Shirsty Cat Has Moved!

My website is up and running so the blog is moving over there!
You can follow this link to the webpage and follow all the Shirsty Cat adventures!

To be plied today!

One Month Recap

This month has gone very fast and I have been so crazy busy.

3 additional shows have happened since my first (Limerick Community Days, NJ Sheep and Wool [more about this below], and Phoenixville Farmers Market Fiber Fest) and I have been dyeing every week to keep up.

I started 2 new jobs and a 3rd new one today, well, training starts today and ends hopefully middle of next month. I already do this same job for another University, so hopefully training will be quick and easy. This puts me up to 10 jobs, 7 of which are jobs I get some sort of legitimate paycheck for, but all of them are sporadic and seasonal so its not like I work all of them every week. The other 3 are my personal businesses of Graphic Design, Tattooing, and now the Fiber business. My schedule is nuts though and today is my first day off in about 3 weeks. I'm going to TRY and relax, try being the operative word there, even though my to-do list is glaring at me from the coffee table.

The most exciting show I've gotten to do so far has definitely been NJ Sheep and Wool. It was the 20th year of show and just in the few years I've been going there it has really blossomed into a very nice, medium sized show. It is not nearly as overwhelming as say Maryland or Rhinebeck for first time fiber show goers and can be leisurely perused in just a few hours. When I found out I could still get in, even though the show was only in 2 weeks and I could only get an outside booth space, I jumped on it and made it happen. I'm really glad I did. We had a great show, despite the heat and rain on Saturday, which actually helped us being outside since inside the barns was so very hot.

This is my booth halfway through the day after I'd already sold a lot of product. I'm really thankful for everyone who came and purchased and all my other vendor fiber friends who came around to congratulate me on finally getting started. I can't wait to do this show again next year and by then I should have way more stock.

This past Saturday was a wee little Fiber Festival at the Phoenixville Farmers Market. I frequent this market when I have the time and had no idea until the week before that they did a Fiber Fest. Someone actually asked via my FB page if i would be there and I was able to sign up and forward it on to my Alpaca farmer friend who also came. We both had good days, made a lot of new contacts and I think I might see about getting into their Artisan Saturday, which happens once a month. It will be a good spot to pick up knitting and spinning students.

Which reminds me, Shirsty Cat Designs has a facebook page HERE
And my Website is finally operational HERE, not much on it yet, but I'm getting there. One of the biggest to-do list items is to photograph everything and get it up on etsy and finish the website so I can sell directly from there. Until then if you see anything you like, please feel free to email me or contact me on FB, we can set something up.

But today I'm off. I need to be cause I'm not going to have another day off in a while and no matter how hard I push it won't all get done today anyway. I'm going to work on my Ocracoke Cardigan and spin this pretty BFL Silk that was my only purchase from NJ Sheep and Wool. I already have 1 and a half of these bumps spun.

Frabjous Fibers Braid

My First Show!

Now I have done craft shows before, mostly for my paintings with moderate success, but I had to stop doing them for various reasons. Now that my mom has started selling her hand made soaps and she has requested that I accompany her to help, I figured I might as well be vending. I actually got a bunch of blank yarn and dye last Christmas from my in-laws and this week I finally got it all together.
Yesterday was my first show, a craft fair in a park in Ambler PA and I did better than I expected. I sold seven skeins and had several people take my info to schedule knitting and spinning lessons. I have another event coming up this weekend in Limerick, PA. If you would like to find out where I'm going to be and where to purchase yarn online (etsy will be up and running soon) please follow my page on facebook at Shirstycatdesigns

A marathon not a sprint

Tour de Fleece begins today, which I didn't realize until last night when someone in my FB group asked who all was partaking this year. Luckily I was pre-gaming all week because I was morning the loss of one of our dogs. AJ, my Japanese Chin passed away quietly at home with me on Monday. So it has been a sad week and knitting, spinning, and housework were mostly what I could manage.

Spencer in his sweater snuggled with his buddy, AJ

We really miss the little dude and all his quirky little ways. The other dogs have been notably bummed out and I hope Dan will come around to adopting another dog in the near future. Our area shelters are in extreme advertising mode since they are getting more intakes than they have room for, so every time I go on social media I am assaulted by cute pics of homeless pets. Heartbreaking!

