I am surrounded by goodness in many forms today, and just want to rave about them all. I hope this continues to be the theme of my weekend....week.....month!
First, as a follow-up to my post about the dearth of local produce....today I drove home from visiting Stephen in Kitchener, where he's been working this week. I took the "back way" home, and one of the reasons for this was so I could keep an eye out for roadside farms stands. As it's a Saturday, there were quite a few--mostly selling corn, but with some other goodies. I also found a farm market outside of St. Mary's that had lots of yummies. So now I have tons of fresh veggies, plus local goat's cheese, honey, homemade bread, and pastured beef. Oh, and Saskatoonberry jam! Mmmm....just had some of that fresh bread with the goat's cheese and honey, and I can't tell you how good that was.
The other reason I took the back way home is that this allowed me to go through New Hamburg, where Shall We Knit was having a sale. This was my first visit there, but will very definitely not be my last! I was really amazed by their selection....like the nice yarn stores I find when I go visit other parts of the world, but don't see much of around here. Of course, the downside of this kind of selection was that I wanted EVERYTHING. Especially anything that I can't easily find in London. I managed to narrow down my selection, and bought yarn for 2 specific projects, plus 1 skein of Kureyon sock, and some Coopworth fiber to spin. I also bought a bunch of acrylic yarns for the kids at school--nothing too amazing, but a bit of variety for the school stash.
Then I came home and found the last 2 fiber orders I had placed had arrived! Pictures of one of them (the other is all undyed fiber, plus a few new colours of dyes to play with), from Spunky Eclectic:
On the left is some Galaxy BFL in Mercury, on top is the July club fiber (Romney in Eclipse), and bottom right is merino/tencel in Toronto.
Oh, and I did my Thursday learn a new thing....and I did work on worsted v. woolen. I used the tutorials from Spin-Off to try this out. I'm beginning to think that the way I have been spinning is some strange unclassified hybrid--the more I read, the less my technique seems to match anything anyone is doing anywhere. However, I really enjoyed this exercise, especially trying woolen spinning for the first time. I had some difficulty at first, mostly with keeping my hands far enough apart, and keeping my forward hand inactive (my regular spinning method seems to involve an almost equal amount of movement/drafting from each hand!). Once I got the hang of it (sort of), I enjoyed this, and I really like the soft, airy yarn I produced:
Now....I'm off to enjoy the bountiful goodness around me. Time to spin, knit, and eat. Can't get a much better recipe for a pleasant evening, can you? :-)
First, as a follow-up to my post about the dearth of local produce....today I drove home from visiting Stephen in Kitchener, where he's been working this week. I took the "back way" home, and one of the reasons for this was so I could keep an eye out for roadside farms stands. As it's a Saturday, there were quite a few--mostly selling corn, but with some other goodies. I also found a farm market outside of St. Mary's that had lots of yummies. So now I have tons of fresh veggies, plus local goat's cheese, honey, homemade bread, and pastured beef. Oh, and Saskatoonberry jam! Mmmm....just had some of that fresh bread with the goat's cheese and honey, and I can't tell you how good that was.
The other reason I took the back way home is that this allowed me to go through New Hamburg, where Shall We Knit was having a sale. This was my first visit there, but will very definitely not be my last! I was really amazed by their selection....like the nice yarn stores I find when I go visit other parts of the world, but don't see much of around here. Of course, the downside of this kind of selection was that I wanted EVERYTHING. Especially anything that I can't easily find in London. I managed to narrow down my selection, and bought yarn for 2 specific projects, plus 1 skein of Kureyon sock, and some Coopworth fiber to spin. I also bought a bunch of acrylic yarns for the kids at school--nothing too amazing, but a bit of variety for the school stash.
Then I came home and found the last 2 fiber orders I had placed had arrived! Pictures of one of them (the other is all undyed fiber, plus a few new colours of dyes to play with), from Spunky Eclectic:
On the left is some Galaxy BFL in Mercury, on top is the July club fiber (Romney in Eclipse), and bottom right is merino/tencel in Toronto.
Oh, and I did my Thursday learn a new thing....and I did work on worsted v. woolen. I used the tutorials from Spin-Off to try this out. I'm beginning to think that the way I have been spinning is some strange unclassified hybrid--the more I read, the less my technique seems to match anything anyone is doing anywhere. However, I really enjoyed this exercise, especially trying woolen spinning for the first time. I had some difficulty at first, mostly with keeping my hands far enough apart, and keeping my forward hand inactive (my regular spinning method seems to involve an almost equal amount of movement/drafting from each hand!). Once I got the hang of it (sort of), I enjoyed this, and I really like the soft, airy yarn I produced:
Now....I'm off to enjoy the bountiful goodness around me. Time to spin, knit, and eat. Can't get a much better recipe for a pleasant evening, can you? :-)
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