No camera but links galore

My old camera is about dead.  It has served me well, I've dragged it all over, sometimes carefully, most times, not so much.  Still it took serviceable pictures.  Nothing earth shattering but it did the job.  Well I got to pick out an award at work recently to celebrate my 5th anniversary here.  I picked a camera.  I'm getting it next week.  So I just haven't bought new batteries etc for the old camera.  It is now dead.  Rest in peace my friend.  Which means even though I had a fiberpalooza weekend, I have no pictures.  So what is a girl to do?

I could try to verbally describe the trip out to Detta's Spindle where I happily rummaged around and left with five bags of natural cream fiber, some lovely wine colored wool mohair mix, a silvery gray, and a bump of mill end of a heathery blue roving.  I accomplished this in under 10 minutes.  If you are in the neighborhood of Detta's, run, do not walk and just fill up your fiber tank.

I could let you know my utter delight of arriving home from Detta's to find a box from Fat Cat Knits where I ordered another, oh um, 4 different sets of handpainted roving, each from 6-8 ounce packages.  My mind just exploded into a showery fireworks of fiber goodness.  My dining room table was covered in roving!  Now that was a good day.  Can't you just close your eyes and imagine what these colorways look like?  "Child's Play"  "Heliotrope" "Millefiori" "Wizard Island"   Well just click away and you can see them.  Can we say I'm in spinning heaven?  Currently, I'm working on Heliotrope.  It is absolutely lovely. 

And finally, to end my pictureless post, I got an email yesterday from someone who bought some of my hand spun yarn at Yarnover.  She already knit it up into a lovely scarf.  She wanted me to see how it turned out.  I think it is lovely.  And I'm thrilled that my yarn is finding it's way out into the world.  Thank you!

Injury? While Spinning?

OK, so I've dealt with the whole missing skin thing on a couple of my fingers for spinning a lot.  I've dealt with a very stiff back and not being able to spin for almost a week.  But who knew one needed to be careful when soaking and whacking freshly spun yarn.  Yup, when I was tiredly whacking yarn against the bathroom counter, I somehow misjudged the location of my hand in relation to the edge of the counter. How does that happen?  In addition to whacking the most beautiful soft spring green yarn, I caught my index finger knuckle against the counter edge.  Instantly had a blood blister, started to swell to lovely proportions before it turned a dusky shade of purple over the next hour.  After 3 days, I can bend it again, but please do NOT shake my hand!

I attended a craft fair last Saturday.  It was not a great fair, very VERY few people.  But one nice thing included was my table was next to the free chair massage!  Previously in the week my back went out.  It has happened many times, but this was probably the worst in several years.  Standing and sitting were difficult.  Walking?  Well for those of us of a certain age, I looked like Tim Conway's little old man shuffling along.  But Saturday was nearly a week from when it happened and I could sit as long as I stood every  20 minutes or so to stretch out my aching muscles.  But after a couple hours, I shuffled over to the massage chair and asked him to work away.  He marveled at the "critical" tightness in my right side.  But what really blew me away?  That he said I should sit on an exercise ball while I spun.  A round ball.  While I spun.  Now I use a Julia, Louet.  She is a double treadle.  Which meant that I would be sitting on a round ball.  Concentrating on my hands, both feet treadling away.  Which leaves NO feet on the floor to balance me.  NONE.  Somehow I see this as a disaster waiting to happen.  I can just see me flipping over, roving in one hand, Julia toppling over and crashing to the floor as I go sailing you know what over teakettle!  I politely nodded.  But thought, no thank you, I will sit my crippled butt firmly in my chair and remain as solidly connected to the floor as possible.  Clearly he hasn't seen me operate if he thought I could manage to balance myself on a round object and spin at the same time.  Although my girls thought it would be such a GREAT idea!  hmmmm, those girls were very excited at the idea.  Funny I didn't get an exercise ball for Mother's Day!

Yarnover Aftermath

Yarnover was a blast.  While it started out in the cold and rain, it was so invigorating to see that many yarn lovers and knitters in one place.  The girls and I arrived in a steady rain at the Hopkins high school just before 7 am on a Saturday morning.  Now that is a lot of fun, getting kids up before 6 on a Saturday!  But they did great.  We were able to get the van unloaded between the three of us in only 2 trips.  But we were a bit soggy afterwards.  The yarn I protected, my hair?  Not so much!  smile...but shoppers were there by 7:45 a.m. and it was steady throughout the morning.  While it slowed a bit in the afternoon, the attendance was great.  I sold yarn which made me happy.  To hear so many nice compliments on my yarn was also gratifying.  Sometimes when I'm pedaling away in my room, I can loose sight of really how pretty the yarn is.  Hearing the nice comments from others was good for me.

In addition to selling yarn, I met some of my favorite bloggers which was great fun as well.  I also met and got some promising potential ideas for some future events that may be really exciting.  More on that after things are firmed up.  But thank you to every one who stopped and looked and stroked the yarn.  Y'all made my day.