Extravayarnza

My dog Tosh has been very ill this weekend. Sunday I took her to supposedly the best vet clinic in town & often called one of the best in the Country (mainly because my vet is closed on Sundays). They did tests & through around big scary words like obstruction and cancer. Eventually they said they couldn't pin point the exact cause of her symptoms, gave her fluids, and some basic all purpose meds.
Fast forward to this afternoon. Tosh hasn't been able to eat or drink in 48 hours. I drive her down to my usual vet. He asks me 2 questions, takes her temperate, and tells me he knows exactly what's wrong. It's a bug that's been going around right now (which unfortunately also infects cats & humans) and he's seen 100s of cases lately.
Tosh now gets another shot, 2 new meds, and the best diet I've ever heard of for the next 2 days.
All the high end vanilla ice cream & cheddar cheese she can eat!

Sometimes the basic country vet just has a better beat on the bugs & flues of the common pet... I think I'll stick to him from now on!

I took my very first spinning class last night. I've spun for about 3 years now, but was mostly self taught with pointers along the way.
Last night I headed down to The Spinning Loft in Howell to take Intermediate Spinning from Beth.
What a great class!
I knew we were learning about drafting techniques. I spin short draw, either woolen or worsted. Last night I got to add long draw & spinning from the fold to my list. I don't see myself spinning long draw too often, but spinning from the fold will defiantly get use!
The big surprise (other than all those great tidbits you get in a class) was that we got to try these techniques on a whole bunch of fibers so we could see how different techniques work on each fiber.

The fibers were vastly different & covered just about every catagory.
From Left to Right there is:
Soy Silk, BFL, Alpaca, Bombay Silk, Angora, Carbonized Bamboo, Masham, Linen, Optimum, Superwash Merino, Corriedale, and Seacell.
I actually liked spinning the angora top quite a bit. I think my favorite of the night based both on spinning ease and finished yarn was the Blue Faced. The Masham (a long wool breed) was great for spinning long draw & from the fold. Out of the "new" fibers I think the Seacell was the nicest to work with. (Which is great because we're getting some superwash merino & Seacell fiber in at the shop and I really want to spin sock yarn from it).

Next week we cover plying techniques and finishing yarns!

Okay,
I've officially skipped bunches and bunches of knitting. I haven't even gotten most of my recent projects on Ravelry. Hopefully I'll do a big photo day and catch up on all that. It's mostly socks & baby things for the shop, so nothing really major missed.

My big love at the moment however is my annual Lace Knitting gorge and my spinning wheel.

Lace first...

Lacis recently released Herbert Niebling's Lyra Shawl. Since I could now get the pattern without taking out a small loan (those in the know remember this pattern selling for well over $100 on ebay) I immediately cast-on with some very yummy J Knits Alpaca Laceweight.
Lyra is a square shawl knit from the center out, so you probably won't see many photos of her until the big unveiling. She will pretty much look like this for the next month or two:

However I'm working on Wicked for the next 3 or so weeks, so I needed a shawl that I could easily memorize the chart. I had kismet when the Mooi laceweight showed up this week!

I found the Angel Shawl from Fiber Trends & cast-on

This shawl is a simple 10 row repeat that's easily memorized. The yarn is beyond description... Perfect, Brilliant, Luxurious, none of these are good enough!

We also got Louet Northern Lights Roving into the shop last week. Again, inspiration struck.
My hank of Violets quickly went from Roving:

to Singles:

and to the Final Yarn (a bit over plied, but still very nice):

and will soon be knit into mittens

I then decided to use some of my new found spinning skills to spin up some Interlacements Wool into a Worsted spun yarn.

I think I'm going to Navajo ply this to keep the stripes.

Next up for spinning will be this fluffy bit:

That's Robin's undercoat. Plus that's just from one brushing! I think I'm going to blend this with Merino on the drum carder. We'll see how it goes...

I'm a little buzzed at the moment...
Rather than sleeping I'm playing with things like this...

(make your own wordle... they're addictive)

And creating a new logo for the shop (my very first Illustrator project)

and I'm even blogging!

Besides I have to brag about my new drop spindles. I'm totally in love.
First with my Grafton Fiber Ship

.7 oz
I've already spun half an ounce of lace weight on it. This is the spindle I wanted when I first learned to spin about 5 years ago. We now have them in the shop & I just had to snag this one when I saw it. It's Blue!!!

I also now have a lovely glass drop spindle.

We're getting these in the shop probably around September. I got one in early to try. It's pretty and spins well. What more can you ask for?!

Oh, and some of my first knitting to make it to the blog in a while. I knit the Angel Shawl out of Louet Mooi. Can I say Yum!

I guess I'm a bit to tired for too many words, but I'll leave you with one more photo. This is the first Morning Glory blossom from a few days ago. They only last one day! We've had about one bloom a day so far, but the vines are covered in buds so we should have quite a show soon.