It seems like forever ago

Well it does seem like its been forever ago that I have updated my blog. I do have an excuse. I have been really busy getting ready for the State fair. I have been knitting, spinning, crocheting, needlepointing, and even candlewicking. Last year I won the NeedleArts sweepstakes but not the grand sweepstakes so that has been my goal this year. Well now that I have everything all done. I am at the point where I just don't care anymore. I'm not sure I will even try for it again. By the end of July I really hated knitting. Which is a first for me. I decided that I needed to take a break and just make something for the heck of it. So now I am looking to the future. What will be my future projects, etc.

Also this summer I have been busy doing the mom thing. Taking the kids to the YMCA, helping them with their 4H projects. My oldest daughter went to Mexico on a mission trip. So as you can see I have been busy. One thing that I also did this summer that was totally fun was attending a spinning retreat. I am not a big camper. OK I really hate to camp. I just hate being dirty. Well last week I attended this retreat and boy was it worth all the dirt and cold nights. I had so much fun. I will update you all later on that.

I will also update you on what I plan to enter at the fair next week along with how I did.

But for right now I want to tell you about the Ravelympics. I did spin for the Tour de Fleece, which was a lot of fun, so I decided to join in on the Ravelympics. I have entered two categories. the Handspun heptathlon and the shawl relay. My local knitting guild is hosting a party tomorrow night at the local yarn store. We are calling it a cast on party. We plan to have a dessert pot luck and watch the opening ceremonies and cast on for a shawl. The original idea was to cast on a shawl from the book Folk Shawls. Which was what I was planning on doing, until. Until I couldn't decided what yarn to use for what shawl. So I am doing something different. My spinning group had a dye day back in June. We dyed roving from 4 different colorways that were shown in the fall issue of Handwoven. I fell in love with the fall colorway, which are not my usually colors. I really like jeweltones normally. Well we ended up with about 1 to 2 ounces of 6 different colors in the colorway. So what I did was spin them in order. Starting with dark brown, gold, orange, and green, then repeated until all the samples were spun up. I then plied the single with a chocolate brown single to tone down the colors a bit. My plan is to make the scarf on the cover of the current Spin Off. I plan to cast on more for a shawl. I ended up with 942 yards of a sport/ fingering weight yarn. So I think I will have plenty to make a wrap/shawl.

For my spinning project I have 3 pounds of a dark chocolate wool that I believe is Cooridale but I'm not totally sure. I bought it a few years back at a fiber fair and the receipt says top so I'm not 100% sure. Anyway its looks wonderful and is soft enough for a sweater, which is the ultimate plan. I want to use the yarn to knit the Back to Vermont Sweater that is in the book Nature Knitter.

So as you can see I will be once again a busy little beaver for the next couple of weeks. I am also working on some yarn on the spindle for some mits and I do have a pair of monkey socks going using yarn that I dyed as sock blanks. I will show you more as I get them going.