So many hobbies!

I don't get it.

I had yet another person at work look at me with horror when she found out I go camping.  My immediate co-workers all agree “camping” means staying in an RV… with a TV, DVD player, etc.  I don’t get it.  And, frankly, I feel kind of sorry for them.  Being outside with all that fresh air is fantastic and roughing it a little makes you really appreciate a dry house and a hot shower.  Heck, we don’t really rough it when we camp since we always have bath houses and I have my air mattress.  Regardless, camping is FUN and I sleep like a rock at night.  We do it as much because staying in hotels is expensive as because we like it.  I'd rather spend my money on much more fun things.  Still, these people consider it a horrible hardship to do what my friends and i do.  I know, I know… to each his own.  I just don’t get it.

First weaving

The rug has been taken off the loom, washed and dried.  It looks both better and worse after washing.  Better because the yarn bloomed and made a tighter, denser fabric.  Worse because the ends were I started and ended a color have popped out and the fringe is kind of mangled.  Once I give everything a trim, though, it'll look better.  All in all, I'm happy with my first woven piece.  I'm still figuring out how tight/loose to do my edges and that's the hardest part.  Despite it not being perfect, it still got the Tyr nod of approval:

Working inside and out

Much work was done both outside and inside.  My front garden was a weedy mess that received another round of weeding.  Now I just need a load of mulch to finish it off and make it look worlds better.  My flower box got a make-over:

And the four big pots in front were filled with snapdragons:

In the basement, I put up the second baker's rack I'd bought.  The Christmas tree was moved into the closet:

I've even got some room left over for the stuff I will inevitably buy (sorry, Yen).  See the bags of roving and yarn?  I'm planning on making a dent in the roving during the Tour de Fleece in June.  And the skeins and skeins of sock yarn I will never get around to knitting?  Woven scarves.  Lots and lots of woven scarves.  Speaking of weaving:  my woven rug is done but it needs a bath and a ride in the dryer before I can show it. 

My last job for tonight is to break down all the empty boxes I've got sitting in my entryway and put them in the recycling bin.

Oh, I almost forgot another braid of roving I bought at Maryland:

Gorgeous!

And, finally, Tyr found a new sleeping spot:

Crocodile Stitch Baby Booties

I received the latest Knitpicks catalog in the mail the other day.  When I saw these little babies, I was instantly smitten.  These are the cutest things I've seen in ages. (The picture is Ms. Azulay's.) They're called Crocodile Stitch Baby Booties designed by Lianka Azulay.  I've already ordered the pattern off the Knitpicks website and I can't wait to figure out how to crochet them.  Yup, it's a crochet pattern and crochet is not my forte.  I plan on learning.  I don't have a single pair of tiny feet to make these for but I plan on making a bunch of them nonetheless because, OMG, they are CUTE!  This is the yarn I ordered to make them:  Chroma fingering in Guppy and Lollipop.

Spinning the second sock

I am loving my new Bosworth spindle (the one on the left).  It doesn't spin as long as the Spanish Peacock spindle on the right but it has a nice deep notch that makes a huge difference while you're spinning.  The yarn doesn't slip out of the notch as easily as it can in other notched spindles.  Love!

The Bosworth spindle I've been spinning on at home and the Peacock spindle is my travel spindle.  It went with me to my spinning guild meeting Saturday.  I'm making good headway on the yarn for the second spindle-spun sock I'll be knitting.  You may spin faster on a wheel but you can get a lot of spinning done using a drop spindle.  With my wheel, it's a procedure to pull the wheel out of the closet, take it out of the case, set it up and start spinning.  Spinning with a spindle all you do is pick it up and give it spin.  Spinning on a spindle you can pick it up 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there throughout the day.  I've probably spun close to an ounce since Saturday.  Not too shabby.

Warping a loom is a big job

And it takes even longer when you have "help."

Eventually, we got it done and I started weaving.  Since I hate practicing just for the sake of practicing, I'm weaving a rug for my tent to set my shoes on.  Both warp and weft are cotton so I can throw it in the washing machine when it gets dirty.

I definitely need more practice but it's not too bad for my very first piece.

While Rhonda was helping Sheri and I warp our respective looms, Galen was showing his love for Sheri's shoes:

The expression of his lust for her shoes got a little wild at times.

Today was a day of chores.  I managed to get groceries, catfood from the pet store, two baker's racks from ALDI, weeded the front bed (it was so bad you can't really tell I did anything... darn it!), did two loads of laundry, took my camping gear back down to the basement, wove a little and scooped the litterbox.  The darks are in the dryer and I still need to change the sheets on my bed. I need to do another weeding session next weekend and pick up a lot of mulch from Lowe's.  A LOT of mulch.  Once the mulch is down, the garden will look much better.

While I was working, Galen was sleeping:

And Tyr was playing:

Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival 2012 - part 2

I did pretty well in the skein contest:

It's interesting to me that the yarn I thought would do well, didn't.

My spindle-spun skein didn't win the prize for the best spindle-spun skein.  This is actually a good thing because it shows me that I'm not the only one entering.  I'll just have to spin better so I win next year.

The shopping, as you might imagine, was lots of fun.  The first thing I bought was the replacement for the spindle I dropped and shattered.  The next day I bought a Bosworth spindle:

The Bosworth spindle, on the left, is made from Bird's Eye Maple and spins really well.  The Spin-a-Bit spindle on the right is an identical replacement for the broken one.  I really need to find a good way to store and display my spindles.  I'd be grateful for some suggestions.

