In my haste to get to Black Sheep, I missed our knitalong update last week. What’ve we got? I know that Meg is working on hers, and she’s using the official pattern yarn that is being sold cheap here. It’s pretty.

Also, our very own Drew the Crochet Dude has finished his second Cable-Eight. He managed to get paid for knitting it. He and I need to talk. And we’re ignoring the fact that he has now knit two, whereas I, the hostess of this particular knitalong, haven’t even finished one! Way to show me up, buddy.

Anyone else?

Having further reflected on the cuteness of Corine’s Cable-Eight, I’m thinking about reverting back to the original pattern and leaving mine sleeveless to wear over other shirts. Since I’m fully immersed in my Shoalwater Shawl, I have plenty of time to kick it around before deciding.

Speaking of deciding, I need your help. I’m going away this weekend, again, and plan to finish the shawl while I’m away. I need to decide what yarn to use on the picot edging.

Do I use the Noro and let the edging change colors along the way, OR do I use some Lamb’s Pride? Here are my color options-

Bulldog Blue?

Jaded Dreams?

Kiwi?

or Plum?

What do you think? I need to know.

I am completely pleased that I could turn to my stash at 11o’clock at night and come up with four colors of Lamb’s Pride that look great next to the Noro Kureyon.

It may not look like much progress since my last photo, but it’s bigger. I’m still alternating between knitting the shawl and reading about loom warping. Today, I’m taking the kids to the park, and will hopefully get in a lot of good knitting time then.

Yesterday was good, ’til about 4:30 in the afternoon when the late night before finally caught up with me. I was too tired to do anything, and after dinner was heading to bed when there was a knock at the door. I’ll skip the in-between and just say that we didn’t end up getting to bed early. So I slept in this morning and didn’t wake up until, well, ’til about now.

Nate and I went to the drive in last night to watch the new Batman movie, and to see Star Wars, Episode 3. Can you believe we hadn’t seen Star Wars yet?

I liked Batman pretty well. Star Wars sucked. I love the originals, but the new ones are lame. Still worth seeing though, for nostalgia’s sake. And our car battery died, so we had to hit up a truck behind us for a jump. What’s up with that? We were an hour into the second movie when it died, so we wandered around the other cars to hear what was going on. The funny thing is, the van we stood next to first died also, so we had a laugh and moved on to another car with an open window. I’m glad the weather was nice. We didn’t get home ’til almost 3am. Today is going to suck.

Yesterday I worked on the Noro Shoalwater Shawl again. I’m getting excited for its completion. It’s really pretty right now, but I’m a little concerned about how it will look when finished. The further down I get, the thinner the stripes become. It might work. It might look really dumb. We’re not going to know until I get there, but I promise, you’ll be among the first to know.

I went to the LYS yesterday, as promised, and came home with this! (If you don’t feel like following the link, it’s Learning to Weave in hardcover by Deborah Chandler). And it was even in the 50% off bin, so I only had to use $13 in store credit! So the reason I don’t have anything to show you today is because I spent any knitting time I might have had reading the introduction and first section of a weaving book.

Right now, Nate is flipping through the new IK that just came in the mail. I think it’s great that he takes an interest. And he’s genuinely interested. Mainly because he’s an artist, and a magazine artist at that, so he looks at layout, and photography, and ads…. and then he comments on the patterns. It is interesting getting a male perspective on a knitting mag.

I have to say that about the only thing in this issue that I think is particularly cool is the carpet bag. I mean, come on, it’s a carpet bag. With dowels and everything. That is SO COOL!!!

Do you know what that is? That is me and the new object of my desire.

Woodland Woolworks had a booth at the Black Sheep Gathering FULL of beautiful spinning wheels. They were kind enough to let me linger for a considerable amount of time, and the cute old man even took my picture for you all. So I started out spinning on a 24 inch Schacht-Reeves Saxony Wheel. I hated it, which surprised me immensely. Next, I tried out the previous object of my desire, the Kromski Symphony. (Our relationship up to this point had been strictly Internet based). It was certainly better than the Schacht-Reeves, but I was by no means wowed. Then, ahhhh, I got to spin on the Lendrum Saxony. I will never be the same. I don’t know WHAT it is about that man and his Canadian wheels, but they sing the siren’s song. They are so smooth, they are so….. delicious. I need one. Don’t ask me how, as I’m still trying to save up for his single treadle foldable wheel, but I need one.

