I am so stressed right now I can’t really write at all. So instead I will give you pictures to show what my life is like right now…
Malcolm's massive travel "carrier" with Belle and Jiji atop it.
A selection of the clay pots scrubbed and bleached ready to be packed.
The top landing of the house filled with bagged-up fleece and fiber and a little bit of bedding.
These little towers of catty-ness are all over the place. Technically I'm not "allowed" to pack but if it was already in something they said not to unpack it....
More fiber and bedding. I'm kinda afraid that one of these piles will have a fleeceslide and bury me!
Currently I am attempting to choose and pack away all the clothes that I am going to be wearing for the next few months. And keep it all under 100 pounds. Oh and pack all the “other stuff” that I would mourn if the container fell off the ship (yes, I do worry about that, it happens, a LOT) such as my childhood blankie and teddy bear and photo albums. However, I am stymied in my attempts due to two wayward sweaters.
Now, I know myself pretty well at this point, having dealt with myself for about 33.5 years. I’m reasonably certain that I have put these 2 sweaters somewhere where I wouldn’t be tempted to pack them. Someplace “safe”. Can I now find these fraking sweaters? Of course not.
Grrrrr.
On the good front, my to-do list took a good hit today. I was able to cross-off a number of items on it quickly and without much fuss. I love it when that happens!
The time for me to leave England is drawing near. This September I am moving back to Iowa where I grew-up to be closer to my family and to get to live in the Midwest of the US again. I have wanted to move back for at least the last 10 years, just couldn’t do it for one reason or another. The time has come where I don’t really feel like I can put off this move any longer for a variety of reasons. I will be moving back to the States alone as my husband is staying here along with Jiji the cat. I will be taking the other 6 members of the family home with me.
This move is a major reason for the silence of this blog for a while. It was hard to write anything without mentioning it in one form or another as it has been influencing what I’ve been doing for the past couple of months. I’ve spent a lot of time researching and generally getting things ready for this. There is a lot to do, including scrubbing an absolute TON of clay pots and giving away the plants that resided in them as well as buying all the needed crates for pet movement (Mal’s is HUGE) and checking on the various rules and requirements. In some ways the trip back to the US is easier. The pets need a lot less paperwork. However, it is more expensive, something a tad more than double. The reason is that on the way here the numbers that we were dealing with were all in US dollars, on the way back they are all in GBP. Really, the numbers aren’t all that different, just the value of the currency. Well, that and I didn’t have an absolute skyscraper of a dog when we moved here!
Here is a picture of Malcolm’s travel crate taken apart and nested with the back-end of our full-sized car for comparison:
I think that it is better to travel as a pet nowadays than as a person. I mean, the pets have to have 2″ above the height of their natural standing position as well as being able to turn around and lay down comfortably. Yeah, next time I’m booking myself as dog:-) Malcolm isn’t really all that big, just tall. I had to get the biggest pet crate that they make for him because of those long, long legs of his, no other reason.
So, in the next two weeks I will more or less be fueled by Dr Pepper Zero. Since I have done this all before (an international move) I have a pretty good idea of what needs to happen and when. There are a few new issues though on this route. To go into the US all of my stuff needs to be packed by a professional moving company, not me. The US government trusts a bunch of ill-paid foreigners as to what is in my container over me, their citizen. To say that this is annoying would be an understatement. I packed everything on the way here and made it with only 2 items broken. One was a piece of furniture that was shoved into the container a little harder than it should have been and the other was a clay pot that was tossed in at the very end of the loading when we realized that we had loads of space still and it wasn’t secured at all. All the dishes and breakables made it through unscathed. I actually pity the poor guys that they send out here to pack my belongings as I will likely ride them like ponies about packing my breakables:-)
I will, of course, try to post some updates as the move is forthcoming. The way that this is looking like it is going to shake out is that the household items will be packed and shipped early next week. The pets and I will travel early the week after to Chicago. I’m attempting to do the opposite of what I did moving here, meaning that I would like to be back in Iowa for a long as possible before my container arrives.
