Sunday, August 31, 2008

I promised pictures, so here we go!

First off, the tweeds. Not the best picture in the world, but it's passable!


I forgot to grab the yardage on the green, but I have one more skein of the brown, and both are over 200 yards.

Now, something I've been working on for a few months. In a fit of rebellion, I quit my previous job at the local dollar store and went to Maryland Sheep and Wool in May. I spent entirely too much money, all of it well. Now... I'm not much of a fuschia type. I prefer earth tones, however, I saw a gigantic bump of carded sliver in layers of fuschia, gold, black and little blips of white. I picked it up, looked at the sign, and knew it was mine. Out of a pound, I have about 2 ounces left to spin. It's turning into an EZ as Pi shawl to wear when I feel like making a statement.



That's it for now. I may take some pictures this coming week of the shop, and my favorite little sights from the bench outside. Have a wonderful day!

Friday, August 08, 2008

It's been over a year since I blogged here. I admit, my mind hasn't been on sharing fibery goodness with the world. Things have been hectic, quitting jobs, getting jobs (more on this later in this post), family health problems, a dear friend shipping off to Iraq... ut through it all, I have been creating, I promise!


My latest obsession with tweed has left me a bit frustrated by commercially available fiber. Mind you, I do dye, and I dye on commission, but I'm starting to wonder what the big deal is. You can slap as much color on it as you want, but I want, no, I need my fiber to have character!

Luckily, I have a drum carder. I recently ran across this yarn on etsy. I looked for the Crosspatch Creations roving, and I did find it, but I haven't had my first paycheck from the new, fiberlicious job yet, so I had to wing it. So, I grabbed the bag of Columbia/mohair roving I got in Vermont, some scraps of undyed BFL, some grey Jacob, and a lot of silk noil and got to work. Let me tell you, this yarn has me infatuated! (Since my camera is being fickle, I'll describe. I dyed the Columbia a very deep, forest green, the Jacob a medium green, and the BFL spring green. The bits of noil are blue, gold and cream colored. I carded the Columbia and noil together, then layered it over a thin layer of the Jacob and BFL.)

I carried the bug further last night and carded up another bag of batts in a brown, grey, white and green frenzy. More on those later.

Alright, I suppose I've tempted anyone reading this enough. I might as well say it. A few weeks ago, my dear friend Cathy gave me a heads up that our LYSWS (yarn, spinning and weaving!) was hiring. As she has a little one, she couldn't take the job, but she thought I might be interested. I called the owner, a friend of ours, and she all but hired me over the phone. A few days later, I was training! Aside from the tourists, it's by far the best job I've had yet. What's better than working in a yarn shop? Working in a yarn shop where you get PAID to knit, spin and weave between customers!!!