Rhinebeck Stash...

I know you are all probably in shock.  Well, its been crazy busy at my house as I have a daughter planning a December wedding and so it goes with all the details of a bridal shower, fittings, decorations, you name it.  The shower is this Saturday and I have yet to get started on making the food.

So, I happen to have the day off and I am catching up on some necessary phone calls to make and arrangements for my car to have an oil change and whatever else it may need.  I do a lot of travelling with my job - my car needs to  be in good shape.

I finally am here to share with you some of the purchases I made at the Rhinebeck NY Sheep and Wool Festival   For the first time, hubby came with me and my two boys who are 15 and 14  , they really love it .  Hubby actually was in no rush to leave (as I was afraid he would be before I was ready) and even said on the drive home that he looks forward to it next year.  Is it possible they had a better time than I did??? No!  but I was so pleased to see everyone enjoying themselves.  It is truly a fun family event!

First purchase here

This is so pretty and so soft!  It is Peruvian Alpaca in white , I purchased 3 skeins and this is a vender who actually lives and works about 20 min from my home.  "A Touch of Twist" in Pattersonville, NY - great couple and fantastic fibery stuff to play with.  This is a 2-ply yarn sport weight.  334 yds per skein.

Next up:

Amazing merino/silk  lace yarn from Skaska Designs - this is the woman who wrote the books on Russian lace shawls - she is fantastic.  Loved chatting with her.  She has an awesome shawl coming out in Jan 2011 in the Piecework Magazine - cannot wait.  Anyway - this yarn is so pretty - in person - shading is a little off in the photo but the sheen on this yarn is amazing -  It is 18/2 lace weight and 1285 yards.

Next:

This is 4 oz of 70% Suri Alpaca / 30% merino   in a light plum color - from Flaggy Meadow Fiber Works
Soft, cannot wait to spin this up.  I am still looking to purchase a Turkish spindle - hoping to maybe use this fiber to try the Turkish spindle out with.  If not, I will be spinning it on my Russian Supported Spindle.

I also purchased some home made soaps, hand softening creams, and lots of food , naturally.  What a great day we had.

Next up I want to share with you a pair of mittens I made:

I made these mittens from some sport weight acrylic/wool yarn I had on hand and that little ball there is all I had left.  Worked out perfectly.  These are the "Susies Reading Mitts"  on Ravelry  a free pattern.  They are so cute and fun to make - I did the smallest size and they fit my adult working hands perfectly.
I actually made these for a young girl who works at my local Dunkin Donuts.  - one day she commented on another pair of fingerless gloves I had made - and she said Oh I want those gloves!!!! - so I went home and made these for her.  When I presented them to her she couldn't believe it - she was in shock that someone would even do that.  Two days later - she made me accept my coffee on her dime - she absolutely loves her mitts!  These are a light grey color - I was not sure what color she liked but figured these would go with anything.  Now I want a pair!  :)

Sheep and Wool Festival

No photos today :(  but, hubby decided he would go with me and the boys to Rhinebeck, NY - every third weekend in October - there is a Sheep and Wool festival being held - I didn't go last year and we are going this Saturday.  I cannot wait.  Supposed to be a beautiful fall day.  Not looking for anything in particular but hope I do get my hands on a Bossie spindle, and a turkish drop spindle.  Of course some fiber to spin, looking out for some pretty gray wool / wool blend yarn for a sweater.  Ok , so  maybe iI do have a few things on my mind, looking forward to a fun day with my family.
Rhinebeck - check it out!
I will share some photos when I get back!

I know it is not Monday....

Hello.  I realize I was supposed to post on Monday - yup..somehow the week got away from me and it is now Friday.  I do have a reason, really I do!  I started back to work with a new schedule - so it takes me a week or two to get used to the new routine.  During the summer work slows down and I am basically not working - so no schedule , no routine - not really - so I have been feeling very tired...
So now I decided to take a few pictures with my new Verizon Incredible phone and see if it would be easier to post pictures from my phone rather than my camera.  For some reason when I use my camera, I have to save it to a disk first, then upload pictures from the disk to here - too many steps , I think.
So without further ado:  here we go:

Before we headed down to the Cape, we took a day and went to Boston, my favorite shop there is Windsor Buttons - so many neat crafty things there - but I go for their yarn - cool hand dyed yarns , cool awesome top of the line yarns , wool, sock yarn - you name it.  So hubby purchased this for me

This is Dream in Color SMOOSHY - yum - this is the first time I have ever owned a skein of this yarn and it is heavenly - I knew exactly what sock pattern I was going to use and they are for me!!! Yeah.  This is 4 oz, 450 yards of goodness -  color is Shiny Moss.  I just love green - so organic - natural.

