Blacksmith Days

So here's what I did last weekend.  Peter and I went to Blacksmith Days down at the Farm Museum.  My fiber group does a weaving demo there every year.  This year the lady who normally leads the group could not be there, so I volunteered to head up the weaving demo, having done a little weaving myself.  The spinners prepared the yarn from the Jacob fleece Ralene gave us last summer, and I chose a pattern and planned the piece.  A couple of other weavers in the group helped warp the loom.  Over the weekend, I was the only weaver who actually made it to the event, so I sat in the log schoolhouse and wove the 6' long shawl.  Here it is:

(It got a little wrinkled in the car coming home.)  It was a LOT of weaving for one weekend, and I still have to finish off the ends (a medium length fringe, I think), but I'm quite proud of it!  It feels like a real accomplishment to have done it.

Spoils of War

Successfully navigated Sheep and Wool again this year.  Saturday I spent three hours volunteering in the T shirt sale booth, which was fun and netted me a T shirt of my own with the word "volunteer" printed jauntily across the back.  Bragging rights!  Then looked around a bit, but when even Tess's rummage sale (a rare event) could not tempt me, I knew it was time to go home and come again another day.  Sunday was much better for shopping, netting me the spoils shown here:

Three skeins of sock yarn.  The two on the bottom are from Cherry Tree Hill, always a nice place to shop.  It's hard to see the colors in the one on the left, but it's called Birches, and it has a warm white variegated with greys, greens, and golden browns that do remind me of birch trees.  It's subtle and quite lovely.

And the big purchase, from Tess's rummage sale (yes, I went back, how could I not?):

Hand-dyed (as all of Tess's yarns are) angora and merino blend, sort of a light worsted, about 1300 yards, which should be enough to make myself a sweater.  The colors are so me, and the yarn is so soft.  I love it.  Now to find a pattern.

Peter made sure I ate my full quota of lamb sausages, and mom purchased this gem:

So fun was had by all.

The project now on the needles is a pair of socks, grey self-striping cotton/elastic blend with some decorative stitching I'm copying out of Ethnic Socks and Stockings by Priscilla Gibson-Roberts.  Still trying to knit socks that I can wear in the summer.  Sigh.  Here they are:

  Only one active project right now, my garden has been taking up the rest of my time.  Pix of that next time!