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Wow, it has been a long time and I am well overdue for a blog! Its been nuts in my life for a bit - my husband went out of town last week, so I took advantage of his absence by hanging out in just about every yarn shop I could, leaving me lots of knitting time but not a whole lot of computer time. Peter, my husband, is a professional, work-at-home geek, and we spend most of our evenings sitting in the same room starting at our respective screens, him hacking or random web-browsing, me knitting and chatting. And of course, to use up all my "precious" independent time (really, I miss him tons when he's gone!) work exploded while he was gone, going from an hour or two of clients a week and barely paying the office space rent, to 3 new psych testing cases in one week and nearly full time work. Yes, literally from just more than nothing to full time in one week.

So I've been a little insane!

At any rate, Peter left Friday morning last week, and I was looking forward to a weekend alone. Weekdays I don't mind so much - we're both busy people and I'm used to doing my own thing much of the week, but weekends are always "us time." I needed some serious fiber activity to keep from missing the boy! And as luck would have it, I live in a fiber aware area and its the middle of summer, so festivals abound. A friend of mine, Jocelyn, cavy breeder and hand-dyer/temptress extraordinare, suggested I make the trek out to Sacramento area to visit her for Dixon's Lambtown a smallish local sheep and wool festival. Since having lots of work also means having disposable income... :) I was more than happy to agree. So I packed up the spinning wheel and freshened up my wallet at the local ATM, stuffed the trunk with raw wool I hoped to get carded, and I was on my way.

Sadly, I did forget one thing. The compact flash card. It wasn't in the digital camera. So I don't have any pics, more's the pity. Did I mention I've been insane this week?

At any rate Lambtown is a lovely fiber fest. There were people, dogs, cats, sheep, alpacas and all sorts of critters in attendance. Sheep (who had the mistaken notion that they were lap dogs) were sheered in front of us, people sang bad karaoke and good folk music, and of course there was fiber a plenty to buy. Now, I've recently decided that I do NOT enjoy fiber prep (washing and picking and carding, OH MY!) so I was in the market to get about 3 fleeces processed. But.... parking was grab-a-spot-on-the-street and I got a tad lazy and the fleeces never made it out of my car (they actually came out of the trunk just 2 days ago) I asked around at a few places, and no one really wanted to pick apart ym half felted fleece, and no one wanted to card my el-cheapo alpaca from my parent's trip to Peru without adding wool to it, so I decided not to haul it out.

Fiber fests are interesting things. I don't know anyone other than Jocelyn out in Sacramento, and none of the local fiber people I knew were going to make ti this year. But I somehow knew a good many of the vendors. Why? Oh, did I mention that I'm a ren faire addict? Strangely enough, historical re-enactors seem to hang out at fiber fests. Who would have guessed? So I felt totally at home. After some wandering around, spinning wheel not-so-carefully balanced on my shoulder, I found Jocelyn, set up my wheel, and set out to shop in earnest. I only managed to spend $46 dollars. I'm rather disappointed with myself. :) I can do SO much better usually...

The top wool is my bargain basement find for the day, a $5 bag of "4 ounces" of hand dyed wool from a local wholesaler, A Yarn Place. The wool itself wasn't even approximately roving - it looked like mill waste, and is totally mystery wool. But it felt nice, and only took a little pre-drafting to get it to ACT like roving, and I was in love with the colors, which looked to me like early sunset on a hazy, cloudless day. Sadly I later learned (after it was all spun up) that my 4 ounce bag was really 3 ounces. So if anyone knows what to do with 300 yards, 3 ounces of fingering weight pale blue wool, I'd be much appreciative. This is the wool I sat down to spin while hanging out and conversing. I didn't mind if I got distracted and spun it lumpy.

The next 3 wools down were all bought from ren friends. The darker blues and the brown-green (yes it looks greener, almost sheep-cammo in real life) came from a woman I know only as Baa, who pretty much runs the participants' kitchen at Cuthberts at ren faire, and spends every spare moment spinning and teaching others to spin. The blue wool is super soft superwash merino, 4 ounces (can you say socks? I can!) and the brown is a 4 ounce hank of kettle dyed corriedale. The yellow and rust rowing came from Lisa, also a rennie, who also sells soaps and nice smelling things that I have to pass up because soaps, no matter how nice, do not get along with my skin. The roving is 50% merino and 50% tencel. 4 ounces. Somehow I keep buying 4 ounces... :) You think it'll all be socks some day?

So after mass shopping and somehow showing some restraint, I sat down to spin at the blue wool, as the colors were really fitting my mood and need to be soothed. And chattered away about pets, animals, fiber, life... :) finished up the first 3 ounces at Rug and Yarn Hut, my current LYS of choice, on Sunday, and was all fiber happy and relaxed and ready for my week. I fully intended to grab an evening, without Peter home, to blog this sometimes during the week. :) That should sum up my week for you nicely.

As to projects... I have another red scarf on the needles, a ridiculous ribbon top at 3.5 SPI (which should REALLY tell you how stressed I am!), a mostly forgotten UFO status cotton/acrylic top in charcoal gray (colors not suited to stress level) and 3 second socks, all of which are past the heel and 2 of which have yet to be released as patterns on the site. One is the pooling sock of last month's blog fame, so stay tuned for an update on how well its pooling. The news is good! Expect patterns on the 12th of never, or whenever my sanity returns! :)