of spinning your wheels or not getting anywhere but it obviously means that spinning wheels are on my mind.

Anyway, back to my point! Spinning my wheels because I am doing stuff but nothing is getting done. I try to get one thing crossed off my to-do list and something blocks me from getting it done! Tried to call the deferred compensation department and they closed early today for training. Tried to book travel arrangements for the mini-break that will happen while I am in England (I want to take a bus tour of Southern Ireland) but the site was down for maintenance. Tried to get more contacts before I leave but left it till too late so I can't get them in time. Grrrrrr! Really, all of these things are being caused by my laziness and not getting things done when I should have done them. Oh, and my car is back in the shop because the engine is not happy when I drive over 5 miles. One of these days it is just going to stop and not move any more.

At least, not everything is bad. I had a nice ride this morning before it got too hot and modified the jump gymnastic a little bit. Greta and I are planning to haul over to Lobdell Reserve tomorrow morning and ride the trails there. I need to make sure the brake lights are working this time around.

I had yesterday off of my normal work and "worked" at The Needling Yarn and will do the same thing tomorrow. There was a spinning class there yesterday evening so I eavesdropped and sat back there to watch once the shop was closed. Miravi! I am definitely learning how to do that.

I also got a whole bunch of yarn wound into cakes. That huge stack of yarn is the yard sale Cherry Tree Hill I found a while ago. The yarn on the swift is some CiderMoon Buckeye Blast. I also caked their Seagrass that I got two weeks ago at the Knitters' Connection. Also divided the red Meilenweit Stretch into equal balls and wound those. I also wound the remaining cotton yarn from the Ballet Camisole into much neater cakes. (Basically, I was having way too much with the swift and ball winder.)



And it finally rained yesterday. I got stuck under one of the overhangs downtown and snapped a few pictures while I was waiting.


I finished the footlets yesterday and even did a decent job Kitchnering the toes. As happy as I am about that, I'm going to have to rip the toe out of the second one because it is too small. I guess I got bored and was no longer able to measure correctly because it is uncomfortably short. I'm thinking about just putting them away for a while and maybe the house elves will fix them. Yeah, right.

I mentioned the Ballet Camisole yarn a little earlier. Some of you may remember this top and remember how I suddenly stopped mentioning it. Nothing went wrong with it. No, it is all finished except for the finishing like weaving in ends and single crocheting all around the arm and neck holes. Well, I finally wove in the ends and am in the process of crocheting the edges. I only have one arm hole left to do. It will be nice to get it out of the WIP pile.

Guess what else I finished!

Guess what I finished (part 2) . . .




That's right, the Anastasia socks! This pattern is so much fun to do! I have to say that I like all of the socks that pepperknit has designed. These socks were like my other plain vanilla socks but literally had a twist to them! The yarn was OK to work with but not great. The finished product feels wonderful but it was really splitty, more so than the Austermann Step yarn. I have enough left over to maybe make a pair of footies. We'll see.

I finished this a couple of weeks ago (another thing designed by pepperknit and here is a link to the pattern) but never sat down to take a picture of it. Basically, now I am just trying to use up this color of the Kool-aid dyed yarn. The next project might be some more baby hats to keep in reserve in case anyone else I know is going to have a kid.


Speaking of babies, my cousin just had her's a couple of days ago. Mom and son are doing well and should be home for the first time today (or yesterday, time gets away from me). It seems like so long ago that I went to Philadelphia for her baby shower.

Off to start another pair of socks. This pair is going to be in Cherry Tree Hill's Peacock colorway. I've been hoarding this stuff since last year because it is so beautiful. The predominate color to the yarn is green and I am trying to get them finished before the end of this month's Project Spectrum colors. I want to have a pair of socks in each of the three different colors. Not to mention it just seems wrong to have a pair of needles without anything on them! (Come to think of it, that could be why I have so many WIPs. . . .)

So weak

So very weak but such a good deal. This sort of thing is why we have a stash everyone.
Now what do I do with 2000+ yards of this beautiful stuff?!

Snake socks

I got the Gras socks packed up to this morning and stopped by the post office on my way to work. It makes me feel so accomplished! I just hope my friend likes them.

I'm finally getting back to the Naga socks designed by Abigail. I've been a bad test knitter because I started them a while ago but got distracted. I'm almost finshed with the foot and am ready to start the heel soon. I've never done a Sherman Heel before so this is a learning experience for me. I really like the look of the pattern but am having some misgivings that the Kool-aid yarn might not be the right yarn for it. The colors might be too busy for the pattern. Perhaps if I just had a dark purple and neon green (grape and lemon-lime), it would look better. Oh, well. We'll have to see what Abigail thinks.

After I finish the Naga socks, I am going to start on another pair of socks for a friend. This one will be using up the rest of the black yarn from the Södera socks and some white. I think I will make the toes, heels and design on the leg in white with the rest of it in black.

I seem to be on a sock roll recently. It doesn't help whenever I go to a yarn shop, I usually pick up a skein.

I went into Kim's on Friday to show off the Södera socks. She had just got in a test sample of TOFUtsies so I am going to work it up and tell her what I think about it. The colors are beautiful greens and blues. It reminds me of the perfect summer colors! I think I'll make a mini sock out of it. That shouldn't take much time to make.There has been a lot of talk about this yarn on the Yahoo Socknitters list recently.

