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So I Went to Lambtown

I went up to Dixon this morning to go to Lambtown (quick, you can too – it’s open for three more hours!) to wander around and look at yarn and sheeps.

Lambtown is a small fiber festival and there was definitely more fleece around – not something that interests me as I’m not a spinner. They had a couple of booths that had spindles that looked fun but dudes: I do not need another hobby when I still haven’t utilized weaving, you know?? I might try it sometime but I don’t want to buy a bunch of supplies.

Anyway, it was good, and I even ran into a twitter friend there (Hi Manda!) and stopped and chatted with her and her knitting group for awhile (go me, being social-ish!).

That last one is my favorite; he seemed young and his fur (?) was shaved funny. I like how they look kind of like poodles.

I actually didn’t take any pictures of sheep this year because there weren’t as many! Last year I took a bunch but there definitely weren’t as many animals there this year, which I think may have something to do with our ever worsening economy. Also it rained last night a little. (No excuses!) I kind of wish I did because the sheep were all sheared and wearing canvas ponchos to protect them. They kind of cracked me up. But the sheep weren’t doing anything interesting and I couldn’t really get any good shots.

Okay I have to go to my uncle’s party now. I actually have a finished project to show you all next time.

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Oh Hello Again

So I haven’t been updating much lately – and haven’t posted anything in a month, but I have actually been busy! It is very peculiar. I also spend all day in front of a computer and generally come home and don’t want to continue doing that.

Anyway, I have been making things in the background.

What is this? you may be wondering. Why, these are several non-sock related projects that I have been enjoying working on at my leisure. The orange one is the Multnomah shawlette in Sanguine Griffon’s Eidos, the weird yellowy one is the Brandywine shawl in Sanguine Griffin Skinny Bugga, and the turquoise/brown thing is actually a scarf (!) from Knitty, Wisp in Collinette Jitterbug (the new 400 yd skein).

Here are some thoughts on the yarns used:

Sanguine Griffin Eidos: Has a peculiar crunchy texture that I do not entirely dislike. It is a sturdy yarn that I think will stand up to abuse. I also sprayed it with water a little, and it did soften right up, so a Soak bath will definitely help the finished project. While I like it, and the color is amazing (my camera did not give the fiery colorway justice), I don’t think I’ll be getting it again because:

Sanguine Griffin Skinny Bugga: HOLY CRAP I LOVE THIS YARN. The merino/nylon blend gives it strength, while the 20% cashmere lends a softness. If I ever have any money ever again, I will probably try to get enough of this yarn (or the fatter yarn Bugga) to make myself a cuddly delicious sweater. I guess it’s true: once you’ve gone cashmere, you can never go back. Le sigh.

Collinette Jitterbug: This is a nice basic sock weight yarn. It has a high twist and therefore tends to twist up on itself which I find annoying. But it does seem to be pretty sturdy and is knitting up nicely in this pattern.

In other, exciting news, my sister is currently in Munich on a business trip, where she did me a huge, fabulous favor:

That, my friends, is a wall of Wollmeise at the brick & mortar store in Pfaffenhofen.

Where Abby bought me Wollmeise.

I have always wondered about Wollmeise, and been weirded out by the way people stalk the website, and its unavailability to us normal folks who don’t stay up till 3 a.m. to catch an update. I mean, I love yarn, and I want to try out as many different yarns as possible, but I do have some standards.

So, I’m pretty excited about that.

Other things that I have been doing but not blogging about:

  1. I went to the Star Trek exhibit at the Air & Space Museum in Sacramento, and that was pretty fun.
  2. I went to last week’s A’s vs. Red Sox game, where my dear Sox sucked, but the A’s did well – and viewed the game from a deliciously catered luxury box.
  3. Had my six month dental checkup, and am in the clear for another six months. I’m glad I seem to be past the really amazing bad part of this whole dental experience. I’m still really mad about it, because I miss my money spent on the whole ordeal. 🙁
  4. I was poisoned by the egg-related salmonella outbreak for a rather tiring Saturday as my innards rebelled in a revolution worthy of the French.
  5. Got sent to collections by Capital One over a bill that I hadn’t even gotten the bill yet (and was intending to pay in full). After causing much wrath to flow over the poor Indian who answered the phone, I got things cleared up. The following week, I received the notice that I’d been sent to collections… dated the day after I called customer service. I would like to take this opportunity to say, Screw You, Capital One, Screw You All The Way To The Top!
  6. Enjoying the heck out of the wackadoodles on the current season of Project Runway.
  7. Went to a library book sale where I for once found exactly what I was looking for! It’s always sort of luck-of-the-draw for these things.
  8. Randomly ran into my mother at JoAnn’s, who then spontaneously took me out to lunch at the Chinese buffet.

