Fiber Fool

Well, you knew despite the fact that Amber’s visit was photocentric that yarn would have to play in it somewhere, right? (You did notice that some of the portraits featured my FLS, right?) While she was here I got a mysterious package from Yarn Grove and I’ve never ordered from there before. I opened it and up and the lovely and generous, FluffyKnitterDeb, had sent me an early birthday present in the form of TWO skeins of Malabrigo sock yarn.

You see, in watching all the March Mystery socks take shape I became aware of how dated my sock yarn stash had grown. I had none of the new “hot” sock yarns in my stash and seeing this pattern in those sock yarns had incited a bit of jealousy. Debi had told me I would really like the Malabrigo and I said perhaps I’d see if my mom would get me some for my birthday. Hence the arrival of some Malabrigo sock yarn. Also, Nancy from just south of my sent me some Flat Feet from Conjoined Creations as well (sorry, no photos of that just yet). Now my sock yarn stash is a bit more hip.

At Christmas time I helped my mom pick some close-up filters for my sister. If you are unaware of what they are, they are like magnifying glasses for your lens. They allow you to get a closer look and shorter depth of field with your lens than that lens is rated for. It is a cheaper way to get better macro photography than buying a special macro lens. It is also lighter and makes it a great thing for expedition photography. The photo above and all of the following were taken using Amber’s close-up filters. There seemed nothing more natural in the house to use them on than yarn and teenie, tiny flowers :-)

I do believe yet another item has made it onto my photography wishlist. I know you are all shocked and amazed, LOL!

That is all that came home with me from Brown Sheep! Can you imagine?

Okay, that isn’t *quite* the whole truth. I also brought home an “order” of yarn for two different sweaters for Amanda. She’s even planning on knitting of them for the Ravelympics! Go, Amanda!

Really, seriously, the 13 skeins of Top of the Lamb Sport seen above are the only things that came home with me to stay. I bought them to make the Gathered Pullover from the Winter 2007 IK (rav link). Amanda got yarn for that as well so we might do our own local KAL on that one when things for me slow down enough that I have time/energy to knit just for me.

The trip was fantastic though! 26 people were a part of the trip. It started at Sheila’s home with a fantastic breakfast on china and crystal. She has the most fantastic garden and fun and energizing home as well so it was a great way to kick off an early morning departure. I rode in the vehicle that she rode in so we were a bit behind everyone else so none of us got to take a tour, but we had all been on a tour not that long ago so it was no problem at all. Then there was a catered lunch with a deli tray and salads and two gals had birthdays on either side of our trip so there was also birthday cake and cookies.

Everything went so smoothly it was amazing. There was a Brown family emergency the day before our trip that kind of threw some of the plans out of kilter, but duties shuffled around and they pulled of a great day. I even got home early enough to run an errand and eat dinner with DH before going to SnB!

I went up to Estes on both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday I caught a ride with Amanda. We arrived just in time for the vendor barn to open and dropped off some things for Laura at the Textiles a Mano booth before cruising the vendors. The vendors were mostly the same as previous years - Intelacements, Brooks Farm, Textiles a Mano, Wooly Designs, Magpie Woodworks, Susan’s Fiber Shop, Red Barn, Bliss Merino, La Plata, Shuttles, Switzer, Northwest Looms, as well as some breed associations and a handful of finished woolen wear booths.

I did most of my shopping damage on Saturday. I went with a shopping list to pick out some yarn for the scarf grandma ordered for Christmas and some fiber for a commissioned spinning and design project (above). I got both of those things and two impulse purchases - an 8oz red alpaca roving bump from Stargazer Ranch and some mohair locks (below) so I have something to process whenever I choose the hand combs mom said I get for Christmas last year.

I ran into quite a few people while roaming the vendor barn. In fact, pretty much everyone I had hoped to see at the blogger meet-up. So, when it came time for the blogger meet-up I was my usual wallflower self and just watched it for the most part. I know Kristi, Alyson, and Becky got a kick out of being a part of the meet-up on lookers as others were taking group photos and the like. Alyson in particular was amused that the “organizer” was looking on rather than participating. I didn’t even take photos of the group photos being taken :-) Oh well!

While the meet-up was taking place Amanda was helping the overcrowded Textiles a Mano booth. Once she could get away from there we headed through town to eat at the Big Horn restaurant (that wasn’t a specific destination, just an uncrowded option that had good greasy spoon sort of food). After that we wandered next door to the Glassblower’s Studio where I think I made my favorite purchase of the market - yes, not at the actual market.

