Back to the Blog!

Just touching base, not much has changed.  Still haven't finished the blends I was working on with the carder.  I have almost finished carding the dyed fleece, but that's about it.

I went fiber camping with some friends two weekends ago, and we did a lot of spinning.  It was great to have my friend Heather there to encourage me to tackle some fiber I have really needed to get finished.  I have now washed a whole bunch of skeins that were sitting around, and they are ready to be used.

Almost finished my daughter's summer sweater, too.  :-)  Hopefully there will still be some nice days for her to wear it.  I have about one more inch of the bottom to do and then the bind-off, then the two sleeves to finish off, which will again be about an inch each.  I have so many projects waiting, I really need to push on and get this done.  The pattern is the Scoop Tee from Interweave Knits, Fall 2009, I think.

Next weekend is WI Sheep and Wool Festival.  I am sooo excited about that trip!!  Not taking any classes, just going to camp, spin, shop, observe and have a great time.  I hope to get some good pictures to post here, too.

In which we are settled, and life moves on...

Well, we are moved!  Yes, even (almost) unpacked!  We love the new place, it is SOOO much better than the old.  Can't believe it took this long to do the deed.  We had help from wonderful friends, so it was much less painful than it could have been.  Thank you to all who helped!!  I think we had everything at the new place by 4pm.

Immediately after moving, I had weight loss surgery and was off work for 3 weeks.  That has been another distracting adventure.  Things are settling down now, I can eat a regular (albeit quite small) diet, and I am feeling really good.  Since first meeting with my surgeon in April, I have lost 50 lbs!  I've got a long way to go, but already I am feeling much better and needing smaller clothes.

While I was off, I took my inventory of fiber batts to Knitter's Palette and sold quite a lot of my inventory.  My first retail outlet, yay!  Since then I have had a long dye session and now am busy at the carder putting together some new blends.  I'll post pics as soon as I have some done.

I've booked a campsite for the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival near Madison, WI the weekend of September 10-12, and I'm looking forward to that.  I need to find another wonderful silvery grey fleece.   I love overdyeing grey, and I am almost out of my raw washed fleece from Sue Ross.  Hope I can find one as good.

In which I get ready to move, and other adventures

I have sadly been neglecting my blog lately.  There is way to much going on in my life right now.

Let's start with the fact that we're moving. 

Again. 

I'm very sick of moving.  I'm also very sick of apartment living.  I'm very sick of my neighbors, who are mostly obnoxious.  (To be fair, there are probably nice neighbors, but it's the obnoxious ones that I see, hear and have to pick up after.)  So we're moving across the street, to a townhouse.  It's an end-unit, 3 BR with only one common wall.  We'll have our own entrance, our own garage, our own laundry facility, and it's all one story.  I'm very excited!!

But it is a lot of work, even though I tell people it's all downhill--from the second floor, across the street, to a single story.  July 10th is the big day.  Wish us luck!

I've had to pack away the carder for the move, but not before I completed the carding of a gorgeous blend for the Rosalind shawl pattern by one of my favorite designers, Sivia Harding.  The blend is 65% white Polwarth wool, 16% bleached tussah silk, 16% fawn cashmere, and the rest white firestar.  It is so soft!!  Here is the first bobbin spun up:

Yes, it IS as yummy as it looks.  I'm going to 2-ply it into about a fingering weight yarn.  I have about 14 oz total, in 8 batts to spin.  This is my Tour de Fleece project.  The Tour de Fleece starts on July 3rd, which is the date of my father's 80th birthday party, so I probably won't get much done that day.  Plus it's a week before we move, so not much spinning will get done the first week of the Tour.  Luckily, 14 oz won't take too long to spin.

More to come, maybe from our new location!

In which I attend Shepherd's Harvest Festival

What a fabulous weekend we had at the Shepherd's Harvest Fiber Festival My 8-9th!  The weather was cold, especially Saturday, as it usually is, but Sunday the sun came out and everyone was feeling wonderful!

Here are some pictures of our Northern Lights Handspinner's Guild booth.  Here's our fearless leader Pauline:

Here is my Gone Batty Fibers inventory.  I was pleased to fill an 18 gallon tote with my batts for the show, and I sold quite a few.

I spent most of my time working on the Fiber Sandwich.  This is an event where we collect donations of fiber from the vendors, lay them out on a table in layers, like a big lasagna, and then split off 4 oz chunks for volunteer spinners to spin.  We then auction off the finished skeins to benefit the Heifer Project.  It is a great cause, and we love our donors and volunteer spinners, as well as the people who bid on the skeins.  Here's the auction in progress:

 
We raised almost $400 this year for Heifer, which is very exciting.

