Oh oh!  Our internets died at home!  I can not upload pictures, etc right now, which makes me sad.  We've found a new service provider, but it will not be up and running for a another week or so.  I will be back to normal posting as soon as I can.

Cheers!

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Sheeps and goats!  Oh my!  Sunday was a day to focus on the fibery friends that have filled my life.  There were all sorts of breeds to see.  The Scottish Black Face is by far a favorite with the Shetland running a close second.

Ahhh, look at the sheepies!

The Scottish Black face is in the bottom row.  How could you not love that face?

mmm...such nice fleece....so tempted to take a scissors to it and run back to my wheel.

After the animal fun, the rest of the day was spent wandering the booths, making final purchases, and spinning.  Here's a few things that were added to the stash:

toots leblanc

Toots Leblanc BFL/Pygora lace weight blend

Evelyn Clark's Knitting Lace Triangles

mohair

4 oz. mohair from Peppermint Pastures

This roving is fantastic!

It goes from bluish colors to greenish to bluish again and it's all one piece!

mag

A Retro Reynolds pattern book.

I may not use any of the patterns, but the pics are great entertainment.

dishclothes

Cotton dishclothes...because I am too lazy to knit them myself

bmfa

2 skeins of Socks that Rock in Kaw Kaw

Seemingly Simple Vest

And that's it!  No really, that's all I got!  Well along with the three fleeces and drop spindle and a couple of books and the things from Websters....

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Saturday arrived bright and early, but we were ready for it, with the help of a stop at a coffee shop and bakery get the energy going.  I had a very yummy strawberry croissant, but can not remember the name of the place it came from. Anyone familiar with downtown Eugene?

After a tour of the show a la Kristine, I headed to a demo with Adrienne to learn how a make a drop spindle by Ken Ledbetter.  In about 30 minutes, Ken had a spindle made and that was with talking to us the whole time.

My main goal for the day was to find a new drop spindle.  I found the prettiest spindle from Spindlewood.  I have to say that Steven and Connie are the sweetest people ever!

spindlewood 2

Pink Ivory with Ebony whorl with Ebony sharft

1 1/4 ozs

spindlewood 3

I started spinning on her right away.  She's spins like a dream!

I decided that I wanted to experience the wool show sale.  I was going to go and look at the fleeces and see how things worked.  I thought the made dash to get what you wanted would be fun to watch.  Well, I got caught up in the moment...

wool show line

People in line in front of me

wool show line 2

People in line behind me.

I am blaming my indiscretion on Marlowe and Kristine my enablers.  Somehow in the rush of things, Marlowe and I came out with 3 bags full of fleece.  Um, oops!  I only have pictures of the Romney/CVM right now.  One Corriedale fleece was sent to be processed (it was 9.55 lbs and placed 1st in its class!) and Marlowe has the Targhee.

Romedale CVM 3

Look at that crimp!

This beauty placed 3rd in its class and weighs 6.83 lbs.

Romedale CVM

Romedale CVM 2

We spent the rest of the day wandering about, spinning, and knitting.  The day ended with a dinner out and then retiring to Kristine and Adrienne's room for more fibery goodness.  Suddenly is was very late and we headed off to bead with visions of sheeps and goats in our head....

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Last weekend was Black Sheep Gathering 2008.  Marlowe, her daughter Caitlin, and I road tripped up to Eugene, OR for the event.  We left on Friday morning bright and early.

mountain

Look!  It's a mountain!  Okay, I know some you of you get to see mountains on a regular basis, but this Minnesota girl is still highly entertained by them.

We stopped in a town in northern California and found this on a car:  Eeeewwww!  It's the biggest bug ever!

bug

Our lunch break was in Ashland, OR.  I love this place!  Marlowe's and my first stop was for Websters, a lovely little knitting, spinning, and weaving shop.  I found myself a shawl pin.

shawl pin 2

Hoot!  Hoot!

And some Aloo yarn, made from a nettle plant

aloo

fuzy hat

Caitlin also found herself a charming hat, though for some reason, she did not want to keep it.

Ashland is the home of the home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.  We did not have time to take in a show that day, but I did get to drool over some of the costumes.

costume

costume 2

costume 4

costume 3

After the frolic in Ashland was done, we hit the road once again and got ourselves to Eugene.  There was an evening of hanging out with friends with spinning, knitting, and laughing involved.  We then headed off to bed to prepare for our big day, our first day at Black Sheep and the fleece sale!

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Mosaic

The Questions:

What is your first name? Sara

What is your favorite food? Chocolate

What high school did you go to? Owatonna

What is your favorite color? Green

Who is your celebrity crush? David Tennent 

What is your favorite drink? Mojito

Dream vacation? Falkland Islands 

Favorite dessert? Icecream

What do you want to be when you grow up? Retired

What do you love most in life? Friends

One word to describe you? Heartfelt 

Your flickr name? Mrs. Knitwit

To play along:

1. Type your answer to each question below into Flickr Search
2. Using only the first page of results, pick an image
3. Copy and paste each URL into fd's mosaic maker
4. Blog it!

