new yarn! yay

ok...so i've been a little derelict. but i have lovely new yarn to show! yay! two lovely matching handspun honeys!

and some handdyed sock yarn!

hedgehog love!

I found this little guy on my back porch and brought him home! hehe

He seemed a little afraid, balled all up, but here he is starting to come out of his ball.

new spindles to work on

i've been working on new spindles. the unicorn one is finally done... i'm pretty happy with how it turned out...then i dyed some roving...i'm calling this iris...i love the combo of colors. and now, i am working on a hedgehog spindle. so far i just have the beginnings of a drawing...

the night before i went trotting off to denver i dyed two skeins of yarn...i took one along to give to stephanie pearl-mcphee and have one still around. it turned out very springy--i love the color combo...the yellow is more greeny-yellow than just yellow altho there are bits of truly yellow tho and bits of blue all in a field of blue...very much like a spring meadow.

...and back

so...it was a long drive. I started out on Thursday at 8am. It was cold, it was snowing, and the roads were slippery! I drove as far as Hot Springs...and it got worse. It was sleeting, and cold, and very slippery. I wondered about what on earth had possessed me. How important and fun could the Yarn Harlot be? I kept going...

It was nasty until i was almost through Wyoming. But, I got to Colorado, and it was 54 degrees, and sunny.

I had maps from Google maps...(in case you don't know...don't get those). I got to Denver at about 3:30 pm and decided to find the bookstore. I had a map..it should be easy, right? WRONG. It took me almost an hour of wandering blankly around downtown Denver before i happened to find the bookstore. completely by accident. In case you haven't been there be aware of a couple of things:

1)You can't drive on 16th in downtown Denver.
2)If you are going somewhere on 16th, find your way there, park (anywhere) and take the FREE shuttle.
3)Downtown Denver has LOTS of one way streets.

When i finally found the Tattered Cover I called my husband. He wanted to know if i had checked in. I told him i'd find my the hotel later. I was going to the bookstore. He said he was sure if i got there by 5 pm that would be plenty early. I decided to go to the bookstore anyway! When i arrived I found that there were already about 50 people ahead of me in line. so if you get the chance to go see Stephanie talk a couple of important notes.

1)Go early, knitters are committed (Perhaps i should say "should BE committed" but i won't)
2)take knitting, you'll have lots of time to wait.
3)Be prepared to laugh...a LOT.
4)Don't forget you're camera..i did :-(

The talk was amazing... not to be missed. She signed my book and i wandered away to find the hotel.

at 8:30 pm.

Please remember that google maps should not be trusted. I drove around for over an hour and finally called the place. the map was totally wrong. Finally i did find it.

At 10:30 PM. ACK. I went and had a drink and went to bed. Unfortunately at 2:30AM i was rather rudely awakened by a fire alarm. I jumped out of bed, grabbed clothes, threw them on, grabbed my purse and my autographed copy of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off. Have to keep my priorities straight. Even yarn is replaceable after all...And run down 8 flights of stairs. ACK.

I walk out into the lobby. the lady behind the desk says: "What? Why are you here? there's no fire, it's a false alarm."

No way, she's on the phone telling people not to leave their rooms, and asking other people if there is smoke on their floor. What a dip. So i sit in the lobby and wait for the fire dept. to arrive. Lucky me, i have a book to read :-) Eventually we get the all clear. I go back up on the elevator and fall into bed.

The next thing i remember is someone knocking at the door. I am not awake, i am not functional, it is 8 AM. WOW. then she tries to come in. ACK.

I manage to fall out of bed, walk to the door, only to find that someone woke me up so i'd know my morning paper was here. ACK. I got dressed and went to find coffee. NO one should have to face the world without coffee.

Unfortunately it was sleeting... and freezing...and my car had to be scraped completely. But i arrived home eventually...

what have we learned:

1) Never, never trust google maps!
2) Never drive in Downtown Denver!
3) It was all worth it and i'd do it again...twice!

to denver...

i know it's nutty...i feel nutty. but i'm doing it. yesterday i actually checked the yarn harlot's tour and realized....Oh. MY. GOD. she's going to be in Denver TODAY! That, in South Dakota terms in pretty darned close. Only, like, 6 hours or so. So I'm going! I can't believe it. I made reservation, my husband made me maps, i can do this!
Anyway...I feel nutty. It's 5 am and i'm up writing...way too nuts!

fun and funky new sock yarn

so...i've been playing with new dyeing methods. this particular one takes too long to do often but creates the most lovely results...a gradiated yarn. it will gradiate from top to toe through the colors. i actually went to all the work to create to matching/not quite matching skeins!