I Love This Hat
Nancy Golub from The Sheep Shoppe in Newtown, CT, is putting kits together for my new favorite hat. They will be available next week. I’ve already put in my order.
Yarn Holders
Found at Rhinebeck this year. Definitely adding one to my Christmas shopping list. The larger one easily holds an 8 oz. ball of yarn.
Wovember Words: An exploration of breeds
Spinning
St. Brigid
My girlfriend Janet and I have agreed to start a knitalong in January. We both want to knit St. Brigid from Alice Starmore’s Aran Knitting book. There is nothing in my yarn stash that would work for this project. I’m either going to have to spin something or purchase the perfect yarn. I’m wondering if the Marushka roving might work…
It’s So Fluffy!
Marushka Roving
A friend asked me to spin the undercoat of her Samoyed into yarn. I had done this before and had been happy with the resulting yarn. The Samoyed fiber acts much like Angora does: it blooms, has little if any memory, and is very warm, which is why I like to ply it with wool. In this case, however, because my Merino stash was quite depleted, I was shopping for similar roving. I would have considered just about any soft wool — BFL, Cormo, Romeldale and the like were all in the running. I remembered meeting Marie Minnich from Marushka Farms at Rhinebeck a few years ago and decided to give her a call to see if she could help me. She maintains the largest flock of Romeldale in the US. Odds are, her stash is probably larger than mine. Emails were exchanged, and we both decided on a Romeldale roving with added silk and mohair. The roving was delivered to my door yesterday. Time to dust off the spinning wheel. We will spin come the dawn.
More Yarn
Because we can always use more yarn, the Webs Holiday catalog just came out today. The pages are full of new patterns, new yarns, and much more. Time to start a list…
Musings From Dutchess County
Rhinebeck 2015. Cotton candy, Leicester Longwools, Miss Babs, Periwinkle Sheep, Briar Rose, Jenny the Potter, and snow (yes, that’s right, the white stuff you shouldn’t see before December). Sharon, Veronica and I had a wonderful time.
Sharon had planned her trip well, shopping with knitting patterns in hand. She was on the lookout for, among other things, 1000 yards of gradient fingerweight yarn (thank you, Miss Babs). Veronica got a shawl pin and a swift. The yarn fumes got to me, and I walked away with quite a haul: wonderful yarn from Briar Rose and Miss Babs