Especially the little, lonely, black sheep on one side.
I kind of want to keep it, but that’s just a little too Hoarders-esque even for me. Sigh. I tried to find more of it at the shop, but now it’s all boxes with Scandinavian style hearts on them. If I want shit with Scandinavian style anything on anything I’ll just go to IKEA like everybody else! Damnit. First time that the insipid box designers at Kleenex came up with something good and then they STOP MAKING IT!!!!
If someone in some other place still sees these regularly… stock-up now, or be sheepy free forever!
(Yes, I know, 2 blogs posts in one day. Watch out folks, I’m all kinds of hopped-up on Dr Pepper and Sour Cream and Onion Pringles!!)
Yeah, you got that right. I AM the snot monster! For about a week now I have been extremely easy to track. Just follow the damp, wadded-up kleenex. It has been all, “Code Milky Green!” up in these parts. In other words, I have morphed into my arch villein, the Snot Monster. See, I believe that we all have both an arch villein and a superhero in us. My superhero, by the way, is the Magnificent Magpie who can spot just what you’re looking for in even the most jumbled-up market booth. Anyway, the Snot Monster has been in full possession of my person for the past week or so. See, the hubby and I went to Tallinn to celebrate our anniversary (a bit late, I know) and I got a stupendous head cold. I mean, like getting up in the middle of the night every few hours to take a hot shower because it was the only thing that made my head feel better kind of head cold.
Luckily, it didn’t strike until our last night there. Unluckily, I was using the “unprepared suitcase” AKA, the one without the drugs and first-aid kit in it (seriously). We were up and out of the hotel first thing in search of someplace that sold Tylenol, ibuprofen, or a really big mallet. However, the guide-book was really not kidding when it says that Tallinn is a city of late risers. We were practically STALKING the pharmacy until it opened at 9am. I think that there were maybe half a dozen places total in all of the old part of Tallinn that opened before, and none of them sold drugs. I’m sure that the folks inside thought that we were two particularly insane American tourists as we stalked up to the door, looked at the time, stood around a little uncertainly, then wandered off glumly trailing wet tissues time and time again. Finally, when it opened, I had this perverse and inexplicable need to look at the historical display that they had set-up of what the pharmacy used to sell (horse testicles anyone?). Finally, the lady behind the counter was free and I rushed-up to her and in nearly incomprehensible (to me) English asked for drugs for my head. I’m guessing that this lady got this request in this caliber of English a lot as she asked me a series of questions ending with me walking out with a package of 400mg ibuprofen tablets. For cheap. Like, really cheap. I think it was like a quid. I’m not completely sure, I just handed her a handful of money and let her sort it out. Who knows, that may have actually been the most expensive drugs that I have ever gotten in my life! Though, given that I am an American, that seems really doubtful.
So, I spent the rest of the day in a sort of drug addled fog. This was probably not the day to be foggy because I went to Karnaluks, the mega craft store, which I will write about (and show a few pictures of) in another blog post. I ran out of tissues in the store and seriously considered using Estonian money and probably would have except for the fact that the money was often quite grubby and, in some cases, smelled a bit funny. They are going over to the Euro in a few weeks so I am sure that they probably stopped printing money awhile ago and what’s out has been all sorts of grubby places (pauses to wash hands again). So I was wandering around this store, sniffing loudly, trying to unroll my emergency toilet paper to use as tissues (what, you don’t carry emergency t.p.?) and blowing my nose like an underwater trumpet in a sort of glaze from the drugs, the cold, the overwhelming amount of stuff in the store and from converting the prices into pounds in my head. On the walk back to the hotel (no taxi as I had spent ALL of the money) we stopped and got me kleenex finally. I was in a stupefied way, very happy. I mean, I had drugs, I had yarn, and I had tissues (not to mention my rockin new Estonian convertible mittens!).
