Fiberarts Update

Ever since the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, I've been thinking a lot about spinning. I got some (4 oz.) roving that's 50% merino, 25% silk, and 25% bamboo, and it's a dream! It's space dyed in one color, and goes from navy blue to natural white, with all the shades of blue in between represented. I'm spinning it with some slubs in it, and I'm going to ply it with some medium blue corriedale that I'm making slubby, too. I'm pretty sure I have a lot more of the med. blue, so I'll probably have a solid yarn to mix with it in a project. Here's the variegated blue.

And I've not only been thinking about it, I've been doing it! I have about half a bobbin of the medium blue spun, and I just started on the variegated blue yesterday. This is what I did yesterday.

I also got 8 oz of the same stuff that's hand dyed with lavenders and blues. It's in two 4 oz bags, and the bags don't seem to exactly match, so I think I'll use one bag for one ply and the other for the other ply and make it a slubby two ply. MAYBE, I might even sell it in my Etsy store!

All of the roving shown here is from Bullen's Woolens, and it's just dreamy, and a joy to touch or spin!

Oh, and while I was at the Sheep and Wool Festival, I got a bag to hold a sock project. It's a Hiya Hiya small project bag. The good part about it is that I can close the zippered top most of the way, and the yarn feeds out through the space left, and it's got a small zippered pocket inside to hold stitch markers, sock needles (I like to knit most of it on two circular needles, but the heel is much easier for me to knit on double points, so I like to have the double points with me for when I get to the heel.

The sock that's shown with it still needs the cast-on yarn end woven in, but it's a sample of the yarn I bought on Mother's day. I love self-patterning yarn! It's Red Heart Heart and Sole yarn in toasted almond.

I also bought a beautiful pendant knitting needle sizer from Carolina Homespun, although I believe it's distributed by Deborah's Garden. The one I bought is the light lavender one, and it's much prettier than it looks in the photo! I have to get a cord or chain for it!

I also ordered some stitch markers yesterday. These are being sold by Seeking Sanity on Etsy, and she's currently having a sale of some really beautiful stitch markers. She's about to move soon, and would rather sell her stock than move it, so check it out if you're in the market for stitch markers because she's got some great deals. The ones I ordered are, first a set of small markers (left) for socks. The end-of-round marker is a lavender glass, and the others are blue goldstone.

The medium markers on the right are a pale lapis, and very pretty. She's also made me a set of medium markers in blue goldstone. They were shipped today, and I can't wait for them to arrive! I was just looking at her site and found another listing for stitch markers that I like.

********************************

For you science fiction fen, here is a reminder that Towel Day is rapidly approaching, and you should prepare your towel now! Towel day will be next Tuesday, the 25th of May!

As you can see, carrying a towel on Towel Day is mandatory, but there are a lot of other ways that you can celebrate. You'll have to scroll down pretty far on that link, but there are all kinds of celebrations all over the world, plus other ways you can celebrate, such as wallpaper for your computer.

42!

Oh, and if you don't understand that, you urgently need to read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy!

Oh, and BBC in America has started showing Doctor Who and some other SF shows in the afternoons and Tuesday evening. Check your local listings for exact times!

Tonight, we'll be seeing a brand new Fringe and The Mentalist! If you check your guide and find a rerun of The Mentalist, keep looking. There'll be two episodes on tonight!

*****************************

I keep meaning to mention this and keep forgetting. My granddaughter wanted to buy some of the Sookie Stackhouse books, and asked me to put them in my Amazon store. So, I created a whole separate section for those books and videos. Check it out here. It has an advantage if you're shopping Amazon anyway. Amazon lists the first few books with the number of their order in the series, but quits after the first three or so. Then it's hard to figure out which is the next book. These are all listed in order, ending with a collection of short stories and the DVDs of the TV series.

*******************************

Comcast really surprised me yesterday!


First of all, they called me three or four times on Tuesday, to ask if the problems that have been going on for more than three years had magically healed themselves the way Christian Scientists think they can do. After being told that no, they hadn't magically gone away, they called me several more times yesterday to ask if the problem had cured itself, and did I still want someone to come out. I assured them that I did.


