Panic
Eight days left and I’ve entered that point where mentally, I know I’m ahead of (or, at the very least, on) schedule, but emotionally, I’m in panic mode. What if I forget (insert important object here)? What if it’s cold? What if it rains? What if I’m not bringing enough spindles?
What if I’m bringing too many spindles? (I know, I know. There’s no such thing as too many. But what if?)
Obviously the only way to de-stress is to…
start a new knitting project.
Countdown
Ten days left ’til I leave for Rhinebeck and I couldn’t be more excited or panicked. The shop is shut down so I can start labeling and packing spindles, because I am not waiting for the night before to do it like I did last year. Viv has been washed and blocked and fits perfectly—
so once the clasps get here I can sew ‘em on fast and that will be done too.
I was also hoping to get in one last skein of handspun before potentially handing over my bobbin to have copies made,
but this is only the first ply so that may or may not happen.
Still on the to-do list: finish up the last handful of spindles, label and pack them as noted above, figure out what knitting and spinning projects to take with me, and clean this place up a bit so I don’t come home to a disaster area.
(That last one might end up being too much to handle. We’ll see.)
Gearing up
Rhinebeck is just four weeks away, which is exciting and terrifying all at once. I have a million things to get done before then… hopefully I can get through ‘em all.
First priority is spindles, of course; as such, the store is slowly being stocked with some pre-show inventory, so all the folks who aren’t going can have a crack at the pretties. Of course if you see something you like and you will be there, I’d be happy to waive the shipping fees and bring it to you! I’m totally in love with the new rhinestone embedded square whorls that I just recently got in:
And there will of course be the usual assortment of polymer clay, stoneware, glass, and gemstones on offer.
I also promised myself I would finish my Kitri socks before then.
I’m pretty sure I can make it, unless something goes catastrophically wrong, like, say, misplacing the beads for the cuff. Um, wait a second. Where did I put the rest of the beads for the cuff? Uh-oh.
And I know it’s a day late, but we’ve got some new foster kittens, including the cutest little basement cat ever. I think I’m in love.
NJS&W
In which I managed to sell some spindles—
(Spindles on the right, there. Me looking snarky on the left, obviously.)
And spin a ton of yarn—
And do more than my fair share of chatting and giggling and just generally hanging out.
I may have gone a little overboard with buying stuff, but my wallet was full of birthday money and I spent less than I made, so it’s okay, right?
Tasty, tasty 100% silk laceweight from twisted fiber which is destined for something I’m hoping to design over the next couple of weeks.
Some drool-worthy merino/tencel from my dear Zarzuela, which I believe will turn into sock yarn.
Buttons! I should’ve bought more from these people; they had an overwhelmingly lovely selection.
And 3oz of some gorgeous border leicester from Kate at Roclans. As my sample tells you, it makes a fantastic two-ply laceweight; I’m thinking a large, very textural beaded lace shawl. Mmmmmfiber.
All in all it was a fun way to spend my birthday weekend. Hopefully next year we can do it again!
(By the way, for those who were inquiring after it, the Honeybee Cardigan pattern is now available! It is one of the best knits I’ve ever done so you should definitely go get yourself a copy.)
Two-thirds
I was right; Catherine (that’s the wheel) spins much better now that she’s clean. Smoother, quieter, happier. So happy, in fact, that I spun through the second ply for a three-ply sock yarn in three hours.
Three hours. About 500 yards of singles. I think I’ll be a real contender for Team Suck Less, come next Tour de Fleece.
I’m also two-thirds of the way through my spindle building for NJS&W. Which is, uh, Saturday. I should get working.
Swatch
My fibery plans for this summer are starting to look awfully familiar. First I decided to take on an epic spinning project and now I’m planning a lace cardigan. Of course, me being me, I’ve upped the challenge a bit this year. I’m not just spinning and knitting up one skein of yarn in two weeks; I’m spending three weeks trying to work through the majority of my fiber stash. And I’m not just knitting a cropped, worsted weight cardigan from a tried and true pattern; I’m test knitting a full length lace cardigan in sock yarn. This should prove interesting. At the very least, it’ll provide me with plenty of blog fodder!
In other news! Have you taken a look at the shop lately? I’m almost back at full stock and with some new supplies coming in this week I should have some interesting new stuff to show you soon. In the meantime, Tour de Fleece participants get 15% off with a mention of their team name.
This Just In!
No, not the yarn for the elephant. But fortunately the baby decided not to wait for his toys to be finished…
Kyan Andrew was born yesterday at 5:35am, ten fingers, ten toes, all cute. Good job, kid. Keep it up and you may just earn yourself an elephant.
In non-baby news! You all have seen this before but now you get to see it with my face—Yarn Forward, Issue 14, page 32 (also on page 13 with a teenier picture and a blurb):
In honor of both of these events, there is free shipping in the shop from now until Thursday! Anywhere in the world. I’ll even ship to the moon, although I bet it’s hard to spin with low gravity. Go shop!
Home Again
And I didn’t even manage to get any pictures. (That’s not entirely true—I took two pictures. But both of them were blurry.) I’m fairly certain some other people got some shots of me at the show itself, so I can at least prove that I was there, and I picked this up from tsock.
And I may have tstolen a tspindle from her as well, ahem.
(Hatchtown production low whorl, 1.2oz of awesome)
And I got through a sock leg on the car ride, 7 hours each way (!!).
And now that I’m home, the shop is getting updated, slowly but surely.
Preparations
I kind of knew what I was getting myself into with this show, but at the same time I had no idea whatsoever. This week has been a mess of non-stop spindle building, fiber carding, sample finding, display planning, constant panicking. Presumably it gets easier once you’ve done a few, but… yeesh.
So here’s the pathetically small amount I have to show for all of my work:
This is only about 2/3rds of what I actually have finished, since several more got made after this was taken. Also, they will no longer fit in just the one coffee can—I’ve had to expand to two. This is strange and unusual territory for me!
From the left: merino/silk, a tsock blend that I don’t recall the makeup of, corriedale, rambouillet, angora/cormo, and merino. I tried to pick a good balance of different fibers, different colors, and different techniques. Okay, not really, this is all I had on hand. But the group does run the spectrum quite nicely, I think.
And a buncha fibery goodness. All handcarded from various scraps I have lying around. I’m hoping to just about double the size of this pile by Saturday… but we’ll see how that goes. There’s still a million things to do and only about 48 hours left to do them.
Wish me luck! I’m sure I’ll need it!
Display
I will fix that sock… eventually.
But this weekend and most of next week is devoted to putting a display together for next week’s party/show—having never done this before I’m really not sure what to expect or how to plan. But I know I want to do something a little different from the usual spindles in cups routine; I’ll probably have a couple of those but I want to make a bigger visual impact than that. Hopefully this giant display… thing (I don’t even know what to call it!) will go a long way in drawing interest in, with spindles hanging from it and lots of happy, bright bumps of test fiber hanging out both on top and down below.
I’m also going to try to find an in-person copy of Yarn Forward #14 (although it may not have made it across the pond yet) so I can put this up:
How cool is that? :)
The new foster cats are NO help, but it’s not as if I expected anything different. They’re cute and fluffy, though!
