Mikknit

Oh, I had so much fun at Shepherd’s Harvest this year! I took a class, I got to see lots of friends and meet new people, and of course there was the fiber orgy. Oh my, the fiber orgy.

First things first: I took my first class this year – Creative Drum Carding with Carol Wagner from Hidden Valley Farm & Woolen Mill. It was great – I definitely gained a lot of confidence in using the drum carder, specifically in blending colors and fibers. We learned some blending techniques using different colors – making a heathered color by blending two colors, then making a layered batt with 3 (or more) colors. My friend Jen from knitting group was in my class and there were a couple other friends with classes in the same area who we got to see. Also in my class was Tonyia, who blended up some great colors. Looks like she bought some nice stuff, too

In addition to Jen and Tonyia, I saw Lara, Shelley, Tracey, Tess, Aubrey, Leslie, someone whose name I can’t remember now (bad Jess) (hey you guys, if any of you has a blog let me know!), Catherine, Kerry, Deb, Amy, Beadslut, Vicki, and June, who was wearing her fantastic new shawl. It seems like I must have seen more friends but I’m blanking on them now. Anyone?

While I was socializing, there was also a little shopping going on. Imagine that. So here’s what came home with me:

Coopworth fleece from Hidden Valley Farm & Woolen Mill. It’s already been washed once and is probablyl ready for another wash by now – still very full of lanolin.

Spinner’s Web from South Dakota Natural Colored Wool Studio (the picture is a little on the blue side – that purple is much brighter IRL)

Wool/silk laceweight from Blackberry Ridge

Merino yarn (it’s heathered green with Packers colors, how could I not?) from Stonehedge Fiber Mill. This is SO LOVELY, words cannot describe it. Luscious.

I also bought some more Lip Blam! and Tropical Shampoo Bar from Shepherd’s Choice, but didn’t bother photographing it. It’s not all that exciting And of course a big bag of kettle corn, but that’s long gone. Yummy.

Let’s hope the kids go to bed easily tonight – I’ve got a fiber blending project that I want to work on. Hopefully I can share that with you soon – it’s very pretty and really fun.

Have a great day, everyone!

I know I’ve been knitting lately but I feel like I’m knitting into a black hole or else someone’s coming along and undoing my knitting when I turn my back. *Sigh*

I finished Arlo’s Wonderful Wallaby and there’s a picture waiting on the camera, which of course is out in the car. He likes it but it’s quite a bit too big for him, while the next smaller size is too small. *Sigh* I think he needs a cardigan. I’ll have to check the yardage of the yarn I finished the other day and see if it’d be enough. I think it was about 8oz, that *should* be enough, right?

I’ve started on Grace’s new Wallaby, using Ella Rae Classic Print in color 204 (pink, yellow, green). It’s my first time using this yarn and I’m finding it quite nice. The sweater is going very slowly, though, attributable to the fact that this is the second sweater in a row knit from the same pattern. *Yawn* I’d love to finish it by next week, since she’s going to spend a few days with my sister and I think it’d be nice for her to have this to wear then. Plus if I finish it I can justify buying some stuff at Herrschners and Black Purl while I’m over in Wisconsin.

I finished a sock, the Trekking 16 one I mentioned a while ago. I started the second one but ran into a knot that pulled out the center of the ball. I need to re-wind it but the ballwinder’s MIA. Sheesh.

It’s really been all about the spinning lately, though. I spun and plied 8oz of handpainted top from Creative Fibers. I need to go over one of the skeins and tighten up the plying, but I’ll have to wait until they’re dry – I didn’t notice how underplied it was until just now when I went downstairs to put in some laundry and to look at my skeins. One of them (the second one, oddly) is nicely plied but the first one is really loose and sloppy. Guess that’s what I get for lounging on the couch to ply while watching a movie instead of actually paying attention to my work. Ah well.

