Italy!!

I leave for Florence Italy on Monday and I am so excited, giddy, nervous, a tad overwhelmed and a bit vaklempt. I can't wait, this is my first trip outside the US and I am eager to find new culture, people and well.. yarn! My bf laughed because I have printed out maps to 5 yarn shops in Florence. He thinks I'll have other things to spend my small amount of "fun money" on. He obviously isn't in touch with reality.

Everything has been so busy with planning, orgnaizing and of course working frantically to finish a sweater that I want to wear in Italy, that I really haven't had time to post. It's funny that I have 2 posts and only a few readers but at the end of the day I was dissapointed that I didn't post. I think I've had this idea that I should only post if I had time and thoughts enough to put up a long post. I need to stop overthinking :P

I will be returning on May 2nd so I'll put up pictures and talk about some of my fun adventures then. I'll be at knit night on the 3rd. Hope to see Janna and Kathy there!

Self deprecation rears it's head..

Last night was knit night at The Naked Sheep Knit Shop although it looked more like spinning night. We had 5 spinners, 4 wheels with 2 newbies learning to spin. It was a lot of fun and interesting to hear how other more experienced spinners gave advice to the 2 new guys. Yep both were guys! Actually of the 5 spinners there 3 were guys. It's good to see more male spinners and nice to help propagate the species. Back to the advice giving though. I didn't always agree with the advice being given but I felt like I shouldn't say anything because I've only been spinning for 2 months. I know the two more advanced spinners wouldn't have cared if I put in my two cents but for some reason I kept quiet and later, when they had both left, mentioned some of my ideas to the newest spinner. He must have found it helpful because he thanked me a couple of times. Even with this evidence that perhaps I have some helpful advice to give I still played it down. "No no Bob was the helpful one, I'm just new at this". Why do I do this? I do it with my knitting too. "Anyone could knit this shawl, it's only 6 feet of entrelac" (which really isn't hard, just time consuming) I think I need to work on it, if it bothers me it probably bugs other people too. (Ok I know it does, my bf gets irritated when I'm downplaying compliments on my knitting and butts in to tell people how long it took and how amazing I am, it's nice to have someone toot your horn for you). So that will be my new goal. No more "Well it's ok for my second sock, I'm sure I can do better" and onto "Thank you, it took some time and I'm proud of this bit o' yarn!"

Ok after that long-windedness I'll move on to the best part of the night. Janna and Kathy both showed up last night. I even got a hug from Kathy! We met Janna and her DH's girls, Offspring Elder and Younger. Both are such beautiful and polite girls and Offspring Younger wowed us with a very cute baby bootie she was working on. I had a great time getting to know them all better. It was truly a lovely evening and I hope that we'll see each other at the shop more often!

A whole new world!

The title refers to blogging and spinning. I'm new to both so bear with me here. I've been thinking about starting a blog for a while but the the little voice in my head kept holding me back. "Who will read a blog from you? What if you have nothing to say? Will anyone laugh, blogs seem to make people spew coffee onto their computers and I'm not sure you can pull that off my dear." Finally I squashed the voice (actually I drowned it with chocolate, that usually works wonders) so here I am. Any advice to a new blogger?

In my knitting life I'm working on the Neckdown Summer Cardigan from Knitting Pure & Simple. I'm using Cascade Sierra Quatro in a beautiful blue color. (I can't find the ball band at the moment) You can see a picture of this at my friend and LYS owner, Cheri's, new blog in a pink variegated color (as everyone who knows Cheri should expect). The major difference between mine, besides the color, is that I believe Cheri's will probably fit, while apparently I have arm pits that fall to my belly button. I'm on gauge and the bust size is supposed to end up two inches smaller than my actual bust so I have no idea what happened. Right now I'm in that denial stage, I should frog it, I know I won't like it later but somehow I keep knitting, imagining that the size fairy will somehow fix it. (Hopefully she doesn't fix it by making me bigger, I don't need any help on that front :P )

I'm also working on a pair of Evelyn Clark Railroad Rib Socks in Lorna's Laces and Knitting Pure & Simple Lightweight Socks in On Lite Supersocke Cotton, Beach Color. I love this last yarn, it has been so much fun to work with.

Ok my goal by next post - find a camera! I'll be able to show my projects and some of my handspun that way. Much easier then trying to explain about handspun merino in natural colors, that just sounds so boring and bland.