MDSW Recap

Andy and I had so much fun at MDSW this year!  We drove up on Friday, had lunch at UNO's, did a little shopping at the outlets in Haggerstown and then headed to our hotel. You know you are staying at the right hotel when the first thing you see when you walk through the lobby doors is a photograph of a sheep.  There was a KFC across the street and we grabbed a quick dinner and brought it back to our room and hung out watching movies and enjoying some much needed down time.

I wore my sheep pajama pants which just happened to match the cover of this years show program.  I did a bit of knitting on the plain vanilla sock in the Harry Potter yarn from Truly Hooked.  I had a hard time deciding what to bring to knit on and wound up with this sock and a new cowl that I'm working on.  They are both simple knits and perfect to work on in the car and carry around with me.  

We headed out to the festival fairly early and didn't have any trouble getting into the parking lot.  We wandered over to Miss Babs and did a bit of shopping there.  While I was shopping I met Wythlovy.  We started chatting and she was so nice, I really think I could have talked to her all day!  While Andy and I were waiting in line we got to meet ladyfernaco and franciscangypsy who have a podcast called Pen, Hook and Needles.  It was nice to get to spend some time with them and chat.  Did I mention that he line at Miss Babs was pretty long? 

  

 Babs yarn is definitely worth waiting for. I picked up a few skeins, but was trying to behave myself.  From left to right: 2015 MDSW color on Yummy, Forever on Sojourn, Coral on Sojourn, and Mad Hatter on Yowza.  They are all a little more brilliant looking in person, all these pictures were taken with my cell phone.  

I was so proud to see a Mother of Dragons in Miss Babs Yummy hanging up in the booth right next to her sign!

My next stop was Going Gnome.  The shop is run by two sisters who are just as nice as can be.  Their felt creations are amazing.  This owl and gnome were my favorite and are on my list to make.  There is a corner in our living room that would be perfect to have something like this.

We then headed over to Maple Creek Yarns where I found out that my favorite yarn that they dye, Norfolk 30% silk, 10% cashmere 60% wool is being discontinued.  This yarn is so soft and decadent that you kind of want to just roll around in it!  I had only planned on picking up one skein, but wound up with five since this will be the last time it would be available to me.  The yarn is really that shimmery in real life.  I think it's the silk that does that.  In any case, I love it!

I behaved myself at The Fold and only brought home one skein of Socks That Rock in Lightweight the color is KawKaw.

It was after lunch by the time I got done picking up the Kawkaw, and time to head down to the Indie Untangled meet up.  I was a few minutes early and the podcasters meet up was still in full swing. They made me feel welcome and the Indie Untangled meet up wound up overlapping and getting combined.  It was so much fun to get to talk to so many knitters and podcasters all in one place!  I handed out quite a few of my buttons and got some in return from: Sheepish, CarolinaFiberGirls, Julia Allen, Two Tangled Skeins, a cute stitch marker from FibreTown that was made by my friend Knit Cubby, and a flashlight from Twinset Designs.

I've been working on a secret project with Lisa from Indie Untangled, Vicki from That Clever Clementine and Michelle from Berry Colorful Yarnings.  It was wonderful to meet Lisa and Vicki in person (Michelle had to stay at home in NM, but someday I hope we can meet!!!).  Lisa was wearing her Night's Watch.  It's so exciting to see my designs being worn out in the wild!



Speaking of designs out in the wild, the very nice lady who was working at Jentz Prints was working on her Mother of Dragons when I was in her booth!  I think her name was Jen, and I apologize that I didn't write it down.  She was kind enough to let me take her picture and I've been trying to read the name on her tag, but it just looks like it's the name of the booth.



There were some great antique prints in her booth.  Lot's of sheep and other cool things.  I brought home this one of two pugs and I'm planning on having it matted and framed.  

Terri Rosenthal and I became friends on Facebook earlier this year and made plans to meet up Sunday morning.  She is one of those people that you just immediately like and we chatted like we had been friends forever.  I could have talked to her all day, we really hit it off!  She brought me some wonderful yarn that is made of mink hair.  It's harvested when the little critters are in their natural shedding time so it's animal friendly.  The minks are brushed to remove the shedding hair and then it's spun into yarn.  I keep wondering who is brave enough to brush the minks?  Kiwi our bunny, will give me an occasional nip when I'm brushing him and I think the mink teeth are sharper since they are carnivores.  The yarn is really decadent and feels like it's softer than cashmere, kind of along the lines of qiviut.  I plan on working this up into a lace shawl, it's absolutely fantastic yarn!

Here is the lovely Terri and I.  She's wearing her latest design and even made the buttons for it!

Andy and I decided to head home soon after meeting Terri.  I had gotten a lot of sun on Saturday and was really wiped out.  We passed these two black sheep on our way out and I thought it would be a cute end to this post.  

Maryland Sheep & Wool Recap

When non-knitting friends and family ask me about Maryland Sheep & Wool or MDSW as most fibery people call it, the only way I can describe it is that it is like Black Friday held at a fair for fiber enthusiasts.  There are every type of sheep that you can imagine, yarn of every color in the rainbow and fiber type, fantastic lamb cooked in a countless number of ways, and more fiber and yarn enthusiasts than I have ever seen in one place together.   Since pictures tell a much better story than I can, this post will mainly be pictures of what we saw and enjoyed.

The Central Maryland Knitting Guild yarn bombed the fence at the entrance.  What a happy thing to see first thing when we arrived!

 

 This is a baby mohair goat having his breakfast.  It's a good thing our yard is too small for farm animals or this guy would have been coming home with us!

 After we went through the line to get a t-shirt our first stop was the Miss Babs booth.  This was the booth to be at the festival.  There were a few others that were busy, but Miss Babs booth was packed for the entire weekend and the line to pay went out the back door of the building she was in and curved around.  When we saw the line Andy immediately told me to go pick out what I wanted and he would wait in line.  I wish I had taken a picture of the line - it really was like Black Friday only with out the pushing and rudeness.  Everyone was as nice as could be!  I made it in and out of the booth with some goodies and met Andy who continued to wait in line while I walked through a few other booths.  Have I mentioned that he is the best husband ever?!  I was really excited to see my Mother of Dragons shawl hanging up in the booth along with the pattern.  It's one of my proudest moments :)

 

I picked up a few goodies in her booth and a couple of skeins from other dyers that I like. Can you tell that I was in a bit of a purple mood?

From left to right: Miss Babs Polydactl Set in Edge of Reality (I think this is going to be a new shawl design!), Miss Babs Yummy 2-Ply in Shaken Not Stirred, Miss Babs Yummy 2-Ply in Bat Sh**** Crazy, Miss Babs Yummy 2-Ply in Perfectly Wreckless, Miss Babs Yowza in Zombi Prom, Maple Creek Farm Yuma in Twilight, Ellen Coopers Yarn Sonnets Tinkerbell's Gold in Diva - those flecks you see are sparkles, and Maple Creek Farm Portland in Spice's.  

I also picked up a few other goodies.

Andy found the bag with the dragon on it.  I absolutely love it and totally missed it when we were walking by the booth that had them.  It's a backpack and holds a huge amount of yarn.  What else would you put in a backpack, right?  A purple MDSW t shirt, added to my Signature Needle collection and picked up a Shark Week kit from the Tsarina of Tsocks that I pre-ordered before the show.

On Sunday we got to hang out with our friends Julia and Daniel.  Julia was so sweet and brought some of her Babydoll Southdown roving!  I'm pretty sure it's from her own sheep and it's so soft that you just want to cuddle up with it!  She brought sampler of different colors which you can find in her Etsy shop and a larger ball in a beautiful creamy white color.  I think it's going to be time to break out my wheel soon and spin this lusciousness up!

One of the other booths that I had way too much fun in was Going Gnome.  They had so many cute felted things and were so nice and let me take a million pictures of everything!  There was a felted chess set with Vikings and gnomes, a couple of tree creatures that had incredible detail, and one of my favorites was a giant purple dragon.  I think she was about 4' long!  If you look closely at the picture of her you can see that she accidentally stepped on one of the gnomes!  I picked up some felting supplies while I was there and took a few extra pictures of the Viking so that I can make one.

My Aunt Linda, Uncle Gary and Cousin Lindsay live within driving distance of the festival and we got to visit with them Saturday evening and stay the night.  Lindsay has her own place and came over so we could all hang out and have a mini slumber party.  Andy and I tried to stay up with everyone, but couldn't stay up as long as we liked.  We had so much fun visiting and they have a beautiful house on the water.  We were able to sit outside in the evening and have wine and appetizers.  Gary has built boats as a hobby ever since I can remember.  We were talking about when he lived in Franklin Square, NY with my Grandparents. Every summer I would get to go spend some time with them and it was always a huge highlight.  One year Gary was building a boat while I was there and he took a picture of me and my brother in front of it and one of us took one of him leaning on it.  It's been at least 35 years and he still has the boat.  He pulled out the album from when he was building it and we decided to try to recreate the picture!  I think we did a pretty good job.

Andy took a picture of us.  It's been so long since we were all together, but it didn't seem like it.

I was able to work on the shawl in Coquette while we were driving to and from the festival. It's making really good progress and I am really enjoying the pattern and yarn.  I haven't named the design yet and have just been calling it Coquette after the name of the yarn.  Since that name has been used for patterns about a million times on Ravelry, I think I need to pick something else.  Any ideas?

