Our trip to Kansas City for Thanksgiving was an uneventful one. The seven hour trip wore us out. Note to self, in the future don’t drive seven hours the day of Thanksgiving and then attempt to be social for several hours. On the way to Kansas, I was working on sewing up the Hobo sweater all so that I could wear it at Thanksgiving dinner. About two hours into the trip, I’d finished the overarm seams and it was all ready to wear. What a delightful sweater to wear, the cashmere silk blend was so nice against my skin. (Sorry no photo yet, I didn’t take my camera to Kansas. I promise one soon.) I was so relieved to find out that this yarn hasn’t been discontinued because it’s so lovely for scarves. Thanksgiving dinner was small for our family, there were only 11 in attendance. We’ve had over 20 some years. Eleven was just right. Friday, we had the family day-after-Thanksgiving lunch at Winstead’s and then shopped a bit on the Plaza. I bought buttons for the Cider House Rules vest and a cardigan that I finished several years ago but never put buttons on. Friday evening, we had dinner with my dad’s family. Then Saturday we headed back to Illinois. It was a quick trip but nice to get away for a few days.

While we were in Kansas, my mom gave me some cat toys for George and Chloe since her cats wouldn’t touch them. Bryan found them in my suitcase in a plastic bag and asked what they were, as he said that both cats were looking at him as if he’d just brought in the most interesting thing. I said, “Ask the kitties, they know.” The toys were little fuzzy egg-shaped toys with feathers sticking out of one end. He took one of the toys out and Chloe immediately went crazy playing with it. By the end of one day of playing our living room looked like a bird had blown up in it.

In the car, I’d planned to do so much knitting. For some reason after finishing sewing the Hobo sweater and realizing that I hadn’t brought an extra yarn ball with me, I just wasn’t in the mood to knit. Sunday and Monday, I worked a lot on the Cider House Rules vest for Bryan. I love this yarn so much, as I’ve mentioned before, that knitting this vest was a real pleasure. It was such a pleasure that the entire vest is blocking as I write this. Monday evening, I started the edging for one of the armholes and managed to knit about 9 1/2 of the 20 total inches (50.8 cm) required for just one armhole band. Once I get to the neck/button band, I know it’s going to take me a while because I have to knit 60″ (152 cm) and it’s a 13 stitch band on size 3 needles.

The idea of the Cider House Rules vest being finished has me so excited to start another sweater. Yesterday, I finished reknitting Bryan’s Christmas stocking and swatched for the Bianca Jacket from the Fall 2006 Interweave Knits. Since I’m feeling a bit adventurous, I’m also tempted to start the Martha sweater from Rowan Magazine 28 in deep red Felted Tweed. Hopefully, I can exert a little self-control and make myself only work on one sweater at a time.

Now that Thanksgiving is over I need to get into full swing with the library school application once again. This year, I’m finding it hard to work on because it’s my third time through. I think once I get going on it, things will come together pretty quickly. My letters of recommendation this year are very good and I think my library experience will help. If I don’t get in this time, I think I’ll have half the staff of the library at the school demanding an answer.

I just realized I haven’t posted anything about the new yarn that I’m spinning. I started spinning it about two weeks ago and am slowly making headway. I decided to try using my wheel’s double-drive capabilities and just see what I can do with it. The tensioning seems to be a bit more precise with double-drive, that’s just my opinion after using it for a little over a week. The fiber is one of my Maryland Sheep & Wool purchases from Stony Mountain Fibers. It’s so beautiful when it’s actually plied together, it looks like fluffy neopolitan ice cream.

We’re now in our fifth straight day of 50 degree weather with rain. A low-pressure system has parked itself on top of us. There are those of you that live in the Northwest where five days of rain isn’t a big deal but it’s really starting to wear on me. I want to be outside enjoying the sun. It’s May, not March. This is obviously payback for having a beautiful April with nice warm temperatures and lots of sun. I know we need the rain but can’t it rain one day, then be sunny the next? Not six days straight.

