Stitches East and Rhinebeck Wrap Up

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I was anxious to sample this fleece and tried spinning in the grease without any prep per the suggestion of one of the Rhinebeck fleece workers. It was not too greasy but it was not easy to draft and it was hard to make a consistent single. I don’t think I like spinning in the grease. At Stitches East, my SIL washed some locks and it made a big difference, so I did a few trays. I didn’t arrange them on the trays but I did 4 trays with a hot soak, hot scour, and several hot rinses. It took a few days for the fleece to dry. I was surprised how much dirt came out. Then, I just fluffed it with my fingers and spun from the lock, sheared end and I was very pleased with the results.
The following weekend after NYSW 2011 was Stitches East 2011 in Hartford. My Sil and I met at my school in Milford and we packed my Jeep for the trip, an hour. We stopped for supplies (food and wine) and got there in plenty of time. We brought entirely too much stuff: the disadvantage of traveling by car. We needed two carts to get to the room. In retrospect, we didn’t need the spinning stuff: our class didn’t make use of our wheels other than to show them and we didn’t have time to spin. I wouldn’t bring that much stuff unless I really needed it for a class.
I bought a few books, some notions and yarn for a shawl and a Jean Frost jacket. The shawl yarn is Madelinetosh DK and the other is Plymouth Tweed. Seems to be discontinued and Webs was discounting. I really like it but they didn’t bring the full color range and didn’t replenish the stock over the show.
I liked my classes and learned some good info in all of them. I doubt that I will use the stitches I learned in the Jean Frost couture stitches class but she gave out a lot of info re: jackets which goes along with her new book. One of the great things XRX did was a measuring clinic at the Market; that is something you need an impartial observer to do if you want good fit.
The JC Briar setin sleeves class is very helpful although my SIL learned a better way to do short rows than to wrap the stitch in her Japanese Short Row class. Our spinning class was okay; refreshed my spindle spinning techniques. I booked out of my Latvian wrister class. I was done by Saturday afternoon and would consider taking less classes. The market was smaller this year with less Indi dyers but they were all at Rhinebeck the week before and at SAFF that weekend.
I did a gauge swatch with the tweed yarn and started figuring out my custom pattern based on my measurements. It is a little trickly. I might do the knitting on my knitting machine. We will see!

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