Lambtown--a brief review

Early Saturday morning, Kathleen, Sara and I headed to Dixon for Lambtown. Fortunately, the weather was on our side this year in that it wasn't unbearably hot. Once there we headed straight for the fiber vendors hall. I promptly scurried over to Carolina Homespun's booth because Morgaine was holding these for me.

A pair of wool combs! Not that I have ever used combs and will probably injure myself using them, I had to have them for my cormo fleece, which I'm almost finished washing.

When I returned to A Verb for Keeping Warm and Tactile's spaces, Sara was busy cobbling together a fresh out of the box Louet Julia. We then visited most of the vendors before the need for coffee and food got the better of me. I staked out a place on the grass in the shade and soon a bunch of friends were sitting, eating, laughing, spinning and knitting. All in all, an excellent day.

I also did a little dying and plying on Sunday. On the top is Henry's Attic Kona handpainted with cochineal and madder using what I learned from Scout. On the bottom is BFL that I dyed with black walnut and spin into a two ply fingering weight. I haven't decided what I want to knit with the Kona. I'm thinking of using the handspun for a pair of Breakfast at Cafe du Monde Gloves.

Of Hydrangeas and Cake

This was influenced by this.



I handpainted the yarn using one of the methods I learned from Scout's dyeing workshop last month. The hydrangea is in my neighbor's front yard and has flowers ranging from pale greenish white to deep periwinkle. The base yarn is 75% merino superwash 25% nylon and I bought it from Woodland Woolworks at Black Sheep Gathering.

I got the baking bug this weekend. It was a good thing I was going to Kristine's studio and could share this with others. Otherwise, I might have eaten the whole thing myself. This is a raspberry buttermilk cake. I used this recipe from 101 Cookbooks, changing it to suit the ingredients I had on hand. I really like this recipe and will make it again--it's easy and transportable and can be altered to reflect what fruits are in season.

String Theory

Dye workshop with Scout

This past weekend I attended a dye workshop with Scout at Knit One One. It was a lot of fun.

The space at Knit One One is great. Light and airy; perfect for seeing what you are doing.

Winding yarn onto a warping board to make self-striping yarn.

This is what a skein off the warping board looks like when it is dyed.

Dyed skeins hung out to dry.

The skein I dyed after winding on the warping board.

The blue face leceister roving I handpainted.

Scout is a wonderful teacher and freely shared her experiences so that we could learn from the mistakes she has made. The one thing that no teacher can teach is color sense and Scout has great color sense. It's just one of those things that you have. It really helps if you are willing to experiment with color and accept that there will be mistakes.

So thank you Scout for a wonderful weekend!

BSG purchases

Black Sheep purchases top row left to right: a sampler of shetland roving from The Bellwether; a Redheart/Ebony spindle from Spindlewood Co.; BFL/pygora blend from Toots LeBlanc; roving in Eggplanted, Socks That Rock in Mochaberry (I just love that name) and Turquoise from Blue Moon Fiber Arts; bottom row left to right: 2nd place targhee fleece; close up of the targhee; a vintage pattern from Sirdar called "Teenage in Sirdar"; the silk bag, nettle yarn and Habu kit were purchased at Web-sters in Ashland.