Here's my skein(s).  I spun a single Corriedale ply to ply with it, and make the finished skeins a bit more cohesive.  Others chose to do the same, and it was really fun to see what people did.

Someone spun a novelty yarn that was gorgeous--it was a bestseller.

The Minnesota Knitter's Guild also had a booth, at which I worked on Sunday morning.

I should have more weekends like this--good friends and lots of fiber and fibery activities!

Getting Ready for Shepherd's Harvest!

I am getting so excited for Shepherd's Harvest, the fiber festival held every Mother's Day weekend at the Washington County Fairgrounds in Lake Elmo, MN.   The event lasts for two days, and I plan to spend every minute of my weekend there.

I have a class on Saturday morning in--what else?--Drum Carding.  It should be great fun to get tips from someone I really respect, Carol Wagner of Hidden Valley Farm Woolen Mill.  I have purchased a lot of her roving in the past, as well as having her process raw fleeces for me.  I'm very excited about the chance to "pick her brain" about the carding process.

I will also have space at my guild's table to sell my product, so I have been frantically making batts to sell at the Festival.  Not too many pictures of the batts, since my lighting doesn't do them justice, but here's some ingredients:

Many more to follow.  I am keeping my drum carder busy!

Another exciting event for the weekend is the Fiber Sandwich.  Many vendors will donate fiber to this cause.  What we do is lay out the donated fiber, which will be anything from hand-dyed roving to raw, washed fiber, into a huge "lasagna" of fiber layers.  It usually takes up a full 8' banquet table, to a depth of at least 12 inches!  It's quite a sight.  From there, we have volunteer spinners who take 4 oz sections and spin skeins of yarn.  The skeins are auctioned off on Sunday in a silent auction to benefit The Heifer Project.  Great fun for a great cause!  We are still looking for volunteer spinners if you are going to be in the area.

I made some awesome batts!

Oh, I just love my drumcarder!  She is awesome.  I will sing the praises of the Fancy Kitty high and low.

She made these batts:

Which spun up like this:

The grey in this started as raw, washed locks of fiber, and it only took two passes through the carder to get these batts.  The blending fibers had already been carded once, so I carded the locks once through, then weighed and measured for the batts.  The small skein was spun out of the leftovers--I'm still getting a feel for how much fiber I can get into one batt.  I made a total of 5 batts, weighing a total of over 8 oz, so they are not quite 2 oz each, which is what I was aiming for.

The little skein from leftovers spun up like butter!!  I want to keep these batts rather than put them in the Etsy store, but I have to be good.  I'm building inventory slowly, and have yet to post anything in the store, but it's coming.

This weekend is Yarnover at the Hopkins High School, and I am very excited.  I am volunteering in the morning, then in the afternoon I am taking a class from the incomparable Meg Swansen.  I will be learning more about Elizabeth Zimmerman's EPS system, which is brilliant.  I think I understand the system, but it certainly can't hurt to hear more about it from the source!  I wanted to take a gansey class from Beth Brown-Reinsel, but sadly I was too late with my registration--my own fault, but I can still mourn.  I even have the yarn for the gansey--I bought it in Estonia on my cruise last year.  Sigh.

The following weekend I'm planning an entire day on Saturday devoted to dyeing.  My order from Dharma Trading finally arrived, I have a couple of friends coming over, and we are going to attack the dyepots.  However, I still want to get more batts carded before that day--I think you get more even dyeing results using carded batts rather than raw locks.   So lots of work yet ahead.

I wash fleece, and wash fleece, and wash fleece...

I finally got the white Corriedale fleece from Cindy Lou completely washed!  It turned out practically glowing white, and ready for carding and dyeing.

In the meantime, I have been working the carder pretty hard with the shetland fleece I bought in March.  It was not a covered fleece, so there is quite a bit of VM, and there's a break near the tips which I suspect came from lambing last year.  It's pretty easy to tear off those tips, which are matted and icky anyway, and the rest of the fleece is quite nice.  Picking takes a lot of time, though.

I have managed to card some batts from it, and they turn out beautifully.  See?  They are very soft and a lovely heathery oatmeal color that I think will do fun things when overdyed.  I'll leave some of it natural colored, but I think a red over this will look quite nice.

