Monday, February 25, 2008

Wool Heaven

Wow. When there's not too many decent yarn shops in town, an event like Stitches West really brings it together for me. I love it. Contrary Colleen, Gypsy Junk and I ventured out there yesterday for a girls' day out.

My l3wt!


I quickly learned a valuable lesson this weekend...be sure to set aside a lot more spending money before the event! Being that we're one month from paying off an annoying little credit card debt, I only had $100 for my spending budget this weekend. I really had to make the best of it and I think I did just that.This was my first time at the event and I felt completely overwhelmed by all the woolly goodness the vendors had to offer.

My first purchase were two cute buttons (didn't catch the vendor name) for my almost-finished Tilted Duster. Though I didn't have a swatch of yarn with me, I knew the buttons would be perfect. From skating, I remember that the heliotrope (color) Austrian crystal worked with just about any shade of purple. When I got home and put the buttons with the yarn, they were perfect!





My second purchase was some worsted weight yarn to make another top for myself. The pattern I had in mind was Bella Paquita, by Marnie Maclean. A feminine top deserves a feminine color but I've never been big on pinks or pastels. The Gothic Rose colorway from Dream in Color really caught my eye and I couldn't resist. This project will most certainly be on hold for a while since my baby bump has really grown but come late Summer/early Fall, this will definitely be a part of my wardrobe. I couldn't get a decent picture of this yarn so you'll just have to follow the link to see it. I bought this from the folks at Purlescence Yarns, where Gypsy Junk and I took a drop spinning class last year.

Speaking of spinning, I also had my eye out for some nice roving to buy. Since I love to get my roving from Paradise Fibers online, I really felt I had to find something special to justify increasing my fiber stash. Towards the end of our day, we visited the ladies at Tactile Fiber Arts and A Verb For Keeping Warm. There, I found some beautifully hand painted rovings of all sorts of fibers. I already have a few projects to finish, all rather large, so I focused on smaller bits I could use for making socks or other little items. I found a 2 oz roving in Merino called Sassafrass (green/blue/natural), which has turned out to be my favorite color of the rovings I found but there was only one left. Woe is me... I did, however, buy two other 2 oz rovings in colors to compliment Sassifrass: Diebenkorn (blue) and Bark (brown). I really hope Sassafrass is a color I can see available again in the future.



Along with my Merino roving from A Verb For Keeping Warm, I bought 4 oz of lovely Alpaca from Tactile Fiber Arts. The roving didn't have a name, but it's half periwinkle, half fawn, and all good. The new rovings from both vendors are naturally dyed and I've never yet seen colors as nice as these. Since I want to make sock weight yarns out of them and I'm still a bit novice on the wheel, I'll be spinning them up on the drop spindle. I already started Sassafrass on one spindle last night because I couldn't resist. There's not enough on the spindle to photograph yet but soon...very soon.

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