Super Sweet Blogger Award!

 
I had to start out with a picture and what is sweeter than my sweet dog, Morgan. What a surprise - a blogging award for me! Thank you Carolyn (who blogs as Carolyn Knits)! Carolyn is a talented designer, knitter, and weaver . I am lucky to see her in person at our LYS, Gosh Yarn It for Spin&Knits and special events.
I am a sporadic blogger who started to document my spinning adventures but have ended up including all my fiber activities plus occasional off the track posts like Musicals as a life philosophy .
For this award I need to nominate 12 others and answer the following questions:
1.  Cookies or cake?  Um, pie actually but if I can only choose one of the two - cookies.
2.  Chocolate or vanilla? Depends but most frequently chocolate.
3.  Favorite sweet treat? Pie, pie pie!
4.  When do you get hit with cravings?  Evening - all evening!
5.  Sweet nickname? The only nickname I have ever had was Lindy - given to my by my grandfather who wasn't so familiar with the name Linda but was with Charles Lindbergh who was called Lindy.
My nominations (most do not read my blog but I enjoy theirs!)are, in no special order:
My Next 20 Years of Living
Interstitial Spaces
Thrums
Weave A Way Deb
Yarnspinners Tales
"Hold my hand" A social worker's blog
Daryl's Blog
Dr. Kathy McCoy: Living Fully in Midlife and beyond
Spin - Write - Run
hype
JennaKate Knits
Yarn Harlot










 

MDS&W 2013 or My morning with Maggie Casey!

 
I always love MDS&W ! I get to visit with cousins and extended family, enjoy the fair and then the "oooohing and ahhhing" over all our purchases after. Such a satisfying weekend! This year we had the best ever weather - sunny but cool enough to wear a wool shawl in the morning at least. I am so use to being too hot at this event. For the first time at MDS&W I took a class. It was with Maggie Casey (pictured with me above), who was so knowledgeable, which I expected but also so charming! What a great teacher, her quiet, relaxed manner while providing instruction made her class one that I not only learned a lot from but that I totally enjoyed.  I do feel that my spinning skills have expanded to include "Big and Lofty Yarns". I have my cousin Elaine to thank for the pictures with Maggie. Elaine brought her camera and suggested the picture. I am so happy she did! Samples from the class below you can see the progression. My defalt spinning is is the purple to the "spin the biggest, lofy yarn you can" in the burnt orange.

I kept my purchases down by being in class all morning on Saturday and having to drive home on Sunday, so no second day to the festival. I loved the picture used this year so got that lovely big tote, can retire my shoe box travel lazy Kate now that I have the Katie-a-go-go,  needed the fleece scrub to finish up the breed study club I have piled up in one of my piles at home, and just couldn't leave without a mug! The small bowl (love using them for spices when cooking) was just too tempting.

On the spinning front - still working on the second 6 oz. that is part of my Combo/Extreme Plying project and can't wait to practice what I learned in Maggie Casey's class. Nothing new in knitting or weaving. Fiddlehead Mittens are progressing slowly as is my Tulip Wrap - of course I have plans for what is next!

I love Retreat!

 
 My spinning guild - Spinner's Web - holds 2 spinning retreats a year. Last year I went to the fall retreat for the first time and had such a great weekend I signed right up for the Spring Retreat last weekend. Another great weekend of spinning and laughing and eating! We had perfect weather, spent Saturday afternoon outside spinning. The picture above is part of the group, the picture below - the rest. I can't wait for our fall retreat!

I managed to finish spinning the singles for my 2013 Combo/Extreme playing project. Monday night after work I plied - not an easy ply either. I held all three singles together and n plied. The result is a 9 ply. I don't think I would choose to do it again but it was interesting!
A close up of the finished fiber - not washed yet, about worsted wt.

Here is my Jumbo Woollee winder bobbin

And the three singles:

Esther Chicken

Is that cute or what! Knit from Rowan's free pattern - Esther, Ernie and Enid, Easter Chickens and handspun (mainly Southern Cross Fiber) left overs from socks.
"What do you think of my tail?"

"I am watching you!"


Here is my finished Spunky Eclectic Leno Weaving Club project too

Progress!

