I still hate cotton

Let me clarify. I love wearing cotton and I pretty much live in denim. The cotton plant is a remarkable and beautiful thing. I don't mind knitting with the stuff.
BUT...
I hate spinning it. No. I loathe spinning cotton. The fibres are short, it sticks to itself, it's full of husks, I clench just thinking about it.
Now, you're probably thinking this shouldn't be a big deal. There are lots of fibres that aren't cotton that I can spin, so why don't I just shut up and go spin something else. I have to spin about 400m of the hateful stuff for Level 5. I'm about halfway there. It's going to take me the rest of the week to get it all done. And that probably doesn't include setting the twist and skeining it off into the pissy little hanks for the class.


On the up side, this is easily the nicest cotton I've ever had to work with. It's got a fairly long staple and it almost drafts like wool top. Many thanks to Irene for recommending Israeli cotton. It has been better than any of the other cottons I've tried.



Still hate it.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Have a wonderful day! Get out and start enjoying all those senior discounts.
I can say that 'cause I live two whole provinces away and you can't ground me anymore. Nyah nyah.
Lots of love and hugs!

One down, let's not talk about how many more...

The first garment for year three Nihon is done! Yay!
I'm only about a month behind now.


Feels good to get at least one thing off the to do pile per week. Of course, five more things arrived on the pile this week.
No pressure.
Ack.

Golden hockey fibrey goodness

The Canucks may be off playing golf in the sun, but these guys have spent the last three and a half weeks in Russia. Yesterday it all paid off in another World Cup and gold medals all round. It's worth watching that last game against the Fins to see Nash drag a Fin player halfway down the ice to score the clincher goal. Very entertaining!

On Friday, Frauke, Angela and I went out to Fibrefest in Abbotsford. This little show has been steadily growing every year and this was the largest showing yet. It was great to see some new vendors as well as the ones we know and love. And I ran into people I knew every time I turned around! It was great!
Here's the stuff I couldn't resist:


There's alpaca/wool/mohair bumps from Rainbow Forest Acres. It's very soft and I'm looking forward to spinning it when I get rid of the mothball smell which is kinda overpowering right now. I hope they stop storing their fibre like this, it would not encourage me to buy from them again, despite the lovely fibre. Then there's a kilo and a half of two different colours from Aurelia as well as my free blue topknot. Yup, you guessed it Irene, I'm going to make a tweedy three ply at some point with it. Shelley from Fun Knits on Quadra Island was there and I succombed to some of the Sweatermaker laceweight, a ball of sock yarn and a couple of the sock blocker keychains that make such great gifts. I've only recently added some Indigo Moon to the stash, so it was nice to see the distributor had a booth with most of the colours and I added some laceweight silk and sockweight merino to the haul. I think we all had a pretty good time and come home with some nice things to enhance our stashes.

My latest spindle aquisition:



It's got a Koa whorl and an ash shaft. Weighs in at 21g. Made by Fine Wood Arts and bought on ebay. I haven't tried it yet, I'll let you know. For now, it just looks really pretty.

I leave you with a fibrey lady of the evening. Enjoy!

Testing, testing...

I may not have my spinning stuff done (yet), but I did manage to swatch and draw/write up a pattern today that hopefully will be published. It's kinda strange for me to just do the swatch and pattern without making up the whole garment. Not to mention having to write out some sort of instructions for the knitter. My poor friend who volunteered to do this has NO idea what she's in for. Fingers and toes are currently crossed.
Here's what she'll have to work with:


I'm also working my way through the first third year Nihon sweater. I've got the back done and most of the front. Of course I will still have to write the pattern out so others can understand it. AND size it. Bleh.


At this point, I'll just be happy that it fits me.
So there.

Dammit! oh and the cruise

Sadly, the Canucks are out of the playoffs. I wasn't able to watch the games on the ship, but the monkey says they played fairly well for the most part.
Guess it's golfing season now. Feh.
The cruise was a pretty good time. I had a great roomie and almost everything went smoothly. This was the view of the Golden Gate Bridge at sunrise from our cabin balcony:


The gate into Chinatown where we found an awesome restaurant up a very steep hill, down an alley and in a basement:


This was what I had to get into few enough bags to carry by myself:


Please note: If you want to save money on holiday in San Francisco, DO NOT go to Art Fibers. You may wind up selling your ticket home so you can buy more yarn.
The view from our balcony of the Lions at dawn as we were coming home into the Vancouver harbour:


Makes you remember why you live here.
I was a dummy and left my camera on the ship in Victoria, so I don't have any pics of family feeding the ducks at Beacon Hill Park, peacocks with their tails open (even a pure white one!), a very dear friend suffering through yarn shopping with me, and having the best smoked beef sandwich ever with new friends from New Jersey. Use your imagination.
And...


Tada! Fraternal Twins.
I got the Lime n Violet socks done on the cruise. I don't think there was even enough yarn to do one extra row on each sock. Very lucky.
ps: I have finally updated the Gallery. Promise to do it more regularly from now on. Okay, I'll make more of an effort, would you believe that?