Is this not the cutest thing ever??  This little guy is straight from Cancun, Mexico and I just love him!

Lynne hosts a special swap every other month for a small group of friends. Our current swap involves building a dream vacation for our swap partner.  My swap partner, Marisol sent me on a trip to Cancun 🙂  Come along with me….

First stop, we pick up a lovely little Mexican jewlery box and some Mexican hot chocolate with a promise of a yummy recipe via email.

Next on tap is some yummy Peet’s coffee in the Costa Rica blend.  Given that I am a huge fan of good coffee, this was cracked open immediately.  Underneath the coffee is a gorgeous calendar of Mexico….such beauty in this country.

Next stop is Vosges Haut Chocolat for some rich, dark chocolate with chili peppers and cinnamon….yum….I think that this will go really well with the margaritas we have planned after the dog show in Atlanta this weekend.

Every trip should involve color right?  Well stopping along the road to pick some flowers was just the right thing to do.  These sweet flowered stitchmarkers were tucked inside a handmade box…..just beautiful!

………I saved the best part of the trip for last :-).  Tucked in that box was a bundle of Crown Mountain Farm roving in "It Takes Two Baby" colorway.  Whoo hoo!

What a great dream vacation….Thank you SO much Marisol!

Why O’ why would anyone wrap their fingers in tinfoil?

A few weeks ago before I took my trip to Williamsburg, as a treat for losing 10 pounds, I had my nails done.   How I made it to almost 50 years without ever having as much as
a manicure surprises even me……however….

As much as I enjoyed having nice nails, I just can’t get past the feeling of something fake on my nails. That New England Yankee side of me kicked in though and I did manage to leave them on for almost 3 weeks until they got to the point where I needed to either have them filled or removed though and I opted for removing them.

As I sat down with a bottle of acetone thinking it would be easy~peasy……..let me tell you grrls……it’s not!  I spent 2 hours getting those suckers off…yikes!  Next 10 pounds, I think it is going to be just a manicure and a polish for me 🙂

The rest of my weekend was filled with better things, once finished with the barn chores.  A lot of knitting and spinning was done and finished (photos coming). In addition to the knitting, little Miss Cleo, Hannah and I went for a walk in the village, searching for the perfect place for a photo shoot.  The weather was unseasonably warm for us up here in the Mountains, which made it hard to want to stay inside.

Every year the dog club I belong to, puts out a lovely yearbook.  It just so happens that Cleo’s breeder is the editor of the yearbook and is a fantastic photographer in her own right. (but she lives in Texas).  I wanted to have just the right picture of her to make not only me happy, but her breeder proud to have bred her.

Let me tell you just how hard it is to get 12 pounds of wiggle worm to sit still for even a minute.  Over the last few months I have tried and tried…even a professional photographer tried and failed, but I think we finally were able to get 2 pictures that capture this little itchy britch’s spirit 🙂 
Now the question is….which picture do I use?   

This week I have finally found some extra time to do a little spinning on my favorite wheel.  Every now and then life gets caught up enough to just spend a little time with the wheel and the needles….it’s nice when that happens.

As I was spinning up this roving, I found I really liked the variation in the colors and want to preserve them when I am plying, so I thought I would try my hand at Navaho plying again.  I’ve never been very good at it, but after reading Margene’s successes and asking her about it privately, I’m going to give it a try this weekend.  Thanks for your helpful tips, Margene!

Frequently I like to put some mellow music on when I am spinning …not only is it relaxing, but I find that I contemplate alot when listening and spinning when my house is otherwise quiet.

As I was spinning, I was thinking about the different kinds of fiber people I have met along my way.  I have been working with fiber in a production type mode for many many years.  I was a sample aran sweater knitter for Merino Wool out of NYC when my older children were babies, I was a production machine knitter for the Betsy boutiques in New England for a spell and finally landed where I am today….trying to find a balance of doing what I love for work and still keeping it a hobby that is fun.  The day it ceases to be fun will be the day I stop. 🙂

On my journey, I have found that there seems to be 2 types of fiber producers …the givers and the takers.  The takers will ask you lots and lots of questions about how you do things, who your suppliers are, why you do something one way as opposed to another…etc, but when you reciprocate in question, your questions are never answered…..they guard their secrets very close to themselves and rarely give for fear of competition.  I have never quite understood why people do this, as I believe that each person has their own unique style that eventually shines…but I respect a person’s decision to guard if they choose.

Then there are the givers……….the above picture is some roving that I just purchased this week from CMR. (I hope Teyani doesn’t mind I snagged the picture….my roving is not here yet).  I ventured over to CMR on my friend Ann’s recommendations on her website.  She raved about how helpful the owners of this company are and the wonderful customer service….she is right, it’s great!  The roving is nothing I would normally ever be attracted to, but I love the finished  Big Yellow Taxi socks here so much that I thought I would give it a try.

