Tag: fiberfestivals

Time to Catch Up but Not For Long

I am currently in Winchester, VA. I spent two days home last week after returning from Yellow Springs, OH. I barely had time to catch up my laundry, restock some stuff in the trailer and pack my gear and it was time to make the drive to Virginia. The Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival was this past weekend. It’s a wonderful festival! The weather was great and the turnout was too. I was very excited that I got to have a visit with my friend Dee of Dee O’Keefe Designs. I missed seeing her for a few years and it was so good to catch up. If you’ve been enjoying many of the shawls I have knit here on the blog you should check out her lovely website and pick up a few of your favorites.

I wish I had thought at the time to get a picture of us, but alas I did not. I do have a few booth shots if you’re not completely bored of seeing them by now.

So I have four days this week before heading to my next festival in Orange, VA for the Fall Fiber Festival. I decided that today was to be a rest day. Well sort of, I had some website/inventory records to catch up, and some bookkeeping tasks. I don’t like to let those things get behind. So, I set up my work area and did that this afternoon.

Before I started my work though I had a few other things I wanted to do this morning. I started my laundry while I was having my coffee and breakfast. Then I drove to the Walmart to get some more provisions for the week and gas up the truck.

Before heading back to the room to make a big salad and tuna sandwich for lunch, I took my truck in for a nice wash. It was dirty from all the driving and the fairgrounds.

That’s better! I do love a nice clean truck don’t you?

I’m not sure what else I will do for my other three days before setting up my booth again on Friday. I may just mostly hang out here and do some reading and knitting. That’s actually a pretty nice idea to me. My knitting progress on the Gridiron Sock is coming along slowly but surely. I turned the heel and started the gusset decreases last night. It’s up above in the picture of my work desk. I’ll let you know if I do anything worthy of a post before I go home. Have a great week!

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A Wonderful Weekend

The Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival last weekend, was awesome as always. All three days kept me very busy. I saw so many knitters and even a few fellow WordPress bloggers, Alissa of Headknits and Bonnyknits. I came home on Monday, tired but happy.

Bensusan Shawl (Ravelry project page) got a very nice debut in the booth. It drew a good amount of attention too.

I took a few pictures of Bensusan here at home last week before packing it. The color is a bit off. The Cypress is more dark olive like this picture from my website.

So try to mentally fuse the color of that skein above with the shawl and there you go. :-) The texture is lovely from the cables. I knit the large size and when I measured it fresh off the blocking pins it was about 80 inches on the longest side and 35 inches down from that to the point. That is a bit larger than Dee’s measurements for the large but it may draw in a bit more after awhile. I used all three skeins of the yarn with only 3g left over. That comes to about 740 yards.

I have not been getting a lot of knitting done lately due to my busy schedule. Here is my latest progress on my second Gridiron Sock. Sometimes a sock on the needles is the perfect thing. It will be accompanying me to Yellow Springs tomorrow for the Wool Gathering at Young’s Jersey Dairy.

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Guess What’s Coming to Wisconsin With Me?

I arrived home safely from Pittsburgh last Sunday. It has been enjoyable spending the last week at home. After three weekends in a row, it is a nice break. I’m packing up the truck again tomorrow and leaving Wednesday for the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival. Can you guess one of the things I will be packing? Do you give up? It’s my newest booth sample, Bensusan.

I took this picture before I put it in the sink for a soak. I used almost all of the three skeins of Classic Merino Superwash DK in Cypress. I came close to running out of yarn. I weighed the finished shawl and it is 297g. I finished the last bit and bound it off last night while Jerry and I were relaxing on Sunday and watching a couple movies.

It is blocking at the moment. It took every one of my Knit Blockers, and I have three boxes. I used a half dozen or so T-pins in addition, to get it all pinned down. I didn’t measure it yet to see if it’s the same size as the one in the pattern for the large directions. It is written for worsted weight yarn and size 8US needles, and I substituted DK weight yarn and size 7US needles.

Now that this project is done I don’t have anything on the needles for my trip. I have the second Gridiron sock that I can start. Maybe that is what I will do.

Tomorrow is a busy day of packing. I plan to get some pictures of my shawl done then. I will be driving all day Wednesday. It’s a 560 mile drive, but at least I stay in my own time zone. Thursday is booth setup day. If I have time in the afternoon or evening, I will write a blog post with a few pictures of Bensusan in the booth. See you soon!

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Happy Knitting at the Pittsburgh Creative Arts Festival

I am currently vending at the Pittsburgh Creative Arts Festival. It’s nice to be back after missing the last two years. I began exhibiting here almost from the festival’s inception. We have one more market day tomorrow and then I am heading home. It will be good to be home after an extending time traveling.

I arrived here from Mighigan on Monday and had Tuesday off. Wednesday was booth set up day. During my down time I have been working on some website tasks and trying to get in a bit of knitting time on Bensusan. I have made good progress on both.

The booth is looking pretty good if I do say so myself.

Here’s a picture of the “Tool corner” :-).

I will see you when I get back to Nashville, and I am really looking forward to that. :-)

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Yarn Dyeing Day Two and Three

Yesterday’s yarn dyeing was greens and a few reddish purples. We dyed 465 skeins and then we prepped for last two days work.

Today’s work was dyeing the rest of the purples, oranges, yellows and warm neutrals. The total skeins for this day was 365, which was a half day. :-)

We have one more morning’s work and all the yarn will be dyed for the second half of the fiber festival season. There are more tasks to be done like printing labels, affixing labels and boxing in the trailer, but the hardest part is done.

