Radio Silence Broken

Well hello, and welcome back to the Knitting for Sanity blog. I can't believe that this is the first post of 2008. I mean, it is May already! Where did the time go? It seems that radio silence has struck many knit bloggers; I don't know if we have all been wrapped up in Ravelry, or just busy with every day living or maybe even actually knitting. I, for one, know that the tv writer's strike put a huge damper on my knitting time. I took up reading for a few months instead.

There is lots to catch up on now that I know better how to operate my camera and get the pictures off of the card. I'll start with the most recent and maybe work my way back, in my spare time.

The first weekend in May is always the annual Maryland sheep and wool festival. I was fortunate enough to be able to go again this year, sans kids, and spent a lovely whirlwind weekend at the show visiting with Mom and good friends Sheila and Michael. They had a booth across from the souvenir sales again ... it looked fabulous!



I really enjoyed spending the weekend with Mom, it was truely a girlfriends' kind of weekend! Here's Mom just warming up at the Brooks Farm booth

And here she is getting high on wool fumes at Tess's Designer Yarns:


It was a real treat not only to see Mom, Sheila and Michael, but also to visit with my best friend and her adorable little niece:


I also had a few minutes to hug and chat with Caroline and her adorable daughter:

Caroline, Sheila and I all met on an on-line chat group called FiberTraditions. We see each other a couple of times a year at best, but email helps us stay in close contact. Caroline entered several items in the competition, her bee fields shawl won a blue ribbon! Hooray for Caroline!


There were many amazing things to see at the show, I took a picture of this felted dinosaur head to show my kids:


This is the most amazing shawl, spindle spun to a cobweb weight:
I wish I had asked the woman if she has a blog so I could link to her, the shawl was stunning.

In the evenings we got to relax, veg, and knit in a local hotel room. Sheila had left her knitting in the van back in Oregon, so Mom set her up with an emergency knitting kit. One of my secret pals some years back sent me a bag with a red cross and emergency sock knitting supplies inside. I gifted it with new supplies to Mom when she was moving and now it was her turn to pay it forward. Sheila is a magic loop kind of girl, so here she is trying hard to work with dpns. I call this shot, "Sheila on double points". Original, 'eh?


I have lots of photos to share of Mom's new house, but will save those for another post. This one has already taken me all day to write. Here's one final shot of my stash from MSW.

True Blue(berry) Friends

When faced with reality, only true friends will help you out:



Barb is even letting me test out her new lazy kate. I am truely blessed to have wonderful, supportive friends.


Now, on to the plying:


Yummy blueberry yarn:

Mitts for Mary

Read about it here.


I'll post the specs tomorrow, right now I have to get ready for a 3rd grade author's party.

Imagine this

The server's down. The one that hosts my blog photos. But that's ok, because I have a totally awesome husband who will get the thing back up and running, I know it. I am very lucky to have that kind of confidence in my personal computer engineer's abilities. Plus, the same server hosts his dive photos, so you know it will be working soon . The server's back up!

Imagine this:

A freshly spun skein of a lovely natural colored gray yarn, blowing in the breeze on my back deck. Now for the close up - oh - there are two skeins! One is a beautifully spun two ply, very light and lofty. The other is a fat single, or at least is trying to be a fat single. Hey, I suppose I wouldn't want to be a fat single either. Badum bum.



I bought a pound of this lovely gray roving at the Whidbey Island spin in, from Heidi at the Artful Ewe. At first I thought it was BFL, but the more I think about it, it could be Shetland. I'll have to send her a mail and ask if she recalls what she was selling. Anyway, my goal was to practice spinning a two ply worsted weight yarn, and a fat single. Mom gifted me with some lovely roving in MD that I will spin and return to her to be knit. Plus, I have some Great Balls of Fire that I'd like to spin into a fat single, ala Manos or Malabrigo, and knit myself a cooshy scarf. Practice, practice, practice.

MSW - the recovery

You may have noticed that I did not post about MSW - Day 3 (Sunday). As it turns out, I left my camera back in WA and was using Mom and Sheila's cameras. Since they need their own blog fodder, I decided to wait until I got home to post about day 3.

