Yep, definitely 2016.

I've finally stopped writing 2015 on things, I survived the Blizzard of 2016, and I have concrete plans for the days ahead. I avoid resolutions, but I can already detect a theme for the year. There may be some personal changes afoot, however slow.

I'm not going to waste your time, or my own, whining about what kept me from keeping up blogging on a more regular basis. It is important to recognize that I am not the kind of person that works like that. Fits and starts are more my thing. The important thing is that I didn't scrap the blog. In fact, it has often been in the back of my mind and I've been keeping my own personal print journal in the mean time.

Let's get to the good stuff. What did you miss? What's been going on?

Since I last posted, I failed at Spinzilla, but I had a very good medical excuse, I swear. On the other hand, I did enjoy a great experience spinning with friends at one of the public Spinzilla spinning events. We set up in front of the Hendersonville Visitor Center on a lovely sunny day and spun for hours. Several people stopped to speak to us and watch our work.

A couple of days later, in a roaring downpour, I drove around downtown Asheville in a hopeless search for a parking place. I had planned to attend my second Spinzilla public spinning event. With a swollen treadle ankle, low visibility, and no parking spots (did they melt in the rain?), I gave up. But not before I risked parking in a sketchy lot for a special rendezvous...to buy my very first rigid heddle loom from a weaver who was upping her game to a floor loom. Thank you, Ashley, for the hook up!

This sweet Schacht Flip joined the family!

We visited my aunt in the eastern part of the state several times this year. On one of our longer trips, we were able to join her family on a visit to the North Carolina State Fair in Raleigh.

There were rides and micro vegetables and oversized vegetables and sheep. A proper state fair.
(Have they always had micro veggies?)

We also made it to the Pittsboro Street Fair. I picked up a couple of sweet, hand-sewn bags that will make perfect knitting project bags. We ate lunch at lunch at the delicious S & T Soda Shoppe, a sweet spot that serves everything under the sun, including luscious flavors of ice cream. Next door, and outside working on new coffins (Halloween being just around the corner, you see), we found Roy Underhill! He was working in front of the The Woodwright's School. He hosted the woodworking show The Woodright's Shop on PBS / UNC-TV, which my family watched when I was younger.

Roy! Looking just like he did when I watched him on PBS.

We managed to come away with pottery from both fairs on this trip, but I can't tell you who made the pieces! They were sold in booths with works by numerous vendors and I wasn't given a business card specific to their makers. Boo.

The mugs are oversized and the bowls are small enough for the base to sit easily in the palm of your hand.

I totaled our car, Daisy. She was classic, in the "I'll die trying" sense of the word. And I guess I drove her a little like an old lady some times, because if I'd pulled out faster, maybe we wouldn't have gotten hit. It was a hidden driveway in the middle of a blind curve at the top of a hill, so oncoming traffic is speeding up as they pass you while you're attempting to turn left in front of them. Now, I refuse to turn left when leaving my brother's house. If we're going somewhere east, we'll just have to get there by a different road. That makes total sense to me. (Check out those stickers in the window. And that's a wee crocheted sheep dangling from the rear-view mirror.)

 

Poor Daisy.








On a more positive note, fall was beautiful here on the mountain:

October ended with the biggest fiber party around these parts: the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair. Mom and I didn't go hog wild in the market place, but we participated in classes for the first time this year.

We discovered a new-to-us family-owned farm, Heelside Farms, located in eastern NC. They had a great selection of locally milled and hand-dyed yarns from breeds I don't usually see blended in the skein or even together in one booth, including Icelandic, Border Leicester, and Columbia. And we could see pictures of the actual sheep on display. We enjoyed chatting with the owners. The next time we visit my aunt, we hope to visit their farm's Red Barn Studio in Four Oaks, NC.

The darker skein is 100% wool, but I think it may have been a blend of their breeds. The brighter one on bottom is wool, silk, and nylon. 

I was very excited that Gale's Art had a booth. (I first discovered Gale's Art through Gynx Yarn's The Dyer's Notebook video podcast. You can see the interview here.) I had fallen in love with her heavily speckled "Graffiti and Asphalt" colorway, but wanted to see her selection in person before purchasing. It is a super cool color combo and I nabbed her last one on the Wonder Sock Yarn base (75% Superwash BFL / 25% nylon). In the picture below you can see the other two skeins that Mom picked out, both solids ("Ashes" and "Silver"), both on her MYS 62 base, which is a luscious blend of 60% Superwash Merino, 20% yak, and 20% silk.

