A fleece is a learning experiance

I bought a beautiful CVM fleece at the Estes Park Wool Market. The fleece is absolutly gorgeous. It came from a 2 year old ram who was coated. The fleece didn't really smell bad at all and was very clean, so I figured it would be easy to wash (unlike my last targhee fleece). I noticed that there were some second cuts when I picked it, but it didn't look too bad to me, and the wool was so nice I figured I could deal. Turns out that there were a lot. That's where this fleece's lesson was learned:

Pick out the second cuts before washing or dying. It's a pain, but do it anyway because it sucks less than trying to pick them out after washing. I seriously just spent roughly 4 hours flick carding CVM locks to get the neps out. I only made it through like 8oz of fiber. The fiber is so soft that I don't want to spin anything else, but still, major pain in the ass. The hour spent digging through sticky fleece to pull out the second cuts is a much better use of time.

LYS Review - Posh, A Yarn Boutique

I was in Posh today, and I thought I should offer up a review for others who may not have made it over there. I was never in the old location, but I've been in the new one a couple of times. It's a reasonable drive from my office, so I head over there for some lunch hour retail therapy every so often.

The store is located on Tennyson street in the cute redeveloped arts district. The store is on the east side of the street. The signage isn't all that great, so you kind of have to know where you are going, but it's next door to a yoga place, if that helps any.

The shop is kind of small, but they make good use of the space they have. They also carry a limited supply of roving for us spinning types (this is where I found my new spinning obsession: Fleece Artist Silk/Merino Silver. OMG YUM). The selection isn't uber or anything, but I've been able to find yarn for every project I've had in mind so far. They also have a lot of samples around, which are super inspiring (Gods, I wish I could knit faster).

The owner of the shop is a lady named Sylvia. She's super nice and helpful. Each time I've been in there, she's been totally willing to pull books to look up patterns, or even hop on Ravelry to check out a yarn requirement. She seems to have found that perfect balance that we all search for in yarn shop service; helpful but not in your face; permissive of yarn fondling but not too aloof; etc. The prices in the store are also very reasonable. I've really only comparison shopped on the roving, but the prices were very comparable to what you find online.

All in all, I would have to say that Posh is a great little store. So great, in fact, that I drove about 10 miles out of my way just to buy yarn from Sylvia today. :) If you live in or near Denver and haven't visited yet, you really should.

And so, I leave you with some things I've spun from the roving I bought at Posh:

Aprox 40 wpi silk/merino singles

Navajo Plied silk/merino

Spinning with class

I'm taking the spinning 2 class at Shuttles Spindles & Skeins in Boulder. Maggie is the teacher and she is amazing. Her knowledge of fibers and spinning technique is awe inspiring.
This week for home work we're supposed to spin up some singles to practice plying technique in the next class. The fiber we're working with is kind of coarse compared to what I usually spin, but it has a pretty nice sheen to it. Maybe it's corridale? I guess Ill find out on Thursday.

I finaly found my camera so I could take some pics of the color. This ball is actually sepreate lengths of each color wadded up because they look cool together. I took lengths off of different colors at random and spun it into a quick and dirty worsted single. 'm guessing that it landed around 14 wpi in most places. I found this fiber pretty hard to spin evenly. The final product will probably be pretty interesting looking.

Now for the hard part; I need to practice spinning to "bumps per inch". In class, all I could get was 4.

Winston Otis can not allow mama to take pictures of yarn without noseing his way into a picture. :)

The more I play with these pictures, the more I think I'm beginning to dislike the blogger interface. I think I might go back to LJ with my fiber blog.

I guess I should post about the hat a bit in case I have to make another one someday or otherwise have to reference the pattern.

I'm making this thing for Barry who is a big red wings fan. (I know, Red Wings suck). He's from Detroit, so I figured he had a good excuse. Anyway, he saw this hat on ebay and wanted one like it in red and white. I didn't think it looked all that hard, so I said I would make one for him. I didn't have a pattern so I just started.

Here's what I've been doing so far:

CO 120 sts in Red
k2p2 until it measures 7.5"
switch to white
Decide that ribbing is for the birds and start knitting in stockinette.

I think it's going to work out. I'd post a pic but I have no idea where my camera is *pout*

Schacht update

I received a call from Schacht this morning and they finally looked at my wheel. They wanted to make sure I was cool with paying the repair price and get my cc#. Then they called about 2 hours later saying that I could pick it up anytime. I wanted to pick it up anytime last Monday. Now I don't know how the hell I'm going to get up there to get it.

At least the repairs were only $96. I'll post details once I get my wheel back

ETA: Lost the receipt things, so I will not be posting details. C'est la vie.

Schacht: A small rant

I'm kind of frustrated right now.

I purchased a Schacht matchless ST in July from a vendor at Ren Fest. It had seen better days (it's 18 years old) and needs some work. No big, it was super cheap. The wheel wobbles because of a missing screw and a small wooden piece on the upright probably has to be replaced. No big deal. I live in Denver and the Schacht factory is in Boulder, so I figured I'd just run it up there one day and get it fixed.

So six months go by and I can't find the time to get up there during the week (the factory closes at 4:30 and I have to work till at least 5). Plus, it's about a 45 min - 1:15 drive depending on traffic, and I just can't take 2-3 hours out of my work day for the round trip. I contemplated shipping it up there, but the price to get it shipped back was pretty high. This somewhat annoyed me because if I can ship it via DHL to Boulder with $900 insurance for under $20, why should it cost them $60 to ship it back? But whatever. I just needed to get a day off to drive it up there.

Finally, my day came since my office is closed for MLK day and the Schacht factory is not. I called the factory the week before and scheduled an appointment. They asked if I could leave it up there and I let them know that I'd rather not since it's a pain to get to boulder during a work day. I'd need to pick it up the same day. They said that was fine but it would take a few hours to fix it. I told them that was no problem, I'd just go to Shuttles and blow some money in the meanwhile. The nice lady on the phone reminded me that Shuttles doesn't open until noon on Mondays and suggested a place for breakfast while I kill time. I made an appointment for 10:00 on Monday to give them plenty of time to work on my wheel.

So Monday rolls around and it freaking snows. I left my house super early so I wouldn't miss my appointment. I got up there right on time and dropped off my wheel. The lady at the front desk verified my cell number, I made sure I had cell service in Boulder, and my step-daughter and I headed off to breakfast while we waited. We killed about an hour and a half with breakfast, another hour at Target, another hour at Shuttles, and another driving around aimlessly.

Finally, around 2:30, we were getting bored. I just wanted to get my wheel and go home. I finally broke down and called the factory to get an ETA, and guess what? THEY HADN'T FREAKING LOOKED AT IT! I drug my happy ass out of bed at 8:00 on a holiday to cart my ass clear the hell to Boulder in 10 degree weather and wasted at least an hour driving aimlessly while waiting for my wheel to be done and they hadn't freaking looked at it? WTF? I thought I had made it pretty clear that I needed to pick it up the same day.

The lady I spoke with said that they were pretty backed up. She apologized and promised that my wheel would be done by Today. I was very nice about it and just chocked it up to a miscommunication. An annoying miscommunication, but whatever.

So, today I called the factory to check in. I can't really get up there today to get my wheel, but I wanted to know how much I owe them for the repair. The lady on the phone said that she'd have to check and get back to me, but sometimes it can take 2 weeks for a repair. It's now been 4 hours that I've been waiting for that call back. I'm so freaking aggravated.