One of the things on my (in my opinion) very long to-do list is to pack my suitcase for what I am going to be wearing for the next 7-8 weeks. In Iowa. That could put me out as far as mid November! I could have Indian Summer weather (highs up into the mid 80’s) down to full-on winter weather with sub-zero temperatures. I just keep telling myself that clothes are a lot cheaper in the US and if I have to I could buy a few things to tide me over if I need to. Already I am wearing most of my heaviest clothes (long wool coat, heavy wool sweater, hiking shoes) onto the plane with me to avoid packing them. I am going to be a mess by the time I get to Chicago! Of course, I will take a lot of the clothes off as soon as I get on the plane, but still, I am going to be a sweaty beast by the time I get to my economy seat!
Malin, Barbro and Tini all flew to London to join me in an adventure up to the Lakes District to attend Woolfest in June (BTW, there is a picture of the 4 of us in the photo gallery on the Woolfest site:-)). The day that everyone flew-in was pretty laid-back. Lots of knitting and a little bit of drum carding!
Tini making batts
Thursday we left bright and early for “The North” (that’s what all the signs say when you are heading North here). The car was well packed and the journey took less time than expected due to lack of traffic. I kinda decided that the ladies needed to visit Hill Top, Beatrix Potter’s home. A visit to the Lakes District isn’t really complete without it in my opinion because of all the work that she did in preserving the area and the famous Herdwick Sheep breed.
On the way to the cottage, we saw some of these lovely rare sheep doing their thing in a field with a handy parking area so we could stop and take some pictures.
I also caught a shot of the elusive Malin on holiday:-)
We then went to find our cottage, which was sort-of on the other side of the mountains. However, it was a great deal for the 4 of us so we weren’t in the mood to complain too much:-) When we got there, after a really lovely drive through the District, we found fresh scones with clotted cream and a bottle of wine in the fridge to greet us! The cottage had 2 bedrooms, a sitting room and kitchen and a bathroom. Really, it was just about perfect for the 4 of us for the weekend!
The sitting room (you can't see the fireplace but there was one!)
The Kitchen
Bedroom #1 with the beautiful stone wall
That night we went down the road to a local pub and got fish and chips for dinner then came back and knit around the fireplace until bed. The next morning we were all up bright and early in order to get into the festival first thing. We got there before it opened and waited in que with a lot of other lovely fiber folks from all over the country. One of them took a lovely photo of the 4 of us.
Once we were inside, it was a mad rush to the fleece tables. Now really, how often do you read about a mad rush to fleece tables?? Oh how I love wool festivals! As you can imagine, there wasn’t a whole lot of picture-taking going on as the fleece area was decimated pretty quickly and we were all surrounded by 2-3′ bumpers of bags of raw wool:-) I got (ahem) rather a lot of fleeces and the ladies got a few too. I think that at one point we had 20 fleeces in the back of the car! Here is a picture of us on the 2nd day at one of the fleece sorting tables:
Special thanks to Knit Magazine for sharing this photo with us. You can also find us on page 47 of issue #40:-) (Yes, we are everywhere looking like we are having fun!)
After we had done a thorough going through of all the fleeces we started taking in the actual event. Not a lot of pictures of this either as there was a lot of fondling of yarn and wool and oohing and ahhing over the different types and colors of yarns and equipment for sale. We met-up for lunch as we had brought sandwiches and fruit because I remembered how long the ques were at the food places years past. After lunch, we all moseyed off in our own directions again, meeting-up randomly throughout the venue. At the end of the day we all went to the Spin-in where we had dinner and met a lot of new folks.
That night we pretty much crashed at the cottage, admiring each others purchases and (trying) to pack all the fleeces into bags and such.
Saturday was a more leisurely morning as we didn’t feel the need to be at the grounds first thing. We drove in and stayed until a little after noon, meeting up with some friends and checking out some things that we may have missed the first day. That afternoon we went to the main Lakeland shop in Windermere for a late lunch and to do a little shopping. On our way back to the cottage, we found another perfect spot to take some photos of Herdys with a parking spot nearby.