I’ve also been working on some jewelry pieces. Here’s the one I made for my sister that is a knock-off of one she wanted from Modcloth.

It turned out really well, and she liked it a lot. It was also a ginormous pain in the you-know-what, so I’m glad that it went over well.

So, I’ve been pretty busy lately, but I hope to be a little better about updating in the coming weeks.

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Lately I’ve Been

On Tuesday I went up to Sebastopol with my mother to the thrift store The Legacy. This is a wonderfully unique thrift store where they only sell craft items, and it benefits the local senior center. My mom was after some sewing machines parts and I was after nothing in particular but wound up getting loads of knitting pattern pamphlets for under $10.

Two blocks away from The Legacy on the same street is a yarn store called Balls & Skeins. My mom dropped me off over there so I could spend some of my birthday money. Balls & Skeins is a nice little store, though there isn’t a huge selection, or rather there isn’t a huge variety of different brands – or specifically different to me brands. They did, however, have the new larger 400-yd skeins of Jitterbug, so I snapped up one of those and another skein of turquoise Cascade 220, which shall join the pile o’worsted for the upcoming hatapalooza.

I do seem to enjoy knitting hats in the hottest months of the year; go figure.

The yarn is on top of my pile of stuff from The Legacy, and the top pattern is a vintage(ish?) child’s pullover, very adorable. The yarn is my sole birthday yarn this year. A friend sent me a gift certificate to the Loopy Ewe, and I selected a skein of Skinny Bugga in the Goldenrod Crab Spider colorway, which is an awesomely weird yellow green mustard color; absolutely what I envisioned and have been wanting. I’d like to make a shawlette with it to wear with my gray jacket.

In the middle is the Jitterbug. I don’t know what I’ll make with that yet. The colorway is (I think) Ischia (?) and reminds me of chocolate mint. Last is the Cascade 220 in the extremely well named colorway 9455.

I’ve sort of got project ADD at the moment; I don’t have something I’m completely married to and have been jumping back and forth between projects, even picking up an old one from last year:

These are fingerless mitts I’m calling “King George Mitts” based on the name of the lace pattern (which I confess may actually be called “King Charles Brocade” and in one of my pattern books is simply titled “Lacy Diamonds”. However, King George has stuck).

This morning (Saturday) I went to Felicia’s local wedding shower and gave her my gift. I like attending wedding showers for the sole reason that I don’t have to tote a gift to the wedding. In fact, the last several weddings I’ve attended I went to the shower for this purpose and I have to recommend it! For Felicia I got her a 12-count muffin/cupcake tin, a cake decorating set and a set of scissors. She seemed pleased with it, and to my amusement when she unwrapped the scissors, the whole room full of ladies went “Oooooh!” so, see, I was right about everybody needing scissors! I personally probably have about ten pairs floating around the house and it’s simply… not… enough. 😉

Next week I don’t have much to do except continue to look for work and I may have lunch with Felicia and Jennifer, who was also at the shower. Hopefully I will also have a chance to meet up with Malvina to help her with a hair dyeing situation. I also need to work on Sarah’s birthday present, like, a lot. Sarah is coming up for the wedding and Malvina and I plan to take her out to lunch for her birthday which is actually next week.

Oh, incidentally, I am Felicia’s wedding dress storage facility! Thanks to the fact that I have an animal-free homestead, there is a big lacy dress hanging in a storage bag in my living room, and it actually kind of startles me every time I walk past because from the corner of my eye it’s like a person standing there. Heh.