Great Lakes Fiber Show 2008

Going into the fiber festival, I had a list, and it was going to be cheap. I was going to get SUPERWASH roving to make socks for the 3 people that appreciate my handknits the most, my dad, my sister, and my boyfriend.

What did I bring home?

Two 8oz bumps of roving from Creatively Dyed (google her, she has an online shop). The green will be for my sister, and the pink will most likely be for myself. Either that or the pink will end up on etsy if I’m sick of it, or run out of knitting time.

Next:

Batts! FROM THE BUFFALO LADY! I’ve bought stuff from them in the past (haven’t spun it yet hehe) but it is quite lovely. This was purchased as a request from the boyfriend. He decided he wanted fingerless mitts instead of socks. Which is fine by me, because it’ll be a faster knit.

And last but not least…. drum roll please!

My Coopworth Fleece. I fell in love the moment I saw it. it was just so white! AND filled with lanolin! Double bonus. hehe. It shall be washed soon, and carded whenever I get around to it. I don’t know how fast I’ll get to the fleece, cause I’ve got other things I want to work on, but I do know that I’ll be at least washing the fleece in the near future. Just as soon as I figure out how… Thank goodness for the internets.

Well I didn’t get anything that I had said I was going to buy. But I’m happy. My sis will get bright, obnoxious handspun socks, with enough handspun leftover if she should wear any holes in them. The boyfriend is happy cause he’s getting mitts, and my dad will get something special, even if I have to buy the roving online.

Loom Knitting FO

Eons ago I started a scarf for charity on the Purple Knifty Knitter Loom. Today I finished it. You may have noticed lately that I’ve been doing a lot of charity knitting. Truth is, I used to do a lot more, but when school got busy, the charity stuff fell through the floor. This year though I’m going to try to do a lot more. Since it’s summer I’ve been trying to do an hour a day on some sort of charity project. That’s why the Prayer Shawl seemed to get done pretty quickly lately, and why this scarf followed so quickly after it.

Ta da!  My sister was gracious enough to model it for me.  Shortly after she informed me that she felt like keeping it, so if it disappeared, I’d know who stole it.  I told her she couldn’t have it, and then she was offering to buy it.  Lately she’s been wanting to make a scarf with some of the yarn she bought back when she was doing an art project a month ago, but had never started it.  So I took out the small blue KK Loom, showed her how it worked, and handed it off to her.  We’ll see how long it takes her to finish it.  She’s hoping she’ll be done before the weekend is over.

Just in case you forgot, this Saturday and Sunday is the Great Lakes Fiber Show!!!  I’m thrilled.  The BF will be going with me tomorrow morning and I’m super excited.  It’s kinda sad, my yarn/fiber stash has actually shrunk this year, and I’ll blow that shrinkage outta the water tomorrow!  Well… technically I blew it outta the water today.  I found the world’s cutest baby blanket pattern and after procuring it last nigh from a friend at SNB I purchased the yarn this morning.
None of my local stores carried it, so off I went to the internets.  I bought 14 skeins total… the exact yarn called for in the pattern.  I wanted it, I needed it, and really it only cost me like $40 total for the baby blanket which isn’t bad at all if you ask me!  Especially since $10 of that $40 is the cost of shipping.  I can’t wait till that yarn comes so I can begin… although I may be less thrilled after I stock up on awesomeness tomorrow.

FO! Charity Prayer Shawl

I finished the Prayer Shawl I had been working on for charity!

Overall I’m very happy with it. The yarn for the main body was Red Heart in Burgundy, and the yarn for the border was Red Heart in Mexico. The pattern is this one: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/simple-triangular-stash-shawl. Yes it is a link to Ravelry, so if you don’t have ravelry let me know and I can give you a link directly to the PDF on her website.

In other excitingness: Great Lakes Fiber Show is in 3 days! Well sorta, 3 more full days without fiber fun until I get to blow lots of money! And finishing this up, just justifies more purchases.

*almost* an FO.

I thought I’d have an FO today… but it’s not going to happen.  See how much of the border was left?  Not much at all!  But I knew that yarn supply was running low, yet I didn’t let it stop me.  I HAD HOPE.  Well the yarn did run out.  So now I’m trying to decide what to use for the border.  What do you think… Red?  Black?  or should I just rip out a few rows of the main shawl to use in the border?

Oops.

Well I was online today… and the internet magically took me to the site of my LYS. Well I decided I really needed a skein of trekking since they just got some in, and hey, I survived this year! I deserved it!

So I went, but I didn’t come home with trekking. I came home with this:

I’m in love. LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE. I’ve been reading about it on Ravelry. People have said good things and people have said some not so good things. But you’ll get that with every yarn. Of course it’s not the typical yarn you’d see for socks, but the look and texture reminds me of handspun, and who would dare say handspun would make bad socks? Not me.
I want to knit it very badly, but I have some other projects that need to get off the needles and hook first. You can bet though that this will be cast on fairly soon, even if it means starting yet another project. Most of the current projects I have started really are too hot for summer knitting anyways.

Handspun Galore!

Well I did finish all the handspun up, and listed it in etsy last Thursday. The link is www.kraftie.etsy.com for any of you who might be interested. In other news: I’ve been knitting! And CROCHETING!

I know exciting!

This is obviously something that doesn’t photograph well. The yarn is busy, the pattern is busy, and it looks good in person, but pictures, NO WAY.

Yet another busy picture. But if you click it, it’s a little easier to see the pattern in the larger picture. I bought this yarn about two years ago because I loved the color and they were discontinuing it. So of course it was on sale for $1.50 a skein! I couldn’t resist. I have 5 skeins in this dyelot and I figured it would make a great baby blanket. So I grabbed a Sampler Afghan book, picked a square that appealed to me, and started knitting away. I plan on doing it in panels which I’ll sew up later. I’ll probably add a border too at the end, depending on how it goes.

And now for a long overdue Stash Update! I was apparently busy and never did one for April. oops.

Current yarn in the stash: 22967 grams (+605 grams for the year)
Current fiber in the stash: 173.3 ounces (-24 ounces for the year)

The reason the yarn stash numbers went up is because of all the recently finished handspun. Since it is now part of the yarn stash, it’s counted as yarn. But, because I finished the fiber off, I removed the fiber from the fiber stash. That explains the decrease in the fiber stash. Also, if you look. 24 ounces is approximately 680 grams. That means that I’ve used up 75 grams of yarn this year! YAY! My stash is getting smaller! If not by much. And if the yarn that I currently have listed in etsy sells, that number will drop even more.
Of course, the fiber festival is coming up soon, which means more fiber will be brought back into the stash. Although I will be buying fiber, I’m trying not to go overboard. The current shopping list for fiber is something superwash to make socks for my sister, dad and boyfriend. I also want to get something for me, as a reward for passing yet another semester at school. I got my grades back and although they weren’t quite what I was hoping for, I’m happy with them. I’m really hoping to find some nice handdyed superwash at the fiber festival. Because it’s a fairly small show I’m somewhat worried I won’t, but I’ve already seen the perfect colors for all the gifts I want to make online so getting fiber won’t be an issue.