I HEART ROVING ACRES YARN

Back in September I wrote about the scarf I made for my mother from yarn she picked out at the Wool Gathering in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  It was a gorgeous variegated yarn from Roving Acres, a family farm in Ohio, and I feared not having enough to finish the scarf so I bought two skeins.  The scarf only took one and I left it up to my mother to decide what she'd like me to make with the other.

She chose a cowl, but most of the patterns I saw took too much yarn.  Turns out she made her own cowl from fabric last year, just a simple piece of material sewn together to make a circle.  I used her cloth cowl for the measurements and then tweaked a scarf pattern from Bernat (found here).  I used smaller needles than called for and added stitches to increase the width.  I then knitted until...well...until I ran out of yarn.  The edges were sewn together to form a circle.  It's smaller than most cowls out there, but just the right size for my mother's needs.  The finished product is 8-1/2" wide and 29" long doubled (or 58" total).  (Complete notes can be found on my Ravelry page here.)

Now, a word about that yarn.  I'm in LOVE with it.  I fondled many skeins at the Roving Acres booth at the Wool Gathering before my mother chose these particular colors.  The yarn is a worsted weight alpaca/merino wool and it's just delicious!  It's warm and wooly, but not scratchy at all.  And the hand-dyeing is just gorgeous.  After making two projects with their yarn I just couldn't take it anymore and had to get some for myself for a hat/scarf project.  Beth at Roving Acres was wonderful to work with and dyed for me the exact color of variegated yarn I wanted.  (They also have an Etsy shop here.)  I wanted shades of gray, from very light up to charcoal, and it came out beautiful.  I'm busily clicking away on the hat.  Hopefully I'll have the finished product to show in a week or two (before the first snow flies, preferably).

It's so nice to get back to working on an adult project after many weeks of creating Christmas stockings.  It's like that giddy feeling that a mother gets when she can finally pick up a novel of her choice after 5,298 readings of Goodnight, Moon.  Priceless...


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{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. -- Inspired by SouleMama

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YARN, ART, AND A FABULOUS WEIGHT WATCHERS CAKE RECIPE

On this dreary and rainy Monday here in Ohio I'm not feeling very wordy.  Gasp!  She who can write three paragraphs about her husband's holey underwear can't seem to find the vocabulary to describe the weekend.  This may have something to do with the aforementioned weather or the allergies that are making everyone's sinuses go wild or the fact that I decided today was the day I had to get back on the Weight Watchers wagon and really count my Points.  (That last one has an accompanying sugar withdrawal that tends to make me sprout horns and has The Inmates running for cover.)

So, with few words and lotsa color, I give you The Warden's Weekend:

On Saturday, the annual Wool Gathering in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

Tents full of yarn, supplies, and lots of demonstrations.

I love those supercilious llamas.

A nekkid sheep following the shearing demonstration.

Foghorn's favorite?  Getting a free chunk of fresh wool, still damp with lanolin.

Totally intimidated by those who not only knit but card and spin their own yarn.  Ack!

Foghorn making friends with the suppliers.

The Gathering takes place on the gorgeous grounds of Young's Dairy...

and they happen to sell ice cream that's out of this world.

Two hunks of merino/alpaca hand-dyed yarn from Ohio's  Roving Acres, waiting to be knit into a scarf for my mother.

On Sunday, the annual Loveland Art Show. 

All types of artisans and all types of goodies, from glass...

to pottery...

to sculpture.  (Mermaid-obsessed Foghorn's favorite.)

And, of course, the student art contest.  Foghorn had a lot of competition.

Of her two entries, WE actually thought the toucan (pictured in above photo on bottom left) was superior...

but the judges preferred her clown -- a mix of paint, marker, and paper mache hair.  The winner!

And while waiting for the judges' decision, Foghorn constructed a fairy house under a tree.

Habitat for Humanity Fairies.

As for that promised recipe, yesterday my mother made a Weight Watchers two-ingredient cake from a recipe that's been floating around the Internet.  It uses a box of cake mix and a can of diet soda.  As you can imagine, the combinations are endless.  My mother made a white cake with a lemon-lime soda and topped with a light cream cheese and lemon frosting.  GOOD!  Not so good I'd binge on the entire cake, but definitely good enough to take the edge off a cake craving.  You can get the full recipe at her blog, Lillian's Cupboard, here.

With the ugly weather today, I wish I could go curl up in bed with one of those wooly sheep and just sleep away.  I'll have to settle for a hound dog...or two...


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KNITTING: WHAT'S S.E.X. GOT TO DO WITH IT?

I previously mentioned (enough times to be annoying by now) that I adore Debbie Stoller, author of the Stitch 'N Bitch books, for her patterns and her humor and the new terminology that's entered my life.  Oh, and the acronyms.  Let's not forget the acronyms.

My love of acronyms is why I almost titled this post "S.E.X. in the Morning," but fear of lurking perverts trolling the Web and gawking at my children forced me to edit.  In this case "s.e.x." stands for  "stash enrichment expedition."  Translation:  yarn shopping!

I ran out to Hobby Lobby for three small skeins of cotton yarn for a very specific project.  I did not need more yarn.  I have half a dozen knitting books and a binder filled with printouts of free online patterns and I still don't feel competent enough to make anything more challenging than a scarf.  I also have a 3" x 5" card listing planned projects (meaning I have the yarn and correct sized needles and pattern), which could easily have me knitting through the 2012 Summer Olympics with no further purchasing.

Like I said, I went out for three particular skeins for one particular project  Yes, indeed, I did.  Can somebody explain, then, why I came home with this?

Foghorn and her kick-ass boots

It's that damn Hobby Lobby clearance rack!  They gotta quit putting $10 skeins of yarn on there at 60% off, especially when I plan on going to the Wool Gathering in Yellow Springs later this month and stocking up on yarn from family-owned businesses and sheep I can actually thank in person.  I already had half a dozen skeins, still in wrappers, that I picked up at an estate sale last month.  And then there was this past Saturday morning, when I went to the Truly Blest consignment store sale, and came home with a couple dozen clothing items, a pair of kick-ass boots for Foghorn...and three skeins of yarn...still in the wrappers.  I wonder if the Betty Ford Center has any options for my addiction?




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