Thursday, April 27, 2006

Traveling With Needles and Fiber

I have returned from a trip to the farm, where my online capabilities are severely limited, until a future time when we have a full system up and running. (though even then we will have to use dial-up as there is no DSL or cable modem hookup availability)

I took knitting with me, for a couple of projects that are being done for someone, and that I can't really talk about yet. Let's just say, though, that knitting socks on size 1 needles totally mystifies people on airplanes - they can't understand why I would want to make socks at all, much less using toothpicks! My favorite sock needles are the either Crystal Palace or Brittany DPNs, and #1 5" Brittanies do look a little like long toothpicks.

I attended two spinning events while I was out there, and really enjoyed both. The overarching spinning organization in the NW is the Northwest Regional Spinners Association, and I am a member of Area 6010, which includes the northwest part of Oregon, from Mt. Hood over to the coast. There is an evening casual spinning group that had it's monthly meeting while I was there, and the quarterly meeting and spin-in took place in the meeting room at Woodland Woolworks last weekend, and folks came from all over the area. The group was swept up in a wave of enthusiasm to put together a team for the Sheep-to-Shawl competition at the Black Sheep Gathering, and I was recruited as one of the spinners, even though I am not moving out until early June. This will be a lot of fun, I think, and will be a great way to meet and get to know people, so even though the timing is a little challenging it will be a good thing to participate in. I'll be receiving fiber and specs from the other team members to spin for the warp while I'm still in the East. A full report will follow after the weekend of June 23-24th.

I did take some pictures, but with a camera that uses film that needs to be developed, and that won't be done until the roll of film is used up, so nothing to show yet.


This weekend is a retreat in the Catskills, so I'm definately a spinster lately.