While we’re dreaming, I’ve also decided that I want a loom. I’d never thought about weaving, but I suppose it was just a matter of time. I don’t know the first thing about weaving, looms, or their crazy terms and tools. So tomorrow I’m going to go to the LYS to get a book.

What else did I do besides harass the Woodland Woolworks man? Well, I looked at bunnies…

(He’s very relaxed)

And I oogled the angora goats.

The only reason I am not a livestock owner right now is because Nate forbade me before I left. He gave me spending money with the contingent that I not bring home anything alive. Too bad he knows me so well.

I’ve also decided that Romneys are by far the cutest sheep. Their faces are simply irresistible. Every time I walked by one being clipped, it turned it’s head to greet me like a friendly dog. Too cute. They have such intelligent eyes.

Another thing I learned is that sheep are DANG noisy. It took me awhile to relax in the sheep barn initially, because they sound like my whining children, but magnified. Like, seriously magnified. I had to do some breathing and relaxation exercises to get over it. Then, all was well.

Nate chastised me for not taking more pictures when I started telling him about the cute and funky woman that did the silk spinning demonstration. Here’s a link to her shop. She had the most amazing spinning wheel. It was an Ashford Kiwi (not my favorite), but it was painted up so cool, I almost wanted one myself.

Then there was the booth with the MOUNTAINS of brilliantly dyed mohair locks.

No pictures. I suck. Sorry.

I had an incredible time. I didn’t get hardly any knitting done, which amazed me considering I was there for almost two days. There was so much to see. So many questions to ask. So many animals to contemplate sneaking home… Who had time for knitting?

Not me.

Greetings from Eugene, Oregon! The Black Sheep gathering is fabulous. At this point, I’m really glad I brought my own healthy food, since the only options here are curly fries and hamburgers.

Getting to it: on Monday, I did 45 minutes of treadmill and physical therapy. That’s it for official exercise for the week, but down here at the gathering, I have been walking constantly, so that counts for something.

I finally feel like I’m at 100% energy-wise, and have high hopes for next week.

How about the rest of you?

See you next week! I will phone in a Health Group post tomorrow, and Nate will upload it for me. Other than that…. KISSES! I’m going camping at the Black Sheep Gathering!

I was gone the whole FREAKING day yesterday. Twelve hours of running around. Lots and lots and lots of money was spent. (Don’t ask me how, because in my opinion, that means we actually had to have the lots and lots of money… but now I’m being technical). Anyway, want to see what we were doing?

The top two are prescription. My question is this…. How in the heck am I supposed to take pictures? I’m going to have to re-learn how to photograph my children because now they have glasses. But more importantly, they now REFLECT!!!!!!

Aaaggggh! As if it wasn’t hard enough to catch the wiggle monkeys in the right moment for a good shot, now I have to deal with reflection! I am going to pout and whine for a very, very long time.

In knitting news, I’ve decided to continue the Shoalwater Shawl in Noro’s Kureyon. What the heck. And I still intend to make one similar to the photo on the pattern someday. But now, I need to try and get my stuff together to go the Black Sheep Gathering. I leave before the birds in the morning.

I am SO going! Anyone else? Want to meet up? Today I’m going to make some calls in an effort to find a campsite for Friday night. I’m going alone, and couldn’t be happier. I’m so weird. I don’t have a spinning wheel, but I’ll drive 250 miles to go to a fiber fair. What’s up with that?

Oh, and I need to borrow a tent.

Hey, check this out…

Is that not the coolest thing ever? I’ve never seen a cable like that! So now I own it. This book is cool. I already own and love a few of the Harmony Guides, so when I saw this book of stitch patterns I thought I’d already “been there, done that”. I was surprised to find that many of them are quite unique and wonderful. And it’s cheap! I was also looking at this book, which is not cheap. It is a cool, conceptional and inspirational book, but like a lot of others, the photography doesn’t give you much clue as to what you’d actually be knitting. I still want it, but $30 seemed a bit steep.

We were at Barnes & Noble last night, if you couldn’t already tell.

Nate felt that he was entitled considering I’m ditching him and the kids for sheep all of Friday and Saturday, so he stocked up for the weekend with very loooong books.