Month: May 2008

The Fiber Haul

Posted by zyllah – May 29, 2008

So with all the sales going on (which so far I have managed to not order from) my initial plan was to pick up two items and some handmade soap. I wanted to get Color in Spinning and a niddy noddy. I was however DENIED. There had been one copy of the book and it had sold the day before. Claire and I stuck to our plan for all vendor laden events. We do a pass through to see what everyone has and then we decide which to head back to. First place we actually shopped at was Fiber Denn. I got some sock yarn, some fiber and the fast whorl for Siouxsie. I had been meaning to get the fast whorl for a while and hadn’t gotten around to ordering it so the fact that she’s a majacraft dealer was to my benefit.

The first up is the 4 oz of Optim I got. Oh my god this stuff feels incredible.

The purple is a merino/silk blend (65/35) in a colorway called Phlox and the green is corriedale in a colorway called Forrest. The noddy came from Little Barn.

This is a Quasi-Solid sock yarn in a colorway called Sangiovose. It’s a wool/bamboo/nylon blend.

Next up was Deer Trace Farm. They have some gorgeous alpaca but I still haven’t used up the 8 oz I bought before so I gave that a pass this time but I did get this amazing 50/50 Merino Silk blend.

Lastly I hit Little Barn. They had FANTASTIC pricing. They sell 4 oz of optim for 9.95. So hell yeah I got more. Anyway compare those prices to other vendors….Anyway from them I got the Noddy I showed you up above and all this.

From left to right is another 4 oz of optim, 8 oz of bfl, and 16 oz of tussah silk. That day seriously felt like Christmas cause when I got home the books I had ordered had gotten there. So now I have yet more stitch dictionaries (Knit/purl and Lace/Eyelets) from the new Harmony guides and the book that hopefully will teach me to sew. The Sew Everything Workshop comes highly recommended and from what I’ve read so far its totally justified. It seems to be the SNB of sewing.

Tennessee Fiber Fair

Posted by zyllah – May 28, 2008

So Saturday Claire, Judie, Phil and I headed down to Dickson to the Tennessee Fiber Festival. We planned on doing some shopping and then going to plant world and then finally lunch at boobies. Home of the famous boobie burger. We went there last year and everyone loved it. So first up was the fiber fair.

Animals were seen like this cashmere goat:

Fiber and yarn were fondled and bought from Fiber Denn:

Friends were met but I forgot to snap photos.

Overall it was WAY better than last year. Easily twice the size. I think the organizers deserve a great big round of virtual applause for putting that much effort and work into it. My favorite vendors this year were Fiber Denn (as usual) and Little Barn (SUPER FREAKING CHEAP). Plus it’s always nice to see folks I don’t get to see too often since I am just lazy enough to consider Nashvegas a wee bit too far to go to knitting groups there.
So we were there about 3 hours I’d say and then off to plant world we went. I know this isn’t a gardening blog but oh my god did they have gorgeous plants and lots of them! We have nothing like that here. It was almost like being at a botanical garden. I took so many pics. However I’ll only bore you with my two favorites.

Lunch was had and then we took off for home. Next post the Fiber HAUL.

Some of this and Some of that…oh and KITTEHS

Posted by zyllah – May 24, 2008

So I had to break this up since yesterdays entry was getting kind of long…

The most fabulous Mj sent me some absolutely gorgeous socks.  It’s a good thing too since as much as I love the pattern I’m not sure I’d have made some for myself. As she has previously noted everything I seem to do is some flavor of ribbing.

I also took some shots of my now almost damn sexy computer. Justin’s case is sexier since he went for all that light crap but we haven’t gotten any fantastic images of it at night yet.

My garden is doing rather well this year.  Like seriously I’ve lived here for almost 3 years and every other year I had maybe two of my 4 bushes bloom but this year I have roses galore out there and ALL of them are blooming.

Hell my tomatoes are even starting to have baby maters.

Also I can haz kittehs. So for mothers day I got my mom two black kittens. They are my ‘guests’ until I head down there next time. They are disgustingly cute. So cute I might have to keep them except I have a thing about having more cats than arms are permanently living in the house. At that point I think you achieve official crazy cat lady status. Even Justin (Mr. We have enough cats) has expressed the desire to keep them. There are more photos here if you want to see. I tried coming up with good names for them but all I could come up with was pip and squeak because they are so tiny.  Also they pretty much make those sounds. My mom thinks its ‘undignified’ I just keep telling her they aren’t very dignified cats;)

I actually wrote this post yesterday but through the glory of wordpress I have it set to publish today because I am off at the Tennessee fiber fair.

Wip update! And the usual excuses…

Posted by zyllah – May 23, 2008

Ahh time for my usual excuses…I had two house guests in a row for about two weeks and then I was just lazy and things were crazy. Steve came up to chill out and work on his laptop. Then my mom came for a week. After all that I wasn’t feeling too social since I think in the dictionary under hermit it has my photo. Anyway… So wicked is done except for the buttons. I have the buttons I just need to sew them on but I can’t find my sewing needles! I am counting that as done though. Hopefully this weekend I’ll either find them (god help me that room is a nightmare) or I’ll remember to get some more. So I have expectations of an FO post/pic next week. So I started three new projects. One for SNB/social Knitting, a sweater and socks.

Project 1: Scrunchable Scarf (rav link)

I’m doing this in Malabrigo Velvet grapes. It’s a one row pattern which makes it perfect for social knitting. I don’t expect this to be done anytime soon.

Project 2: Leyburn Socks (rav link)

The yarn is Claudia’s Handpainted from loopy ewe in a colorway called df green. I really enjoy the pattern and it goes fast I’m past the heel I just haven’t taken an updated photo yet. The only issue I have and its not so much a real issue as my issue is that it’s a 7 row repeat so I kind of do have to pay some attention to it. Also I was merrily knitting away when Enki decided it looked tasty and chewed through the yarn. So I got mad at him and the sock and promptly put it down and haven’t picked it up since. I hope to at least finish sock 1 this weekend.

Project 3: Basic Black in uhh Black (only link is to rav since its a former magknits pattern)

I’m actually about 3″ past this but yet again I took these photos a few days ago. I’m using Debbie Bliss Merino DK. It’s not the softest merino I’ve ever felt but it was better after a soak I let justin decide what would be my next sweater. I had visions of Marjorie (spring knitty) dancing in my head but he liked this one. It’s not the most fun knit ever but I will wear the crap out of it so that’s ok.

All the YARN SALES are driving me crazy! We spent a butt ton of cash recently on computer parts. Justin needed a whole new desktop for age of conan and it was really time for me to get a non ghetto case, a new video card and speakers that didn’t get feedback from my cell (they were over 10 yrs old) Anyway I’m waiting for some refunds to come in before I do any Stim check yarn shopping. I don’t need yarn but the prices make it so very tempting!