Sock Mini-Land

OK.  Apparently, working a full time job, a part time job, and have a toddler is too crazy to spin everyday for almost whole month of July.  ::sigh::  But I at least got 10 days out of it and got to the roving I needed to do, so not too bad, if I do say so myself.

Back in June, I had signed up on Ravelry a mini sock yarn swap on Sock Yarn Round Robin group.  I even volunteered to be the host.  What that means is that I will receive everyone’s mini skeins of sock yarn, weighing 10g each, then I will mix and match them for everyone, taking one from each person’s contribution and give them back.  So you start with 10 mini skeins of your yarn, and you end up with 1 from yourself and 9 from other people’s mini skeins.  It’s rather fun!

Of course, I wasn’t slacking and didn’t get to the stuff till now, August.  Canadian Post is at fault!  By going on strike!  When the strike was over, there was a backlog and one of the participant didn’t want to mail her stuff until the backlog was done.  But the wait was worth it, just look at this:

It is all sorted and bagged.  I just need to get a moment to go to the post office!  all these minis are gonna enable me to make the Beekeeper’s Quilt!!!!

Spin

What’s the first thing that comes to your head when you hear that word?

If you are a fiber addict like myself, you will probably think of yarn making, and spinning wheel.  If you know nothing about fibers, than you are probably thinking about cycling.

Well, this lazy fiber addict started both!  And I have some yarn to share!!!!

That’s 2oz of corriedale roving from The Clearing at Curry Farm.  It’s the first roving I’ve ever purchased.  It was when I first started thinking spinning and wanted to try a spindle.  Deb was super helpful, and answered a lot of my questions.  There are approximately 175 yards on this.  I plan on dying it with some kool aid or wilton food coloring, when I finish dying some cormo from the same place.

This is now a 2-ply yarn, but I don’t have any picture of it.  I bought this roving at Rhinebeck, after knowing I’ll be getting myself a lovely spinning machine.  The roving came from Spinners Hill Fibers, and it is corriedale finn rambouillet cross breed.  There are about 2.75oz with 215 yards.

And this Sunday will be the Second Sunday Spinners.  CostumeChick and I will be going, for sure.  We went for the first time last month and it was a lot of fun.  I got to show everyone my electrical spinner.  It is no louder than the traditional wheels!  And last month, it was really my first time spinning, so I felt quite accomplished after that.  I do have CostumeChick and Archiknist to thank though for all the tips they’ve given me while I was there.

Onto the other spinning…  My work has opened a new fitness center right on site!  And spin class was offered at no charge, so I decided to give it a try.  I went for the first time this Monday during lunch.  It was very challenging, for someone who hasn’t work out for probably well over 2 years!  My legs were like spaghetti after, and when I tried to climb up the stairs to get to my own work area, I thought I was gonna fall due to no strength in my legs!  How sad.  But I’m gonna keep at it.  I even bought a pair of cycling shoes for it!  The strange thing is, I actually can’t wait for the class next week!  But we’ll see how long the excitment last…

David used to bike outside a lot, so since I’m getting into spin class, he decided to dust out his bike, and got our Little Lady a bike helmet!  He also ordered a little bike seat so the Little Lady can ride in the front of the bike.  He plans on taking the Little Lady biking in the park when the weather gets warm.  I’ll be sure to snap some pictures when that happens!

Have an awesome weekend!

Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival

Man, it has been awhile.  That was three and half weeks ago when I went to Maryland!  Where has the time go?

Well, I know where it went – I’ve been busy doing other things than blogging!  Bad jennsquared.  Well, without futher ado, let me give you the round down…

I took a train down to Washington DC Union station after work.  This is the second time I took Amtrak and I have to say I really like it – better than flying!  The first time was my FIRST Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival, and I rode it to Baltimore that time.  I rode in the food cart that time with a table to put my pattern on and spead out.  This time, I got into a quiet cart, which was pretty cool!  I liked it so much I made sure I got a seat in the quiet cart again on the way home.  I put on my headphones with some audiobooks on my ipod and went to town with knitting.

The ride was about four and a half hours, or maybe five, I can’t recall now.  But I just remember it being really pleasant.  Sneaksleep, whom I haven’t seen since the wedding, came to pick me up, and we went to a Sushi place for some really really late dinner.  It was the first time I had sushi since the sticks laughed at me.  It was SOOO GOOD!  Don’t worry, I only had cooked eel and veggie sushi.  After dinner, we went back to her place, stayed up till 1am to chit chat and catch up.  Olny when we saw the digital clock on her TV did we realize that we gotta go to bed so we can get up early to the festival!

