It has been a fibery week indeed! I have been knee deep in processing my first fleece and test washing some fiber from another 2 fleeces! This is my first time and I plan on doing a blog post on the whole process later this week. Everyone has their own way of doing it and I am trying to find mine as I glean wisdom from those that have gone before!

Corriedale

Knitting has been in the back ground but I am making progress on my socks that I shared last week and I also decided to pick up the pace on my Josephine Shawl. I really want to be able to wear this now. So I'm trying for 5 lace repeats a day.....then it will be mindless stockinette for a while. I have a back log of things I need .....(want).... to cast on for but I am trying to restrain myself till I get this done.


The past weekend we deemed "Mothers Day" weekend! I started enjoying my weekend on Friday with our monthly Guild Meeting. We had around 35 people attend this months meeting and it was great to see so many familiar and new faces. We spent the day doing nothing but talking fiber and doing fibery things. There is nothing bad about that!


Then Saturday Emily and I headed to the "Studio" to spin and mentor others wanting to learn. I was able to get this months club from Three Waters Farm on the wheel and decided to do a navajo ply to keep those colors true. The fiber is targhee and it was my first time spinning it. I finished it up on Sunday and the colorway "Spring in my Heart" has truly stolen my heart! Not sure what it will be yet but am enjoying just petting it for now!




I hope everyone enjoyed their Mothers Day as much as I did mine! I woke up to breakfast and all sorts of wonderful gifts! My most favorite is a gorgeous necklace my children gave me! It has all their names and birthstones and I just love it! I am a very blessed Mama!


I will leave you with a photo of our newest addition.....a sweet girl named Chandler! Life is full of surprises and she is a happy one!

It's a rainy day here in the woods and it looks like the perfect day to sip tea and spin for a while. I feel like we are still recovering from our fibery weekend at Maryland Sheep and Wool. I wrote a post on our adventure here if you are interested in seeing lots of sheep and wooly things!


This weeks knitting has been mainly working on  my sock blank socks. After seeing Susan B Andersons sock blanks I thought they looked like fun and I headed over to Gale's Arts and got one for myself. They are such a fun knit and I love thy way they are turning out! I am just making plain vanilla socks and I'm  about to turn the heel. My favorite heel these days is the OMG.....it really fits my foot perfectly.



I have been spinning this week and am just about ready to ply some gorgeous alpaca that I got from Upstream Alpacas. It's called Winter Day and it's 100% Baby Alpaca. It is the softest fiber and like spinning little clouds. I am spinning it on my CPW and enjoying every minute!

I had quite a surprise this week as I was interviewed for an article on guilds for a local magazine. I am calling this my 5 seconds of fame! They did spell my last name wrong and got a few other facts wonky but for the most part they captured how I feel about my fiber addiction. It was my first time out to the guild since ending chemo and a fun way to jump back in! You can find the article and photos online here.....Dirt Mag

I have not done much reading lately but hope to find something this week to delve into. Probably another audio book that will allow me to knit or spin while I listen. Looking forward to joining Ginny in the yarn along today and seeing what everyone is up too! Happy knitting!

We headed out on Friday after deciding last minute to spend the weekend in Maryland attending the Sheep and Wool festival. I've been to Rhinebeck for the last 3  years but this was our first time at Maryland. I had 2 fellow fiber lovers with me.....Christopher and Hannah Grace were just as excited as I was to meet some new fibery friends!




The weekend was simply gorgeous.....the weather was perfect and the Festival was amazing! Our plan was to get what was on our list on Saturday and then on Sunday just wander and enjoy with out any agenda.

First up was the fleece sale. I wanted a cormo and stood in line with some wonderful people as waited for the sale to start and chatted about fleeces. I love fiber festivals......everyone you meet is friendly and loves to talk fiber! Nothing can be bad about that!! After wandering through the piles of fleeces I found one that spoke to me and ended up with a lovely cormo cross. Saw some famous faces in the sea of others looking at fleeces and nearly took out Laura from "The knitgirlls" with my stroller!  I can not wait to start processing this one! I will be documenting it on the blog here as I learn the in's and out's of processing. And please if you have any great sources that you love pass them along! I'm so looking forward to the experience!

fleece sale

my cormo cross

this was our favorite sheep.....we kept coming back to him. He loved being petted!

rainbow sheep are the best

weaving a bookmark

We meandered through quite a few sheep barns meeting fibery friends as we went. And then headed over to the Family Activities tent for Christopher to take a class and make a tapestry book mark. While he was busy there Hannah Grace and I hit Solitude Wool and bought some squishy corriedale wool yarn for a future fair isle sweater vest I want to make. I can not say how much I love this company! All fiber is grown and processed in the US. I also snatched a bag of tunis fiber to spin. I was really trying to find fibers I have not worked with before for spinning. Clun Forest  was on my list! I also let Hannah Grace pick out some yarn for a new hat and mittens. She got a skein of mulitcolored Tunis! The lady at the booth was so informative and we talked spinning for a while and she offered me a bit of a Karakul fleece that she had purchased for a sample spin. What a sweet lady and so generous to offer me a way to try a breed I never even heard of before.









We watched the border collies  and their amazing herding skills for a while. After while we were just resting I got to meet an instagram friend! I only know her through instagram and knew she would be there and told her to look for Hannah Grace's wild hair......and that is exactly how she found me! She saw Hannah Grace peeking through the fence watching the dogs! We sat and chatted like old friends and it was so neat to meet her in real life!!

Hannah Grace had a captive audience and entertained the sheep with her drawings of them and some stories as well.

Sunday was another perfect day! Christopher had another class, this one was needle felting and he made a sea horse! He really liked this class. He also got a chance to sit at a floor loom and learn how to use it. He told me he really wants a floor loom now.....hmmmmm.....another fiber craft to delve into! We watched some of the show judging today and saw some more bunnies.




 Christopher picked out these buttons from Jenny the Potter for my fair isle sweater I will be making. I think he did a good job! I also hit into the whirled for a braid of Rambouillet......keeping with my plan of wanting breeds I have not spun. Another must have was a bag of battlings from Hobbledehoy fiber! I did also find a cute mini Turkish spindle for Emily.


We were able to cheer on some friends from our fiber guild as they competed in the sheep to shawl event. They ended up taking a third place and won the spinning award so that was exciting!


We really enjoyed the weekend and I can see this becoming a yearly event for us! Now to go rest and decide what to dive into first!