We moved to our first (rented) house last month. The most exciting part (for me at least) is that there is a basement, I will finally have a studio space all to myself!

The Berkeley Knitters all headed out to Meridian Jacobs Farm for another Shearing Day.

Will took a week off and went to Hawaii and he brought me back this fun sampler quilt kit as well as a very cute turtle pincushion.

There has been lots more but sadly the good camera died and my old digital eats batteries in about 10 min so all I have in the way of a camera is my phone which is less then ideal, but I will try to photograph stuff as I can and hopefully we will get the good camera fixed soon (hurray for warranties!)

In the mean time I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!  (Or if you aren’t in the USA a wonderful day)

Another dye experiment in acid dye blues for Libby. She is keeping this one.

We played around with the drum carder that I rescued from my mom who hasn’t used it in years. We were pretty impressed how the random end bits of roving Libby had became nice fluffy batts. Can’t wait for Libby to try spinning some on her drop spindle.

Now I just need to get some of the fleece I have washed up and do some of my own carding, which is what the carder was rescued for in the first place.

1. One Love A Day: Day #40 – Fluids, 2. Hand-Dyed Sock Yarn, 3. dye run – spring 2006, 4. hey psst!, 5. Hand Dyed Fiber Buns, 6. Dyeing Success – Macro, 7. Selling colours, Pashupatinath, 8. Dye-ing leather, 9. Yellow Dye, 10. The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts., 11. Attack, 12. Tie Dye T-Shirts, 13. Untitled, 14. Dye studio shot , 15. Blue & Yellow Dye, 16. bundles of joy

Things are still wet and gray, the voices on the news say it is going to stay that way all week. We need the water but I just want to ride my bike in some sunshine. So to focus on something else here are a few shinny things.

This is some yummy Whenslydale dyed with madder from A Verb (where else?)

This sunny fellow flew in one day and perched on the mantel, the best part is he doesn’t eat much and always seems to smile.

Fuchsia makes me happy.

Last month on a rainy day I stopped in at A Verb For Keeping Warm on my way home. It was a gray day and I wanted something to spin and nothing I had at home was calling my name. I have to say, Kristine’s store is so cozy I could have stayed there all afternoon fondling top and yarn. In the end I decided on this wonderfully creamy orange merino, can something be bright and pastel at the same time? I think this stuff is.

The merino spins up really nicely, it had been a while since I had spun any and I forgot how sticky it is, all that fine crimp you know.  Only half of it is spun up at the moment but that only took a couple hours so I’ll soon have some plied yarn to share with you.

Aside from the fibery things in life we finally have some sun after two weeks of rain and I can’t wait to get outside.

So do you remember that yummy looking yak and merino roving that I got at Color from  A Verb for Keeping Warm?  Well I have been busy on the wheel lately and it is now a lovely fingering/lace weight yarn.

50/50 Yak and Merino

I also finally got the last bit of the Plumber plyed and am now trying to decide what to spin next out of the stash. While the spinning bug has been great, the Sidlelines Top kind of got put on well, the sideline for a bit but I am determind to get back to it tonight as the spinning urg seems to be wanning  a little.

I have also been working on another Noro scarf, just something for mindless craft moments, like on the drive to SoCal and breaks at work when I can’t get enough of a patterned something done. This one is in Silk Garden and is just single crochet with a treble crochet lattice edge.

Noro Silk Garden Scarf

What have you been working on lately?

Check out the horns on this guy! He was not excited about getting a hair cut.

This past Sunday was a big day at Meridian Jacobs Farm, it was shearing day for the 50 or so Jacob sheep raised by Robin and Dan Lynde. I drove out with my knitting friend Marissa and her family.  The farm is out near Vacaville and it is a lovely drive through the hills and into the central valley. It was a full day for the shearer and lots of fun for us! Here are a few snapshots of the day:

Spring Lambs

These little guys where so adorable, I wanted to take one home!

Skirtting a Fleece

After the fleece is sheared off it has to be skirted, this is where damaged locks are picked out, different colors may be separated out, and second cuts are shaken out.

I didn’t get any fleece this time, tempting as it was, but I didn’t go home empty handed either!

Jacob Wool Yarn

For more pictures check out the set on Flickr.

About two weeks ago I went to a little fiber festival in Berkeley. The festival is aptly named Color and this was the second one this year. At this point it is a very small festival, about 5 vendors, about 6 small classes and an area for folks to bring their wheels, spindles, knitting, etc. and hangout for a while. But I would say its size is part of what I liked about it, it wasn’t so crowded that you couldn’t get into booths to touch and see all the yarns and fibers, you could sit down, get to know folks and there where not a lot of “tourists.”

The best thing was that all the vendors where local, including two of my favorites, Tactile and A Verb for Keeping Warm. A few yarn stores carry some of their roving but it is so nice to see all of the things they offer and get to fondle it too. Both vendors use natural dyes from Earth Hues to get wonderfuly soft but vibrant colors.

CMV Locks

I got a fun bag of CMV locks from Tactile with a hodgepodge of colors that I am going to blend into a fun heathered/tweedy batt once I can borrow my mom’s drum carder ( I think she has used it twice, maybe). The deep colors are made by overdyeing a darker fleece, which is a niffty way of not haveing to use as concentrated a dye bath as you would with white fleece to get dark colors.

50/50 Yak and Merino

Of course I also had to get something from A Verb for Keeping Warm and there is no other word to describe how wonderful this roving feels but sensuous. It is a blend of 50/50 yak and merino wool, it is like butter and the blend of the natural colors of each fiber will make a wonderful grey heather yarn that will be great as is or to over dye once I decide what to do with the yarn once I spin it up. I just have to finish the last little bit of the roveing from Plumber.

I can’t wait for the next Color festival but in the mean time there will be the Spin-In at Knit-One-One on Nov. 12 and the Meridian Farm Shearing on Nov. 16th so I guess I’ll survive till then.

Well, I had thought I would be able to post about my progress on a few projects but the photos for those did not seem to make it onto the jump drive so instead I have photos of some old projects that I have been meaning to gets pictures taken of. Enjoy.

Blueberry Handspun

Plumber Roving

Ravelry Stash Project

Shameless Pet Plug