sunday is for spinning—or not

Posted on Posted in book reviews/events, lace/shawls, projects

instead of our usual spinning class on sunday, we spirited ourselves away to the pittsburgh knit & crochet festival, joined by beckie and kris, to see what sorts of trouble we could get up to (but we missed you barbara . . .).

and we were justly rewarded for our trouble (really, it was no trouble to get to a fiber show, heh)

40-odd vendors of yarn and fibers, classes, raffles, and good company in a relaxed atmosphere—just the thing to chase away the winter blahs.

we saw our dear friends catherine and meredith

at the knitting notions booth, where anne marie scored some beautiful classic merino worsted (in my favorite colorway) to knit an arianne sweater

(she’s either warning me not to tell anyone i saw her do it, or warning me to make sure she’s looking good. but then how could she not look good in that poetry sweater she knit last year?)

a little further down the aisle we saw cosette from cosymakes and julia of knitterly things sharing a booth

showcasing some lovely handspun yarns and knits, and hand dyed yarn and fibers, yum. and how did i manage to go away without scoring a skein of cosy’s handspun yarn (next time, i promise)??

i still managed to come home with a little haul—small amounts of stuff i couldn’t resist

from the top left we have some creatively dyed milk protein/seacell/wool roving, misty mountain farm merino/bombyx silk roving in a fresh apple green, and some of their pure tussah silk to ply with something else, a hank of superwash merino roving from knitterly things (in a colorway that’s a little different for me, which is good), and in the center, a hank of vesper sock yarn, which i’ve always wanted to try, plus, one hank of knitting notions classic merino supersock, colorway, zucchini. i have desired a skein of the zucchini yarn for over two years now and i always talk myself out of it, because . . . well, i do have a lot of sock yarn.
but catherine is discontinuing it, and the dire dread i felt when i saw that made me finally just get one. i’ll use it some day . . .

in the car to and fro i worked on the leg of the second tidelines sock and got it all the way down to the start of the heel

and today in class, i got through the heel turn, so now i just need to do the foot, which usually goes pretty quickly.

we got back in plenty of time for me to put in a whole evening on the arbor shawl

between saturday and sunday i was able to do two chart repeats of the next section which went off without a hitch—now i can get to work on the pattern, knowing that the charts all work the way i planned.

you can see here the transition i was talking about the other day; one pattern sort of “grows” out of the other

now that i know that part works correctly, i can determine the shoulder shaping on paper and test it when i’ve decreased to that point. tomorrow i have a big job getting the bulk of that into some semblance of order, but it will be very satisfying to have it all down on paper finally and be able to pass it off to the test knitters.

late last night i worked on finishing the third hoarfrost neckwarmer, knit in schaefer judith, and got halfway through the edging, which i then finished up in my morning class today

i gave it a soak while i rode my “bike” and it’s laid out drying now. the pattern is all set to go and just needs a good photo.

i’m glad it’s done—i think i’ve explored this project enough. it’s time to move on
(read: i’m just itching to cast on for that little boxleaf shawl with the yarn evelyn sent!!).

now i have to go sort and edit neckwarmer photos so we can get that pattern out the door.
till next time

17 thoughts on “sunday is for spinning—or not

  1. Oh wow, the arbor shawl is stunning!

    I’m a tatter as well and the edging you have on the neckwarmer reminds me so much of tatted edging. Beautiful.

  2. Loving the Arbor shawl–can’t wait to see it finished, blocked and modelled!!

    Cheers, Barbie O.

  3. Oh, wow. I adore that transition — it’s so organic. Gorgeous, gorgeous. And that festival looks like a blast — I’m impressed you walked away with so little yarn, you’re very self-disciplined 😉

  4. Thanks for the pictures! The festival looks like a great time. I love the shawl. Will there be a small enough size for a scarf??

  5. Oh my! The arbor shawl is so droolworthy and the color just makes me feel happy! I think you said earlier that it was an antidote to the February blahs – it surely is!

  6. The festival looked like so much fun–and lots of inspiration! I really like that Vesper yarn that you bought. I imagine you wanted to come home with a LOT more than you did. I love the transition in the shawl- it just flows.

  7. It was great to meet you this weekend. Thanks for being patient with my husband as he cashed you out, he was trying so hard not to make any mistakes.

    I hope to see you at wooster in may.

  8. I was at the festival on Saturday…wasn’t it fun? We brought home a couple of the same things, too, including that yummy Creatively Dyed fiber…oh my gosh, that is some of the softest fiber I’ve ever felt! I can’t wait to spin with it!

  9. It’s bad that out of that pile I knew you had some creatively dyed in there…love that stuff!

    The shawl looks great so far! I just bought the Chiquitita color for it, but if you have enough test knitters, I can wait and buy it when it’s done. 🙂

  10. huh. i forgot about that show. i did manage to get more yarn over the weekend though – my mom and i went up to the new yarn shop in uniontown and i got some more alpaca laceweight (very nice and soft).

    the shawl is certainly coming along. i like the transition. of course, every time i see it, i think autumn…no wonder i’m all confused about the date…

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