That night we flew home after watching the Tallinn airport snow clearing crew do something like the dance of the hippos, only with large tractors and snowplows. In my drug addled state, it was highly amusing to watch out the window of the departure gate. This did not make up for the pain that I was about to encounter on the flight. Actually, the flight was “ok”, I was hurting, but nothing that I couldn’t handle with just a few tears and screams. No, it was the LANDING that brought me to my knees. Seriously, I was hoping that the flight would crash and turn us all to incinerated dust. My ears would not pop. They did not pop for DAYS!!!!! We got home and I don’t think that I really left the bed for anything other than peeing for about 2 days. Yeah. I smelled a bit like Estonian money at that point. I was home, and I had some good American drugs to knock my ass out, as well as some good, strong Estonian drugs. Warning! Do not mix nationalities of drugs, weird things happen. To anyone who got an e-mail, text message, tweet or really any sort of communication during that time, I am so sorry. I blame it on the drugs.
Anyway, for the past 3 days or so, I have been trying to capture and destroy all of the errant tissues that seemed to have gotten everywhere, while still making more. I don’t understand how so very much snot can come out of my nose and sinuses. I mean, I understand physically how it can happen, still it doesn’t seem quite rational on a physics plane. You know, the whole laws of matter and space-time stuff. Just does not seem to be computing. I mean, it’s a LOT of snot! It’s not one of those “sniffles” where you have a drip-drip-drip of snot that is easily wiped away with a tissue that can be used for that purpose multiple times. No, this is one good honk and the tissue is LEAKING. Yes ewwww. And it was leaking all over MY FACE!!!! Double eww!
So, word to the wise, don’t shake hands with me just yet. And don’t touch my tissues!
Yeah, that about sums up my urge to blog the past few weeks. And I’ve stuff to blog about to be sure. I went to Fibre Flurry in Birmingham and had a great time despite the M1’s attempt at making me miss it entirely. I went to Loop in London, finally. I had dinner with one of my roommates from KC and her family. I had a tour of a prospective campus for my graduate degree. I’ve done a lot of spinning. The annual moving of the tender plants into the conservatory took place. I mean, TONS of stuff has been going on, but I’ve not blogged a bit about it. Just couldn’t be arsed.
So, a super speedy tour is deserved if you’ve hung on this long awaiting a new post.
Fibre Flurry was fun. The M1 was not. We (tech support came with me) were stuck on the M1 for hours going under 30mph for most of it. However, we did finally make it, and it was great! The building it was held in was super cool, with the exposed logs of a very old building and super modern glass and steel for other parts. Being late to the game had its advantages as we avoided the scrum match that apparently occurred in the morning. Since I wasn’t taking any classes, being late wasn’t the end of the world as there were only (God I sound so jaded don’t I?) 26 vendors, so it was easily doable in an hour or two. Of course I got to chat with Jon from EasyKnits and his lovely hubby Roy for a bit as well as Ann Kingstone and the fantastic gang at The Bothered Owl. I’ve seen most of the vendors before, though there was one that was new to me, Posh Yarn which had some absolutely lovely stuff. I bought one skein of “Martha” sock yarn in the colorway “Running Wild” which has been my petting yarn for the past few weeks.
Loop in London is an absolutely lovely store in a very fun little shopping neighborhood. I didn’t take any pictures (bad me!) but I did get a book and some Malabrigo lace yarn. I could easily make an entire day of the neighborhood, which has lots and lots of vintage and antique shops on tiny back streets. That night I met with Kirsten and her wonderful family for dinner. It was a really lovely day to say the least!
I went to the Silwood Park campus of Imperial College London for a tour and to learn more about the masters program that they have there in both entomology and integrated pest management. I plan on applying for one of these programs which would start next year in October. It’s a year-long program, including research. It would be a crappy drive to get to Ascot each day of the week, but the days seem full and well planned and I wouldn’t be driving an hour each way only to spend an hour or two in classes or something.