When we got back to the cottage, Malin realized that she had dropped her Holden shawlette on the ground during our Herdy stop. So, into the car Malin and I went to rescue the shawl. However, we decided to take a different route back that I had vetoed the first time it was suggested by the GPS unit as it just looked kinda crazy. It was. Malin was taking pictures of it all and even did a video at one point to capture the full insanity of it. To say that it was some of the more interesting driving that I have ever done (and I have done some interesting driving in my life!) would be a gross understatement. There was a warning of a 30% incline and decline on this road before we even got to the fun parts:-) This road over 2 mountain passes was a single lane track for the vast majority of it with Herdwicks roaming on all sides and water flowing freely to boot. There were numerous times where I wasn’t sure where the road went because we were doing 30% up and a corkscrew at the same time. Oh, and since we were on top of the mountain was really, really foggy at some points! I didn’t take any photos (that would have been suicide [no rails between us and 100′ drops]) but Malin did and when she has a chance to sort through them and send me some, I will post them here…
Anyway, the rescue party made it over the mountains and found the shawl right where it was thought to be and took the much less exciting route back to the cottage again as it was starting to get dark.
The next day we got up fairly early as we needed to get Tini to her flight home and we still had a full car to pack! However, Malin and I are pros at packing my Toyota and we managed to get all 20+ fleeces plus baggage for 4 women into the car while still being able to see out the back window. There was yarn in every nook and cranny though! We drove back to the London area with plenty of time for Tini to make her flight out of Luton. The rest of us then went back to the Old Chapel and unpacked the car, much to the amusement of the hubby.
The next day we drove down to the University of Southampton’s Knitting Reference Library. This was seriously cool, as they have a large collection of knitting books and patterns from about as far back as written knitting patterns go. Barbro did an excellent blog post about it here but I also took some pictures.
The older magazines were amongst the most interesting
It's interesting to see how Vouge Knitting has changed!
Some of the ads were so cute!
Love the graphics on some of the covers
The ads for wartime knitting sort of blew my mind. Some of them admitted that folks couldn't get their product but said that when they could again they should use their coupons to buy their wool because it re-knit the best!
There were lots of war-time patterns. Many of them showed how to best re-use wool from a worn-out sweater or dress. By the end of the war, these patterns were using fabric sewn in to make up for the lack of both yarn and fabric available. Malin has an excellent picture here showing how the magazines also had to get smaller over a very short period of time due to paper rationing.
This is how we spent most of the afternoon:
The collection is pretty big and quite well-organized.
All of these are knitting or knitting related books
More knitting related books and magazines (in the archival boxes)
One view of the pattern collection
Another view of the pattern collection. It may not look that impressive, but most of those boxes were full and heavy with a LOT of old patterns.
The next day the 3 of us went into London on the train. First we went to the Camden Markets, which I had never been to before. Then, in the afternoon we went to Jon of Easyknits house for some retail therapy and Pimm’s! I didn’t take any photos of all of this (sorry) but Barbro was a regular little Robert Capa so you should check out this blog post of her’s.
That night we came home on the train with many more goodies and very, very tired. The next day was sort-of a free day. Malin and Barbro’s flights left in the afternoon, so that left the morning for some kool-aid dyeing and fleece skirting in the courtyard and packing of course! That afternoon I dropped the ladies off at Heathrow for their flights home with full (though not overly heavy) bags and lots of pictures on their cameras.
Last week I did something insane. I mean, really, really nuts. I woke-up at 1am to fly to Germany to visit the Wollmeise store while they were having their annual summer sale. Yeah, I really did. Honestly. I even have pictures!
I took the 6am flight from Gatwick to Munich on Easyjet. I didn’t want to check any bags, so I measured all my suitcases to see which fit the carry-on size the best. An older Boyt bag that I have had for a while now won hands-down.
It looks as though my Boyt bag was MADE for the Easyjet carry-on allowances!
I got to Munich around 9am and promptly headed into the city to be able to catch the train to Pfaffenhofen which is a bit outside of it. The countryside around Munich is lovely, full of orderly corn fields and farms. It felt a lot like where I grew-up in Iowa. Perhaps that’s part of the reason so many Germans settled in my area! Anyway, after a short train ride, I got off at the Pfaffenhofen station:
The cute train station in Pfaffenhofen.
