Snagged!

Just had to take this picture when Mary called me in to show me what had happened during her
"Beyond Spinning 101" class:

She spun her sweater into the roving she was using! It was so funny. The class was terrific - Mary taught the participants all different methods of spinning - using different plying methods, using different texutres of yarn to ply, making textured yarn.

Moving

Whew! Things have been BUSY behinds the scenes here at the shop. After I closed on Sunday, Paul came and installed an addition to the counter. Now there is LOTS more room for you to put all your yarn on the counter! There is also an addition behind the counter so I could move the computer and the printer. This picture doesn't do it justice, but you'll notice when you come in.

Paul was there when I was taking the picture and suggested making sure the picture of the store was on the computer. I tell ya, his attention to detail astounds me sometimes. I wish he was here all the time.

On Monday and Tuesday we spent a few hours rearranging the back rooms. We moved some shelves and the fridge and microwave from the little back room (behind the curtain) to the big back room (or the deep freeze, as it has now become known) and moved my desk to the little back room. All stuff that will be better for me and my organizing. So, if you need the cream for your coffee, it's in the fridge in the deep freeze.

I'm making progress on my Rambling Rows afghan...

I love it. I have to say again how much I like the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. It is just so soft and nice to work with. I've already placed an order for more since it's been flying off the shelves!

In an amongst all this, I've been trying to squeeze in time to work out the new class schedule. Hoping to have it out soon!

More progress!

LUCY BAG DONE!

Had to stick Mandy in there because she was being cute...

FELTED CLOGS DONE!

LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE them! So comfortable. You HAVE to get/make some.

I made both the Lucy Bag and the Felted Clogs with the Ella Rae Classic. It's true what they say... it felts REALLY well. I'm very happy with both of them.

Rambling Rows afghan started!

Since taking this picture I've done four more squares. I'm making it with the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran and it is so soft and wonderful to work with.

And look what came this morning...

First of all, I am quite impressed with Louet. Their sock dyeing kits have been backordered for quite some time. Since the next class is coming up and the kits needed to be ordered, I emailed them to ask when they'd be back in stock. The reply was for me to order what I needed, tell them when the class was (March 8) and they would make up the kits to send to me. Well, I ordered them yesterday morning and they arrived here this morning at 9:30! They come from Ogdensburg, NY so shipping is only a day anyway, but I couldn't believe they got them sent out so fast.

So, now the question is, if it came from Ogdensburg, why did US Customs and Border Control get it? Louet is based in Canada but have their warehouse in Ogdensburg. Not sure why it would go through customs. But they opened the box AND one of the kits. A little annoying but it's for our safety so I will deal with it. I can imagine what the kits must look like going through an x-ray machine....little vials of dye, a sqeeze bottle, a little packet of soap - I'm sure it looks suspicious. And yarn, which I'm sure doesn't.

A Day off at Lake Placid!

Paul took the day off from work and we went to Lake Placid for the day! We had a nice time - pretty drive, beautiful day, nice scenery and a nice little town. And yarn of course.

We started off the day at two different Dunkin' Donuts... we had a coupon for the new waffle breakfast sandwiches, but the first DD was out of bacon and eggs. Go figure. The next one had what we wanted and they were pretty tasty. Interesting, but tasty. Then we finally got on the road, me with my knitting...

and Paul driving. Every now and then he'd say, "There's a pretty shot." and I'd quickly put the knitting down, turn on the camera and snap a picture. Here are some of the pretty scenes on the way up...

Oops, just realized there's only one! I forgot that I decided putting too many would be boring. So, lots of scenes like this - so pretty and nice to get out of the city. Then we finally saw this...

Yay! But we were still about 40 minutes away. We wound our way up and down the mountains on what seemed like a very narrow road with a lot of holiday traffic, our ears popping with the altitude changes. We saw lots of these ice flows on the rocks...

If you look really really really closely toward the right side of the picture, you'll see some people ice climbing. We kept passing groups of cars on the side of the road but couldn't see any marked walking paths or anything. Finally we spotted people actually climbing up the ice. Looked scary.

Paul knew we were getting close when we saw this:

I had no idea what it was. It looked like one of those grain elevator things you see going up to a silo on a farm, without a silo. It was the ski jumping thing-y. Not sure what it's called. But it's very high. I couldn't get a picture on the other side where they land but it looked very close to the road!

FINALLY, we got to the town...

It was:

Our first stop was, of course, a yarn shop! Adirondack Yarns (50 Saranac Ave., Lake Placid; www.adirondackyarns.com).

I met the owner, Susan, who was very nice and we talked shop for a while. Paul held my yarn. I got a very nice alpaca/wool blend (gee, did you really think I'd come back WITHOUT alpaca?) by Catalina (worsted and chunky) and some roving (blue face leicester) to practice my spinning:

The chunky Catalina is very much like the Baby Alpaca Grande by Plymouth , but it has wool in it, so that helps it to keep it's shape. Susan had an Einstein coat made up in the 100% Alpaca version that Catalina also has - VERY tempting. The Einstein coat is on my short list of projects and I've been trying to figure out a yarn to knit it with. (She has had it hanging in the shop for about 5 years and says it really hasn't stretched out that much.)

