This is why I live in Florida. I’m going to have to capture that blue.

I just got back from my BFF since 6th grade’s wedding in Albuquerque and I’m totally inspired for some new colorways. Here’s a sampling of pictures.

and today is her Birthday! Happy Birthday Oni!!

In case you can’t tell, my favorite thing to knit is socks. I was pointed out to me that these were on my feet. Definately not shenanigans.

Hey guys! What’s going on? I’m not as dumb as I look. That fat blob, Kiara can’t even get my name right.

We had a great time today. Sip & Knit hosted a retreat at Highland Manor We all gorged ourselves on delicious food and then some knitted while Kimberly and I hosted a class on drop spindles.

We also had a beautiful spread of new colors that just barely dried in time.

These should go out on Wednesday, so keep checking in!

Check to see if you have a full tank.

Pick up your friend Kimberly!

Don’t lay on the dash board.

Buckle in safely.

Don’t forget to eat Shakespeare’s Pizza.

Stop anywhere you want, like Hank’s Fiber or Creative Yarns

You’re almost there!

Bring lots of things to do,

cause if you’re bad, you’ll be stuck in the corner.

get a good night’s sleep, cause there’s lots at the convention!!

Like the giant sock

and the Trindle Man

Meet up with your friends and compare your takings!

Top off a great day with something tasty

Our LYS owner purchased some unindentified fleeces while on vacation in Oklahoma. And BTW if you have any idea what sheep it might belong to, we would love to know. Being the over-achievers that we are, we started with the most difficult one. It’s a double coat, so under tufts of long coarse hair, is a much softer finer fleece. Theory is that the outer coat catches most of the dirt and protects the inner coat. HA! I don’t know if every fleece is like this one, but it was anything but clean. We lovingly refer to it as Chewbacca. The process is not complicated, just back-breaking. Had we realized this fleece wasn’t skirted, we probably could have save ourselves some time. Basically the bottom third is too coarse and dirty to use for yarn, but we washed it anyway. We broke the fleece up into smaller chunks, which were soaked in several washes of hot water and soap. We did a rinse of vingar to neutralize the soap and then one more of clean water. We then laid out the washed hair on some old sheets. With a little bit of supervision we separated the inner from the outer hair as well as tossing what we deemed unusable. . Kimberly had these really cool sweater drying thingies, so we moved all the good part of the fleece to them for final drying.

Learning experiences:
Examine the fleece. If you don’t want to touch it now, you’re probably not going to want to spin, knit, or touch it later.
Skirt before washing. There’s no point in washing what you’re going to toss any.
Get the right equipment. Lots of buckets, and a cool drying rack definitely made this much easier.

Day 1,053: Today I was almost successful at an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking, if only there were stairs. He punished me by shaking me and making me “yodel”. My captors continue to taunt me by having tanks of fresh meat swimming around, while I dine on some sort of dry nuggets.
I am convinced that the other prisoners are flunkies or snitches, especially Penny; she is now a favorite of the male. Dimby may be smarter than he portrays. I often try to ask them why I am held captive here, but they continue to taunt me by saying, “Kiara, stop telling stories.” My name is not Kiara, it’s Hawk Eye.

Kimberly and I met at Tuesday Night Knitting at Sip & Knit a few years ago and have become good friends. We both knit a lot. I’d even say I might be obsessed. I hosted a yarn dying party at my house a few years ago and what started with kool-aid and the microwave has exploded to several different types of natural and professional dyes including indigo and acid dyes. We still dye in small batches in my kitchen, but the amount of equipment grows by the minute. (crosses fingers that Santa brings us a drum carder) When we’re not dying and knitting, we’re spinning on a pair of Lady Bug spinning wheels.