I was leaving the station when I saw four women all walking together, all wearing knitwear. I asked them if they were going to the Wollmeise sale and they said yes and I walked with them to the shop. It was an easy, pleasant walk as we took a footpath that goes alongside the waterway that goes through the town. We got there and I was right into it!
One of the walls of wool at the Wollmeise Shop. This one was filled with really darkly dyed yarns, blacks with colors and undyed white yarns.
One of the many racks full of colorful Wollmeise yarns!
A larger shot of the same set of shelves.
Even though the sale was going on, the famous Wollmeise creatures were still on display!
Baskets full of Lace-garn were dotted around the shop.
Even with the store in sale mode, the displays were lovely.
So many colors!!!
The entire front window was one great big pile of lace-garn!
Of course I went into the famously pink bathroom! (Actually, it was my first stop!)
There were signatures from around the world.
At times the amount of Wollmeise yarn was a tad overwhelming.
The store was everything that I had been told to expect and more. Everyone that I met there was super friendly. Claudia had set-up picnic tables outside under the awning so that people could compare colors in daylight and so that there was more space for everybody to sit and knit and chat. I didn’t take any pictures of this area as I was really trying to not get folks in my photos, and there were always people hanging-out out there. I know that the shots that I got of the inside of the store makes it look empty, but I assure you, it was plenty busy the entire time that I was there. I just tried to take shots at moments when folks weren’t in the frame. I apologize for the quality of the pictures, but I was only using my iPhone to take them. I didn’t want to take my big Nikon and possibly take-up precious space for Wollmeise yarn!
After I had spent my budget, I took the train back to Munich and the airport. I had several hours to kill and by this time I was hungry and very, very tired. I decided to get dinner at the (only) restaurant in the terminal that I was flying out of. I got the special, which I thought was composed of: soup, sausage and a pretzel. This was what I got:
My unexpected dinner at the airport
It was sort of surprising when the lady took the 3 sausages out of a jar and stuck them in a bowl full of hot water. I mean, I guess that is sort-of a soup. It didn’t taste bad, but I was glad that I had the 2 packets of mustard! I also must’ve been dehydrated or really tired as that half liter of beer made me a tad tipsy!
Anyway, you don’t really want to see what I ate. You want to see what I got!
This is the glamor shot of all the skeins together.
It’s really hard to see the colors of some of them because a lot of them were the really dark black-with-a-color colors. So, for those of you keeping score out there. I got 16 Twin, 9 100% Merino and 2 Lace-garns. Not all of them were for me a (cough, hack) couple were for other folks:-)
Here are some more shots:
It was an interesting experience and I am deeply glad that I went. If you are ever nearby, I would totally suggest that you go and check it out!
Holy crap, that knitting just FLEW by! I love it when a pattern (in this case Simple Things by Mary-Heather Cogar) and a yarn (Skein Queen‘s Entwist in A Christmas Carol from the Knit magazine sock club) come together so very perfectly. At least in my opinion. The shawlete is a tad on the colorful side, but it will match pretty much everything that way!
This is the shawlete hot off the needles, not even blocked yet.
I had to run outside to take pictures of it because A.) no one would believe me that I finished something so fast otherwise and B.) the sun is going down and it is difficult to take pictures in the dark.
The amount of yarn worked out perfectly after I did 2 more repeats of the garter eyelet ridge than called for in the pattern. I had exactly 10 grams left over, perfect for my sock yarn blanket!
I plan on making this pattern again as it is lovely for watching TV or traveling. Really it’s almost stupid-proof. And it makes variegated sock yarns look great. Since there’s not a lot of lace to get lost, it could handle the deeply colorful nature of this yarn.
I will try to post blocking photos tomorrow (because y’all are just on edge for some hot blocking shots!).
I’ve had the strongest urge to start a new project for the past few days and I’ve kept stuffing it back down saying, “When I get done with this project…”. Well, that project had to go take an emergency bath and I allowed myself to cast-on a new project. I’ve really wanted to do something with the skein of yarn that I got from the Knit Sock Club first shipment which was dyed by Skein Queen if you don’t remember. However, I really didn’t want to do socks with it. I have come to this realization that I A.) Love sock yarn, B.) Don’t really like making socks that much and C.) Really enjoy looking at sock construction. Funny huh, at least 2 of the 3 needed ingredients are there but that middle one is sort-of a doozie to get over. I mean, I love (and I mean passionately love) making tubes. If I could reasonably make tube socks, I’d be a happy camper. But it’s the turning the heel and toe shaping that make me put down the socks. It’s not that I can’t do them. I can! I’ve completed 2 pairs of socks at this time with little or no help from others. It’s just that at that point I always put them down. I think that I’m not that big on thinking about what I am knitting, much preferring to just knit. To say that I am a process knitter is a great big DUH!!!
