Contest Winner! (and Spinning Update)

*Teaser for spinning update below!

And the winner is...



Congratulations are in order for laughingmuse, the randomly drawn winner of my Blogiversary Contest : ) Green yarn will be heading your way as soon as I receive your mailing address...

Thanks, everyone, for entering!


One Last Bit of MDSW

Now that I've gifted it, I can tell you about one last purchase I made at Maryland Sheep and Wool: a beautiful turned wood crochet hook made by Bill Hardy...



... modeled here by Larry, the little green alien guy that Heidi gave me on our ride home from the Maryland Sheep and Wool festival (Thanks, Heidi!):



This (the crochet hook - don't worry, I kept Larry!) went to the very deserving (and crafty!) friend who cared for my kitties while I was at Maryland Sheep and Wool (my husband was also out of town at the time). It was accompanied by a gorgeous skein of Brooks Farm Solo that I bought at Rhinebeck last year.



It was difficult to part with, as I completely adore the yarn, but I had no specific intentions for it, and I wanted to give her something lovely to use the crochet hook with. She seemed to like it : )


Spinning Update

Yes, I really am trying to make a dent in my recently expanded spinning fiber stash : )

A few weeks ago, I finished spinning up the squishy, soft Cormo I got from Foxhill Farm (no website). Here's a summary of it's transformation:










I ended up with about 413 yards (3.67 ounces, although it was supposed to be 4, and I had only a few yards of singles left over) of 16 wpi (light fingering weight) 2-ply yarn. I think it's lovely!

I also plied up the Icelandic wool (that I previously showed you as singles) into about 328 yards (~7 ounces) of 13 wpi (sport/fingering weight) 2-ply yarn. I had about an ounce of extra singles (some of which were created by my friends when they tried out my spinning wheel) that I plied together for about 23 yards of thick and thin yarn (not shown here).




Here they are together:



...and for your enjoyment, here is Bug modeling the cormo yarn:







Additionally, I've spun singles of most of the 4 oz. of "Dublin Lake" Bluefaced Leicester I got from Kris of The Painted Sheep at the Nutmeg Spinners Guild Meeting in April.





I Navajo plied (for the first time!) 2 oz. of the singles, resulting in about 133 yards of 15 wpi (fingering weight) yarn:




To Navajo ply you basically make a giant crochet chain with your fingers and add twist to it. Here's a video that helped me figure out how to do it. It was kind of difficult to understand (and to execute) at first, but I think I've got the hang of it now.

As you can see, Navajo Plying largely preserves the different colored sections in the final yarn. I think I did an OK job, although my yarn initially had too much twist (which I didn't fully admit until after finishing it), so I ran it through my wheel again to take a little of the extra twist out. Now it hangs much straighter after finishing (the second time!), although the joins between each looped section are a little more obvious now.

I think it's pretty : )

I plan to make a 2 ply yarn out of the remaining 2 oz. of singles for an interesting (I hope) contrast. I think it would be fun to use both yarns in one project together (if you have any ideas, let me know)!


Octopus Pattern Coming Eventually...



I've had a number of requests for a pattern for my blue-ringed octopus, and I wanted to let you know that do I plan on putting one together sometime. I made him up as I went along and didn't take great notes, so it will probably take me making a new one to figure out what I did. In other words, it may be a while - but thanks so much for your encouragement to do it : )


Have a great week!

Octopus meets "The Traveling Sock" (and some sheepishness, too)

Boy, did I have a busy weekend! What did I do? Well, here's a little clue:




Yes, octopus and I spent a lovely Sunday in Northampton, MA, and we just happened (...ahem) to stumble across the wonderfully funny (and flat out wonderful) Yarn Harlot and a veritable kaleidoscope of knitters.

Unfortunately the magnets in octopus's feet weren't attracted to Stephanie's aluminum (I assume) needles (I did a poor job explaining that they were mainly for cat entanglement purposes, not for gripping knitting needles) -- so if you look closely you will see that he's impaled for photographic purposes. He didn't mind a bit, as he was completely entranced with the rippling reds of the traveling sock. (He also doesn't mind that Stephanie took his picture, too, and he's currently one of the knitters showcased in her Webs recap post. In fact, he thinks he looks quite handsome.)

Here's a refresher of what octopus can do to an unsuspecting feline:








I had a great time listening to Stephanie speak, meeting other knitters, and admiring all the sock yarn that Webs had on sale in honor of the event. I picked up a copy of her new book -- and a nifty Ravelry sticker featuring "Bob" and a pin from Jess herself:



Bob is such a cutie : )

On top of that, I spent Saturday at the Connecticut Sheep and Wool Festival with a bunch of new friends (including sunflowerfairyknits, missalicefaye, knittingeweonthego, and blogless Anne -- all of whom I drove up with). Thanks for letting me come along, guys!

In keeping with my tradition of putting way too many photos in my posts, here are some photos from Saturday.

Spiky-haired alpacas:


Sheep dog trials:

Run!

Woolly sheep backs (I just love the texture!):


UConn sheep in a pen... waiting to be em-baldened (note that they're camera-shy even with all their "clothes" on):



I'm sure you're wondering how the sheep go from this:


to this:


Well, here you go:












The aftermath.

Here is the sequence as a video slideshow (no music), if you're interested.

Quite intriguing, yes? I have to tell you that I have no photos of a whole segment of the shearing process due to the fact that the expert sheep shearer was wielding the giant electric clippers blithely around the facial area (specifically over and around the eyes) while the sheep nervously kicked and struggled. I feared for her eyeballs and had to look away repeatedly (geez, am I a wimp, or what), hence the lack of photographs.

I did make some lovely fiber acquisitions, but I'll detail those in a later post.

Happy (belated) Earth Day, and I hope you're all having a good last week in April : )