Here’s a close up

and another

The fiber is from a Totally Tubular Kit that I bought from The Bellwether, the color: well The Colors Purple of course.  This was a totally fun spin and I whipped through 4 oz in just a few days, in between work, knitting and playing with the new car.  I’m spinning up some merino 64′s and I think I’ll do some 2 color knitting with this, the merino is Pewter.

Last weekend my spinning group had it’s 2nd dying session, I didn’t go to the first because the response was overwhelming so a 2nd dye in was created, then it got delayed due to snow, then Madrona, but finally we met to do some dying.

I dyed a Superwash BFL and here are the results.  Unfortunately the weather and day light hours just haven’t been playing well with me, so the colors are fairly close, but not quite true.

Strangely enough I’m been stepping outsize my normal color pallet lately, this one is a bit on the yellow side for what I’d normally go for.

This one, affectionately named Clown Barf by a fellow spinner, is my favorite.  Towards the end of the day, I had one more hang of roving left to dye, and there were lots of left over dyes on the table that were already mixed by everyone.  So I grabbed a cup and a ginormous syringe and started squirting dye zig zag across my roving.  repeated this process through a total of 6 cups of dye.  the first few layers looked a lot like a clown’s wig, hence the name clown barf.  I really love the way it turned out.

Purple Madness, I know the colors don’t quite look purple here but it’s definitely purple.  this one is my 2nd favorite, and like the Clown Barf I can hardly wait to spin it up.

and some purple greens and blues

Sorry for not braiding this one up nice a neatly, but it wasn’t quite dry yet when I took this picture, it’s blacks and magenta and it’s beautiful, but it’s probally less than an ounce of roving, I haven’t weight any of this yet.  It was just a bit of roving that was free floating in my bag of roving.

I started out with 1 lb (16 oz) and just guessed at lengths, I think the first 4 are about 3 – 3.5 oz, again i haven’t weight any of it.

All in all it was a great day and definitely worth the trip out there (100 miles round trip).  Will I do some more dying?  Damn straight, I even have dye powders to dye with.  This is a far cry from dying with Koolaid, i love the depth of the colors so much, I had the whole lot spread across my desk at work for a day. I can’t wait to start spinning some of these, but they’ve got to wait their turn in line, yes, even with 4 wheels, I can’t seem to find a free wheel.  Of course I’ve got a few drop spindles that are bare, but for the larger hanks, that’s a lot of drop spindling, I think i’ll wait for a free wheel.  No I’m not going to buy another one….I think, for a while.

 Ummm, there’s a llama in my trunk.

A short ride later, accross the Hood Canal Bridge, we found Port Ludlow, not hard to do when you’re following a GPS.  The harder part, was finding this little fiber shindig.  So the GPS tells us we’re arriving at our destination, so what do I do, find the nearest sign that says farm, not much else out there, and in my defense, we were looking for a farm and the GPS said we were there.  A quick turn left, and up the road, the road turned to dirt rocks and pot holes, shortly after that a sign saying that the road was no longer maintained by the county.   Next up are the sheep, so we must be in the right place, but no all they had were eggs.  Sachi whipped out the ad she had seen in a local paper advertising this event and gives them a call.  She tells us we’re about a block off.  So back in the car, and drive a block, ok, so we’re following Sachi and thinking this ain’t no city block, a mile later, this isn’t even really a block, about a mile after than there’s a sign that we drive by….guess what we just passed where we were going, so a mile or so later we finally find a road to turn around on. and away we go.

Oh and the fleece we see, some raw fleece, some processed, felted goods, spinners, sheep and a very alert and attentive sheep dog, well I don’t know if it was a sheep dog, but it’s job was to tend the sheep (again sorry no pics, but he was adorable)

Lots of Romney.  Oh look a bag of 3lb processed romney followed me home after being properly fondled and hugged.

Libby just had to find out how soft this romney was.

Meet Squeaky, AKA Gray Lady, a barn cat.

The late lamb from the last post just before I started shooting the video. This was his first shearing.  What beautiful fiber he had.

and the end result, he’s very soft to the touch after his locks were shorn.

