Hey, Maybe I Should Have a Giveaway...

A Cat in a Box! Who doesn't want one of those?! Just say MEOW in the comments, and she's all yours! Add a few purrrrs, and you can have the cat doing the photo-bombing in the upper right hand corner.


Just kidding. Molly Cat not available. But since I am so lucky to be living close to the West Friendship Fairgrounds, site of the fabulous yearly Sheep and Wool Festival, I thought I'd share some of my happiness.

2 ounces of alpaca/wool/angelina, by Little Barn, inc.

(Clematis not included)

Also, four handmade stitch markers.















The recipient will be decided next Friday in a random drawing by a stranger I will accost on the street and ask to pull a piece of paper out of a jar. To enter this drawing, leave a comment in which you name your favorite color of Crayola Crayon ...and write it in all caps with an exclamation point: CERULEAN! for example. That way I won't inadvertently draw the name of a non-spinner for the giveaway. So, get out that crayon box and choose a crayon!


Here's what I've been working on:

Spinning the merino I bought at Sheep and Wool.



Er, let me try this without Edgar Cat in the picture.

SIGH.














THERE. I'm going to do a 2-ply of each color.

These are my favorite Zebisis spindles. I adore them. They are just the right weight for just about everything. 

















Anyway ... here's what else I've been doing. Harvesting a ridiculous amount of chamomile. Everything in my herb garden survived the winter. So now it's barely into May, and I have enough herbs to last a few years. I've snipped off the flowers and I'm going to dry them for tea. I love chamomile tea ... so relaxing! It's like a sedative.








So that was my week! I have another 5.3k tomorrow (Friday) ... this one is sponsored by my workplace, and electronic devices are not allowed where I work, so there will be no pictures to share.

****update from work: I ran the 3.3 miles in 40:58. About a 12:24 pace. Now I'm ready to come home and drink wine and relax!****

I won't be blogging that one, but my friend has just written part two of her 1/2 Marathon adventure from this past St. Patrick's Day Rock-n-Roll 1/2 Marathon. So if you're interested, stop by and take a look!

Happy Fiber Arts Friday, all! Don't forget to stop by Andrea's!

Another Awesome Sheep and Wool Festival!

I'm going to post the images without too much commentary ... it was a lovely warm day, and the rain held off till I was all the way home.

Below is Misty Mountain Farms, my favorite vendor. Last year, I paid their mortgage.

Above are some lovely trindles!  Below, a Christmas ornament.

 

In retrospect, I should have purchased this lovely pink-and-green-and-white Zauberball. It reminded me of roses.

 A peg loom

   

A friendly blue-eyed alpaca and some less-thrilled friends ...

This little one was hopping around like mad ... then she suddenly lay down and rested.

This is an extreme close up of a sheep's nose. A very curious sheep. 

 

 

My haul ... very restrained! Three bags of roving, some mawatas, a nostepinne, a skein of mixed wool/acrylic/mohair/somethingelse. Last year I over-indulged to a ridiculous degree ... I still have unspun roving from last year, not to mention yarn! So I kept it simple this year. I wanted another spindle, but the only ones that caught my eye cost $100. There were also spindle-lazy kates, but those were well over $100, and I can get by with cardboard tubes. No matter how nicer a real wood spindle kate would be ...



Now I am determined to get through some of my stash, well before next year's Sheep and Wool. If you're going to the fair tomorrow, have a good time!

Finally, a Finished Object

All done! And gifted. It's gone!

The baby it will cover is not due until the very end of November ... but I have a small house, so I figured, hey, let them store it for 7 months! This is their third baby, and they don't know yet what flavor they're getting.

I warned the baby daddy, very apologetically, that it was hand-wash only ... he said, "That's okay, babies hardly ever spit up!"  Heh.




I also finished the Zauberball socks, but didn't take a picture. I figured there were enough pictures of them in progress. I'm working a little on the Angry Eye Scarf from a couple of posts ago, and girding myself for the most fabulous, most wonderful time of the year ... the Sheep and Wool Festival! Now a mere 40 hours away! I've got my picnic lunch all planned out, and I hope to restrain myself to purchasing sundries and pattern books and not any more yarn, and hopefully no roving. I have made almost no progress on the stuff I bought last year, because I buy yarn and fiber with no plan in mind. Then when I want to make something, I find that I have absolutely nothing to wear/spin, so off I go to buy more.

And if you're wondering how I did in last Sunday's race, you can check it out here. I had a wonderful time, and I am so glad I went ... and I'm even happier that I didn't know about that hill before I was chugging up it. That hill was a major --

Happy face!

Don't forget to stop by the Wonder Why farm for Fiber Arts Friday!

A Not-Quite-Finished-Object-Friday

It's so funny how I always have thoughts like oh, I'll have that finished well before the next Fiber Arts Friday, or, this project just needs a few more minutes and I'm done with it!

Never happens that way, does it?