I think they may become closures on some felted bags at some point in time.

After that we headed back to Fort Collins where the flurry of the market got me to pull some handspun off the wheel (that has been there since December I believe) and get it oiled and ready to go again. Tomorrow I’ll share Sunday’s unexpected excitement…

Just over two weeks ago now (gah, I can’t believe its taken me this long to post about this) I went down to Denver with a friend to help Laura of Textiles a Mano set up her booth for the Denver Creative Festival. Laura used to live here in Fort Collins and her shop was practically in my backyard. Okay, it was a good 15 minute walk. But it was a 15 minute walk! Now she is based out of Missouri so I only get my Textiles a Mano fix at Estes Park usually. It’s quite sad. Laura’s yarns never pool, flash, or stripe and she does rather large put-ups so even *I* can make a sweater at a reasonable cost.

While helping her set up she kept encouraging us to take home whatever we wanted. What you see above is what I brought home. The two dusty plum skeins are for a vest-like object based somewhat off of a pattern in the Winter Knit Simple. The yarn is her merino, La Paz (ravelry link) The variegated one is Wuxi (ravelry link) a 50/50 wool/silk sport weight for some design work I’m doing for Laura. And the textured bulky yarn, Rocky Road is going to grow up into an Urchin as a shop/booth sample for her. All four skeins are now balled up and ready to go and I can’t wait to dig in!

I have a few more design considerations to make before I jump in on the vest project, but I think that is going to be one of the non-work knitting projects at the top of my queue right now. I even got a great button set for it and everything!

In pulling together the photos for yesterday’s post it occurred to me that I never fessed up about the fiber stuff I brought home from my trip to Minnesota last month. I guess it’s about time to reveal that, huh?

It was a long time ago, but our original plans to yarn crawl on Saturday, December 1st wasn’t looking good due to weather reports, so Chris kindly left work early and we made a couple stops on Friday afternoon before the knitting gathering that evening. The first stop was Needlework Unlimited.

I think I mentioned it before, but there were way too many employees milling about and breathing down your neck. It made it very hard to actually shop there. I came home with some supremely soft yarn. It is Buckingham from Bristol Yarn Gallery and is distributed by Plymouth. It was *very* economical for it’s content of 80% Baby Alpaca and 20% Silk. Each skein is 218 yards so I could in theory get a scarf-sized flower basket shawl or something out of two skeins. Anyway I suspect some form of lacy scarf. I’m kind of overbooked in knitting for the time being so it isn’t likely to happen this season so I reserve the right to change my mind :-)

Our second and last stop on Friday was The Fiber Studio. It is a pretty new shop and they cater to fiber and mixed media artists more than knitters. There was a large selection of Ashland Bay rovings packaged in many different weights. There were also some gorgeously color polwarth rovings that I couldn’t pass up. That one up at the top of the post is one of those. It is called City Lights and has no other indicator of brand besides the store. I’m unsure if they dye their own or are an exclusive reseller for a local dyer or what. A quick Google search did not turn up any other similarly named polwarth rovings from elsewhere. It did turn up someone else who has spun and knit it up already though. You can see there are other colors hidden deep inside my ball of polwarth!

What I appreciated most was the fleeces and partial fleeces available from regional producers. There was CVM, BFL, alpaca and who knows what else (it’s been too long). Some was processed, some was washed, some was raw. But there was a fair bit packaged into smaller lots than you tend to see fleece available in. It is a great opportunity for someone to try processing their own fleece an see if they like it before investing in a whole fleece. Since I was traveling I couldn’t really imbibe much. However, two bags of kid mohair (a total of 4 oz) came home with me. A friend was likely to be getting some mini combs soon so I thought I should have something to try the combs out on :-)

On Saturday we met up with my cousin Andrea at the Sheepy Yarn Shoppe up in White Bear Lake after a slow drive on a snow and ice covered Interstate from Chris’ place. It was a nice shop. It wasn’t over crowded and despite it being dark and heavy outside, it was bright inside and they have a nice selection of yarns. I came home with a bag (no pics of that, sorry - if we could catalog our knitting bags on Ravelry there may have been a photo though, LOL!) and some luxury sock yarn. I hadn’t seen it before in any of the shops around here so I have to get a skein to try. It’s Classic Elite’s Alpaca Sox. Usually I don’t think alpaca and socks are a good match, but there is a significant portion of merino and nylon in there as well. We’ll see how it does once I get around to knitting some socks with it. Although, it also sounds like a decadent pair of gloves too, doesn’t it??? Hmmm….

That’s it! I was pretty disciplined I think.