Then, nobody showed up!


Well, they told me that the supervisor (instead of a regular repairman) would be checking the whole building, and might not come to my door, but that was before I requested a new DVR.


I didn't realize until last night that he must have come and fixed whatever was wrong with the building. It took about a half an hour of watching before I realized that I had a crisp, clear picture that wasn't freezing or breaking up every 5 minutes or so. The sound didn't cut out at any point, or drastically change it's level, either! And the closed captioning continued to display, not fading out every so often. Then I started watching some recordings on my DVR, and, while not perfect, they were much better than they had been! I don't know what he did, but I can't help but wonder why he didn't do it thee years ago.


I have to say that I'm stunned and amazed! I'm almost afraid to say this out loud (because I'm afraid that if I say it, it will all go away), but I think they actually fixed it!


If this keeps up, I could even get to like Comcast!

I'm rethinking my need for a TiVo. I'm sure that I'd like a TiVo better, but it costs money, and the DVR I have didn't. It's a hard choice.


Well, I'm going to go do some spinning and enjoy my newly functional TV reception!


Have a great evening!

More Sheep and Wool!

First of all, before I forget, for anybody living in the DC area, here's some information about the Maryland Faerie Festival, which is happening this weekend. It's not far from DC, and it looks like it'll have some great vendors for anyone looking for something to do this weekend.

**********************

On to all the fun from two weekends ago at the Sheep and Wool Festival!

These are the photos that Holly took with the little camera that I'm planning to replace soon.

As you can see, there were a lot of people there. One of my friends said that the parking lot was full when he got there, and they had to park on the other side of 441!

Holly saw the dragons and other assorted felted creatures that I missed, and took a picture of them to prove it!

One of the most interesting shops this year (actually, every year) was Susan's Fiber Shop. Susan brought a lamb along with her to the festival this year. She always has the best stuff, but this year, she had the brand new Majacraft Wheel. This wheel was named Serenity while they were developing it, but it appears to be named Aura now. I don't know why they changed the name. This new wheel was developed with the help of Lexi Boeger (Pluckyfluff shown below) and she was there to demonstrate it.

And what a demonstration it was! She did some amazing things on the wheel. The rest of the photos are mine.

Before she arrived, I took this photo, which shows the Aura from a spinners perspective.

Here's a close up of the handle:

The upright is at a slightly different angle than on the other Majacraft wheels when folded. I didn't actually try folding it, but that's what their website says, and that's what the one I saw looked like.

And here's a close up of the "orifice" which is made to handle yarn that has wildly different diameters as well as yarn that has a more even texture.

The "kink" in the part of the wire closest to the rest of the flyer lets you spin finer yarns without the thumping that you get with a big orifice. I think it's quite ingenious, and watching Lexi use it, it seems to work very well. There was no thumping or unevenness when she used it, and it was quick and easy to change to using the more open part so that it could swallow even big slubs!

Lexi put some yarn out that she'd spun to show what kinds of yarn could be spun on this wheel.

There are some pretty chunky/slubby yarns shown here.

One of the major things that is different about this wheel is that it's a double drive, but very different from any double drive you've ever seen. There are two separate drive bands, and two different tensioning systems, one for each drive band. That way, you can choose the different ratios and different drive strengths for the flyer and bobbin. You can easily change the amount of take up on the bobbin without affecting how the flyer is driven!

You can see the green drive band in the photo, which is for the flyer. It's adjusted almost the same way as the Susie or Rose wheels. Lexi used a small wrench for this rather than the knob that lets you adjust it by hand on other wheels. The additional, new drive band is white, and it drives the bobbin. There is a knob on the right of the support for the flyer and bobbin (marked Bobbin Drive Band Adjustment in the photo) that can be used to change the tension of the band that drives the bobbin, and therefore, the take-up on the wheel.

The flyer is excellent for spinning anything you might want to spin, but it hasn't got very many options for flyer speed, which is why I don't want to trade in my Rose wheel for one of these. I'd love to have an Aura in addition to my Rose, but not in place of it. I spin some finer yarns, and don't want to give up that speed.