We wandered on over to Sequim to a fiber festival and look who was learning to spin on a drop spindle.  Libby picked up a drop spindle up for MHP on our last foray to OFFF, he’s been wanting to learn ever since.  He got his chance.

All in all a very fun day.

There’s Christina taking a picture of me taking a picture, not intentional, one or both of us were probably to busy laughing to notice, Libby and there is MHP playing with his cool little cars.

Another attempt at a picture from a different angle, and MHP decided to help, he was showing me one of his cars, it’s all good.

One last shot, we’re still laughing about MHP helping frame the pic, but there we are.

Village Yarn and Tea is a great place to knit, they have a seating area where we can enjoy tea nd chat and knit.  Now when you need a break from knitting, temptation is close at hand.  On the other side of those shelves full of tea goodness, is another seating area and shelves full of knitting books and patterns.  and in the 2nd picture you can see some of the tempting yarny goodness just calling to you.  Great place to sit and knit and visit, but the temptation is just a bit much.  I know I left with more than I came with, I have 3 receipts to prove it.  First trip was some roving, 2nd trip, I really needed stitch markers because I was casting on another sweater with eleventy bagillion sts, and the last trip, well it is a yarn store afterall….more about that in another post.

Got home from work Friday night and there was a pink notice on my door.  Come to the USPS and pick up your package.  Look what I found.

Ok, so there were 6 skeins, but only in 3 colors.  Kuani yarn.

It didn’t take me long to wind 2 of those bad boys up into 2 ginormous yarn cakes, they barely fit on the normal ball winder, next time around, I bring out the big guns.  Yes, that’s what I cast on Saturday afternoon, ripped and cast on again on Sunday Morning, my stitch count was off, even with the help of the markers.

As for last night, the Kuani Sweater was all I knit on Wed night, I have a feeling it will be occupying my attention for a while.  No I haven’t fallen of the MS3 bandwagon, I’m just about half way through Clue 6 and still aiming to finish it this weekend.

First is this beautiful fiber from Sachi’s Purls.

The colorway is Berry Basket and it’s superwash Merino hand dyed by our own Sachi. She’s posted some pics from our weekend BBQ, so go ahead and check them out.

Really there has been knitting around here, and even finishing, and here’s the proof.

Pattern Sahara, by Wendy Bernard, available at Stitch Diva

Yarn: SWTC Bamboo (100 G & 250 yards) color way is 521 SAH

Needles: good old reliable Addi Turbo’ #4 & #6 and Addi lace #4

Mods: The usual to bring it down to a size that would not be way to long. I did screw up a little this time around, I stopped too short and had to rip back the hem and add another 2 inches. I forgot that if one stretches a fabric from side to side, the material has to come from somewhere.

It seems I got so busy yesterday at work, that I forgot my Wed post. So here’s a brief round up of what went to knitting last night.

• Dad’s shirt – it got ignored
• Marilinda socks, a pattern by Cookie A designed exclusively for Scout’s Sock Club. I’m actually knitting these socks on DPN’s. Don’t choke, I really do know how to use DPN’s. The pattern is such that I can’t reasonably expect to knit both socks on 1 circ, heck I can’t even really split the pattern out to knit 1 sock on circs.
• Soy Silk Shrug.

I am half way though Clue 6 on the MS3 shawl. I am simply amazed that there are not only several women who have finished, but several that have finished more than 1.
Yes I am remaining fairly faithful to the projects I’ve got OTN, but I have a feeling that’s going to change in the near future, I have an urge to cast something new on. Oh I did do a quick little project, but I can’t really share that with you until it reaches the recipient. She’ll know it when she gets it, but if she could please let me know, I didn’t realize until after I had dropped it off at the post office, that I forgot to leave an explanation with it or any of the details. She’ll know who she is when she gets it *wink* and I know she reads this blog at least once in a while, hehe.

It’s Noel and it’s Targhee, OMG what possesed me to buy raw wool.  There are 67oz there, and I’m slowly working my way through washing it.  I may be washing it for the rest of my life!

Take a closer look at Noel, look at that wonderful springy bounce.

Oh, while you’re here, be sure to check out Sachi’s Purls, I’ve been meaning to mention it and I keep forgetting.  It’s the same Sachi that I spun with last Sunday.  Sachi is bouncing off the walls, because Wendy of WendyKnits posted a pic of the skein she bought on her blog today. Be sure to go check it out, she’s got some great stuff up there.