Enough sad news, today I went to the Phoenixville Farmers market to attend a canning demo/talk. Most of which I knew, but there were door prizes and I have a huge stack of Ball canning coupons to hand out to my other friend who can. Bought the book as well, Preserving by the Pint by Marisa McCullen. Here is a link to her web page, Food in Jars.

And finally on to the fibery stuff. I dyed this fiber last summer or fall, started spinning it and stopped for a while. I just didn't feel like spinning, but last weekend I demonstrated spinning with some ladies from the lancaster guild at Canal Days in Monte Claire. It was a nice relaxing day talking about something I love. Kids and adults showed an equal amount of interest, although one man called a wheel and loom and another woman called it a sewing machine *face palm* I think my goal for this tour is gonna be lighter than other years, I'm gonna try and get this finished and plyed by the end of the tour. I have roughly a pound left to spin and hours of plying ahead of me. To everyone else participating in the tour, happy spinning!

3rd times the charm

Miramare Castel

Just back from Italy again. It was a great trip. Way slower pace than I am used to when traveling abroad and relatively little site seeing done. Mostly it was a trip to visit Dan's family in Trieste, but we did do an overnight in Venice, which was kind of a bust. The place is all tourists and the best description I can think of is Medieval Disney Land. We did a couple other day trips and spent some time on the beach as well. Bought some yarn, of course. So here are a few of the highlights.

Postonia Caves in Slovenia

Predijama Castel

Beach Day

The view from our B&B

 

And 2 sweaters worth of yarn.

2014 Comfy Collection

It's been such a busy week that I'm just getting to post about my new pattern. It was released via Knit Picks as part of the 2014 Comfy Collection, Striped Tunic is a really versatile garment and I can't wait to see the color combinations everyone comes up with.

 

I've also bee trucking along on baby knitting for the rush of pregnancy that has occurred all over the place, this is what happens when there are so many snow days and power outages in one winter. 

Twin baby sweaters and the never ending button dilemma. See all those cute, perfectly matching buttons, they all work, but not enough of any of them for the sweaters. Had to go and buy more today. And because I was finishing designing something and just wanted to make something relatively mindless, so a really large baby blanket came out of that desire. We are heading off to Italy the week after next, I have a pattern and graphic design work to get finished before then and still have to put together my travel knitting. Next week is going to fly by so I better get on it.

Curlicue Blanket

 

Back almost a month...

...and it has taken me this long to catch up and get back to the blog.

Japan was lovely, so very unlike any place I've ever been. The appreciation for all things great and small that permeates the very being of Japan's people is evident everywhere. It was a once in a lifetime experience. Here are a few photos. I'll actually have some knitting to show you by the weekend. Finally finished up a pattern commission since I've been back and another one is going live early next month. Stay tuned.

Cat, perfectly posing at the Inari Shrine

Even the tools craftsmen us everyday are beautiful.

Ancient Buddist Temple with modern day Kyoto in the background.

People still get dressed up, even if they are just going for a walk.

The Shogunate's palace.

Not much knitting going on

Been ultra busy with work lately, so my knitting has slowed to a snail like pace, especially since all I really am able to focus on when I do have time to knit is really simple things. I finished a Gap-tastic cowl a few weeks ago, no pictures yet, a pair of knotty gloves, also picture-less, and 2 pairs of plain toe up socks. These are my on-the-go socks and are much needed since many pairs sprouted holes this very cold winter. I will repair some of them, but right now it is faster to knit new ones.

 The reason I've been working like a crazy person and picking up tons of hours is I am off to Japan next Friday. I'm looking forward to the trip...the flying not so much. So in about 2 weeks there will be lots of pictures. In the mean time I still have to extricate my luggage from the storage room in the basement, pack, call credit card companies, bank, cell phone company, and a whole slue of other small errands that need to get wrapped up in the next 5 days.

I also just found out last Tuesday that we will be going to Italy to visit Dan's family at the end of May for 10 days. Tickets were bought today and I have to figure out who is going to house sit for the fur kids while we're gone. Its way easier than boarding everyone or shipping everyone off to different houses; we have too many pets for one person to take everyone. I will be calling on a few friends and hopefully that will all work itself out. One of my dogs gets separation anxiety when I'm gone overnight, so both of us being gone for 10 days will be rough on her.

