Now this is the life.

As a two legged creature, I would not be able to get away with this. Here is Asia in her new location, on newly hand spun yarn, lying in a patch of sun. I considered joining her, but the neighbours already think I'm a bit odd.

I expect to enjoy a fun filled day of labeling today (and looking for a nice patch of sun) !

UPDATE......

Mike is picking me up and we are on a road trip to Maple Ridge....I LOVE car knitting and resale/antique shopping on the road.........

Market Fresh

This weekend is the beginning of the Farmer's Market season for me. So what does that mean exactly?

These are the exciting bits:

• Fresh baked goods
• All the organic fruits and veggies for the week----heirloom tomatoes, shitake mushrooms!
• All my artisan, farm friend neighbours
• Awesome customers.
• Sunshine (sometimes - this is Vancouver)
• Sharing a tent with Joan this season.

This is less exciting:

• Loading the car at 7:00am
• Not having time to make a pot of coffee before leaving the house
• Trying to remember everything when you haven't had any coffee
• Unloading the car at 7:30 and putting up the tent.
• Long lines at the coffee truck on site.

In order to prep for my first time sharing space, Joan and I did a dry run today. Oddly enough it took us 6 hours to decide how to do our set up in 90 minutes on market day. We have photographs to not have to make any more display decisions for the season. Yippee.

Special thanks to Judy and Toni for coming over to help tear it all down and put it away!!!

Here are some sneak peeks.

The big picture.

The Kid's Lids


Scarf Corner

Hand spun hats and scarves

Merino Felts

As well as unique polymer clay jewelry, Joan is also making button (for all your knit projects, or mine) and even better. She has just introduced a line of knitting needles with gorgeous polymer clay tips on colourful aluminum needles.

We will be at Trout Lake this Saturday from 9:00am until 2:00pm. See you all there!

If it's before 9am, I'll be in the coffee line.

When do you become a spinner?

After acquiring pounds of fleece, 3 spinning wheels, assorted sundry repair kits and multiple bobbins, I am finally ready to consider myself a spinner.

In order to celebrate this momentous occasional, I designed a ball band to hug each and every spun ball of wool!


I've printed a small test run, so I don't know if this will be the final design, but I think it's a good start.

Just spun up today...Circus, circus.......just waiting for its ball band hug.....I have paid for my September workshop with PLUCKY FLUFF now, so it's a done deal. I think it's time to knit something now.

Scrappy and Happy

I was able to turn my handspun variations of greens and blues into something that I would love to wear (or see someone else wear). I took the hand spun into combinations of the greens and blues with a bit of mustard as well as was able to achieve the drape and float that I wanted.


Approximately 7ft long in a free form knit, the hand spun played well off of the hand dyed kid mohair. This design is called "Oceanic". I want to knit it again.

Available for purchase 130.00 plus applicable taxes.

SOLD- Enjoy your new scarf Sarah!

My heaviest hand spun yet......Because I am up for a challenge...However thanks to Pearl, I will soon have two new bobbins as I have splintered the current jumbo. No, I do not know how I did it.

200g of hand dyed merino-corriedale blend...super soft...

Just a wash and set and it will be ready to leave the nest.

Good Bye Portobello West

I really enjoyed this venue, and while I would love to spend the rest of the summer here...I am Whistler bound. Realistically, since I am selling very woolly things the elevation and breeziness, even the rain, makes this a better place to be.

I sold my best ever hand spun to Jean yesterday...



This week is going to be insane, pure production. I don't mind a good challenge, never shy from it, but seriously my quotas are high(which means sleep is low).

Finish inspirational project ----wasn't inspired, so I didn't start. The craft goddess left me high and dry yesterday....Thanks for nothing craft goddess ---shit---was that lightening.....? Sorry.

I'll kick that can again today in the sunshine (perhaps Kits beach?).

Lots of stuff to create to hand off to Pearl, a studio clean, labels, antennaes, kelp, more sheep, and custom orders.

Exciting news---it looks like John and Kim are up for a road trip to Sechelt while I will be having my Prudence Mapstone workshop. They will be kayaking while I am learning new techniques and hanging out in the yurt....What a great place to learn fibre things..

