Stitches West

On Saturday I went to the most tempting (fiber) place on earth... the Santa Clara Convention Center aka Stitches West. And I bought a few things.... Mostly fiber as I have discovered the fun of spinning my own yarn now as well:

The fiber load:


merino, tencel, wensleydale, blue faced leicester etc... Some came from Lisa Souza who hand dyes yarns and fibers... loved her booth.

this is the wensleydale from above in "wild things"


And here is my first completed 2 ply yarn in merino:


Also went to Tess yarn booth and got some merino/silk (on left) and some angora/wool (on right):


Habu textiles was so cool... they have really different yarns made from things like paper, silk, or bamboo. I picked up some bamboo in 2 colors. Figure I have enough of each for a lacy scarf:


And how could I pass up Webs? Got some of their stockbridge in kiwi and denim for some wrist warmers and longmeadow for a sweater (both yarns feel like heaven):


And I even finished off a couple projects:

My sesame sweater is finally done... buttons on and sleaves sewn in:


and Letter Have It from Stitch n Bitch Nation for my friend finally has a zipper and has been given away. (she loved it)

word cloud

This site takes a scan of your blog and makes a word cloud from it's contents:



kinda fun and I'm still at work waiting on stuff.. so why not? :)

real live photos

My "Letter Have It" felted bag from Stitch n Bitch Nation (sans letter and zipper) I used cascade 220:

before finishing and felting:


and after:


A little felted pouch made from some unknown wool from my leftover stash area:


I ordered zippers for both of these felted items and they sent the wrong length zippers :(


And a photo of the back of my ballet wrap cardi (I'm actually just about done with the back this photo is acouple days old) It's handpaintedyarn.com 6 ply merino and I LOVE this yarn:


it's pooling quite a bit even though I am using 2 balls of yarn at a time... but I don't really mind. The photos show it much more than in life.

And here is my first spinning attempt and some roving:

I've actually already spun a hank of blue and a hank of brown... it's fun :)

Resistance is futile

I have most of the back of this cardi done... just couldn't resist the beautiful 6 ply merino that showed up in the mail last week. So now I have one more project started. I'm going to try and finish this cardi by the time I leave for NY at the end of March. I think that's an attainable goal.


Also have a pair of mittens that I want done before I go....

I think I'm just going to embrace my desire to start projects. They all get done eventually :)

I resisted

Ok I didn't go home last night and cast on for the Ballet Wrap Cardi. Decided to finish my clapotis (almost done!), a pink knit bunny (for a friend's baby... body, ears, and head done), and the Flap-Top mittens from Handknit Holidays first. Then I will cast on for the sweater.

Bu tI had to share this site... the strangest knitted "art".

oops I did it agian

Well a box showed up at work for me... it's Mal Abrigo 6ply Merino in velvet grapes to make the Ballet Wrap Cardigan in the current issue of IK. The guage is about right and I've really wanted a nice wrap/tie cardi for awhile now. In fact I might even cast on tonight! Even though I have a ton of projects on the needles.... I'm just crazy like that. ;)

And in other fiber news... I have an intro to spinning (on a hand spindle) class this sunday. It's at a place called Deep Color right around the corner from my house. I walk by there all the time when I take out dog out. So finally I just signed up (a $15 class so it's not going to break the bank). But it occurs to me that I have enough yarn to last me years, so why would I start making yarn?!?!?!? No idea... except it look fun :)