Saturday, July 18, 2009

We didn't get to rib fest in Cass Lake, but FIL brought us another lunch of fresh BBQ.  Nessie wore sauce on her face most of the afternoon.  We tried to get to Art in the Park, and saw some very nice things.  The swing chairs and hammocks were very tempting, but I can't think where I'd put something like that.

Sue and her SIL had a booth with dye your own silk scarves, and she said they'd been busy all day.  I'm going to get up there early tomorrow so I can see some of the dyeing.  I did see a few, and the colors were terrific.  

Then, we went to dinner at Super Buffet.  The food wasn't quite as good as usual, but everyone had 3 or 4 plates worth.  

I was able to finish almost the entire Clapotis while I walked around, so I should be able to give her that on Monday.  I'm SO excited to do this for her.  Tomorrow, we have to get to a fish fry, and I have absolutely no idea what to bring.  I'm thinking that a couple of pies should do it.  

Friday, July 17, 2009


This is my picture of the most awesome DIY swift ever. I asked my tall engineer to make me one, and he put together a simple version. The next day, I came downstairs to find this double reinforced uber-swift. I figured out that it's exactly 53 inches around, so if I count the spins - I can do the math to figure exactly how many yards I've spun.

I've made little tags about where the yarn is from, how long it is, and when I finished it. It's working very well, and it's actually fun to use. My only complaint is that the set is so old that some of the pieces are worn and make it loose. The legs on the bottom tend to come away if it's moved, but it holds up nicely when it's being used.

This is the first of the spinning posts. My good friend, Chris, loaned me her spinning wheel and I've been obsessed. This first picture is Claudia's fleeces hanging on the front railing.
Interesting. I'm updating a bunch of things, and I've finally gotten this to work from the laptop. Yay! I'm going to split this into life vs spinning and take bunches of pictures now that it's all working. I'm also going to talk about the podcasts that I'm listening to, and what the tall people are up to. (I can't call them the short people since the baby is now 6 foot 1)

My first and second projects from hand spun yarn are Kitty Pi. Both of them turned out just LOVELY. Leo's kitten Herman absolutely loves his, but the older cats aren't so thrilled so theirs is more of a yarn bowl for me than a cat bed. The third is a Clapotis for the woman that gave me the fleeces, but I won't take a picture of that until I actually give it to her. It will be soon since I'm down to about 40ish stitches.

The other big project is finishing the She-Knits Mystery Kal bag (She-Knits podcast, blog, bags) and wrestling with wips. The Mystery is just LOVELY, and I'm so thrilled to have it almost finished. The wips are in several time-out bags that are in my newly weeded out closet.

I've had to wimp out on the Tour de Fleece and the Minneapolis Fiber Fest AND the Sock Summit, but I'm determined to get to the Fargo Fiber Fest, and hopefully get some things set up around Bemidji. I do have the local spinners set up to demonstrate for the Beltrami Fair during the weekend of Aug 1. Ohh - making a note to myself to invite the Fargo and Park Rapids spinning groups to this! Wouldn't that be a great time!