Tomorrow the hubby and I are leaving for Estonia and Finland. Well, to be precise, we are going to Tallinn, staying overnight, then taking the ferry to Helsinki where the hubby may stay in the city or may come with me up to Tampere where I am meeting with Malin and Barbro and going to a big craft fair. Then Malin and I are coming back down to Helsinki where we will get to meet her furry niece (dog) and her hopefully not so furry brother for dinner:-) The hubby and I are then spending the night in Helsinki, then taking the ferry back over to Tallinn for the rest of the week. I hoping that we will have some time to go up to Haapsalu, home of the lace knitters made famous in the US by Nancy Bush.
Since I have no pictures of any of the exciting things I’ve been doing, I will go to my default. A gratuitous Meara shot:
God, she gets me every time!
(Just an FYI, the dogs and Jiji the cat are going to our local kennel while we are gone. They love going there. The first time we left Meara there, she came back with a pulled muscle in her, well, her bum from playing so much. It’s a vacation for them too I think!)
I guess that accident isn’t totally correct. This yarn was made with the remainder of the leftover fibers that I had from Janel Laidman’s spinning class at Knit Nation. There is (I think) some alpaca and silk, Merino and silk, BLF and silk, and BFL or Merino and Tencel in this yarn. I had 3 bobbins with these leftovers, one with the alpaca, one with the Tencel and one with the Merino and BFL. I then did a straight 3 ply of all the singles together. The Tencel adds some serious shine while the alpaca adds a little bit of halo. I really can’t wait to see if this blooms some more after I wash it.
To say that this is a seriously lush yarn would be an understatement. I need to play like this more often as most of the time I think of the fibers that get as sort of individual yarns even though combining them gets me much more interesting yarns as well as more yardage on a single bobbin.
Now I’m going to be eyeing my fiber stash with a lean toward color combos. Be afraid, be very afraid!
Thursday I returned from a really good day at Ally Pally (I’ll write more about it later) with my friend Jon of Easyknits (LOVE the new Twinkle yarn btw) and there was a large package waiting for me in the entryway. The return address was the retail store of the organizer of Knit Camp. This wasn’t completely shocking as I had heard of other folks having received their zoodies. What was surprising was the size of it and that it was much heavier than a single item of clothing would be.
So, I opened it. Inside was the expected zoodie as well as some other stuff. Books. Yarn. Fiber. I’m not completely sure, but in all probably about equal to the amount that the organizer had said that she would reimburse me for Knit Camp. And its not bad stuff; whomever filled this box did so with some consideration. All of the yarns are in colors that I would use and like, the fibers likewise. The books, well, I’m not sure if the person who filled this box checked my Amazon wishlist or not, but the two books were both on there. This box was thoughtfully filled with me in mind, not just chucked full of junk.
So I’m calling it even, at least financially. I know that I will never see the money and I would never take it now so long as there are folks so much harder off than I am because of this event. So, it’s ok. Not good, not great, but ok.
I do have Knit Camp to thank for a number of things. I met a ton of new people who share my illness for the wool. I learned just how much I could take, and still stay smiling (hint: it’s a lot). I saw just how much someone who is having a good time and is happy can make the folks around them have a better day just for being around them (thanks yummy-mummy for that!). I questioned the career that I have chosen for myself since it generally doesn’t involve being around people a lot, and I think that I’m pretty good at helping folks (thanks modeknit for that kick-in-the-pants!). Not to sound all new-age-y on y’all, but I grew as a person.
There it is. As far as Knit Camp and I are concerned, I’m done. Knit Camp took up most of my summer, I’ll be damned if it is going to take up my autumn and winter as well! I will still assist the tutors and employees in any way that I can to help them get what’s owed to them of course. However, if y’all have some pictures of me there, I would love to see them! I only took a handful of photos the entire week (it’s hard to take pictures and run at the same time!).