My order from Dharma was supposed to be delivered yesterday, but apparently nobody was at the apartment office, so UPS did not leave the package.  How annoying!  I wasn't really planning to dye anything this weekend, but still...  I can't wait to see the new dyes I ordered!

I've got lots more of November's fleece to card, but I want to do some of Cindy Lou's also.  I have a big dyeing day planned for April 24, and I want to card a lot of this fleece beforehand.  I think carded batts take the color more uniformly, and I'm looking for that this time around.

I also started washing Carly's fleece, the grey one.  It's so pretty....

During which I entertain middle school boys...

Today, I took my nephews to see the movie "Diary of a Wimpy Kid."  Miraculously, an entire movie aimed at middle school boys without a single fart joke!  (They couldn't avoid boogers, tho.)  Taken for what it is--an entire movie aimed at middle school boys--it was pretty cute and funny, sometimes painfully so.

Afterward, I tried to convince the boys that they should sit on the Easter bunny's lap for pictures.  Seriously, a mall Easter bunny--and it was the creepiest looking Easter bunny ever!  Thankfully, they refused to take me up on my suggestion.

I finally got to Archivers to purchase what I need for product labelling.  I am going to do skein and batt wraps with cardstock.  I think that will protect the batts a little better, and I can print them off my computer.  I picked a color called Pear Crush, which is a lime green, but lighter than the background of my blog.  Hmm, perhaps I should change that to match.

Now I need to design and print some labels, and also my business cards.  Lots of work to do.

Also, I ordered some new dye colors this week from Dharma Trading.  Did you see their April Fools newsletter?  It was very clever, and inspired me to place the order that has been sitting in my shopping cart for awhile.  I love a company with a sense of humor, and theirs is huge.  I also love a company that lets me save a shopping cart for awhile before I pull the trigger.

Placed a huge order for wholesale yarns, too.  Last time I purchased these yarns retail in smaller quantity, to try them out.  They were quite nice quality, so I will be watching for a package of enough fingering weight sock yarn for 50 skeins!!  (Yes, that's what I said--50.)  On top of that, 10 large skeins (100 grams) of laceweight superwash merino.  Yum!

Time to finish washing fleece, so I can get the dyepots bubbling!

It's been awhile...

Sorry that I have neglected my blog for the last couple of weeks.  And I don't have much to say right now.

I never mentioned the lovely Shetland fleece I got on March 21st at Gail's shearing day.   This the the fleece from November, an older ewe who has a lovely, but uneven, oatmeal-colored fleece.  It totalled 4 lbs raw, and I have it all washed right now, but I have not yet weighed it.  I have picked some of it, and put about 4 oz through my carder, and it is nice.  The fibers in some of the fleece are much coarser than I expected from Shetland, but they are still quite soft.  I'm sending the fiber through the carder twice, in preparation for dyeing and blending.  It needs one more pass through the carder to be really nice to spin.

Anyway, I need to really sit down, sort and grade the fleece, but I haven't had time.

I've still got the two Corrie fleeces to wash--I've done some of the white (Cindy Lou) but haven't touched the grey yet, except to fondle, rub the lanolin and breathe the sheepy smell.  I know, I'm weird.

Spring has sprung here--the grass is coming up, the sun is shining and the thermometer topped 70 for the first time in 6 months.  How wonderful!  I'm starting to think about camping again.

No camping trips planned yet, but I'd like to visit South Dakota, and the North Shore of Lake Superior.  We'll also do a group dyeing, knitting, spinning camping weekend.  Need to start getting some dates down.

Here's a picture of my home on wheels--love her!

In which I celebrate a fiber-filled weekend--and it's only half over!

What a great day!  Okay, it was a bit cold--26 this morning when we headed out, but it's a good excuse to wear warm woolies, right?   My friend Lynn and I were on the road by 9am, headed to Woolen Meadows Farm www.woolenmeadowfarm.com for her 2010 sheep shearing.

Seems like it's always cold on this day, and I feel sorry for the sheep for taking their coats when it's cold.  But they didn't seem too unhappy, and I'm glad to bring the fleece home!

I got two fleeces today:  Cindy Lou is a Corriedale sheep with a wonderful white, long-stapled, fine fleece.  I bought her 2009 fleece, and signed up again for 2011.  Yes, I'm hogging her.  But look at it:

 It washes up snowy white and takes dye beautifully.

The other fleece I got was from Carly, who is 3/4 Corrie, 1/8 Romney and 1/8 Lincoln.  Isn't it beautiful?