Anyway, put all this together and you have me trolling Ravelry for a pattern that I like for a little shawl or scarf that only uses one precious skein of sock yarn. And I found it. Even the name appealed to me for the mood I was in: Simple Things by Mary-Heather Cogar. I needed a really simple design for the amount of color in this skein of yarn and looking at the pictures of FO’s, I thought that this pattern could handle it.
Here is 2 evenings worth of work on it:
I am enjoying this pattern so much, don’t be surprised if everybody gets one of these for Christmas!
Yesterday I got the word that it was time to go get some fleeces that I have been watching for the past two years (at very high speeds as I drove by!). I thought that they were Hebridean sheep but I found out that they were Black Welch Mountain sheep instead. I think I can be forgiven the mistake:-) Anyway, I get there and this is what I first see… Lots of freshly shorn Black Welch Mountain sheep grazing.
This is what I saw (and smelled) next. A jumbled pile of fleeces.
And a friendly horse keeping an eye on me.
Then I saw this, the back of my car filled with fleeces (and more fleeces in that bag!).
Then I came home and walked some dogs. Not just mine, but the next door neighbor’s and their neighbor’s as well. This meant 2 Golden Retrievers, a Lurcher and a Miniature Long-Haired Chihuahua (who doesn’t need her lead for this walk). There is a lot more dog power there than it looks like, and if they were all a little more well-trained, I would probably strap skates on and mush them around the neighborhood!
As I was walking over the stile to get into the field, I got a great shot of my new shoes that got their inaugural trip to a farm today! All you sock knitter take note, stiles are a great place to take pictures of your feet! Action shots! In the countryside!
Then I cut some roses. Normally I am a big fan of leaving the flowers on the plants naturally, but this particular rose bush tends to get beaten by the wind and eaten by the bugs terribly. So, I’ve been cutting some flowers…
And I made a sort of impromptu arrangement…
I put a bunch of roses in small glass vases (of which I am quite fond and have a fairly sizable collection) and lined them up across the mantlepiece of our fireplace.
We live in a lovely place that gives us the opportunity to take our dogs for a walk every day in wonderful field up the road. Every day I see things that I wish I were a better photographer to be able to capture. Today was the swallows. They may have been back for a while, but I’ve not noticed them in the field before today. Mal likes to try to chase them as they fly low, skimming over the top of the grass in their search for insects.
While I didn’t get any photos of the swallows, I did get some of the slower moving dogs. First is Meara, lagging behind probably looking for something stinky to roll in.
The grass is already getting deep, to the point that we are starting to worry about losing Weezy in it. She doesn’t fret about it but we do when we suddenly can’t see her anywhere. Here she is in some grass that is just about as tall as she is.
Malcolm doesn’t really mind the grass getting taller, though it does tend to make his run more bouncy as he leaps through it.
Here’s hoping that your day was as beautiful as ours was!
