A couple months ago, I managed to get on Ravelry, which perhaps is why there haven’t been many blog entries here lately; every time I hop on the computer, I get suckered into checking out “just one forum” or “just one pattern search.”

Anyway, there is a new group that’s formed: a Stitch ‘n’ Bitch for Lake County, OH! They meet every Tuesday at the Borders in Mentor, OH. The address is: 9565 Mentor Ave. Mentor, OH 44060. It is a really fun group, so if you are in the area, come check us out!

I finally got the Christmas pictures off my camera. This is the afghan that I knitted for my grandmother. She really liked it. I used about 35 skeins of various neutral-colored yarns including cotton, wool, man-made fibers, silk, and bamboo. I also did the math and there are approximately 150,000 stitches in plain garter stitch.

I started this afghan back in September 2007 and finished it Thanksgiving weekend. Towards the end, in order to finish it time, my knitting goal was knit one skein every day, which isn’t as bad as it sounds because a lot of the skeins were only 100 yards. It turned out quite a bit bigger than it was supposed to, though. I meant it to be something to drape over the arm of a couch; instead, it’s big enough to hang over the edge of her queen-sized bed!

Now, I just need to finish Mom’s afghan.

I just wanted to let everyone know that I’ve got some family stuff going on right now so my blog posts are going to be pretty sporadic. At some point, I’ll write about what’s going on, but for now, I’ll be taking a bit of a blog break. Thank you for reading my blog and keep checking back.

Sorry I haven’t written. My Mom unexpectedly came to visit us last Friday and we have been knitting up a storm! Actually, I have been quilting, too. I’ve working on a last-minute entry for a challenge in my art quilt group, CoCA. It is coming along great so far, which is good it is due in less than three weeks.

I recently joined a swap group I heard about on Ravelry. (Yes, I am one of the lucky people who has got in, thanks to my wonderful mother who signed me when she signed up. Love ya, Mom!) Anyway, the swap is called PlaceColorSwap. Here is a link for their yahoo group page. It seems really fun.

According to the rules, I am supposed to post the “Fun Stuff” part of the questionnaire on my blog. And since I’m a little pressed for time at the moment, today’s the day.

What is your favorite color(s)? Green. I LOVE Green, all shades, all variations of green EXCEPT mint. I also like really bright colors. I like green, blue, & purple; red & black; autumn colors

What are your least favorite colors? Pink, brown, white/cream, and pastels

If you have a favorite brand of yarn, what is it? Schaeffer

What weight yarn do you prefer? Doesn’t matter. I seem to be knitting with a lot of lace-weight yarn right now

Is there any weight of yarn you’d rather not have? I’m not doing much with super-bulky right now

Do you enjoy novelty yarn? If so, what kinds do you like and dislike? Yes! I like ribbon yarn, fringy yarn, sparkly yarn, shiny yarn – basically, I’m not picky as long as it isn’t scratchy.

What are your favorite fibers? Definitely Silk. My other favorites are rayon, cotton, bamboo, and soy

Do you have any fibers that you dislike or worse yet, have an allergy to? No allergies, but I’m not very fond of wool. Too itchy.

Do you have pets? If so, what do you have? I have a wonderful little Yorkie named Alyssa. She is 11 years old and a rescue dog.

Do you spin? Yes, I have an embarrassingly large collection of drop spindles, and I am always buying more! (I don’t have a spinning wheel by choice. I love my spindles!)

Would you enjoy receiving spinning related items, such as roving? Definitely! I love spinning silk caps, silk, and soy. I enjoy spinning wool as well (especially hand-dyed) but prefer that it have some non-wooly fiber mixed in, too.

Do you knit, crochet, both, or other? Just knit. But I am a fiber artist (I make art quilts) and that’s what I do full-time for my profession.

Is there anything within your craft that you haven’t tried yet that you’d like to try or learn? Oh, lots of things. Scribble Lace, for one.

Is there anything that you enjoy collecting, aside from yarn? I am an art quilter, so fabric. Especially hand-dyed or batik (Not Joanne’s fabric. Yuck!). I also collect dragons, antique glass Christmas ornaments and vintage postcards.

Is there anything else that your pal should know to help her spoil you? I am a huge “Lord of the Rings” fan. I love to read, especially science-fiction and fantasy. I really like knitting with old metal knitting needles. Of course, I love chocolate, and my husband and I like to cook gourmet. My username on Ravelry is “KrazyQuilts.”