The contest entries are slowing down, but I know there are still plenty of good ideas out there. Five more days.....and yes, more than one prize will be happening now. Details to follow.

The Great Wall of Handspun

Okay, so the pile of sheep did not pan out....really a whole day of that....the spinner in me could not deal...so I ran in the direction of what gives me the post pleasure and washed a bunch of recent hand spun.

Here is my "dirty laundry" aired in public for all to see.

I'm going to the office for a few hours with Kim to help prepare for the office move. I may get to skip the gym today. I am expecting some lifting of some kind.

I've saved myself an interesting project for later.....come to me my lonely bits of hand spun and frogged and redone yarns...I command you to be some exciting piece of knitwear at some point....

Alright, I won't command you, but I ask you kindly for the inspiration required to stick to my fibre diet.

Pretty please.

Knee Deep in Sheep

Catching up on the kid's knits. I will be spending the rest of the day like this. Labels sewn, sheep fluffed up. It will be an exciting day (maybe not so much).

Yesterday the cats seemed to be all over the yarn, not their standard behavior. I apologize for the cat pics for those who are not cat fans.

I definitely was not giving everyone enough attention and they had no problem letting me know it. I finished the yarn with the cherries as well. I like it.

Enjoy your day, whatever your craft.

My Brain, Revisited

Due to the bizarre yarn dream I had last night, I have to repost my sketch. The dream itself was an interesting tapestry, but I must confess, I would like fibre to stay out of at least one dream. Particularly where fibre is not an appropriate option!

Of course today will be primarily dedicated to yarnie pursuits, but I think I would like to keep them to my day job.

All in a Day's Work

My days start with 3 or 4 things to work on, and if one is done by the end of the day, it is a success. I can't sit with one project without feeling the pull of a diversion of one kind or another, so I've finally decided to "plan the diversions".

This is one of them....the spun yarn is a lovely merino corriedale blend in brown and red.....definitely chocolate covered cherries, so I held back a bit of the red for some cherries ----- spun in once completed....I think I'll need about 20 of them.... and I'm conscious of the size of the cherries as I need to get them through the wheel orafice. I do not want to ply this on the spindle.
This is today's unfinished project.

A fantastic range of colours that I spun together, very electric and exciting. One ply is very fine and the other one is a bit thick and thin....Oh and today I am experimenting with coils. But not on this one...Finished yarn.

This one has my first coils. Yippee, trying to vary my spinning skills for Plucky Fluff --hate to be at the bottom of the class.

And now my big start (and finish) of the day....Here's the peek....


And the big finish. Do you think it needs a matching hat? Talk about being over accessorized.


This is all in preparation for my Prudence Mapstone workshop in July. I need to get a handle on working with these small quilty bits, but the yarns were gorgeous...an expensive sock yarn blended with silk and bamboo in solids from France. Just enough to umphhh in the design to show off the yarn.


It's only 10pm----one more design for the road? I'm too tired to work with the fine gauge felting needle. That thing can be quite hurty....

Maybe one little visit to Ravelry......

Shannon Falls and "The Chief"

Shannon Falls is about an hour north of Vancouver. John and I have not made it here in our 5 years on the West Coast. We promised ourselves a weekend of road trips. This is day two of our adventures.



There is a nice 2.5 km hike (only at a 550m) elevation) and I am toting my knitting, intending to find a flat service to knit on. Let's just say "not available". Where it was flat, the spray from the falls was amazing. At one point, I looked like I had stepped into a shower with clothes on. No, I did not document my drowned rat look!

In order to get back to the parking lot from your hike you have a choice ----walk along HWY 99 and the ongoing Olympics construction project --a quick 1km jaunt or repeat the trail. I'll call that the high road....I chose the high road.

Hiking back was more brutal, but an amazing view.


I loved this log, it looks like a weird tree god of the forest.

Something like this and yes, before we started drinking.

We celebrated the trek with a local on tap Wheat Beer --I have to find the name, it was amazing --with an orange slice in it. Now this is some vitamin C I can take. Giant burgers, beer, sunshine and patio and a view of the falls ----Beautiful end to another great BC adventure.

