New Year!

Well here we go!  Another year come and gone,  it's hard to believe.  For me this year went really slow in some in some respects.  I've had two surgeries on my right knee which is really set me back.
Last February when I hurt my knee walking on my treadmill,  I never dream it would take a year out of my life.  Here I am, almost a year later, healing from a full knee replacement.  I am so anxious to get on with my life.

I have had a lot of great knitting time.  I sure wish I had taken pictures of more of it.  I will from now on.  Here is a flag I wove last April when I thought I would be able to weave in no time.  Still haven't been able to weave, but I do have a table loom warped and am ready to weave on that.

God Bless America!

SPINZILLA!

This whole last week was Spinzilla.  Oct 7th thru Oct 13 was National spinning and weaving week.  An organization developed spinzilla as a fundraiser to promote fiber arts and provide mentoring programs for such arts. Some of my friends and I joined teams and then spun as much as we could all week long all over San Diego.

Monday we spun in Karalyn's machine knitting class.

Next on Tuesday Margaret (my spinning teacher) and I went to spin at Summer's Past Farms and they were closed???  So, we went to Margaret's Studio and spun for a couple of hours and had a nice visit.  Karalyn called in sick and Tammy went back to school so we were it for the day.  Got a lot done that day.  I went home and spun some more until bed time.

Then on Wednesday we spun in our spinning class of course.  There were several teams represented.  Kelly, Margaret, Tammy, Terry, Susan and I were on Team Meridian Jacob.  Some others in class, Karalyn for one were on Cotton Cloud team.

 I know I got a lot spun and went to knitting class after and then home to spin some more.

Thursday we met at Lake Muray in La Mesa to spin at the lake to meet other friends to spin.  Karalyn, Margaret , Tammy and I had a spinning good time. 

 

 Then on Friday we went to Two Sister's and Ewe to spin (yarn shop in La Mesa)

Tammy made us tags to hang on our wheels.  And then for the weekend we all went to the Vista Fiber Fiesta!!!

That was great fun.  I helped Gary and Patricia some in their booth.  I spun the fiber that Gary was carding and ended up filling a bobbin with that.

Spinning Cotton

Beryl Weaving

Karalyn spinning for B2B practice.

Me spinning the batts that Gary is making

Patricia spinning in front of the booth.

When this weekend was over I had spun 2912 yards all week for Spinzilla.  The goal was to spin enough yarn to reach around the world.  Our team Meridian Jacob spun a grand total of 38,366 yards of yarn.  That's 21.8 miles.  Whoot whoot for us!

 

What a fun week we have had!

 

Day three Continues.

The Needlecraft Cottage in Pacific Beach was next

the yarnover Truck was at the Needlecraft cottage too.  So another look at that one.  The we headed up to Ramona fo the Alpaca Farm La Dolce Vita.  It was quite a ways off the beaten path and I had never even heard of it.  We finally got there and it was very nice. 

Now it was on to Beryl's Weaving Academy open house.  WE couldn't wait to get there and had a pretty full day. 

They had a Birthday cake there waiting for us and it was yummy!  What a wonderful day spent with friends and lots of laughter and good things going on.  My hair looks a little lighter don't you think?  I guess I'm getting use to it. 

 

Day three Yarn crawl.

Had to start over to do day three.  Still haven't mastered this blog stuff.  Sometimes it just won't do what I want to do.    Anyway on to Day 3:

We had a big Day on Day three and it was on my real Birthday so I was so excited by now and we were really going to get to every store. 

First it was on to Chula Vista to the Yarn at Border Leather.  I had been there a long time ago back when they sold mostly mill ends and stuff.  Now they had lots of beautiful yarn.  I fell in love with a hat pattern there and had to buy more yarn.
 We finished up there and headed out to the Grove in South Park.  Another wonderful yarn store

The Grove was in a place I have never been before and it was very different.  They had all kinds of different things including yarn.  It was  very interesting to browse through, but we needed to get the move on if we were going to make it to all the stores.  We asked someone to take our picture and then we were on our way to the next stop.  The Needlecraft Cottage in Pacific Beach.

Very Fun Birthday Week End!

This past weekend was my Birthday weekend.  Tammy and I had been planning all kinds of crazy things for our Birthday weekend.  My Birthday Sept 28th and hers is Sept. 30th.  The last few years I was always back east visiting the kids so we have never been able to celebrate our birthdays together.  Well this year is different and we had great plans.

First of all we had decided to dye our hair.  My favorite color is blue, and hers is purple.  I had seen her hair purple before so I knew it would be even better blue.  We had planned other things, that I can't even remember now, because then the Yarn Crawl was announced!!!  How wonderful, right on our Birthday weekend.  How much better could that get???  The Yarn Crawl is the first for San Diego.  How exciting!  There were 10 or 11 stores/Alpaca farms participating. 