I'm off to finish my laundry and relax for the rest of the night. Maybe I'll work on another sock.

New Patterns!

I was only planning to get one new pattern up today... I ended up getting 3 done. Yeah! Best part is all of these are designed with my handspun yarn, so you can either start by designing your own yarn or skip to a commercial substitute.

 

First up, Morgan. This was a really fun photo shoot, we found this decaying train on the way home from Rhinebeck and had to stop and explore it. More photos are up on Ravelry.

 Next Vite Scialle. Waves Shawl in English, this piece is light, delicate and perfect for everyday wear or a special occasion.

 

 And Baroque. These
 socks are made to pamper your feet in squishy merino handspun.

Thank you, Nicole, for being my long suffering model.

Post Christmas Wrap Up

I've been busy wrapping up the semester and wrapping up all my holiday knitting, as I'm sure many of you have also been doing. Now that things are unwrapped I can show you some of what I've been working on. 
First up, I found a lovely 2ply cashmere sweater at the Thrift store last month. It unwound into 2 enormous skeins of heathery blue gray laceweight.The color wasn't really doing it for me though, so I overdyed it this lovely teal.

While I had the dyepots out I decided to hit up some merino I had laying around and some silk. Here is the one I photographed and then promptly spun and plyed in one day.

245 yds of 3ply on the bottom and 60 yds of 2 ply at the top, you can really see the difference in the color intensity depending on the level of optical blending the number of plys provides.

Next up is Dan's purple socks, he has officially requested a ball pit full of purple socks (I shit you not, his exact words), so now for every holiday and occasion he gets purple socks...he has at least 10 pairs at the moment. I think I'll be releasing this particular pair as a free pattern withing the next week.

 

 

Dan's Thermals

And the crowing jewel of the holiday knitting was the In The Pink Stole I made for my mom out of the Shoppel Wool Lace Ball I bought in Vienna last year. I just love how lace goes from this...

To this...

 Turned out very nice, if I do say so myself. The knitting itself was very simple, the piecing together had me stumped for a minute, but ravelry came to the rescue.

Spencer is doing well, if not a might bit sleepy.

On my Christmas list this year where a lot of blank yarn and dye, so expect to see some interesting things up in my etsy store soon as well as a whole new slue of patterns that I've decided to self publish in the next 2 weeks that I have off from school...and am stuck in my house due to the partners car unceremoniously dieing 2 days before xmas. Luckily I don't have anywhere I need to go except one day of work till the 16th. So there will be lots of knitting and dying and publishing to talk about soon. Stay tuned!

We had a sick little Dachshund...

He's all better now, but we almost lost him last week to a very out of the blue case of hemorrhagic gastroenteritis. We will now be selling kidneys to the highest bidder to pay for his 3 day intensive care vet stay, but we are very glad to have him home. The house just wasn't the same without him.

Spencer

Mostly due to the fact that I couldn't focus on anything, I spent much of the week spinning this from the Meadow Maggots Braid I purchased at Rhinebeck. Despite it being a light fingering weight, it flew off the wheel and practically plied itself. I think it is destined to become a new fingerless mitts design...once i finish the dozen or so other designs I have in various stages of completion. 2 are completely finished and I just need to type up both and do a photo shoot of one and I can get them up. Hopefully over the holiday next week. I also think I'm going to self publish my thesis, which is a collection of really fun patterns.

466 yds Fingering weight from Meadow Maggots Braid

I hate being behind on all of my pattern work, but this semester has been surprisingly time consuming, due in part to one extremely time consuming class, but only 2 more weeks and its over!
Oh, and in one of my usual fits of lateral productivity I finally finished my studio.

I LOVE IT! So much room to work and I can see all I have to work with without having to dig through bin. Now if only I had a time turner so there where more hours in the day. I may have reach the point of my stash exceeding my life expectancy, but its still pretty to look at.

Falling Down at Rhinebeck

It's easy to fall down at Rhinebeck, (figuratively, not literally).
It is the Mecca of East coast Fiber festivals, and for those of us that go the pilgrimage is an important part of our yearly ritual.

I was relatively good this year, although I really should be allowed to attend fiber festivals with a credit card. Its not safe.

