Lakes Yarn & Fiber

I've been talking with Ami from Lakes Yarn & Fiber about a new design and I am really looking forward to working with her.  Ami sent three skeins of her Hayden Worsted in Hansa which is the dark pink, Sweet Clover which is the medium pink and a lighter pink which I think may be called Repeatable Pink.  They coordinate perfectly with one another and it's going to be so much fun to design a new pattern with them! 

I've been able to sneak a bit of spinning in here and there on the weekends and finished up one fleece of alpaca.  It's a 2 ply fingering weight and approximately 560 yards.  It's not my best spinning, but it will knit up nicely and I think it's going to be a shawl. 

I also spun up a lovely batt from Knit Spin Farm.  The colorway is Violets at my Feet and it has all sort of fun things in it like Angelian, Blue Faced Leicester, and Sari Silk to name just a few.  It's leaning towards an Aran weight and should make a nice hat or cowl.  It was a blast to spin and should be at least as much fun to knit!

My friend Yvonne sent me a lovely care package a couple of weeks ago.  It had a few goodies for Iggy and a very special treat for me.  It's a skein of Red Barn Yarn's Sock Sparkle in the Lavendar Fields colorway.  It's a blend of merino, silk  and nylon, and the silk is very noticeable.  Socks or a shawl?  It's going to be a hard choice!

Seasons

I got an email from Carol at Rivers Edge Fiber Arts this week telling me to keep my eyes out for a package.  The mailman now thinks I am some sort of yarn crazed lunatic because I have been meeting him at the mailbox every day! When you are waiting for something exciting like yarn it really feels like time slows down and this week was no exception.  I was only a few moments too late to meet our mailman today and it makes me wonder if he has started speeding up his route to avoid the yarn stalker?  When I opened the mailbox, the package from Carol was there!  I opened the package up right away, and am so delighted at the amazing fall colors! 

This is Seasons, a blend of 70% Royal Baby Alpaca and 30% Tussah Silk.  It's so soft that I just want to wrap the skeins around my neck and wear them just like they are!  The colorway is Riverstone and can be found at RiversEdgeFiberArts.com  This is the same yarn that my Juliet pattern is designed for.  I was going to knit another Juliet in Riverstone, but when it arrived all I could think is what a fantastic cowl this yarn would be!  If you are heading to SAFF this weekend, be sure to stop by the Rivers Edge Fiber Arts booth and pick up a set of Seasons so you can make your own Juliet.  I have to warn you though, if you pick it up you will not be able to put it down.  It's that soft!

It's gotten chilly here and we had a bit of frost on the car's this week.  I thought it was time that Iggy had a proper hand knit sweater.  I don't really have much worsted yarn in my stash and wound up using left overs from the two Intersect projects.  Iggy doesn't seem to mind and I think the stripes are cute on him!  I made it on the large size so that he has some room for growing.  I also skipped blocking it since the yarn is superwash and I can get a bit of stretch to it if needed in a month or so. 

 

Just before we left for Florida I had a moment of panic and thought that I would run out of things to knit on our trip.  It happens every time we go away and not only have I yet to run out of something to knit, I can't remember finishing a project while on the road!  Back to the moment of panic...I went digging through my stash, skeins were flying everywhere, and I found a lovely skein of Miss Babs Yummy 2-Ply in Perfectly Wreckless.  I wrote up a little cable and lace sock pattern and stuck it in my carry on bag.  Of course I didn't have time to work on it while we were on vacation!  Now that we are home and settled back into our routines, I have cast on and am really enjoying the yarn and creating the new design.

Powhatan's Festival of Fiber

The past week has been spent putting the final touches on everything for the booth that Stephanie and I will have at the Powhatan's Festival of Fiber tomorrow.  I have had so much fun putting the Ready to Knit kit's together, sewing the bags for the Limited Edition Mother of Dragons kit's and making the stitch markers to go with them.  Here is a sneak peek of the Mother of Dragons kit.  The yarn is Indieway Yarns First String Plus and is a lovely Superwash Merino/Nylon blend.  



Stephanie and I decided that we had better do a dry run with the tent, tables and some of the displays so she came over last night.  We set up on the patio and had a blast figuring out where everything was going to go.  Hopefully this will save us some time in the early morning hours tomorrow while we set up.

 

I am coveting that painting of the llama wearing glasses that Stephanie painted! I know just where I would hang it too.  

I already had the majority of my stuff packed up.  I set up my tables and a few other things to make sure they would fit under the tent with everything else.  It worked out well and we are good to go!  I've had everything staged by the stairwell for a couple of days.  I think Andy will be glad it's out of the house!

 

We are all packed up and ready to go!  Since Steph and I live about and hour away from each other and we underestimated how much we were taking, we decided to take separate cars and meet up at the festival grounds.  I will take lots of pictures and hopefully one of us will have time to watch the alpaca shearing so I will have that to share with you too.  I think we are going to have a fun day and I am really looking forward to it!

The little bit of knitting that I have had time to do this week!  It doesn't look like I did much, does it? I really didn't have as much time to knit as I had hoped to, but that's ok.  The nice thing about knitting is that it doesn't go bad and it's there anytime you want to work on it.  The lovely yarn I am working with is Coquette from Wanton Fibers and is 70% baby alpaca, 20% silk and 10% cashmere.  To say that I want to roll around in it and rub it all over me would be an understatement!  I am working on a new design, it's a bottom up shawl and I will have more details on it as it comes along.

 

 

Knit Along Time!

It's been a really exciting week here!  Erica asked me to hoast the first Knit Aong in the new Bare Naked Wools group on Ravelry.  We will be using my brand new Ribbon Street Cowl pattern along with Anne's new Breakfast Blend DK yarn.  It's really quite an honor to be be asked to do this and Ive been over the moon about it!  Erica, Barb, Anne Marie and myself will all be there if anyone has questions or needs help.  It's fun and easy pattern, perfect for knitting in the evening while relaxing or to take with you to knit group.


The Ribbon Street Cowl pattern is just $3.50 until the end of the month in my Ravelry shop. 

Ive already knit one up in Breakfast Blend DK.  It's in the Morning Smoke colorway.  Don't you just love this color?  Grays are my favorite!  Not to mention the fantastic blend of Merino and Alpaca that gives this yarn softness and fantastic squish factor!

 For an idea of what it would look like in other colorways, please see the pattern page on Ravelry.

The other thing that has made this a great week is that I finally got around to painting the shelves that Andy made for the dining room.  I honestly had gotten so burned out from our kitchen remodel that I just couldn't bring myself to paint these three simple shelves.  In all fairness, it did take most of a day to get them painted.  Now all that is left to do is to paint the bottom of the wall.  The current color really doesn't go well with the new cabinet color.  We are changing it to a warm shade of brown.  Oh and then Andy is buiding a new and larger pantry.  But, that's a story for another day!

 

Hope to see you in the Bare Naked Wools Ribbon Street Cowl KAL!

Alpaca Fun!

We had a fun Labor Day Weekend.  It started with a trip to Roanoke where we feasted at Abeulo's.  On our way home we spotted a sign for Otter Peaks Alpaca's and decided to check it out. 

We met John & Cindy Ferrante and their super friendly Alpaca's:

The alpaca's were all very lovable and seemed to like posing for pictures:

If you are in the area be sure to stop by to visit with John & Cindy and see their alpaca's.  They have a nice shop too with lot's of yarn and items made from alpaca fiber.

They also have two Great Pyrenees dog's that protect the herd of alpacas. 

Since we live in a subdivision farm animals are out of the question (for now heh).  Ive been training Roper to be a protector.  Here he is guarding my handspun yarn: