Yarn Rambles

Black Sheep Gathering – An entirely different fuzzy animal

  I thought one day of fiber was enough to ask of Lora so we went to a dog show on Sunday. It was being held in Canby which was on the way back home and one of Lora’s dogs was being shown. It turned out to be well worth the effort because Adonis won best of breed. That meant he went on to compete for best in his Group which is the Toy Group. Unfortunately he didn’t win group but it was all still very exciting for Lora. There’s a whole procedure that I don’t understand that involves gaining points by winning events. Those points add up until the dog is “Finished” which means it has earned the right to be called a Champion. After this weekend Adonis only needs one more point and then he can retire to an easy life back home with Lora.

All in all, it was a delightful weekend. Lots of friends, fiber and dogs!!

Black Sheep Gathering – And the winner is…..

The Kromsky Sonata! I tried the Ashford Joy and the Sonata. I was thrown a little bit by how low the orifice was on the Joy but I was impressed by how nicely it treadled. I also liked that it was incredibly small. When I moved the Joy to try out the Sonata I had another surprise. The Joy was significantly heavier than the Sonata. Not at all what I expected. I felt much more comfortable sitting at the Sonata. It seemed like my spinning aura completely changed when I sat down to the Sonata. The beauty of the wood and the lovely construction won me over. That, and Lora saying “Buy the pretty one!”. All the easthetic influences aside, the Sonata does spin well.

While I was taking photos earlier in the day, I fell in love with this wooden basket. I had visions of it holding a pair of socks in progress, or better yet, some roving right next to my spinning wheel. As soon as I bought the Sonata, I went back to the booth and my favorite basket was still there!! Yes!

It took Lora and I about an hour to find the right roving for Bob’s socks. Lora kept choosing absolutely perfectly colored rovings – but they were always silk. We finally came across three braids of hand-dyed merino wool that we agreed would work well. I think the color blend will ply up quite nicely.

  I thought that I would be able to take the Sonata out of the box in the hotel room and give it a try but that didn’t work. There is a small amount of assembly so I waited until I got home. I was so tired on Sunday night that the project had to wait until Monday night.

  My incentive was Craft Night Tuesday. The whole point of buying a portable wheel was to be able to take it along to things like Craft Night. And, it worked out perfectly! It took all of about three minutes to take the wheel out of its bag, unfold it and get the tension set up.

  Check out this piece of spinning wheel art! It’s mommy wasn’t there when I went by so I don’t have any details, but what a beauty!

Black Sheep Gathering – Animals

Before I start talking about the animals at Black Sheep, I need to take care of a ??? on my part. Vicki asked a very good question. Particularly since knitting blanks were a complete mystery before this last April. Check out my April 16^th entry for some background. Here are a couple of websites that explain them very well. Go to Machine Knitting to Dye For to read through a very good explanation. You can also hand knit up a blank using a natural white yarn like Bare Fingering yarn. Thanks for the question, Vicki!

Lora grew up around horses and, just like me, loves barnyard smells. Part of my inducement program for getting her to come all the way down to

Eugene

with me was promising her some manure smells. After we had made my “photo” tour, Janet, Lora and I headed over to the sheep and goat compound. Aah, the fragrance!

 

We started with the sheep. Of course, I had to get a photo of a Black Sheep! I couldn’t resist the bed-head look of the Wensleydales.

The

Angora

goats caught my attention for the exact some reason. Those long, soft locks are irresistible!

 

Remember what I said about Lora liking natural colors. Well, she also wants a shawl. Since she doesn’t knit and has no intention of learning, I think that I may dedicate my EZ Square Shawl from the February Knitter’s Almanac knitalong to Lora. Look at the one she fell in love with while we were visiting the goats. She loved the way the design gradually changes from cream through grey to black. At least I know what colors to use for the square shawl.

When we got to the Shetland sheep compound, temptation was everywhere. It started with the big sign talking about how wonderful Shetland  sheep are for small acreages. Then I started looking at these relatively small sheep surrounding me and I could feel a shepherdess urge rising in my heart. To top it off, there were several pens of sheep for sale!!! Reason did prevail but it was close there for awhile. Thankfully, Lora is not such an enabler as to talk me into that sort of commitment!

I couldn’t resist taking a photo of this cowboy. It was just too cute!!

Black Sheep Gathering – Friends

Lora and I wandered around at a leisurely pace because several people came up to say “hi” to me. Thank you so much!! Because of your enthusiasm for Knit Picks, the blog and the podcast I walked around on a cloud all day long!!

   Unfortunately, I didn’t get to meet up with Tammy for spinning wheel comparisons. But, I did get together with Janet Kallstrom who is one of our test knitters. Remember back in May when I was working on a swatch for a new Palette cardigan. Well, Janet is the “lucky?” knitter who gets to try out my instructions. She brought the work along with her and I was so pleased!! I love how the colors are coming together over a larger piece of knitting. It was very hard to visualize a sweater from my little swatch. Janet stayed with Lora and I for a couple of hours which was so nice of her since she had already walked the entire show on Friday.

While I was admiring a particularly brightly colored booth, the owner came around the table and introduced herself. Janis at dyelots, uses our Bare yarns for her handdyed creations. See the colorful sock blank she has casually flung over her shoulder? That is a small example of her work. She got me all enthused again about dying the sock blank that my friend, Elizabeth, sent to me. When we went back to her booth later in the day, all of her sock blanks had been sold!!

  I started trying out wheels as soon as possible. Sorry, I’m not going to tell you anything yet. Just like poor Janet and Lora you will have to wait while I hem and haw for a couple of hours, or a couple of days in terms of this blog.

Black Sheep Gathering - First Impressions

I had such a fantastic time!! I came into the office last night to work on all the photos I took. That’s when I realized that it would be better to spread the experience out over this whole week. That way I can tell you little stories and savor the build up to revealing which spinning wheel I ended up buying. So stick with me this week for a little BSG tour.

Lora and I walked into Building 2 and stopped dead in our tracks. Color everywhere!! There were large windows in all of the rooms so the beautiful rovings and yarns made you feel like you were walking through a garden in full bloom. I had been a bit concerned about taking my non-fiber friend along with me but I felt much better as Lora bee-lined for the first booth and started fondling the yarns. Whew! What a relief.

I really can’t explain the origin of my Protestant-like work ethic but all I could think about was “Take photos now and then you can play later.” It turned out to be a good idea because focusing on taking photos kept me from being drawn into a specific booth until Lora and I had made the rounds. Instead, I kept a mental list of the ones I knew I needed to visit again later.

It was fascinating watching Lora. She is a larger than life character whom you would expect would be drawn to the most dramatic designs and colors. The exact opposite proved to be true! Time after time she would call me over to show me natural colored rovings and yarns. All shades from pure white, creams, light browns, chocolate browns and black. She did seem to have a preference for silk and silk blends.

Heading off to the Black Sheep Gathering

Today I am focused on finishing some work projects so I can head down to Eugene with a clear conscience. One of my projects was my weekly podcast. If you have listened to it, you will know I've decided to use Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac as a guide this next year. This started because I was in a bit of a knitting slump and I was craving some structure to my project plans. I decided that it would be fun to share this experience with some other knitters so I've established a Yahoo group called Elizabeth's Year. If you are interested, please join us. We are going to start in July and work all year back to July.

I am taking all sorts of fun gadgets with me to the Black Sheep Gathering. A microphone that attaches to my iPod, my new cell-phone with a nice camera and my regular camera. I feel like a secret agent! I'll come back with lots to share with you next week.

Happy swatching

So far I’m quite happy with my Telemark swatch. Oh, by the way, the yarns have arrived at our warehouse. Go to the Telemark page on the Knit Picks website to check them out. The funny thing is that I may be ordering some for myself to finish my swatch. We only received enough samples in advance to knit one or two projects. In advance of my finishing the instructions, we sent the yarns off to the test knitters. I only kept out one ball of each color and it looks like that isn’t going to be quite enough to finish the entire sequence I have planned for the sweater. There may be one more ball of each color in photography. I will go check that out later.

I thought it would help if I took the photo of my sampler out in the sunshine. An element that has been sadly lacking around here the last few days. That’s why I got so much knitting done this weekend. Bob and I headed off for golf on Saturday and managed 9 holes before the heavens opened up into a classic Pacific Northwest spring downpour. Time to go home!! I changed into warm clothes, kneaded up some bread to bake later and knit for the rest of the day. Sunday stayed grey. A comfortable, snuggly, knitting sort of day.