Wow, now that it’s all out in the open, I think I got a little carried away, but I had fun and will continue to have fun with the haul.   This post is picture heavy, so I used thumbnails, click to embiggen.

Some spinning was done, just a wee bit on the drop spindle, since I decided not to bring my wheel. 

This is my first actual spindle spun yarn.  The darker stuff with the red in it, I picked up a while back, when I was out with the girls, it’s a Merino/Tussah silk blend. The pink and blue is Shetland, just a sample that came from the Persistent Knitter, she was culling out colors from some roving for her 2nd single, to mute the pinks in the other single when she plied so she gave me and a few others in our spinning group a sample of the yarn.

 The Damage

From Chamelion Colorworks, the first 2 are Optim, next to that is BFL, and last but most certainly not least is this wonderful slice of nirvana, it’s an ounce of Guanaco. Yes I know it sounds like something the bat left behind, but it’s not, it’s from the Camelid family, it’s the baby sister of the llama and alpaca, and the big siter to the Vicuna, it’s wonderfully soft!

This vendor is going to have to deal, because I can’t quite remember who it is, and I don’t have any business cards with me right now.  The first is a lovely bag, and the 2nd is what came in that lovely bag, 1 glorious ounce of Qiviut, it’s the downy undercoat of a musk ox. Next to that is 1 oz of Bufallo mixed with 25% Cashmere and 25% Silk.

So I got the bowl from the above vendor, I’ve been looking for a small wood bowl for Tahkli spinning.  Again with the faulty memory, I can’t seem to recall this vendor either, but the darker spindle is a drop spindle, it’s got a whorl is square with rounded corners, it spins like a dream, thanks Sachi for test driving it for me. Oh, go check her out, she got more pictures than I did, and she was my partner in crime.  Although, she was a bit more restrained than I was.

So I have to give up on vendors at this point, since apparently I can’t remember very many if any of them.  Each braid is 1 lb, I will eventually ply both together, for a sweater.

Ahhh, a vendor I can remember Blue Moon Fiber Arts.  The 1st is a Sheep to Shoe kit, I have no idea the color way.  The 2nd is Puck’s Mischief in a Bamboo/wool blend.

And here we have Pygora goat, 1 oz purple and 1 oz pink, to be plied together eventually.  Yes Sachi, the pink was picked up Sunday morning on my way out of town, as are the next 2 items.

The Octopus (as nick named by my DH), is a merino/silk blend, and I was caught hugging it late Saturday afternoon, even worse I was caught shoving it into Sachi’s hands to hug as well.

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not particularly fond of bottom whorl spindles, just not happy with the balance, but this little gem was simply to good to pass up, and it really does spin nicely.  It comes with 2 whorls, a big one and a smaller one, you can spin with one or both.  It also came with a cord, one of the whorls was hanging on that cord, so it can be used as a necklace, best of all, the spike can be used as a hair stick.  What a great idea, I simply had to have it after taking a 2nd and 3rd look at it, so it got picked up on the way out Sunday.

Also picked up but not pictured, a Woolee Winder for my Lendrum.  I know, I know, I said I didn’t need one, but sometimes a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do.  I got home, and found the Woolee Winder for my Matchless and my Rockin’ Sock Club installation.  Oh yeah, I bought a Rockin’ Sock Club bag as well, but silly me, totally forgot to take a pic of it, maybe next time.  One last item was purchased on my way out Sunday, a DVD on Rigid Heddle weaving, although with all this fiber, who knows when I’ll get around to doing some more weaving.

As promised a few pics from last weekend.

DH booked us a room with a view. This is the view we woke up to Saturday morning from our window. Across the way from us, seen in the not to distant distances is Surrey BC . Yup we were that far North. This lovely little resort is surrounded on 3 sides by water. From the front, you see the road and the marina before you see water, but you can still see Blaine WA. But from this side, the view is beach and water, and Canada. We didn’t actually go up to Canada, because it seems we forgot to bring the passports, and DH wasn’t sure if we needed them or not to go over to Canada, so we’ll save that for next trip. It’s really not all that far from where we’re living now.

