Valley Fiber Arts Spinning Retreat, oh my....

I returned from the 20th annual Valley Spinning Retreat today :) Mecchia (my Norwegian wheel) and I didn't return alone either. Mecchia will never have to be traumatised by car travel again! She got a nasty scratch on the drive out to the retreat :(


My new to me Shacht Matchless DT, with a bazillion bobbins, every size whorl avail. and a tensioned kate! yippee!


I am not sure why they uploaded to a file saying spinning_july08, but I don't care... sky was a glorious blue (wish I had had my camera, bah!), leaves were golden yellow & falling, moose were snacking and crunching through the woods during my middle of the night trek to the restrooms, and there was frost on the windows and ice on the puddles this morning... it was no July... and all about late September :)

I left town on Friday so fast I am sure there was a report of a minivan leaving the city with molten rubber left in it's tracks! I landed out at the retreat at 8pm, signed in and moved my stuffers to my bunk in a cabin. Then I headed downstairs to stake out a spot for my HUGE wheel. argh. I love my Mecchia wheel but it is *not* a traveling, space conscious partner for group spins. This year I went about and tried different wheels, got in other folks' space to gawk at what they were spinning and I indulged in luxury fiber. See my goodies?

Abby and Henry sniffin it all out!


Ma! This smells goooooooood :)


I have merino/angora and a carded batt of silk/merino in a purple blend that I won in the gift exchange. I purchased some mongolian cashmere/angora/merino blend (my new favorite fiber!), some baby camel, some dyed silk roving, some white silk hanks for dying, and some handpainted coridale roving. I also puchased a boatload of merino top for a felting project for my students. That starts this week :)

Stay tuned for details on that one.

This is my latest knitting.... another Sampler Shawl as previously mentioned. It is with the silk blend noro sock yarn.


And this is sock number 1 of 2 on handspun woolen thrummed socks for a friend. I plan to dye them orange/gold/reds when I am done and then sole them in leather.




All tuckered out, wanna spin more, must get sleep.... yawn.

ps make peace, spin fleece

i'm cheating on mecchia...

i have fallen in love with mecchia... not love at first site it is true, but a steady respectful growing kind of love. so much so that i am finding edammertje has not been what i had hoped for. there is nothing fundamentally wrong with eda. but i've discovered that i really love the wood of mecchia, and the fine turnings, not to mention i love scotch tension vs the bobbin lead drive/tension eda has just like a louet.

so i guess i want eda to find a new home. mecchia is much too big to take anywhere, she is a stictly an at home kind of gal. so i purchased a peacock! i expect to meet the peacock in 2 weeks. my dd has taken up spinning on eda, but if things work out with this new wheel... she'll share this one with me and we'll pass eda on to someone that doesn't desire scotch tension and who will love her for the modern lines and clean functionality that she has!




i also carded up the rest of my stash enhancement from the retreat. this is batch #2 of the handdyed merino that i carded in bamboo. plans are to spin up more lace to light fingering weight.
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this is me with other ladies of the moon this weekend celebrating what we call "fiesta de la luna" and our daughters moving towards womanhood. fall on the lake was lovely. we found our first snow in town on the drive back in! we walked, cooked, nourished, celebrated, welcomed a new moon daughter, committed, rejoiced, reaffirmed and "walked in beauty"


spin on, knit on!

weeeeeee!!!!

today i cast on for a pair of lightly felted mittens using my newly spun border leicester woolen single ply. i'm using size 6 needles and a basic 36 st pattern in my head. my flash is out of control.



tonight i decided to go for the luxury and reached into the stash and pulled out this treasure from Susan! it is a yummy superwash merino/tencel roving. i really want to roll around on it, it is soooo0000000 soft!



henry likes it.... he thinks that it is shiney and very luxurious.



i'm not sure, but i think that this is lace weight... i'm lazy remember, someday i'll figure out how to measure.



last but not least from my lovely day... my sweet viola player



make peace, spin fleece!

all day????

ok, only 5, maybe 6 hours! had a SSK in the wrong place and was trying to fix it, but it was in a complicated spot in the pattern... ended up with about 6 rows 6 sts wide undone in the middle of a pattern UGH tried & tried & tried (you get the idea) to fix it. finally got a clue and isolated a complete pattern repeat, undid it to the beginning of the section and just reknit, voila! once i did that, it was all said and done in less than 5 min---sheesh! ok i am relieved, it was beginning to look like i was going to have to frog back to the beginning of the pattern entirely (that would have taken less time than i did trying to avoid it, but i feel as though i conquered)!

updated pic in natural light (during a break from it so that frogging would not ensue


my new Spindolyn with some angora/wool fiber from Susan


also from Susan two (one for my ds who is 8 and loves spinning!) new drop spindles from Jim some silk/wool and some wool/tensil... the day was so bright, it isn't doing the colors justice... they are soft, silky, yummilicious can't wait to spin!


non fiber related.... unless you count the shedding cat hair

King Henry, keeping tabs on the house...


the newest flower to show up in the gardens...


just some of the front gardens...


& a bittie of the back gardens (roses just barely beginning to bloom, not seen in pic)...


our summer is just now arriving, so the gardens are just reving up... i love spring (and knitting)