A Wee Accident

Last Monday on my way out of the Weavers and Spinners Guild meeting, I slipped on the ice in the parking lot. While I wasn’t injured seriously, I think I scared a couple of my friends. Sorry about that. I did twist my ankle and bruise my right side but nothing that ice and elevation couldn’t cure not to mention an Advil or two.

I spent Tuesday on the sofa with my foot up and lacking a work in progress that I could focus on (remember the Advil or two), I chose to start a new sock project. Out came the box with all my odds and ends of left over sock yarn and with a bit of colour sorting I managed to come up with a selection I could work with.

These are called odd ball socks of course.

First one is now done and as I start the second one I will keep the cuff, heel and toe in the cream and change out one of the colours. I plan to organize the colourways in a different random pattern as well.

Of course, now that I have found a use for all the left over bits I can justify buying more sock yarn because really I can get more than one pair of socks from a ball right?

Poker Night!

Okay so perhaps that’s a tad misleading. More  accurately, it should read “Poker Night Weavers and Spinners Style!”. Monday night was the monthly meeting of the Ottawa Valley Weavers and Spinners Guild. It was quite a rowdy lively evening. Our president issued us a challenge in the form of a poker hand, one for spinners and one for weavers. She’d made up a deck of cards for each group. I chose the spinners “game”.

We were each dealt 5 cards then we were allowed to discard and redraw one card twice each. On the other side of the cards was either a colour, technique, yarn type, fibre type or something else related to spinning. I assume the weavers game was similar. These were my cards:

We now have until the May meeting to come up with spun samples representing our cards. We can have more than one yarn which is a good thing as I’m not sure I could make one yarn from the above and I’m pretty certain that the lady who drew a 2 ply and a 3 ply would be pulling her hair about now. I’ve started a bit of research on the spiral and the knop. I’ve even had someone with birds volunteer some feathers. It should be an interesting challenge and I’m really looking forward to seeing what the end results of both mine and the other poker players will be. Stay tuned!

P.S. If you are a Guild member and you read this please list your cards in the comments.

Canadian Fibre Box

There has been an explosion in the fibre world of monthly “clubs”, sock yarn clubs, fibre clubs, art yarns, batt of the month, pattern of the month, the famous Phat Fiber Box. My favourite and the one that I treat myself to every single month is the Canadian Fibre Box put together by my friend Heather over at Ottawa Valley Fibre Arts. I love the idea that I am supporting Canadian fibre producers, artisans and Canadian companies. I like it even better when those Canadians are from my own backyard.

December’s box featured hand dyed corriedale fibre from the Hilltop Fibreworker. She dyes on the same fibre base that I do but using a completely different method resulting in a Fractal top for spinning self striping sock yarn. My box contained the Antique colourway.

Here is the finished yarn. It’s calling to me start knitting it into socks. I must resist for now since I have way too many projects on the go already.