Spinning & Knitting Event

Last night I took time to make some Buttermilk Orange-Cranberry Scones. I used this recipe as the basis for them. I also had a box of Krusteaz Scone Mix that I baked up. Made an orange glaze for the one and brought a jar of raspberry jam for the other. I was told they were good. I was busy helping, checking and encouraging people to buy things that I had a hard time drinking the coffee I brought! Susan asked about the jam and was raving how good it is that I sent the half jar home with her with the request of a return on the jar and ring.

Moving the tables around this morning for the vendors and moving the chairs out of the way was exciting as they were walking in to get setup. They were great and pitched in and helped. Took a bit of re-arranging of the normal space but it all worked. Vendors lined up around the outside and spinners and knitters in a big circle on the inside.

Everything was all setup by 10am and then it was just waiting for people to show up. It started a little slow and I never did do an official head count but I think 40-50 people were there through the day. We had people that just came in and shopped the vendors and then off to other events and some that came/shopped/left/came back and spun. I think that all the vendors had sales of some kind and definitely recovered their $5 table fee. ;-)

I ended up coming home with 8 ounces of gorgeous black Icelandic fleece that is going to more than make up for my previous experience in the spring. Its so soft!!!  It's from Ann's farm - Dolce Farm. We may do a 'field trip' up there in April to help skirt her fleeces when she does her shearing. (Oh no! Playing with sheep!)

Zena is the lamb this came from.

I picked up a vinyl sticker from Holly. She's starting a business to help you 'trick out your wheel'. StoneCairn is her design name but looks like the website is in holding right now.  My sticker is called Triad Dance and I'll try to get it on my wheel tomorrow so you can see. She has very nice instructions for how to place it.

We had a destash/swap table and Duffy brought a bunch of coned yarns that had been given to her. I saw it and immediately thought of my mother-in-law the weaver and that she could possibly use some for her loom. Left vm and she did show up later and take home a couple of cones that talked to her. I had a couple of huge balls of dusty rose 2ply unknown yarn talk to me. We did a burn test and the flame zipped right up the yarn until I blew it out because it was getting too close to my fingers. There was a little ball at the end so we all agreed it might have a little wool but it definitely had a nylon type source to it. I'll add it to my Ravelry stash but won't bore you with the awful flash photos here.

Tammy brought some of her stash and I quickly snatched up two skeins of Sock Candy in Blue Boo. It's a cotton/nylon yarn in pretty purple/blue/rose colors. Also seen as a stash addition. Looking forward to the socks they'll become!

Photos of the event:

Glady's the Therapy Dog. She was so good! She just chilled on her blanket.

I managed to get in a half an hour of spinning. Talked to a lot of people. Gave away great door prizes - thanks to all the vendors who shared! There were a lot of helping hands that helped put all the pieces back to the way the originally were and everyone was out of there by 4pm. Well except Shelia, Tammy and I. Brandon had the car at work and I had to wait for him to come get me, so they nicely hung out with me until he arrived. This gave me time to pick Shelia's brain and get Tammy's thoughts on different wood stuff related to spinning. Oh the ideas I have and now I just need to be let loose in the garage and some help from the dear husband and you might see a new business out of me. ;-)

The fun just keeps rolling along....

I had a nice long chat with Ronda at Cascade Farms in Camas. She has some Icelandic sheep that are going to be sheared on Saturday and we're going to come help out and pick the fleece that we'd like to buy. We have a group that are coming from the Hillsboro area and others from the rest of Portland to take advantage of getting to see the fleece on the sheep and the great price she's selling them.

Tuesday night was the book signing for Kim Harrison's White Witch, Black Curse. Kim and her publishers have been having fun using titles that have kind of a Clint Eastwood theme going. There were also a lot of people that had bought her pre-tour t-shirt for the book and so that was a nice surprise for her. Brandon's noticed that a lot of women who write urban fantasy also have colored their hair red or are natural redheads. Interesting note. ;^)

While there I cast on a sock, but didn't ask her to hold it because it was only a couple rows long by then. I'd actually cast it on twice during the reading and Q&A time. I tried it with 60 sts and that looked too small so went with the suggest 72 sts. It seems too big while working it but seems to be working out and I have enough of a cuff that I can always turn it over. So the yarn is Stitchjones in the colorway "I'm With The Band" and I am doing her "Traffic Stoppin' Boot Sock" pattern so I'm calling the socks "Band Stoppin' Boot Socks":

Wednesday was a small spinning group with just Tiggywinkleknits and Shelia there with me at Starbucks. It was kind of nice but would have been great if the others had been able to make it. We were able to do some brainstorming of locations for WWKiP day. The problem is finding a location that doesn't require the Certificate of Insurance, still is fairly public but also has sources of food/restrooms as well as parking. We came up with a few more ideas and are working those.

Wednesday night there was the trip over to Haggen's for the PDX-Knit-Bloggers group. I took along the sock and made more progress there. The colors are spiraling around. There was also some coordination of carpooling for the Saturday event. Cool handspuns to fondle and some FOs to oohhh and aaah over - a great evening!

Thursday I ended up not doing the Insomnia knitting since my head felt like it might want to come down with a cold. I instead was standing at the scanner and working pages through the computer. I did get out to the Aloha Grange and met up with Lavendarknits for the grange meeting. Fun bunch of people! We were there to ask permission to use the grange for the Wednesday Westside Spinners. So that we could get it without paying the $100 for 4 hour rental fee, Tammy and I became grange members. So we found a new home for the group!

The great part of using the grange is that we are able to have other area members with small children be able to come out and spin because they will be comfortable letting their kids play while we spin there. We can also bring in a coffee pot and make our own coffee! Since we're also meeting during lunch hour we can bring in food too. We just have to clean up the area that we'll be using.

The other fun note is that the grange secretary is a Tiggywinkleknits blog reader. One of the posts had mentioned our search for a permanent home and she was thinking that the grange would be a great place for it and there we were asking that same day. Great minds think alike. ;^) She'd also like to learn how to spin so will try to drop in during work some day.

Here's hoping that today's sunshine will carry over into tomorrow for the sheep shearing!!