The object of the Yarn Crawl is to visit each and every store participating during a four day period.  The stores were from Chula Vista to Encinitas, From San Marcos to Ramona.  You have a Pass Port to have signed at each store proving you have visited them and each store had a gift (tape measure, scissors, buttons, free patterns etc.) for each person.  What fun!

We made a plan.  First we mapped out all the stores and then made a plan as to how we would visit each one.  We knew we had to do it in Three days because we weren't going to try to do Sunday.  We both have church and Tammy has no nurse for her son on Sunday so she really can't go.

We decided to do 4 things on Thursday because they were pretty much close.  so first day we went to the Alpaca farm/processing mill in Crest.  Then to Two Sister's and Ewe in La Mesa,  then to Yarn and Thread Expressions also in La Mesa.  The Yarnover truck was to be at the last place too so that gave us 4 on Thursday.  I can't tell you how fun. 

I first of all have to mention the hair dying thing.  We did it on Tuesday afternoon because we are too busy on Wednesday with spinning class and knitting class and Tammy has an apolestory  class on Wednesday night.  We are busy girls!

I mentioned how great Tammy's hair always looks dyed purple and how I thought mine would look great too.  I didn't realize that with so much more grey hair on my head that I would have waaaaaaay more blue than she has purple.  In fact with my blue hair no one even noticed Tammy's purple hair. 

Day 1 of Yarn Crawl:
This is at the Alpaca farm Simpler Times in Crest.  They have all things Alpaca and also a processing Mill where they process your Alpaca or Llama into roving or spin into yarn.  Very cool operation and they gave us a tour.
Then on to Two Sisters and Ewe in La Mesa.

I said to Karalyn as they were going to take our picture, "oh no I have my glasses on"  she said "you have blue hair what difference does it make???"  I nearly laughed my head off.  Too funny.  Can you see Tammy's purple hair?

Next stop Yarn and Thread Expressions and The Yarnover Truck.

Two wonderful places with lots of yarn and goodies galore.  the yarn truck was so fun.  It is something Ron and I have talked about for years.

 

 Our other friends Karalyn (my machine knitting teacher) and Margaret (my spinning teacher) went with us the first day. 

Day 2:
On day two we had three stores planned.  One of the stores had a demonstration for free form knitting that Tammy really wanted to see  so we headed out and went to San Marcos first.   The store there was Yarning for you and this is another one I had never been to so was raring to go.  There was a photo opt we had to take advantage of and Karalyn was still with us for the second day. at least my hair matches the sign.

Then we were off to Encinitas for two more shops.  They are on the same street so we parked in what we thought was the middle and walked after lunch.  We wanted to see the demo by Colleen Davis on freeform knitting at Black Sheep.  It was fabulous and we all wanted to make a sweater or something using her technique.  I didn't get a picture, but did buy some patterns and some roving.

Next stop, Common Threads down the street that ended up so far away that Tammy and Karalyn had to go get the car and come back and pick me up.  My knee couldn't make it and it's a good thing.  It was much farther than we thought. 

At Common Threads there was another photo opportunity we couldn't pass up.  We shopped and bought more yarn for making socks on the knitting machine and other do dads and stuff. 
By now we were all pretty tired. so we headed back to my house to get Tammy's car and unload our loot.

New fun going on!

While I am still knitting on my sweater made with Molly, and my new knitting class of squares for an afghan there is more fun to be had!

We are having a yarn crawl this weekend, Sept 26-29th.  We have four days to visit all of the participating yarn shops/fiber stores in San Diego County!  My friend Tammy and I have been planning this weekend for weeks.  It is our Birthday weekend.

First we are dying our hair, hers will be purple and mine will be blue (of course).  Then we have mapped out all the stores by days so we will get to them all.  Except for Sunday when we will go to church, have a pot luck there and them Cake and Ice cream at her house after.  My birthday is the 28th and hers is the 30th.  (Sunday is in the middle so a great day to celebrate!

I have never done a yarn crawl before and am looking forward to it!  Pictures to follow for all to see.

Working on an Afghan for a hand knitting class

I signed up for a hand knitting class this semester.  I have wanted to do this for a long time.  I just kept putting it off, and now that I have someone who wants to take it with me, I am taking the plunge.

The project for the class is a pattern stitch Afghan.  Which means it is 42 squares in different pattern stitches put together to make an afghan.  I haven't even got to go to the class yet. But my friend Kelly did and brought me the directions and I have started knitting the squares.  We are 5 squares behind.  I missed the first week because I was still working and then my dr's appointment was last Wednesday.

The idea is to knit 2 squares a week to keep up with the class.  That is fine, except I am also going to spin all the yarn that it will take to make this thing.  I have so much wool and it is silly not to use it.  Besides, when I am done it will be very special indeed. 

I am spinning Isabella (Columbia Sheep) and plying it with "Cotton"  (Moreno).  It should be pretty cozy.  They are both white, really a cream color and it will show the stitch definition really well.

This is the first square.  Four more to finish by Wednesday.  I probably will not catch up the first week.  I will just plug away until I am caught up.