Check out my new toy!!!

Yep! I have officially gone nutty for spinning. I found this Louet Spinning Wheel on Craigslist and got a smoking good deal!!!!
Last night I worked my little patooty off to do all my 'to-do's' around the house that I haven't had time for, all with the dangling carrot of...."if I get this all done, I get to play with the spinning wheel" Well I got (most of) it done and started playing with the wheel.
They were a new words used that contained @%## and *@@&*, but after a bit I got the general hang of it. I was actually brave enough to try spinning some 'real' (as opposed to practice)roving. It's actually looking pretty good! Now I can't wait to do a bit more tonight!!!!!

All Spun!!!

Check it out!!! I got all the roving spun into yarn!!! I ended up with almost 500 yards and the sense of accomplishment as I plied the last yard was great!!!! I am really happy with how it turned out and I can't wait to get started on the next batch.....I think I might be becoming spinning obsessed. :)
Next step...start my first ever knitting project using yarn spun by moi!!!!

It's going to be a 'feathers and fan' wrap/scarf so I cast on 200 stitches so I will be knitting it lengthwise. Hard to tell from the picture, but there are 2 shades of cream and one shade of pink and of course the handspun yarn!!! I am really really liking how it is turning out so far and how quickly I can make visual progress!!!

Also, I wanted to share the photo of the little baby sock I knitted up for a display for the Redmond Saturday Market booth.

It's Here!!!!!

Well, you are officially the first to know that the roving and spindles are now on the website!!! With the roving and spindles selling like hot-cakes at the local knitting group and at the weekly market, I have been on a mission to get ahead of the sell outs so I can post some to the website!
So, at this very moment, there is a great selection of both 4 oz and 8 oz bundles of merion roving. I say at this moment because, these will also be going to both the local knitting group and market this week. If you see something you like, I suggest grabbing in when you can. I can always try to reproduce previous colorways, but each and every batch will always be it's own unique result.
Anyways, I am sooooooo very excited about the addition of the roving and spindles! I hope you stop by and check them out!!!!

Like there's no tomorrow!

My oh My, I have been dying roving and making spindles like there is no tomorrow and I still keep selling out! I promise that there will be some inventory on the website by the end of the weekend!
Between the Redmond Saturday Market and the Renton Stitchers I have sold almost completely out of all the spindles and the rovings each Wednesday and Saturday. Last Wednesday at Renton Stitchers we spent the evening spinning with the new drop spindles...we got some strange looks from those coming in for coffee. It was fun and everyone caught on so quick too!
In the midst of all the roving dying and spindle sanding and finishing, it was Jaime's (Ken's sister) B-day. While at the birthday BBQ on Saturday, Jaime mentioned that she wanted to go to the Mariner's game on Sunday....that was until she found out they were playing in Anahiem, CA. Well a friend of her's piped up and said if you wanna go I will send you there....an hour later we had tickets for the flight and game for the next day! So, with 3 hours or less of sleep each, we headed to California on Sunday to watch the Mariner's kick Angel butt!!!!! It was a blast! Here photos from our trip!
Here is a photo of the little baby sock I was working on during the flight to CA.

Berk

This week has been a sad one! Monday night, my little bunny-Berk (the black and white one) passed away. The timing is very unfortunate as the weather gets nicer and he was getting to play outside more and the lettuce garden Ken had planted specifically for him to run around in is just about ready.
It is amazing that a critter that weighs less than 10 lbs can be such a big part of your everyday life. He would greet me every morning with great enthusiasm and would get all goofy when it was time for his piece of 'nana'. The more spoiled he was, the more personality he had.
He will be missed very much!!

Now you see it..........Now you don't

Well...I have good news and bad news...This weekend was my first weekend back at the Redmond Saturday Market. It was great to be back and I got very lucky with the weather....it's been raining since we got back from Cabo, and Saturday was clear and sunny (at least for the afternoon).
Anyways, the bad news (good news for me though) was ALL of the spindles and ALL of the rovings sold out at the market. It was great to get so many people started on the drop spindle :)
Now the good news is that MUCH MUCH MORE is on the way we will have plenty to put on the website. Ken and I spent Sunday build spindles that now just need to be stained and finished.
Also, here is the yarn that I spun while on the honeymoon....213 yards :) I have the same amount just waiting to get plied too....now I need to start thinking of what to make out of it when I finish............ Any ideas?!

Hit the ground running

Well, the dust is finally starting to settle after all the wedding stuff. With a big Phew! and a huge sigh of relief, I can't begin to tell you how happy I am to look forward to some normal-ness (relatively speaking). All in all, next to buy our house, I think that wedding was the most stressful thing I had every done in my entire life! But the great catch to it all was that it was getting so stressful and everything was going so terribly wrong during the planning of it, that Ken and I wanted this to be a special and fun time for us so we ran off to Las Vegas a month before the wedding and got married by Elvis!!! Then during the ceremony at the 'official' wedding we announced that we were already married :) There were lots of shocked people and we were pleased that everyone got such a kick out of it. I don't have the wedding pictures yet, but here are a few from ourhoneymoon I did get lots of knitting done while in Cabo...gotta say, it's pretty dang cool to be knitting on the beach with 2 for 1 mango daquiris! :P I do want to add, that the fish I caught I had intended to catch and release, however it was injured as a result of the bait and we had to keep it...but I did reel it in entirely by myself!!!
Now that we are back I am so thrilled to announce that A Swell Yarn Shop is now carrying handpainted roving

We are in the middle of naming the colorways and adding pictures to the website so check back because they will soon be avaible for purchase.

Along with the rovings we will also be adding drop spindles to our site! They are a very basic and very inexpensive spindle, so they are great for just starting out and not spending a fortune to do it.