We got up early enough to have breakfast at home and went to pick up Sneaksleep’s friend S from the train station.  We got to the festival itself around noon.  We saw some people already leaving!!!!  AND!  People who had made multiple trips to their cars!  But no fear, this festival is so big, there is something for everyone!  Here is my loot from two days of shopping:

 

What you see is one skein of Brooks Farm Solana in sage, the world’s softest superwash wool, ever!  One half cone of Llamajama Alpaca Merino Wool, which is equivalent of 5 skeins of yarn, all that for $30!!!! (usually $75!!!)  Yup, couldn’t have let that pass, plus it’s super soft!  Then, 10 skeins of Fiddlesticks Ecoknits Organic Cotton, 5 in cream and 5 in olive.  These yarn were grow with the color!!!  Not dyed!  Isn’t that cool?  AND!  At $3.25 a skein, it was a baaah-gain!  Perfect yarn for my little perfect devil that will be joining our family.  I liked it so much I convinced Sneaksleep to get some!  And I told her I would buy them off her if she changes her mind! 🙂   What’s not pictured is a Fiber Trends Estonian Lullaby Baby Blanket for half price, and 1.5 oz of CORMO roving from The Clearing at Curry Farm for some thrummed mittens.

Not too bad for two days of yarn fumes, right?  Oh, see that pair of mittens?  Yes, I know I can make them, but on Sunday, it RAINED AND RAINED AND RAINED.  I was COOOOOOOOLD!  So I bought these for 13 bucks!  And they are 100% Alpaca!  Oh, and a tube of lotion.  I tried it out while I was at the festival on Saturday, and when I rubbed on my hand, my first thought was – yeww…  this is kind of sticky.  I’m not sure I like that.  After all is rubbed in, and half an hour later, while I was picking up my cone of yarn, I noticed how soft my hand was.  And by the end of the day, I was super impressed.  Because after going to the bathroom 3 times, and washing my hands all day after bathroom breaks and animals, my hands were still super moisturized and soft!  I HAD to go back and get a tube.  Of course, it is no where near my camera today, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Oh, you want to see some animals?  I suppose…

 

Sneaksleep’s mom had joined us on Saturday, so we went to PF Chang’s for dinner at Columbia after the festival.  It was finger licking good! 🙂

We got back late and shortly, S went to bed while Sneaksleep and I went up to the guest room and play with more yarn and look at yarn books.  She pulled out some yarn she got at a small festival in Virginia and her cat Ivy immediately decided to make a bed out of one.  So much so that she ended up sleeping in the same bed as me!  Which is UNHEARD of!

Sunday we made the trip back up for more shopping.  Due to the rain, there were much less people there.  We had a good time anyways and got some goodies in bargain prices because of the low turn out.

We sadly said goodbye to the festival at 1pm.  Until next year, I leave you with this I saw at the festival…

Connecticut Sheep & Wool Festival

Ahhh…  It feels so nice that the fiber festival is now officially ON.  I have never been to this particular festival even though it is the closest one to me.  But I was free, plus I need to front load my fiber festivals this year since I wouldn’t be able to go to Rhinebeck (NY Sheep and Wool) and Stitches East (at Hartford this year!!!!) due to them being so close to my due date.  (For those non-fiber obssessed folks, NYS&W is a fairly large festival in Octorber and Stitches East is like a GIANT yarn market in the east coast, and every year it is in a different location.  This year, it is in Hartford, CT).

Archiknist and I make our way up to CTS&W around 12:30.  It is a fairly small festival compare to Rhinebeck or MDS&W (for the non-fiber obessesed folks, those two are probably couple of largest festivals in the east coast if not the country).  It has total of 3 barns and a few dozen vendors.  Here are the few items I took home with:

A skein of Angora and Alpaca blend in cream (natural, no dye) from Cobblerock Ridge Farm.  They had some luscious roving that I so wanted to take home with, but I don’t have a wheel yet so there is no reason for me to do that.

The two bar of soaps from Sleepy Moon Soaps at Baily Farm were a great find before we left the festival.  I got two buttermilk soap, one is Clementine Lavendar, which is a great citrus based smell soap, and the other is Honeysuckle blossom, which is totally floral, but clean.  They smell so good I consider taking a shower immediately after I got home!

