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Rhinebeck round up 2011 – the yarn

Oct 202011

So here’s my stash enhancement:

A few extra skeins of natural yarn from Wild Apple Hill Farm:

A sweaters worth of Teal also from Wild Apple Hill Farm – the plan for this is Idlewood – our knitting group is planning a small knit-a-long:

A sweater’s worth of Shepherd’s Wool from Stonehedge Fiber Mill:

I’m currently knitting Dark & Stormy out of this yarn, it’s a new worsted weight favorite – it feels like superwash but it isn’t. Love the hand of the yarn, the knitted fabric, the colors. Everything.

And the real score for the weekend (well not if you are talking to our JessaLu): 1330 yards of sport weight alpaca for …. $45!

I’m planning on either knitting the Dahlia cardigan designed by our Heather or the Leaving cardigan from Twist Collective. I want to finish Dark and Stormy first – I’m 2 inches away from splitting off the sleeves.

All in all, well thought out purchases at Rhinebeck this year – I’ve clearly been chomped on by the sweater bug as I didn’t buy ANY sock yarn! The goal for this year is to knit all of this up by next year’s Rhinebeck. Not sure how that is going to work, being that I have yarn still from last year. Oops.

Road trip recap: WEBS!

knitting, life 1 Response »

Aug 272011

So as part of our great “weekend” in the Berkshires, Sharon and I headed to WEBS on our way home. It was Sharon’s first time at WEBS (hard to believe!) and we had a blast:

I managed to only buy 5 skeins of yarn and have one photo to show for it -

3 skeins of MadelineTosh Vintage in the Lepidoptra colorway. We’re planning a mini-KAL of Watershed (ravelry link). I can’t wait to get started. Clearly I’m on a pink kick?

I also picked up another skein of cascade 220 in Royal and an extra skein of Cascade 220 sport in Jet for my Oranje cardi. Here’s a progress shot for those playing along at home:

I’m working my way through the waist shaping and just started my second skein of the pink yarn. Maybe I can finish the body by the end of the weekend thanks to the stupid hurricane.

WITB!

knitting, life, spinning 8 Responses »

Aug 222011

This past week, I had the glorious opportunity to spend a few days with some really good friends up at JessaLu’s house. Sharon and I drove up on Tuesday and met up with JessaLu and Jessica and headed out to knit night where we got to see Diane and Tina along with a few other people. We had a great time getting some knitting and spinning done and then headed out to Baba Louie’s for a great pizza dinner.

Do you think we have a small Stitched By JessaLu Problem?

We were staying in the pop-up camper in the back yard – it had HEATED beds! Amazing. Makes me want to reconsider camping. On Wednesday, we hit the roads around Great Barrington, going to a farm stand then heading over to JessaLu’s FIL’s house to sit by the lake. It was fantastic. A simple lunch of sandwiches, cookies, and did I mention, GOAT CHEESE, from the local farm stand. OMG. I was in heaven. That evening we had a small cookout in the back yard, made all the food (read: guacamole, tabbouleh, a fantastic salad, corn, burgers, and squash). We settled in on the back porch for some spinning and girl talk. What a great way to spend time with friends.

Sock in progress

Thursday it rained – a lot. So we stayed at the house and spun until Jessica had to leave us – it was so great to see her! We spun some more and then grabbed some Thai food with R, JessaLu’s hubby, in GB. And we got stuck in a HORRIBLE rain storm after we got ice cream at SoCo. We grabbed all of our stuff out of the camper and ran into the house. It turned into a great little sleep over – spinning, sangria (for me!), and Bride and Prejudice kept us gabbing until 2:30 am! It’s been a long time since I’ve had a girlie sleep-over and it is exactly what the doctor ordered!

Adult Spinning

Friday arrived and we were back on the road with a few stops before heading back to NJ. Sharon wanted to see Webs for the first time and I was more than ready to make that happen! We got there and her mind was blown!

WEBS!

After a stop at a local coffee shop for a biscotti and latte, we were back on the road, this time to Albany to see Our Diane. We were treated to a lovely dinner and great conversation and had a truly awesome visit with Diane, E, and Mia.

the only downside to this fantastic trip was that my front fender decided that it didn’t want to be on my car anymore so Sharon and I had to bungee it back onto the car and keep checking it on the way home from NY. The car is now in the shop and I get it back after $450 of work on Tuesday. This is all well and good since there are only 11 sleeps until my weekend in Pittsburgh!

I’ll share my WEBS haul and my spinning progress from this past week hopefully tomorrow.

Eye Candy Friday

eye candy friday 2 Responses »

Mar 042011

The one with the new sock yarn and project bag.

