December is for Dabbling

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For Christmas, I gave Mr. Cleaver a skein of sock yarn. 

"I am supposed to learn to knit?" He asked, eyebrow raised.

"No," I replied, "This gift is two-fold. 1) Sometime this year you'll get a new pair of socks and 2) I didn't try to knit them before Christmas."

As creatives and makers, it's easy to get overwhelmed with a desire to try to make our holidays as handmade as possible. I've definitely stayed up far too late many a December trying to finish a gift or two before that deadline on the 24th. 

In 2016, my creative life was ruled by deadlines more than ever before, and it was incredibly stressful. So when I had a month of no deadlines and over two weeks of vacation from my day job planned, I decided that I wasn't going to give myself any new deadlines. 

So I gave my husband a skein of yarn for Christmas and I didn't make my daughter a thing. And I'm okay with that. 

Instead, I decided to play. 

I spun yarn for the first time since LMC was born. I baked my way through a 5 pound bag of flour with whatever inspiration struck my fancy. I needle-felted, and needle-felted some more. I wet-felted a pair of slippers for the first time. I was able to sew for the first time in months. I crocheted snowflakes and learned how to steek. I picked out yarn for a sweater, for me, from someone else's pattern and have knit most of it. I made snowmen and ice skated and took naps with my daughter. 

It was like summer camp in the winter and it was glorious. 

I want to make this a new holiday tradition for myself. December is for dabbling. It's the best gift I could receive. 

---

Can I keep it*??

Look what followed me home this weekend:

A nice little Lendrum wheel.

Now, I didn't buy it, it's a rental, but we've already had a very productive relationship in the five days we've known each other.

I think I may be in love.

*As this particular wheel belongs to someone, I can't actually keep it, but I'd happily take another in the same "breed"

Spin-o-ween

Mr. Cleaver and I had a pretty low-key Halloween evening, which largely consisted of eating Chinese take-out and handing out candy.

I spent most of Sunday afternoon at Maggie's celebrating what I shall now dub "Spin-o-ween." At Rhinebeck,  a number of our group picked up spindles and Maggie needed to get started on making the yarn for her 2010 knitolution (yep - I'm making up new words left and right here). So we gathered together with our roving and our pie - a treat indeed!

Roadtrip: PKOTT at NETA Spa

This Saturday the lovely ladies of Portland Knitters On The Town took a field trip to NETA's Spa, Spin and Knit weekend up in Freeport, where the Hilton Garden and Haraseeket Inns were crawling with Spinners and Knitters from throughout New England.

Many were day trippers like ourselves, but others from New Hampshire and Vermont came to stay for the whole weekend. The Hilton was sold out - primarily to knitters and spinners. It was great to see so many fiber lovers in one place!

There were also a ballroom full of the usual merchants, but being pretty stocked up at the moment, I only purchased a card of beautiful pewter buttons that made me think of a new sweater design almost instantaneously.

With so many spinner around I was inspired to pull out my spindle, which I haven't touched since sometime in late September/Early November, when Christmas and other deadline knitting kicked in.

So while I didn't purchase any yarn, I did come out of the event with some new yarn. Which as Mr. Cleaver accurately described it, "feel like you hair after a day at the beach." It's llama, and yes, it's a bit straw-like. I'm hoping it'll soften up a bit when I wash it (which it seriously needs - so much dye transfer!!), but I'm proud of the thinness and relative evenness of this skein. Inspired, I started spinning it's companion purple fiber last night.

We also made side trips to a BBQ joint and a fabric store. So all in all, it was a good day. :)

Fair Weather: Part I

I have to admit that growing up I hated fair season.  

To me it meant nothing more than dancing on hot concrete stages that were every form of uncomfortable and I never got to do any of the fun stuff, like rides or games - except for once. Of course the piece de resistance of bad fair experiences was in high school when I volunteered to do a "Say No to Drugs" Puppet show, only to arrive at the booth to discover that I'd have to spend all afternoon sitting under a table next to the Vote No on 9 people. Not cool.

Nevertheless, when Maine fair season kicked off last week, I was thrilled and have now gone to not one, but two fairs. Since I took hundreds of photos, I'ma gonna break this up into two posts.

First, Marjorie, the woman who essentially taught me to knit, called and asked if I'd like to go with her to the Common Ground Fair. Run by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardens, this is meant one thing to us knitters: fiber, yarn, and the creatures that wrought it.

We had beautiful warm weather and a fantastic time.

There were pie cones:

Lots of fiber:

 

Spinning (which I really really want to learn, weaving too):

Llamas:

Sheep:

Sheep Herding:

And it wasn't all about knitting-related things, we also saw Native american dancers and drummer, chair makers, basket weavers, and boat builders.

But we did both some some lovely golden yarn from Enchanted Knoll Farms. Because really, it's all about the yarn, right?