Maryland Sheep and Wool 2015

So as we catch up on the blog I decided to  talk about my trip to Maryland Sheep and Wool this year. I say my trip, because this year Jess didn't go. I had a nice time, but I definitely missed having my bestie with me.  I hadn't planned on going either until a friend of mine posted on Instagram that she was wondering who was going.  In the end it was the two of us and another friend who got up early on a beautiful Sunday morning and took the 3 hour drive to MDSW. Of the three of us, I was the only one who had been to the festival before.  I went with a game plan in mind. I needed buttons for my Grandpa Cardigan. I knew I wanted to look at Into the Whirled's booth, and see if we made it in time for Miss Bab's special colorway.  I had a few other places I knew I wanted to check out.  The only thing I needed was buttons.  This is what I came home with that day:

Can you see the buttons? They are next to the pink yarn...

I got a bag of Odds N Ends from Into the Whirled. I am looking forward to spinning these up for Tour de Fleece this year (Fiber Fangirls will have a team again this year too!) I visited the Little Barn booth (not in my original plan), and got three bags of fiber for about $16! I plan to somehow spin that fiber up into either corresponding skeins or some kind of gradient.  I managed to snag a skein of the Miss Bab's MDSW colorway in a fingering weight yarn.

So bright and lovely. In the past, I have knit up socks with my Miss Bab's yarn, but this skein is all merino so I am not sure what I will make with it. I picked up a skein of Marigold Jen yarn. This is a new to me yarn, and I know I will knit it up to make a pair of socks as a gift.

The pink yarn is an unknown yarn that I saw at the Sweitzers Countryside Fiber Mill booth.  It is 4 ounces of many a DK weight yarn and the color drew me right in.

I got a gradient set from Fiber Optics yarn. I bought a braid from them last year and now that I know how to n-ply (thanks Julia!) I can spin that up. In the mean time, I can knit up this lovely gradient set that has cashmere in it....

Chocolate to Aqua

I also got a needle felting kit for sheep from Going Gnome, a lamb cookie cutter, some cute sheep cards and an adorable yarn bowl and necklace from Jennie the Potter. I don't have a great photo of my buttons, but will post them on my sweater when I get them on there.  It was a fun day, and I got way more yarn and fiber than I intended, but it is MDSW and only comes once each year.

Alpaca Festivals and Apple Picking

Even though this weekend didn't feel much like fall I spent it doing some very fall activities.  When we were driving home the other day I saw a sign that said alpaca on it. I was so excited that I had John turn around to see when it said. 

Evidently we have an alpaca farm less than 5 miles from my house!  According to the sign these alpacas have been on the Late Night with David Letterman too. I have no idea what that is all about, but I went to the Autumn Alpaca fest anyway.  
The farm is behind a golf course, which explains why I never noticed the alpacas.  There were a few vendors there selling fiber and fiber related items. There was yarn from the local alpacas and they had items made from alpacas in Peru.
I bought two needle felted pumpkins that were made by a lovely local fiber artist. She was needle felting while we talked!

Shepherd Hills Alpacas 

I then went to the next booth where I saw a table full of alpaca locks, and some fiber batts.  I met a wonderful woman named Deborah from Black Diamond Alpacas.  She was so friendly, and even invited me to her local knitting and spinning groups. I will definitely be joining them at a meet up soon. I told her how I have some alpaca fiber at home, but have been scared to spin it. It is so soft and pretty, I would hate to ruin it. She let me try some alpaca on her wheel

I am so used to my double treadle wheel that this was a real challenge for me. Once we lessened the tension I was able to get the wheel going and not have too much backspin.  Alpaca was not as hard as I thought it would be.  I learned that I need to add way more twist than I think that it  needs.  Evidently the fibers do not lock together like a wool fiber does, so you need that extra twist to make it stable.  She also recommended that I try an alpaca blend first. She had some lovely batts so I bought one for me, and one for Jess.

This is 60% alpaca from two different alpacas from Black Diamond Alpacas, Rhett and Romeo. I got to see pictures of them too! The other 40% is Rambouillet.  I am eager to spin it up.
The rest of the time on the farm I spent looking at the baby alpacas on the obstacle course

He did not want to go through the hoop, kept backing up, it was so funny

I love their faces so cute!

It looks like he is kissing the other one!

It was a lot of fun, and so exciting that the farm is so close to my house.  I was sorely tempted when I saw this

So tempted

But I went home with just my fiber and needle felted goodies.

Sunday we spent the morning in New Jersey apple picking!It was so nice that John had the day off and could go too! We picked Mutsu, Honey crisp, Macintosh, and Red Delicious apples. I have plans for apple bread and hopefully enough for some canned apple pie filling.  We had some yummy cider and apple cider donuts too.  

We had lunch at Hot Dog Johnny's. If you are near the Belvedere area of New Jersey, I highly recommend it. The hot dogs are cooked in peanut oil and are delicious. I am not a big hot dog fan and  I really like them.  We ate them on picnic blankets with some friends and their sweet little girl. It was a really fun afternoon. Have I mentioned how much I love fall? If only we could have these amazing falls and then just skip winter heh

Stash Enhancement Sunday 4/27

I am so excited about the first item that we have to share this week.  Jess and I are planning a trip to Maryland Sheep and Wool and wanted to be able to get the word out about the blog.  So we designed business cards to hand out with stitch markers on them!  Jess and I took some photos of my sock yarn blanket to use for the cards and this is how they look!

Each card we hand out will feature one of these (this isn't all of them, I already started attaching the stitch markers to the cards last night).

