continued warm, sunny and VERY dry

I haven't been doing much to blog about. It's been warm for weeks (very little winter here, which means a third year of drought) although nice outdoor spinning weather.

Do you see that huge bag of fleece? That's 6.5 pounds of Corriedale that I've been working on for the last few weeks. Bought it at Black Sheep Gathering 2007. Seems to have marinated nicely in the fiber stash. I'm spinning modified long draw; this method fills a bobbin faster than me doing short draw.

I've nearly filled all my bobbins, time to start plying. Since I have no idea what I'm going to make with the yarn I've made a few samples to see what it wants to be. I'm lazy; it's too hard to spin to specification. I spin the yarn then find a pattern that calls for that weight of yarn.

Here's a two ply knit on size 7 needles on the left and 3 ply knit on size 9 needles on the right.

Singles


2-ply


3-ply


So now I'm ready for a worsted or chunky weight pattern. Time to go and check out my Ravelry Queue and see what might work with this yarn. I'm open to suggestions.

I've also been working on my Barn Raising Squares. I'm still enjoying watching each square's design emerge as I knit. It's a slow version of that Spin Art they use to have at the Fair. Remember you squirted paint on a spinning paper.


Last Saturday I started taking a 4-Harness Weaving class at UCSD's Craft Center. Mostly we're still getting all the looms warped.

So many people in the class it's slow going waiting for help but I'm liking it so far. Who knew that weaving would be so popular right now?

Here's a picture of my friends at Two Sisters and Ewe where I work.

left to right, Karen, Jessica (who also works there), Marie and Carol; they all make Open Knitting on Wednesday afternoons so much fun. All week I look forward to our time together. There are others that drop in but these Ladies are our hard-core knitters! It took the whole group to help me figure out where I was on my Curlicue Afghan. Turns out there was no mistake I'd just gotten lost. Thanks Ladies! In the future I'm going to have to write down exactly where I am each time I put that project down. It's either that or I'll have to keep pulling into the Yarn Shop to ask for directions.

Scared me at First!

The flight to Portland was very nice; spent the first half of the flight (to Reno) talking sock knitting with a woman that had knit sweaters for her babies but never had success with socks. She was talking about finding a Yarn Shop and taking a sock class by the time we landed. (I'm converting 'em one person at a time.)

Downtown Portland we found Knit-Purl;
http://www.knit-purl.com/Products/Product.php?Product_ID=297
what a wonderful yarn shop. They carry an amazing amount of yarn: Rowan, Habu, Koigu, and lots more. They also now carry their own brand yarn Shibui - very nice yarn! Their sock yarn was just discussed on Knit Review. I bought two skeins of their fingeringweight in Teal and two skeins of Koigu for socks too.

Finally got to our hotel and they sure gave me a 15 minute fright until they found the box I'd shipped. Took them four phone calls to different people and calling in someone that was off duty before they could locate my spinning wheel. I was really freaking there for awhile! So now everyone can relax.

I'm using the Macbook to post with and I can't figure out how to put in embeded links sorry.

Tomorrow driving down to Eugene.

When it Absolutely, Positively Has to Get There!

I feel like I've shipped one of my kids cross country on their own! My Sonata Spinning Wheel was packed and dropped off at UPS Thursday on it's way to meet us at our Hotel in Portland, Oregon this coming Wednesday. I keep logging on to UPS tracking to see if I can find out where my Wheel is right now; all it says is, "shipped, on time." That doesn't tell me anything!

The Photographer and I are headed to the Back Sheep Gathering next weekend. The Wheel and I are taking a class from Judith Mackenzie McCuin on spinning Bison, Cashmere and Yak that I'm really looking forward to.

Last fall when I went to the Southern California Handweavers Guild's Festival I bought three batts from Crosspatch Creations.


This had to be finished before the wheel left for vacation. No particular deadline but I've had other projects lap over a vacation period and I can always see a difference between the two parts. I was spinning as many hours as possible to finish this.


What to take with me on the plane and for the rest of the trip both yarn and books is always the question. I always take more than I ever have time to get to but I worry about running out. My ipod is loaded with The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason. And I've been busy on Bookmooch trading books; not sure what will arrive before we leave. (Haven't heard of Bookmooch? It's a great online book trading site. You can download a toolbar button so that when you look at a book on Amazon you can click the Bookmooch button and see if anyone has a copy to trade. All it costs you is postage when you mail one of your books to someone. Each member accumulates a point for each book they send.)

As for plane knitting; I plan to take my second Teosinte sock (finished the first sock last night) The Photographer had to make a quick trip to a camera store in La Jolla early this afternoon so I walked over to Knitting in La Jolla. Such a wonderful selection Suzanne has. (And if you're looking for purse handles in San Diego this is where you Need to go!) I bought Berroco Love it Colors in the color 3291, Lucy in the Sky, to make another entrelac scarf. This should keep me busy.

I'll have to go enter this in my stash on Ravelry. My stash is too big to start entering there so I'm just going to start with new acquisitions. My Ravelry ID is CC123 if you'd like to visit.

Summer of Socks starts Thursday the 21st. I'll be on the road that day driving from Portland to Eugene so I'm hoping to post on Tuesday. And if I can remember all my passwords I'll try and update here the week we're traveling.

Have fun while I'm gone...


canna against the rosemary