I'm Dreaming of a White Easter…

Excuse me, but I believe that yesterday was the Vernal Equinox – Spring – end of winter – etc.

Well, someone forgot to tell Old Man Winter that because he blew in this afternoon and deposited 12 inches of snow and it is still coming down!  The wind is howling and yowling outside.  Heaven only knows what the poor Robin I saw this morning is doing right now.

Heck, I should be knitting a nest cozy for that Robin!

You would never know that yesterday was so sunny and gorgeous out.  Sandy and I headed down to visit Marr Haven and the lovely owner.  What a lovely farm – Barb is an amazing artist.  Her dyeing is beautiful and her sheep are too cute!  Her workshop is filled with wonderful things to spark your creative genius!

Hope you have all your Easter Eggs dyed.  And, your Easter baskets ready for the Easter Bunny to fill… I think that Santa may have to hitch up his reindeer to help out the Bunny with his deliveries!!

Stay warm if Old Man Winter is still in your neighborhood!

Random Hilarity

Hello everyone!  Hope your week is rolling along smoothly.

Yesterday I  accompanied Sandy to Ann Arbor – her husband is not feeling great and he was admitted to the hospital for some tests.  Check in was something else.  There was this hysterical, and I mean hysterical, woman working in admitting.  Her name was Mary Beth… she was a woman who would put most stand up comedians to shame.  We were all laughing and having a fabulous time with her wit.  I asked her at one point if she was a knitter.  Her reply caused us all to burst into laughter!  “Knit?” she says to me, “I can’t do that at all.  I cannot get things off the needles,” she quips with a straight face, “I just have to keep buying more needles.”  Oy – what a woman.

This week was also Spinning night at FOW – and it was busy!  One of the lovely ladies that I have met there has just started a new blog.  Her name is Jenna and you need to stop over to Jenna’s blog and tell her I asked you to do so.  She is a new spinner as well and she spins beautifully!  One creative and crafty lady!

March Madness has commenced so it is all basketball, all the time for the next few weeks.  Can you hardly stand it???

This morning I had an interesting conversation with The Divine Miss Beth!  I thought I would get the shop voice mail and leave her a message with some questions about a lesson or two with her to help me hone my spinning skills a bit.  But, imagine my shock when she answers the phone and announces to me that she is naked!  I warned her that I was a blogger and she was giving me free fodder for publication…

Anyways, stop over and give Beth a holler and tell her to put some pants on!   Or at least put some on before Abby gets there next weekend!!!  Anyways, I let her know that I was going to work on trading up my Ashford and I was going to be in the market for a traveling wheel.  And, if anyone knows spinning wheels it is Beth!  She filled my brain with some things to think about.  If any of you are interested in an Ashford Traveler with 4 extra bobbins get a hold of me and we can talk price and shipping arrangements.  I will be putting something on Ravelry as well.

Have a great evening everyone.

Spinning fun!

Hello everyone!

Last night Sandy and I went to spin with the Woodland Spinners.  It was great fun!  What an upbeat group of talented spinners!  I even met someone who is a new spinner like me!  She started spinning in August when she took a class at Allegan Fiber Festival!  We laughed about celebrating our one year “spiniversay” together!  There was also some great discussion from the group on participating in the “Sheep to Shawl” contest that they have at Allegan!  Lots of new thoughts swirling around in my head!

And, tonight the Holland Spinners are meeting!  This will be fun as well – I took the Dyeing class with Lisa and Jenna and I am looking forward to seeing their fibers!!   I started spinning my Merino/Bamboo roving last night.  Yum!  I like!!  I saw something interesting on Abby’s blog and I am doing that with my roving.  We’ll see how it turns out!

One last tidbit to leave you with.  In our Thursday night knitting group we have a lovely lady who has 9 children.  Yes, you read that correctly – nine!  Well, last night I met another lovely lady who has her beat and beat by a mile.  She has 13 children ranging in ages from 31 years old to 8 years old.  I almost fell out of my spinning chair and, if I still had my uterus, it would have been crying!!  Thirteen kids – oh. my. gosh.  And, get this gentle reader, they do this with a bath and a half.  She was loads of fun, which you would have to be with 13 kids – don’t you think?  And, what is the break down – boys to girls, you ask?  Seven boys and six girls.  Here is what I am thankful for – I am not doing their laundry!!