Tomorrow it is back to the knitting. One day off from the needles is enough.

Beach Glass

First, I found a piece of beach glass, then I started surfing for interesting photos of beach glass.

Then I spun some merino - corriedale blend that had the colours of beach glass.

Not satisfied that it was beach glassy enough. I decided to ply it with some Silk Haze (my new fav to ply with and strung on my own felted versions of beach glass. I can hardly wait to knit this. For once I don't think it's going to be a hat. No, I lied------it will be hat and crocheted to boot.


I've decided to take this on the car ride instead of the knitting I am supposed to work on..Did I ever mention that I hate sewing labels onto finished knitting.

Oh, I almost forgot ---fun weird picture of an excellent thrifted gift from Pearl.

The orange one is a crochet hook and the other two are big kid (like me) knitting needles.

The entire stash...Tunisian crochet hooks included...Yippee.

My Brain on Knitting

In the last few weeks I have registered for two workshops. I would like to take this moment to share a secret. I have never taken a course or a workshop before. I really enjoyed my badge of honour of considering myself "self taught".

The courses are heady ones and are as follows:

PluckyFluff - Outsider art spinning as I would refer to it.
Prudence Mapstone - Freeform crochet and knitting in July.

Both are pioneers in their respective fiber fields and I am already excited to participate.

Funny, I also taught my first workshop this year. So what does this mean?

In fibre arts, there is always something new to learn. Maybe that's why so many of us are attracted to it. One more new stitch to conquer, a new yarn to try out, a new technique, pattern, way of thinking. Are we all flexible and thirsting for knowledge.

I am. This is my brain on knitting.On the back of the brain (not shown in sketch) are family, friends and pets. They really do fit in to the scheme of things, please don't misunderstand my almost need for therapy compulsion.

Today we are off to Lake Harrison. It's a solid two hours of beautiful views and car knitting...LOVE IT>>>>

Lime & Violet and "the contest"

Well, it's no longer a little contest for a few of the local knitters. Thank you to my favourite blog for the chum yesterday.

Now here's my dilemma. I am drowning in design titles. Some for hats, scarves, shawls, handspun yarn, some for I can't even imagine what. When a knitter is drowning, just throw her more wool, so -----DON'T STOP the flow of these amazing ideas.

This confirms something I have known all the way along, people that knit are creative. I know some of my friends think they aren't because they "follow a pattern" and yet these folks have provided some of my best inspiration.

I could hardly get to sleep last night after reading all of your comments, and a slight confession. I may have a naughty yarn dream.

Thanks to everyone for your posts and confirming what I already knew about the fibre community.

Monkey on the Lamb to Wool Studio Carina

This post title is for Kim (and Steven Colbert).....Road trip, fibre road trip --even better. I wish I could have taken you all with us...We didn't have the station wagon today:(.

Just past Horseshoe Bay, there is driving in the front seat and some seriously monkeying around in the back seat...Why don't I drive? I would be arrested for knitting at the same time.


Pearl making monkeys. We will never reveal her secret and each one of us was rewarded with a travel monkey today......

Destination paradise --- and why paradise you say...well I think only the photos can do it justice. And remember this is all under one roof. Wool Studio Carina is the best place to knit on the Sea to Sky corridor. The owners are amazing and the yarns are luscious.

Oh and they have gelato. Many, many flavours.

And coffee, but I got a bit giddy after I started sipping my Americano and forgot to take pictures of the espresso magic being made. Settled and sated, it was time to dip into our reason for gathering....

Judy has broken away from us, she has taken a secret mistress (no longer secret) and become a traitor ( I mean weaver). Here is her 2nd project....it was gorgeous work. Damn her and her talent.

Sorry for the bad picture, but I wanted to show the entire comfy space with all the whole group.

A break from the knitting.

Everyone had projects, I was sewing labels into finished hats and scarves --not my favourite task, although I do get a certain sense of satisfaction out of that final act of completion. Another chick soon to leave the nest....


Monkey on the weaving, monkey on the weaving----packed and ready for the trip back to Vancouver. Thanks fibre gals for an inspirational day.