On the wheel

The wheel is out and on it is a nice merino/angora blend. I want to see if I can spin it fine enough for a three ply sock yarn then dye it when it is done.

STR!!!!!

Can we say YUM?????? :)

To be forgotten...

I dropped out of the fiber world rather abruptly about 6 years ago. I am not sure what I was thinking at the time. My daughter and I moved from our house that we were so rooted in and moved to a "so-so" apartment but nothing seemed the same and my enthusiasm sucked. I missed all my gardens and my routine as I was now back in the world of work and commuting while trying to deal with an angry 8 year old suffering a broken family. I am blessed with the sweetest daughter ever so thankfully her anger never manifested into anything I couldn't handle. I did other things that required nothing of me really. Video cames just eat brain cells and that was perfect for me at the time. Suddenly, the games are gone, I probably won't go back to "Evercrack", it is a pointless expenditure of energy when I love medievil history and everything about it. I love learning, I love being creative and I love fiber. Spinning always grounded me, it was meditation for me. My place to be just me. Why would I push away things that made me feel smart and part of something bigger. I have a bag full of ribbons from the NYS State Fair, Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival and the Fingerlakes Fiber Festival. Why didn't those inspire me to continue what I was good at? I always took a great pride that if the world were wiped out and I was one of a handful of survivors that I would be instrumental in the groups survival with my skills in weaving, spinning, gardening and so on. A quirky pride but all mine! :) So now I have come back to my world; a world I always loved. I am a dream loom short but I have everything still, I just packed it away "just in case".

So now the true test. Showing up to old haunts even if I feel intimidated. What if I am not remembered... or they can't place me but know they know me. What if I get "the look" as if I abandoned the entire group? I don't intimidate easily but I am not always hugely confident either but for weeks I have been thinking of stopping at the Sheel & Wool shop that is not even three miles from my house. And so today I awoke and said.. if you clean out that refrigerator and wash it out, you can get a treat at Louise's. See, I am my own enabler! And a very proud enabler too. Maybe that was my way of challenging myself to break out of my self imposed shell. In some ways I am very much a wall flower but bravely cover it up with a forced outgoing personality. It is not easy for me to step up and be heard in most situations but I do it.

And so.. I drove up the driveway and parked. The shop was open and down I went to a place I was a regular at. A place where I took classes, a place where I taught one intermediate spinning class; a place where my friends would congregate. Louise, the owner, saw me across the shop and immediately asked, "Is that Sharon I see?" A rush of feeling very good, I was remembered! She came straight for me and after a wonderful embrace and well wishes to each other, she even knew I had not been there for five years. How wonderful it was to be remembered. All it took was taking that one step. I am not sure why it took many weeks to do this but it is now done AND!! on Tuesday nights I have a place to go and sit and knit with others who gather there. New friends on the horizon while catching up with old.

The fiber community is one of the more warm communities I have been involved with. The SCA is as well and yes, every community has their uppity sorts that bring on that roll of eyes but those are few and far between.

I am so glad that I am back.

My very first "Sock Yarn"

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! In the mail today was the first delivery of too much sock yarn I have purchased since last Friday. I have a spinning fiber stash but I don't have a sock yarn stash.. yet!

Oh wait, I do!!! I am knitting a pair of socks so anything extra IS stash! I have arrived! *chuckle*

So.. my first arrival *holds it up cuz camera battery says exhausted.. grunt* is Schaefer Anne from Simply Socks in the grapevine colorway.

From watching the posts, everyone put their yarn into a ball from their ball winders. Well I know where my ball winder is but someplace in this apartment is a missing umbrella swift!

One Sock Done!!!

Yippppeeeeee!!

I am not good with my digital camera but all of my indoor shots come out so dark (any suggestions?). This is enhanced in PSP but that is a raspberry color yarn. It is Plumberry SheepsWool yarn by Brunswick. I found it in my old stash and decided to use something old to relearn to knit this one pattern I understand!! :)

OMG! and...

STR!!!


Stop me!!!!!!!! lol

And...

Mystical Creations.....

Weee... Purchases!!

Friday I paid off my car!!! And bought sock yarn :) :) :)

I bought four colorways of Lisa Souza's yarn. My luck to get her on a show week! I am patient, I am patient, I am patient!! *not really but repeats and repeats*

And! I bought one Shaefer Anne (sp?).

So it seems this obsession will be no different than my wool obsession, book obsession, et al.

And.... seems I am still looking at a few other yarns... *big surprise*

Woolgasm!

As if no fiber enthusiast knows what that means!

That is the one word that can describe my first Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. I was so excited and had a wad of money to just throw at merchants there and I did! And it was indeed, better than sex! Haha.

I was like a kid at a fair who had never seen one. My girlfriend Teresa had already been to the festival so knew what it was like. Our husbands so patient and didn't seem to complain about the constant trips to truck and station wagon to deposit our new found purchases. I just glowed in a smile for weeks after then when I really looked, I had bought enough material to spin for at least 10 years. But wow.. to go there again.... someday!

Welcome!

I feel like I am climbing out of a seven year depression and maybe I am. I won't bore you with details but in a nut shell I was married, had one child at home and one child on his own. My days were filled with my gardens, fiber this .. fiber that.. more fiber this.. more fiber that. My best friend and I were lucky enough to both be home during the day and we had guild functions, shop functions, dye days in the drive way, spin in's, Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, New York State Fair, Fiber Seminars and more events, projects, etc than I could ever list.

I decided I was not happy in this marriage and in divorcing ended in a small apartment and I think it was then that I really felt the weight of my decisions. (Decisions I would never change.) I tried to stick with my fiber arts, it being the one thing I loved but it all ended up put away and I let my energies go elsewhere. Well, the last month has been an enthusiasm to dive into all of my projects once more and oddly, found I forgot so much over the last 7 years!

I have enough fiber to spin for the next 20 years, I have piles of handspun wool to play with. I did sell my 12 harness loom a few years ago because I felt it was more of a crime having it sit in storage than being used by an artist. The spinning wheel is out, the fibers are sorted, the knitting equipment is found, the spinning equipment is found except for the drum carder but I think I know where it is!

So here I leap into my love of fiber again. My goals are to get that spinning wheel working again and my skill level back to what it was. My novice knitting "under control" and lifted to the level of advanced beginner, lol. Felting! I have the basics but never took the time to really learn it and do it well.

I smile all day, even my friends that see me daily say it is like I opened the curtains and the sun came in. I truly think it was the loss of home yet I did not realize this.

The only thing missing is Teresa, my best friend who moved to Indiana. However we will just have to stay close by other means!