Merry Maryland

Man, I love the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival.  This year the carpool included me, Kris, Jess, and Judy (just like last year) – here we are after arrival (and immediate trip to the restrooms before the lines get too long – we have time-tested strategies that we employ):On the way home, Kris asked us to rate our festival experience.  I gave it top marks this year because I did everything on my list and had lots of additional fun, too. Here were the things on my list:

Have stress-free parking experience.  For the second time, we took the back route, which meant no lines backing up on 144 toward the I-70 exit.  We got the best parking spot I have ever had.  Score!  We arrived about 8:45.

Buy fiber for SPAKAL.  Remember I decided to participate in the Knitmore Girls’ SPAKAL (Spin Along Knit Along).  I calculated I would need 21 oz of fiber.  Then I rounded up to 24.  And then I got paranoid (some folks who have knit Eadon say the yarn requirements are a bit skimpy) so I planned to buy 30 oz. I needed something that would show off the cable pattern well, so I was open to a natural sheep color, or a solid/semi-solid dyed fiber.  There were many attractive options, but I settled on some solid, dyed Corriedale from Stony Mountain Fibers in Charlottesville, VA.  The color is a deep purple called Eggplant:This is roving (not top – so carded, not combed) and I’m tickled to be working with an actual breed from a specific farm rather than generic wool. But I’m ALSO happy to be working with a bit of color.  I was mighty drawn to the color “lima bean” but decided that eggplant was a more sensible choice for my wardrobe.  The bag was pretty poofy:

The fellow at the booth said that an arm’s length of roving is about an ounce, so Jess helped me measure it out into the bag.You can totally tell she’s counting out loud in this photo. 

Another goal we had for the day was to have our annual photo with celebrity Clara Parkes.  We had to tweet her out, but we got her!   Clara was lovely, as always.  I was so distracted I forgot to try to get her to tell us what her next book project is about.  Oops.  So much for my sleuthing skills…

And thanks to Patti Anne for taking our photo! My only other goal was to discover fun stuff, and that I did.  My first purchase was a new-to-me fiber blend of 85% Polwarth and 15% silk from Misty Mountain Farm in Amissville, VA.  This colorway is “Blue Spruce” and I got 8 oz, enough to spin some really soft yarn for some kind of shawl or scarf for me. After that purchase, I found Judy in the Creatively Dyed booth.  Here she is on the inside – I found it was easier to chat with her from the outside.

That cracks me up.  Soon after that, I discovered a really fun booth by A Paca Fun  Fiberworks.  When these ladies say “fun,” they mean it.  The first thing that caught my eye was this really cool yarn bowl.  Most yarn bowls are made of ceramic, but this one is made of fabric.  No breakage! And there is a magnet under the flower thingie, so if you need to free your yarn from the guide loop, you can: So clever.  Even Clara liked this bowl!At the checkout, the ladies said that anyone purchasing a yarn bowl (actually, they call these Knitty Pots) gets 12.7% off any roving or batt.  Why 12.7?  They just like the number.  (See, fun!)  I looked around and quickly became smitten with this “Alpaca Kaboodle” batt made of alpaca, bamboo, firestar, and silk:You can’t really see the sparkle in these photos, but trust me, there is a little bit.

They were also having a contest to name this Whatcha-Call It.  It’s a magnetic board covered with felted alpaca, with hooks at the bottom.  I want to know what they finally decide.  Winner of the contest wins a gorgeous alpaca cape worth $300+.The fun and clever ladies at A Paca Fun also host alpaca scarf parties for groups of 4-6 people at the farm.  You get to tour the farm and dye studio, hug the alpacas, learn about fiber processing, and make a scarf on the felt loom.  The party even comes with coffee/tea and cookies.  I have a feeling some Gettysburgians might be organizing an alpaca scarf party in the future……

More fun stuff was found at the FiberOptic booth.  Jess made a beeline for this place, but it was new to me.  They had some really neat gradient-dyed roving and this one came home with me: It is 4 oz of a 80/20 merino/silk blend.  I will see if I can spin it to a fingering weight and chain ply to keep the colors clear.  I’d like to make one of those window pane-ish Stephen West designs (like Spectra or Clockwork).  The gradient yarn would be the windows and I would need to spin or buy a solid to be the panes. I think a neutral grayish-lavender would coordinate well.  (I seem to be into the purple/green combos lately.)