A fund to help compensate the unpaid tutors at Knit Camp has been set up. It is being run by an accounting firm in the UK to make sure that everything remains completely above-board and open. The tutors who were affected are:
Ann Kingstone
Annie Modesitt
Carol Feller
Deb Robson
Debbie Bamford
Debbie Tomkies
Di Gilpin
Donna Druchunas
Ewa Kuniczak
Jane Harrisson
Jared Flood
Jon Dunn
Kate Tetlow
Kerrie Allman
Liz Lovick
Lorilee Beltman
Lucy Neatby
Mary Jane Mucklestone
Nancy Bush
Nancy Marchant
Rebecca Bonser
Sasha Kagan
Woolly Wormhead*
Yeah, it’s basically a who’s-who of the fiber world.
If you would like to contribute, the easiest way to do it is to go to this link on Ravelry. There are instructions there. A lot of these folks are paying interest on flights and transport that was never repaid, let alone their mortgages that are late because not getting paid for their teaching that they did. As famous and glamorous as many of these folks are to us, being a knitwear designer isn’t all that high-paid of a profession. They can’t afford to have taught these classes for free…
There are also folks that are auctioning things off with the resulting money going to the fund. The information about thoseauctions are also on Ravelry.
Fiber folk are some of the most generous folks in the world. I have met more people who are willing to spend hours knitting or crocheting a garment for someone who they will never probably meet. These folks you have met either through teaching or reading their books and articles. Please help, I am have.
*The list is from one posted by Pat Ashforth on Ravelry.
So, since it seems that my proper Shetland posts are going to take a dogs-life to be written (we crammed a lot into a week!) I figure that I can give you some swag shots to keep y’all happy:-)
Now, as you all know, the whole trip was arranged by Jamieson and Smith, the Shetland Wool Brokers. So it only makes sense that I got a lot of J&S wool!
Literally.
This is 3.5 Shetland fleeces from Oliver’s Special Stash for handspinners. I’ve not taken them out yet as I don’t really have a good place to put them where the Malcolm dog won’t try to eat them. I would like to take them out of the plastic bags photograph them and store them in a pillowcase or a cloth bag of some sort, but I am rather short of bags at the moment. So they will stay in the plastic for the moment…
I also got some processed wool from them. This is 500 grams of Grey Shetland tops.
And I got two of these 500 gram balls of white Shetland Superfine from them as well. It’s really dreamy to work with…
I also got an arse load of the J&S 2 Ply Lace yarn, which I am a big fan of. I got enough in the white to be able to do a fairly large shawl in it and a much smaller amount in the denim blue for a lace scarf.
Sorry about the seriously crappy photo. It looks like those pictures that people post on ebay that have been done with a scanner. However, one of the absolutely great things about the ladies at J&S is that they package your yarns and fibers like the apocalypse is coming and they want the yarn to survive it! Thus, it is packaged so well that there is really no good reason to take it out. Except that it doesn’t photograph well:-)
Anyway, I also got a fair amount of their 1 Ply Cobweb lace yarn. This I got in Optic, which is a tad lighter than the natural colorway.
I also gave into the siren song of the Aran yarns, buying this cone in a lovely shade of green. Trust me, the color is much prettier than the photograph!
One of the things that greeted us when we got to the hotel on Shetland was lovely goody bags from J&S and Liz Lovick. Inside was a shade card from J&S (and I bought the other one later from Jamieson’s [though that was the only thing that I got from them!]).
Also in this goody bag was a lovely shawl pin/bookmark from Liz.
The charms on it could all be removed to be used at stitch markers. Definitely designed by a knitter!
Our hotel was right across the street from The Spiders Web which sells hand and frame knitted items from on the island. I got a few things there, mostly as gifts for people at home. However, I did get one thing there for me, a hand-bound blank-book covered in Fair Isle knitting.
Next to the Spiders Web was a little shop selling all sorts of odds and ends, lots of collectibles and things like that. However, in it there was a totally random adjustable sweater blocker, which I got despite knowing how much of a pain in the butt it was going to be to get home.