Here it is all wound up:

I cannot even begin to tell you the gorgeous colors that flow through this yarn - I was not sure how it would knit up but it is very soft and squooshy - (is that even a word)

I am using a free pattern from Ravelry  If you haven't joined - go ahead, so much to explore - it is free!  Free!
Oh yeah, I got carried away - it is a free pattern - Spring Forward socks from Knitty 2008 -  another awesome site for knitters, lot of tips too!

This pattern starts off with about 10 rounds of K1 tbl (through the back loop) , P1, then starts the pattern repeat - lacy and quite easy pattern to memorize - I got through one  - 24 row repeat and am now on the second repeat - I am using size 1 - 2.25 dpn (double pointed needles) - I tried to use 4 and knit with the fifth but this is way to fiddly for me - I prefer to knit using 3 needles and knit with the fourth one.  I move along much quicker and less frustration with me having to push the extra needle out of my way - these are shorter length needles than the standard 7" size you can buy.

There you go:  Cross stitch update on Monday and a new adventure for me :  soap making!
stay tuned.

Back From Vacation...

Just posting a note that our family is back from Cape Cod.
We left last week Monday for Boston for the day , took a ride on the Duck Tour - such fun!  Learned a lot about the history of MA - in that area.  Then left for Cape Cod , first off to offer Bible Studies to those in that area - then a few days vacationing - on the beach - gorgeous - white sand beaches - I wish we could have stayed another day - .  Came home on Friday , did laundry for two days - !
Then Monday night I was struck instantly with head pain - all on my forehead and top of my head , it wouldn't go away no matter what I did , I have never experienced pain like this before!  The pain was so unbearable I finally went in to the Dr - 8:30 am didn't leave till 1pm - they did blood work testing for Lyme - they did CScan make sure nothing was happening in my brain - (Clear)  :)  - finally concluded that the migraines I get 3 times a year on the right side of my head (hormonal Migraines) - are changing and for the worse - Great I thought!  So finally after years of asking for meds for the migraine they finally prescribed me some - I took one went to bed and woke up feeling Fantastic!
Haven't done much needlework at all!  But will post some photos of progress I made on my X-St soon -
I was able to knit up a few wash cloths for my daughter - came out quite nice - and trying to finish up a second sock I started for my daughter long ago.
Other news is that I go back to work at the college - starting on Tuesday so my free time is limited - lots and lots - my one day off is Monday - so you may see my postings on Mondays -
Thanks,
Have a Super Day

Rose Hill Plantation Update and More...

Oh what a great week this has been, I have been able to work on my LHN Rose Hill quite a bit since last Friday - in between here and there - and received both packages in the mail in the giveaways that I won.  What a special treat these gifts were :)

First off I am going to share my LHN update:

So here is the update from last Friday 7/31 to Monday 8/2.  I was able to finish most of the house , but ran out of the Crescent Colour "Dandelion Stem" - now mind you, if I didn't have to rip out the whole two smaller sections of the house on the right - I would have had enough thread to finish the left - but it was so worth it to have the stitches counted right and have my whole piece line up properly.  This will be a gift to my daughter and I want it done right :)

The photo above shows what I have done since Wednesday 8/4 and Thursday 8/5 - in between doing laundry, cleaning house and working on a five minute presentation I have on a Bible topic - Which I spent all morning yesterday working on and now need to refine it and type it up.

I am so happy with this cross stitch piece - it has been fun and easy to work up - the whole bottom is done except for the wording as I want to add a different name to it - but I will finish it all up and add the name later - then frame it!

I have yet to buy the Crescent Colour that I need as the owner of the cross stitch shop went into the hospital to have surgery and she is only open Wed - Sat - and I just didn't have the time to run over there on Wed - she had her surgery yesterday.   Most likely I will go into the shop on Wed of next week to pick some up - hopefully she has it in stock.  When I originally purchased the thread two weeks ago she only had three on the rack.  Hmmmmm!   A half finished house is no fun!

Ok so now onto the goodies I received in two giveaways:

First I received a package from Bette :

As you can see she sent awesome magazines of the Cross Stitcher which I have never had myself and some Shepherd Bush designs - a few were of Christmas themes - which I do not participate in but can use ideas of the sheep and things on the Shepherd Bush stocking - Love Sheep!  I do , I do , I do!