I finally finished washing a very large Jacob fleece that I got a couple of years ago (hangs head knowing that I should have washed them when I got them). It wasn’t that difficult to wash, just that there was a LOT of it. Most of the Jacob sheep that I have “met” have been pretty good-sized animals. There are more than a few of them around here even, though I think that they are more pets and lawn mowers than normal sheep as they are fun to see with their coats of many colors and multiple horns. I’ve moved onto a moorit Shetland that was purchased in the same batch as the rest of the British wool group. It’s not nearly as nice as the fleeces that I picked-up in Lerwick from the special room at J&S. Then again, the special room in J&S is a result of Oliver and his 60+ years experience working with Shetland fleeces. When he sees a particularly interesting one, or a really, really nice one he pops it in there for the handspinners. This Shetland of unknown provenance is nice, though seems quite dusty. The water is less tea-like and more mud-like than I’ve seen to this point. It also smells dusty. Not like a barn like some of them have smelled but more like a shed where harvesting equipment is stored. I know that is really splitting hairs (and that the majority of people in the world aren’t going to have a clue as to what the hell I’m talking about) but it is interesting. It doesn’t smell particularly sheepy to tell you the truth. Some of the Shetland fleeces that I got in Shetland had a lot of peat in them which made them “fun” to wash (more like I was dunking giant tea bags with wool in them over and over and over) but none of them smelled anything like this. In fact, it makes me think that this fleece may have been from a Shetland sheep that isn’t located on the islands. I have nothing to back this up unless I want to get all CSI on its ass (I could sample the “mud” that I am getting out of it and see what it’s composed of and then compare that to soil surveys taken of the islands…. Ok, wow, just geeked myself out there for a little bit!).
Anyway, I am glad to see the back of the Jacob as I was starting to get a tad on the bored side with it. After the Shetland of unknown provenance I have 3 colored fleeces that were sold as simply “Fine Wool Coloured £2.75” and a “Cheviot £4.50”. Just to stave off the question that I know is going to be coming, the huge Jacob fleece was £3, the Coloured BFL was £5.25 and the Shetland of unknown provenance £3.75. Now, for those of you in the US that are beginning to hyperventilate over those prices for fleece, let me explain something. This is an island covered in sheep. In some areas farmers burn or mulch the fleeces that they get from sheep because they aren’t worth enough to pay for the shipping to the market (though, hopefully this won’t be the case this year as fleece prices have gone up significantly there). I also didn’t get to choose the fleeces that I got for those prices. But (hopefully I don’t have folks after me with wool combs after posting this!) the total price for the 7 fleeces that I got from the British Wool Marketing Board in 2009 was £33.70 and that included shipping to my house. This isn’t tooooo uncommon of a price to tell you the truth. Last year I got a Leicester Longwool at Woolfest for around £9 and the year before that I got a really nice Herdwick for £5. All of my Shetland fleeces from Shetland were between £5 and £10 (they were priced per kilo) and they were really really nice, like they would have possibly gone for triple digits at Rhinebeck… Some of the more canny farmers are starting to mark their fleeces up a bit for things like Woolfest, but most of them don’t too much yet as it is just too easy for most spinners here to get fleeces for very cheap or for free still.
So, you might be wondering what brought about this wool washing extravaganza all of a sudden. One word: Moths. I found a few in the downstairs part of the house on yarn that had been left out for ornamental purposes. It’s not too surprising to find them given that A.) the house has no screens on its windows so every Tom, Dick and Harry Moth can fly in when it gets warm out if they want to and B.) there are sheep (and wool) all around us. When I go for walks this time of the year, it’s not uncommon to find bits of wool in places that I know no sheep has been around and lining the sides of the roads after the wool truck has come. So there is plenty of food for the insidious destroyers of goodness just laying about. Anyway, I had all of these unwashed fleeces in the attic which (thankfully) hasn’t yet seen a single winged harbinger of destruction, but I was just waiting for it to happen. That many unwashed fleeces could just draw them like the One Ring drew power seekers to Frodo (sorry, been watching the LOTR trilogy the last few nights).
