Blogiversary, a prize and some spinning

I failed to blog on my 6-year anniversary of this blog. It was last week and it's hard to believe I've been at it for 6 years.  In light of this anniversary, I will give a prize to a commenter on this post.  The comments can be posted through June 15, 2012 ( this day is another type of anniversary for me) and I will pick a winner using the random number generator.

Saturday was the Middle Tennessee Fiber Festival. Wonderful time as always but it was rather warm, as expected. Not as humid as in the past, but still pretty hot.  Watched a great sheep shearing, the guy was really good at it and the sheep I think was enjoying the coolness once they were done.  I came away with some coiled top from Ozark Carding Mill from Durant, OK. She really has beautiful stuff and I purchased several different colors from her for blending. (pictures later)

I stopped at a local greenhouse............holy moly do they have some beautiful stuff. I don't normally buy flowers, but I sure was tempted. I took some pictures and although I didn't buy any flowers, I purchased some beautiful tomatoes. Here are some pics of their location. Any of you who are interested in knowing where this place is, let me know.

 

 

I've also jumped on the bandwagon and started a Wingspan. As I was perusing my stash yesterday, I found some yarn I had purchased at Haus of Yarn at their half-price sale. This stuff retails for $28.50 and it's a 50/50 merino/tencel blend. It's a joy to knit with and I think it'll be a nice coloration for a wingspan. LeAnn has made several of these and I've held off on starting one because I was trying to focus on my pie-wedge shawl. I'm seeing a light at the end of that one, so thought I'd go ahead and cast one for the wingspan. Here's what I have so far. (See.....I'm trying to break away from the blue obsession)

On the spinning front, I've finished two large skeins, 8 oz each. Both ended up with a little over 625 yards at a fingering/sport weight.

Cotton Candy: the multi-color single is a merino/polwarth blend of 4 1-oz batts purchased on Etsy from FeistywomanDesigns.  (blogged about here) The batts were wonderful to spin, very light and fluffy.  The ivory color is a single of undyed polwarth purchased on Etsy from Dicentra. I love polwarth!!! 

I think I will be knitting this Baby Blanket with this Cotton Candy.

The Cream Delight is a natural mixed BFL purchased from Gale's Art. Also available on Etsy but I actually purchased these at Stitches South in 2011. Love it.  I'm thinking about this shawl Semele for this yarn.  My mother would have loved this yarn and especially its colorway. She was always knitting with a taupe color.  Carole mentioned at knit-night that she remembered my mother from knitting at Angel Hair Yarns when it was open. She remembered that Pam and Andrea would say "oh, that's for Noelle" when they would open a box of new yarn and see the taupe yarn. how funny!

That's it for now. Next weekend is a 3-night/4-day spinning retreat in Monteagle, TN. Should be a fabulous time and will be learning some cool stuff from Lynne Vogel. I'm truly looking forward to the getaway. This is what I chose to do this year instead of going to Stitches. There will be some fiber vendors there as well. :-)  I've got a few items on my to-do list to learn.....create a rolag, spin locks, use my hackle, use my mini-blenders. So much to learn and to practice. Can you tell I'm excited???

As for my post yesterday concerning the elevator conversations. I hope it didn't come across that I perceived all 20-somethings to be this clueless. I know better than that, truly I do, I was just making an observation and sharing the overheard conversation with you. As Kayleigh mentioned in the comments, I was surprised that they hadn't already used their iPhone and googled what the holiday was about.  If anyone took offense, I publicly apologize.