MDSW Roundup

I had such a good time at Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival (MDSW).  I stopped for amazingly good donuts on the way up.  I also stopped by a MAC store (no, not the Apple store, although they are side by side at that particular mall) and picked up a new ridiculous shade of bright blue/purple eyeshadow.  They still don't have a good green, but did find an emerald green cream eye pencil that will do nicely.  My rainbow is nearly complete! 

As I drove up my brother's street I saw several people having fun painting a pull-behind trailer.  I wondered about it, then realized it was parked in my brother's driveway!  I did a quick U-turn, grabbed the donuts, and walked up to join in.  A few hours of paint and turpentine fumes later, check out the awesomeness they will be hauling across the country. 

We cleaned the paint off ourselves as best as we could (fingernail beds are apparently a permanent paint location) and had tasty sushi for dinner.  I've never been so full from sushi before that I thought I might burst.  Well, there were bento box goodies and ice cream too.  Mmm...mango, red bean, ginger, green tea, mochi...why do Americans only believe in chocolate and more chocolate?  Thankfully the filling dinner saved the donuts so we were able to slice them up into little wedges and enjoy them with our otherwise healthy breakfast of eggs, turkey bacon, turkey sausage, and oatmeal-applesauce pancakes.  Sure, they roll out the healthy goodness, and my contributions are donuts and mimosas.

It was a fun drive up to MDSW, until the last couple miles that added nearly an hour onto our travel time.  Gads they needed a cop at the intersection!  Once we got near enough we all piled out of the van and started walking to the festival rather than sit in traffic anymore (Thanks Daven!).  Ever had a dandelion fight?  It's really fun, although hard to attack someone if you have to run up to catch them.  Here we are at the climax of our battle - I wish the camera captured the cloud of dandelion fluff we're standing in.  I also learned a dandelion in the ear is shriek-worthy no matter who the victim is. 

I haven't been to MDSW in 8 years or so.  It was great, but less overwhelming than it felt back in those days.  I think I've learned so much in the intervening years I don't need to see/touch/do everything (oops, I mistyped 'everyone' at first).  I did learn a few things that are handy. 
1. Kilts are great as they totally replace a shoulder bag or purse and leave your hands completely free.  I wasn't sure about it at first (my brother handed out kilts left and right when we were all leaving that morning) but by the end of the day I was glad to have it.  Seriously, I had my wallet, camera, phone, notepad, pen, and snack in my pockets and then clipped all my purchases into the convenient belt clip.  There were quite a lot of kilt wearers there that day, which brought questions from some confused folks who thought we were in a dance troupe or something.
2. Golding Ring Spindles really do spin longer than any other, and are totally gorgeous.  But after using them I lost my decade-old desire to have one.  All the extra spin time is meaningless since you have to stop once you near the ground.  And the shafts are kind of tacky feeling.  It might have been because of the heat melting the wood wax, but they had a feel reminiscent of the Mongolian Grill wooden platters you put your bowl on.  It's kind of like losing a crush.

Oh, you'd rather see the haul of stuff I bought?  Special thanks to my husband for demanding that I buy whatever I wanted.  Here's the pretty yarns:

Top: Mountain Colors sock yarn.
Left to Right: Zauberball laceweight, 2 balls of Mini Mochi for alternate colorway striping, 2 skeins of Claudia's Handpaint for striped socks, maybe the Jaywalker Pattern.
I didn't photograph the blue faced leicester wools, since a camera can't capture the feel of them.  I also got a supremely awesome pendant I'll post later.

We stayed to the end of the festival and by that point were trudging along after a day of dizzingly hot weather.  I knew how hot it was when I realized I'd drank 3 quart-sized lemonades and a bottle of water and never had to pee.  Here's part of our band heading out.

I'm so glad I got to go with such a fun group of people.  Maybe we can all meet at Estes one year...

Embarking on a new hobby!

Well, not entirely new. I've done weaving before. But never Tapestry weaving! And it IS another yarn-associated craft, so not like delving into woodturning or something. And it fits my rule of not being too bulky or expensive -- I have to make up rules like this or my house would be overrun by insane craft experiments. Don't tell my husband I said that, he already thinks that's true and I'd hate to see what he thought if he knew how much worse it could be.

So I was at my friend's house, in her awesomely envy-inspiring workshop that brings to mind a classic wood cabin complete with wee Franklin stove and a loft. She had her current tapestry on the loom and we started talking about how to build one myself. I dashed to the hardware store for the necessary supplies and she helped me build my very own copper pipe loom. I've been playing with ideas, drawing pictures, and imagining what I'd like to weave. I saw the local yarn shop was having a sale on tapestry yarn, and made a spur of the moment decision while driving there on what I would weave. Here's the yarns I bought.
The colors aren't as saturated in real life as this photo. That garish stripe of farm-raised egg yolk yellow isn't nearly so bad, and the greens are closer to grasses than rainforests like the photo suggests. So I have my yarn, my loom, my warp, my ideas. Now I just need to draw the picture so I know what and where I'm doing things. Keepin my fingers crossed, hope it all goes well!

A blogger's conundrum

Do I talk about fiber and yarn too much on this blog? I sometimes feel like I do, and my non-fibery readers get bored. But when I look back over prior posts, there are a lot that have nothing to do with knitting, so maybe it's my own self-consciousness. Also a problem is that most of the other blogs I read are truly fiber geek blogs, so you feel this pressure to write about your own fiber adventures, and I just can't get *that* into Ravelry, regardless of how many times I try.