So last weekend the hubby and I made fleece bags (large, pillowcase-like bags to hold [in my case] clean fleeces) out of some old sheets that we had from Florida for covering plants when it froze there. He did the sewing and I did the cutting and we busted out a about a dozen in a little over an hour. Into these bags I put a small notecard with all the information I have about a particular fleece covered with a plastic baggie. I also put any original paperwork that may have come with the fleece into this baggie if I can. The plastic baggie keeps the paper from getting funky and makes it a little easier to find. After I put the fleeces into the fleece bags I will then put a couple of fleeces in their individual bags into a large, IKEA Dimpa bag and zip it closed. That way I have a couple of layers of defense between the fleeces and the dusty-winged bringers of doom (layers of defense: Clean fleece [moths like it dirty], cotton bag [not much of a defense, but it is a layer] plastic breathable bag [more of a defense {I do not believe the stories about moths eating through plastic bags, much more likely in my opinion that there was a small hole in the bag to begin with or that (and I know that no-one wants to believe this of themselves) they put the woolen product away with moths or their eggs already on it and they then had a feast inside the sealed plastic bag} though still not perfect], in the attic [have lots of the new type moth balls up there {not the nasty ones we remember from when we were young, these are sort of greasy and actually smell nice}]). I’m glad to finally have these washed as I’ve worried over the past few years that I was going to go up to the attic and find big paper bags (that’s what the fleeces came in) full of little squirmy moth larvae with their parents fluttering towards the heavens. Also, at least in this house, clean fleeces take up less space than the dirty ones do. This is mostly (I think) from the rather intense skirting that I give to some of them. I’m not going to try to scrub caked-in manure from a fleece unless it is made from freaking gold. Life is too short, fleeces are too cheap and it’s just plain icky. The manky bits that I don’t use go to a neighbor to either compost or use as mulch on her allotment.
I do plan on getting some more fleeces at Woolfest this year if I can. I live in a place where some pretty rare breed fleeces can be had for a really reasonable price. Even if I don’t spin them for a while, I am going to wash them ASAP this time so I don’t stay awake at night having visions of Tineola bisselliella chowing down on them.
In completely unrelated news, I had good luck (in my opinion, not so much in my husbands) at the Tring auction. Since I was busy last Saturday I bid on-line, which is really quite easy, though I’m not completely sure that you will get the absolute best price you could for it. One of the things that I won was a set of Gardening Dictonary from the 1890’s which is in excellent condition with all sorts of clippings and even a proper letter inside one! I love books with extra bits of emphera in them.
I also got the rockingest little set of tables. We currently have a big, long sectional couch that has no end tables or coffee table for visitors to set their drinks on when they are chatting with us. This solves that problem with little tables that slide out and can be used for each person! Score! Also it is the perfect size for our printer downstairs. Double Score!!
I also signed-up for classes at Knit Nation again this summer. I nearly forgot about the registration opening despite receiving multiple e-mails reminding me about it. I did get 2 out of the 3 classes I wanted and am on a waiting list for the 3rd. The two classes I’ll be taking (for sure) are both by Judith McKenzie and are Spinning a Fine Thread and The Gentle Art of Spinning for Socks. The 3rd class that I wanted was Franklin Habit‘s Photographing your Fiber which, if I read things right, sold out in about 5 minutes after registration opened. (Me thinks he might want to offer more of that class in the future!) So, I would never ever wish ill on someone (who wasn’t cutting me off in traffic [and lets face it, that doesn’t technically count as it would be physically impossible for them to actually do that]) so I’m wishing for really really fantastic things to happen to everyone in my way of taking that class. Winning trips to Tahiti, getting married, having a baby (that they really wanted of course!), moving to Australia, whatever floats their boat so that I can take their mooring space when they leave. It’s not bad for your karma if you wish good things for people so that something good can happen to you is it??
I’m also getting ready for 2 Finns and a Yank hit the road Part II. Barbro and Malin are coming back over for (hopefully) a more laid back visit (for all of us!) again this summer. We are driving up to the Lakes District to go to Woolfest as well as to check out the area. We’re going to be spending 3 nights up there. This will be the most time that I have spent up there and I am looking forward to having a leisurely look around for once. They will be staying with us for about a week and we are all really looking forward to it. Well, except for Kali, Malcolm’s girlfriend next door. Malcolm gets so wrapped-up in Malin that he frequently forgets about his other blond! We’re driving up the day before so that we can get there bright and early and I at least, plan on hitting the fleece tables early and often! (I can hear the husband keening as he reads this tonight… Sorry honey!)
So that takes care of June and July and as of right now I don’t have any concrete plans for August. There might be something there, but it is with the hubby so am keeping it under wraps for the moment.
On other unrelated news, I’ve had very good mail this week. I got my first installment of Knit magazine’s sock club that was dyed by Skein Queen. It’s a lovely yarn with a nice twist and colors that I like. She named all of the colorways that she did for the sock club after books. Mine is A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. It’s a great start to the club and I am very pleased with it!
Sarah Jane Humke 