One of our favorite shops in Lerwick was the Peerie Shop, which also had (imho) the best cafe in the town at the back of it. It was filled with quirky, gifty sort of things, but the thing that made it stand out in my mind was the amount of sheepy goods in it compared to other similar shops elsewhere.
I bought this really cool mug with all different breeds of sheep on it, including “Shorn Sheep” and “Mountain Bike Sheep”. It’s very cute and is now holding pens and pencils by my couch in my room. It makes me smile whenever I stop to look at it.
The shop also were selling some cotton bags with their store logo on them for a pound. I couldn’t resist what with their logo being primarily a SHEEP!
While we were out and about there were lots of places with postcards of sheep for sale…
(Yes, I am getting quite a collection of sheepy postcards!)
Lerwick also had an awesome little bookstore with a really nice knitting book section. I got a couple of books there.
I also got another small book about Unst’s lace knitting traditions called A Stitch in Time: Unst’s fine lace knitting by the Unst Heritage Trust at the Unst museum.
The Shetland Soap Company makes lovely soaps right in Lerwick where I got a few bars. They had these wee mini bars that will be perfect for making my yarns smell nice without taking up a lot of space.
And last, but definitely not least, is my new sheep pen:-)
I went to the iKnit Weekender on the Friday a few weeks ago just to shop and see some friends. I didn’t take any classes as I was still a tad “knit-out” at that point. However, I did shop!
First off, I got some lovely yarns from the lovely Jon of Easyknits. This is the colorway Solider Boy, which I believe is pretty new, in the Merino/Silk blend. I couldn’t leave the Royal Horticultural Halls without it!
I also got this “Socks seen from Space” colorway called Carousel in the 100% Superwash BFL.
And lastly, I got the colorway Swamp Thing in the BFL as well.
While I was at the Easyknits booth, I also got some patterns from a friend of mine, Marleen of Dutch Knitting Design. She’s been designing a lot lately using the Easyknits yarns, thus she was in the booth helping out in all of her craziness:-) I got her book as well as a couple of her individual patterns which I’ve wanted ever since Knit Camp where she taught one of the classes that I took at the last-minute. She hadn’t been planning on teaching and thus had only brought a few copies of her book and patterns. She does sell her patterns on her website as well as through Ravelry, but I love how much attention to detail that she has put into her printed copies. I highly recommend her patterns as they are written so clearly that even I can follow them with ease!
I also ended-up with a wee cute tape measure at the Easyknits booth.
There were quite a few people at iKnit that had been at Stirling that I hadn’t had a chance to shop at then. I didn’t miss my chance this time! One of those booths was the Textile Garden booth of button-y goodness. I got a few different batches of buttons and stuff there!
Woolly Wormhead was also floating around signing books, so I got one from her…
Ann Kingstone was there with a booth selling her patterns as well. The description of the Hartfield design was enough to sell it for me!
I’ve wanted a shawl pin for a while now, but haven’t been able to get designs that I wanted (I always wait and then someone else gets it!). I snagged this one post-haste when I saw it!
I also got some Wensleydale rovings in natural colors.
As was iKnit the shop, where I got the newest version of Alice Starmore‘s book Aran Knitting which I had hoped to get signed, but I apparently missed the announcement for over the loudspeakers.
I also got a skein of Cherry Tree Hill Fingerpaints yarn in the colorway Cider House. I really like their yarns and am glad to see someone carrying them in the UK.
I also got a flick carder as well as a set of Louet Mini Combs, but I have (naughty, naughty me!) forgotten which stand they came from. This is why I should be better about writing these up as soon as I get home…
Last, but definitely not least, I got some really scrummy superwash Merino roving braids from the Picperfic‘s stand.