Then it was off to lunch at a place called Jimmy's 21 and this was our view while we ate:

That's Mirror Lake and we saw all kinds of activities going on down there. People walking, skating, getting dog sled rides...

We walked around town for a little while and it seemed that no one but us was walking on the "right" side of the side walk. Seriously. We kept having to stop because people were walking right toward us on "our" side of the sidewalk. And being oblivious because they were looking in shop windows. It was really kind of strange and we began to think maybe we were not aware of some sort of rule about how to walk on the sidewalks up there.

Since we saw so many of them outside various stores, had to take a picture of a bobsled:

And a picture of the Olympic Center:

And our customary picture, taken by me:

We also stopped to get some homemade chocolates and, despite the 23 degree weather, ice cream at Ben and Jerry's (we just love ice cream).

That topped off the day and we made our way home. It was a nice treat to have a whole day together!

Ahead of schedule!

I finally finished my Noro striped scarf! Ahead of schedule! I set a goal to be done by the end of the weekend, and I finished at 6pm tonight.

I love it.

I used Silk Garden colors 282 and 279:

And I stole this picture idea from the Yarn Harlot because it looked cool:

Very much worth the seemingly long time it took to knit. Special thanks to Laura and Annie who convinced me to keep going to the end of the skeins when I wanted to stop today. I got a good 12 more inches worked up after I decided to keep going! It really is the perfect project for in front of the tv or to work on at the store since it doesn't take much concentration. And the results are great, if I do say so myself.

Happy Valentines Day! Paul and I just had breakfast for dinner and chocolate dipped strawberries for desert. Yum!

On to my Rambling Rows baby afghan made of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran.... talk about yum!

364 days....

...until the Winter Knitting Olympics! Start planning...

Ongoing Show and Tell

So, I'm trying something new... Ongoing Show and Tell! Bring your finished project to the store and I'll take a picture of it to put on the blog. Give me some details - yarn, pattern, needles and any tidbits about how the knitting/crocheting/spinning/weaving went and I'll post that too. Just another way to share with others what you have been doing and maybe inspire them too! What do you think????

Knit-in tidbits

Movie recommendation from last night's knit-in: "Lars and the Real Girl" . We had much discussion about tv and movies, and this was recommended by several people including me. I enjoyed it very much. Ryan Gosling plays the lead and is just great. I'm also lamenting the fact that it appears "My Own Worst Enemy" (tv show with Christian Slater) does not appear to be back. Anyone seen it? It was really good. Very interesting and exciting. If anyone knows differently, please let me know!

Also, Eileen shared that she had been knitting for 9 years and NEVER MADE A SCARF! Can you believe it? We were all amazed. She first knitted a hat, then a mitten. Just never made a scarf. She was spared from all that oh-my-gosh-is-this-ever-going-to-end-so-I-can-make-something-else-or-something-more-interesting that scarves can bring out in us. I'm working on a Noro striped scarf for a store sample now and I'm going to get to that point soon. I'm about half way through, and ready to be in the home stretch. Although, I must say that becuase of the yarn, it is an ever changing pattern of color that is very cool to see as it evolves.

Robin brought in her cabled fingerless glove in-progress for me to take a picture and put on the website (see it here: http://www.spinningroom.net/classes.htm under Feb 22 and March 14). Yet again, I left the camera plugged into the computer and drained the batteries. I had joked about buying the 48 pack of batteries but I going through them rather quickly now! Must fix that...

2 Circular Needles

Sock is back on two needles! (Although you can't tell by the picture ---I'm a little annoyed with the curling of the needles I'm using, but have not wanted to stop to dip them in hot water to straighten them out. )
It wasn't hard to fix. I'm reserving judgement about how I like this method until I'm done. With BOTH socks.

I haven't gotten too far because I was working on the projects below...

The 9th session of the felted clog class started this past Sunday! I'm finally making a pair for myself and hopefully will get to wear them before it gets warm. Here they are, not quite done so I can teach some techniques in the second class:




And here is my Lucy Bag, also not quite done so I can teach grafting in tomorrow's class:








Check out how cute the Baby Surprise Jacket looks on this American Girl doll!:





Thanks to Fern for loaning her to me. She is wearing the smallest size, made with fingering weight yarn and knitted with size 3 needles (by Joan!). So cute!

What's wrong with this picture?

I'm learning the one sock on two circular needles method of knitting socks....

Argh.

A funny little thing...

I just saw this commercial last night, so if you've seen it already...bear with me. It was so funny. It was a Yoplait yogurt commercial. Two women are sitting in the living room. One of them is wearing a chunky knit hat and knitting something else. She says something to the effect of "I have to keep my hands busy so I can stay on my diet." Of course, the other woman says something to the effect of it being easy to stay on a diet with Yoplait, blah blah blah. Then the first woman's husband walks in wearing a knitted head band and a knitted Celtics jersey (with Larry Bird's number, 22, on it, so Paul says), carrying a basket ball and says "Honey, this is kinda hot." Oh. My. Gosh. I was rolling on the floor I was laughing so hard. Yay knitting. It can do wonders for your diet. Although for some reason, that hasn't worked for me...