Have an awesome Tuesday all!

Lovely Rita

Lovely Rita

Color Queen!  (Okay, so I took a little license with the Beatles song… )

I had a whirlwind weekend – literally.  I drove to Glen Arbor to get Sam on Friday – 6 hours round trip.  However, I stopped a couple of places along the way.  Just a little fiber distraction!

Saturday dawned bright and early – I had a Dyeing Class at City Knitting with Lovely Rita, The Color Queen.  Wow.  What I learned was truly amazing.  Rita is an excellent teacher and my classmates were amazingly creative.  Do you find that when you are surrounded with creative people, you are more creative?  Well, that certainly was the case on Saturday.

Rita’s wealth of knowledge in Dyeing is amazing – and I have a feeling we just scratched the surface of her wisdom on Saturday.

These are the beauties that I created on Saturday.  They are still a bit damp, but the colors are just glorious!

I started with some lovely Alpaca with a Twist Fino – and ended up with 875 yds of this luscious creation.

This is some Henry’s Attic Licorice Twist – a merino with a strand of super wash.  I am not certain how much yardage there is, but trust me, it is lots!  See how the super wash grabbed more of the color… cool, huh?

Now this is 2 hanks of Peruvian Tweed Superfine Alpaca – 1200 yds of it!  Intense, vibrant colors!

And, finally I dyed 4 oz. of Merino/Bamboo roving.  See the kind of white sliver running through?  That is the bamboo.

I was so happy with my creations!  I am itching to try some more overdyeing here at home soon!

Then Sunday I ended up having to drive Sam back to school – another 6 hour round trip.  Oh, boy – it feels like I lived in the car this weekend.

On the job front – I have found out my schedule at the hospital and I am going to have to drop the local spinning and knitting nights…. I will have to work on Tuesday and Thursday’s and I won’t get back into Holland until after 7:30PM.  That is kind of sad, but I am so thankful for a job that I am not complaining.  I also will have to give up choir – as I won’t get there in time either.  Small sacrifices in the scheme of things.

On a brighter note, there is a group starting on Monday nights – which will work for me.  New beginnings all around!

I need to get moving here, have a great Monday all!

Daylight Savings Time

is still kicking my butt.

Okay, I don’t know about you but I am still struggling with the time change.  I am waking up at a ridiculous hour and, while I love the lengthened daylight hours, by 8 o’clock at night I am just wiped out!  Last night I was going to sit down and read a bit in my new book In Sheep’s Clothing:  A Handspinner’s Guide to Wool and I just could not stay awake!  This has been my plan all week – to get a little of this book read each evening – but that is not happening!  I am hoping that by next week my body has adjusted to this change!

Oh, and have you all seen the new Knitty is up?!  Wow, there are some great patterns in there this month!  I instantly printed off the Lace Ribbon Scarf and Honeycomb.  I have in my stash some Alpaca Sox and some Silky Wool.  How perfect, huh?  It is a beautiful issue with some great changes – the pattern archive is much more user friendly.  So, I need to knit faster on my May Day socks so they are finished so I can start some new projects without a guilty conscience!

Of course that did not impede me too much when I cast on Agatha this week!  I knit my swatch and love how it looks!  I am using Dream In Color Classy in the Dusky Aurora color way that I got here this weekend!  I cast on for the shawl and have completed the set up and one complete of pattern A and B – now I just alternate between A and B until I have a shawl that is the size I want and then I do the edging.  It is easy and fun – and I am ignoring my knitting conscience by telling myself that I am so tired – frogging back on my sock will be much more difficult than  frogging back on worsted weight yarn.  Sounds good, huh?

Okay – next big news…. I have made reservations for Rhinebeck!  Sandy and I have plans to head out in October to be part of this event.  There was a certain person who encouraged us – so we made reservations here.  So, I have my mattress all set to hold all the money I am going to be stuffing into it!  I am looking forward to seeing many of you there!  I am even going to try and convince this lady to go.  She is loads of fun.

And the final bit of information I will leave you with today is this…

The Yarn Harlot is coming back to A2 in April.

April 11th to be exact.

At 7PM.

An evening of fun and laughter.  How can you miss?

Have a great day everyone!

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