Next I bought a couple of gorgeous batts:

Unfortunately, this picture doesn't really show how beautiful these batts are.  Once they're spun up, I plan on using the yarn for weaving scarves.

Thanks to Sheri and Rhonda, I bought a 24" Kromski Harp Rigid Heddle loom.  The girls sat through the auction held on Saturday and bought my loom for me.  They bought stuff for themselves, too.  It was just so hot there was no way I could have sat outside for 3 hours while the auction was under way. 

Okay, it's a crappy picture.  Sorry.  The Harp folds up for easier storage and transportation.  It'll hold 5 yards of cloth up to 24" wide.  I'll be weaving scarves and probably a table runner or two.

To play with my drumcarder, I bought some dyed Merino roving, sparkly fiber and some Merino/silk roving.  I should get 2 or 3 batts out of what I bought.  Playing will likely commence this weekend.

That's red Angelina on the left and Firestar sparkle on the right.  One of the things I was looking for in Maryland were things to add to batts to make them more fun to spin.

So that's the last of the trip photos.  We had a great time this year.  Part of the fun was my sister joined us for the weekend.  Fortunately for her, she missed the thunderstorm and the rain since she didn't arrive until Friday.  A good time was had by all.

Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival 2012 - part 1

Thursday morning, packing up the van.  It was a great start to the trip.

Friday, after dropping off our yarn for the skein contest, we stopped at Michael's and bought some visors and the stuff to decorate.  We found some cute sheep stickers and letters to spell out our Ravelry names.

Finally, after waiting a whole year, we were back again!

These pictures were taken on Sunday but Saturday was packed with people.  There is a HUGE field next to the fair grounds that covers probably 6 acres of land.  The field was completely filled and cars were parked across the street in the overflow parking.  I have never seen so many people at the Festival before.  I'm curious to find out just how many people were there on Saturday.

They used tractors and wagons to cart people from the parking lot to the Festival.

We passed a fair goer who had purchased this amazing felted horse head puppet.  Someone did some incredible work on this piece.

We had a great time camping.  Friday night we kept getting molested by this butterfly.  Anyone who was still in the sun was a potential landing spot.  He hung out on Rhonda's head for a while.  And my head, my shoulder, the chair Rhonda's sitting in.  It was a welcome change from mosquitos.

We had great weather with the notable exception of Thursday night.  Starting about 9:00 and lasting at least until midnight, we experienced the biggest thunderstorm I have ever be in the middle of.  It was LOUD!  And when the heavens finally opened up, the downpour was impressive.  Happily, my tent didn't leak a single drop.  I highly recommend Eureka! tents.

This was the packing portion of Monday.  Sheri managed to get everything you see, and a few things not in the picture, all into the van and still left Rhonda with a clear sightline.  Sheri is the master packer!

We had a really good time this year.  My yarn did pretty well in the skein contest (although I didn't win for the best spindle-spun skein, which proves that I'm NOT the only person entering spindle-spun yarn), I bought a rigid-heddle loom, a couple of spindles and some spinning fiber.  I'll have more pictures later this week.

Just about ready

As I type, Galen is stalking Tyr through the livingroom.  Tyr is laying on the couch taking a bath and not paying the slightest bit of attention to her brother.  All of Galen's attention however, is on Tyr.  I'm having a hard time keeping quiet.  Aaaaaand... he attacks!  Remember Tyr, trust no one!  Especially an older brother.

My final yarn is finished and my yarn descriptions are written up and ready for the skein contest.  I am about as ready as I can be at this point.  Tomorrow, all I need to do is pack the car, pick up Sheri's camping gear, hard boil some eggs and make myself a sandwich for Thursday's lunch.  The house is clean, the litterboxes were just refilled with fresh litter, the laundry is folded and the dishwasher is running.  I'm just about ready to leave.

Three more days

The camping gear has been moved upstairs and waits by the front door.  The car has been cleaned out and the back seat folded down, ready for Wednesday's loading.  I've gone to the grocery store and I've got 2 1/2 quarts of strawberries and 4 apples sliced in drying in my new food dehydrator:

I've wanted one of these for a while.  Besides these store-bought berries, I can't wait to dry the strawberries we'll pick in June and then the blueberries in July, maybe cherries and definitely the apples picked this fall.  These strawberries will be added to three servings of oatmeal for breakfasts next weekend.  This is the second batch in the dehydrator.  The first one had strawberries, apples and pineapple.  I'd love to show you the dried pineapple but it was so good I kind of ate them all.  Next time the pineapple is on sale at the grocery store, I'll be picking up a couple to dry.  Yummy.

The spindle spun yarn is drying and I'll have a picture for you later this week.  I managed to spin the singles on each spindle so closely in length, that when I finished the cop on one spindle, there were only 8 inches of singles left on the second spindle.  I couldn't have gotten it that close if I tried on purpose.  Because they were so close in length and the plying spindle was so heavy, I decided to wind the cop off the third spindle into a center-pull ball and ply it back on itself into a second skein.  The first skein was 2 ounces which is the minimum I need to enter into the skein contest at Maryland.  The Finn I decided not to spin because it's just too dry here and the wool is way too full of static.  It's too hard to spin an even yarn with the wool flying all over the place.  I'll have to wait until it's a lot more humid outside before I try again.

Only three days until we leave.  I've got a short work week but those three work days are going to feel like forever.  Wish me luck.

Oh, and for your viewing pleasure, the kids sleeping on the couch: