Mom's Day

What a way to spend a Mother's Day! You've got to love a place that has a fiber festival every year on Mother's Day weekend! Another reason why I LOVE Minnesota. I tried not to go too crazy with purchases. The biggest extravagence was the final purchase of this fleece I could not resist.

It is six pounds of the most beautiful Shetland-Border Leicester cross, and it is more black then the picture shows. It is soft and springy and I can't wait to get some of it scoured. Other purchases that I couldn't resist were this ball of beautiful Merino. It is about 14 oz worth.

Next to the merino are a spindle and inkle loom. As you can see, I was spinning some roving while Elizabeth was watching the sheep shearing. I bought to small bags of Icelandic lamb roving, unbelievably soft! But not as soft as this Angora bunny!

Elizabeth had a great time seeing all of the animals and watching the sheep shearing. She loved seeing the border collies herding the sheep. My last few purchases were yarns. I couldn't resist the Kimmit Croft fiber booth. I have been in love with their Angora/Rambouilet blend ever since I knit my first bohus sweater. The blend is now Angora and Merino but is still delightfully soft. Of course Elizabeth had definite opinions about what yarns I should buy to make something for HER and initially grabbed some baby blue and pink. I managed to 'redirect' her and persuade her that the following colors would make great mittens etc.

Next to the Kimmet yarn is some fingering weight Alpace in four different colors (the black skein on the bottom faded into the background). Believe it or not, this was 'restrained' purchasing. Oh, and I might have agreed to take home some Angora/Merino roving from Kimmet--the salesperson didn't wnt to have to take it home, so she gave me a pound for about $10. What could I say!?!

New directions

This always happens. Whenever I limit my yarn purchases some other obsession overtakes me and I end up spending money on that instead. This time the obsession started with the innocent purchase of this book

...which then led to the purchase of this...

....and this......some of which became this... As we have been remodelling the lake house, I have been thinking about bedding for the two main bedrooms. The patterns in the book inspired me to look for fabrics to make quilts for both of these rooms. Six hours of sewing later, I have the quilt tops done. I have some fabric cutting to do for the backs and then can proceed with the actual quilting process. I keep telling myself that it is all justified because I am never able to find what I want in the catalogs. If everything comes together, it will be worth it.

This has also led me to explore the idea of coming up with some simple quilt designs and market my skills in the various textile venues (knitting, sewing, weaving) to make textiles for homes. Terri sounded enthusiastic about having some throws, towels etc in her shop. I have a couple of other projects brewing including a throw and a quilt for the Master bedroom in Woodbury. I have to warp my table loom so that I can do some samples for the throw, and I need to go on a quilting store expedition to look for fabrics for the quilt.

Also in my thoughts are some table linens to match our new dining room chair fabric:

So far it has been hard to find fabric so I may switch to thinking about some woven mats etc. I am also working on keeping a design journal as I work through these projects so that I have something to show potential customers in the future. Of course that led to the idea of making a folio for my design tools so I have ordered some fabric for that as well.

Hum, the yarn stash is stable to slightly smaller, but the fabric stash is increasing.