The stitch markers were easy to make, and I can see how addictive it can be.
The next stash enhancement shows just how little will power that I have. I am going to be at a fiber festival for an entire weekend and still managed to order over a pound of fiber!
A few fellow Puffs were chatting about some new fibers that they wanted to try and they said that they were ordering from Paradise Fibers. I have never ordered from them so I checked out the site.  Not only were they having lots of sales you could add a 20% coupon to your purchase. I am a sucker for a good deal so I ordered a pound (yes a whole pound!) of Merino, and another braid of Malabrigo Nube. It was so yummy to spin up the first time that I knew I wanted to spin more of it.

I am hoping that I have enough yarn with that pound of merino to make a garment. I am not really good at making my yarn any weight that I want when I spin it so hopefully with some practice I will get better at that. 

Those are all the enhancements we have to share this week, next weekend is Maryland Sheep and Wool so we should have plenty of goods to share then.  If you see us at Maryland Sheep and Wool be sure to get a card and a stitch marker!

Stash Enhancement Sunday

Since I didn't have much to share as far as FO's go this week, I thought I would share my most recent splurges.  This week was a busy one for my mail carrier so there is about to be lots of enabling in this post.

Vickie of Bird Leg Bags designed some new project bag styles, one of them being the S'Medium.  It's a wide mouth wedge bag with a smaller base.  When I saw she made one with S'Mores fabric I knew it needed to be mine.  I started stalking her shop 5 minutes before the update and as soon as it was listed I had it in my cart.  For this being a small/medium bag, let me tell you, it must have some TARDIS genetics because it's bigger on the inside.  I tested it out and had my socks in progress along with the half skein for the heels/toes, my hitchhiker AND my notions pouch in there and was still able to zip it closed.  Not only is it big enough to carry all of my WIP's but it's also very durable and stand up on their own.  

S'Medium wedge bag from birdlegbags.com

Two weeks ago, moonroveryarn posted a photo of her gorgeous merino/nylon fiber she dyed up in Muted Rainbow.  I tried to resist but a week later I was still dreaming about it, so I caved and headed over to her shop to buy myself a braid.  When it arrived and I opened the package, I gasped.  The colors are so gorgeous!  She also enclosed a sachet that smells so good.  I will definitely be shopping there again in the future.  

Moon Rover Merino/Nylon in Muted Rainbow

Instagram enabled me again when I saw that Rijel of Black Market Wool had an update.  I never tried her yarn before so I went to her shop and checked it out.  I saw this beautiful skein of fingering weight yarn MCN in pink, yellow and light grey.  Somehow it landed in my cart and is now living in my stash.  It feels super soft and I'm looking forward to knitting it up.

Black Market Wool Costello in Coffee and Cupcakes

Finally, I have been drooling over Opal Sock Yarn in the van Gogh colorways.  I searched Ravelry destashes and almost bought from there when Jen informed me that our LYS had some in stock.  She was going over there that week and said she would let me know what they had.  Our LYS had 3 colorways in stock, one of them being my favorite, Cafe at Night.  She picked it up for me and I am so excited to have this in my stash!  I have only knit with Opal one other time and at first I was hesitant.  It didn't feel as soft as other sock yarn I used and I was worried that I would hate the feeling on my feet.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that nearly 2 years after knitting that pair of socks, they look exactly like they did when I finished them.  

Zwerger Garn Opal Van Gogh in Cafe at Night

Since Maryland Sheep and Wool is just a month and a half away I am going to try to behave until then.  I have a couple more skeins of yarn I am waiting for in the mail but other than that I should be good until May. 

So I also have a few stash enhancements to share.  My brother has a birthday early in March, and I finally got a hold of him less than a week before to find out if there was anything special that he wanted.  Last year I made him a fused glass Amulet of Talos from the game Skyrim.  

This year he had a different request.  He wanted a handknit, but thought that I probably wouldn't be able to make it in time. No matter what he was asking for it was going to be impossible to have something knit and mailed across the country to him in time for his birthday.  The request he had was "Hey you know that scarf from Dr. Who?", my response "The 12 foot long one that is all the different colors?", "Yeah that's it!" I told him that that was more on the order of a Christmas present so I would actually have time to make it. So after some research, I ordered the 7 skeins of yarn to make it. I decided to get Cascade 220 superwash.  It is a soft yarn, that is easy to take care of. Plus, I wanted something I could block if I needed to.  This order of yarn benefited me though.  This just happened to be my 6th order from The Loopy Ewe.  When you order 6 times, you become a Loopy Groupie!  That means you get a bag of goodies along with your order.  So I have this great project bag, a free skein of yarn, a great sheep calendar and a bag of tootsie rolls. I also hit their first level of rewards for the year and received a little pattern with the yarn to make it.  

So excited to be a Loopy Groupie!

Bonus skein as part of my Loopy Groupie Rewards - Dream in Color Perfectly Posh Fingering - "December 2012"

My cat Athena, or as we call her Ch-Chomps, got ahold of my sock in progress, and chomped my Addi Sock Rocket cable in 2.  I headed to my LYS, Conversational Threads, to get a replacement.  While there I purchased two skeins of Zwerger Garn Opal Van Gogh yarn.  The colorway for Jess, and Sunflowers for me. 

I really wanted Starry Night, but that colorway wasn't available.  Jess is so sweet that she ordered a skein for me online, so now I have two skeins of the Van Gogh yarn!

Van Gogh yarn in Starry Night and Sunflowers.
Ch-Chomps found the skein of Starry Night already....

So 10 skeins of yarn in a week is quite a haul for me. This should be it for now though heh.  I am also trying to hold out for Maryland Sheep and Wool.  Well I may have ordered some fiber this week, but it isn't here yet, so that doesn't count :-) 
~Jen