Is it wrong to give away fleece with VM?

So, I made up a new batch of t-shirts (as usual, I didn’t have the color/neckline/size/animal desired by lots of my potential buyers–they want a llama, not a sheep, in some color other than pink, in xxl when I have small.  When I have xxl, they want small, sheep, pink…) and hauled them to Guild last night.  Cathy brought an indigo dye bath and I dyed a teeny skein of yarn.  Very cool how it goes from yellow to blue!!  When it is dry I shall try to photograph it for you.

 

Oh, I was saying, now I have more t-shirts again.  I am going to list them on Etsy.  I have been told that the best way to use Etsy is to keep putting a new item up each day so you come up at the top of the searches.  So I list one shirt at a TIME, ah ha!  I have no idea if that will help.  While I was there I had to buy some raw fleece (but only 2 lbs–one of romney cross and one of shetland–as I started spinning some Shetland yesterday and like it–I also spun up my little sample of babydoll and then was thinking I ought to try to get more breed samples.  Maybe make a notebook thing?  I have Jacob and Dorset and Border Leicester and some more samples–Wensleydale and Cormo and oh, what are the others?…).  Thought occurs to me, I could give away some of the free fleeces I have for the cost of shipping and my gas to the PO, and possibly that would give me more of an Etsy presence at the same time?  Is it okay to give away fleece that has a fair amount of VM in it for just the cost of shipping if you warn a person?  I am thinking of 1 lb stuffed envelopes for $1 plus $5 for shipping?  Speak up if you have thoughts on this…

Acorn Cap & Peasant Heel Sock

I finished and felted the Acorn Cap, but I didn’t “display” it at Blackstone–they had some display over in a building I wasn’t going to go near.  I did show it off to a couple of people. Anyhow, not a very good photo, but, oh well.  In case you didn’t read about it before, this hat is a 15th century style cap.  I started with raw border leicester wool and washed, picked & spun it (uncarded or combed, just from the cloud), plyed it, knit the hat, felted it in the machine.  I got the foam head a couple of weeks ago.  I think it might be too white for taking pictures with…

And over a week ago I finished the first of the peasant heel socks.  There is too much of  nipply thing on the heel, next time I will start the decreases a bit sooner.  All in all I think it is good, though, and the Felici is very soft and nice.

Tonight at Guild Cathy is bringing an indigo dyepot for us to play with.  I have some superwash roving I want to put in it!  Will try to report later.

 

Over the weekend I still had the icky stomach thing, but managed to be alright most of Saturday.  I sortof taught a knitting class and did teach a little drop spindle class.  The merchanting was pretty much a waste of time, but I did chat with Ellsbeth a bit at the Herald Point and the other merchants were nice.  The kids were astonishingly well-behaved when I made them sit around waiting with me.

ACTC College Camp

 

Did you know—??  Ashland Community & Technical College offers a kids’ summer College Camp every year.  I’m teaching a class (“Grossology”) this summer.  The info is on their website:

http://www.ashland.kctcs.edu/lifelonglearning/college_camp/default.aspx

 

goodnessgracious on Ravelry

I haven’t done really ANYTHING on Ravelry.  Lots of Spindlers were talking about it so I signed up.  But apparently I am too lazy right now to go put in all my stash and stuff like that.  When I finish the second (I finished the first!) of the peasant heel socks, maybe I will write up a little pattern…

 

Let me know if you are on Ravelry too and I’ll try to add you to my friends thing.

 

 

I got sunburnt…but the rest was fun

They had a renaissance fair thing at Marshall University yesterday.  Mary Moore was in charge and I guess it was an Honors Student thing.  I went along with the SCA Port Oasis fencers (Melissa also brought some cool arts & sciences stuff to show off–leatherwork mostly) and brought a bagful of wool, some dog slicker brushes, a bunch of spindles.  I spun on my wheel and on a spindle and taught some people how to drop spindle.  Some of them seemed to get into it so I gave them a little sample of wool and a tiny cardboard whorl spindle and my card.

 

Nadine didn’t come in garb, but she did come sit with me and spindle and helped teach and played on my wheel some.  I noticed she was getting pink.  I thought I would be okay because I put on some sunscreen, but, I guess, not enough.  So, I came home with a pink neck and face.  And a burn right around my watchband, too.  Sigh.

 

Betsy came by too (and showed off her new yarn she spun over break on her new Babe wheel), but she didn’t stay so long, so she probably didn’t get roasted.

 

There were some actors (including Jeremy Plyburn, Gene Anthony and Tristan Reynolds) doing Shakespearean recitations.  Some students with astronomy stuff.  Some fortune-tellers.  Some people all dressed up for “court”…

 

At church last night while I was in my Bible study class and beforehand and during my tv watching I got to the “hard” part of the felici afterthought/peasant heel sock.  Now I’ve picked up the stitches and gotten the waste yarn out (that wasn’t so much fun, actually) and am knitting a few rounds even before I start the decreases.  Oh, I am cobbling my socks together from different patterns, notes from people, measurements of my own foot, etc etc etc, but this was also helpful.