Fortunately, the rain didn’t stop us too much on Saturday as we ventured out for the first Farmer’s Market of the season. It was the first time we’d been to the Farmer’s Market here but we came home with some great stuff - four small basil plants, a pound of strawberries (YUM), three lovely tomatoes, locally-made raspberry fruit spread (sweetened with white grape juice) and a pound of freshly picked salad greens, which were scrumptious.

Sunday, the rain and cool temperatures were the perfect excuse to bum around, knit and read the entire day. Today, I’m having a serious case of the Mondays and the rain is not helping. Speaking of work, you’re probably wondering what became of the Acquisitions job. The interview went well, but they hired someone with previous acquisitions experience. I received a very nice note in my mailbox at work from the woman who interviewed me. She explained why they hired someone else but another position would be opening up in August and I’m her first choice for the job. When I saw her on Friday, I thanked her for the note and said it meant a lot. She told me that I’m hired for the position opening up in August, unless I change my mind. Things are working out for the better, now Bryan and I can have a leisurely summer after the middle of June. He’s in school for the next four weeks for an intensive summer semester and then he’ll be off for two months.

I’ve made some progress on the Hobo sweater and significant progress on the “Go with the Flow” Socks. I just turned the heel last night.

In my previous posts about my trip to Maryland, I haven’t included photos of the yarn I spun in my Novelty Yarns class with Judith Mackenzie McCuin. (click photos for larger image)
From top
2-ply slub yarn
Cabled bouclé with red thread - fiber 50/50 silk/wool (this was a rescued by Judith)
Marled yarn (3-ply)

Cabled Bouclé with white silk thread

Cotton bound bouclé
My first time spinning with cotton so slubs were very easy to do

I need a bit of practice with boucle yarn but it was really fun to do. Right now I’m just waiting for my new wheel before I start anything new, it should be here in about a week and a half. Last week, I finished spinning the garden yarn on Wednesday. Because I don’t want to start anything new, I respun a hank of the Lemondrop plied yarn so that I can cable ply it to make it stronger. I have one more hank to do and then it’s just waiting for the new wheel to arrive, so that I can wind all of the yarn I’ve spun on Matilda onto the bobbins of the new wheel. I realize that I could wind the yarn onto weaving bobbins but at this point, I can’t afford a bobbin winder and I figure this will be just as easy.

Because I’m in the library so much and in Maryland we were talking about kids’ books about knitting and spinning, we’ve been reading kids’ books in bed to each other before we go to sleep. In the last few nights, we’ve read Russell the Sheep by Rob Scotton, Mr. Nick’s Knitting by Margaret Wild, which is out of print and such a wonderful book, and Brave Charlotte by Anu Stohner and Henrike Wilson. All of these books are so beautifully illustrated. Yes, there is a theme here of knitting and sheep. Next on our list are The Baabaasheep Quartet by Leslie Elizabeth Watts, With Love From Grandma by Harriet Ziefert and Deborah Kogan Ray, Mrs. McDockerty’s Knitting by Ruth Martinez and Catharine O’Neill, and Derek the Knitting Dinosaur by Mary Blackwood and Kerry Argent. I found all of these in just a five minute search on the library’s online catalog. There are a lot more that I just didn’t find in those five minutes. We thought it would be a perfect way to get acquainted with more than just adult fiction so that we can be well-rounded librarians.

I’m off to do my volunteer work and then work after that. Looks like we may see the sun on Wednesday. I plan on spending a good part of the day outside!

I had no idea I had so many photos until I started loading them. This is a very photo heavy post. You can also see all of the photos here on my flickr account. It’s been so cold and dreary here the last few days that it’s making the sunny 80 degree days of Maryland feel so distant. Here’s one photo of Amie, Bess, Jennifer and me that I am sorry that I didn’t take. Thank you, Mary for taking the photo.

