Recovering from Madrona

Or, "how I spent my week off".
But first, Madrona loot and a quick recap.
I went down to Seattle on Thursday afternoon and met up with Holly who very kindly took me shopping. We bought a few things including a burner phone which has since been dubbed Lara's Crack phone. If you want to know why, you have to watch The Wire.
It's a cheap, anonymous cell that I can use in the states without racking up enormous bills. Very handy.
We went to Tacoma that evening and had dinner with some of the Blue Moon bunch.
Friday I spent with Janet in Seattle getting a colour not known to nature streaked through my hair. Then it was back to Tacoma for dinner with the Blue Moon bunch again.
Saturday was fibre shopping in the Madrona market, lunch with Jean, and dinner with friends.
Sunday I headed back home with Angela and Doug. We spent a good portion of the trip trying to come up with book titles. Lucky Golden Knitting Book was the best that came up (it was Doug's). So as you can tell, we didn't have a lot of luck. A lot of fun and goofing around, but no real book title. Gonna keep working on that one.
I had Kerry as a roomie this year which was a lot of fun, but we didn't get to see much of each other. We were both pretty busy. I think we need to arrange a visit that's just for visiting.
On to the fibre portion of the show:


There's some Crown mountain superwash, some Skacel, mixed batts and some alpaca that Jacqui processed for me. There's quite a bit more of that last one, but you get the idea. The skein is a laceweight I spun from some other batts that Jacqui gave me.
Now for some yarn and such:


Some of this I bought and some was gifted me from Kerry and Denise. The grey skein with the green tag is from Denise. She spun it and it's truly spectacular. The machine knit swatches are actually sock blanks. You knit socks from them by unraveling them as you go. I got some undyed to try as well.
And then there were some spindles:


Another glass one from Sheila, a Spindlewood and a Grafton.
I had to promise Sheila that I would spin with the Do Not Drop spindle. I'm afraid I'll break it, so I'm going to pad up an area before I use it.
I'm home now, but the fibre just keeps coming. In my defense, I bought these fleeces last year and only now am I getting them back from the mill. Lynne was nice enough to bring them by yesterday. She obviously hadn't touched the merino, or I never would have seen it again!


The black and smaller grey are romney x's and the large grey is merino. The merino is soft enough to make underwear out of. I'm pretty happy with it. I think it's destined to become a sport/dk weight 3 ply and then a soft, light cabley sweater. I really want to spin it right now.
But it has to wait because I still have tons of homework to do and I just started this:


Mystery beast millends from a mill in Ontario. I've got about 200g of it, so it's destined to be 2 ply laceweight.
I'm taking lots of breaks while I spin it because I managed to bugger up my knee when I spun the other stuff earlier in the week. Between all the spinning and the three times a week running, I have to take it a little easier.
Still hating the running. Next week we're up to 5k. yippee.

Off to Madrona

Only one more day till I'm back on the southside of the border.
Holly and I are going to spend the afternoon tooling around Seattle and then we're going down to Tacoma for the Madrona Fiber Festival. I'm not taking any classes this year and I've still managed to be pretty busy.
I made up some stitch markers for my friends. I needed something small because a lot of us are traveling light or have to fly. Not to mention how much more room small gifts leave for yarn and roving. I really like the coloured tiger tail. I'm going to have to find more of it as it makes the beads look even better.


I did some spinning for the first time in ages over the last couple of days. I spun a half pound of superwash merino from Crown Mountain in a 3 ply sport weight. I started sunday night and finished this morning. I haven't washed it yet.
This was a great roving to work with. It drafted easily and smoothly. The colour changes give a very tweedy effect with the 3 ply.
I also made a rather nich discovery about my new Wild Flyer. I can ply a half pound of fibre with it and have no knots!
Woohoo!
That is one very big skein.


Puppy Update:
Gir is still quite a bit smaller than the others but is wagging his tail alot. He's still taking milk from his mom, but is eating kibble as well. Five more weeks till he comes to live with us.

Baby pic

Gir's first baby photo.
So tiny. So cute.
He'll be living here in about 6 weeks.

Do your legs hurt?

These are a couple of things that arrived in the mail here this past week. I thought they were good contributions for Friday Freakfest.
The really hideous zombie doll is really knitting content. Trust me she really is. She's going to be involved in a strange knitting project that will be revealed in April. Hopefully, it will be worth the wait. The monkey has ordered the parts I need from Hong Kong. Be afraid.
As for the chocolate voodoo doll. Lorena sent that along with some other great stuff.
I already ate it's yummy legs, so if you're legs feel sore, be prepared for more pain. The voodoo doll still has it's torso, head and arms. Yum!