on the road.... again

for someone (that would be me) who claims to never get away.... i've been away a lot this month. my latest travels took me to the lovely island of martha's vineyard. if you've never been, it is a destination worth seeking. located off the coast of massachusetts, it has some of the loveliest beaches ever. each has it's own personality, so if you want wild.. go oceanside, peaceful...try the sound, sunsets....clay cliffs... lighthouses... it's all there.

so i packed up way to much knitting and off we went. i finished the birthday present that i'm doing for my naughty sister. several years ago i gifted her with a gator scarf, here's the gator bag. i need to felt it, dry it, then attach some handles. it is self lining with a drawstring top. this was a hoot to knit and i'm hoping that the felting goes well. i'd like some bamboo styled handles but have to wait til it's done to get some accurate measurements. as the temperatures started to soar i switched to some lace knitting. not far along on the scarf yet, but it's much cooler that the worsted weight wool.

my busy may

my may is full of adventures. lots of happenings and adventures, but little time to savor each before the next one begins. last weekend found me enjoying some time away with the girls in my family. we started the tradition in 1994 and have made it an annual event. a destination was chosen, weekend selected, and away we went. when the kidlets began arriving, the venue was switched to someones home. this year we decided to destination at the jersey shore.
i brought my wheel and had ocean breezes to keep me company. this is the fiber i purchased in maryland at the little barn. it's okay, but i'm not in love with it. color is perfect for the yarn recipient and i decided it would be a fun color to play with.

my eldest naughty sibling decided that all my fiber paraphernalia deserved a hide and seek...

luckily i found it all before we headed home. i had a blast beach walking, biking, shopping and sharing time with my gals!!

so, what did i get

how about a little show and tell about my finds. the biggest score was my fleece, the best part of that is the story that goes with it. i'm realistic enough to know that a fleece is a lot of work. and even though i fell in love, i knew that the honeymoon wouldn't last forever and i didn't want a lot of money invested in this romance. so, it was with some trepidation that i looked at the tag to discover the price. low and behold, it was never weighed. sandy gave it a lift and decided that is was 4-5lbs. i asked a volunteer to help out, and she came back telling us it was 7.5 lbs. that is a lot of sheep. more that i could handle, so i sadly tucked it back under the table and walked away. after sandy was not able to procure enough fleeces for herself, she offered to split the coopworth with me. yahoo!, i was back in business! we checked out and continued on with our day. we soon realized that we needed to head back to the car and dump the wool. heavy and hot, we needed a break. i picked up the bag she had been carrying, she picked up mine and immediately said 'this doesn't weigh even close to seven pounds'. so, back to the fleece table we went, not really knowing how this was going to be resolved. luckily, the same gals were there and happily reweighed the fleece, only to discover that the first weight included the container used to hold fleece on the scale. 3 lbs lighter. i can handle four pounds of fleece, so sandy gladly let me have the entire bag. the honeymoon may last :)









here's the rest of my fun. cool roving in merino and bfl~4 ounces each is fun colorways. some organic cotton and tussah silk, bright colored fine wool for my gals to have to knit , creatively dyed sock yarn, one in seacell/merino the other a superwash/nylon. the bright lime? superwash from tilli tomas. i've never played with her stuff before, but heard good things about it. i started with two skeins plain and one with beads.... after showing the herd i went back and got enough for a sweater. it was half-off because the labels were wrong.
i need get the stuff off my wheel and needles so i can play with my new fun purchases!

2010 maryland sheep and wool

i jumped at the chance to attend the maryland sheep and wool festival when presented with the offer. sandy (longmeadow farms sandy) asked if i would consider going with her this year. her motive was to get fleeces from her supplier, not have them shipped... what did i think? i did not even hesitate to agree. before you could say 'ewe' the trip was planned and there were four of us going. cc and joan, sandy and i headed out on friday for the trek to west friendship. we didn't get very far before hand dyed, hand spun yarn found it's way onto the dash. the perfect teaser for things to come.









we arrived early saturday, just beating the rush of humanity that attends these shows. it was hot. really hot. beyond really hot. 94, beating sun , no breeze. we were prepared with water, sunscreen and a desire for wool!










the barns were amazing with so many different breeds, you were hard pressed to keep them straight. many of them were just as happy to see the humans as we were to see them!

joan and i had a blast at the fleece sale. we went armed with all our freshly learned skills on selecting wool. and surprisingly (to us) we did quite well. we touched cormo, bfl, icelandic, romney, cotswold, leister longwool, merino, and i fell hard for this coopworth.

so hard in fact, that it came home with me. 4.5 lb of well skirted, lustrous, clean wool. i've washed some and plan to give it a spin as soon as it's dry.

i scored several cool things.... signature sock blocker, more woolee bobbins, cool roving and hand painted yarns. best part? the awesome travel companions!

hope i get invited again!