On Friday after setting up the Spirit Trail booth, Amie, Clara and I walked around the sheep barns. I was so fascinated by all of the different breeds of sheep. The little Angora goats who give us merino were so cute.

I was so fascinated by the woman spinning straight from the Angora rabbit. She’s just pluck off a bit of fur and spin with it.

I’d never seen a sheep shearing before, so I had to go watch and it was fascinating. This was a Lincoln sheep and the guy sheared her with what they call blades, which look like huge chef’s knives made into scissors.
Here’s the Lincoln sheep before shearing. Shearing the back. The Lincoln sheep after her lovely hair cut, she seems to like her new summer do.

Lots of sheep were seen and many photos taken. I don’t know the breeds of most of the sheep that I took photos of, so if you know what breed they are, please let me know. They were all so cute and I loved hearing all of the “baa”-ing through the barns.
I love the four horns on the Jacob sheep. One of them decided to “baa” as I was taking the photo, so I have a photo of a sheep sticking it’s tongue out at me.

These are Karakul sheep, a breed that I’d never heard of before and I thought they looked really interesting. There was also a mama sheep with her lamb , which I thought was so adorable. One thing with walking through all of the barns, you can’t miss the sheep that are getting ready for their show. They never seemed to happy about it and let it be known. More sheep:

There were also llamas and alpacas enjoying their stay at Maryland.
Llama. Alpaca, which are very beautiful and hum to themselves.
The prize winning items were so fabulous, these were two of my personal favorites.
The sheep sweater and the knitted kitty . Some of the other prize winning items were so amazing, but of course, I didn’t get photos of those.

And of course, a trip to Maryland Sheep & Wool wouldn’t be complete without a bit of shopping.
As we were helping Jennifer of Spirit Trail unpack her trailer, I fell in love with this green and pink sock yarn.
I also bought this lone little orange skein of sock yarn from Spirit Trail.

After admiring some of the Blue-face Leicester that Bess had bought last year, I bought some for myself at Hartwhistle Fibres in Michigan. She also had these really great British breeds sampler packs with three colors of Blue-face Leicester, white Shetland and Moorit Shetland, Manx Loughton, Massam, Wensleydale, a Wensleydale and Massam blend, Cotswold and Black Welsh. This unfortunately was her last show and I know she’ll be missed greatly by fiber fans at Maryland.

Another fabulous purchase was this “Candy Cane” merino top from Stony Mountain Fibers in Virginia.

I also bought some Chasing Rainbows Bombyx/Merino top.

And 800 yards of laceweight Cashmere.

Goodness, where to start. Three words describe this weekend - fun, overwhelmingly-wonderful and exhausting (okay, so it’s technically four).

I’ll just start from the beginning. Btw, I don’t have my cable to hook my camera up at the moment (I’m still in transit and will be home later today), so no photos of the festival until tomorrow.

I arrived in Maryland on Thursday. Amie met me at the airport and was a wonderful hostess. She showed me around downtown Baltimore a bit after a fabulous meal at a local Indian restaurant. I even got to meet a joy of a dog - Jackie. She’s so sweet and going to be quite a dog when she grows up. Amie, you were a wonderful hostess, I couldn’t have asked for better.
Friday was the beginning of the excitement, otherwise known as, Maryland Sheep & Wool. I met Clara, Bess, Martha, Sheila and Jennifer. Clara, from Knitter’s Review, is a true delight and much funnier than I expected. Bess is a wonderful person, she’s the type of librarian and spinner that I hope to become. Go read her account of this weekend, she captured it perfectly. After helping Jennifer set up the SpiritTrail booth, Amie, Clara and I wandered around the sheep barns. It was so great to see all of the sheep that I’ve only heard about. I couldn’t stop giggling hearing all of those sheep “baaing” and we came to the conclusion that they sound like a bunch of frat boys on a crazy drunken evening belting out burps. The sheep were so cute and I thank every one of the sheep farmers who take care of their sheep to bring wonderful fibers to me. I am not one of the many fairgoers who dream of owning their own sheep, I have too much spinning and knitting to do and am thankful that there are those who want to own sheep.