Never having spun this type of roving, I wanted to be able to create the same kind of yarn so that my socks would look like these when finished, so I emailed Teyani.  She gave me some great tips and sent me to her March 12 blog entry for more tips and information. 

As I read it this morning, I thought to myself……ahhhhhhh…..she is a giver.  Someone who shares knowledge freely…a teacher.  Over the years, I have come to respect the teachers in our community, who are willing to embrace the learners.  Those who teach either freely or in the classroom setting the knowledge that they have learned in their fiber experience. 

Even though I still see myself very much as a learner, I always want to be willing to help another on this wonderful journey we call fiber artistry :-).

Imagination, song, the soaring spirit.
Separate them to know them as aspects of the whole,
Join them to know the mystery of totality.I 
Deng Ming~Dao

Did you ever have a day where you just couldn’t help but smile?  As I packed away the dyepots, lit a juicy apple candle and opened the window, I couldn’t help but smile.  The day is bright and sunny and the chimes are banging around in the wind, sharing their lovely melody……………I love days like this!

I quickly remembered this weekend why I dislike nupps.  I had cranked along pretty well with this swallowtail shawl a few weeks ago until I hit the nups and set her aside to work on a few other things.

This weekend, I figured it was time to sit with Cracklin Rosie again and work on those darn nupps.  You see, I know that I could just omit them, but I remember how worth it they were the last time I made this shawl….but oy~vey, what a PIA they are!  You can be sure this shawl is staying here this time.

To give myself and my fingers a break from the nupp frustrations periodically, I played with the dyepots in between knitting.  Having a snowy weekend, gave me a good excuse to just stay in and play with fiber.

Every now and then I will accidentally create a color that really makes me smile.  Not because I think other people will like it, but because I like it.   I had a certain vision of what I was hoping to get, which of course was nothing like what I actually got……but that’s the fun part about dyeing.  Sometimes the accidents are your best  finds.

I liked the colors so much that I quickly dyed up a few more skeins and some roving, just to see if I could recreate my faux pas again.  I smiled even more when I saw that I could.
Now the roving may not be anyone else’s cup of tea, but I can’t wait to see how the browns and greens spin up.  This goes on my big Lendrum tonight :-).

The funny thing is, before I played with the dyepots, I had been looking for something to spin on my big saxony wheel that I love.  I just couldn’t find the right roving here that this wheel deserves, so instead I sat down to my little Robin to spin on the Rhinebeck roving I have been spinning on for some time now……… I don’t know if you can tell from the picture as it is a bit blurry, but the colors in this roving are almost the same as what came out of my dyepot accidentally. 
Hmmmm……….what’s up with that?

One Down and One To Go

Rain comes, and birds…
Silhouettes against the pearlescent sky…
Respond excitedly in song.
They open their throat to heaven’s nectar.
And rhyme with the drops.
Deng Ming~Dao

We have the rain today, but I think the birds are still in Virginia…..well almost all of the birds.

One of the things that I love most about Spring is the first time I wake up in the morning and realize that the birds are back home again….when I hear their happy little voices again.  Tuesday while I was sitting at my desk working, I heard a solitary happy chirp.  It wasn’t one of our Winter bird chirpers….this one was different.  It was definitely one of our Summer chirpers!

While we were traveling down to Virginia, I noticed the birds flying in their northward pattern.  Hmmm…………..this little chirper, must be one speedy flyer to make it all the way to New Hampsire so soon 🙂

Where to begin?  The disappointment?  The pain? Do I cry?  Do I laugh?

You have seen me work periodically on my Lisa Lloyd vest.  You heard me voice my concerns about my gauge when I finished the first side.  Had I swatched?  Nope….
Should I have swatched…..yep….and the real question is…..Have I learned my lesson about swatching?
I surely hope so!

I am sure that I will be able to pull this apart and make it work, but right now having it be too snug where it should not be and too big in other spots is just too much for me to deal with out wanting to cry, so this little vest has been packed away for now.  I think I will wait until mid summer to tackle it again.  Maybe I will be a bit smaller and hopefully over the agony of defeat.  One thing for sure, I am going to order one of these~

Now on to happier things……

I am trying out a few new sock yarns that I am hoping will be a nice addition.   I thought that I would try to knit up some samples so that I know exactly what the strong points of the yarn are and maybe what some of the flaws are too.

This is a blend of merino and bamboo and so far I am really loving it.  The pattern that I am using is one of Marguerites

A few years ago, I made her old shale socks and to this date they are my all time favorites.  I love the ribbing pattern that she makes for the foot portion of the pattern.  It’s comfy on your feet :-).  I started out using a size 1 2.5 needle but quickly realized that I needed to go down to a 2.25.  Yes, THIS time I listened to that inner voice.  So far….so good!