It was a really lovely day and I’m glad that I went on the Friday, since it was less busy. I got to talk with lots of folks and hang-out with Jon and Marleen afterwards, which is always an event guaranteed to have something snorting out your nose!
This past weekend I once again ventured North. On Thursday I left the Chapel in the morning and headed towards the Yorkshire Dales once again. I wanted to visit a few places that I hadn’t been able to see the last couple of times that I had been in that neighborhood. The drive up isn’t too hard, it’s mostly M1 or A1 then a bit on the A684.
First I went to the Wensleydale Longwool Sheepshop just outside of Leyburn. The road to the shop is well-marked from the main road and I had no trouble finding it. It’s down a long, single-lane road that was nearly coated in pheasants out catching a few rays of sunshine. I didn’t take any photos of the shop as the light failed as soon as I got there, but it does look much as it appears on their website. The Wensleydale yarns end-up with a lovely sheen, much like the sheep themselves. I did see a few of the sheep in a field, but it was too difficult to get the car stopped in a safe way in order to photograph them.
A horn key chain that I picked up.
I then went on to Hawes, which I had stopped at with Barbro and Malin on the way to Scotland. I had kicked myself that I hadn’t gotten a little shallow pot or mug from the potter across the street from the ropemaker’s workshop as they had lovely rams on them. So, I got a little shallow pot to put odds and ends into as well as stopping in at the ropemaker’s and getting a small present for the neighbors helping to keep an eye on Mal at home.
The rams head is the symbol for the area.
I then headed East towards Newcastle and Sunderland. I reached Sunderland easily enough and found the cafe where I was going to be meeting my friend Veronica as well as the lovely Suzanne from Knit Camp. The knitting group was quite friendly and the cafe that it was held in served quite tasty and reasonably priced food.
After the knitting group, Veronica rode with me back to her home in Northumberland. It’s a fair trek, but it was an easy drive since there was no-one else about at that point. I was introduced to her kitty and given the grand tour. She lives in a pretty old village, though in a practically brand-new house. On my bed, there was a little pile of treats.
Yep! Reeses Pieces baby! Aren't I a lucky houseguest?!?!
The next day I got-up with V and drove into the suburbs of Newcastle. She got me sorted for the Metro and she went off to work and I went off exploring. First up was the Bill Quay Community Farm. It is a city farm plopped between the river and quite a lot of houses. I didn’t have any trouble finding it and had a good wander around. They didn’t have a lot of different breeds of sheep there, some Jacobs and Hebridean but the whole farm was charming with lots of sculpture and imaginative reusing of materials.
This Jacob Ram just wanted to get his picture taken...
and why not? Totally photogenic!
Flying pigs
Does this statue remind anyone else of Season 2 of True Blood?
I then went into the city proper where I hunted down The Knit Studio in the centre of Newcastle. Anyone traveling to Newcastle really should hunt down this shop if, for nothing else, to know what knitting stores can be in this country. Anne Makepeace, the owner of the store, has found an amazing space in the 13th century Blackfriars Priory building. Since it is on the 2nd floor (1st to folks in the UK) it has high ceilings and nice tall windows and plenty of space! There are 2 comfortable couches as well as a large table to sit at and tons of beautiful antique display cabinets full of yarns, notions, kits and books.
(I do have photos of the shop, I just can’t get them off my phone right now. Gotta love technology!)
Rainbow colored lace? How could I resist?!
After hanging out a bit there and having lunch in Newcastle’s Chinatown, I wandered back to my Metro stop. There I went to Fenwick’s, which is a department store chain in the Northern part of the country. It is really a lovely store, reminding me greatly of Marshall Fields before it was bought by Macy’s. It has a nice little haberdashery department, though the yarn selection was really lacking. However, it did have a fun food hall where they did sell assorted American foods and candies. I then took the Metro back to the area where V is working currently. I have to say, the Metro was quite nice to deal with. It was clean, not too crowded (unlike London) and was very much on time. Highly suggest using it. Anyway, we drove back out into the wilds (it does, in fact, feel very much like you are driving off into a very wild place in this neck of the woods!) where I finally got to meet Veronica’s partner and we all went off to a neighboring village to compete in a village hall quiz. We were doing quite well as a team, at one point we were even in first place, until we got to the Northumberland questions. Sigh. I got out my knitting…. However, it was a fun evening and I was quite excited by the geography section of the quiz as it had US states on it!!! Of course I got them all correct:-) (My Grandmother would turn in her grave if I hadn’t!!!!)