Across the aisle from FiberOptic was the Jacob Sheep Conservancy booth.  I bought some Jacob sock yarn (95% Jacob/5% nylon) from Jenny Jump Farm there a couple of years ago and made these socks for S1.  She says they are one of her two warmest pairs and she reaches for them often in the winter.  They are holding up really well, despite lots of wear and washing, so I got another skein to make a pair for myself.  (In case you’re wondering what the other warmest pair is, it’s these.) My final purchase of the day was 3 skeins of yarn to make the exceedingly popular Color Affection shawl.  This has been in my queue since the pattern was released, as I so enjoyed knitting the Different Lines shawl.  I tried to get out of my color comfort zone and, at the same time, pick things that will fit with my wardrobe… and I came up with this:This is Cephalopod Yarns Skinny Bugga! (80/10/10 superwash merino/cashmere/nylon) in colors Bess Beetle (brown), Ghost Moth (rose/brown/gray), and Grey Scalloped Bar Butterfly (light gray).  I got it at the Cloverhill booth. Whew! That was Day 1.

Day 2 started early.  I left the house at 7 because I wanted a really close parking space, as I had my wheel and kate and a bunch of accessories to lug in with me.  I changed a setting on my phone before I left my driveway, and read an email from Miss Babs saying I had won a contest and got a Color Affection set of 3 yarns!  Wow!  Jess and I spent some time in her booth on Saturday, but I became overwhelmed (crowded, hot) and left without getting anything this time.  What luck!  After my spinning class, I popped by to get my kit.  They let me pick any of the sets they had of “Yet” laceweight yarn (65/35 merino/tussah silk).  Here’s what I got:

This looks like a hank but is really a kit – they’ve just twisted 3 skeins together: These colorways are Pewter, Shaken not Stirred, and Swamp Thang.  Am I really going to knit TWO Color Affection shawls?  You betcha!  The laceweight one will be a different fabric.  They had a sample in the booth and it was sooooooooo squishy. Miss Babs was awesome.  THANKS, Miss Babs!!!  Here she is, the color genius herself:

But back to the morning… I took a plying class with Maggie Casey which was very helpful.  This is the only shot I got of her:Look how attentive everyone is.  In my experience, spinners are ALWAYS this way around Maggie.  And rightfully so.

After my giddy trip to Miss Babs’ booth, I stopped by the show ring to see the Parade of Sheep Breeds.  Here’s the “green room” area outside:I spied Deb Robson there – no surprise.  This is totally Kinneared and not very good: She spent much of the parade in photojournalist position:

I wasn’t in a very good position to get decent shots of the sheep, but this one of some of the 47 (I think) breeds on display will give you an idea of the variety we saw. So many shapes and sizes!  There were some baby lambs out there, too.  Did you know lambs can jump vertically from a standstill?  Hilarious.

Thanks for reading this far.  MDSW 12 was fabulous.  Now I have to go wind some yarn……

BFL my new BFF?

As you know, I’ve been trying to improve my spinning this spring.  I’m registered to take a plying class with Maggie Casey at MDSW on Sunday, and I’m really looking forward to it.  A spinner spends a lot more time spinning singles than plying them, so she learns singles faster.  There are many knitting analogies – plying is like the finishing techniques that we just don’t spend as many hours practicing.Anyway, I wanted to do one more spinning project before my class.  I’m supposed to bring at least 4 empty bobbins to class, and I only own 4… so I need to be between projects.  I thought I could spin another 4 oz bunch of fluff, so I reached into my fiber stash and came up with this BFL top in color “black.”  This the natural sheep color, so it may look more brown or gray to you, but the official color is black.  Somehow I didn’t manage to take any photos of the top before I spun it – sorry!