I also received my new carder yesterday, and I have been playing with it like mad.  It's wonderful!  I will post pics of my batts soon, but right now I am carding a lot of raw washed fleece.  Two passes through the carder with the locks and they are ready for blending.

Tomorrow I'm off to Little Red Oak Farm  to help with the shearing of Gail's Shetlands.  I hope I can resist bringing home more fiber from there.  I don't need any more right now!!

In which I wax philosophic about time and literature (for what it's worth!)

I stopped at the library on my way home to pick up two books I had reserved.  They were added to the pile on my nightstand, along with the book a friend lent me today that I've been wanting to read.  (Thanks, Colleen!)  These are for future discussions in my book club--mostly I just manage to read the books, then end up missing the meeting, but the group is broadening my reading horizons, for which I am extremely grateful.

They landed on top of "An Echo in the Bone," by Diana Gabaldon, a 1000+ page tome that I am more than halfway through, and have trouble putting down.  If you are a Diana Gabaldon fan, you understand this.  These books suck you in.  This is the 7th book in what will be, as I understand it, a series of 8 books.  Each book is over 800 pages, I'm quite sure.  In preparation for getting this book, I went back and re-read the prior 6 books!  Understand, this is a MAJOR commitment.

Beyond that, I have a collection of podcasts I can't find time to listen to, emails to read and respond to, and Audible is having a sale on audiobooks right now.  (I also have 2 credits waiting for me to spend them.)  And I probably have 40 books on my Kindle that I have not yet read, many more in my Wishlist on Amazon.

Why is there not enough time in the day?  Perhaps the more appropriate question, how are you coping with the bombardment of media we receive everyday?  There is so much to read and absorb, so much more I want to read!  I can't believe I'm the only one who feels that way.  What is your solution?

Perhaps we should just be thankful that we have such easy access to media that broadens our experience, opens us to new ideas, and just plain entertains.  I should stop stressing over what I can't get to, and enjoy what I can.  Now back to the adventures of Jamie and Claire--they are in the middle of the American Revolutionary War--can't wait to find out how it turns out (ha, ha!)

In which I receive lots of good news

Today was a good day.  I got to spend time with lots of knitting friends at our weekly Wednesday night knitting group.  We meet at a local French cafe and wine bar to sit and chat and eat and knit.  Couldn't be a better way to break up a week.

We had pooled together to do a Knitpicks order, and my KP yarn kit was there, so I got yarny goodness to take home, too.  I ordered the Clock Tam kit that has been on clearance; I don't even like tams, but I will either make a clock, or use the yarn for something else.  I have been wanting to try Palette, and the clearance price made it such a good deal.  Clock Tam kit at Knitpicks

When I arrived home, I picked up the mail and found a lovely swap package in there from BlushingEwe on Ravelry.  It's a gorgeous, glitzy pink spinning batt.  I almost never do pink, so this will be something new for me. I love it!

Then I sat down at my computer to check my email and discovered the shipping information for my new Fancy Kitty Kitten drumcarder!  It has been shipped and is scheduled for delivery here on Friday.  Yippee!!

All in all, an okay Wednesday.  Can't complain at all, so I won't.

When it becomes clear that I cannot read

Last post I was complaining about the Lastrada pattern, by Hanne Falkenberg.  Six loooooong rows later (each row is 400+ stitches), it occurred to me that the chart contained two colors represented by a dot in the square.  One uses a big dot, and one uses a small dot.  So the pattern is correct, I am an idiot, but I really do think they could have been a little more creative with choice of symbols--an asterisk, a @, something different!

Anyway, I frogged the rows back and fixed the stripe mistake--now there is a two row darker stripe, followed by the lighter ragg yarn.  :-)  Hard to believe that garter stitch stripes could be so hard.

In the meantime, I discovered a half of a sheep fleece I purchased last year that I never got around to washing.  Ooops!  Usually I try to do that right away.  So I have been busy scouring a beautiful Romney/Corriedale cross sheep in natural chocolate brown from a sheep named Mia.  It is really soft--I can't wait for my carder to arrive so I can begin to process some of this.  Mia lives at www.woolenmeadowfarm.com and I believe her 2010 fleece is still available.  Pics to follow.

Next rinse is due, before the water gets cold.

Keep on knitting!

Fiber Inventory

Whew!  I finished my complete fiber inventory yesterday.  What an eye-opener.  When I finally got the spreadsheet done and clicked "sum" for the fiber weight column, it came to over 51 pounds of fiber!!!

