Jenny's Got a Brand New Bag...

of yarn that is!  I'm just returning home from the fall session of Yarn School in Harveyville, Kansas.  And what can you say?  I spent four days surrounded by enough wool and fiber to sink a large ship, alpacas, dye labs, parades, running lonely stretches of rural Kansas roads... not to mention the amazing meals prepared by Marissa... Ooi!  I am happy as a clam, exhausted, but really, really happy.

So where to begin?  Maybe with my first spinning project.  This is some Romney wool from my ginormous fiber bag that I dyed using the crockpot in dye lab.  Adrian (aka Mrs. HelloYarn) helped me tremendously by telling me how to stripe the yarn in the pot.  Did I mention I've never (ever) dyed yarn before?  Everyone kept saying, "just jump in there!"  But I am quite incabable of "just jumping" into anything, and was literally shaking as I squeezed my first color in!  No doubt I was the last one to start and the last one to finish, but I'm one of those "need my own space" type girls to figure things out.  And here it is all spun up!

There are definitely some thick and thin inconsistencies going on there, but overall, I'm really proud of how both the colorway (I'm referring to as dreamsicle) and the twists turned out.  The yarn is uber-fluffy which makes me uber-happy, and I'm thinking I might give Zeebee a go since I have 3 skeins of this now.  I swear Jason and I are on the same wave length!  Everytime I check his recent posts he's finished something I am just about to start!  I'm going to check out his modifications and try to cast on sometime this week (I hope!)

And here is my first attempt at handpainting yarn, which I truly enjoyed.  FYI... that's Adrian's right beside mine.  Her colors just rock.  The whole handpainted fiber/yarn thing I could completely get in to.  Being an interior designer I work with color (a lot), but it is pretty nerve-wracking to mix these up and pour them on.  I did like this colorway so much though that I dyed some fiber as well.  We'll see how vibrant the colors are when I spin them up, or if they fade to a soft pastel.  I have no (!) idea what to expect!  I have this fear of wasting anything, and really didn't want to screw up any of my yummy fiber. 

So thanks to everyone at Yarn School 2008 for making things a total blast!  Jennifer, Adrian, Nikol, Marissa... all you guys!  You make a great team and definitely made the middle of nowhere Kansas a blast for a suburban mom from Wichita!  (But now someone has to tell me how to get all the bugs off the front of my car!)

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jason  DATE: 10/02/2008 04:09:52 PM Ha, thanks for the shout out. You did beat me to the mitered mittens though. I love the yarn you spun up. I think it'll make a great looking hat. I actually just go into spinning myself and I totally know what you mean about not wanting to screw up what you're working with. I got some lovely natural BFL to start on my spindle and I'm scared to do much with it!
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: amy  DATE: 10/03/2008 12:30:09 AM beautiful yarn Jen! glad you had fun.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Leslie  DATE: 10/03/2008 03:57:46 PM Wow, your list of talents continues to grow! Now it's dyeing and spinning on top of everything else. Very cool.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: ana DATE: 10/10/2008 01:23:34 PM Your yarn looks absolutely delicious! Your spinning work is gorgeous! I'm so bummed I didn't get to go to Yarn School.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Christy  DATE: 10/20/2008 06:06:29 PM That is some very nice spinning you have there. Isn't it fun?