Saturday we got up fairly early and took off North. We were headed towards St. Abbs in Scotland, home of the lovely Woolfish. I’ve met lovely Louise at a number of yarny events, most recently the iKnit weekender. She always has lovely stuff for sale and I was excited to go to her knitting group, which is held in her HUGE conservatory of her house. The ladies there were lovely and the scones were to die for!!! We then walked down the hill to the shop and had a good nose around, buying a few things. One of the things that I thought was most interesting was how they displayed this huge amount of yarn… in the fireplace. Their shop is in the old smithy’s and thus there is a huge fireplace full of a wool and silk chunky yarn! It’s great! Once again, would totally suggest stopping by the shop if you are in the area.
The yarny fireplace
Seriously, it goes WAY up!
Totally makes me look at the warming possibilities of a fireplace in a new light!
I got a few skeins of that luscious bulky chimney yarn as well as a few tiny little balls of sock yarn.
We then took a turn down to the village of St Abbs, which is charming. It’s an old fishing village and the North Sea is very much in play..
St Abbs
After nearly getting soaked we got back in the car and headed South again, ending up in Alnwick. Alnwick is a charming village with a fair number of businesses and, quite possibly, the largest used bookstore that I have ever been in. It’s called Barter Books and it takes up the majority of a largish train station. It has a huge non-fiction section, though it’s craft books were thin on the ground. However, because of its size, it was open and easy to navigate, none of the claustrophobic rat-packiness that you quite often find in used book stores. Once again, would strongly suggest checking it out if you are in the area.
Our way home got a tad interesting when I missed a turn, and the GPS didn’t mind..
We saw this handsome man and wondered about his halter. Is this for marking the ewes that he has bred?
The next day was the Masham Sheep Fair. V’s local spinning guild had a coach that was going for the day which we met in a nearby village. All of the people on it were quite nice and it was relaxing to get to actually ride through the Yorkshire Dales for once, rather than driving! We arrived in Masham around midday and we immediately jumped into the fray. The first port of call was the fleece sale. Both V and I looked over the fleece and walked away empty-handed. The selection looked throughly picked-over and though there were a few interesting breeds left represented, they were in such a condition that we passed on them.
We then went over to watch the sheep show, which was amusing and educational at the same time. Anytime that you get to see sheep dancing…..
After the dancing sheep we went and visited the craft stalls and judging area. This was held in the Masham Town Hall and thus had nice bathrooms. I got a few things here including some Swaledale aran-weight yarn and some Falkland tops.
Sorry about the photo, I tried to get a little bit out of the middle and had a yarn prolapse!
Falkland Tops
Then it was time for the sheep!
There were children showing sheep (which is always cute!)
There were children in a parade wearing a sheep, or to be more precise, a golden fleece.
In general, there were sheep everywhere! I then got a few sheepy items at various stalls that were raising money for various good things…
A Sheepy tea towel.
A Sheepy mug.
A Black Sheep Brewery Masham Sheep Fair t-shirt.
Some sheepy (and cow-y) postcards.
And I stopped in at the guild stands as well and got this batch of Cheviot roving.
There weren’t just sheep at the Fair, there were also dancers! Some of them with flowers on their heads!
Morris Dancers getting down.
Belly Dancers in Town Square.