I have also been playing with the carder and the dyepots.  This weekend, I took some Polwarth fleece that I purchased a few years ago and blended it with some pink silk/merino top.  For some reason, the combination of pink and gray has really jumped out at me this season.  They are not really my colors, although with my graying hair they could quickly become my colors….but anyhoo, I am really loving the combination.

This past week I found some great links on Cindy’s page for spinning your own sock yarn.  This is something that I have never attempted, so I am going to snag a few ounces of this roving for myself and give it a try.  The polwarth is similar in itchibility factor to merino, but a little stronger and of course silk always adds strength, so we will see.  After the vest fiasco, I think I am going to stick to smaller projects until my wounded ego feels a bit better…LOL.

As you can see, this is not Pink Floyd’s Wall…it’s not the Wall of China...heck, it’s not even the Wall of Koigu.  It’s just my humble little wall of handspun.

As I was thinning out some of the yarn that has been collecting dust on the wall, I tossed a few of them into a big bag to carry out to the barn.

Before I tied that bag up however, I pulled the skeins out one by one to take a closer look at them again…. and give them one last pet.

First in the bag was this purple yarn of unknown content.  It was one of the first things I spun and probably one of my most balanced yarns.

Next out of the bag is some pretty Border Leicester/Mohair/Alpaca yarn made from Spinner Hill Batts.  This is destined to be another one of my favorite vests.  A bit thick and thin and lumpy in some spots, but it’s my favorite color, so that makes up for it, right?

Out came some random Romney skeins…..a bit scratchy, but such pretty colors….I am sure I can find something to do with them.  I won’t mention that they have been sitting here for almost 5 years now…..shhhh.

Then there are the singles that I played with last year with some leftover hand dyed Merino that I had sitting around.  Again….I have no clue what I will do with them, so they will go in the rubbermaid container in the big abyss I call "The Barn"…

And finally…..the last skein in the bag is my Peacock Angora, Silk roving.  Hmmmm…..it’s so soft and so pretty, I don’t think it will be happy in "The Barn", do you?  I think it’s earned it’s place on "The Wall", where I can stop and pet it every now and then until I can find something to do with it.

As I packed all of the skeins away, it got me to thinking about how I have progressed as a spinner.  As a new spinner, I grabbed anything that resembled roving and whose colors spoke to me….without any rhyme or reason.  I spun for the pure love of spinning and like many of you, I ended up with lots and lots of single skeins of yarn kicking around, but no real use for many of them.

These days however, I have tried to become more of a project spinner.  Not wanting to swim in yarn that I am not sure if I will ever use, I now try to choose roving carefully….usually with a project in mind and a yarn weight that I try to obtain for that project.

At Spa, I had no intention of purchasing any roving, but I succombed to Chris’s incredibly beautiful bunny blend.  Now you may ask…..don’t you have enough bunny?  The answer would be yes of course I do….but oh, this was just too pretty to pass up … AND… I quickly decided that this could become Anne’s Obstacle scarf…..whew! 

There are some days that I do still grab up something only because it is pretty, but I am trying to get better about project spinning, so the yarns get used instead of hiding in a container.

What do you do with all of your little bunches of handspun yarn?

What a beautiful weekend it was in Virginia!  When we left early Thursday morning the temps were cold and we heard of the impending snow storm that was heading in with an expected snow fall of 18 inches.  We went back and forth a bit wondering if we should leave, but in the end decided to go.

The weather in Virginia was absolutely delightful.  Warm daytime temps in the low 70’s with a warm breeze.  Such a tease it is to visit a warm climate when you know you have to head back to winter, isn’t it? 

Sure enough as we left to go back home, we hit some snow squalls along the way, hinting at what was waiting for us at home.  Yikes!!  18 inches of new snow ontop of the 20 we had received the previous week and this morning it was colder than it has been all winter.  The winds have been howling non stop and the temps have barely risen above 0.  Ugghh………I want to go back to Virginia!

While Ken and Hannah enjoyed Colonial Williamsburg, I stayed and enjoyed the dog show both days.  Little Miss Cleo did very well on her first outing at a CKCSC,USA show.  Friday night, her first time out in the ring, she was Best Senior Puppy Bitch and placed in the top 4 the other 2 days (2nd one day and 3rd the next).  She was in a class with some lovely girls, so we were thrilled with her placements.  I think she enjoyed herself as well!

A Special Swap

Waiting when I got home were 2 boxes addressed to me.  Now who doesn’t like to come home to that?  The smaller box was from my Special Swap Pal, Kathy.  Does this girl know me or what…..just look at that bottle of wine, and the mountain colors yarn is just gorgeous.  Kathy also included some lovely alpaca yarn, Stephanie’s book and some other pampering goodies. 

Go take a stroll over to her blog and say hello 🙂

This was what was in the bigger box………can you guess what I will be doing for the next few weeks?  Wheeeeeeeeeee