Sheep and Wool lootz

"Yeah yeah, you did stuff, you saw people, blah blah... show us the yarn, woman."

C*EYE*Ber Fiber sock yarn, colorway Napa







The Sweet Sheep superwash merino, colorway May Day (pretty appropriate for a May festival, right?)







Tess' Designer Yarns Super Socks and Baby





Tess' Superwash Lace





And then the thing I had no idea I was going to buy. Hello, Golding drop spindle.




I also got a book about making kilt hose and stockings, since Nick from our Star Wars group would very much like a pair of kilt hose. That'll probably be my main project for a while... I don't mind taking forever on projects for myself, but I feel like I should crank a bit harder on stuff for other folks.

Maryland Sheep and Wool 2008!

This is going to be a lengthy, photo-heavy post; consider yourselves warned.



J and I had a very nice trip to South Dakota, where we saw Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse and more kitschy tourist shops than I ever knew existed, and got massages, and went home not wanting to kill each other. We had a great time, and I'm already planning to go see him at the end of the month. :)

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This past weekend was MDS&W, which is always crazy and fun. I even worked my way up to it by doing a bit of pre-shopping the weekend before, and got 2 skeins of "Tabali" from Esther Bitran Hand Dyes:





It's cotton and viscose, and has a really neat look to it from the different weights of the singles that were plied.

Friday night, I hung out at Erin's pre-MDSW party at the C*EYE*Ber Fiber studio, along with a few of our usual Knit Night crew, Sarah, Stacey, Gin, Michelle from The Sweet Sheep, Dawn from Knitting Gnome, and tons more I'm forgetting because I didn't take a single picture. *facepalm* Erin has such a great space there, and we were even able to spread out into the room next door.



Saturday was S&W day. Since Jolene just signed the paperwork to buy Cloverhill (YAY!), a lot of our group were helping out at the booth. Coleen had the afternoon shift, so we wandered around together for the morning. I got to ooh and ahh over the pieces that she and Jody had entered for competition.







And of course, there was some looking at fearsome beasties...


And just a smidge of shopping...


That's the Cloverhill booth. Jolene and Jody and Sarah and Coleen (and many others, I'm sure) did an amazing job putting together the displays and running things smoothly. The booth was full of people every time I saw it... Can't go wrong with a booth full of gorgeous yarn and fiber from indie dyers and spinners! I was thrilled to see them doing so well - yay for my gals!

This is long enough already, so the loot gets its own post later. :)

Off into the wild blue yonder

I'm off for a VACATION this weekend. An actual trip, involving airplanes and everything. Right now, I'm in the middle of my favorite game: "What am I forgetting to pack?" (No worries, the knitting is safely stowed in my purse).

If my flights were at normal hours, I'd say I might come home with a finished pair of socks... however, I booked obscenely early flights to give myself a nice wide buffer in case of delays/cancellations, so I have a feeling I'll be comatose on the plane.

Hope everyone has a delightful weekend!

Ariann update

I'm steadily plugging along on Ariann:





I love this pattern. Jody convinced Sarah to cast on for one, so that's a third Ariann that Jody's responsible for (I think she deserves a commission). I don't think I can have it done for MDS&W, although 3 of us in matching sweaters would be too funny.

Speaking of MDS&W, several of my friends (including the aforementioned Jody and Sarah) are running/vendoring at the Cloverhill booth this year, which is just going to be nifty. Go check out what's being planned!

2008's first FO!

I can't believe this is my first FO this year, but I had to start a new Flickr set for it and everything.

A hat for the BF:




He doesn't know yet that he's getting this hat, but he's well aware of the fact that I knit, and I think it's a good introduction to the world of random knitted gifts.

Anyway, the pattern is the Ski Beanie from Son of Stitch and Bitch, and the yarn is Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed, which was lovely to work with and awful to seam with (nubby + easy to pull apart + mattress stitch = "Crap, I broke the yarn again"). If I were to do this pattern again, I'd knit it in the round. The garter rib is plenty stretchy, so it will hopefully fit J just fine.

Allergy season hit for me last week, although it was so bad that I thought I had a cold at first... stayed home from knit night, drank lots of tea, went to bed early. It wasn't helping at all, and then my sinuses kicked in and I realized that it was just my allergies going absolutely crazy because of the mild winter we had here. I got to escape up to NJ for Easter, and things are getting a little bit better now that we've had some rain, but I have to say, last week was as miserable as my allergies have ever been. Ugh.