Crowds and Fiber and Knitters, Oh My!

this weekend, Sue and Diedrick--two wonderful ladies at Knit and Stitch = Bliss in Bethesda, MD--convinced me (as if i REALLY needed convincing)to ride out to Savage, MD to go to the second annual Homespun Yarn Party. the party was held in a large section in what looked like an old mill. a beautiful rustic building with LOADS of antique shops (of which we've vowed to make a second trip). but today it was all about the the fiber and the knitters. speaking of knitters, i got to meet the ABSOLUTELY delightful CiCi and CajTalk of the blog Sistahs That Knit. lots of indie dyers, some alpaca and sheep farmers, and lots of painted sock yarn. actually, most of the inventory there was sock yarn. me? since this was a last minute trip, i kept it simple and got two of each:



the colors are natural and the vendor had it listed as goat angora. it is absolutely scrumptious, and sooo soft. i've only spun dyed/painted Corriedale and Blue-faced Leicester wool, which is nice and pretty easy to spin. once i got home and got comfy, i started spinning right away and:



this is the dark roving. once spun, it has a lovely rustic look and you can see the variations of color in the fiber. i'm getting a solid single ply equivalent to a 2ply laceweight like Knitpicks Shadow. as i'm still a fairly new spinner, i plan to knit a single ply swatch and see how it looks. not sure if i will ply this. i may keep it as a singly ply because i really like the thickness i have now. if i ply it, it may be a little thicker than what i want--unless i pick up a lighter weight spindle to spin thinner. i spin pretty thin as it is...even with plying, i've only gotten heavy fingering to sport weight. once i try to spin thicker, i somehow lose consistency. go figger.

i've finished the edging on the Mellon Shawl and just need to block it. my focus will then be on finishing the Shetland Tea Shawl--i'm on round 13 of the Madeira Diamond chart--23 more rounds to go before the edging!