No, the truth is that I carry knitting with me almost anywhere I go, and that even something like my obsessed watching of this insane new series on Starz called Crash involves fiber. I was visiting a friend to do some handspinning (both of our wheels were dusty with disuse), and she played the first episode of this series. I was instantly hooked, and went back a few days later for a Crash & handspinning mini-marathon (I don't have starz). This series involves a number of seemingly unrelated story lines - Dennis Hopper is great as an off-the-wall producer - and there's something about it that makes you have to keep watching. Thankfully there's less gratuitous sex than in an HBO series. Hey, I'm all for sex scenes in a show, but HBO tosses one in anytime they have a hiccup in the plot, rather than using them when it's part of the story. Handspinning is perfect for watching this because you don't have to look at your hands and can keep your eyes glues to the insanity unfolding in front of you.

Well, I guess overall I don't talk about knitting specifically all the time, but just like it flavors most events in my daily life, it certainly is going to flavor a blog about my life. Mmm...speaking of flavor I just caught a whiff of the potroast I'm making for dinner tonight. nom nom nom

Woolgathering & Rooing

Ok, this post is only halfway about fiber. Read on.

I know woolgathering as collecting fluff from bushes & fences where animals shed. According to the dictionary the main definition is fanciful daydreaming. Whatever. I know rooing as the long echoing howl our hound makes - aaarrrooorooroo, but knew deep down it has some fibery connotation as well. It's the gathering of fiber by plucking the shed parts from an animal directly.

I always gathered Katie's undercoat for spinning. It's so soft it rivals cashmere and is jet black. I spun the fiber and knit D. a hat and scarf from it. That is our special bow that has been reused on every present we give to each other for years. I still have a small bag of gathered fur to be spun. She was shedding a lot from a recent bath, and the house is currently drenched in dog fur. Normally I'd just vacuum it up and be happy with the clear carpet for a day. But I can't get any more fiber, all we have left is what's on the ground and furniture. So now I'm woolgathering. I'm using a comb and gleaning as much as I can from everywhere I see it. Every tuft is a few more inches of yarn. No, this isn't crazy, it's resourceful.

Freakin' pattern idiots

There's a good reason I never use knitting patterns, and why I have yet to successfully knit a sweater for myself. Because most knitting patterns SUCK! I'm sorry, but if you're using a pattern published in Knitter's Magazine, the highest rated knitting mag in the US, it should not have so many errors that even an experienced knitter (with the full backing of the Ravelry community) can't follow it. Huge glaring errors, like telling you to start a design element at one spot, then several inches later (hours of knitting time) realizing there is no way that's correct. Yep, look at the photo right next to the pattern text and there is NO WAY AT ALL it is correct as written. Ravelers agree, and one even wrote the magazine for a list of errata without success.

So now I'm torn. I really really like this sweater and want to make and wear it. I have the perfect handspun yarn for it, and except for the chunks of errors it is relatively easy to knit. BUT, I'm already pissed and I'm only 1/3 through the front left piece, and the Ravelers warned the back is where all the frustrating problems are. I can keep working through it, hoping to avoid most errors by carefully reading, and tearing out hours of work when I do find yet another pattern mistake that's not visible immediately. Does not sound like fun. But it took me forever to find this pattern and I haven't seen any others that were as attractive to me. I'm pretty sure I definitely want something asymmetric or angled. Preferably a cardigan. My yarn is sport weight (size 3 needles) and fairly dark - so complex cables or such would be lost. Le sigh. I will frog this current craptastrophe back to the last correct row, then try again altering the pattern to match the photo. If I hit another major error after this one in the next couple days I probably will say something unladylike and find a new sweater to knit. Wish me luck.

Braveharlot Inspired Me

I was talking with my fellow handspinner and gardener Lawre (maker of the famous "Stuff for your Fluff" custom bags and needle books) this weekend while pulling weeds in our garden. I said I haven't spun much in 2008, that I just don't have anything interesting worth spinning up in my pitiful stash. This is a sign that it's been TOO LONG since I've been to a fiber festival, and we immediately ran through the dates for the upcoming shows. Lawre said her stash had more than enough to go around, and we should dig through it once we were done digging in the dirt. She pulled out bin after bin of different fibers, and it was as much a revelation to her what was in the boxes as it was to me. I found several different bags I wanted to take home and just couldn't decide which to choose. I was delighted when she said I could have it all. Here's part of what I got:

This is a blend of mohair and border leicester. Not my colors normally, but something about it just grabbed me. I started spinning this as soon as I got home while rewatching Fellowship of the Ring (which I haven't seen in years). It glides out of the hands and is really dainty as yarn. There's not a lot in the bag, not sure if I'll ply it on itself, with wooly nylon to make a gimp (bumpity) yarn, or with a solid color wool for a stripey yarn to make it stretch further. It's just fun to be spinning again.

This next one is also mohair & border leicester. I learned to spin on a mohair wool blend and didn't like it at the time, but things are quite different now. The fiber has a particular smell that is very reminiscent of when I first learned to spin (egads, 11 years ago). I think this will make a really richly colored yarn when plied on itself. I think there's enough roving for something like a vest or cropped sweater. I've always wanted to knit a vest for myself, maybe this will be it. (God only knows why - I don't wear sweater vests, but it's an odd compulsion I think I should listen to).

Here's another small batch I got, very earthy and masculine. It would definitely be enough for a hat and maybe scarf or something. Also mohair/border leicester blend. Border Leicester is not usually one of my preferred wools, a bit too coarse for my snobby tastes. But this is really nice and soft, no scratchiness at all. All the photos look like they have white/lightly dyed sections, but that's just the flash reflecting off the lustrous mohair. All of these blends came from Kid Hollow Farm, and if I'm in the market for a mohair blend I will definitely see what they have up for sale next time.

All of this fiber is outside my normal realm of spinning. I normally work with naturally colored merino and blue-faced leicester wools. Color, luster, long staple length, mohair -- it's been so long since I dealt with these adjectives, it makes me feel like a new spinner again.