Saturday truly began the festival. I had no idea what I was in for. I’ve been to Stitches Midwest but this was bigger and in my mind better. This is more geared towards spinners than Stitches. The tradition of fiber and sheep in Maryland is so obvious and eminates through the fairgrounds. Amie and I wandered around the fairgrounds checking out all of the vendors. With a limited budget it was hard to get myself into a spending mode, I had to shop with care and assess each purchase. Photos of purchased items will be in a later post as they are currently zooming through the mail to arrive at my house later this week. At one point in the day, Amie and I met up with Eunny and Stephanie. Eunny is trying out wheels.

One thing that I set out to do was just to try other spinning wheels, not to buy but just to see what they are like. I just wanted to know that I could sit down at almost any wheel, even the lovely dreamy Saxony wheels and spin. Well, I did just that trying out the very dreamy Kromski Polonaise, an amazing Norm Hall wheel, a Robin wheel and the Hitchhiker. I really loved how smooth the Polonaise and the Norm Hall wheels spun and fell in love with single treadle wheels. I was also able to touch and just treadle on Bess’s amazing new Golding wheel. When I was looking at wheels just over a year ago, I always assumed that a double treadle was better, but I’ve been proven wrong. After trying out these wheels and a relaxing lunch with knitters from KR, I was all ready to start buying some fiber. I think I did very well on a small budget. (Bess’s advice of bringing only cash was the best advice anyone could have given me.) I also had the pleasure of meeting Lolly who recognized me in The Fold booth and so many others that I can’t remember their names at the moment.
Sunday, I took an all day Novelty Yarns spinning class with Judith MacKenzie McCuin. What an absolutely wonderful class. I learned to spin several types of novelty yarns (photos to come soon), including flame yarn (slubby yarn), bouclé, marled, encasement and frosting. She also allowed us to spin some fibers that I’ve never spun with before - cotton. I don’t think I’ll be spinning much with cotton but it’s a fiber that I want to practice on. And the most important thing I learned in class wasn’t a type of yarn but how to draw out the fiber so that my spinning was much more even with any fiber. After she showed me short-quick draws my yarn was instantly even, smooth and consistent. She also showed us a very cool method of “felting” the outside of your fiber top to get a really nice even yarn that practically spins itself. My samples from class aren’t spectular but now I know the techniques to practice and make them spectular. Sunday also meant saying good-bye to new friends, but not before trying out some more wheels. I already miss them. I feel so inspired after being around such a great group of women all weekend and their advice on spinning is priceless.

Monday, Amie and I sat down and I tried to teach her everything I’d learned in my Novelty Yarns class. Then we wandered around Michael’s and Joann’s looking for silk thread to use for bouclé yarns. After we packed up all of my fiber purchases and mailed them, I flew to Chicago in the afternoon. I was exhausted from the weekend. Dinner with my sister was nice then we came home to watch Medium.

