Merino Finished (finally!)

This is the first yarn spun from fresh fleece that I actually finished spinning all of it. Does that make sense? I've bought several fleeces, but haven't managed to get all of any single one completely spun up. Until now! This fleece is a merino/romeldale cross that I bought from a lady in Montana. Unfortunately, all the contact info is on my old dead computer. Here is approx. 1800 yds of soft, springy, fingering wt. yarn. There was actually more, but I gifted some of it. Originally, I had carded the cleaned fiber, but it ended up full of neps. Those are tiny balls of fiber dispersed all through the batts of fiber, which if left in will eventually turn into pills onto finished knitwear. So about halfway through spinning, I bought some Indigo Hound 5-pitch combs and combed all the remaining batts to get the neps out. This created a lot of waste fiber, but it sure was easier to spin! So I learned a valuable lesson about merino - check carefully for second cuts, then comb, don't card. I have really been working hard to finish this because I'm dying to start on some beautiful alpaca that is calling my name. Now I don't have to feel guilty!


merino x romeldale handspun yarn

WWKIP Day - Houston, TX

We had a good showing for World-Wide Knit in Public Day. The group of 80+ gathered at Northwest Mall to enjoy an afternoon of knitting with others who understand our addiction. There were lots of old friends from the Knit at Night Guild, as well as many from Ravelry. It was fun to put faces to some of the screen names that you see all the time. Hopefully this event will keep growing every year.

Here's our favorite shop baby, Abby, with mom, Wendy, owner of Yarns 2 Ewe.


Random shots of the crowd...

World-wide Knit in Public Day

This Saturday, June 14th, is World-wide Knit in Public Day. The Houston event is being held at Northwest Mall from 1-4pm. Click the link to register and get more information. Looks like there is going to be a good turnout, especially among Ravelry members. You can register online until 11.59pm tonight (Thursday), or at the center of the mall on Saturday. So load up the knitting bag and we'll see you there!

Bye, Gran.

Today marks the passing of a wonderful and amazing woman – my grandmother, Sophie Setliff. She was always the strongest and most resilient person I knew, and it’s hard to believe that she’s gone. I always felt like she would be here forever, or at least as long as I was. My grandmother was the person who passed on her creativity to me, and inspired me in all the fiberarts. She was a wonderful seamstress, making most of the dresses for me, my sister, my cousins, and all the Barbies when we were growing up. She also crocheted and quilted many beautiful pieces for our family and others. She loved her church and her friends. But most remarkable was that each of us felt like we were her “favorite” grandchild. You could ask any one of us who was the favorite, and we would have responded, “I am.” When you got to spend the week at granny’s house, you ruled the world. She made all your favorite foods, let you do whatever you liked, played all your favorite games, and made you feel like the center of her universe. If you wanted 9 potato pancakes, that’s just what you got. At holidays, we all got to have our favorite foods. I just hope that I can be such a wonderful grandmother to my grandchildren.

At 97, Sophie was ready to be with her husband again and to put this world behind her. She had had a whole and fulfilling life. We’ll miss you Gran, but are glad you are finally where you longed to be. Give Grandpa a kiss from me.

Love, Theresa

Honey Bees

Not much to add today, and too busy trying to cram in a weeks worth of work into a weekend. But don't we all! I was just outside weeding one of my flowerbeds and noticed the bees swarming this magnolia blossom. They were rolling around in that bloom like nickel beer night at the Astrodome. Those of you under 50 probably won't remember that. Anyway, thought it was interesting and wanted to share.