Back at V’s house, we set to sorting her fleeces out on her deck. She has the ability to find fleeces far and wide thus had quite a backlog of fleeces awaiting skirting, sorting and logging into her fleece logs. By bedtime we were both smelling even more sheepy, but had gotten a fair number of fleeces squared away.
It was a great weekend and I saw a lot. I’m slowly getting it through my head that this is a small country thus their animal shows are small as well. The atmosphere of the Fair felt a lot like the county fair back home, only smaller and, well, more British:-) If you are up in that area of the country when the fair is going on, I would strongly suggest taking a day and checking it out.
I’ve had a ton of people asking me what I’ve been doing since KC. The week after KC I spent in Shetland with the J&S group. I will blog about it, but I have a lot to write (and until recently, hadn’t felt like writing all that much!) However, what I have spent a lot of time doing is spinning. For whatever reason, I get back from KC and Shetland and instead of the spirit moving me to knit, it moved me to spin. First off, I plied a bunch of the samples that I had made at KC and Knit Nation (which I will also write about!) I just Navajo plied them since they were already a mix of stuff and I plan on using the resulting odd yarn in one of my scrapghans. I always make sure that there is at least a little bit of handspun in each one that I make.
Then I plied two bobbins of singles that I had spun (ah-hum) last winter from a fleece that I had gotten at Rhinebeck in 2008. Now, here’s the ironic part of all of this. I took two classes on how to spin laceweight this summer. One at KN and one on Shetland. When I plied these 2 singles that I had spun last year they came out about as fine at the J&S laceweight. Doh! However, I can now spin even finer, so will definitely be spinning more for lace!
Barbro gave both Malin and I a gift of “Wild Fibre Blends”, which is a bag full of bits of silk, wool, sparklies, all sorts of stuff. You are supposed to card it into something to give you a “wild” yarn. It’s not something that I would have normally gotten for myself, so I’m glad that Barbro gave it to me as I had a lot of fun mixing this with some dark Corridale. It made a fun batt which made this:
I also had a batt and a half from Fyberspates. The half was left over from my class at KN and the whole one I purchased over a year ago at the Ravelry Day in Coventry. I spun these both up and Navajo plied them as well.
Then I got into a super sparkle batt that I had gotten at Woolfest in 2009. I learned a couple of important lessons with this one. First off, a good scale is really valuable when spinning. Second, do make a test strand when you are plying. I had decided that this was going to be a 2 ply, so I had weighed the batt and divided it into 2 equal parts which I then spun-up. So far, so good. I then plied the singles making a nice enough yarn, but not what I had been aiming for precisely. I should have just stopped there, and tried something else, but I was fully invested in the path that I had started down. So I kept pressing on, plying and plying until I got to the end of one of the bobbins. There was still a few meters on the other one, so I decided to just Navajo ply it to be done with it. Imagine my dismay when I realized that the Navajo plying was giving me exactly what I wanted! Doh! I think that this is definitely one of those “live and learn” moments!
I also did something that I’m pretty sure is naughty. I was trying to knit a shawl with the sushi roll that I dyed at KC in Jon‘s class and I was getting really annoyed with the little bumps caused by the unraveling of already knitted yarn. So, I yanked the whole thing out and skeined it and then washed it and weighted it to pull out the ridges. I don’t think that doing that in itself is all that bad, but the fact that I didn’t knit it straight from the roll makes me feel a bit guilty. However, it made some really pretty yarn I think!
The Sushi Roll photo I took at Camp
The Sushi Roll Skeined...
...and in all it's bouncy glory.
The other thing that I have been doing is reading, a lot. I got into the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon which starts off in Scotland and kicks around a lot, but is essentially a Scottish story. I had heard about it from my German roommates while at KC and decided to look into it. Well, I’m now on book 5 of the series and given that these bad boys usually run well over 1000 pages… well yeah, it is a bit of a guilty pleasure:-)
*I edited this post to change the title a bit as I realized belatedly that I had already used that one. Opps!
Sarah Jane Humke 