 

Chris is coming to town to visit her parents in a couple of weeks, so maybe we can stalk each other in person then!

 

Blackstone is only a week and a half away (well, officially only a week, ack!) and  I haven’t finished the acorn hat.  Or planned my classes exactly.  I said I would teach both knitting and spindling.  On Saturday.  At 11 am and either at noon or 1 pm.  Has to be during the children’s activities…

Tofutsies socks and started another pair

I finished the Tofutsies socks on my tiny short size 2 circular.

Started on another pair of socks.  These are knit with KnitPicks Felici (superwash wool & nylon) in Coastal and I’m knitting cuff down but putting in scrap yarn for a peasant/afterthought heel.  Wish me luck.  I’m worried that the sock will end up the wrong size in the end!  Worked on them while I watched the kids playing at the Clay Center today…

 

Still busy spinning the pale green merino/silk that I got from Cathy at the retreat.  Trying to make it fine enough that the 2-ply won’t be too fat.

 

 

Fiber Fiesta retreat was great!

The River Cities Fiber Guild anniversary retreat at Asbury Woods was this past weekend and I got to go and had lots of fun!  There were, I believe, 28 of us and I sat and spun and knitted and talked and ate and spun and knitted and ate and talked from 4:15 Friday afternoon until 1 am and then got up again and did it more from around 8 am until I had to go home around 2:30 pm Saturday.

 

We had spectacular goody bags full of catalogs and fiber samples and yarn samples and buttons and knitting patterns.  We had even more prizes in the form of door prizes (I got some mohair, silk cap, silk yarn, wool yarn, more buttons, a KnowKnit project bag…).  Sat between Judy (from Good News Llamas) and Nadine (see her blog Crafts, Life & Times of Nadine) who was spinning on Mitzi’s (also Good News Llamas) borrowed wheel.  Nadine is ridiculously good at spinning for someone who just learned to drop spindle after Christmas.  I didn’t win any of the raffle prizes, but Judy won a personalized Golding spindle with sheep painted on it.

 

I also managed to show off the sheep & llama batik shirts (a couple of the other ladies were wearing theirs that I’d made for them, too) and sold one, bartered another for some merino/silk fiber, got another couple ladies who think they must have them…

 

In my goody bag was a sample of Chameleon Colorworks Optim fiber which says it is mechanically stretched merino that is silk-like and machine washable.  It was intriguing.  I spun up my little sample and traded with 3 other people to get theirs…so now I have close to 4 oz to play with to see if I must afford to buy more.

 

I spent much of my time at the retreat carding and spinning more of the Mary wool.  Yesterday I finished spinning up all of it that was washed.  So, today I am washing another batch.  Now I ought to go to bed, because I still have a bunch more items to finish up for Oklahoma for a contract.  And the taxes to do.  And Evan & Christopher home for spring break and Evan with a fever so we are limited in what I want to drag them around to.  Maybe Spiderwick at the cheap movie tomorrow…

 

 

“Mary” yarn, lace wrap, teaching spinning…

Yesterday I ’bout wore myself out!  I brought spindles and wool and brushes  (for carding, dog slickers) to the kids’ school, first to the 1st grade class and then to the 3rd grade.  I talked a bit about processing wool–we had read Red Berry Wool (about Lalo the sheep) and Charlie’s New Cloak (by Tomie DePaola) already and they’d expressed some interest in the steps.  Showed them some uncarded, clean wool, demonstrated carding, demonstrated spindling, let them take turns carding and spindling.  Each kid made a short piece of wool that I plyed on my thigh and tied onto wrists so everyone had a little bracelet at the end.  Fun, but tiring, because there are 20 and 23 kids in the classes–I just spent 45 minutes in each going around getting them started and finished and putting wool on and taking wool off, etc etc etc.  But, I think they liked it even more than me!  :) I finished the yarn made with Mary’s fleece, this time processed from raw myself, but I used the large slicker brushes to comb it before spinning.  I think it came out very nice.  Still some VM, but smoother and quite soft.  It is the offwhite yarn. And I spun up some superwash that I’d dyed with blue & black Wilton’s to make “stonewash” colorway yarn.  Two ply. I am knitting myself a wrap with the easiest lace stitch I could find.  Open featherwork.  Row 1:  *k2, yo, k1, yo, slip 1, k1, psso* ;  Row 2:  purl.  I added 5 rows of garter stitch at the start and then the first and last 5 stitches of each row.  I’m using Green Mountain Spinnery Sylvan Spirit (50% wool, 50% tencel) in Moonshadow.  Nearly done 1 skein, 3 more to go.