So, there we go. And just for fun, here is one of my favorite pictures of Lyssie:

Mom and I went to the Lake Farm Parks Wool Fest all day yesterday. (We went all day Saturday, and Friday night, too, and were very bad.) We had such a fun time! The sheep! The wool! The yarn! The bamboo! The silk! You get the idea.

The only thing worse than Mom and I going to a wool festival together is Mom and I going to a wool festival together without Marcus . Marcus, you see, lends a bit of restraint to our wild abandon of spending. Only a bit, but still.

Jamie and Matt from the Wooly Knob were there. Two cooler guys you’ll never meet! I bought some very nice Rambouillet Merino/Black Alpaca/ Rayon fiber from them. Mom is having them process some Alpaca and Jacob and Finn fleeces.

Now, besides being spindle sluts, fiber snob (in my case), and wool “collectors,” Mom and I and are also what is known as enablers. In the fiber world, an enabler is someone who feels somewhat guilty about how much she (he) is purchasing/ size of stash/ number of projects/ how much time she (he) spends on said projects, so, they convince other people to buy fiber/ increase their stash/ start new projects/ spend every waking hour on those projects in an effort to somehow legitimize their own problem obsession hobby. We found a new victim fiber enthusiast today in Rebecca Thomas of Waters Edge Jewelry. (She has beautiful stitch markers for knitting and really pretty jewelry. Go buy some. I’ll wait. Go!)

We managed to convince her that she that she had to learn to drop spindle. Had to. That if she didn’t, all the wool in the world would disappear over night or some such disaster. So, she bought a silk cap and a very nice drop spindle and I taught her to spin. Here she is, spinning:

And here is some of her jewelry (I bought lots. I mean, of course I didn’t buy much, Marcus! ):

And here we are at the end of the show today with her. Rebecca is so sweet!

This is a very cute bunny from Millennial Way. Mom and I bought some very fun second-grade white angora bunny fiber for $5 per 6 oz. Actually, we bought all the rest they had. The girl holding this cute little guy was making a rather good case that he should come home to live with me. She is already quite the salesperson! I did not purchase the bunny, just the fiber! Lyssa (and Marcus) are not quite that tolerant. In the background is some fun Cotswold locks that I also bought. The excellent salesperson pictured said that she likes to spin it straight from the locks so that is what I am going to try.

Anne’s Fiber Expressions (their shop is in Montello, WI, phone #: 1-608-297-7254) had a booth filled with very cool stuff. I bought over a pound of Black Diamonds fiber, which is charrcoled bamboo, in a lovely gray. It is seems similar to soy silk. I also bought some ingeo fiber which is made from corn. How fun is that!

Maple Creek Farm had beautiful hanks of yarn that were just calling to me, but sadly, my money ran out before my enthusiasm did so I didn’t get to buy any.

And here is Mom, “hoofing it” back to the car after a long, hard weekend of buying fiber. All that shopping is really quite exhausting.

My mother came to visit us this past weekend, and of course, brought her three little dogs, Mandie, Dustin, and Tiffanie. We refer to my mother as “Mimi” where Lyssie is involved because Mom always said that she never wanted to be called grandma. (Growing up, and to this day, my brothers and I call my maternal grandparents “Nanie and Papa” instead of grandma and grandpa, so guess the weirdness runs in the family. ) Marcus and I call Mom’s dogs “The Big Dogs” because even though they are the same size as Lyssa, their attitudes are so much tougher than hers (because she is so quiet and timid) that they seem bigger. Ergo, Mimi and the Big Dogs. Sounds like a band name, doesn’t it? And with all the dogs’s howling and noise, they rather sound like one, too.

Alyssa gets so excited to see the Big Dogs, wagging her tail and trying to kiss their faces. It is very cute to watch. But, Lyssie always gets very tired when the Big Dogs are here, mostly because they take over all her pillows and blankets, and she, like the good little Yorkie hostess she is, lets them and just runs upstairs or downstairs to hide. (The Big Dogs have yet to master stairs, so she is usually safe.)

After Mimi and the Big Dogs left on Monday, Lyssie plopped herself firmly down on her favorite pillow (which she hadn’t been able to touch all weekend) and didn’t move for hours. Every time I would even come near her, she would look up with those big brown eyes of hers and say, “Please don’t make me get up. Please. My pillow and I have some serious catching up to do.”