Last post I started with a group picture of all the yarns I would be using in my Fiddlehead mittens. I have finished one shell (still need to knit the liner mitten, yarns for liner in the picture) and I am so pleased with it! The second is started - next winter I am going to have such warm hands!
I have projects started on my 3 small looms too. The sample I had on the Hocket loom in the last post is now a wrap in progress, my Tulip Wrap, on my Harp:

On my Cricket I have the last weaving club I received from Spunky Eclectic. I have done leno before but with wool. This is linen and it looked spectacular in progess. It is now finished, wore it to spinning guild yesterday! The finished project looks great.  There will be more of these woven I am sure!

On my new Inkle loom I have a starter project. I am not sure if I will really like weaving on this loom. I think I need to check some you tube videos and see if something needs adjusting but the band itself is working out just fine.

Spinning has slowed down with all these other project going but I need to get back to my combo/extreme plying project to finish up before the April 30th deadline.
Enjoy the beautiful spring! MDS&W is coming up soon.

Spring and new beginnings

Isn't that a lovely group of yarns! All spun by me out of Southern Cross Fibre roving and batts except for the Silk Cloud by Shibui  purchased at Gosh Yarn It! That is the bright green fuzzy one in the top left corner. I will be using that, held with Southern Cross Fiber "Boogie Wonderland" 2 ply, for the liner mitten. The larger semi sold bright green three ply in the center (all the rest of the fibers are Southern Cross Fibre) "Banksia" will be the background for the fiddlesticks which will be knitted out of the remaining 5 3 ply balls. I am really excited to see this project completed! I am swatching now  - hope third swatch is a go!

I actually finished warping up for this project on my Harp but I love this picture of my sampling process on my Hockett Loom. It does 8 epi which was too wide a set for my plans, so I used the white weft (which I didn't like with the lovely Ty-Dy Cotton by Knit one Crochet Too I bought at Gosh Yarn It!) to pull the warp in to check out 10 epi with a thinner, darker color weft, Xie Bamboo also purchased at GYI! Bingo! The Xie for the weft is just a perfect color that holds the warp but shows allows the warp colors to shine through.   Love it. I am naming the project Tulip Wrap because the  colors in the Ty-Dy remind me of the tulips pictured on a postcard I got for my sister when I was visiting Tuileries Gardens in Paris. That was a wonderful trip!

Finally my newest too - an Inkle loom. I have been wanting one and the right size & price appeared in one of the used tool groups on ravelry. Can't wait to get started with it!

Back to spinning

The last 2 posts have focused on weaving but there has been spinning going on too. Above is a good picture of "Banksia" Southern Cross Fiber 60% BFL/40% Tencelfrom July 2012 Batt Club. It was a wonderful spin. Ended up with 202 yarnds of 3 ply and 202 yarns of 2 ply. The 3 ply will be the background for my Fiddlehead mittens. Knitting post soon to come!

I have been trying to spin out of my comfort zone and have 2 "big and lofty" yarns as a result. Spunky Eclectic Cotswald  "Eye of the Peacock"; 2 ply, 69 yards, 4-6 wpi Jan 2013 Club in the top left, top right is my first spin from the fleece I bought from Karen at Endless Mt. Fiber Festival in 2012. I had it processed into roving. It is lovely to spin. Bottom right is "Summer's End" Spunky Eclectic, Superwash Merino, 119 yards that I spun as part of the Extreme Plying spin along in Southern Cross Fiber on ravelry. It is what we are calling M Ply. First I spun the fiber into 2 singles - plyed them for a 2 ply then N plied. The result is a cable yarn (6 plys) and has a nice texture. Makes it hard to see how uneven the singles in the 2 play are!
Finally, my next spin. I am doing Combo SAL 2013 ravelry Spunky Club with fibers from 3 dyers on 3 different fibers - on top SE Merino/Bamboo Rayon “Dinosaur”, bottom left Southern Cross Fibre Polwarth “Kakadu”, Bottom right Hello Yarn BFL “Scorch”. My plan is to do extreme spinning with these as well - I will N ply the three singles, that will be a 9 ply!


Here are all those fibers mixed together in a better picture - actually half of the Kakadu is not there, I stripped the roving into 2 pieces and have one partially spun already! I am off to MD to visit with family this weekend - knitting will happen too!