Top Ten Reasons Socks are the Best Beach Knitting

1.  Small enough to throw in a tiny bag.
2.  Yeah, superwash, no worries about sand and sea.
3.  Complex or mindless, you choose.
4.  Light weight, no huge wad of wool in your lap.
5.  Hundreds of stitches on tiny needles, relax you won't run out of knitting.
6.  Impressive to the muggles.
7.  Easy to throw down when a wave or football heads your way.
8.  Sock yarn as souvenir.
9.  Two feet need two socks, again relax you won't run out of knitting.
10. Did I mention small?



Spin, Sample, Swatch, Block

Last Saturday on the way to the Anything Fiber Sale, I stopped at my friend Nora's house.  She had recently re-organized her fiber space and gave me a tour.  Lovely with much fibery goodness.  Nora graciously allowed me to buy 3 pounds of a beautiful cranberry colored merino.

See those three beautiful bumps of fiber, that's it.

 

 

Spinning samples and using Nancy's Spinning Kards

I really like these cards, They give me a compact way to organize information about the yarn.

 

Measuring my angle of twist.  I wanted a dk weight with a greater than 30 degree angle and got it with this two ply.  It is 16 wraps per inch.

 

I spun 23 grams of fiber and got 64 yards.

 

I knitted a large swatch on size 7 needles.  My swatch is usually quite dinky but I really need for this to drape well so needed a larger swatch.  The swatch was washed and pinned out on a blocking square.



 

Measuring for gauge.  I got 20 stitches in stockinette switch.

 Which is just what this pattern requires.


 

Anything Fiber Sale

One of my favorite things is the Anything Fiber Sale in Black Mountain.  Every August fiber folks have the opportunity to  buy and sell fiber tools, yarn, fleece and all things fiber.  I vended last year and had fun but this year as a shopper was even better.

These ladies were laying out fleece for prospective buyers to check out.

Maurice checking out the crowd.

Sally, Nora and Maurice taking a break from shopping.  After we left the fiber sale we headed for lunch in Black Mountain.  There was also a stop at the yarn store there.

 

My haul.  The best find for me was a Hanne Falkenberg sweater kit
at an embarrassing low price.

On the way home, Nora and I stopped in Morganton at a new to me yarn store.
  OSuzanna, is at 130West Union Street and is lovely.

Nora visits with Susan McRae the owner

It is a lovely store with weaving, knitting and spinning fiber.

Beautiful stuff.

It is a very well curated space.  I loved seeing Susan's fiber art.
Susan is very warm and welcoming as is her shop.  I will definitely make it a point to stop in when heading west.

 

My Fiber Space

My craft room

The table the drum carder is on expands for a work surface.



Fiber is on the right, books on the left.

The fiber space needs to double as a guest room.

Fiber



My yarn is in the cabinet on left.

All the things...

Sometimes I believe I have a specific kind of ADHD...crafters ADHD.  I want to do all the things.  This weekend was a perfect example.

Friday night, the activities were:

• Finished the hand sewing on five knitting project bags
• Started a shawl with my handspun, Nurmilintu
• Spinning on the wool/flax blend.

Saturday, the line up was:

• Organizing the craft room
• trip to Ikea for hubby's kite room and a fold up drying rack
• washed, dried (on the new rack) and steam pressed 12 eco-dyed scarves
• Knit on Nurmilintu
• Scoured and mordanted six silk infinity scarves for future dyeing.
• Scoured and mordanted 224 grams of Shetland roving

Sunday activities included:

• Blocking three spa clothes and a cowl
• Gathering 660 grams of Queen's Anne's Lace along a roadside near our home
• Gathering 30 grams of Russian Sage blossoms from the front yard
• Trip to Wally, Big Lots and TJ Maxx for new dye pots
• The usual laundry, cooking and going to gas up  the car.
• Straightening my office, shredding files from 2011, 2012 and 2013.
• Spinning for an hour or so on the wool/flax blend.
• Bundling and steaming 4 bundles of eco-dyed scarves, this involved gathering hibiscus, rose and eucalyptus from my dye garden.
• Steaming the Queen Anne's lace and Russian Sage to dye the roving.
• Completed July travel report.

 

At Vacation's end and Marshall Re-Visited

 

 

For the last day of my vacation we took a day trip to Asheville.  After lunch and a little shopping we headed over to Marshall.  We wanted to see how much it had changed since we lived there in the late 1980s.

 

 

 

Remarkably, the little town had not changed as much as we anticipated.

Reed standing on the porch of our old house.  It was built in 1904.

 

The views are still stunning.

 

Luckily, the people who bought the house from us over twenty years ago were home.  They had done quite a bit of landscaping and continue to remodel.

 

 



 

The Island School has been turned into a community center.

 

There were some craft and produce vendors.

 

I loved this pick up truck full of teddy bears.

 

Marshall is such a pretty little town.  The French Broad River runs right through town.

Fiber Camp - Day Five and Six

If you have never taken a week off and stayed home, I highly recommend it.  It has been a pleasure to have no schedule and just play.  The Jacob fleece purchased at MDSW is all clean.  I have a lot of  flicking in my future.

 

 

You can see it is separated into white, dark, mixed and deep blue.

 

 

 

 

These are five more eco-dyed scarves.  The brown and bright pinkish purple are from spent day lilies.

 

 



 

This a 100% cotton T-shirt eco-dyed in a bundle with irises, marigolds and onion skins.

 

 

Lastly, banana puddin'.  Made old fashion style from the recipe on the Nilla Wafers box.  Susan this is real banana pudding!