I only managed to get up there on Sunday this year, but it is usually the less crowded day.
This year I made a bee line to the fleece sale, since I knew many of the good fleeces would have been snagged on Saturday. I found two that where reasonably priced for their weight and that had attributes that I've started to recognize. I have only been processing fleeces for less than a year, so my knowledge in this area is still pretty limited. We hiked those back to the car, so we weren't trucking around 12lbs of fleece all day and started making our rounds.





You get to have favorite shops after a while and I always manage to find something I love at Spinners Hill. I really need to buy a sweaters worth at some point, but i always at least get enough for a pair of socks. Actually, had there been enough for a sweater in this colorway, I probably would have bought it.

Next up I found an interesting combed top that will do lovely things when spun. The colorway is Borialus, and all those large sections of color will blend in interesting ways.

I found this crazy gorgeous thing and couldn't walk away. Meadow Maggots is a blend of Polyworth, Bamboo, Silk, and Tencil. Again, enough for socks, but I think this would be a lovely hat or scarf, we'll see what it wants to be after its spun.

And here is where I really fell down hard. Spirit Trail Fiberworks. I fell in love with their Brite yarn last year, the drape and hand on this fiber are extraordinary. It is the absolute perfect blend of wool, silk and cashmere. I passed it up then because I had already blown through a large portion of my budget, but I regretted not buying it ever since. So I fell hard and told the woman checking me out not to tell me how much my total was. Not only did I get enough for a sweater, but 2 additional colors, for a possible yoke design on said sweater AND a skein of sock yarn in purple for Dan's birthday sock, which I designed last week and have been slowly working on. I might want to hurry up with that since his birthday is in two weeks.

The rest of the day was spent eating and perusing. I would like to say that I won't fall down quite so hard next year, but in order to do that I may have to avoid the Spirit Trail Booth...and wool fumes.

In other knitting/spinning news. Just finished another design the other week that will be out in the spring, WOOT!

Also I have yet to get good pictures of my Rhinebeck sweater, next post, I promise.

I finished spinning this. 1188 yards, lace weight from Bittersweet Woolery, bought at Jersey Sheep and Wool. It is lovely and shiny and going into my stash until I can find something worthy of its beauty.

How was your Rhinebeck?

New Jersey Sheep and Wool

Pretty much every year Benji and I go to the New Jersey Sheep and Wool Festival. For those of you that haven't been, it's a relatively small affair with two barns for livestock and two for vending, but it's a great start to the fall season. Deb was vending again this year and Tina from Bittersweet Woolery whom I really like were there as well and a first appearance by the Verdant Gryphon.

I have recently been tasked by my old roommate to make him a Clint Eastwood Poncho like in Fist Full of Dollars. So to cut costs I suggested that I get 2 fleeces and start from scratch. I found 2 gorgeous Shetlands at the festival and had one stolen right out from under me five seconds after the lady said the sale hadn't started yet.... :/
I grabbed another white fleece, which I'm not as happy with, but it will do.

Brown and white Shetland Fleeces

 I send this photo over to my friend to show him the colors since the brown originally looked darker in the barn, and he said that it being lighter was fine because it would take the green better. I said ....green? Isn't the poncho brown and white?

Looks brown to me.

 So apparently I have to dye this gorgeously multicolored fleece green :( I may end up getting him another one because the color variations in this wool are truly stunning. I already washed it and am waiting for it to dry before carding, although the lock structure is so perfect I could probably spin it as is.  I also grabbed the most lovely gray shetland for myself. It was a steal at $25 for 4lbs and has almost no VM whatsoever. I love it and want to do nothing but process it and spin it right this second...I am resisting though in order to complete other more pressing work projects.

 Last but not least is the pretty braid of Montana Sky in Merino Silk from Bittersweet Woolery. I really can't resist her pretties.

I am still working on designs  that I can't show you, sad face, I know, but I did finally get started on one of my Rhinebeck sweaters. I have 2 planned and we'll see if that happens considering one of my current designs requires the needles for one of the Rhinebeck sweaters. I have a sleeve a front done on the  cardigan, most of the second front done and the second sleeve cast on, I hope to finish that this week along with one of my submissions, but if I plan to do all that I better get back to it.