Something in the air

There must be something in the air. I also decided to move, though I'm sticking with Blogger. I can now be found over here. Hope to see you there!

Estes

Whew. I survived. My pocket book even survived. The Estes Park Wool Festival has to be one of the more enjoyable events of my year. I love it not only because it's a great excuse to hang out with friends

but also because festival itself is a great place to find those fibers you don't see on a regular basis.

And since I don't keep any of these guys in my backyard it's nice to see and appreciate where it all starts...

I was really proud of myself this year. Not only did I stay in budget, but I had enough left over to buy lunch with what I'd allocated. I know. It's almost weird. I did pick up some lovely things while there though.

Just kidding!! This is all of our yarn. After lunch we decided a "haul" picture was in order. I believe this conglomeration belongs to me, Stacey, Cynthia, Jeni, and Wanda. Nachele was going to add hers but was afraid it would break the bit of plastic we had loaded up.

I did bring home these though.

Brooks Farm Yarn Harmony (a wool/silk blend) that is destined for something lacy. Maybe.

A cashmere, merino, manmade (that's what the tag says. I wonder what "manmade" actually is...) blend lace weight that is destined to wait in the stash until I'm a bit more comfortable with the teeny tiny yarns. And a sport weight skein from Plain and Fancy. So pretty.

Interlacements got me again. I picked up some silk roving to make some more of that silk paper. I really enjoyed that and think it'd be really neat on the wall in the living room. I also picked up two skeins of tiny toes. So pretty...

P

Here's one I haven't seen yet. I came across it on Stephanies site and have to say it was more challenging than I thought it might be.

10 Things that start with the letter P

1.
Peaunt Butter. I love this stuff but not nearly as much as my DH does. We go through creamy peanut butter (his) twice as fast as the super extra crunchy (mine).







2.
Puddy Tat. Isn't she a cute one?









3.
Patty P. Pig. When I was a kid I loved pigs. I think it started with Charlottes Web if I remember correctly. I'm still quite fond of them actually. This little hand puppet was carried with me nearly everywhere and was part of our little family. It was the comedy relief on long trips and I'd entertain my little sister with it nearly every day. Interesting really, how movement can make something more real.

4.
Pickle. I actually prefer the sweet variety to the dill. Particularly with hot dogs.










5.
Penguin













6. Purple

7. PBS. Sesame Street, Electric Company, Reading Rainbow... Man I loved that channel...

8. Paper. Probably my second favorite medium (fiber would be the first if you were wondering... but you wouln't have any doubt of that I'm sure). I never really got into scrapbooking but I've always enjoyed drawing, note cards, and for some odd reason love to collect journals (though I rarely write in them for that purpose).

9. Pink

10.
Punkin - Me. My nickname since I can remember has been Punkin.












Wanna play?? Pick a letter and have fun!

Blockin'

I got a bit more blocking done the other day than just the lace samples. I also managed to get Ameile blocked. Unfortunately for Ameile it'll have to be ripped out. At least the back will. I knew my gauge was a little bit off but this is ridiculous.

Especially when the front has a fabric this dense

So I think I'll make the next size up and it should block out perfectly to the size I want it to be. I made the fronts one size up and really like how they turned out. Thankfully the sleeves (which I've already gotten a couple of inches into) should be fine.

Lacen'

As Cyn mentioned the other day, she, Wanda, Joanne (she's got some great pictures of some of the lace samples in her post from the 10th. Go check it out. I'll wait here.), and I were in a lace class this past weekend taught by none other than Nancy Bush. She was a delightful teacher and I'd jump at the chance to take another class from her any day. I particularly enjoyed all the history we got about Estonia. Fitting for an Estonian lace class, no?

Since it's been covered so well already I thought I'd wait until I could show off the sampler in full blocking action. I'll have to apologize now. While having a checkered pattern on my blocking board is exceptionally useful for blocking purposes, it makes for less than ideal lace blocking pictures. But here you have it anyway. Tah-dah. (Sorry, Cyn, yours is blocking but the picture really didn't come out).

Click for big

Another very entertaining part of class came from these little guys that kept peeking their heads around any of the closed mini blinds.

The Kit Has Arrived

Hooray!! I finally got my Interlacements Afghan kit the other day. I say finally only because I was dying to see how the dying went. Heehee. I'm so pleased with the colorways that we made. First let me show you the picture of the finished afghan that came with the pattern. Sooo pretty...