And those scissors - aren't they awesome!  Never treated myself to a cute pair before!

Here is another photo:

A closer look at the scissors - not the greatest photo - but hopefully you get the idea!

Now for the second drawing I won from MyFirstBambina

What fantastic threads and cross stitch and embroidery stash to be had here :)  I was delighted to open the cute Sunflower Book box (below in photo) to open up a treasure of layer after layer of fantastic fiber and fabric and projects to play with.  Linen threads. Valdani (which I have never heard of) and the light green Clover thread - what fun!

and look at those fabrics - so soft and pretty - I don't know where to start!  She too sent me an awesome pair of scissors - hmm , have I forgotten to post a photo of that???  I thought I had it in there - guess that will be for next time....

Have a great weekend!

Cross Stitching Stash

Just wanted to share some charts I have picked up in the past few weeks.  Two are Black Bird Designs Series Anniversaries of the Heart - I  have Charts 4 and 5 out of 12 - one for each month - they are about 5 X 5 in design size - may do them all on one piece of linen once I get a few more charts.

This is Pink Hill Manor - chart 4

This is Farm House - Chart 5  They are so adorable - cute and fun!












Last but not least is my favorite designer as well LHN - Love One Another!  I love sheep and the fact that God promises one day soon the animals will live in peace with one another along with humans.  Isaiah.

Happy Stitching!

198 Yards of Heaven

Here is the spun / plied yarn I dyed in the 'purples' colorway - now working its way into the 198 Yards of Heaven Shawl  .  A free pattern on Ravelry

Here is the fiber plied.  I did not wash it to set the twist. I just knitted as it was.  I quite liked it.  Knitting with the lanolin still in the fiber made my hands so soft.  A new experience for me.  My daughter, who is 20 yrs old saw this fiber dyed and she loved it.  So this may end up going to her knitted up as a shawl.

Here is the shawl.  I am doing 3.5 repeats of the main section before working on the edging.  I am onto the third repeat.  The pattern calls for 2.5 repeats - but I have enough yarn and I want it to be bigger than a shoulder shawl.  I am using size 8 needles

Here is a closeup of pattern :  still hard to see but I am not a professional photographer by any means - ha

but I think once the shawl is blocked it will show up beautifully!  If I do say so myself :) 

On a second note:  I have also started a cross stitch project - yes, I have my hands into all sorts of needlework.  

This is LHN (little house needleworks) "Rose Hill Plantation"  

I am using fabric I had in my stash so instead of 28 ct fabric I am using 32 ct fabric  Belfast linen in Country Mocha - quite pretty.  So this makes the design a little smaller and the need for me to use my Mag Eyes to help me locate where the stitch needs to go :) haha - over 40 now so need the extra help for my eyes but it allows me to continue to work on linen which I just love!

 

As you can see I just started this.  But I will have you know that I had the door and the two windows on the right all stitched, till that is I went to put in the panes on the window there next to the door only to find out I was two rows short of the width - so I had to rip out both windows to make it right.  It took a while but it was so worth it!  I want everything to line up properly!  Now I can stitch in peace !  Well, that is if I do not make any more major errors :)  gotta love it!

Spinning Away

I have been busy spinning the past few weeks and my most recent spin project was a pound or so of natural colored washed coopworth lamb fiber I purchased back in Jan 2008.  I know as I wrote the date on the back of their business card when I received it.  I divided it up and dyed them three different colors one shades of blue, the other shades of green and then this one - shades of purple

this fiber was so amazing to spin with , it still had lanolin in it even though it was washed and I washed it as well during the dye process.  Love this stuff.  I have most of it spun and plied in into a 2-ply dk weight / light worsted weight .










Here is the fiber on bobbins

Later I will post the pictures of it plied and the shawl I started with it.

Awesome Giveaway

There is a fantastic giveaway at www.myfirstbambina.blogspot.com

Come and join the fun!

A Cross stitch blogiversary give a way

Hello everyone - there is a blogiversary give away - not at my blog :) but at craftymoo - go on over and enter before Midnight 3/7/2010

www.craftymoo-sarah.blogspot.com -

Cross stitch contest

go to www.calicoprairiegoods.blogspot.com to enter a LHN cross stitch contest before the end of this month
Hurry!!!! IT is awesome!