Category: Blog

Sorry I missed ya’ll last weekend.

Been a bit distracted here by non-wool-related issues.

But I’m back on track now, and we’re taking enjoying a couple days in Leavenworth WA.

Just hanging out and enjoying a little down time.

Leavenworth is a self-made little Bavarian style village just east of the Cascades. Here are some highlights-

Giant Pretzels

Hearty German food.

Gnomes. I just love gnomes

And a Local Yarn Shop (yea!) It’s just a bit of a place, but good for a fiber fix in a pinch!

Had to do yet a bit more reknitting of The Man’s sweater to adjust the fit, but have almost got that done while we’ve been hanging out.

No new pictures of that, though.

Next pictures I post of the sweater will hopefully be modeled by the happy recipient when it is finally and officially a finished object!

There’s this guy who lives a ways north of me who shears sheep. And trains herding dogs.

And he always has a bunch of wool hanging out in the loft of his barn.

It’s a mixed bag (feed sack), of course. And none of it has been handled with great care.

But sometimes you can find some interesting things.

This time, I went in search of samples of a variety of fleece types and conditions, in preparation for a class I’m going to be doing on selecting a fleece for handspinning.

Wanted to be able to to a little show-and tell with the folks, and talk about the good, the bad and the ugly.

Here is some of what I found.

Little bit of Suffolk, Scottish Blackface, Jacob, Romney?, and miscellaneous undocumented crossbreed.

Here they area little closer for comparison of length and texture-

Then there was this veg-infested bundle-

Almost as much straw as wool,, but I needed an example of how much veg is too much veg, and actually, the wool itself is really nice and soft. So maybe I’ll end up sorting through some of it,,,

And then, just as I was thinking I’d seen enough, out pops this little number.

Pretty sure this is CVM.

In nice shape, too.

I haven’t done much with finewool breeds, and don’t know if my carders will be able to handle it,, but I’m going to give it a go. Was too pretty to pass up. ( I only took half, though)

In other news, I’ve suffered a minor setback in sweater progress.

My circular needle just gave up and popped out of it’s end thingee!

Once I get it Gorilla Glued I should be back in business.

Hang in there needle- we’re in the home stretch!

So, Thanksgiving has passed, and we are enjoying the leftovers from the traditional spread.

It’s always about this time that I start to feel a little bit overwhelmed by the thought of Christmas being less than a month away.

There are cards to prepare, cookies to bake, presents to plan.

I don’t know how much baking I’m going to get done this go-round, but I am bound and determined to get the man’s sweater done. (Syd is providing moral support)

I ordered the zipper last week, and am slowly but surely working my way down the sleeves. I’m not quite as far as I hoped to get over the long weekend, but there have been many distractions,

and it’s hard to get much knitting done while Boo Kitty is intent on inspecting and snuggling the project.

One thing is certain. Whenever The Man wears this sweater, he will be a cat magnet.
I just can’t keep her away from it!

And I finally washed up some of the new fleece from the sale a couple of weekends ago.

It’s washing up really nice- very silky, and finer than it seemed initially. Much different than some of my previous Romney experience. Should be a fun spin!

Guess what I got in the mail yesterday.

(Suppose I kind of gave it away with the post title, eh?)

Yep. I got Sophie’s new bobbins from Ron Antoine!

(that’s the old one in the middle)

We are both so very pleased.

Here she is all reassembled with the small Kromski whorl and new bobbin.

She’s so much smoother and quieter now.
And also faster- I’ve got her on the 13:1 whorl, and things are going just spinningly.

In other news, I finally cooked up one of our Cinderella pumpkins from the garden-

and turned it into pie!

and sampled shortly thereafter.

This was a trial run on the “from-scratch” pie for Thanksgiving. (I’ve always used canned pumpkin before). And a mighty successful one at that!

I’ve also finally gotten back on track with The Man’s sweater. Sleeve #1 is about half done, and I think that I’ve finally got it right.

The knitting goal for this week is to finish both sleeves and develop a plan for the finishing….

Have a great Thanksgiving!