Lexi is just starting out here, and is spinning a relatively fine, even singles. That's Susan McFarland behind the yarn that's being formed. You'll see her in some of the other photos.

Here's a slub that's just formed and is spinning so fast that you can hardly see it.

In this photo, Lexi is pulling some of the fiber in her hand toward her left to start to form a fuzzy spot in the singles so that she can attach some other fiber and make a slub.

After she did that, she added some yellow fiber and shoved it toward the orifice to form a big slub.

She stopped for a moment, and I was able to show how she's pulling the fiber to the side. You can also see an already formed slub that's about to go through the orifice, and Susan in the background.

It's a little hard to see here, but she's pulling some fairly ordinary fibers to the left here, along with part of one of those little scrubbie pads with all the shiny silver coils that look like tiny curls. She called it a Brillo pad, but it's not that brand, just a generic scrubber. It looks very glamourous and glitzy in the final yarn as you can see below.

There's just a little of it peeking out, just to the left of the yellow section. Although it looks fabulous, I suspect that it wouldn't feel too good to wear.

Here's another photo of some glitzy yarn as it's being formed into a slub and fed into the orifice.

That's an awful lot of photos for today!

I'm giving up on this post for the day, and I'll show you the swag I got from the festival another day.

Have fun!

Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival!

I've been editing photos for what seems like hours, and here it is!

We noticed something new about the Sheep and Wool Festival even before we were really there.

Whoever has been directing traffic for the last 20 years has been doing an excellent job. It slows down a bit sometimes, but it generally keeps moving, even if slowly at times. But they obviously went on vacation or something this year and the job was given to a complete moron to organize. There is a village somewhere looking for it's idiot!

The road leading into the fairgrounds has three lanes. They always leave one free for people to exit, and two lanes for people going in. There are two entrances to the parking lot, so the people in the left lane turn left at the first entrance, and the people in the right lane turn left into the second entrance, and things keep moving.

But not this year.


This year, the person running things decided that just because they had three whole lanes, it didn't mean that they had to use them!

So, they blocked off one whole lane!

Which created a bottleneck that had traffic backed up for miles on Route 70, and probably added at least an hour driving time for everyone there (including people who live just down the street)! Not to mention blocking things up for innocent passers by!

We followed some bikers who were not amused!

Does the Friendship Police Department have anybody on it with even half a brain? You couldn't prove it by their traffic-directing expertise on Saturday!

As the sign says, Welcome to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival!

On the walk in, we saw some sheep (of course).

And the same sheep from the other direction (courtesy of Everett).

There was so much to see! Of course, there were spinning wheels (thanks for the photo, Everett).

And yarn! Lots and lots of yarn!

Photo by Everett

At Susan's Fiber Shop, Susan had brought along a lamb to the festival.

We saw the demonstration of the new Majacraft wheel, which I'm going to postpone for another post, but here are photos of Holly and Everett at the demo.

And, of course, there was lots of food!

Everett saw some stuff that I completely missed, including these felted dragons (the dragons are Everett's photos).

Not as great as the Rapunzel's tower from last year, but impressive, nonetheless!

And we posed for lots of group photos:

L to R: Everett, Holly and Me

L to R Everett, Me and Jeff

Holly and I

And when it was all over, we piled in the car and went to the Double T Diner, where we had a fabulous dinner! It is the place to go after the Sheep and Wool Festival! Just turn left on 441 out of the parking lot, and continue to Route 40 and turn left. There's a short ride, and it's on the right-hand side. They have the best food and so much of it that the waiter automatically brings something to put the leftovers in to take home. They have the best hot turkey sandwiches! And, as if all that weren't enough, this is what's across Route 40 from them:

And I'm totally tired of downloading photos, so I'm going to save all the rest for another post!

I will say that I got some great swag, but not as fabulous as what Holly bought. She bought a lot of Tillie Tomas yarn with beads, similar to the yarn I took so many photos of.

More later!

Have a great Friday, and a wonderful weekend!