BFL is a longwool and Clara Parkes’ The Knitter’s Book of Wool says longwools “beg to be spun worsted” (62).  Perfect – that’s my default spinning style.  BFL is probably the softest of the longwools, with an average micron count of 24-28 (for comparison, merino ranges from 17 to 22).This project was a bit more ambitious than I meant it to be.  I had TWO 4-oz bundles of this top, so I really spun 8 oz total.  I wanted to try a 3-ply yarn so I divided the fiber by weight and spun onto 3 bobbins:I think my singles spinning is becoming more consistent.  And I used some techniques that I learned (or re-learned) on Rita Buchanan’s How I Spin DVD when it came time to ply.  I think this may be the best yarn I’ve made! 

There are still inconsistencies.  Some of the appears to be fingering weight, while some gets close to DK, maybe.  It’s hard for me to tell.  If I’m going to make worsted weight yarn (for the SPAKAL), I’m going to have to spin fatter singles or use more plies.I have one fat skein that is 162 grams and 346 yards, and one small one that is 39 grams and 84 yards.  The yarn is soft and cushy and I’m so pleased with it.

I still have some singles on 2 bobbins, so I need to either ply some 2-ply, or navajo ply the rest.  I see now why it’s good to have your singles in smaller amounts on more bobbins, so that you can reduce this “leftover singles” issue.

3 more days ‘til MDSW.  The main item on my shopping list is fiber for the SPAKAL.  At first I thought I needed 24 oz, but then I spooked myself and decided to get 30 oz, just to be safe. I’m not committed to a particular breed or blend at this point.  But if I see some yummy BFL, I just might go for it!

Smiley Shawl

I started a Pamuya shawl for my mom yesterday. I got this yarn at MDSW in May, specifically for this pattern.  The yarn is Brooks Farm Solo Silk – the same yarn I used for Karen’s Cedar Leaf Shawlette, just a different colorway.  The Pamuya pattern is written for fingering weight yarn and this is a bit bigger (the label says “sport”), so I increased my needle size to US 6.  So far, so good!

This pattern is essentially a sampler.  If you look closely, you can see I’ve just begun the first section of what the designer calls “tiny cross pattern” I was thinking of taking this along to Portland as my airplane knitting project, but I can find something that will take up less space instead.

MDSW 2011!

The Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival was a ton of fun this year.  I went on Saturday with Kris, Jess, and Judy.  It was Judy’s first time at MDSW and it’s always so much fun to experience it again through virginal eyes.  MDSW really is quite a festival.

We started in the main barn and bumped in Clara Parkes early on.  She was so kind and we chatted for a few minutes.  She even let me take her picture with Judy and Kris:Don’t you love the expression on Kris’s face?  It’s something like “omg, I’m so close to Clara Parkes that I can touch her!”  Kris and I are both signed up for a class with Clara at Sock Summit later this summer.

The weather was perfect this year – mostly sunny, breezy, high around 70.  I also thought it wasn’t nearly as crowded as last year, when it was so much hotter. This photo was taken about 10;45 am outside the t-shirt barn – this is the main thoroughfare that leads to the biggest food stands.  See?  There was room to walk!We stopped for our first snack break about 11:00 and met up with Julie and her sister Allison, who always comes down from Brooklyn for the Fest.  Everyone shows off some stuff they’ve already acquired. From left: Julie, Allison, Kris: And here are Jess and Judy. Yarn and funnel cake: the perfect combination!

Julie made an interesting purchase.  She spied a hard-to-find book on display and asked if she could buy it.  The exhibitor said “but this is an archaeology book, and it’s in Spanish,” and Julie of course replied “that’s okay – I’m an archaeologist and my field work is in Honduras.”  She was tickled to get the book.

In the afternoon, the crowds intensified – you can see here the swell of people headed toward the food area (we’re returning from the corral area):The animals were as charming as ever – here are some alpaca: I saw a 6-day-old Clun Forest lamb being bottle fed in the Breed Display barn.  It’s always a good idea to take a turn through the barns when the yarn booths get to be too intense.

Here is an interesting way to weave that I hadn’t seen before: This woman sported some new earrings with mini-skeins on them: We also met our buddy Dave who had come up from DC with his friend Jordan – they are both Gettysburg alumni so it was fun to chat a while.  Dave just finished his master’s in education and rewarded himself by coming to the Festival!

