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Yarn, Friends, Sheep

I had the best time this weekend. Rachael and I enjoyed the chauffeuring style of Linda as she drove us out to Marengo on Saturday. We met up with Rachael's aunt in a great little ma and pa restaurant, had great hamburgers and with full tummy's, went of the The Fold. I'd been hankering for a visit for awhile, especially since I pulled out the wheel and dusted it off. I was a good girl and didn't buy any yarn. I was a bad girl and bought lots of fiber and stuff to make it though! Picked up some oil, apparently the Teflon oil I was told to use years ago is not so good and can slow it down, bad. I've been wanting a yardage counter and found one there that was at least 6 bucks cheaper than everywhere else, and while I know that I could make it, just this once I didn't want to, I'm making the yarn myself, what else do you want?



Better spinning starts with a good book, so I got one of those too, and then the fiber! 1 lb of superwash merino enough to make a sweater for Bella in a lovely silvery whitish color, 2 lbs of Corriedale in a lovely chocolate color for me, 2 lbs of Blue Face Leicester to be dyed later on, Toni the owner of the Fold through in some left over fluff, and then I was bad and picked of 1 oz. of cashmere. Let's say it again, CASHMERE in the prettiest cool toned camelish color, ahhh.



The drive was fast, we rocked and talked with Linda's new iPod playing, ended up at her house for tea, cheese, crackers and picked some fresh raspberries. It was fun, it was bonding, it's what a weekend should be, yarn and friends.

Cycles

So 8 years ago when I was in my last year of college I took a spinnng class at the Textile Arts Center. I loved it so much that I bought my own wheel.

I don't have this exact model, I didn't have enough to splurge on the double treadle, I wish I had now, I would love a double treadle. My wheel works just fine, but I'm really into the idea of spinning my own yarn being such a knitter now. So I have this wheel that has been collecting a nice amount of dust in the corner and very few people realized it was there. My friend Linda's birthday was the same day as the WW KIP event here in Chicago and she got the first real decent amount of hopefully knittable yarn from my wheel. I have no idea of how much yardage there was, but it looks real purty in its hank form. I've decided to pick up spinnng again and see what comes of it. I went to a meeting of the Windy City Spinning Guild last wednesday. I've been trying to go for the longest time, but they only meet once a month on wednesday evenings, and I usually work that night. (but not for much longer!) It was interesting, not a lot of people there, but something nice to go to once a month. This older lady whose name I do not remember did a mini class on cleaning raw fleece, something I would not fear doing, but would rather pay a little extra to have it done for me. Now I have one more thing to shop for at Stitches Midwest! So here are a couple of not so good before spinning and after spinning pictures.

Oh, the white stuff is some pencil roving I got at the Wisconsin Sheep and Festival last year. Some years ago I bought some of this mystery black wool with specks of silk noil in it, this is what it looks like when I got bored saturday night and decided to watch a movie and spin, I even plied it, wash it and dried it weighted! I've declared this the summer of fiber! I'm going to relax, knit alot, spin a storm up and hang out alot in my garden. I went to a rummage sale today, I had seen an ad on Craigslist for it and it caught my eye when it mentioned a spinning wheel. Well, the wheel was already gone when I got there, but I did find this photo by the aluminum needle pile. Neeto!

Bugs

Hold on there, still working out the bugs and fine tuning the way I want this blog to work. My major problem is inserting a finishing project archive, not sure where to go on that one. I decided to take out the other blog links at the side bar, it was to garish and busy, I prefer the cleaner look I lifted from Linda's blog. So if anyone can assist, everything I learned about html code I learned from blogger, kinda of sad.

Joining the Crowd

So it appears that more than just the people I knew were reading my blog, cool. If I want to have any voice in the knitting world, good or bag, it would make more sense to have a blog address that actually was knitting related. Some time ago I secure the blogspot address of yarnsnob, good thinking. So here it goes. I hope to take some of the good of my other blog, less of the bad and make it destinattion knitting!