Celebrating the New Year, spinner-style

Roc Day, January 7th: the day spinners would traditionally go back to work after the Christmas holidays.  I invited my spinner and knitter friends to join me.  Alas, the snow kept most of them away, but I did do some spinning. 

We finished celebrating on Monday, January 11th.  Vicky took this picture of some of the wheels in my front room.  All together there were 9 of us spinning and knittting and chatting and eating.

This is me with my Lendrum saxony wheel.  I am spinning wool which is purchased from a cyber, fiber friend, Cary of Serenity Farms in Michigan.  The fiber is lovely dark wool with dyed silk flecks.  It has been great fun to spin and will make a lovely springy yarn for a hat or mittens.

Hopefully, I will have pictures to share soon.

Thanks Chris, JoAnne, Vicky, Sue, Deb, Linda, Jody and Tyler (her son) for joining me.

Here is my charge for the New Year: spin every day!

Gingerbread what?!

Check out what parked in my oven last night.

The Red Baron strikes.  Okay! Phill, the student of German designed it for the annual gingerbread assignment.

Last year a submarine and this year a tri-plane.  Thanks, Frau Weiss for encouraging his creativity.

I'm not a beader!

I keep saying that, but somehow I've ended up in two beading classes during the last couple months. I even finished both projects!

Knitting with beads and using beads in my stitch markers is one thing, but beading for beadings sake...this is definitely a new direction.

Especially for you

This is the 5th or 6th year that we have had a Village Needlework team at the Especially for You walk for breast cancer awareness and prevention.  That is Rose Mary in the center talking to the lady with the pink hat.

I heard that over 13,000 registered for the run/walk event.  This is first year men were invited to join the walk.  It was amazing to see the streets filled with people walking, many of them wearing the names of friends and family who have been affected by breast cancer.

Still walking.

Still walking.  Can you find Rebecca?

Yeah! We made it.  It was a beautiful and inspiring morning.

I walked with my friends Deb, Mary Ann, Shelley and Dian.  Deb walked with her camera and gave me these pictures to share.

Spinning LeRoy - Saturday 26 September

Last Saturday I was priveliged to get to spin at a local Alapca farm.  Tim and Sonia Kach have a beautiful place near Vinton, Iowa and this weekend was their annual open house.

Here are some of the girls.  Sonia has their fiber spun into yarn that she sells in their little porch/shop.  It's great to see the source of your yarns, which are named for their fiber supplier.   I have a couple skeins of Kaitlyn, Sawyer and Eko.

Here I am spinning LeRoy, the guard llama.  He takes his job seriously.  He is always on guard to protect his herd.  And he also donates a very nice fleece, not comparable with alpaca, but nice anyway.

LeRoy does allow, Tanner, their precious yellow lab to hang out.  Their farm is named Savannah Breeze.  It is named after their Bichon Frise.  Alas, no pictures of her.  Can you tell that I'm addicted to labs?

Tanner is a sweet boy.  I'm not the only who thinks so.  This little girl had a wonderful time loving up on alpacas and dogs.  The "ladies" of Savannah Breeze had a wonderful day with all the visitors who stopped by. 

Chris (in the middle), Mary Jo (right) and I had a great time spinning and knitting and chatting with the visitors also.

News from the heartland

I was wandering about the "net" tonight and realized that I haven't posted anything for quite a while. Much has happened since March. Most recently I went to Estes Park,CO with my friend JoAnne. We were joining friends for our third entry in the Estes Park Wool Market Sheep to Shawl. We found out that we could fit a Baby Wolf loom in the back seat of a Honda Accord. Who knew?! Along with 2 spinning wheels, a drum carder, two computers and a little bit of clothing, we were pretty full, but still had room for several pounds of fleece on the way home.

Speaking of home...once we reached Denver we weren't sure if we were going to get back home! As it turns out both of our houses were fine, but the shop where I share space got flooded. We took on about a foot of water so we really didn't lose too much. Of course, we are now some of the displaced but all in all pretty fortunate. JoAnne's husband Jim doesn't think we should be allowed to leave the state together anymore.

Will post some pictures and more ramblings later (who knows, maybe even this summer).

Where are the rabbit tracks leading now?

Across Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, through the Lincoln Tunnel and into Manhattan. We made good time getting here. The seats were comfortable for sitting but not so much for sleeping. Oh well, the beds at the Hilton look comfy.

We made a quick stop on the way and the high schoolers regressed into elementary mode.

One of our first views of Manhattan. The kids really liked the signs.

The view from our floor. We are on the seventeenth. The Hilton is located on 6th Ave between 54th and 53th. Only a couple blocks from Carengie Hall, shops and Central Park.

Some of the groups went to Times Square and the Empire State Building. My group ended up chasing clothing shops, but it was fun seeing Manhattan by night.

Don't know what these building are, but the looked cool.

Tomorrow we have a very early wake up call, before we head out for a tour of the south park of the Island and the Statue of Liberty. In the afternoon we have a little free time and then "Wicked" on Broadway.