So what did I come home with?  I’ll flash.

First, even though I said I wasn’t really in the market for more fiber because I haven’t spun enough of what I bought last year, the first thing I bought was fiber.  I got 8 oz of this 75/25 BFL/tussah silk roving in a gorgeous teal color: From the same vendor (Bullen’s Wullens in Ohio) I also got 4 oz of this 50/25/25 merino/bamboo/silk blend: The roving above is more green than grey, but the stone on which I photographed it really emphasized the grey parts.  I got that because I’ve never spun bamboo and these hand-dyed rovings really appealed to me.

Next up, I got this wee 25 g skein of Yakaboo (200 yards, 40/40/20 yak/merino/bamboo).  It is a 2-ply yarn that’s definitely thinner than fingering so I suppose it’s laceweight, but it seems a little thick for true lace.It’s from Still River Mill in Connecticut, which did a great job of displaying knit samples of every unique yarn in their booth.  I got a free pattern for some fingerless gloves that can be made from this one little skein. The pattern isn’t in Ravelry so now I wish I had taken a photo at the booth, but you’ll see the finished product when I knit it!  This naturally colored yarn is sooooooooo soft.

I made my final yarn purchases at the Brooks Farm booth.  I have drooled over their yarn for years but never bought any, mostly because they don’t make a really good sock yarn and I guess I’ve been pretty obsessed with socks for many years now.  But this year I got yarn for two projects here. 

This is Solo silk, a singles yarn that is 50/50 fine wool and silk.  I got one skein (400 yards, 4 oz) in this gorgeous periwinkle color to make another Cedar Leaf Shawlette for my colleague Karen, who is retiring at the end of this month.We had a little consultation about retirement knitting last week and she suggested this pattern (which I’ve worn a few times) in a different color.  I made her some Fetching mitts years ago and she said “this is just about the most perfect color in the world.”  So I took a sample with me (how can you argue with a color description like that?) and it matches this yarn beautifully.  I went ahead and wound up this yarn on Saturday night and cast on for another Cedar Leaf Shawlette.  It’s lovely.

I ended up buying the same Solo yarn in a different colorway for my mom’s Pamuya shawl:

It contains blue, purple, and green – should be pretty.

The only other thing I picked up was a copy of Interweave’s new Knit & Spin magazine.  And some kettle corn.  And an ice cream cone.

I had such a wonderful time – thanks, ladies!

Planning…

For the past few days, I’ve been juggling a couple of very important spreadsheets.

First, Sock Summit registration is this Wednesday, May 4, at noon Pacific (which I think is 3 pm Eastern – someone PLEASE correct me if I’m wrong!).  The registration two years ago was very stressful but I ended up with some good classes, anyway.  This year, Steph and Tina promise that the servers won’t crash – and there are twice as many classes – so I’m cautiously optimistic.  But part of my cautious optimism involves ridiculously thorough planning. 

Clearly I’m not the only knitter out there like this, because Cailyn at The Daily Skein prepared a fabulous downloadable spreadsheet that helped me get organized. Thanks, Cailyn!  Here was my process:

1. Read all class descriptions and mark the ones in which I was VERY interested and SOMEWHAT interested.
2. Delete from spreadsheet all the classes in which I had no interest.  Mark the “very interesteds” in bold and the “somewhats” in italics.
3. Organize each section by interest category, then prioritize classes within each category.
4. Print.
5. Trade my reference desk shift (3-5 on Wednesday) so I can be at my desk at 3:00.
6. Hold breath.

I will keep you posted.

My next spate of planning has to do with the venerable Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival, which is this weekend!  I have another spreadsheet for that, with booths marked that I must (re)visit and some information about project requirements.  I’ll be shopping for yarn for the Pamuya shawl for my mom (she requested sage green with hints of lavender and/or blue – I think I’ll check the Brooks Farm booth first), the Kalajoki socks for me (they require solid or semi-solid sportweight yarn, which I don’t have in stash), and maybe a couple of other things.  I have a few coupons printed and info about the Juniper Moon Farm lunchtime meetup.  I have my Knitter’s Handy Guide to Yarn Requirements, which is, well, HANDY to have at a festival.  I have plans to leave town at 7:30 am on Saturday with Kris and Jess.  And I have plans to eat a lot of kettle corn.