There’s also the fiber stuff – I got the last of the three Shetland fleeces washed, as well as a 1# bag of CVM that I bought at Shepherd’s Harvest in 2003 or 2004. That stuff is greasier than anything I’ve worked with before, especially after the Shetland which hardly has any lanolin at all. It’s so pretty and soft, though! The cats think so too – just about every time one of them goes down to the basement, I find chunks of the CVM fleece scattered around the basement. Stinkers. I found a plastic grocery bag full of clipped angora and two 1# balls of mohair top while I was cleaning up some of the mess down there last week, too. I haven’t a clue as to how long they’ve been there, or where the angora came from. I recall buying the mohair on ebay at some point, and that’s probably where the angora came from too, but when? No idea. I’ve got a plan to blend some of the angora with merino and silk – I have a pound of merino roving yet, and I got an ounce of tussah silk the other day to experiment with. I think I’m going to card up 2oz of the merino with an ounce each of the angora and silk. I’m trying to decide if I want to dye the wool and silk first – that’d definitely make it easier to tell if I’m making a homogeneous blend, but I’m not sure about color(s). Green is definitely up there, and the merino and silk will take the dye in a different way, plus the undyed angora will lighten up the color. There’s also the possibility of using different colors on the merino and silk, but that kind of scares me. But if I’m going to be a big chicken, I can use smaller amounts and if it looks like crap, oh well.

I need to go now before my kids kill each other or I am forced to throw them in the closet. We are going to IKEA with my friend Beth, who’s well past her due date and hoping to walk that baby out. I went over 42 weeks with Arlo, so I know how much fun she’s having. I don’t miss that (much).

Whoops.

I may have “accidentally” bought a spinning wheel. Oops.

We went out to Detta’s Spindle today, the last day of her annual sale. I only planned to get some fiber, maybe a book or magazine, maybe some yarn. I got the fiber – a bag of her Woofspun fiber (dog hair blended with wool and a couple other things), a bag of alpaca/corriedale (I think) in a colorway called “Lima Bean”, and a bag of mill end wool (from Brown Sheep) that Kerry so kindly enabled me into buying. From there, I decided that maybe it’d be fun to try out some of the wheels, since I’d been thinking about making a change for awhile. I briefly tried a Kromski Minstrel, which was nice but not really *it*. Then the Majacraft Suzie, which was lurvely. I also tried the Rose, which was nice but didn’t work as well for me as the Suzie. Negotiated a little with DH, promised him that I’d sell my Louet S90, and the Suzie came home with us. It’s waiting until the grabby-handed ones are in bed, then I’m going to get it out and have at it. I’ve got to go back out to Detta’s (oh, the torture) to collect the rest of the bobbins and pay, later this week. She’s going to buy the Louet from me (less work for me, yay!) and we decided it’d be better to just take care of the whole transaction at once. Detta is simply awesome!

Hmm… where’s the pizza delivery guy?

I spent some time organizing/consolidating the stash yesterday – I’d noticed that the knitting bags on doorknobs and coatrack situation was getting a little ridiculous. Good heavens do I have a lot of yarn. I’m sure that wasn’t even 1/4 of it that I handled yesterday and it filled a good-sized Rubbermaid bin. There’s still more out on the front porch and another bin or two in the gigantic mess sewing room, too. Oy. And the two skeins of organic wool and two skeins of Peace Fleece DK that I bought at Northern Dyeworks in Ashland last weekend. I need to take some time to separate out all the sock yarn and then sort everything else somehow. Since almost everything else is wool and most of it’s worsted weight, I’m thinking that things should be stored by project, maybe tied together into a bundle or something within the bin. Who knows what’ll strike my fancy when I finally get to it.