A contest! A Contest!

knitting 28 Responses »

Feb 252011

Okay I am going to have my first ever blog contest. So go tell your friends

The person who comes closest in guessing how long it’ll take me to reskein 5lbs of sock yarn from these cones:

will get either a skein of yarn dyed in the colorway of their choosing, or 4 oz of spinning fiber in the colorway of their choosing.

If NO ONE comes close, I will add an amount of time to everyone’s guesses to get them in the ballpark.

Yes, clearly the need for a skein winder is evident now

Leave your guesses as a comment on this post. There will be a second post to announce the winner on Monday!

A rocky start to December

knitting, life 5 Responses »

Dec 082010

While I have been making progress in my Christmas knitting and spinning projects, there was a minor setback this morning.

Let me preface this with, I am okay. I was in a car accident this morning. My car is driveable but needs to be repaired:

smooshy car

Smooshy honda fit!

We’re starting the long and tedious process of dealing with the insurance companies. But I am okay. I expect to be sore tomorrow but I am okay

Let’s talk about something that is hmm not car accidents! I finished the first sock that I’m knitting at the request of MIL. It’s “brainless” from Yarnissima (That’s a ravelry link).

brainless sock #1

I’m still working my way through Rosebuddie for my niece. I’m almost done the last chart and then I can proceed to the edging.

Erika’s sweater is still in progress but I only have the sleeves left to work on – I need to rip out the 4 rows I knit on one to restart and use the jog-less stripe method to alternate the two skeins that I’m working from.

Erika's Ingenue

There was some stash enhancement after the Skein Maven’s trip to Woolbearers:
A skein of Tosh sock in Oxblood:

MadelineTosh Sock in Oxblood

and 3 balls of St. Denis Nordique to knit Juneberry with:

St. Denis Nordique

I’m going to stop here so I can go relax a bit before another day at the grindstone tomorrow – hopefully I can get to the second gusset on the socks for MILs co-worker.

Progress!!!

food, knitting, life, spinning 1 Response »

Jul 182010

Yes yes yes. I finished the shawl test knit. I have successfully not killed my tomato plant. I spun more floof for the tour de fleece. Now for the details!

The shawl is designed by Heather, a.k.a. digitalnabi on ravelry and plurk, and I just love it. I used wollmeise in the Granatapfel colorway (translates to pomegranate). Here are some blocking shots:

lace detail:

Which I believe I blocked wrong so that will have to be re-blocked!

And of course my blocking assistant:

Heather says she hopes to have this pattern available in August. I think it may just be the new ishbel! If you are jonesing for a new pattern, I recommend checking out the criminal sock series over at CraftyDetour – Heather is designing a series of sock patterns and I’ve been test knitting for her and they are just amazing.

In other news…

The tomato plant my dad got me has yielded its first tomato:

And let me tell you, it was delicious on my cracked black pepper burger tonight.

The next one should be ready to go in a day or so:

And there are more waiting to ripen:

JC has been sending me photos of the rabbits at the train station – there are more than 5 that live on the to trenton side of the tracks so on our way to see Inception last night we stopped by so I could see them. Only two were out and they will let you get rather close to them and they do not flinch at all when the high speed amtrak trains fly by a few feet away:

Just look at that little cotton fluff!

Speaking of animals, we have had an issue with birds trying to build a nest above our front door and our crazy neighbor upstairs having animal control on speed dial. But that’s neither here nor there, so here’s a photo of baby birds!

I’ve been keeping busy with dyeing fiber in the evenings. Here’s the latest from the dyepot, all Falkland roving :

Gallery on High colorway-

Kiwi -

Contusion -

And as far as spinning goes, I finished plying up 4.3 oz of superwash merino in the Forest colorway from Pigeonroof Studios today:

But now I best get back to my lime vodka tonic and my other test knitting project!

Blur of activity

family, knitting, life, spinning 4 Responses »

Jul 162010

Almost a month again. Sheesh. I haven’t been purposely ignoring the blog, honest, just running around like a maniac.

First, I got to meet my new niece, Marisa. She took a nap on my chest while we were visiting for nephew #4′s birthday:

Marisa takes a nap

I finished my cousin’s shawl and my own shawl. Erika’s shower was on 7/10 and she really enjoyed herself. I got to spend most of the day with her which is nice since she lives in Pittsburgh and we don’t see each other very often.

Pattern: Haruni (ravelry link – it’s a free pdf download!)

Yarn: Wollmeise 100% superwash merino in Frühling

Cast on: 6/20/2010

Cast off: 7/2/2010

haruni in eye searing acid green wollmeise

and my lovely blocking assistant:

my ever helpful blocking assistant

I’ve also been busy doing some test knitting for Heather (over at Crafty Detour and for her personal designs, at digitalnabi) which has involved another sock pattern and a shawlette pattern. I’m now completely addicted to lace, thanks to Haruni and the new shawlette which I believe is being called Strawberry.

