A Spinning Weekend

Last week, Morgan attended the Beaver Meadow Audubon Center's day camp and loved every minute of it! Beaver Meadow is a mere 15 minutes from us, but because it's in a direction I don't normally drive, I had never been there before. What a shame! It's a beautiful nature center with hiking trails that feature education at every turn.

When dropping her off the first day, I saw that there were signs for the annual Homestead Festival. It advertised iron workers, storytelling and hearth cooking. But not spinning! So, of course I asked if they needed a spinner, and a few minutes later, I'm an official volunteer with the Buffalo Audobon Society and have a tent space reserved for me!

I got to talk, talk, talk wool processing and spinning all day long! What a great day. Morgan was my assistant, but went AWOL for most of the day playing games, testing food and having a great time.

Because I needed to show my wheel in action so often (wink!), I got a LOT of spinning accomplished.

5 oz. of "Rocky Road" from The Critter Ranch. It's quite wonderful to spin, and I'm planning a sweater with it. Hopefully, I'll have enough finished to start knitting this weekend when Mike and I drive to the Syracuse Nationals (a super-wonderful car show). And we're leaving the kids at home! Woo hoo!

Llama on the way!

My great friend Sue of The Critter Ranch is providing a llama for our farm to protect our soon-to-be flock of Shetland sheep! We'll be getting "Confetti" and she's coming to us pregnant (squeal!). The following pictures are of Confetti at Sue's farm (pre and post shearing) and the daddy we picked out (his name is Erick).

Isn't she adorable? Isn't he handsome?! I think the kids are waaaay more excited about the  llamas than the sheep. And that's fine with me!

Quick Spin

I recently was able to grab some time to play with core spinning. Here are my results . . .

I used a GORGEOUS cloud of super soft baby kid mohair with Angelina from The Critter Ranch. Yup, Sue strikes again! She's such an enabler! This was her sample for the November, Seasons of Light Phat Fiber Box. It came in a sweet Christmas ornament

I had to wait until after Christmas to open it up and use it!

Here are the locks (photo swiped from Sue)

And here's the core yarn I used

Weren't they just made for each other?!

I need to make more of this yarn. It was so much fun!

My First Spin-A-Long

Goodness, it's been awhile since I've posted anything! It's good to have some time to be here!

I've been busy with Christmas, the shop, my oldest turning 16 this past Wed (and a big 'ol party coming up tomorrow!) and playing with my friends in a spin-a-long. My good friend and fellow Phat Fiber contributor, Sue, owner of The Critter Ranch, hosted a Spin-A-Long featuring batts from her animals in colors inspired by Birthstones! The group of us are on Ravelry talking about all the colors, posting photos of the batts we received, and keeping each other updated on our spinning progress.

I chose tourmaline in honor of Kitty turning 1 in October. Here are the photos of the batt, the yarn in progress, the finished yarn and my first swatchings (with Kitty approving along the way). I haven't decided if it'll be a hat for her or a sweater. If it's a sweater, it'll have to be a top-down, seemless yoke with the rest of the body finishing up in a complimentary color. I'd love to hear some opinions about how to use this!!

Enjoy the slide show!

 It's Fiber Arts Friday, so head over to Wonder Why Alpaca Farm and enjoy some other fiber-friendly blogs!! I'm off to make fudge and clean for a party!!