Good thing I have a new carder coming.  Yes, indeed, I ordered myself a new Fancy Kitty Kitten drumcarder this morning, complete with brush attachment and motor!  Here's what it will look like:

I can't wait until it arrives.  I have lots of fiber lined up to send through it for beautiful batts, and those will become available at my Etsy store at http://www.gonebattyfibers.etsy.com/.

I am also going to two, count 'em two, sheep shearing days this weekend.  Saturday I will be at my friend Sue Ross' Woolen Meadow Farm.  Sue raises a handspinners flock consisting of Corriedale, Romney and Lincoln breeding, to which she is now adding some Border Leicester.  Her fleeces are coated and very clean, so much so that you need to order fleece a year in advance most years.  This year she seems to have some fleeces available.  The economy has been affecting even fiber addicts, I guess.  Her farm is on the web at http://www.woolenmeadowfarm.com/ .

On Sunday I go to Gail's Little Red Oak Farm.  Gail raises Shetlands and is now adding Finnsheep to her flock.  I have been spinning a bunch of Gail's roving into a "Tribute to Bohus" sweater for myself, all in natural colors of her Shetland sheep.  I'm finally spinning the oatmeal main color from her sheep Yarrow.  You can read about Gail's adventures in fiber at http://littleredoakfarm.blogspot.com/.

Gotta go.  I'll let you know when my carder arrives!!

Sad and Disappointed today

Well, the guys did their best, but they lost the Championship game, 4-2.  There's no question that they were tired from the semi-final game that went into the wee hours, but the bottom line is, they got outplayed.  Oh well, they had a great season, and #2 in the state is nothing to sneeze at.  The USA hockey teams were #2 this year, too, as I recall.

I had tickets for the game in the company suite--I won them at work, so my son and I got to watch the game in luxury.  I brought my camera so I could try my hand at using my zoom lens.  It's not great glass, but I got some okay shots.  Here's my nephew on the ice at the Xcel Center.  My sister-in-law takes much better pics than I do, but I'm learning.  Now if I could just get better at close-up shots of my fibers.  I need to make a light box.

My project today has been to inventory all my fibers, in order to determine what is going to be devoted to business purposes, and what for myself.  Too bad we lost an hour today, because I need it.  Wow, do I have lots of fiber!

I have been pulling boxes out of my closet, and discovering more goodies everywhere I look.  Like 2+ pounds of snowy white washed Polwarth locks.  Yum!  Or an entire alpaca blanket that I forgot I had, in a lovely rust brown with white spots.  Also found a Romney cross fleece in dark natural grey that needs to be washed--better get to that.

People often ask "how do you wash raw wool?"  I think there are lots of ways that work.  This is the way I do it:

1)  Sort the fleece by color or type of lock.  I'm pretty ruthless at skirting here, too.  My time is valuable, and I don't want to waste it by spending time washing and processing fibers that won't live up to my expectations.  So I get rid of anything too dirty, second cuts, dried tips, and VM patches pretty thoroughly.

2) Put small quantities of locks in mesh lingerie bags.  If the locks are pretty dense, I also try to fluff them out a bit; however, that depends on your final processing method.  Since I am going to be carding the fiber, fluffing them out some (while potentially messing up the lock structure) doesn't bother me much.  If I was going to be combing the fibers, I would be a lot more careful here.  But you do want water to get really penetrate all of the locks, so if you are preserving the lock structure, then less in the bags.

3) Fill your sink or washing machine with extremely hot water and Dawn dishwashing soap.  I have also used Orvus paste for this.  The water should be so hot that you can't touch it with your bare hands.  If your water heater is turned down for safety or energy efficiency, then boil a pot of water and add that in.  Then place your mesh bag in the water.  I usually push it down with the soap bottle, or I wear rubber gloves.  If using the washing machine, leave the top open.  Let the fiber sit in the soapy water for awhile--maybe 30 minutes or so.  You don't want the water to get cool!!  (The lanolin that has melted off will congeal back onto the fiber, and it will be even harder to get off.)  You will be surprised at how dirty the water is!

4)  Drain the sink and gently squeeze the water out of the fiber.  Or if you are using your washing machine, turn your dial straight to spin and spin the water out.  Be SURE you know your washing machine cycles--DO NOT let water run onto the fiber, or let agitation occur.  This will produce felt--(don't ask me how I know.)

