A Fibery Week

Suddenly I am up to my elbows in fiber. (Not that it's a bad thing!)

It all began last Saturday at the chapter 2010 meeting of the NwRSA. When I had attended in September, I had not one dime on me, so I was unable to purchase a raffle ticket for that month's raffle basket, which is done to raise funds for the chapter and the guild. In a fit of guilt (yes, I am Catholic, can you tell?) I purchased ten tickets for October's basket - and promptly won it. Fortunately for me, someone warned me that She Who Wins the Basket Gets to Provide Next Month's Basket before I committed my $10. And I certainly got more than $10 worth of great items and anticipated fun!

(photos are clickable to embiggen)

Two purpley/pinky "mystery batts," some Opulent Fibers merino roving in what will be an ombré yarn of pinks and purple, cabled notecards, a lavender sachet, oatmeal soap, some cute stitch markers, and a lovely lavender ribbon yarn.

Then, I had made a date to get together with my friend and former boss, Joann, who now lives on Whidbey Island, to go to lunch and the Whidbey Weaver's Guild annual sale on Friday, November 1. I had never been to this sale before, though I understand it's been going on for some years - it was held at Greenbank Farm, a very fun place in and of itself. Most of the things for sale were finished items - lots of scarves, shawls, some hats...and over in one corner were the spinners, with that one corner dedicated to a couple of people demonstrating spinning (one on a Hansen miniSpinner [ed. note: have one, love it!], one on a Lendrum) and a couple of vendors selling - guess what? Fiber! Of course I had to buy some; one can never have too much, and I always like to support my local artisans - not to mention I have the challenge of making up November's raffle basket! Now I just have to decide what I'm actually willing to let go of!

Clockwise from upper right:Shetland top in lovely fall jewel colors; mystery fiber (looks like Merino and Cashmere) in lovely teals and blues; a cute felted soap in a little porcelain dish; 1 oz. of lambswool and Angora blend in grey; a braid of mixed wool roving in spring greens and yellow; lovely dark fiber from Iggy the Alpaca

On Saturday, my friend Marianne and I went down to KnitFit in the Ballard area of Seattle to go through their vendor's market. Even the trip there was exciting; I was driving in the midst of a rainy windstorm that shut down the SR520 Lake Washington bridge due to tremendous wave action and knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of people, including the neighborhood just adjacent to the KnitFit venue, which caused traffic snarls like you wouldn't believe. Fortunately for the gathering, the immediate area where it was held still had power. This is the second year for KnitFit, and I noticed that there weren't very many people shopping in the market - which makes browsing easy for those of us who are there, but isn't such good news for the vendors. I overheard a couple of them commiserating with one another about the lack of sales, and tying it back to it being a pretty new event - for their sake I hope that assessment is correct and things will be busier in future!

Marianne and I certainly did our part to support the local economy, though I'd sworn up and down and sideways I was done purchasing stuff until I'd managed to turn some of what I had into FOs...Ha. Like anyone ever sticks to that resolution. And here is what I came home with:

Fiber and beads for a shawl with a beaded edging. The fiber is subtle colors of steel grey, green, gold, yellow and cream - really hard to photograph. Half wool, half Tencel for a really soft feel. I only noticed this morning that the two tubes of beads aren't quite the same - but I'll just alternate!

Aaaand, the "Crayola box" fiber. Interestingly enough, my husband Joe is in love with this stuff. This is 25% Tussah silk, 75% BFL wool. I will ply it with black and it will look a bit like stained glass when knit up. I am thinking some sort of open-stitch sweater/wrap/vest.

Today will be spent in creating some sort of inventory system for stuff (all of these recent acquisitions join more existing supply than I want to admit exists), and then starting in on something. It'll either be the greeny stuff that goes with the beads, or the Crayola-colored stuff. 

Or maybe...hmm...