Yarn along a little late

Joining in with Ginny and the other ladies of the Yarn along! even though I am late.

I was sick since Friday. I am behind in everything.

 This is Mom's Sweater. She worked on it while waiting to hear about Dad's surgery. (He has a little infection in the knee but the doctor in not worried and he is otherwise doing well) This is Mom's first ever sweater and first ever color work. Her whales are less whale-like than they were supposed to be but she is going to try to fix that with her cross stitching skills after she finishes the sleeves.

 The Sweater for Butterfly may get done today - if I get off the computer - I ran out of the yarn I had made! So I blended some white wool with some chocolate alpaca and spun up more yarn. It is so soft. The other yarn was very soft but this is even more so. She love the row of hearts as she is calling the pink.

 Longer view this time without my toes. The sweater needs my to finish the color work, decrease, do the neck and sew the armpits. Oh and attach the pocket. I am re-reading Face the Fire by Nora Roberts. I love the characters she builds. In this story I particularly like how you work through with them how their actions long ago affected each other and why they made the choices they did. 

 While Mom was working on the sweater, I worked on the weather blanket. I had left it to get behind both because I wanted something to do the day of the surgery that I didn't have to think about so much and because I was working on the sweater for Butterfly. I did not catch up but I did get a lot done. I hope to get all caught up before the weekend is over.

~Julia

My adventure.

I loaded up the Mouse and got him to kindergarten this morning then Team Girl went on an adventure!  To Wisconsin Spin In.  I could not take a class there (girls and wheel not working so well) but figured I could buy some fiber, look, touch and dream.  I was a little worried too taking the girls with but we talked about not touching or running.  The first couple of people did not seem pleased to have the littles, but the yarn and roving were so beautiful!

Then we were greeted by two wonderful alpaca farmers, who were loom knitting hats.  They invited us into their small stall and told us to touch everything!  These men where awesome.  I explained I wanted to look at everything before buying anything, and off we went.  The next stall had a woman spinning out front wearing an apron made out of blue bandannas, she greeted the girls first and we chatted about my wheel.  They repair wheels but their store is about a 2-3 drive from here!  She was supper nice.  We wandered around, and Butterfly, who wants to be a musician, was fascinated with the man playing music and surprised her momma in knowing that he was playing a banjo.   I really have to figure out some music lessons for her.

After we had look around we went back to the lady with the cool apron and asked if tell would be able to take a look at my wheel here.  The convention is through tomorrow  too, so I was hopeful.  When she found out it was in the car she told me to grab it and watched the girls while I went so I wasn't trying to push a stroller with one hand carry the wheel with the other.  Her husband come out and laughed at my drive band!  Then looked further,  the orifice is not in-line with the hooks, putting tension on the flyer - causing my draft problem and the drive wheel was spinning a bit on the axle.  He has to take those pieces home with him and will mail them back to me.  He figured it would only be like $15-20 and he is sending me a proper drive band as well.

We also went back to the alpaca farmers and are now the proud, excited owners a 21oz of unwashed alpaca fleece, from a soft light brown gal named Reba who lives about an hour and a half from us.  

Camel it is a darker brown than is showing up.

We met a nice lady selling Camel that was picked by women and children in Afghanistan, hand de-haired by them and sold often as their only means of support.  1 oz was eight dollars most of which goes back to the people who actually collected the fiber.  We got an oz, no clue what we will do with it, but it is really soft and I feel good about the purchase.  Badger insisted on carrying the little bag. 

Hope your adventures bring you joy and excitement! - Julia