Last call for free yarn! And, an update

Hello! Thank you so much for responding to my request for help! I have received so many thoughtful comments and great ideas. I want to let you know that the end of the contest draws near. All comments must be in by midnight tonight, and we will pick a random commenter, probably tomorrow evening. The mer-children can't wait!

The shop has been updated for the week with some fabulously soft rovings. I particularly like the bfl roving; it is so lustrous and soft. And not too compacted. Should spin into some wonderfully soft woolen-style yarn.

and finally, look at this extremely cool bug I found on my patio table. It looked like distressed metal; in fact, I went to pick it, thinking it was a hair barrette! And check out those beautiful eye spots. Any one know what this beauty is?

Attempting the art and craft of the short, succinct blog post and My First Contest!

If i cd just write less, i suspect i'd post more frequently. So here goes, poor typing and punctuation and all. First, Happy Memorial day! I worked at the hospital for about 6 hours, til a colleague asked me to trade a few hours of today for a few hours of tomorrow. So, i even got out with my family a bit. Yay!

It was a spinning bonanza for me this weekend. Friday night, the lovely Steph and Elizabeth came to spin with me. I'd scoured and dyed some fuzzies for Steph to use for her batts, so it was like a business meeting, yeah, that's it. When i take some pictures, i'll show you the delicious core-spun yarn i made from the fluffy, soft, beautiful baby cakes she brought me. yay! baby cakes! Elizabeth came, i believe, to m ake us laugh so hard we almost hurt ourselves. Get her to imitate her children for you, seriously.

Sunday, lauren had her monthly spin-in, which was stuffed to the gills with fabulous spinners. if I list them, I'll miss a name, but I will say that Sarah, fate the third, was there. more yay! Did I tell you she and gryphon have become partners? now there ae two talented dyers behind the Sanguine gryphon name! And they have some other very big plans as well. as soon as i have a link, i'll send you to Moxie. Go ahead, ask them. It was history also, because it was the last time we'll all be together before the lovely lauren is a mommy. I can't wait to meet the little angel; and, oh, i think it may be time get knitting! only a few weeks to go. I think i'll shut up now, cause i never know who might be reading...

have I told you that jess, that BunnySquirrel herself, is making me a website as we speak? It is not clear yet what i/we have gotten ourselves into 9to me, at least) but I'm hoping having a geeky hisband will some how help.

So, here is where I need you. I need help figuring out a "color scheme" as we speak. I just can't seem to narrow things down. i know i don't want pastels or primary colors, but there are so many fabulous hues to choose:) That's why i dye stuff.

Here are some of my favorite Dragonfly yarn pictures. Please let me know in the comments what colors you think will work well as my color theme/website color scheme. Ok? I have some pretty new spinning fiber and some yarn to put up on my site, hopefully tomorrow after i send Jess some write ups she needs for the site. so, leave a comment with some color help for me and the merchildren will put all of the names in a bowl and choose a name randomly. You'll have till the end of the the week. the winner will get to choose a skein of yarn or a braid of roving from my etsy store. ok?

In addition to looking for an update this week on my etsy shop, if your a Baltimorian, you can now find Dragonfly spinning fiber at Spinster Yarns and Fibers. Go by; it's a lovely little yarn shop. I hear their spin in is pretty great, too.

Ok. We are getting back into the saddle here at Dragonfly Headquarters just in time for the school year to begin its end. The spring here in the Washington area has been cold and wet, with the occasional 90 degree day, leaving us gasping and sweating and so not ready. It's cool this week, and sunny, at least today, which makes for excellent dyeing weather;)

The usually lovely Jack is off school for two weeks, so he was able to come with us to Cunningham Falls for the spring Cub Scout campout, which occurred during a massive thunderstorm. Exciting! Especially the sprint from the "campfire" to the tent in the downpour while singing "Singin' in the Rain". Certain children who shall remain nameless were out of their minds wound up at bedtime resulting in the almost certain ban of rice crispy treats from our house forever. Unfortunately, smores for breakfast didn't help him on the hike the next day either. Luckily, we have no photo evidence.

All I know is that I can't wait for this crazy year to end! Even if it does mean the monsters will be home with me all the time. It will be nice to have things slow down a little, and to have a certain young man mellow a bit, which he tends to do when submerged in water for any length of time.

I have been knitting a sweater from a variety of beautiful grey, mostly shetland and romney, fleeces that I have processed. One particularly amazing fleece I spun straight from the lock, resulting in a chunky, wild yarn that has so much life!

Another fleece is a beautiful shetland with the most amazing almost- lavender color; this fleece is not as soft as I hoped and I worsted-spun several bobbins of singles straight from the lock, resulting in a yarn that feels like garden twine. Back to the drawing board! I carded these locks sideways with my Strauch finest and woolen spun them. The result is a much fluffier yarn, but still not so soft. I'll use the second version in the sweater, but sparingly:(

The sweater itself began as a February Lady, knit in a super chunky gauge. Unfortunately, one has to be very careful with the placement of the transition from garter to gull stitch when one is built like me! I'm 10 inches in and still have not reached a good spot to start that change. Between the transition issue and the overall heaviness of the garmment, I may choose to skip the lace pattern altogether and make it a long vest/tunic-type garment.