Mom and I volunteered to help Julie Wilson teach one of her beginning spinning classes on Saturday, which was a great experience. Julie is a wonderful teacher (she was mine) and has a great approach for all learning styles.

We also took a class on spinning and blending rare fibers with Judith Mackenzie! For those who are not in the spinning or weaving world, Judith Mackenzie is a world-renowned spinner, weaver, fleece judge, teacher, and has apparently been called upon by some pretty important folks (royalty) to work on conserving textiles. She is a very knowledgeable, experienced, and esteemed woman in this community. And I would add wise to that list, too. And sweet. (But tough. She's married to a Montana rancher and spoke about many experiences related to the ranch. Yes, definitely tough, too.)  She was very soft-spoken and sweet, despite my barely contained excitement (as close to rock-star-fandom-level excitement as I get) at meeting her and being taught by her. She doesn't just teach, she tells stories. It was dreamy to spin with luxury fibers (cashmere, camel, yak) while she spun tales and demonstrated. And she didn't say anything when I was so rude as to whip out my cell phone and take pictures every now and then. (I generally don't do it, for fear of making any presenter or teacher nervous, unless I've asked ahead of time.) She doesn't have a personal web presence per se, so I've linked to the Interweave Store's page of her videos and books. Here she is:

And she is tiny!

After SAFF...was November...and then December...and I don't remember much, except that I was not feeling so great. I let the new year creep in softly. I do remember it rained. A lot.

On New Year's Day, I did bundle up and take my mother with me to the highest point of the Blue Ridge Parkway, just for a brief, frigid walk in the hopes of setting a tone of discovery for the new year. This was at mile marker 431.4, at the Richland Balsam Overlook, which is at an elevation of 6053 feet. Our house is at about 3000 feet, but not too many miles away. These pictures are from that overlook or on the way to it.

And then it finally snowed. And snowed some more. And snow being more exciting than rain, it was therefore dubbed the Blizzard of 2016. Actually it was manageable for us, but pretty rough elsewhere along the eastern seaboard.

Here is Samson, the bigger of our Great Danes, viewing his great white kingdom:

And here is a particularly nice, silvery sunrise:

Our property faces south, so our snow melted pretty quickly, but there were many areas that simply aren't graced by winter sunlight in these mountains. On family property in the Balsam Gap area, there were patches of ice and snow for over a week after our snow was completely gone.

We are all done with playing catch up. Now, on to what is currently going on.

I'm spinning up some chunky singles from batts that I picked up at last year's regional "Anything Fiber Sale" at Warren Wilson College.

Cuckoo for Cuckoobatts Club Batts from Art Club in "Meadow" (Superwash wool, Tencel, nylon, and alpaca)

I'm weaving a color-and-weave sampler based on the samples given in Jane Patrick's The Weaver's Idea Book: Creative Cloth on a Rigid Heddle Loom (pages 24-25). I'm using Knit Picks CotLin yarn (70% Targuis Cotton / 30% Linen) in "Whisker" and "Planetarium".

I haven't forgotten knitting. In fact, I have a ridiculous number of WIPs. At least four of which I could grab right now, in this very room: 1 complete-except-for-a-toe pair of socks, 1 almost-to-the-toe sock for another pair, and 2 sweaters that have both been worked from the top down, past the sleeve split and halted mid-torso.

I'll be back soon with details of what lies ahead in 2016. I've also discovered some new podcasts that I'd like to share.

Oh, I have a blog?

It is such a wonderful fall day on the mountain. I'm writing this from the backyard patio, feet propped up, breeze cooling off the mid-day heat, and golden light filtering through tree leaves in a dozen colors.

So many things have happened! I have more yarn and fiber and tons of new pictures, and it's almost time for SAFF! This post will mostly be pictures. I'll try to go in chronological order.

June was a busy month. On June 6th, the Local Cloth initiative in the Western North Carolina area put on an event held at the Asheville Farmer's Market called "Fiber Feel Day". The purpose was to bring local fiber farmers in touch with local fiber artists. My goal was to get as many different breeds of fleece to spin as I could.

I made a killing at the Twist Fiber Studio booth, Ashley Eskew's company.

Brown Jacob, Cheviot, Grey Gotland, and Targhee, all combed top.

Unfortunately, I didn't keep records so well for these (except the first, obviously from Echoview Fiber Mill), but I do know the fiber content.

A Merino blend.

Llama cloud.