See it at flickr

Most of that beautiful red is a boucle yarn and the bright blue is a ribbon yarn very similar to Trendsetter Segue. The ribbon is knit in a crisscross pattern giving large patches of x that really give some interest to the design. Lots of texture and beautiful colors. Fun!

And here are the colors my afghan will be (one day). I think this may be the next afghan on the list though. It's fairly large when it is finished. A few of the yarns are held together (like the cotton ribbon - the only one with pink - and one of the mohairs).

Reading the picture clockwise we have a thick and thin wool, boucle, cotton, mohair, mohair, and ribbon. The afghan should end up primarily the colors of the ribbon and the boucle - not that any of my colorways are all that different.

There are four different colorways above. I love how differently the colorway can look just based on the yarn it's dyed into. The ribbon and boucle are the same colorway but look quite different just based on how the yarn took the dye. The thick and thin and mohair in the bottom right corner are also the same colorway. They seem a little more apparent to me though.

Judy, one of the Interlacement owners, was talking about a class she teaches about color where she has her students pick two (if I remember correctly) skeins of yarn they like the colors of and two they don't like. During the class she has them knitting with all four and inevitably by the end of class the students discover they like the colorways they originally didn't like. It sounds like a neat class and a fun way to play with color and color combinations.

Crawling around in Ft. Collins

Cynthia needed to head up to Ft. Collins/Loveland to Interweave Press to pick up a couple of books she had ordered. So (of course) she needed company. And (naturally) if we were going up there we were going to stop by a couple of the yarn shops in the area. So I took Wednesday off from work and went on a yarn crawl up north. Aside from the interesting driving situation (we got lost before each and every shop - figure we could have found one based on Yahoo directions, but no...) it was a great day. I love the area up there and I almost never get to go.

I've notice many knitters, particularly some friends of mine, that always buy a skein of yarn or a bag when out of town at a yarn shop. I've decided I collect enough yarn without going out of town and don't really need another excuse to buy more yarn but I'd like something to remember a shop by, particularly if I don't think I'll make it back. So I've settled on buttons. I love buttons, and each shop seems to carry at least one I've never seen elsewhere. It works.

The first place we stopped was Lambspun. We would have found it right off the bat, but Cyn and I were concentrating on where we needed to turn and not on the fact that Lambspun was on the corner of where we were turning and we ended up on a little tour of Ft. Collins. It's a beautiful shop and I'd highly recommend it to anyone in the area. Every time I thought I saw everything I noticed there was another room full of more stuff.

See it at flickr

The bamboo above is from my stash and will be what is leftover after the Lotus tank is done. I loved the scribble shawl and never thought to use ribbon instead of some bulky yarn until I saw the Mason Dixon book. So the Trendsetter Segue will go with my bamboo for a lovely shawl. I also picked up two buttons that you can see a bit better in the picture below.

Next up was My Sister Knits. A brand new shop and one we had a tough time finding, mostly because Sister was the only part of the name I was sure of. Very cute place though a bit odd because it's in a carriage house behind a regular house. We almost walked in the front door of the regular house before we notice the sign around the side. Oops. Still. Lovely people and beautiful yarn. And a cute button of course.

Next up was Woolen Treasures. We discovered that Loveland (a very lovely town) has multiple fourth streets. The one we found first lead us out to a very rural area and nearly dirt road. Wrong one. Sigh. We found it eventually of course.

The teal button give the appearance of wood with bark along the outside. They have quite a few different colors and I had a terrible time deciding which to get. The lime green, orange, and cranberry ones really called to me as well but I didn't want to get carried away. And my favorite find of the day is that horseshoe shawl pin made from copper and sitting there on top of some new needles. A local fellow makes them and they are simply beautiful. The pin goes through the shawl then slides in between the small slit he's created, then you twist the body of the pin around so that it stays in place. Just lovely.

And the last stop of the day was one of our LYS that I never seem to make it to. It's the Lamb Shoppe (another new one - in downtown Denver). This stop was more for my benefit so I didn't have to battle rush hour traffic home. I know. It's a semi-lame excuse. But it worked for me.

See it at flickr

I couldn't walk away from this skein of Cherry Tree Hill (what is it about this stuff??) and I decided to get a few more skeins of Nashua Jane as I like a cardigan pattern better than the tank top pattern I originally bought the yarn for.

Not too shabby for one day's work wouldn't you say?