And since it’s July and the tour de france is going on, we spinners have the tour de fleece at the same time! Here’s what I’ve managed to spin up since the start:

135 yards, navajo plied superwash merino in the Cheshire cat colorway

230 yards of 2 ply superwash merino from Pigeonroof Studios in the exit song colorway – this was a club shipment from Krista’s regular fiber club.

And finally,

225 yards of 2 ply Falkland that I dyed, the colorway name is Professor Von Buren (JC came up with it, don’t ask).

I’m trying to get better with measuring the yardage I’ve been ending up with. So far so good. On the wheel currently is more superwash merino from PigeonRoof, I’m trying to spin down my stash!

I’m almost done the singles and hope to finish this up by the end of this weekend if I don’t completely get sucked into my test knitting which has been the case lately.

More tomorrow!

Has it really been 11 days?

spinning 7 Responses »

May 242010

Oops. Sorry for the radio silence. How about some nice spinning FOs?

First up the BFL that I purchased at Llama Llama Knit during my trip to SF. This is the Lucky Break colorway from PigeonRoofStudios:

Lucky Break BFL from pigeonroof studios

Next up is the singles and the finished yarn from some of the fiber I posted about last week gah two weeks ago:

fruity oat bar corriedale singles from christina marie potter

I waffled a bit on what to do with these singles and ended up doing a nice navajo-ply:

fruity oat bar navajo-plyed finished yarn

I love it. So soft and squishy.

Also coming off the ladybug recently:

Octopus's Garden Superwash Merino from The Woolen Rabbit

and I’m trying to work through the Pigeonroof studios fiber club shipments:

Pigeonroof Studios Falkland in "Dapple"

The above is my first attempt at a single yarn. I like it but have no idea what I’ll knit with it, or the yardage. I really need to start measuring the yardage as I’m getting these ready for a soak and thwack.

Currently on the wheel is some lovely superwash merino again from Pigeonroof studios (I may have a bit of a problem) in the Emperor colorway:

Pigeonroof Studios SW Merino in Emperor

I finished the singles up last night and will probably ply it later on this week. The singles were coming in around 34 WPI so I’m curious as to what weight it will end up being.

Anyhoo, more tomorrow, I think about food instead of the yarn and fiber stuff. I’ll leave yinz with a kitty belleh photo:

mmm belleh

A trip to NYC with the girls and some knitting

knitting, life, new york 3 Responses »

Apr 202010

This past weekend I spent Saturday in NYC with Jessica and Sharon. We had a blast running around Soho (we got lost haha). We managed to visit:

J. Crew so I could pet the swatch samples for the bridesmaid’s dress for my cousin’s wedding
Purl in their new location. It is a lovely store and just simply dangerous to have the gorgeous fabric and yarn all in ONE place.
Peanut Butter and Co
peanut butter & co

to get a jar of this:

dark chocolate peanutbutter!

and to just check the place out. I ended up with one of their cookbooks (OMG fantastic!) and feel that I may go back soon to try some of their food offerings!

We also by fortuitous accident found L’asso and had some of the best pizza, buffalo mozzarella and tiramisu I’ve ever had.
We then fled Soho and headed for the last bit of the Union Square Farmer’s Market where I bought a billion (okay really 5) giant ginger snap cookies. These cookies are fabulous and I became addicted to them thanks to Cait’s mom.
We also stopped by Fishs Eddy to peruse the stock – I love this store, could spend hours here
We then headed back to Penn Station and caught a train back to NJ. I was able to make some progress on my vanilla socks I’ve been working since last year:

zen toe up socks

Jessica came bearing gifts! I got a bag of floof from her bunny stitches!!!!!!! Cannot wait to figure out what to do with this:

bunny floof

Some stash enhancement has happened, a skein of skinny bugga! arrived for me to knit haruni for my cousin’s wedding. I’m thinking this apple-y green will look fabulous against the chocolate brown dress.

skinny bugga!

And also, some progress on the Baby Chalice Blanket.

baby chalice blanket in progress

I’m about 50% done (would’ve been more today had I actually knit at lunch, and more yesterday had I remembered to bring my knitting to work with me!) and hope to get more progress in this weekend. My friend Ashly is coming to visit from Pittsburgh so it will be another jammed packed weekend, spending Friday in NYC, Saturday in Philly, and Sunday in Princeton. Then next weekend is Maryland Sheep and Wool. I’m going to need a vacation from the weekends soon!

And as a teaser, this came in the mail this morning:

mmm perwoll

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