Official

That's it.  It's official.  I am a Master Spinner.  I can now proudly wear that hat.  It's kind of amazing actually.

Receiving my certificate from Zach Webster.

Jan, Vanessa and I proudly showing off our fancy new certificates!
(You'll see that Jan's is way fancier, but that's because she's a keener-thats a good thing!- and had her book in before the official Olds College graduation cut off.  Mine and Vanessa's books were in by the Master Spinner program cut off that doesn't line up with the Colleges. We get the fancy diplomas during the next round of graduations) 

Legit! Too legit to quit!

Because the Olds College campus is gorgeous, and these poppies were so lovely that day in the sun.

 The beauty of being official is I now get to teach the course, and I was introduced to that step this year, by co-assisting Mary Lessman.  Mary is a wonderful woman, a font of spinning knowledge, and she has the biggest heart.  I felt blessed to be under her wing.

Level 4 class!  it was a delight assisting Mary Lessman in teaching this class. 

An evening of relaxing after a full day of assisting in Level 4

 As I may or may not have mentioned over the years of heading to Olds, I always stop in at The Fat Ewe Farm.  Eileen Wosnak has many beautiful sheep, a llama, duck and chicken and geese, and bunnies!  I picked up a gorgeous black Romney fleece and brought a friend a bunny!

I promised myself no more fleeces... but this one called to me... I actually dreamt about it... I had to go back.

Not my bunny. But he sure is cute! 

If you haven't started to follow me on Facebook, I encourage you to go over there and do that.  I've been posting live videos, and intend on continuing that practice.  The next one is going to be quite a bit longer than the first ones, as it will go over how to spin if you're broke.  No need for fancy wheels, just a stick and some wool!

Happily Spinning,
~Kara

Ravellenic games update

If you've been following my tweeting, you'll already know just how awesome I'm doing in my Ravellenic personal challenges.  But because there are a lot of folks out there, not on Twitter, I'll show you my amazing progress here too.

I'm pretty impressed that I've been able to start a sock from the toe up, but it took me 4 HOURS to do one toe... which is insane.

And I've gotten just a bit more of the foot done too... I kind of wonder if I'm actually going to get both of them done by the 12th.  I'll try, but that's the best I can do.  And if I do get them done, well then all the better!


I've also gotten into spinning my Jacob fleece that I was going to spin for the Tour de Fleece (along with the crazy lace weight, which also didn't happen... stoopid injury which is now healed enough that I can do some things! yay!)  This project is nearly done.  At least the spinning part anyway.  One jumbo bobbin of chain plied, lanolin in, Jacob yearling yarn.  I hope I have enough for a decent sized scarf!

And that's pretty much it, and it's only Wednesday!  I sure wish I was this productive all the time.  Imagine the things I could do, if I just did all the things!  Who needs sleep anyway?

~Kara

Preppin' for the Ravellenic Games!

Well, I guess the Ravellenic games start tomorrow at 4 to coincide with the opening games of the Olympic games!   I'm excited, and have big plans.  First, I want to knit my first ever pair of socks! I found this Toe Up Sock Pattern Generator via Ravelry, and am going to swatch for my pattern tonight. The only thing is I needed to put this pertty skein of yarn from Ancient Arts into ball form.

There was one little problem though... I don't have a ball winder, or a swift for that matter.  And to top it off I couldn't find my beat stick.  I mean my Notespinne.  So I grabbed a knitting needle and a willing soul and created something that worked quite nicely.

I call this video: Necessity is the Mother of Invention.  Or Child Labour is Great.  Or My 7 year old rocks.  Or... Well, yeah. You get the idea.  He was actually having fun doing this with me!  I no longer have to enlist my husband, who admittedly does it willingly, but imagine!  I could get 2-3 skeins wound in a day if I had two helpers! 

I've also got this lurvely Jacob yearling ewe fleece that I plan to spin, and hopefully knit up during the games... We'll see how it goes... 

Once the games are over, it's all homework all the time time... Because I will not repeat last year!  Will not!

Let the count down begin!

~Kara

Fleece sections

One of the modules in the Master Spinner Level One workbook has you look at an entire fleece and study it.   Now, I had originally thought "A sheep is a sheep is a sheep".   And that idea went straight out the window when I attended Fibre Week last year.  During the class last year we looked at individual fleeces, and kind of examined them section by section.  But it wasn't until I sat down and did the module that really showed me just how varied a fleece can get!  The staple length varies, section to section. As does the crimp structure, and the texture, and even the lock structure.
So the next time you get a whole fleece, dump the whole bag out on your kitchen floor (because it's going to be a dirty process) and look.  If your fleece was bundled up nicely, chances are you can un roll it and see just how it came off the animal.  I'm guessing you'll be as surprised as I was!


~Kara