Working my way back from the Most Recent

With such a large gap in my blogging, where do I start to catch up??......with the most recent event, of course---The Estes Park Wool Market.

This now annual event for me and Stacy was expanded to two days for us this year, Saturday and Sunday with a stay overnight at a cute riverside motel.

Unfortunately, the weather gods decided we needed rain, lots of rain, so the sun was barely visible all weekend.   Clouds hovered over the nearby rock peaks,

and it even snowed in Rocky Mtn National Park.   The water flowed swiftly in Fall River, by the motel and downtown.  The second picture is the motel manager checking the river depth gauge, since
Estes was under a flood watch all weekend.

Some wild critters (elk) were roadside, saying hello.

I finished my February Lady Sweater finally, by late nights and sewing on the buttons on Saturday morning.   No time to give it a proper blocking, but a steam pressing an hour before Stacy came.   I ended up wearing it all weekend thanks to the temps in the 40's.

The fairgrounds were rainy and muddy, so we stayed mostly in the vendor barn, and shopped til the budget cried "uncle"!   Here is the haul:

From Creatively Dyed Yarns this is 70%wool, 30% seacell fiber in color, Plankton.

From Kai Ranch: this is overdyed black kid mohair:

This is a raw Jacob fleece, which is very clean since it was coated.   The spots are very distinct and the colors of white, black, and gray are even divided throughout the fleece.  

It is a little over two lbs, raw, and it seems to be very soft for a Jacob.   Of course, I have to finish the Shetland fleece I started earlier this spring first...and to help out with that I bought this:

A used Louet drum carder from Fire Ant Ranch.   This was Suzanne's personal carder that she is parting with since she uses an electric carder now.   She took the time to demo it and with the savings, I couldn't resist.  Even though it is about 15 years old, it is solidly built, finished well, and only a few of the pins are bent.  In case I forget how to operate it, there are etched instructions in 5 languages on the front and the back!

  
On Sunday, we spent  most of the day watching the 4 teams at the sheep to shawl competition.   I must have been so mesmerized by it all, since I failed to take one photograph.   Teams of 5 people: one weaver and 4 spinners started with washed fleece and a warped loom and proceeded to spin yarn and weave a shawl in about 5 hours.   There were 4 teams this year and the finished results were vastly different from each other, but each beautiful in its own way.  It might be fun to be on a team in the future...hmmm something to think about.

Fun Weekend

This weekend, my Eldest, Amanda, visited from NYC before her next semester of grad school began. She is so frustrated with the program because the other students are idiots (in her words). When she started class on Monday night, she told them she was in Colorado for the weekend and they asked, "Is Colorado upstate or in Manhatten???" These are grad students for goodness sake. She did bring home to wear the neck scarf/cowl I made for her from handspun from Creatively Dyed. My gauge was a little off so it came out bigger and with less body than it should have had so I sent it to her with the buttons close to the neck and she really likes it this way. I hadn't gotten a good photo of it before I sent it off so here it is now. The pattern is from Peaceful Knitter

and is available on Ravelry as well.

While she was here, her best friend from High School and earlier came over with Elijah who is a strapping 6 months old. Such a happy little boy.Amanda is so good with kids both from her career as a Child Life Specialist in a Children's Hospital and from her nature. She loved holding and playing with a healthy baby because she sees only the very sick children. She will be so good with her own whenever that might be.

Isn't Amanda's sweater dress cute. I cannot take credit for it....Target can. I could make one but won't because it is a bunch of knitting and I am sure she only paid about $24.99 for it!

On to a New Blogging Year

All through the past several weeks, I have spindling more than knitting and I am getting pretty itchy for a Wheel. A Kromski Sonata wheel to be exact.

This is the exact wheel that my knitting buddy, Stacy, purchased before the holidays and I had a chance to try it out at her home. I am thinking about the same wheel in the Walnut stain for myself to match some woods in my home and after reading many of the review both on the net and in Ravelry. I like this wheel's classic looks without taking up too much room when set up. The best part is that it breaks down and folds into a padded carrying bag so that it can easily travel to spin-ins or nearly anywhere. From what I have read, it can do nearly everything a spinner would want to do: from laceweight to heavy worsted weight. The itch is getting bad, but I am waiting for career enhancement to take place......

So I continue to spindle spin with my three favorite spindles: Golding, Bosworth, and Eichheim. I am almost to the end of the Creatively Dyed Sea Wool fiber from Rhinebeck, and I believe I will have enough for socks after plying the last bits. I am making a regular 3 ply for this yarn, and putting quite a lot of spin into it to make it better wearing socks. Might have to do 2-at-a-time toe up socks, in case I run short. Oh Boy, another technique to learn!

This is all that is left to spin:These are my singles already spun for the second skein:

I don't seem to be making much of a dent in the Briar Rose BFL fiber, also purchased at Rhinebeck in October. One skein is finished of worsted weight, which I used the Navajo ply on the fly technique. For this next skein, I am using the same technique, but spinning finer, so the plyed yarn is much thinner. I should probably be using my wraps per inch tool to determine the actual weight of the yarn, but until I have lots of it finished, I am too lazy. I am winding it onto a TP roll as the spindle gets too heavy and I have about 40 grams in weight done on the TP roll. The skein on the left is the worsted weight which should make a nice hat. Since the roving was over a pound when I purchased it, I better make friends with it. It will be occupying my home for a long time! This is the roving ball still left of 17 oz purchased:

And this is what the scale reads.........

Spinning WIP's

I think it is time to show some of the spindle spinning that I have been doing. What has been taking a lot of my spare time are these two fibers that I bought at the Sheep and Wool festival at Rhinebeck last month.

Here is the Briar Rose fiber which is BFL in lovely shades of green. The purple which is visible in the roving just blends to dull the brightness in some areas and the final result which I am planning to do a regular 3 ply should be nicely variegated in brightness, but not necessarily in different colors. I have been trying to spin a little thicker so the 3-ply is about worsted or heavier weight to use for hats, cowls, or even a vest since I have so much of it (17 oz total).

This is the pretty rose/copper fiber from Creatively Dyed in wool/seacell. It is so soft, but the frustration is that the seacell prevents me from spit-joining when the single breaks during spinning. I think that the wool portion is superwash, which doesn't felt either. The colors are so pretty individually that I decided to Navajo ply the singles instead of regular plying three singles together. It kept the colors more distinct in the final yarn.

After skeining, washing and winding into a ball on my ball winder, I began knitting a neckwarmer that I found on Peaceful Knitter's website. I am using size 8 needles, but the yarn is heavier than regular worsted weight, so I am going to frog it to get closer to her gauge. I will use size 7 needles and reduce the cast on by 2 pattern repeats to see how that does. What I knit, before frogging, is next to the skin soft, so it will be a nice use for this yarn.