Yaaarrrrrnnn!!

Fibres West is coming up soon! On March 18th and 19th electrictree yarns is going to be there slogging our wares! the house is redolent with acrid scent of fresh dye and dead bugs (what can I say, that's what silk smells like...). I love the masses of yarn that are drying all over the house.



Sorry about the picture quality, I no longer have a good camera and now have to take stills from my camcorder until I can find a replacement.

We have expanded our line. We have merino/nylon sock (extremity), merino/silk fingering (ephemeral), superwash worsted (expansive), silk noil light fingering (earthly), and silk laceweight (exquisite.) We will also have a variety of fantastic accessories, bamboo lazy kates, raw fibre (shetland, mohair, angora, and hopefully quiviut!).

We are really excited about this event, it's our 3rd fibre fest, but it's our first major one. We are one of over 30 booths. This will be the largest one I have ever been too! The hardest part will be not splurging on ridiculous amounts of yarn and fibre!

Billions of Blistering Blue Barnacles

Dudes...I have so much to post it's not even funny...I have been putting it off and now it's kicking me in the ass and I have to take a large chunk of time away from spinning and knitting...I hope you have a few minutes, I think this is my longest post yet!

First things first...today in the mail I got my first ever etsy order. If you don't know what etsy is your life is horribly empty and superficial. Etsy is ebay for crafters. It is heaven. Check it out here. But be warned, it can seriously suck away hours and dollars.

The awesome part of my etsy order is that while it was my first, it was the 100th sale for the person I bought from. So she sent me goodies in addition to my order. I was super impressed with this since my order was not a high priced order. The fibre she sent me is beautiful.
I bought this in the colourway called Sunrise
Which I plan on blending with this 50/50 wool/silk (got it at Fibres West, more on that later...)
I also bought this beautiful Natural French Angora that was seriously discounted because of moulting/shearing issues, but it is still very beautiful and eminently suited for blending.
And because I was her 100th customer (which was SO cool because it was my 1st ever Etsy purchase) she gave me some wonderful bath salts and THIS
Good GOD look at the staple on this AMAZING Angora!! She doesn't share it with anyone, but because I was her 100th customer (or perhaps because of my incredible psychic persuasive abilities) she felt compelled to share it with me. Jordan you ROCK! Seriously, her stuff is lovely, check her out on Etsy under the seller name punkjordane and if you love angora you will love her stuff! She sells seeds too, but I can't buy those because she is in the States and terrorists grow out of seeds so they don't allow them to cross the border...

OK Next on the docket...FIBRES WEST!! I went there and I didn't want to come home. A whole weekend of fibrey knitty people hanging out together in perfect, blissful, crafting, harmony. I was there with my friends store Twist of Fate. We had TONNES of product, and we sold a lot. But most importantly I got to meet a whoel bunch of truly wonderufl people (or maybe I just assumed they were wonderful because of their spinny knitterliness) I saw so many amazing fibres and I wanted to buy them ALL. I did get a few nifty things, such as the aforementioned. Handmaiden 50/50 wool/silk. I also got this:
It is is hemp fibre that is fairly fine-a whole 227 grams of it! Half a pound of hippy goodness. I am going to use it for blending. Some is slated for sock yarn and the rest is going to sit in my stash being all potential and stuff.

Also bought 117 grams of merino/tencel from Knitopia, it is so beautiful and is this fantastic black/purple with white tencel. I am spinning it to a laceweight or slightly heavier and plan to knit a shawl with it. The weird thing is I HATE wearing shawls. I like the way they look on other people but you would have to hogtie me and then drape it over my struggling body to get me to wear one...and then I saw the merino/tencel...and I started imagining myself wearing really gothic lacey shawl looking all mysterious and stuff...so ashawlknitting I will go!