Very close to being done, though. The side borders are halfway there ... pick up 160 stitches (I don't mind picking up 40 or so stitches, but picking up 160 is just ridiculous) and knit them, increasing every other row for 8 rows. I've done two sides. Two more to go!

Then I can tend to the fifteen thousand other WIPs I have languishing on the needles. I know two people having babies (Sept. and Nov.) and I have a lot of yarn to get rid of. And despite my griping, this is a very nice blanket and was not too much trouble to knit.



Don't forget to stop by Andrea's for Fiber Arts Friday! And on another note, I'll be running a 5k this Sunday morning, starting at 0730, in Columbia, MD. If you're up that early, spare me a thought ... I'm not fast, but I'm determined, and I am hoping this will be a successful run for me. My last 5k was mostly walking. I really want to get this one in under 39 minutes (like I said, I'm not fast).

Whatever. Turn off the *$&# light, already.

Baby Stuff, and the Stash

Well, another week gone, and all I have to show for it is more baby blanket...the squares are done and I am sewing the seams.

And, guess what? I don't have enough leftover yarn in any color to do the border, which it desperately needs to keep from having curly edges. So I will have to go to a very, very dangerous place ... a store that sells yarn. I am actually having struggles in my conscience because of the size of my yarn stash. I am actually, literally to the point where I am thinking, "Whoa, I gotta stop buying yarn for a while!"

The MD Sheep and Wool is imminent. I am going, though I really, really, really don't need to buy anything. Not going to the sheep and wool festival would be like not going to the doctor if I had a broken limb. I'm going to go, and I will probably buy another spindle ... and yarn ... and stitch markers, which I cannot get enough of. And I'll tell myself that it's okay, because yarn doesn't rot or spoil or expire, and extra stitch markers are essential if you leave WIPs laying around like I do, and, well ... let's face it. I'm just weak. I can admit that. Sixteen days to Festival!!

Don't forget to stop by Andrea's for Fiber Arts Friday!

I've Lost Track of the WIPs

Just to make it so I have to count them up on BOTH hands, I've added another WIP.

The Drop Stitch Scarf, free pattern on Ravelry.



Yarn is The Alpaca Yarn Company's Classic Alpaca, purchased at Shepherd's Purse Alpaca in Mt. Airy, MD.

This is the scarf pattern that looks like angry eyes.













And, thanks to the wonderful Andrea, I have two new colors for the Patchwork Baby Blanket I'm making.

 These are the colors Andrea sent. I am madly in love with the variegated one, but you can't see it too well in this photo.


I've got three more squares to go! The other WIPs are languishing ... sadly languishing. My heart has grown cold to them, but perhaps one day ...

I leave you all with some boasting. I have lost 35 lbs, and can now run 5k in just over 38 minutes (last October, it took me over 44 minutes to run a Monster Dash 5k).

I have given away all of my clothing to the Salvation Army, and I am looking forward to buying new summer clothes.

(Ignore the messy room behind me, I've pretty much given it over to the cats).




Don't forget to stop by the lovely Andrea's, for Fiber Arts Friday Fun!

Oh, I Almost Forgot ....

My reason for living.

THE 39TH ANNUAL MARYLAND SHEEP AND WOOL FESTIVAL!!!!!

This year, the festival is on 5 and 6 May. Just a month from now! OH MY GOSH! I had not thought about it yet this year because I've been so obsessed with other things, but today I remembered it. My supervisor at work was discussing weekend availability, and I said I was normally free except for the first weekend in May, because that was the annual sheep and wool festival. As you might imagine, he laughed, but not in a you're-such-a-freak way.

If you're curious, here is the link to my adventures at last year's MD Sheep and Wool Festival.

I can't believe it's just a month away!

In honor of the upcoming festival (and because I still have a LOT of unspun fiber from last year's purchases), I picked up an abandoned project ...

This is some heavenly merino, which I am spinning with matching cotton crochet thread. It's very loose, the merino is barely drafted and spun clockwise, then twisted counter-clockwise with the thread. It's as soft as you think it is.








Same stuff, outside, where it inextricably changes color.

And inside again. Isn't it lovely? I loves it. It's my current precious.












And, I finally made that gym-bag-jewelry-keeper, but not from the silk matawa. I decided to use up some old bamboo and bamboo-corridale that I spun ages ago.

It's about the size of a deck of playing cards, with a drawstring.




That silk matawa is going to haunt me if I don't put it to good use.






And my other big deal ... I've signed up for the 5k portion of the Athleta Iron Girl Half Marathon and Co-ed 5K event at the end of April. I finally feel confident enough in my jogging abilities to go out in public and let people see me huff and puff. My friend who just ran the Rock-n-Roll Half Marathon in D.C.  has signed up for the half-marathon portion of the Iron Girl. Then there's another 5k at work, the week after the Sheep and Wool Festival. Then I'm probably done until the weather gets cool again in September or October. It gets very humid here in the warmer months.

Thanks for dropping by! Don't forget to stop by Andrea's for Fiber Arts Friday!