Well, I guess it's about time...

...for the obligatory Spa post. For me, it was great. The drive up was hell, for certain -- 3 white knuckle hours in the snow. Once we arrived and joined our friends, I happily handed the keys of the people mover over to Chris so we could all head off to Pedro O'Hara's for dinner -- and DRINKS. Muchly needed. Back to the Hilton Bar for a few more, then off to bed. I was happy to turn in a little early as I wanted to make the most of the following day, but was sad to hear I missed a lot of spinning fun in the "Town Hall". Funny thing about me -- when I am at these sort of events, I get so restless, flitting around from place to place and group to group (yeah, wonder where my son gets it!) trying to see as many friends and sights as I can. We (Ericka, Chris and I) did explore the tastes of Freeport a bit taking in a breakfast at a local Stickybuns joint and later, sushi. Mostly, I was lazy, and I liked it. I got very little spinning done, but my one real coup for the weekend was the seaming of Poppy. YAY! I had never seamed a sleeve before and thought it best to wait for expert advice. Blogless Alpaca Kathy gave me a hand Sat. eve while we had huge amounts of fun in the hall with only a few stragglers -- most attendees were at the fashion show -- and later both Terry and Cheryl checked my work and gave it the OK. Terry also gave me some great tips for the future and I will never again avoid a pattern because of the need to seam (although I still love a top-down-in -the-round raglan most). And here she is, Poppy (head cropped to protect the hideous -- seriously, bad pic!)...


It is still in need of a crochet chain edging to combat the under-curl, but I've worn it three times already anyway. It is now drying along with the newly blocked Mr. Greenjeans. Yes, that's right -- sweater #2 is complete, but more on that later.
As for purchases, I was sickeningly good. Finances have been tight, and we certainly aren't out of the hole yet, so if I could make it myself, or wouldn't get to it for some time, it didn't come home. That said, I bought 4 skeins of yarn. 4. And one little jar of my favorite lavender-lemongrass-patchuli hand cream. All these came from Nancy Benda of the Spinning Bunny. The yarn was two lovely skeins each from her cormo and her cvm sheep, the cormo in a natural creamy white, and the cvm in a nice soft oatmeal, both woolen spun for a delighfully springy yarn. Kelly had a laugh at my need to knit with natural colors, after always playing with color. Seriously, I never once looked at this yarn as a canvas, as I do my own base yarns. Something about knowing that they came from her sheep makes the need to leave the yarn natural very strong. I plan to use the two colors to make some nice, subtle fair-isle mittens and maybe a matching hat. I am still in search of just the right pattern.
I did manage to finish a bit of spinning and start a new batch. I finished a skein of solid green plied with a variegated handpaint (my own)

in order to free the bobbins and then started a batch of Blue Hawaii Falkland that I had been saving for myself. I often have a tough time getting the Falkland to take the dye strongly but this batch was SATURATED and oh so bright.

The trade off was that it got a teeny tiny bit felty, so I didn't want to sell it. I got the first bobbin done, splitting the roving in half down the full length and then stripping this out into 6 different smaller strips. Once I got back home, I stripped the remaining portion into two relatively equal strips and spun from those. It seems to have created some rather intersting striping in the finished yarn, which still needs to be transferreed from the bobbin to niddy noddy and set. I'll get pics up soon, as I may need some help deciding just what it will grow up to be. My original plan -- as it always seems to be with 4oz. of fiber -- was for socks, and I do think the bright colors and stripes would be great or this, but depending on WPI, I may lean more toward a small shawl, wrap, or scarf. hmmmm
As for the Mr. Greejeans/Bluejeans/Jericho sweater, I finished this yesterday, a little sad I didn't make it under the wire for Feb., even with the leap day, but am thrilled to have it done none-the-less.



Pics are of the first blocking, which this morning's fitting proved to be too vigorous, once again, as it lost the waist shaping created by the cables, so it is laying out once again, sans blocking pins on the outer edges. I'll try for a modeled photo shoot as soon as it is dry. I am so glad I went for the smaller size, as this still has a fair amount of ease after blocking.