On Friday (a day of vacation), Paulette, her sister Cheryl and I went down to Jefferson, WI for the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival. Oh mama, it didn't disappoint! Here are my purchases in no particular order:
Here we have (for the non-spinners amongst you) a wraps per inch gauge. Useful for determining what gauge yarn you have. It has one inch and one-half inch openings.
This is a spinner's control card. You use it to determine the weight of yarn you are spinning by comparing the "single" or ply you are spinning to the marks on the card.
These are one of the things I went to find at Sheep and Wool. They are Louet Mini Cotton Cards. Of course, I had to try them out. They make the locks of the the alpaca I have washed into nice fluffy fiber for spinning. I am very clumsy with them yet. I managed to card one of my little fingers, which bled profusely. I have about a quarter of a shoebox carded into "rolags" of fluffy baby alpaca fiber.
This is sparkly fiber that you can incorporate into the wool, alpaca, etc. fiber when you are carding it. I did put some of the white into one of the rolags I carded to see what it looks like. It's pretty!
Patty had a booth there with her alpaca farm stuff. She brought the rest of Diamond Rio's fiber (after Vicki and I had taken what we wanted from it) and also other fiber (including some from my favorite alpaca, Silver Bells). Diamond Rio and Silver Bell's fiber sold very quickly.
We also saw Vicki from our knitting group there. She was with her mom.
On Saturday we got up early to drive to Schaumburg, IL to Stitches Midwest. More money was spent. Here's the loot:
These are really expensive stainless steel Signature double pointed needles in size 0. I saw Paulette snap a wooden size 0 in half last week, while she was knitting with it. I didn't want to suffer the same fate. She bought some of these, too.
Aren't these pretty? I am going to make the smaller ones into pins. They are just on floral wire right now.
This is a really expensive, but really pretty, shawl stick. You use it to keep your shawl on by sticking it through the lacy fabric, kind of like a big stick pin.
Finally, I found yarn for the Peacock Feathers shawl I want to make. And it was inexpensive as well, ringing in at $7.50 per skein. I bought 4 skeins.
Here's a picture of the shawl:
Isn't it lovely?
I also bought this lovely pima cotton yarn from the Windy Valley Muskox booth. I bought 9 balls of it, enough to make a tank top. I also bought another ball of the Quiviut blend in aqua. I now have enough of that to make the Swallowtail shawl.
Yesterday, I was inspired during church. I know, I know, I should be paying attention. I was, but all of a sudden it came to me how I could make my own shawl sticks. I went up to Appleton for supplies. Here are the finished products:
I will be making a lot more of these. Perhaps I'll look into selling them somehow.
I did manage to get in some knitting time, since I didn't drive for most of Friday and Saturday. I am currently binding off the body of the Lace Circle Sweater, aka The Pink Blob. Next move with it is to cast on sleeve one. I normally knit two sleeves at a time, but these are knit in the round on circular needles. So, it's one at a time.
Tomorrow is Paulette's birthday. I am taking a furlough day. Don't know what she wants to do yet. If you all recall, I went to Door County on my birthday.
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