This weekend was more about just the festival, it was also about absorbing as much as I could from some spinners that I really admire. Friday, Amie and I sat down and she showed me how to spin woolen. For several months, my back has bothered me when I’ve sat down to spin. I thought a new chair would help but spinning for more than an hour has been uncomfortable. Amie noticed right away how I twist to the left when I spin. I had noticed it but it never occured to me that I was doing it all the time. Now I know my source of the spinning back aches. After trying out the Kromski wheel and the other single treadle wheels, I realized that I could sit a bit diagonally to the wheel and treadle with my right foot instead of having to sit straight on like I do with Matilda, my Lendrum. I love Matilda and thought maybe trying a single treadle Lendrum would solve things for me. I used it for the entire day in my class and I found the single treadle Lendrum to be difficult to spin on, the dead spot when the footman reaches the top of it’s trip around was more than I could handle. I really had to work to get the momentum going for it to feel comfortable. After trying out the single treadle Lendrum all day in class, I decided I had to do some wheel shopping and I have always wanted to try the Ashford wheels. I tried an Ashford Traditional and an Ashford Traveller, I thought about trying the Joy but I knew that I would probably lean over more than I should and end up with the same problems. Spinning on the Traditional and the Traveller were very smooth and I fell in love with the Traveller. Bess and Amie were there when I tried out the Ashford wheels as enablers/supporters/advisors. Their support really helped me decide which wheel to get. Bess had a similar problem and knew exactly where to put the wheel for maximum spinning comfort. The Traveller comes standard as a double treadle but it was so easy to spin using just one treadle. I’m going to get the double-drive wheel with double-drive and scotch-tenstion avaiable all on the same wheel. I figure I’ll learn about double-drive later, but having it as an option is wonderful. I love Matilda and I know I’ll find her a good home. I get misty-eyed just thinking about sending her off to her new home. I have to finish spinning the garden yarn before I can send her off though. I’m definitely not ruling out another Lendrum in my future when I can afford to have more than one wheel, they are so versatile and require so little maintenance.

It’s Tuesday and I’m heading home by train this afternoon. I have one more day to recover then it’s back to work. Also I’ve been receiving so many spam comments that now I’m requiring people to register to leave comments. Sorry if this is inconvenient but it was ridiculous to come home to over 25 spam comments on my blog.

First of all, holy cow! I don’t think I’ve ever had 8 comments for one post! Thank you all. (Btw, the title means absolutely nothing. It’s just the post number and I just felt like keeping it just to be interesting.)

I haven’t heard about the Acquisitions job yet, but then again I don’t expect to hear anything until after I leave for Maryland. It could be a very interesting week, in addition to all of the Maryland Sheep & Wool excitement.

The last few days have been really great. I can’t remember why they just feel great. The Archives reading project where I was reading and organizing the shelves is finished. It took me almost 20 hours to read the entire Archives department but it’s done and I’m very relieved. Now I can leave town without thinking about what I have to do when I get back. I also got my hair cut on Thursday, which always puts a bit of a new spring in my step. She cut almost an inch an a half off and my new spring do feels fabulous. The best part is that even when I let my hair air dry it looks cute - always a huge plus in my book! Another plus is I don’t have to lug my hairdryer to Maryland. :)

Wednesday at my knitting group, I finished another afghan square and started the 11th square. I haven’t gotten very far on the 11th square because I’ve been busy working, baking, knitting the new sock and making Project Spectrum postcards. The sock is coming along nicely, slowly but nicely. I think once I get the pattern down a bit more it will go a bit faster. I’m using the “Go With the Flow” socks pattern from Interweave Knits, Summer 2005.

My latest baking adventure was into whole wheat bread, oooh. It’s a recipe from one of my favorite bread books, the same book that we use for pizza crust with few additions and baguettes. The bread turned out very nicely and we used it for tomato/basil sandwiches on Friday for lunch.

I talked to Amie yesterday to finalize some of our plans for my trip to Maryland. And somehow we got onto the subject of how I feel like my knitting has become a bit stagnant. I don’t mean that I’m not knitting, more as in the projects I have planned that I have yarn for just aren’t that challenging. Sometimes I don’t think I want challenging because I want to relax and knit but other times I want something that won’t only wow my husband but also wow me. Sort of the same feeling that I had after I finished the Barbara shawl. I’m sure I’ll feel that way after I finish the Hobo sweater that I’m sure you’re all sick of hearing about. Amie seems to think that Maryland will change that. I hope she’s right. Not that I don’t love a good pair of socks but I feel like that’s the one place I’m making myself try new things. The afghan squares are definitely challenging but they are so small and by the time I’m almost finished with one, I’m tired of the pattern anyway. Granted I have two sweaters that really need to be finished and I’m trying to keep myself to no more than five projects on the needles at any one time. I think back to when I was living in the city and knitting as much as I am now and I knitted a lot of sweaters. I also had friends that encouraged me and were knitting things more complex than I was, which made me want to challenge myself even more. And I had the money to do that back then (or so I thought). I also haven’t felt much like spinning either, it just seems like my hands don’t want to work the way they are supposed to. When I try spinning, my drafting is bulky and then I have a hard time getting the fiber to do what I want. Maybe this trip to Maryland is exactly what I need. Or I’ve just reached a bit of a knitting plateau and a spinning lull.