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This weekend, the cormo fleece came out of its bag to be washed.

cormo

Oh so soft and squishy.

While Kristine was plugging away at dyeing yarn for Black Sheep, I started to prep the fleece for its first bath of many.

cormo 2

Cormo fleece in lingerie bags.

cormo 5

Into the pot!

There isn't any hot water at the studio so all the water had to be heated up.  Thankfully, Kristine as a massive propane burner that gets the water nice and hot in not too much time.

cormo 3

Boil, boil, toil and trouble...

Our little fleece was dirtier and greasier than we thought.  I think we did 5 baths over Saturday and Sunday and it's still not quite clean yet.  Oh well!  Once we get back from Black Sheep, it's back into the pot it goes.

cormo 4

Yum!

Sheep Poop Soup!

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Saturday was World Wide Knit and Public Day.  Initially, I was not going to do anything for the event as I was feeling a bit lazy.  An early call from Kristine changed that and all of a sudden we were off to the SFMOMA!

SFMOMA

Here's Kristine with "Femme au chapeau" by Matisse. 

SFMOMA 3

Adrienne with Rothko's No. 14.

Here are some other shots.  Kristine even managed to get some spinning in!

I was hiding behind my camera most of the time, but you can find another version of the day here.

SFMOMA 2

The Yarn Carrier, oh I mean The Flower Carrier

By Diego Rivera

I think a print of this one might need to be added to my home. 

SFMOMA 5

National Velvet by Warhol 

SFMOMA 6

SFMOMA 8

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And by two people at the same time!  Thanks Michelle and Marlowe!

The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer."

1) What was I doing 10 years ago?

I was in between undergrad and grad school for the summer.  I ended up working two part-time retail jobs because no one wanted to hire and educated person for only 2 months.   One of the jobs let me start collecting all the dishes, pots, and pans for living on my own for dirt cheap/free.  I still have all the pans!

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today?
Finish work for the day, get groceries, pick up my camera, start laundry, finish plying the cursed BFL, cuddle with my Ruby dog. Oops, that’s 6!

3) Snacks I enjoy:

dark chocolate, dark chocolate, etc.

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

Pay off our bills, make sure the parents, in-laws, brother, and grandmas were set up to live good lives, travel the world, start a spinning/knitting collective/compound so everyone can live and spin/knit together and not have to worry about the real world.

5) Places I have lived:

Waseca, MN

Owatonna, MN

Mankato, MN

Waverly, IA

St. Paul, MN

Roseville, MN

Minneapolis, MN

Berkeley, CA for 10 months and counting

6) Jobs I have had:

fast food restaurant, office work for my dad’s department, convenience store clerk, various retail in viarious types of positions, intern for non-profit, independent consultant, disability/FMLA claims manager

7) Bloggers I am tagging who I will enjoy getting to know better:

Oh, this is a hard one....

WonderMike

Amy

Mama Hughes

and

Vicki

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This weekend past, Kristine hosted a studio warming party at her new digs in ActivSpace.  On Saturday I was only able to catch the tail end of the festivities, but got to stay the whole day on Sunday.

avfkw 1

avfkw 3

There was some spinning going on and a lot of sharing and comparing of spindles.

kathleen spin 2

Kathleen with her new Golding Ring Spindle.  I love the knot work design!

avi in action

My Avi in action.

cleo 2

Poor little Cleo was overstimulated by all the fun. She was bound and determined to greet each person who came and at the end of the day and she was quite tired at the end.  I heard that there was some drool involved.

avfkw 5

Kristine was gifted with some lilacs, which are quite hard to find in California.  I do miss them! I think I was smelling them every 5 minutes or so.

And of course there was yarn and fiber to purchase!

avfkw 4

Finn roving in limited edition colorways.

avfkw 6

Flax/Wool roving

avfkw 7

Shetland Roving

avfkw 8

Merino/Silk roving

avfkw 10

My favorite shirt!

The East Bay was host to open studios all weekend long so I had the chance to wander to other spaces by Kristine's.  In one, I found something that had to come home with me.  The colors were pulling me in and I could not resist!

new project bag

My new project bag!

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I am getting to like Sunday mornings a lot.  Ted made me breakfast again this past weekend.

bfast in bed

Yummers!  An egg scramble with broccoli, tomatoes, and cheese and toast with jam!

bfast in bed 2

I sure am going to miss this for the next three weekends.  Ted heads to Ireland early Saturday morning and I will be all by myself for a couple weeks and a few days.  I guess I am going to have to just settle for cereal on the weekends.  I am too lazy to cook for just me.

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