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It’s been a tough week for knitting and spinning.

I’ve got keyboard fatigue, and the fingers have been rebelling.

And I’ve also had a little bit of a setback on the Shepherd’s Vest. Had to rip back to the armpits on the front.

The yarn has changed enough in grist to make the fabric considerably thinner,, so I’ve had to rethink my completion strategy.

I’m going to go down an needle size, choose the thickest of the remaining yarn, and take another shot at completing it this week.

I’ll just have to feel out the gauge as I go.

This weeks stashbusting:

It’s a double coated shetland, softly spun and then navajo plied. I just love the variety of colors and textures in it.

To me it looks kind of nutty, or spicy.  It has real character.

The expo was a lot of fun, but man am I beat!
Should have gotten some photos of my classes and all the show and tell stuff I brought,, but things were moving too fast….

When I finally did get a little downtime Saturday I checked out the vendors at the trade show

And visited with some alpacas,

Then sat down and did some spinning. (They had a corner of the gym set aside for spinners)

The Shepherd’s vest doesn’t look like much in this photo, but is coming along nicely- just about got the back done-

This is the Skein of the Week-
I’m really pleased with it, but don’t have a knitting project in mind yet. Will kind of depend on how much of this same thing I have a mind to produce…
It’s about 2.7 oz and 235 yards of soft, fluffy oatmeal-y goodness.

That’s all for now- Have a good week!

This past week I had a birthday.

It wasn’t one of those big, “round number birthdays”, but it is significant in a woolish type of way.

You see- a long time back, The Man promised me that by the time I was 40, I’d have sheep!

So 2010 is the year.

We’ve gotta get refocused on the fencing and make it happen.

Anyway, for the 39th, I got a great reference book-

Alden has a ton of experience, and is very opinionated, so it makes even the technical bits amusing.
Wouldn’t give it to a very beginner, as it might make the process seem really intimidating, but It’s a good read.

I’ve been busy this week getting my act together for the classes I’m teaching next weekend (is it really next weekend already! Yeeks!)
Lots of samples and tools to organize, etc, etc.

And in the midst of this, I am still making some progress on knitting projects-

One sock down-

And up to the armpits on the Shepherd’ Vest!

The Great Stash Reduction continues, albeit slowly.

More on that next week-

Shepherd’s Vest, 35%

Making pretty fast progress on this. Barring any hold-ups, I think I might have it done in a few weeks!

Bobbin Clearing socks, 30%

This yarn is the plied bobbin ends of 2009. Is a nice “ragg wool”-looking sockweight, so I thought I’d turn it into some standard recipe boot socks. Can never have too many good handknit socks.

Toggle Cowl, 100%!

Don’t remember if I ever posted about this while it was in-progress. Started out as a swatch in Leavenworth. The garter stitch was nice and squishy and mindless, and before I knew it, the swatch became a short scarf. Finally got the toggles attached this weekend. It’s all handspun except the dark teal (Lamb’s Pride worsted from the stash)

And this week’s 3 oz.

Nice silky oatmeal-colored Romney I purchased back in Nov. Sophie is doing a bang-up job spinning it nice and fine now that she’s properly adjusted.

(Scotch tension was giving me a bit of trouble recently, until I realized that the groove in the bobbin needed to be smoothed. Had a few burrs that were catching up the cord and preventing the bobbin from taking up correctly. Also replaced the spring with one that has a little more flex. Now we’re in business!)

and

This is the fiber (shetland and alpaca) I was able to salvage from my SECOND failed dyeing experience with I Dye. It was supposed to be crimson.
Oh well. It makes a pretty decent black cherry-ice cream type shade. But I don’t think I’ll try that stuff a third time.

I probably didn’t get 3 oz spun this week, but I ended up throwing out at least 3-4 oz of accidentally felted alpaca (dyeing mishap).
That counts as stash reduction too, right?