I’ll have pictures of my knitting and the last day’s yarn dyeing next time. Thanks for reading!

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Almost Break Time…Sort Of

I am leaving tomorrow for Mid-Ohio Fiber Fair in Newark. It is a one day show, Saturday 9-5. I will be doing the set up before the show Saturday morning and then packing up at 5. It’s a challenge to do that but it will be fine. I did it last year. So I am driving up tomorrow and will be home on Sunday afternoon.

After this I will be home until the second week in August. That sounds like a break, and it is, but while I am home we will be dyeing this yarn that arrived yesterday.

That is over 450 pounds of yarn. I am looking forward to using my new drying lines though, so there is that. 😁

In knitting news, I am about to start chart 2 on my Midlothian shawl. I thought I was done with chart 1 and had done 6 rows of chart 2. I began row 7 and I had too many stitches for it to work. So, after an investigation and ripping out those 6.5 rows, I am ready to go again. I will be doing one more repeat of chart 1 for a total of 23 instead of 21. I really hope this won’t necessitate using more than 2 skeins. It was either this option or I would have to rip back 4 more rows.

I still haven’t started my other shawl or the second sock. I was sorely tempted last night to avoid the ripping back until later but I pushed through. 🙃 See you soon 😊.

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Miscellaneous updates

I am very excited about the new drying lines. We ended up with 7 which is almost double what we had before. But that’s not the best part; the proximity to our work area is going to be awesome. I can even see it from in the house looking out any back window. That’s a big help when rain is threatening or if it’s windy, for checking on things.

This was taken from under the cover where we set out the dye pots. Our old lines were way over on the other side of the work shop (the green sided building). This location cuts the distance in half at least, and that’s just our lines. Our neighbor’s that we used are even farther. We will be putting these new lines to use in just a few weeks. We have an order of new yarn arriving very soon to restock for the second half of the festival season.

Now on to knitting updates. I finished the first Gridiron sock.

I cast on Midlothian with my Classic Merino Superwash Sport in Cerulean. It doesn’t look like much yet. It’s just a wee baby shawl still.

Because I was asked to share booth pictures from the Great Lakes Fiber Show, here ya go. The weather was pretty nice and we had a good turn out, especially on Saturday.

I have today and tomorrow at home and then I am off to Franklin, IN for Hoosier Hills Fiber Festival. I got some house cleaning, and school work with my youngest son done today. I also made a pot of spaghetti sauce for dinner. It’s actually good to be able to slow down for a couple days and reconnect with my home and family. It’s nice to travel and meet with the knitters at festivals but it’s even better to come home.

Speaking of home and good things, I want to share one last set of pictures of our garden. I can take absolutely no credit for it. It’s all Jerry’s doing and he is pretty good at it. I can’t wait for fresh veggies. 🙂

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Some Knitting and Dye Studio Upgrade

I have been knitting on my Gridiron sock. I am almost to the toe decreases on this first sock. I have not cast on yet for my two booth samples but as you can see I have wound a skein of each of the yarns and put them in my knitting bag. I brought them along on my trip to Wooster, OH in hopes of a bit of time to start them.

I will be setting up the booth this morning for the Great Lakes Fiber Show but if I get done early enough I can squeeze in some time to knit tonight.

In other news, while I am away this weekend, my husband is busy upgrading our yarn drying lines. Here is what we have so far. I am excited about this. Not only will there be more room but they are right next to our work area instead of on the other side of the yard. It’s going to be great!

He took this picture yesterday. I’ll update when I get home with the progress.

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Post from Minnesota

We had a wonderful first show in St. Louis this past weekend at the Midwest Fiber Festival. We will definitely be there next year.

I drove up to St. Paul, MN on Monday and have a few days before I will be setting up the booth again at Shepherd’s Harvest Festival. While I am waiting I plan to do some work on my website as well as some knitting and reading. My website is experiencing some issues with credit card processing. The PayPal option works and we always welcome checks but the credit card issue is a problem that needs fixed, so I am looking at my options.

Anyway, I finished my gansey last night. I hate to post an unblocked sweater picture but I don’t want to wait until next week to show you so here it is. Now keep in mind that it will look even better after its had a proper soak and block.

I now have nothing on the needles but I have several yarns picked out and I brought my swift and winder. I’ll fill you in later on what I am doing when I have the yarn wound.

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Mid-break update

I was home this weekend but that is the last one for awhile. I have festivals booked every weekend through mid June except for the third weekend in May. So lots of traveling coming up soon. I am leaving Friday for a brand new festival in St. Louis, Missouri called Midwest Fiber Festival. I am excited about it 🤗.

I am working on my gansey as much as I can and if I don’t finish it before I leave, I am confident I will while I am gone. I am going straight on to Minnesota for the Shepherd’s Harvest Festival to save on gas and road time. I will have a couple free days there to knit and/or catch up on other work. I may be overhauling my Knitting Notions website soon. I am also planning another knitting project to take along and will share that when I have it picked. I know the pattern but haven’t decided on yarn yet so more on that later.

First sleeve done

I am actually a little farther down that second sleeve than I was when I took this picture. I just finished the definition ridge last night which is that band of garter at the elbow point.

Jerry has been hard at work on some new Shawl-Hair-Sticks and they are finished and thay are ready for packaging. He has also been preparing some slabs for turning blanks. These will be mostly Darning-Eggs and Nostepinnes.

While we are waiting for the wood to dry some more, it’s also garden starting time. We have a plow attachment for his lawn tractor but we needed a Tiller to break up the beds a bit more. We bought this one yesterday and here he is trying it out.

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