As Marcus says, Lyssie is always very happy to see the Big Dogs, and even happier to see them leave.

I had a wonderful surprise this morning. I called my Mom around 10:45, only to discover that she was less than 5 minutes from my house!

Now, this did present a bit of a problem, since I was neither showered nor dressed, the sink was full of dishes, the guest room was full of Marcus’s computer boxes, and the dust bunnies were staging a hostile takeover. (I’m sure none of you can tell that I find playing down in my studio much more enjoyable than housework.)

If there’s anything I’ve learned in life, it’s the positively amazing amount of things that can be done when one is given an impossible deadline. By the time Mom entered the house, Marcus had done a quick vacuuming job and I had dressed, washed my face, my hair was more or less presentable (And by “presentable,” I mean “not likely to frighten small children”), and I had done a quick stash and dash of the house.

*”Confounded Relatives” is part of a quote from Mom’s and my favorite movies, The Lord of the Rings. The quote, spoken in its entirety, is, “Confounded relatives! Hanging on the bell all day, never giving me a moment’s peace!” I always say that to Mom when she comes to visit. We are actually watching The Fellowship of the Ring right now. When Mom and I are together, we usually watch either The Lord of the Rings or Gilmore Girls.

Here she is, knitting away on her Einstein coat from The Knit Stitch by Sally Melville. Tiffanie, Mom’s youngest lil Maltese, is unhappily sitting on her lap. Poor Tiff would much rather be at her house or at least upstairs here barking at the flag across the street. (Tiffanie has “issues” with things that move, things that don’t move, and things that may move at some point in the future.)

Mom will be staying until Tuesday and we will sit and knit and knit and watch movies and of course, go shopping. It was a very sad day for Marcus when Mom and I discovered the Pat Catans (craft store) that is 5 minutes from my house. Such beads! Such yarn! So little space left in my fabric room!

Speaking of my fabric room, not to be confused with my studio, I thought I would post some pictures of it. My fabric room is a 10′ x 10′ room off my studio (which is about 12′ x 25′) and is where I keep most of my fabric and now my yarn as well. It is three walls of wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling cubes shelves. Now, before anyone turns too green with envy, we did buy this house because of the studio and did have to sacrifice a bit to get it. Like the fact that the kitchen only has 1 drawer (yes, that’s one. Uno. ) and being so small that we have to keep our pantry in the guest room closet. So don’t be too envious of me.

This is my yarn wall: (Yes, I know that it is very cruel to say “Don’t envy me” and then flash about pictures of my stash. But what can I say? I never said I was nice.)

About half the yarn was acquired in the last few months due to the the closing of my local yarn shop. It is mostly novelty yarn and non-itchy stuff but there is some wool, mostly stuff I have spindle-spun. Quite a bit of yarn for someone who claims to be a non-knitter, as my Mom would say.

Avert thy eyes, O Fabric-aholics! For the following pictures have been known to cause intense fiber lust and an overwhelming desire to knock off the owner and claim her stash for themselves. Look, but beware:

This is a very sloppy Photoshop job of splicing together the two pictures of my main fabric wall. (I can’t stand back far enough to get the whole thing in one shot.) On the left are my batiks, and on the right are my regular cottons. To the far right, which you can’t really see, is a stack of plastic drawers with sorted leftover strips of fabric ranging in 1/4″ increments from 1″ to 2 3/4″.

This is my second fabric wall. This holds my large pieces of fabric for the backs of bed-sized quilts, my flannel fabrics, WIPs (Works In Progress), Christmas fabric, quilt tops to be pinned up and quilted, and pinned up quilts that still need to be quilted. On the top of this wall is my spindle stand that holds my beautiful drop spindles. The bottom cubes are full of my wool to be spun into yarn. (My as yet unspun silk fiber is in the large red hamper on the top row of the yarn wall.)

So there it is. My fabric room. Three walls of fabric, yarn, and spinning fiber. And beads. There is also another shelf next the yarn wall that holds my beads and some other odds and ends. And that doesn’t even include my silk fabric and angelina fiber.

Don’t hate me because I’ve got tons of yummy fabric. Hate me because I’ve got tons of yummy fabric and am willing flaunt it.