Road Trip!

Saturday a bunch of us piled into a couple of cars and made our way to the Retzlaff Winery in Livermore, where they were having a fine little fiber event. Jasmin let me borrow Andrew's Prius to check it out, and Tika rode with me. Since it wasn't my car I didn't drive in my usual assertive manner, so I'm pretty sure I didn't scare her.

It was a pretty cool little gathering. Literally - all morning it was overcast and windy - I was freezing! But I didn't let that get in my way, and I spent some time wandering around, checking out the vendors. I came away with some serious loot.

Remember this Alpaca? Well I bought 8 ounces of this to go with it. It'll all go into a striped sweater, using naturally colored fiber. I'm not sure of the style yet, but it'll probably be a light cardigan of some sort.

Then this little bag of Cashmere/Tussah Silk blend called out to me:

"Take meeee hooooome!!" (Could you blame me?)

Then I picked up this funky mix of roving with shots of red BLF and bling. It's totally not my style but it looked as if it would be really fun to spin, so I went for it. It'll eventually be a gift for someone else.

Close up: Ooh! Shiny! Pretty!

Just to prove there was more than just gray roving for sale (it'll probably be easier to see if you double-click):

This is Pin-Drafted Rambouillet with Bamboo Silk running through it. I seem to be attracted to the shiny. All of the above were purchased from Morro Fleece Works.

Jasmin and I each bought yarn from Nebu Rock Textiles to match our hair:

A close up of mine - it's 5 skeins of Kid Mohair, and just gorgeously soft and shiny. It'll be a sweater - or, as I have 1500 yards of it and I'm freakishly short, a sweater and something else.

After the shopping frenzy and a wine tasting (Some port followed me home. Dang! Everything wants to follow me home! What's up with that?) we settled down to spin for a bit. I worked on this:


It's Crown Mountain Farms Superwash Merino in the 'Touch Me' color way. It's going to end up a 3-ply, possibly fingering weight.

I left the event early to go to Mary's house for our monthly spinning get-together. As usual, there was a great crowd there, including Lisa who tried out a spinning wheel for the first time. I can't believe I'd forgotten to bring my camera for both events. I'm a bad, bad blogger. Anyway, a couple more hours of spinning and then I headed home to make this:

A stir-fry made mostly with veggies from Mary's vegetable box which she let me adopt last week since she was away. Thanks Mary!

Other Pretty Stuff On The Home Front


The little apricot tree we planted last fall is doing well.

California living is pretty sweet.

A Couple Of FO's

The finished hand-spun from Pigeon Roof:

Since I've spent so much time trying to spin fine yarn, I thought I'd check to see if I can still spin a little thicker. It seems I can. This is two-ply, and about a worsted/heavy worsted weight.

And finally (Sil), the reason I didn't felt my Booga Bag right away: I had another one on the needles! I just didn't want to waste energy and run the washer twice.

These are from Noro left over from my Lizard Ridge. Though the one on the left also uses the Cascade 220 that I used for the border. I love the stripes!

That's it! I hope you all had as nice a weekend as I did.