The last thing I came home with is the WPI gauge.  It is locally designed and beautifully crafted.  I bought a generic one when I visited New Hampshire, but unfortunately, Vanilla chewed it up pretty good and I think she also ate a chunk of it since it is missing.  Let me tell you, the things that girl gets into…  I don’t know how she is not sick!  Anyways, I didn’t even get a chance to use my WPI gauge!  So now I bought this one, and it is nicely tucked away in the knitting drawer.

We also saw a sheep ran away from the fence!  It jumped over and ran so fast I didn’t have any time to react to take a photo!  That was pretty cool and fun to see, for me anyways, I’m sure the Border Collie that lost the sheep didn’t find it amusing at all.  And that all happened while we were observing some bobbin lace in action!

That looks so complicated but the lady make it look as easy as drinking a glass of water!!!

We also run into a bunch of SnB girls:  Sunflowerfairy, Gale, editorgrrl, nutmegknitter and her friend theaterknitter, Cathy, missalicefaye, Whining Procrastinator and her sweetheart, and few others.

It was so great to see some of the people I haven’t seen since I don’t go to Wednesday SnB anymore.  And it was also so great to see that Sunflowerfairy is feeling better and Whining Procrastinator is out and about.

So that was my adventure for today.  Oh!  And it was HOT up there!  91 degrees to be exact – at least that’s what my car said.  And it felt liked it too!

Now, that’s one festival done, lots of them to go!  MDS&W next week!!! 🙂

New Hampshire

What an interesting trip!  We arrived at Waterville Valley for the Regional Ski races Friday night late, so we didn’t do anything fun.  But Saturday and Sunday was full of knitting and such for me, while David is with the ski teams.

I started my Saturday late, 5 hours later than David.  I was hungry and asked for some advice on where to go, and I was pointed to the Coffee Emporium.  I ordered a Caramel Hot Chocolate and Stuffed Bagel with Jalapeno Cheese and Mushroom.

Doesn’t that look good!?  The place was PACKED!  For good reason of course!

After my very full filling breakfast, I set out to find Patternworks.  I’ve always wanted to visit the place, but being in the middle of New Hampshire, it is hard to take a trip.  It turns out it is only about 45 minutes away from where we were.

And that’s just some view of the store.  The store is huge!  and packed!  It’s got different rooms full of yarn!  Although I think it may still be smaller than WEBS.  It’s hard to judge since the layout is so different.  I chatted with the nice ladies there and bought some buttons and a tool I’ve been wanting for awhile.

Those buttons and the ear wires are on sale for almost nothing!  It was a great find.

I’ve got back to where we were staying about the same time David got back.  We were hungry and took a walk to the town square (a little gathering place by the resort area) and went to a little mexican food take out place for dinner.

Don’t they look good?  I was so hungry I forgot to take a picture before I bite into the giant burrito I got.  David’s chili was a bit more tomato-y than we both liked, which was a let down, but the rest was absolutely delicious and inexpensive!  I was surprised at the prices for being a ski resort place.

After dinner, we decided to walk around at all the shops and wait for the fireworks.  While we were browsing through the the country store, we came upon this:

Yup.  It says Bitch.  And I have no idea why.  It is fun to look at though.

The fireworks was pretty but hard to capture.  We tried.

We passed out rather quickly after we got back to our room, despite the fact that I only woke up less than 12 hours ago, but apparently, I was tired.

Sunday was a lot less eventual.  I got up around 8, and was planning on going to Inspired 2 Knit & Tea, but due to the fat flakes of snow coming down from the sky rather rapidly, I decided to stay local.  I went back to Coffee Emporium and ordered the same breakfast, but enjoyed a cup of Chinese Flower Green Tea this time, and knitted.

That is Icarus in progress.  So far, it is a super fast knit and I’m really enjoying it.  I have since made more progress though, since after I left Coffee Emporium, I went and sat in the lounge of the place we were staying and watched NCIS marathon and knitted some more.

David got out at a reasonable time, and on the way home, we stopped at Inspired 2 Knit and Tea right before it closed.  The owner was super nice and knowledgable on recent trends.  Even though I have said that I’m on a yarn diet, I went away with some local spun and tea:

That’s three skeins (750 yards total) of 100% Shetland Wool by McGinnis Brook Farm, from the sheep Lola.  I already have a plan for it.  I think it will become one fo those pretty doily blankets.  The tea is Notting Hall Peaches Supreme.  I haven’t tried it yet, but I think I may break it out tonight.

The drive on the way home, however, was quite interesting.  The snow didn’t stop and it just kept on going.  Until we got to MA.  It became little snow, then turned into rain when it cross the CT border.  Needless to say, we were home safely.

So did you do something fun this weekend?

