Artsyfish Knits and spins

Thanksgiving 2010

2010-11-26T09:49:00.000-05:00

I'm incredibly grateful for the best friends any person could have and for being alive today!

Pennies per Hour

2010-06-11T15:48:00.000-04:00

I'm starting to spin singles suitable for lace weight 2 -ply yarn. It takes forever! I'm using a beautiful batt from Butterfly Girl Designs called Margarita that is spinning up very thin. I'm using my Little Gem on the next to smallest whorl. Although I've had some of the spun fiber drift apart, most of the singles are really fine. I may switch to a smaller whorl, because the ratio is only

Retreat to the Fleece!

2010-04-27T16:07:00.003-04:00

This past weekend I trekked to Pennsylvania for a Spring Fiber Retreat. I found out I loves my fleeces! Beth, the owner of the Spinning Loft, taught us all about different sheep and fleece prep and spinning at her mom's B&B in Linfield, PA. We each had clean little fleece samples to try My faves to spin were Cormo and Lincoln. The coolest locks were on the Scottish Blackface - easiest

Kittens!

2010-04-04T09:29:00.001-04:00

I work for the Chesapeake Humane Society, and have been loving up this cat for the last 3 weeks. She came in pregnant and has been getting bigger and bigger. Wednesday I noticed some things that indicated she might be close. Sure enough, last night three kittens were born! You can see how big they are compared to her (yikes)! The black one on the bottom in this pic took over 3 hours of

Perfect Day

2010-04-02T17:24:00.000-04:00

It's spring in Tidewater, and yesterday was the perfect spring day! Normally my S&B meets at Barnes and Noble in Chesapeake on Thursday. This week we all met at my house and knitted (and spun) on the front porch. Lovely! Wallisknits came with Fairbanks, Macadoodle, and Betty E were all there. Being the week before Easter we talked about those Easter bonnets that we wore as kids. I don't

OMG - I'm in LOVE!

2010-03-12T13:05:00.000-05:00

Check out these socks! Someday I will post something like them. They are beauteous!

The Blog Builder was Sick

2010-02-23T13:04:00.000-05:00

Not me - the computer. The fan on the power supply died, so after 2 days of an external fan and frantically backing up, my computer went to the Computer Hospital. All is well now, but it's absence did free up some time (ya think!?) So what did the Artsy Fish do with this time? Spin? Nope - I went after the house projects I have been putting oiff. I painted the excercise room and hung new

Knitting Weather!!!!!

2010-02-01T13:30:00.000-05:00

The weathermen (and women) were right this time! We had a lovely storm on Saturday. After watching this as I knit away Saturday... I went out to enjoy the sunshine on Sunday! Unfortunately the roads are still the pits on Monday - I wish VDOT understood that plowing the roads before the snow stops actually does some good!

Bag O' Sheep

2010-01-17T17:52:00.003-05:00

I'm going to try this again with some lessons learned. Keep things short and sweet - no more long posts. Yesterday I met Wallisknits' nieces, Katie and Becky. It was really neat - I felt like I knew them a little, because of their blogs! Beckie came to my house with Chocolate Pound Cake and cookies. Katie came to my house with a big plastic bag - and there was a sheep inside! I

Yes, She Does

2009-01-29T17:08:00.009-05:00

Spin, that is. I've done posts about a lot of things (mostly opportunities to buy stuff), but I actually USE the stuff I buy too.I wrote about a trip to the mountains and a sale by Kid Hollow Farm (KHF ). This is the first I've spun from that. I carded in some gold firestar to add a little spark. I got 3 skeins of about 150 yds each which is becoming a shawl.Very soft and smooshy!This is

My Podcasts are Back!

2009-01-02T11:52:00.006-05:00

My year started out right with episodes of both Cast On and Craftlit after what seemed like a long hiatus. Since I got high speed internet and my first MP3 player I have reveled in the wealth of audio entertainment – both crafting and non-crafting related. When I first started out I would listen to anything. That changed REAL fast. The first

The Artsyfish is Hung Again

2008-11-25T11:52:00.005-05:00

For many years I have been taking art classes through the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia (CACV). My favorite and most persistent has been Landscape on Location with Suzanne Stevens. Over this time I have evolved from a very tight pastel artist to a rather loose watercolorist. Suzanne called yesterday to invite me to put one of my favorite pictures into the Student Gallery in December.

Back to the Mountains

2008-11-20T11:27:00.006-05:00

This past weekend three of us trekked back to the mountains of Virginia. Yes, I do know that these are hills compared to the real mountains out West! But to those of us that live at or below sea level, these are very nice, easy to get to mountains. The reason was KnitXperience put on by Carodan Farms. For us it was a major yarn crawl with food thrown in! First stop was the Knitting Sisters

Monogamy - What's that?

2008-10-27T10:59:00.016-04:00

When it comes to knitting and spinning variety is the spice of life. At least for me. Since this blog is Artsyfish Knits I guess I should post about my projects on the needles. At least active projects. We will not disturb the hibernating bears lurking in the yarn room.My oldest active project is from last spring. What makes such an old project active? It's intention. I do not intend to go

One Knitter's Review

2008-10-20T14:25:00.008-04:00

This weekend our knitting guild brought in Clara Parkes, author of The Knitter's Book of Yarnand the Knitter's Review web site and newsletter. The weekly newsletter provides reviews of needles, yarns and other tools, as well as keeping its readers informed of Fiber Events throughout the country. The Knitter's Review forum is available for discussions of over 7000 topics related to knitting.

Off to the Yarn Shop!

2008-10-07T14:39:00.004-04:00

Not me - my yarn! This yarn I spun up from thisis now in a LYS waiting to be sold! Let's see how long it takes...

A Crowd Filled Weekend

2008-10-06T16:07:00.009-04:00

This weekend was the busiest of the fall for me. Saturday was the Virginia Fall Fiber Fest and Sheepdog Trials in Orange, Virginia. This was the first fiber fest since I really took up spinning. Maryland Sheep and Wool was only my begin-to-spin fest.Wallis and I jumped in the artsy mobile way early on Saturday morning and drove across the state to Orange and a wonderland of fibery goodness.

September's Almost Over!

2008-09-26T11:34:00.016-04:00

Earlier this month I joined the September Spin Along on the Spinner Central group on Ravelry. When I was reading the thread I realized the Leicester Longwool locks I scored in Yorktown were local and natural colored.I fell in love with the fiber (and was petting it the whole time we walked around Yorktown!) Well, I realized yesterday that the end of September was approaching and I hadn't done

Heritage Days

2008-09-22T11:26:00.012-04:00

I spent 2 days at the Chesapeake Heritage Days celebration this weekend. Our knitting Guild (TKGV) had a booth and provided a table for members to sell our stuff if we wished. I had yarn, house socks for adults and kids, felted bags and some earrings and stitch markers.As usual nothing sold! I may just stop with the shows - they aren't worth the effort!The good news is that I got a lot of

Starting Out

2008-09-18T12:38:00.007-04:00

I kind of hate it when pushed beyond my comfort zone. This blog is definitely beyond that place.I developed a web page for a client and when she wanted to do her own updates I followed in the steps of far more savvy web designers and suggested she begin a blog for the updates she wanted. Worked like a charm, but then she started asking questions I couldn't answer, since I didn't have a blog.So