5) Repeat steps 3 and 4 at least once more, maybe twice more for a very dirty or greasy fleece.  Then do the same two steps without adding soap for rinse cycles.  I usually wash 2-3 times, rinse 2 times.

6) Lay the fiber out on towels or rack to dry.  I live in an apartment, so I have a huge stash of old towels to use for this.  Remember that wool will FEEL dry quite a lot earlier than it actually IS dry, so leave it out longer than you think you need to.

That's it.  Now you have lovely wool locks to play with.  I sometimes proceed to the dye process after the first rinse.  That way you only have to dry it all once.  You have to be pretty careful not to make sudden temperature changes if you do that.

Okay, now back to my inventory.  If I keep getting distracted, I'll never get done!

More boy's state hockey and some knitting

They won again, after 4, count 'em 4, overtimes!! Minnetonka won their semi-final game against Hill-Murray at about 12:20am today! Now they gotta play Edina in the Championship game tonight.

Here is a pic of the guy who shot the winning goal in sudden-death overtime, Eric Baskin. Okay, he's at the bottom of the pile somewhere. (Pic copyright Sheri Schuldt.)

So I tried to bring my knitting to the games on Thursday, but as I said, not much knitting was accomplished. I did a bit better watching the game on TV last night.

I chose to work on my Hanne Falkenberg kit, the Lastrada. It's straight garter stitch with stripes, so I figured it was "safe" to work on. I had to concentrate on not getting my stitches too tight as the game got more and more exciting, tho!

I'm pretty disappointed in this kit, actually. I don't know if there's something lost in the translation or what. The colors really DON'T match the description of them--the color they call "Mustard" is kind of a greeny-gold, and the color they call "Curry" is a mustardy-yellow. I could only figure them out by the quantity of yarn in the kit. There is a picture, too, but that doesn't even show the same stripe pattern, much less the right colors. The picture shows the main color to be a rust color, but the "Rust" they provide in the kit only comes with less than half a ball of yarn, so I assume that can't be the main color.

Finally, the picture shows the main color large stripe to start, then a two-row short stripe, then a different color. Fine. But the written instructions clearly say to do 17 rows of Color A (easy), then two rows of Color B (fine), then begin the chart, which begins with 6 rows of Color B. See the problem? How does the skinny stripe get in the picture, if the skinny stripe and the next color are the same? That makes--drumroll please--a large stripe of the same color! I have read, and re-read this, and I can't puzzle it out, so I decided to just blindly follow the chart. I will end up with a sweater, one way or another.

Other items actively on my needles include the Heart to Heart scarf by Sivia Harding. I LOVE this pattern. It is just challenging enough, makes a gorgeous project, uses very little yarn, and will make a lovely gift for lots of people on my Christmas list. (See, I can plan ahead!)

I am also making a Multnomah shawl, my second one. That's good work knitting--a simple lace pattern row every four rows.  Here's pic of the first one I finished, in Silk Garden Sock yarn.  I love it!

Off to the Xcel Center to cheer on Tonka! I'm not going to bother bringing knitting today!!

They Won!

They won! The Minnetonka Skippers won their quarterfinal game against Lakeville North yesterday at the Xcel Center. They move on to the semifinal game against Hill-Murray tonight, which should be a really good game.

Here's the guys after winning their sectional tournament, which got them to the State tourney. (Picture by Sheri Schuldt.) My nephew Joe is somewhere at the bottom of the pile.

Didn't get much knitting done at the Xcel. I got a few rows done on my Hanne Falkenberg kit--I brought it because it's straight garter stitch for looooong rows, so I thought it would be good knitting for an event like that, and it was. But the games were just too exciting. :-)

Go Tonka!!

Brand-new Blog

Welcome to my first blog entry. I am embarking on a new adventure with my love of fiber--starting a fiber business. Maybe I'm having a mid-life crisis. In any event, I sold my small Fricke Petite drumcarder in order to finance the purchase of a wonderful new Fancy Kitty Kitten motorized drumcarder to use in my new business. I'm placing the order on Friday!!

My kids and I live in a 3 bedroom apartment with very little storage space, so we are always awash in fiber, spinning wheels, knitting needles, dyepots and other yarny goodness. What can I say? It's the perfect life! (Not that I would object to having my own studio, but...)

Tomorrow I have an entire day of knitting in store. I get to spend the day watching the Minnesota Boy's State Hockey Tournament at the Xcel Center in St. Paul, watching my nephew's team and knitting away! Go Skippers!