On Saturday, I ran around Columbus like an idiot running errands from one end of town to another as well as going to a couple of yarn shops. People have raved about the Knitters Mercantile and now I completely understand why. The shop had a great selection and the people were really nice. They had a table in the back for classes and a seating area in the front of the store. I wore my Södera socks because I thought I might visit yarn shops and wanted to show off. One lady noticed them and, from then on, kept telling people about them :) I felt very flattered. I bought a skein of scarlet and grey sock yarn for Dad. We'll see when I get around to that. It was dyed by a woman in Utica, OH which is in my county. They had a lot of her hand-dyed fingering weight yarn as well as Lorna's Laces, Opal and other sock yarns that I didn't actually write the name down (darn it! I even had a small notebook with me!).

I also stopped in Temptations in Dublin. (For some reason I can't find their website right now.) The store was kind of like a maze of yarn in the various rooms of an old house. Nooks and crannies everywhere. They had lots of different yarns but not a ton of sock yarn. They did have some tofu yarn so I picked up a skein of pink.

Yup, am definitely working on the sock yarn stash exceeding my life expectancy.

Yarn p0rn

Got this lovely Koigu in the mail yesterday from Knit, Purl in Oregon. The purple is much more purple in person. I had gotten one skein (don't know what I was thinking only getting one!) of the dark multi-color when I was in NYC. The dye lot of this new one will not be the same, of course, but it is close enough. The pink is to help me finish up the Valentine's day socks. I can't wait to finish them but other projects call first. Namely, Sheldon.



I am just now working on his shell and need to attach the legs. The body was a very fast knit though I have heard other people that he is a fiddly knit. We shall see. I need to get Sheldon finished before the baby shower the weekend following this one.

This is what I was up to today. . . .



Sewing together squares for the Warm Up America! blanket. One of the women who came to the last program brought 55 squares this time. That is right, 55! She is amazing. All of them are exactly 7x9 inches and such even stitches. Thanks to her, we easily have 2 blankets and maybe even 3. :)

OK, back to Sheldon!

2 Balls

kool-aid yarn,
originally uploaded by bookworm knitting.

Get your mind out of the gutter! :D These are my finished product from the Kool-Aid experiment. The one on the left is Cherry, Orange, Pink Lemonade and Lemonade. It doesn't look quite so orange in real life. The second ball is the one from before just all balled up.

OTN: Fetching (still) for Carolyn. I cast on the second glove last night while waiting at the airport and am almost done. By the end of Ugly Betty tonight, I should be finished.

I met my friend at the airport yesterday and drove him and his boss to their hotel. (They were in town for a conference.) Then proceeded to get sort of lost trying to find a restaurant. I hate one way streets! We finally found a place (Barley's near the North Market) which was a brewery and had some very interesting beers. The dinner was wonderful (sooooooo much food) and the conversation was fun. It was nice to catch up. When we left, I ended up getting horribly turned around and slightly lost. Again, I hate one way streets. I turned too soon then had to make my way back. Ugh, definitely don't like city driving! Though it was worth it to see a friend from college. :)

Finished Objects!

This is about to be a whole lot of pictures of FO.

shawls pre-blocking, click on the picture for a larger image
This is a picture of the forest canopy shawls on which I have been working. The dark green one is the "test" yarn that I used before making the same pattern in the light green mohair.

This is a close-up of the leaf pattern in the mohair. You would not believe how warm this thing is! The pattern will be much clearer once I block the things.

This is the purse I have been working on for Christmas/Thank you gift for my cousin. I am going to be staying with her for a couple of days before leaving for Austria. This picture is of the purse before felting. The handle and bottom of the bag are re-enforced by garter stitching them with two strands of yarn. The handle and the flap are beaded.

The second picture of the bag is it in the felted state. Surprise, surprise, it looks like the before picture! ;) The inside pocket has beads across the top so you can feel it easily. I realized as I was felting it that a black purse might not have been such a good idea. They are black holes anyway so this one will be a super black hole. Oh, well!

Yarn! Yarn! Yarn!

DeStash is a very bad thing. Very. So that is why I check it every morning religously (I love Bloglines!). The beautiful green mohair blend arrived yesterday. I've decided to make the Forest Canopy Shoulder Shrug from I'm Knitting As Fast As I Can. It will be the first time I have tried making lace so we will see how it goes. I might try it first with some of the other yarn I have around the house. Just for practice.

I am still working on the yoga socks. Turns out I didn't have enough leftover yarn from the last pair of socks to make a full pair of yoga socks. So I've made the top of the sock out of that yarn and the foot part out of the lime green yarn from my green knee-highs from a while ago. The colors are ok together. I'll post a picture of them once both are done. Instead of doing them both at once, I started them one at a time.

I'll probably get a lot done in the car tonight on the way to school. Thank goodness Sarah is driving because something is going wrong with my car. Lovely. Whenever I press the brakes, there is a grinding sound and the car is sluggish to respond. Dad is getting it inspected for responding to his fire runs tonight so he is going to drive around a little to see what is wrong. We are probably going to take it in tomorrow. I think my car is protesting and telling me that it is tired. I mean, it was originally Dad's, then Mom drove it back and forth to Columbus, now I commute to work and school in it. It is feeling its 11 years. Poor car that must keep working until my schooling is over!