It's fiber festival time!

On Saturday Bill and I piled into the car and took a scenic drive to the Washington County Fairgrounds to attend the first annual Southern Adirondack Fiber Festival

It was a beautiful day, the temperatures were cool, perfect shawl weather, and it was bright and sunny all day. There were over 80 venders there. On top of spinning, weaving, and rug hooking demonstrations, and a really interesting sheep sheering demo.



we saw cashmere goats, llamas, alpacas,



and Bill got to commune with some sheep:


(I love this picture)


Bill bought lots of yummy smelling hand made soap from Natural Specialties (no web site, but they'll be at Rhinebeck!) and Saratoga Suds 'n' Stuff

We drooled over the shirts from five sheep and a donkey especially the baby's onesies, soo cute!

And finally I gave in and bought 9oz of hand dyed wool from Spinners Hill


I plan on making a baby surprise jacket out of it for TW and hopefully a hat and maybe mittens if I have enough left over.

I wanted to preserve the colors so I split it into three sections for easier handling (my bobbins will only hold about 4 oz each) and when I go to spin I'll split each section in half lengthwise and then ply each half together to (hopefully) get a self striping two ply.



I just love the colours in this roving, it reminds me both of autumn, but also of summer fields, I can't wait to get started on this!



Afterwards Bill and I were talking, and we really enjoyed how small the festival was, unlike Rhinebeck with its huge grounds and huger crowds. It was so calm yet cheerful, we could actually stroll up and down the aisles, and were able to take our time as we perused the vendors, and I never got jostled once! The SAFF will undoubtedly get bigger and more popular as the years go on and it gets more advertising and more activities and such. But for now we are going to enjoy the calm and stress free time wile we can. (Don't get me wrong, we LOVE Rhinebeck, and definitely plan on going, but anybody who has been there will tell you, the crowds are wild, and it can be a bit stressful trying to check out all the vendors and their wares while a massive crowd presses in around you trying to do the same)

Pineapple FO, okie dokie progress, and socks!

So I mentioned earlier that I had finished some crochet doilies to adorn the arms of my new chair.
Well, I STILL haven’t found my blocking pins, so I figured I would at least show you the unblocked pictures:





Starry Pineapple Doily from Favorite Pineapple Doilies of Rita Weiss from the American School of Needlework.

J&P coats size 10 crochet cotton in Ecru, and #7 steel crochet hook.


(Doesn't Pillow Guy look so happy in his new home?)

I've also picked up Okie Dokie (aka Frosted Ferns by Herbert Niebling) again, and have made some pretty good progress.



It's about 37% finished now, and as you can see I've finished the first acorn, YAY!

And of course, I've got my ubiquitous pair of socks:



Knit picks Felici in "Aurora"
The usual toe up two at a time, short row heel pattern in 1 1/2 Knit Picks circulars.


Unfortunately (ok, not really) these projects are going to be put on hold for a while, since I've just picked up a Commission knitting job through a swap group on Ravelry.

I'm knitting some socks in exchange for spinning fiber. It's win-win-win!
I get to knit socks, I get awesome spinning fiber, and she gets new socks!

Wow, who knew moving would be so hard?

Yeah, shortly after my last post Bill and I took a trip down to the Capital District of NY to go Apartment hunting. You see, he got accepted into the DSES (decision sciences and engineering systems, it's essentially applied mathematics) PHD program at RPI (yay!)

Once we got back it was a flurry of purging of unneeded stuff, and packing of needed stuff, then there was that whole moving thing, and then a bunch of unpacking (which still isn't finished).

Things are finally beginning to settle down, and I can start knitting and blogging again!

but for now, how about a few FO's and a WIP?

The wip:



The Baby Poonam I'm working it semi seamless. The main body is in the round with steeks for the armholes. I'm just about ready to cast off the front shoulders. Then there will be a bit more knitting on the back, a button tab for the shoulder and then the sleeves!

FO's:



Baby booties! :D:D
Just the Oscar pattern (link is to Ravelry, where the pattern is a free pdf download) in some leftover sock yarn, I think this is my favorite booty pattern ever.


And my first finished knit in the new apartment:



A little knit basket. Before we moved we didn't have a couch, or a coffee table, now we have both, and I have discovered that the coffee table accumulates bunches of little bits and bobs that I use all the time, so it's really annoying to constantly be putting them away and taking them out. so I knit this cute little basket to put them in so the table stays neat.

Yarn is some of my own handspun merino from when I was first learning to spin on a wheel, so it was a bit thick and thin, but I really likes the colours, and I think it worked well here.

No real pattern, just cast on 8 stitches, and knit a center out square until I thought it was big enough, then a couple of purl rows and knit straight up the sides. I then felted it a bit to make it a bit stiffer to keep the sides from flopping over.



I've also just finished a couple of crochet doilies to put on the arms of my new chair, but they aren't blocked yet, so the look kinda funky, so pictures will have to wait until I find the time to block them.