Day 3 started off a little quieter. Everyone knew their setup jobs, so we did not need to arrive as early as Saturday. When we got there, the barn doors were locked, so we would not have been able to set up early anyway. Once the doors opened, we quickly set up and started showing the product. I expected the crowd to be small, but it was amazingly steady and busy all day. So busy that I did not recognize some friends that stopped by. This makes me sad to find out after the fact.

I did break away from the "work" a few times during the day on Sunday. Mostly I was too tired to focus on additional shopping. I walked through all the barns a second time, but the only addition to my stash was a pound of alpaca/wool from the Barefoot Spinner.

Now, what you have all been waiting for, on to the goodies:

A wood hat/vase/thingamajig that Sheila gifted to me. So silly! Progress on the Shetland Traingle shawl, mostly knit on the flights home, and a new set of glass knitting needles in Brilliant Blue, size 7. Also notice the glass stitch markers, purchased from Sheila, but made by my good friend Barb.


A close up of the shawl, along with another set of glass knitting needles in the Spring Luster colorway, size 6. These are the most perfect lace knitting needles. The joins are just about perfect, the yarn slips right over the join and up onto the needles, making these the best needles for lace knitting.



The big picture. The roving in front, from left to right: 1 pound Blueberry wool/mohair blend from Persimmon Tree Farm, purchased by Mom with the promise that I will spin it for her to knit with. Half pound Lichen from Tintagel Farm, wool/mohair blend. One pound yellow/red alpaca/merino blend from The Barefoot Spinner. Moving up the table, the pink bag is from the souvenir stand - it is backpack style. Not shown is a pink hooded cardigan with the MSW logo for me, 3 kids sweatshirts, and a series of gifts for friends that I cannot disclose just yet.


Close up of two skeins of wool/mohair yarn (dark blue and brown) from Persimmon Tree Farm - destined to be a scarf and hat. Two skeins of wool/mohair blend from Tintagel Farm, destined to be another scarf. And a close up of the wood thing!


Gorgeous glass buttons from the Ernst duo. The set of smaller buttons is made from a glass called unobtainium. I know this, because the same buttons were unobtainable at Stitches West - they all sold out!

I had a lovely, quiet day on Monday, sitting around my childhood home, catching up with Mom, Sheila and Michael. I left for the airport around 4pm and arrived home in Seattle at 11:30pm (which is actually 2:30am). Back to work the next morning, early to bed that evening. My body is almost back on schedule now.

Tuesday morning I had to be at my best right away as there were tea parties to attend! The kids put on a little show and serve tea to their mother's every year at preschool. Here are my two little chickadees.



You can see that DD dressed up right away in her W&S finery complete with lamb ears. What a good girl she is!

MSW Day 2 - Too tired to be witty and charming

This is a baaaad picture.


Quote of the day - it takes a village to raise a man.

MSW field report

Whew. Now I know why they call it the red eye. I arrived in MD at 8:30 early this morning, lugagge and all. I slept about two hours, but never fear, the adrenaline kicked in as soon as the blue minivan with K1P2 decal pulled up at the curb.

The weather in MD this year is perfect - almost 70*, sunny, and slightly breezy. We drove to Mom and Dad's house to pick up Sheila and Michael who had arrived the day before. We packed up the car(s) and headed to the Howard County Fairgrounds via way of good java. We arrived at MSW around noon. Vendor parking was still available, which is always a good sign. In fact, we were able to pull the cars up to the building to unload which was a huge help.

Sheila and Michael's booth is in building 1, which is where the t-shirts and other souvenirs are sold. In fact, they are directly opposite the t-shirt booth, so please stop and say hi after purchasing your souvenirs!

I met Janel from Chameleon Colorworks and Spindlicity fame, she is sharing the booth. Mom and I helped all 3 of them get set up. Of course we forgot the camera, so you will have to envision how beautiful the booth looks with all of the new glass needles and button designs, as well as Janel's colorful fiber.

The souvenir booth opened at 2 for vendors only. The line was as long as it is at any time during the festival, and a line remained outside until 5pm when sales closed. Wow. The logo this year is printed onto a beautifully colored assortment of t-shirts, bags, and accessories. You can see how great it looks on Sheila and Micheal.



We are getting up VERY early in the morning to get up to the festival, finish setting up the booth, and then take a first peek at the other vendors. As Mom said, "Tomorrow is for shopping."