And of course I just went and bought more yarn today – I caught one of the cats gnawing on the cable of my size 1 Addi Turbos, which were being used for the sock in progress. Bad cat! I’d seriously set it down for about 2 seconds while I clicked on a link. I am justifiably irritated by this, since it renders the needle virtually unusable, but it’s tempered by the justification for finally ordering some of the KnitPicks needles to try out. I ended up ordering 3 24″ size 1 (one to replace the chewed needle, two more to either keep on hand to have another project going or as a gift), a size 4 and a 6 from the Options line as well as cables for them, and to bring my order up to $40 and get free shipping I added a few skeins of Wool of the Andes. Three skeins of Amber Heather and two skeins of Firecracker Heather. The first for another pair of Picky Pants for Arlo (I frogged two pairs the other day, since they were too short and never stayed up anyways), the second for something small for me. I was thinking hat, but maybe a pretty cabled gaiter or something.

Of course, there was also some stash expansion on Monday – my first package from Scoutj’s Indie Swag Club! So awesome. I’m going to put it behind a jump in case there’s someone reading this who hasn’t received theirs yet.

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Oh yeah, woohoo! I managed to be here at the right time and snagged one of the slots in Scout’s Indie Swag Club! I was hemming and hawing and trying to decide whether to do just one month, three months, or all six, and went for the happy medium with the 3-month subscription. Should be just right, I think.

I’m very excited to see what shows up!

I managed to not find much that interested me at Shepherd’s Harvest this year, merchandise-wise. Just a couple skeins of Blackberry Ridge handpainted yarn and some dyed wool.

I did, however, run into a bunch of people I know! Tipper was the first friend I ran into. She didn’t find much to buy either. Then I spotted Knittymama, who was enjoying some music while nursing her youngest. She and I have been reading each other’s blogs for a bit now and I kept wondering if I knew her. Well, it turns out that I do indeed! Our oldest beasties are very close in age and we used to meet quite often at a certain coffee shop. I also ran into several friends from the Weaver’s Guild of MN spinning group – I used to go to that regularly before I had kids. Angie, Virginia, and a couple familiar but nameless faces. I also ran into Nicole/Pickleboot, who brought home a bunny – fiber on the hoof! How exciting!

I hope everyone had a nice Mother’s Day! Mine wasn’t too spectacular, but my mom brought over bagels and gave me a ride to my concert. My MIL and FIL came for the concert, as did my aunt and my grandma. After the concert, MIL and FIL took us out for an early dinner at the Longfellow Grill. While we were there, I mentioned that I was wanting to look for a new, better violin. FIL mentioned that he has his mother’s violin, which is apparently a very nice instrument, and I’d be welcome to use it. Awesome! I’m so excited! They should be coming back to town for my birthday (only 11 more days!), so maybe they’ll bring it then. Who knows, I might actually *practice* if I had an instrument that doesn’t sound like ass. Ya never know.

Once the kids were in bed, I did a little swatching – I’m plotting a cabled cardigan out of the Peace Fleece I bought, and I swatched the first cable last night.

And now, off to Trader Joe’s! They just opened today, it looks like. And maybe to Costco, I’d like to look at digital SLR cameras in the hopes of taking some decent pictures.

Shepherd’s Harvest is this weekend! I am so excited, but rather unhappy with the fact that I have obligations on both days. My orchestra rehearsal is Saturday morning, but it should be over by 12:30 or so, so I can (probably) head right out there. Sunday, I won’t be able to go since our concert is at 1:00 and I’ll no doubt have family stuff going on in the morning.

It’s looking like it’s once again going to be a cold and rainy Mother’s Day weekend, so we’ll have plenty of opportunity to wear our wool. The kids will get to wear their Robin Hood jackets, and they’ll undoubtedly get plenty of attention for it. Good thing they’re both incredibly sociable – they’ll eat it up. Me, I’ll be wearing wool socks – I don’t have any sweaters other than a Lopi one that’ll probably be too warm.