A design for Heathered Telemark

We have added new heathered colors to the Telemark yarn line. They are available on the web site now and we are designing projects for them already. I'm working on a Norwegian inspired cardigan. Since I spend my ski days in the lodge, it is likely going to be called the Lodge Cardigan. The base will be the Charcoal Heather with the patterns done in Garnet Heather. The Squirrel Heather will be used for a couple of thin stripes between pattern sections and I'm going to use it for the Icord connection of the shoulders and the tops of the sleeves to the body. I think it is going to be a lovely sweater that will work either in a casual setting or dressed up with warm wool slacks. My fingers are itching to knit with these yarns because today's weather is rather winter-like. Overcast, cold and rainy. A good day for listening to All Creatures Great and Small as I work out the design details.

Big plans for Fall of 2007

I walked into Tina's office this morning and burst out laughing. She is setting up the "glamour" shots for the new yarn lines we will be introducing this fall. Her office was overflowing with the yarn samples the vendors have sent to us in advance. So far she has been working on this project for about a week. It takes a lot of time to ball up or skein the yarns and then place them "artfully" into their special settings.

It's hard for any of us to focus on our work when the new yarns arrive. Good thing we only get a couple balls of each that need to be kept pristine for photography. Otherwise we would all be whipping out our needles to start new projects.

I had a lovely evening last night re-sorting and organizing my projects. As I looked through the To Do List I had written in my trusty Moleskin book, I realized I had finished nearly all the projects I had written down. Good for me!! That meant I could spend the evening planning new things. Here is the list -

3 pairs of socks in varying stages of completion

4 balls of hand-dyed sock yarn waiting to be assigned a project

2 1/2 more baby kimono jackets

1 pair Selbuvotter mittens

1 box of Wool of the Andes Forest Heather that was a bit of a mystery. There was about three inches of ribbing sitting in the box with no needles in it. I must have gotten frustrated with something and tossed the whole thing in a box. Now it is calling to me to be a raglan sweater with some sort of colorwork yoke. Nothing too fancy or elaborate.

That's about it. Small items for summer knitting. One kimono is already safe in a GoKnit Pouch attached to Xena's new summer bag. I've learned to buy big purses to use as dog bags. That way I'm not carrying around so much stuff I look like I am running away from home.

 

Just a couple more challenges

The thing about knitting is how it can be humbling and empowering at the same time. How does that happen?

Saturday morning I had Ben try on the vest. No luck. Ben wanted a high v-neck that turned out to be a bit of a challenge for my mathematical skills. I couldn't tell you if it was that I had been stingy while picking up the neck outline stitches or I cast-off too tightly. Anyway, the vest got caught at the top of his head. Ok, deep breath, Kelley. This can be fixed. Only not until Sunday morning for two reasons. One, I am definitely a morning person. By this time it was early afternoon. Second, I really needed some space from the vest.

Sunday morning I ripped out the neck ribbing and picked up the stitches a couple of rows in farther from each side to give more room. Then six rounds of ribbing and a comfortably loose cast-off. The second attempt looked much better than the first. Now, was it going to fit?

The vest easily got over Ben's head but the body was a bit tight. Remember the whole "way too big" issue at the very beginning of this project? I seem to have overcompensated. The good thing is that we are only talking a couple of inches around and a couple of inches too short for Ben's comfort. I have great hope in the magic of blocking. That is why there are no photos. The vest is still wet and in transit to Victoria, British Columbia. The deal I have with Ben's girlfriend is that if the dry vest fits, she will send photos. If it doesn't fit, I think I will have her send it back and see if it fits Bob.

Tonight Bob and I will head home to an empty nest. No more Aussies!! It will take a few days to adjust to the quiet and meals for two instead of six. I'm planning on organizing my neglected knitting projects. I really do prefer working on more than one project at a time. The monogamous relationship I've had with the vest for the last four weeks has been interesting but now I have to get reacquainted with my other projects. Funny how I develop strong emotional ties to my projects. I can't wait to be hanging out with them again.