I should have titled this post: "Why I should not knit socks". Or maybe, considering the above paragraph, "Why I should not knit". I am still plugging along with my Maggie May socks, begun January '09, and my Malabrigio socks, hurriedly begun at Stitches East. I have started the heel turn on the second sock. Yay! But not until after I discovered that i had the spiral going the wrong way (they are Coriolis socks from Cat Bordhi's most recent book), as in, going in the same direction as the first sock and had to rip back and re-knit the arch expansion. Aaargghh! Good thing I had time before the rain started on our camp out this weekend! Luckily, Maggie likes an ankle sock. Unfortunately, I still have to go back and do the toes. The moral of this story? Never guess the size of your friend's feet when knitting them a sock. And to paraphrase Maggie Righetti, or was it Elizabeth Zimmerman?: "Stop and admire your work often. Take the time to measure as you go." Or Treebeard the Ent:"Don't be too hasty!"

The Malabrigio sock? Just ripped back on it for the fifth or sixth time. This time the heel gusset was too short. So much for the lovely stitch pattern I was using. Now that I'm back on track with a proper heel flap, I'm just going to relax and enjoy finishing this beauty up in stockinette. Oh, and I'm going to ignore the wonkiness of the heel turn, which got slightly off-center somehow...



Phew. Enough with my imperfectionist knitting. The scouring and dyeing has been going much better. I think I mentioned that I did some fleece shopping with the lovely Steph and brought home some yummy fleeces. Above is some Corriedale I'm dyeing for her from the Clearing at Curry Farm; spectacular stuff with an 8" staple and the fineness and crimp of merino. I bought some last year and have LOVED it. I may need to buy more...


I also washed up a lock of this beautiful Romney cross she bought. I'll be keep some it's natural grey and overdyeing the rest. So fine and wooly. I can't tell you how tempting it is to spin this baby up for my sweater. It would fit in very well! Luckily, Elizabeth saved me from stealing it by giving me some of her gorgeous Finn fleece that she scored at MD Sheep and Wool. No pics yet, tho.


Mostly, I've been dyeing locks; however, Andrea of Spinster Yarns and Fibers in Baltimore asked me to dye some spinning fiber for her shop in a range of colors. I really like the way she ordered. Nothing like some free rein to allow one to express one's creativity. I had a really great day yesterday dyeing pretty fiber to reflect my version of the color wheel. I'll try to get some pictures for you before I send them off this weekend;)

Finally, look at the pretty yarn! I'm still updating the shop in the aftermath of stitches and MDSW. Above is Traveller sock in the colorway Villainness (did you see that this color sold out on the The Loopy Ewe site on the first day!!!?) and below is mostly Sea sock. These beauties will be updated in my shop tonight or tomorrow.

Spinny, Fibery Joy

I am somewhat at a loss for words to describe the fuzzy joy that has been my life lately. After inventory and saying a brief hello to my family, I was back out the door to attend Camp Pluckyfluff DC, hosted graciously and entertainingly by Steph of Loop and Carissa of Treadle to the Metal. I was fairly sure I needed to move to Atlanta last week and now, I may need to go to California to folllow Lexi around. I must say that Lexi is truly the Goddess of the Spin that she appears to be and a brilliant and lovely soul to boot. And funny as hell. I hadn't laughed that much in, well, maybe a few days, thanks to my new knitting sisters in Georgia.

She made it all look so easy! I did learn a few things: tailspinning, bath mat yarn, mohairy, and crazy carding. Nothing like putting the entire spinning batt through at once! Camp yarns to be shown off later.

Spinning company was pretty awesome too. I miss you already Elizabeth! Along with giggling like a 10 year old and saying lots of bad words.

Here is Elizabeth, Lexi, me, and Steph hanging out at MDSW.

Despite the rain, Maryland Sheep and Wool Fest was fabulous. The sheep were adorable, the wool was lovely as ever, and the people were great. I worked for a few hours Saturday morning at the Cloverhill Booth where my yarn was being sold. I met lots of great people there and even signed a few copies of Pints and Purls. Did i mention that I have a few new patterns published in this awesome, clever book. Karida, who wrote this book along with Libby Bruce, gave me my copy along with my knitted sample of "Barfly". More later; this deserves a post of its own!


Here Elizabeth and I camp it up with Carrie of Funky Carolina (insert fan girl shrieking here) and Carissa.

As if all that yarny goodness wasn't enough, my mermaid decided it was time to try spinning again. Gryphon had taught her two years ago (right before MDSW) and she had picked it right up, but had had trouble keeping the wheel going in the same direction while drafting, etc. This time, no problem. Mermaid girl may just be a spinner after all.

Kitty seen here helping her draft:)

See that bobbin? That's just the first day!

Finally, I must present Super Sweetie:the usually lovely Jack. He can bring home the bacon, or tofu, depending, fry it up, and run Dragonfly Headquarters,(minus the yarn) while the Chief Dragonfly is away for long periods of time.

He has also been my husband for thirteen years as of yesterday (not 15 years, honey:) and I love him more today than i ever thought i could.

P.S. If you didn't get enough yarn and spinning fiber at the fest, stay tuned! I'm updating the shop over the next week or so and expect more Dragonsock to appear on The Loopy Ewe during the next "sneak up'.