This picture of the sunset was taken from below our room. I have over 100 shots of this sunset, I just let the camera keep taking them figuring I’d be happy with at least one of them. I’m happy with several of them but honestly there were too many to post, and they all look very similar to this one.

So on Saturday instead of venturing North to Canada, we headed south to Bellingham WA for the day. DH took me to Marilyn’s Yarn, He knows it because I found it on our first trip up there when we first moved back. I love this little yarn store, they carry Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock and they have a punch card. Ok so the yarn fumes got to DH too, or at least I have to figure they did. Somewhere in the middle of all that yarn, DH said get what you want, I’ll buy. I didn’t go totally crazy, just a little overboard, like I need more sock yarn.

We have here from left to right, 3 skeins of STR, Midsummer Night, Algae and Obsidian, a skein of Cherry Tree Hill Sock Super Sock . Blues/Greens,(though I’m not really seeing the greens just the blues) and last but not least Fortissima Colori Socka Color, color way 098 Lured (I think that’s the color)

I did mention that on the way back we stopped at a casino, I didn’t get any pics, didn’t think to, what kind of blogger does that make me? Oh well. Anyway, I dropped some money into a slot machine and got 3 7′s, I think I mentioned that too, but I’m just can’t get over the irony of winning with 7 7 7 on our 7th anniversary. Anyway, here’s what became of the winnings:

There is some BFL top as well, but you’ll see that eventually, it will someday become yarn.

I love my new job, but I really miss knitting and spinning. Somehow, there doesn’t seem to be any time left in my day to knit. Possibly just perception, since I went from spinning and knitting whenever I wanted to having only a limited time to knit. Thankfully, I found a wonderful group of knitters to knit with one night a week, so there is some semi-dedicated knitting time. As dedicated as you can get when you meet in a food court and get a bunch of knitters together. From that group, there are a few of us that are spinners, and we meet every other Thursday night, right now in the same location, but that is open for change or not. We met Thursday night for the first time at the mall, in the food court, and fun was had by all.

Wow talk about attention grabbing, even though we were in our own little corner, we still managed to get a lot of spectators. No one ever told me spinning was a spectator sport. There was a couple of children who showed so much interest (along with their mom) one of my fellow spinners got up and gave an impromptu introduction to spinning. She was amazing, she’s only learned to drop spindle a few months ago, and just got her first wheel a little over 2 weeks ago. Her yarns are lovely and she’s doing a great job, she’s a total natural at this. There was one older “gentleman,” and I use that word loosely. I have no problem with people watching or even asking question, well this “gentleman” invited himself into the middle of our spinning circle and started fondling the yarn of the one guy who was spinning with us. Can you believe that, didn’t even ask, just walked in and started touching! Lucky for him the guy is very laid back and didn’t mind a bit, but had he been fondling my fiber…well that would have been another story. Ask me and I’ll gladly let you touch all you want providing your hands are clean, but ASK!

On the knitting front, socks, almost done, hopefully today or tomorrow, April is drawing to a close quickly. Eris got a few more rows this week. Central Park Hoodie (CPH) jumped OTN yesterday, I’m through the ribbing and the first pattern repeat on the back.

Some Jade Company Mongolian Cashmere in a lovely lilac ( 6 skeins to be exact) and some Touch Me in “Burgundy Cream”, it really does look that purple in person (5 balls) I’m pleasantly surprised that the color of the Touch me is more purple than burgundy, I expected more burgundy, but really wanted the purple.

So Saturday morning, I beat the sun up and started knitting The Wool Peddlers Triangle purse for the Knit Off, and got of to a bad start. Apparently, I really can’t follow a pattern in my sleep. So I left for the Domino Knitting class secure in the knowledge that I had completed the 2 side triangles, but we’ll get back to that in a little bit, since before I made that discovery came the class.

Domino Knitting taught by Susanna Hansson. by the time I got to her class, I had been knitting for 4 hours already. I’m not going to show you my practice piece, because it was just that…Practice. It was a fun class, and passed quite quickly. I ended up leaving with 4 balls of Kid Silk Haze in colors I would not normally knit with, but Project Spectrum is represented in my color choices.