Happy Valentine’s Day

Are you having a good day?  It is beautiful out with no wind. 

David and I decided to take a drive towards Clinton to a) bring my wedding gown back to the bridal store to be cleaned and b) to go to the outlet and have the store where he bought a belt to take off the alarm lock thing.  We bought the belt awhile ago but he couldn’t use it because the lady who checked us out forgot to take off the lock thingy.

We stopped at a diner to have breakfast on the way there.  And on the way back, we stopped at a used/rare bookstore that I’ve seen everytime I drove to Clinton.  I found this book:

They don’t have much of craft section, but I’m glad I looked anyways. 🙂

When we got home, there was a package waiting for me, and in it contained these:

My cocoa swap package!!!  Look at Wilbur!!!  Isn’t he cute?  I love the wings.  And you can’t read the cocoa, but it says “Chili and Spice”!  Can’t wait to get some milk and try it!  Of course I already opened the chocolate and started indulging :).  Also included in the package are DP Needle Tube for me to store the DPNs, a skein of Malabrigo in Purple Magic, and a beautiful mug.

Thank you riizu!

So our plan is going to a hibachi dinner tonight.  And then maybe to a movie.  Any of you have plans??

The Super Bowl Day

I went to bed “early” for a Saturday just so I can get up early enough to pick up Archknist, CostumeChick, BackstageKnits and hedwigbc for the yarn sale before going to PeacefulKnitter‘s party.

We met up with Anphoe, and later on Jessie, Suzy, Sunflowerfairy, Marla, and Beth showed up as well.  The Yarn Garden was having a 40% off sale and I just really wanted to buy more yarn.  BUT!  I stuck with my promise, and only bought stuff for the project.  And here is what I came home with:

Yup.  I bought two buttons!  They didn’t have the yarn I want for the project, so I didn’t get any!!!  I was so proud of myself.   But I did come home with some leftover swap yarn:

Two balls of Jaeger Alpaka Pur in light purple, one wound skein of Malabrigo Worsted in red, and two wound skeins of Handpainted Yarn  lace weight in Lago del Bosque (blue, green and yellow).

I already slated the Malabrigo to be Foliage.  It is perfect!  Actually, I can’t believe someone actually wanted swap Malabrigo, but maybe red isn’t her color.  I’ll have to come up with some use for the other two.

The party was a success and there was a “do you know your fiber” game, which basically you go and feel the fiber in the bag, but no looking, and guess what type of the fiber is.  It is fun and harder than it looks.  And, there was drawing for door prizes for showing up.  Eeveryone in the car got something!  I got a Bath and Body Works body lotion (dancing waters is the scent), which I left in the car without any photographic evidence.

Oh yeah.  We had so much fun.  And there was so much food!  Yum.  The quiche went almost instantly, which was awesome.  I would totally make it again!

So did you have a good Super Bowl Sunday?

Edit to add:  Photos from the party curtesy of Anphoe!

Thank You PinotNoir!

I want to give a big shout out to PinotNoir, who rescused Jezabel by parting with two balls of Louisa Harding Kashmir DK.  She not only part it, but gifted them to me as birthday present.

And another thing I’ve recieved but forgot to take a picture because it was so darn cute, I used it immediately after I got home:

It’s a little salt dish in piggy shape!  Anphoe gave it to me at the party!  It is so cute!  LOVE IT!  Now I don’t have to risk dumping lots of salt in one shot!

Well, time for me to relax after my first day back to work.  Hope you all had a great Monday!

I Got Paid!

With Yarn!!!!!

These are my payments for all the bags I made!  Sweet, huh?  Schaefer has always been very generous to their knitters!  And this time, I made sure I snatched some of their limited edition color in Anne.  So pretty.

Speaking of pretty – When I left the party Saturday night/Sunday morning, it was SNOWING!  We got our first snow here.  I always love the first snow – pure and uninterrupted.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow…

My New Sweater

Well, I didn’t finish yet!  I started yesterday after finishing off the bag.  Instead of browing through Ravelry, I decided to go through some of my pattern books and see if there is anything I wanted to make with the yarn I already have – and Bingo!

The cover picture sweater is made with Louisa Harding Kimono Angora Pure, and in the pattern book, suggested yarn choices are Angora, Kashmir DK and Grace. (Ravelry is linking Karabella Magerite, which is weird, but whatever, it’s DK)  Well I just happened to have some Kashmir DK around 🙂  Right on gauge too!  I’m cruising on the back panel.  Can’t wait to have my new sweater 🙂

Time for din din!