Wandering Wildflower

Introducing Wandering Wildflower

Introductory price of $3.50 until July 1 on Ravelry

Wandering Wildflower is a very versatile pattern and can be worn as a scarf or a cowl.  If you make the version in the pattern it will use close to 450 yards of fingering weight yarn.  The pattern can easily be modified to accommodate a skein with less yardage by casting on fewer stitches.  Shannon who test knit for me used an alternating color for the eyelet section. It's really quite striking.  Just waiting for her to upload pictures.  We are giving her slack though. I think she is still unpacking boxes from her move last weekend.  If that won't put a delay into things, I don't know what will!

Yes, the pattern name was changed :)  A friend suggested that Kracken might not be the best choice for something that is wrapped around ones neck.  Lindr came up with the name and will receive a copy of the pattern (Lindr please contact me via Ravelry and I will send you a copy right away).  JudyH also will be receiving a copy from our random drawing.  Thank you to everyone who participated!

I'm packing today to leave for TNNA tomorrow.  It's exciting to go and get to see friends that we don't see that often.  I can't believe it's been over a year since Ive seen Anne and Erica!  Im really ecstatic about getting to meet Carrie aka IrishGirlieKnits this year!  Ive always loved knitting her patterns and have done some test knitting for her in the past.  

If you are going to TNNA this weekend, please stop by the Shalimar Yarns booth and say hi.  I will be working all day on Saturday and Sunday morning.  Ive finished my Tempest sweater and will be wearing it.  It's hot pink - Love Potion and gray - Ore so I should be easy to spot. 

Festival Fun

Last Saturday Andy, Shannon, Beth and her husband Andrew and I went to the Powhatan's Festival of Fiber.  Tera told me about the festival last fall and we have all been looking forward to since then.  We were all wondering what it was going to be like since it was the first year.  We arrived to a friendly parking attendant who guided us to where we should go.  There was a short line to get in that moved very quickly.  If you look very closely, I'm the one in the salmon colored jacket.

We walked out into a picturesque scene of sheep in a meadow and vendors with tents set up all through the field.  The sun was shining, the sky was a beautiful azure blue and a breeze was blowing.  We really couldn't have asked for better weather! 

The Festival Committee did an outstanding job organizing everything.  There was plenty of parking, demonstrations throughout the day, things for kid's to do, fantastic food vendors, lot's of sheep and other fiber animals, clean portable rest rooms and everyone was very friendly.  We all had a great time and are looking forward to making this an annual trip.

This is Beth and I at the first booth we stopped at. Check out her sweater!  It's really fantastic, she is an amazing knitter.

 

This is the wonderful group of ladies who organized the festival.  Thank you so much to them for such a wonderful and much needed local event!  There are more pictures and information about the festival on the Powhatan's Festival of Fiber Facebook Page.  All of the lovely photos on my blog from the fiber festival were taken by Al Sneden and used with permission. 

I was so inspired by all the wonderful things that we saw at Powhatan, that I started a new design on Sunday.  It's an infinity scarf with a bit of texture and short rows.  Shannon saw it at knit group yesterday and immediately jumped on test knitting it.  I should have the pattern written up by the end of next week and am looking for a couple more test knitters.  Please PM me on Ravelry (SpinningLara) if you are interested in test knitting this new infinity scarf. 

It really should have a name, don't you think?  Let's have a naming contest!  Leave a comment on my blog with your name suggestion and the winner will receive a copy of this pattern when it's released. I'm looking for unique and funky!  Please keep in mind that any names that are already in use in the Ravelry Pattern Database won't be able to be used.

Frost in Bloom

Im so excited to announce the release of Frost in Bloom!  It's my first published pattern, and I hope that knitters will enjoy knitting this infinity scarf as much as I have enjoyed designing it.  Ive knitted two of them and am getting ready to cast on for my third one.  Frost in Bloom is a quick fun project perfect for working on at knit group or while watching tv.  It's a one skein project, so you can go stash diving for the yarn.  Shown here in Shalimar Breathless Sonoma.

Over the past several years Ive been testing knitting for several designers.  Going through the test knitting process has taught me a lot about what elements need to be in a pattern, and the importance of clear concise instructions.   Ive included both written and charted directions so whatever your preference is, it should be covered.  Of course if you have questions, Im available via email to answer them and help out if you need it.

The day Andy and I decided to do the photo shoot, it was freezing cold and the wind was blowing like crazy!  We wound up driving around downtown to find a spot with good lighting with shelter from the wind.  This is a stone foundation of the basement of one our favorite antique shops.  It worked out really well.

 

Thank you so much to Shannon and Laura for test knitting, and to Kristi for the final proof read and encouragement, and to Anne for the kind words of wisdom on copyrighting.

Congratulations to Helen who is the winner of the handspun yarn and pattern from the Grievence post!