Class was 7 hours long and by the time I got home I had already been awake for 12 hours after only having 3 hours sleep the night before, what was I thinking! I looked at the pattern for the Knit Off again, and looked at my triangles, I had increased all the way down one side, but not down the other on both side triangles and the triangle at the start of the body piece. RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPPP!

I only ripped the body, piece and came up with a creative use for the 2 triangles. More on that later.

Sunday morning, I was up again, bright and early to do some more mad knitting before heading out to meet up with some friends for some fiber fun.

I met Sachi at Village Yarn and Tea, and she introduced me to Libby and Christina (They both have blogs, but I have yet check with Sachi to see if I have the right ones in my side bar. Sachi if you’re reading this can you let me know *giggle*. Thanks for the links Sachi1) We wandered around the store, and look what followed me home.

from Yarn Pirate a lovely skein of merino sock yarn, color way is Isobel.

There was this ball of Merino/Tussah Silk roving too.

More Sensational Knitted socks made it’s way into my arms as well.

I’m such a bad blogger, I forgot to bring my camera, hopfully Sachi will post some pics in the next few days, she did get some pics, I know, I saw her do it.

So the 4 of us decided to sit and have some tea and knit for a bit.

Look at the lovely stitch Markers Sachi gave me.

They really are lovely, but I can’t do them justice. Using a flash washes them out even on the black background, and not using a flash make sthem blurry, you see this is Seattle, it’s way overcast and threatening to rain, so no real good natural light.

Off we went To Acorn Street, to get a blocking board, for guesswho, Sachi. I was actually good there, I only bought the new Spin Off magazine and Domino Knitting (the Japanese version)

Then we went to grab a late lunch early dinner because Weaving Works had closed by the time we finished at Acorn Street. It was getting late by the time we were done stuffing our faces, and some of us had a ways to go to get home, so we decided to call it a day.

After a small detour to Fiber Gallery to see if they had the Addi Lace in any #2′s and #3 in anything shorter than 47″ (they didn’t) I headed home and back to my marathon knitting session. And now we finally get to the FO

Pattern: The Wool Peddlers Triangle purse

Yarn: Katia – Jamaica (100% Cotton (219 yards)Colorway – 4009 , it’s the same yarn I used for the last Knit Off pattern, but it does pay tribute to Project Spectrum)

Needles: Addi Turbo #6

Button: I got creative, did a figure 8 wrap loop thingy on my finger double starnded. Folded the figure 8 in half, then wrapped the yarn around the circle, like you would for pompom’s but I didn’t cut it and voila a matched button closure.

Remember I mention the 2 triangles I knitted wrong, well those 2 didn’t get ripped, they got incorporated right back into the pattern for a bit of creative knitting on the other side of the purse, see where the pink and purple don’t match up, those are my mis starts. So it wasn’t a total waste of knitting time.

This last weekend was insane, but you know what, I had a blast. I knit a purse with a lot of pink, those who know me, I don’t like pink, and yes, I actually do like this purse, will I use it, probably not, I’ll give it away after I wash it and throw on another I-cord to give it a sturdier handle. Set too much money, learned Domino Knitting and met some knew knitting/spinning friends. All in all a great weekend.

I’m still waiting for the background check to clear so I can start my new job. In the mean time, back to my regularly scheduled knitting plus 1 Domino Scarf.

I finally have all the yarn for my next sweater project, you’re looking at 22 skeins of Dalgarn Heilo in 4 different colors. Once I clear out at least 1 of the 1 sweaters currently OTN, I can cast on for my first Dale. All that wooly good ness is sitting on my new space board. I discovered that Acorn Street Shop carries the blocking board I’ve been lusting after and as luck would have it my punch card was full, so it was fated that I would get my new blocking board and I saved $20 at the same time. Since I was already in the neighborhood picking up my yarn at Weaving Works, it was just a hop, skip and a jump down the hill to Acorn Street.

I somehow find myself on Sleeve Island with DH’s sweater. The body isn’t nearly done yet, but the sleeves jumped on the needle. On Eris, I’m down to where the sleeves split out. So I’ll keep plugging away at those 2 and a pair of socks or 2, with a brief break for the Knit Off Round 2 which kicks off this Saturday.