If just reading all of this planning detail is stressing you out, I do apologize.  My inner librarian really comes out in situations like these.  When faced with massive amounts of data and uncertainty, I ORGANIZE!  It is both a personal and a professional trait.  :)

There has been some knitting.  I finished my Sugared Violets shawl yesterday and even blocked it before going to bed…but I haven’t photographed it yet.  Soon…

Wonderful Weekend of Wool

Whew! Another Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival weekend has passed.  Here’s how it went down (long post)…

On Saturday, Kris and I arrived bright and early and walked through the gates at 9 am, which is ostensibly the start time.  I say “ostensibly” because the first vendor we talked to said she had customers in her booth at 8 am.  The parking lot was pretty full at 9 am, so I can only imagine the hoards of people who arrived earlier than early.  Kris and I started at the Jacob Sheep Conservancy booth because she wanted to get a free spindle and a ticket to come back later in the afternoon to learn how to spin (we learned about this project on Ravelry – 100 tickets were available).  I browsed while she got set up with that, and walked out with 2 fun things: a batt to spin made of alpaca and Jacob, and some 2-ply Jacob sock yarn (5% nylon) in a gorgeous natural grey.  The batts (mine is 3 oz) were arranged so artfully on a shelf, each wrapped in colorful tissue paper and tied with a ribbon, like bouquets of flowers.  I didn’t take a picture of the whole lot, but here’s mine (along with some other finds from Saturday): That’s the Jacob sock yarn at the far right.  It’s from Jenny Jump Farm in Belvidere, NJ.  And here is it close up: Jacob is a heritage breed that is very easy to recognize because it has 4 horns.

Next Kris and I flitted from barn to barn, trying to stay in the shade because it was getting very hot very quickly. I spotted Clara Parkes walking along and she stopped to chat.  I couldn’t get the topic of her next book out of her, but she says it “won’t let me down” and she’s working toward a September deadline.  And she has her next book lined up for after that.  Hmmmm, what could possibly top The Knitter’s Book of Wool?

Then I popped into one building to visit Jennie the Potter.  I saw her stuff at Sock Summit last year and have harbored a twinge of regret at not buying one of her mugs.  (Here’s a nice article about her from knitty.com.)  So I bought one this time. 

Oh, and some buttons that were too beautiful to pass up.  I fully realize I was influenced by Anne Hanson’s recent use of Jennie the Potter buttons, but I submitted to the urge to buy them anyway.  Aren’t they lovely?Next we went to the Main Exhibit Hall to check things out, but it was super hot in there and difficult to move because of the crowds.  We did brave the crush at the Miss Babs booth, though, and I got this pretty handpainted BFL top in color “Sprucey.”  The wool is mixed BFL (75% white and 25% dark), which adds some complexity to the colorway, as the dark and light wools take the dye differently. Kris got some fun sock yarns at Miss Babs, too.

There was a neat button vendor next door to Miss Babs named koko noelle.  Since I had already purchased buttons for a yet-to-be-defined knitting project, I held off here.  But I got a necklace made from a button.  That’s totally different and showed great restraint, I thought. That was it for my Saturday purchases.  Kris and I got something to eat and then went to the Dining Hall for Judith MacKenzie McCuin’s talk called “How the West is Woolen: The History of the Pendleton Blankets.”  It was hugely interesting and we saw samples like this:After the talk (blessedly located in an air conditioned building), we staggered about in the heat for a while, but then we gave up.  It was extremely crowded and intensely hot with not a cloud in the sky.  We left about 1:30, not even making it until the mass spinning lesson that we planned to attend.  Kris said “you can just teach me at home!” Weird, eh?Sunday is family day at the fest.  Our plan was to hit the fairgrounds early and leave when the kids had enough, before the “chance of scattered thunderstorms” materialized in the afternoon.  We got there right at 9 am and the parking lot was WAY less full than it was on Saturday.  We got the best parking space I’ve ever had on a festival day.  I headed straight for Misty Mountain Farm, which is near the main gate but was too crowded for me to get into on Saturday.  It was far less busy and I was able to score a few purchases.  First, 8 oz of this naturally colored BFL fiber (top, I’m pretty sure): While I was waiting for that to be measured, I had plenty of time to peruse the dyed fibers on the shelves, and I chose 4 oz of this Polworth top (I haven’t worked with Polworth before) in color “Sand Pebbles”: Sorry about the abrupt change in backgrounds.  It started to rain while I was photographing out back and when I was able to resume, I couldn’t put fiber on the wet patio stones.

