Crazy Jam Packed Life

Hello, I used to blog here.  sigh.  Still no camera.  I have a new one.  It came with no memory card.  I can take 3 pictures.  Add to list - go buy new memory card.

Work is so crazy busy that last night while watching House Hunter's International they went to Iceland.  I thought it sounded lovely.  They have sheep there.  I may have thought about checking air fare.  Already know house prices.  Just saying. 

Please come back soon.  I promise I will have new pictures.  Really.  And not just made up ones from my mind.  Now that would be scary.

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.

You know you spin too much when....

you lose the skin from two of your fingers.  The two fingers that the roving whizzes over as it feeds into the bobbin orifice. 

You also know you spin too much when even though you've lost the first layer of skin, you keep spinning, after all, you have SEVERAL layers of skin.

See you at Yarnover!

Hellooooo!!!! Spring?

Are you out there?  Really?  This is what we woke up to this morning...and it is spring time?  Well yes, I guess in Minnesota.  Now there is good news here, it is going to be 60 on Sunday for Easter, which means we can have an Easter egg hunt outside...that doesn't always happen up here in these northern woods...

I'm spinning like mad to get everything ready for Yarnover, I'm having fun, but I am getting ready to just GO!  A week from Saturday you can find these lovelies at my booth.  The first one is a favorite, I'm calling it Apple of My Eye.  Poufy squishy Polwarth...just great.

I'm not sure what I'm calling this one yet.  More muted than I thought it would be, but still so pretty and soft.

And finally, this pink, it is not quite this bright, but it is one of the prettiest pinks I've got.  I think it would make a beautiful hat and mitten set, maybe using it in fair isle with a cream and or brown...wouldn't that be a nice combo?

Yarn Hop aftermath

Oh my I had fun this weekend.  Nine yarn shops in the Twin Cities banded together for a weekend packed with more yarn goodness than should be legal!  You start out with a card and you get it stamped at each of the participating 9 shops.  Once your card is filled out with all the stamps, you leave it at that last store and it is entered into a drawing for one grand prize and 9 first place prizes.  But even though I'd love to win, just traveling around to the different shops was the best.

There was a bit of a stir when they increased the number of shops from 6 to 9.  That is would be too hard and too much distance to get to all the shops in a weekend.  So they extended the time frame so it was over a 4 day period instead of 3 days.  It worked out just fine for me. 

I had the best time.  I don't go every year which I think just makes it more fun the years I do go.  And just look at what I bought.

I laughed when I got home and saw my color ranges, seems I do love me some blues, browns and creams. 

I also bought the Spud and Chloe on the farm book.  I love how Susan B. Anderson creates her little critters. 

For myself, I bought The New Stranded Colorwork book by Mary Scott Huff.  In fact I already started the bag in the lower left of the cover.  I just happened to have those exact colors in Cascade 220 sitting in my stash.  Perfect project for me to work on my two handed knitting.  Felting will cover any imperfections as I work to increase my skill level.

I also found a lovely small project bag from Lila and Claudine's, it is made from oil cloth and was very reasonably priced.  Lila and Claudine's is one shop I had not been to before, well, maybe once?  And I think it is one I will go back to again, especially when it isn't quite as busy as during Yarn Hop.

Another new shop I want to go back to and really visit is StevenBe's.  I found this lovely Three Irish Girl sock yarn.  That just jumped into my hands and wouldn't leave.

   

I know all the workers in the yarn shops must be exhausted after the last four days, but this is one happy shopper, who just loved exploring new places and finding new yarns.  Thank you!