Teeswater mix combed top and Icelandic with the both the tog & thel fibers included. 

There were these precious pygmy angora goats, or pygoras, from Mountain Meadow Farm in Franklin, NC.

Also in June, The National NeedleArts Association held the annual Stitch-N-Pitch night in partnership with the Major League Baseball association and we attended the event at McCormick Field in Asheville, NC, home of the Asheville Tourists team (farm team for the Colorado Rockies team). Unfortunately it was a very damp evening, but there was this beautiful sight while we waited for the first pitch (made with a ball of yarn, by the way!):

After the Stitch-N-Pitch game, was the Appalachian Lifestyle Celebration in downtown Waynesville, NC. The Smoky Mountain Knitting Guild has a booth at this annual street festival and this year the guild yarn bombed one of my favorite metal sculptures for the event!

"Old Time Music" set to yarn!

Julie Wilson, of Jehovah Raah Farm (and also my friend and spinning teacher), brought samples of her fiber wares, her spinning wheel, and some furry friends to the festival. 

Julie spinning mohair locks on one of her Lendrums.

Llama and alpaca.

Shetland ewes and new lambs!!

A handsome Angora goat.

I was on hand when Julie conducted a sheep shearing demonstration and asked me to hold one of the lambs close to the mother ewe's face to help keep her calm on the shearing table...I was sooooo flipping excited! You'd a thunk I was a townie for being so giddy at holding the lamb. It was actually the first shearing I'd seen in person, but I was so distracted by getting to lamb cuddle that I was barely able to watch the goings-on. 

I'm so excited that I held that lamb, that I don't even care about that terrible double-chin.

And then, as ironic as it may seem, I got to pet a real wolf (well, she's about 93% or so):

Isn't she lovely? 

I had to leave midway through the day because of ankle and foot pain due to swelling, a problem that I've never had to deal with prior to this year. As I write this, my right foot is swollen and propped up on a chair. (I snuck in some plying this morning on Mom's double-treadle Lendrum, but I couldn't do it for very long. Boo.) It wasn't long after this street festival that I saw my doctor and, via a blood test, she discovered that my thyroid had decided to call it quits. New meds seem to help, but when the dosage was recently adjusted lower, the swelling returned...just in time to throw off my Spinzilla game. Ugh. Too much spinning fiber and no healthy feet to treadle!

In July, Mum and I spent time with friends spinning at Julie Wilson's farm. The knitting guild's annual picnic was also held there in September. You can see how Julie decorates everything beautifully. Her house is a 200-year-old cabin! 

In September, Mum and I headed south, to historic downtown Columbus, GA, right on the Chattahoochee River, for the Georgia Fiber Fest.  This fiber festival began in 2012 as an Alpaca-focused event. Although it is still, thankfully, full of alpaca fiber vendors, the festival offers classes in all sorts of fiber crafts and hosts vendors with products from many fiber animals. We stayed in the Marriott hotel directly across the street from the convention center and had a great experience. We shopped till we dropped!

Much of that is indeed from alpacas, but there is much wonderful wool and tons of wonderful hand-painted yarn and fleece. I'll eventually photograph each with its proper source.

Mum and I also went with Ann, a good friend we've met through spinning classes, to a regional "Anything Fiber Sale" at Warren Wilson College. It was a giant stash-busting sale for anyone participating, housed in a gymnasium. Here's what came home with us: 

Again, more details on what's in that heap later.

I've been knitting! With a gimpy foot, I had to lay off spinning, so reading and knitting caught up. Here are some of the finished objects. 

The Edison shawl in three shades of Knit Picks Palette (my Rav project page). 

The Brush Creek Shawl in three shades of Knit Picks Palette (my Rav prject page).

A Sockhead hat in Miss Babs "Zombie Prom" colorway on the Hot Shot base.

I've also begun the Danshui cardigan in Knit Picks Andean Treasure (100% baby alpaca!!) in "Verdant Heather" green. It is soooo soft! This one is for me. Yum. It is top-down and I've already begun the body below the arm pit. 

The lace edging.

I've begun the BooKnits Voodoo MKAL (Mystery Knit-A-Long) with this Miss Babs lace in "Black Magic" with amethyst purple, silver-lined beads:

I also began a cowl with some homespun, but it is currently languishing because I messed up on a row while trying to knit with a sinus infection...not good.

There are other projects in the works, but they're Christmas gifts, so they're secret for the time-being. 

There is still more to update!! But this is probably plenty for one post. Time to knit!