I bought this China Grass Ramie...I don't really know what it is...which I think may have been the deciding factor in my choice to purchase it...
I also knit this during the slow times at the festival-it's that sweater in ridiculously chunky wool for my stepdaughter-I think it may have taken all of 5 hours to knit.I started knitting thisIt's the Assymetrical Cardi. The yarn is lovely and from Custom Woolen Mills, I got the yarn from Twist of Fate.

My Aunt came to Fibres West and that was so cool!! She brought muffins, and I have to admit I was a little leery of them at first because she told me they had tofu in them...but I will eat anything so I gave them a whirl and they were SO good!! Yummy banana tofu muffins, which is perfect for me with my insanely high protein requirement (I think it's because I am an ogre). I MUST remember to ask for the recipe! I like it when healthy food tastes good. It makes me think "Thank God I can't eat well and not want to sand off my tastebuds."
I also saw 2 other people I that I know there which was neat because I thought I would not know anyone. Sharon from Armstong taught me Bobbin Lace and she is such a cool lady so it was nice to see her again. I also saw Cheryl from Saltspring. Every year I volunteer at the Fall Fair on Saltspring and Cheryl does the fleece judging. 2 years ago I was her Judging assistant and I learned at TONNE from her. It was really neat to see her there, she was there with Jane Stafford Textiles.

One last thing about Fibres West that I thought was SO cool: I was wandering around looking at booths and I got a compliment on my sweater from one lady in a spinning circle and one of the other ladies said "Is that the Wrenna?" I just about died. It was so cool that someone recognized it and asked about it by name!
I know the pic is terrible, but don't you think my shower curtain is cool?

Knitting Like There is No Tomorrow

So I started the 4 Day Challenge yesterday (the knitting one, not the All-Bran one). I will post pics tonight when I get home from work. Yes I am blogging from work-but it's lunch break so that makes it OK in my books.
I believe I will make my 4 day deadline. Especially since I totally cheated and modified the design...I did the patterning on the front, but I have changed the bottom half of the back to stocking stitch. There were 2 reasons for this besides laziness (believe me I am not undermining the power of laziness to make me modify a design, I just want to point out that in this rare instance there are other considerations).
Reason number 1-the lace part of the pattern is charted. I don't care what anyone says I hate charts. I can make them work for colourwork, but they are the bane of my existence for lace. It doesn't matter how many times I do charted lace, I will screw it up over and over again. I constantly miss yarn overs. All the time, so that when I get to the next row I have the wrong number of stitches. It doesn't matter that I have identified the problem, believe me I had a "Eureka!" moment when I realized I was making a consistent mistake, because I thought that meant it was solvable. It was not. I still do it, I make the same mistake over and over again-thousands of times to the point of insanity. I bet just reading about my lace chart trials makes you want me to not knit lace.
The second reason why I switched to stocking stitch on the back of the sweater is because the pattern doesn't show up that nicely with the yarn/needle combination I am using. So I decided it was too much work (there is that lazy thing again) for something that doesn't look that great.
The cool thing is this pattern is super easy to modify-so I can make cardigans galore in all colours and sizes inexpensively and quickly. I am going to buy some machine washable/dryerable acrylic (barf) and knit my stepdaughter one, it should knit in less than two days. If she lived with us I would use wool, but since I don't do her laundry it has to be safe for some rough treatment.
Tonight is pool night so I should get some good knitting in between games!
I am going to Fibres West this weekend in Abbotsford. I am super excited and for once glad that my paycheque was late! It's easier to save money for yarn if I don't have my impulse buying fingers on it!
Speaking of paycheques, I am getting my paycheque today and going to the store to buy a whole bunch of stuff for the local Women's Shelter. The Women's Shelter in Kamloops is run by the Y. I encourage anyone who can to donate money or items to your local Women's Shelter. It's a great way to make a really positive impact on your community. I always try to add a few frivolous things to my donation to go with the neccesities-chocolate, pretty jewelry or makeup. It's such a horrible time for women (and often their children) so I try to add something to brighten things up.
Also I just noticed that the plastic lids for disposable coffee cups are recyclable...