Last Saturday My “sister” (in-law) and I went to 3 yarn shops near her. We saw “Shepherds Choice” in East Bethel, MN. A little farm shop about 5 miles from her house, I got this merino roving there.

We then went to a place called the “Double Ewe” in Circle Pines(I wasn’t impressed, my LYS rocks and it’s smaller than that) They had some nice stuff, but it was “city priced”.

We ended up at “All about yarn” I thought it was a nice shop, lots of room to move in, a lot of patterns and books and they were friendly, I’d go back there.

We stopped off at Joann Fabrics on the way home, I got a magazine and we looked thru some knit/crochet books. All in all it was a nice day of relaxing shopping. However…

I wasn’t satisfied with the amount of spinning supplies available, so I searched etsy shops when I got home.

I found some Babydoll Southdown wool, in “winter white” and “grey to black”, 1 pound each, and had to have it, since I have the drum carder now, I figured I shouldn’t be afraid of fiber prep.

Isn’t this little girl cute! It’s a rare breed, kind of a mini sheep, about 24″high at the shoulder. I looked up some info on the breed before I bought. It’s supposed to be soft like cashmere. I’ll let you know…

I thought I’d card the 2 colors together, and make a nice grey.

I finished my current projects, I made some yarn for the Sakinaneedles fiberheads Rav group contest, inspired by the violets in my yard. 170 yds @22 wpi from 4oz. in Dusty cornflower.

also I made this yarn from Falkland wool from Fatcatknits.etsy “Heat” combined with some merino that was kool-ade dyed. (8oz total) I got 12 wpi with about 334 yds.

We met this morning at Coffee Talk in Taylors Falls, MN. For an unofficial Ravelry spin outing. Nuttnbunny and Z came and LisaAnderson and her Hub TallGuyWi came in to hang. Taught Nate to Spin on a Spindle, Luckily Nuttnbunny had an extra cup hook, for the end. Mom and I did our thing. Had a good time seeing them, there was yarn smooshing and envy all around! Definitely need to desensitize the locals to the spinning, got lots of stares.

Nuttnbunny won a Blue Ribbon at Shepherds Harvest fest for her novelty skein, which I recognized Immediately!

April came up for the Fest again, and Brought her new puppy “Hector” up to visit!

I got TONS of Roving and Fiber from the fest this year, about 8 pounds worth!

I bought 4 bags of Shetland Roving from Sheepy Hollow Shetlands (about 6 pounds)

1 pound of various roving from Chamomile Connections

and about 2 pounds of Llama fiber. 11.5 ozs was washed and carded, the other pound and a half was raw, off the hoof, and it was soooo cheap I can’t even mention the price! Might as well have been free, I think they were doing demos and decided to sell it at the last minute.

I also got about 3 pairs worth of Sock yarn, which my dogs ate and it took hours to untangle it!

About a week ago I had an opportunity to get a Drum Carder( that needs Minor repair) and a set of Hand carders and a flick for really cheap as well! (Might as well have said I stole them as well!) The Lady I bought them from had a Mother who was a Spinner and he had died a couple years ago, There was no one to use them anymore so She brought her Mothers stuff to the LYS to sell them cheaply and give them good homes.

My Father -in-Law is a Fabricating Machinist, and is going to help me repair the Drum Carder. It was Hand made and really just needs a good cleaning, and a little part replaced.

My friend Lori that works with me got a Hand Made swift for $20. Gotta love bein in the right place at the right time!!

All the pics of my Loot except the carder are on my stash page of Ravelry.

I had my pic on the Harlots blog for my first sock pic, it’s teeny, but I’m there. I horked the pics from addictedknitter, she had the camera that night. She has a full post on her blog.

 

 

Mom and I dyed up a bunch of the white (practice) roving that I bought before I started spinning, I bought 2 pounds and we dyed about 28oz. I picked 7 colors to dye to ply with the fiber that I’ve bought either thru fiber clubs or from etsy. I got 6 koolade colors and we dyed the 7th with green food coloring.

I did Grape, Black Cherry, Lemonade/orange, limeade, ice blue lemonade, Berry Blue, and Green food color. If you’d like to do these colors I have the amounts of color I used for each.

There is a great article in the current “Spindle and Wheel” (an online mag), that goes over food dyes.

I was having trouble with my Asthma so I stayed home today. Unfortunately my wallet was here as well. I ended up shopping the etsy shops for fiber and then decided that since I did a little spinning, and I still don’t know how to ply, that I needed some more bobbins as well. Altogether today cost me about $150, since I didn’t get paid and I spend a bunch on top of that. But I have some photos!

This is a before and after shot of the mystery fiber that Nuttnbunny gave me to try, she wasn’t sure what kind of Fiber it was, but it has sparkly stuff and it’s as soft as baby kittens!

Be kind, this is only my 3rd bobbin of spinning, and I’d definately never used anything this fine.

   

I bought the bobbins from Susan’s Spinning bunny, the shop where I bought my wheel, ordered a set of 4 . And I have 4 more fibers on the way! 3 different etsy shops represented! and I think i’ll be joining another fiber club as well. If I learn to ply, I can rule the fiber world!!  (ok, leave me my moment here I can’t breathe)

I made Pixie the outfit last year, she’s sooo cute in it)  there are always a lot of dogs at the Parade. We go to the one in New Richmond Wisconsin. This year some dogs were painted green! too cute.

And we got Pete for a visit while his family is in Florida for Easter. He’s doing great with the other 2, but Pixie is a jealous girl and we need more Me time, to assure her. We had a little girl talk about how he’s just a boy dog and he misses his mommy right now, and he’s only here for a week. I don’t think she bought it.

Woohoo!

She’s coming to St. Paul On April 10th, April got us tickets to go. I have her new book on pre-order at Amazon.com, so hopefully it will be here before then (it ships on April 2nd) I’m sure we’ll make an impression, or scare the crap out of her as we (April) usually does when she sees a knitting celeb.

It’s an event not to be missed!

If you’re attending this event give a shout out, we’ll hook up with you. (we’re famous now too you know

I signed up for the Mystic lights shawl KAL. It’s my first shawl, my first KAL and my first lace pattern. April was proud cuz I ordered my first set of Addi’s for this project. I’m almost all grown up now)

The KAL is still open on the yahoo groups and it begins the end of March. I had to get some sock yarn for it, (I know more sock yarn) My prob is that i can get a pair of socks out of one big ball of sock yarn, so I never buy 2, doh. anyway, it’s gonna be fun)