What am I going to shop for at the market, that’s the important question. There’s a vendor who sells “naturally machine washable” sock yarn (it really isn’t, as it shrinks even when washed in cold water in a front loader) that makes the softest and cushiest socks I’ve ever had. I have a pair that’s 2 years old (I think) and I just discovered a hole in one of the heels. In the past, I’ve tossed socks for that infraction. These ones, though, are getting darned, once I find the yarn and figure out how the heck to darn the hole. The other one will be getting reinforced with duplicate stitch before it develops a hole – it’s looking thin now but still intact.

I also want to get some yarn from Blackberry Ridge. I simply adore their yarn! I’ve used the handpainted stuff for soakers before, and it’s great – soft enough to go next to skin, but it holds its shape well and is very waterproof once lanolized. And the colors, oh my goodness! Arlo needs some soaker shorts, so I’ll probably get a skein of Tropical Fish and one of the Firecracker. I’ll have to restrain myself from buying more, since it’s so costly. But so worth it!

Of course I’ll buy spinning fiber, that’s a given. I’m shopping for prepared fiber, though (I think) – I don’t have the time now to wash and card a fleece and have it ready to go anytime this decade. Although if we end up catching chicken pox from some friends’ kids (still undecided about this), we’ll be cooped up in the house for a while – I could do that while rotting my kids’ brains with television. Things to think about…

There’s a small boy demanding my attention here and a pot of coffee to be made. I should go tend to that.

I have so many pictures to post and I so can’t find the bloody camera cable. Dangit!

The hedgehog is all knit up, just waiting to be felted. I ended up having to frog the “hairy” section of it – all those short rows are not something I can do with kids around. The fuzziness of the yarn really obscures the stitches, so I have to count instead of just reading my knitting like I’d normally do.

Let’s see, what else… I mailed off my Sockapaloooza socks on Tuesday after a mad dash around several neighborhood stores looking for a postcard. In order to avoid torturing the kids by taking them in and out of the car while I scouted for likely places to purchase postcards, I parked near the neighborhood Borders, which doesn’t sell postcards; then to the dreaded Walmart (oh I hate that place), which also doesn’t sell them; and then to Cub Foods. Anyone want to guess whether or not they had any? Right, they don’t carry them. Bugger. I ended up foregoing the postcard and just sending a regular card with the socks. I will send a postcard when I can find one… I know my neighborhood is hardly tourist material, but it seems rather odd for none of these three stores to even have a little rack of postcards. I suppose I could stop in at the Hamline bookstore and pick one up, hadn’t thought about that.

I finished the Opal Flamingo socks on Saturday, while eating breakfast with friends before the MN Knitters Guild‘s Yarnover. Bought some spinning fiber, a pattern, a bumper sticker, some wool wash, and some lip blam (not a typo!), but no yarn. Somehow, I bought no yarn at a yarn market. Clearly, I was not feeling well. But I do have some pretty fiber now!

Started some new socks for myself, and they’re moving along after a few setbacks. It’s Regia Goal Color, in rainbow colors, and this skein started in the middle of the rainbow. I didn’t realize that until I was a couple inches into the ribbing, and I couldn’t live with it like that. So I frogged it, then rewound the ball so the colors would be going the right way and then started a toe-up sock with the red. So now the rainbow is running up the foot and leg – I’m pretty happy about this! I also really like the way the ball looks – each color makes its own distinct layer in the ball. I took a picture, but it’s trapped on the danged camera.

Guess I should take one last look around for the cable before bed. Either that or knit a little more – the kids haven’t been letting me knit during the day lately, so I get a little twitchy by bedtime.

I’m going to place an order for some Peace Fleece shortly, I think the co-op closes tomorrow. I’m trying to decide what color I want – I usually wear reds/orange/greens, occasionally brown and black.

I like Sakhalin Salmon, Siberian Midnight, Baikal Superior Green, and Hemlock.

I’m leaning toward either Sakhalin Salmon or Baikal Superior Green right now. I wonder if my attraction to the Baikal Superior Green isn’t partly because I miss Lake Superior so much…

Anyone want to weigh in on this and make my decision a little easier?