And finally, Chloe is so perfect at the strangest sleeping poses that I just can’t resist.

Have a great week. After I leave for Chicago on Wednesday to fly to Maryland on Thursday, I won’t blog until I get back on Tuesday next week. I’ll try to post one last time before I leave.

The interview yesterday for the Acquisitions position went well. I had to work yesterday morning, came home for some lunch with the dear husband, took a nap and then went back to the library for the interview. It went quite well and I felt pretty confident about it. All morning to pump myself up, I had a mantra going through my head “I’m the best person for the job.” I think it worked, now it’s just a matter of waiting to see if the Acquisitions manager agrees, I truly hope she does.

Monday wasn’t a great day for me, I worked a double shift and I was just plain tired. But even on my worst days at the library, it’s still the best job I’ve ever had (even if the pay is about 1/4 of what I used to make) and the bad days are better than my good days at some previous jobs. To make my day better, I brought home Party Girl with Parker Posey. It’s one of my favorite movies and always reminds me why I truly love working in a library. My attempt at cheering myself up worked. I also managed to knit 1/3 of my tenth square for the great american aran afghan. (I upgraded the afghan page just in case you’d all visit it.) When I’m working on the squares I remember why I loved this afghan so much in the first place. It’s so fun to try out all of these different cable patterns, even when I’m frustrated because I twisted a cable the wrong way 10 rows back. I’m nearly out of yarn, so I’ll only be able to do one more square before I have to buy more yarn, which might be a while. I’ll post a photo of the square when it’s finished.

I keep forgetting to mention this. S from work, who is moving and can’t take all of her yarn, was so kind to give me 8 balls of fingering weight sock yarn that she bought in Germany. She said she’ll never use it and figured I could use it. To thank her and repay her for her generosity, I’ve decided to make her a pair of socks out of the yarn. I’ll still have six balls of yarn for my own use. I started the socks on Sunday but have become obsessed with the current afghan square.

Tomorrow my mom leaves on a quite long trip. She’s going to a conference then on to a multi-country foreign trip with my aunt. I hope they have safe travels, especially when they will be gone for three weeks.

And next Wednesday, I begin my travels to Maryland for the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival. I can’t wait to finally meet Amie (my hostess, thank you ahead of time!), Bess (my library school cheerleader), Martha, Clara, Jennifer of Spirit Trail and others. I’m sure I’ll meet so many others that I’ve only known through the Knitters Review forums for years. Since I’m traveling so far, I also signed up for a Novelty Yarns class on Sunday and Amie is dear enough to loan me her Lendrum wheel for the class.

This was going to be such a short post, it just keeps growing and growing. Lolly mentioned the other day on her blog something about being a process knitter vs. progress knitter. I’ve been thinking about it the last day or so. How many of us with blogs are progress knitters just to have something to post on the blog? I know there are days that I have nothing to post just because I haven’t made a lot of progress on a particular project. I might also stay focused on one project longer if I thought that it would be interesting blog material, but unfortunately the long projects just aren’t that interesting when you’ve added one inch to a 21.5 inch body. Maybe I shouldn’t focus so much on the photos of knitting and what I actually have to say, Martha and Bess are good examples of this.

Finally, just to clear up any confusion (Brandi) regarding the new nephew. Bryan’s sister is pregnant and is due in August.