Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Start Spinning

I got a new book at the shop this week. I love it! Well, I love Maggie Casey anyway. She's smiley and pleasant and makes everyone feel at ease and that's what this book does. It is simple, has lovely photos and is well organized. Maggie takes you through everything you need to know to spin wool. There's a chapter on wheel maintenance, tools and even a chapter which takes the reader through all of the steps of processing a raw fleece. Another thing I love is that she talks about actually using your handspun yarns. She emphasizes spinning for a project and talks about knitting and weaving from patterns and designing your own. Lovely.
This is for Denny. She evidently misses the chocolate posts. Macadamia Mosaic. MMMMMM

I spun this up over the last couple of days. Can;t really talk about it but I'm worried I won't find the picture again. It's thick and thin on purpose because of the fibers and that's all I have to say about that!
There was a contest during February. All entrants got 1 ounce of Cherry Tree Hill roving. Their assignment was to spin the longest thread that they could. Here are all of the entrants. From Left to right is Peggy with 686 yards (The winner)
Beth Northrup would have won but she only did 1/2 ounce and she got 372 yards - that’s fantastic!
Lisa Jacobs got 616yds
Michelle Murdock - 428yds
Becky Cook - 258 yds
Cindy Decker - 189yds
Mary Piontek 217 yds.
Michelle from Enchanted Wheel donated consolation prizes. Each contestant got one ounce of 125s merino. It's lovely. Above is Michelle with her skein and merino prize.
On the left is Cindy with her naughty friend Mary.
And the winner is Peggy who spun her skein on her Majacraft Rose. She won a pound of Shetland in 3 colors, a Spinning Loft Bag and two spools for her wheel. Congratulations Peggy.
The other runners up will get their little fabulous wool when I see them.
Also this week i got lots of stuff. Maggie buried herself in the many colors of merino/tencel that came. I love the stuff and found out that it is being discontinued so I ordered 5 pounds of every color they had left. As of this afternoon, and with the help of Michelle and Lisa, all of that wool is now on the shelf.
Also I got 20 pounds of white BFL. Fab! I kept selling out so I thought I'd better get enough. And, 20 pounds of Masham ....I think it's top. Here's a link with a photo of the breed and a little information. This wool is lovely with a very nice drape. Give you the long wool luster as well as a little halo. I think this might be my choice to spin for the Leaf Lace Cardigan.

O.K. I'm off to read more of Maggie Casey. Next time will be an update on the sock knitting.

1 comment:

Kate A. said...

WOW, that prize-winning yardage is amazing. I'm all ashamed to admit what I've been getting per ounce now.

Glad you brought the chocolate back!