And finally, I nabbed this skin of Dizzie Lizzie’s Superwash Sock yarn (merino/nylon) in color Arrowroot:Wow!  I couldn’t believe how much easier it was to shop on Sunday than on Saturday, even with my kids in tow.  Emboldened by this success, we all headed for the main exhibit hall.  We split up – S1 went to check out the rug hooking booths with Boy 1, and I grabbed Boy 2.  Boy 2 touched the Jamie Harmon yarn and was instantly entranced by its extreme softness (if you’ve ever touched Jamie’s yarn, you know what I mean).  We ended up deciding to get 3 skeins to make him a simple raglan sweater.  He picked them himself.  I really, really hope he wears this.  I am still carrying some baggage from when I made Boy 1 a sweater from Jamie’s yarn and he wouldn’t even try it on for a photo, much less wear it.  But he was 3 at the time and didn’t have any part in my decision to make the sweater.  I’m hoping that Child Participation = Success.  Things look promising so far:And finally, we put in a little time at the Shelridge Farm booth (which, again, was far too busy for me to get into yesterday).  I got some solid yarn to make the Treetop Socks (knee socks!) for myself in color Willow: And S1 picked out this lovely sock yarn in color Leaf for a pair of Cookie A’s Nebula socks for herself: Leaf is deliciously heathered and was a finalist for my own choice, so I’m thrilled that she chose it.  We saw a sample of the Nebula sock at the booth and both fell in love with it.  They were sold out of the pattern, though, so I’ll have to find that elsewhere.  Both of these sock yarns are Shelridge’s Soft Touch Heather, which is 3-ply fingering in 85% wool/15% nylon.  LOVE IT!  I bought some a couple years ago to make S1’s Celtic Braid Socks.

And finally, I had one last little falling down on the way through a barn.  I got some Jacob roving in 2 natural colors, about 4 oz each: The lighter color is from Tannery Spring farm (no website) in Schaefferstown, PA, and the chocolate is from Spot Hollow Farm in Trumansburg, NY.  I thought I’d make a colorwork hat or mittens from this yarn once it’s spun.

In addition to these little spurts of shopping, we also checked out the Sheep to Shawl competition and chatted with one man whose daughter was on a team.  I was telling Boy 1 how the competition works, and this guy piped up and told us about the sheep he raised.  He gave us a bit of fiber from the shearing, and his wife showed us a video (on her Flip camera) of the shearing that happened earlier that morning at the start of the competition.  I was impressed.  Boy 1, not so much.

But he did enjoy watching a woodturner at work.  He was making a darning egg while we watched.  He also makes drop spindles.  We signed up to win a free woodturning class with him – we’ll see!We also looked at a lot of sheep and alpaca, watched the sheepdog demonstrations, checked out the skein and garment and fine arts competition winners, looked at the yurt, and ate ice cream or funnel cakes (there is a family split about which is the better fair food). And then, by 11:45, the kids had had enough, so home we came.

I am still marveling at how much more comfortable Sunday at the festival was compared to Saturday.  It was a little cloudy on Sunday, and breezes blew through occasionally (heralding the rain to come in the afternoon).  That, plus the lower attendance, made things incredibly more pleasant than Saturday.

Now, I’d better get to work at my wheel. 

(And just for the record, I DID do my 20 minutes at the spindle on Saturday!)