Mohair Woes

I love mohair, I really do.  I love the halo.  I love how mohair takes up colour.  There is depth, tone and richness to any colour in mohair.  I absolutely become ecstatic over the sheen of a mohair fibre.  Working with mohair is an amazing experience.  But then there is always a "but".  

Mohair is miserable to rip back.  Fibres get everywhere.  Pink and purple fibres are covering the brown recliner.  I had to put T-shirts in the dryer with lots of fabric sheets to remove as much mohair fibres from the cotton as I could.  It is up my nose, in my hair and this morning I found the dog's water dish with a floating haze of mohair.  If I am ever kidnapped I hope I am wearing mohair.  There will be a trail of fibre to lead the police to the perpetrators no matter how much they vacuum the trunk.

The shrug is mohair and silk.  I carefully measured the rectangle before sewing up the sleeve seams.  I tried it on and then made each sleeve seam 2" longer.  It had to be right before I added the ruffle edging.  Mohair is notorious for being hard to rip back.  This fabric is doing something strange.  It is changing length and shape continually.  It was the right measurement before the ruffle.  It has grown.  My lovely niece B is modelling the shrug.  It should have fit her.  I think it is too big.  It now sort of fits me but I swear in another week it will be too big for me too.

I have asked B if she would like this item after the Fair.  If so, I will cut off the ruffle, lengthen the sleeves to narrow the back to fit her.  I have lots of this yarn left to reknit the ruffle.  If not, then I will find someone else who will fit the shrug.  It is really quite beautiful and weighs almost nothing.

The Elegance Poncho is also mostly mohair.  I am trying to blend four yarns in pinks and purples.  I am not sure I am succeeding.  I love this pattern.  I love each and every yarn I am using.  I also love each and every colour.  I am just not sure that they like each other.  I have completed the first panel.

There is triple striping going on.  There are three types of yarn each creating a type of stripe.  There are actually three colour themes going on.  Dark Pink, Wine and the mohair which was unlabelled as to colour but there are differing shades of purple in it.  There are also different textures knit into the piece creating their own striping effect. I think is it beautiful yet it leaves me a bit unsatisfied.  I am not sure why.  Maybe too many stripes?

On Saturday, my friend Connie and I took a trip to the Woodstock Fleece Festival.  We have been going together for several years now and we just have a blast of a time.  We used to leave early in the morning to get there right at opening.  We live 2 hours away from Woodstock so it was a very early start.  We would get there wait in line in the cold and the rain to get in.  The venue was crowded.  The vendors' booths had great selection but we could not get in them to have a good look around.  So the last couple of years or so, we leave later, stop and have lunch then get to the festival around 1PM.  We don't have the big crowds, we can get into the booths and browse and we can park closer to the venue.  We enjoy the yarn orgy so much more.

This year this was again our plan.  We were enjoying the drive and commenting on how lovely the weather was.  It did not look like rain.  The Fates love to mess with us.  Less than 10 minutes later we were in a snow squall being bombarded with graupel. Shortly after that we were at a standstill on the 401.  It took forever to exit at Putnam Road.  We made our way to Ingersoll where again we crawled along to the four way stop sign on the edge of town.  The 401 traffic headed south and we headed north.  It has been more than 20 years since I spent any amount of time navigating the streets and byways of Ingersoll.  I thought at one point we were correctly heading north but the compass on the dash of the car said west.  West was wrong.  The lovely app on my I-phone confirmed I was right and the compass was wrong.  We made our way to what used to be Highway 2 and which also happens to be the road we needed to get to the Fleece Festival.  The delay and detour put us in Woodstock almost an hour behind schedule.  Would there be any yarn left?

One of my favourite things about arriving at the Fleece Festival is the parking.  Parking is on the Woodstock Racetrack.  Any kid who watches hockey dreams of being the Zamboni driver when they grow up.  If you spend any amount of time watching horse racing, you want to be the pace car driver.  At least I do.  At Woodstock, I get to drive around the racetrack to find the perfect parking spot.  Sometimes I miss it and have to drive around a second time.  For that brief moment in time, I am the pace car driver; 8 horses and sulkies are following me until the barriers lift up and I accelerate out of their path.

Connie and I separate once we get there.  It is too hard to stay together but that does not mean we are not meeting up.  I like to scope out all the vendors and figure our what I want to buy before going back and actually making my selections.  I found Linda's Craftique who had a selection of Fleece Artist kits for the Elegance Poncho.  I checked them all out.  Did I want to start a second one?  I found Connie and took her back there for a second opinion.  I showed her a gorgeous blue and green combination that stunned us both with its rich colours.  I then pointed out a second combination as an alternative.  Connie took one look at it and said I had to buy it and I had to buy it now.  

The colour is labelled as Ebony.  C called it "Bark".  I call it "must cast on now".

Both C and I signed up for the next Stephen West Mystery Knit Along.  It calls for three colours of fingering weight yarn.  C had picked out a lovely combination from her stash but wanted to keep her options open.

I had picked out three as well but didn't like one of the colours with the other.  C didn't like it either.  I brought them along to pick out something better.  I went from booth to booth holding my two skeins against possible thirds.  Nothing was working.

Eventually I made my choice.

The two on the outer edges are from my stash.  The two in the middle are my choice from the Festival.  I bought two as the yardage was less than the other two colours and I wanted to be sure I did not run out.

I ran into Connie after buying the Hedgehog Fibres at Georgetown Yarn.  She at least was running.  I was sauntering along and thinking that I never win a door prize at these types of events when I heard them call C's name, looked up and there she was running towards me and asking where the red balloons were.  The announcer had said that prizes could be picked up at the red balloons.  She had won two lovely skeins of yarn.  I can't wait to see what she makes with them.

So, since we were together again, I showed her my Hedgehog. I thought she was going to faint she was so excited. Hedgehog!!!! Where did I get it!  She had to have some! So I took her to the booth.  She picked out three combinations for the Mystery Knit Along Shawl, plus a few extra.  C never under-does anything.

Here are my other purchases.

  Another skein of Hedgehog Fibres.  This one because it is speckled.  C kept saying on the way down that she wanted speckled yarn.  She did not have any in her stash.  Turns out I am very susceptible to persuasion.

I had to stop by Zig Zag Stitches.  Numerous people saw the bag I was carrying and asked if I got it there.  No, I made it myself.  However I did fall in love with the above project bag.  Now when I ask Hubby to pass me my sock bag, he will know which one holds the socks in progress.

C and I finally met up just before 4PM.  I asked if she was ready to head home.  Yes she was, she said, she was out of money.  Me too I replied and we headed towards the door.  C just had to introduce me to her new friends at Red Sock Blue Sock Yarn, an indie dyer.  I just had to have the linen project bag and then I accidently touched the Olive skein of 70% Baby Alpaca, 20% silk and 10% cashmere.  I could not let go.  I dug into my hidden cache of just in case emergency cash and they came home with me.

Here is C with the lovely ladies of Red Sock Blue Sock Yarn.

  Here are some other photos from the Fleece Festival.

I couldn't resist this skein of yarn.  The ladies at Dyed by Lindsay were so helpful trying hard but unsucessfully making a match for that third skein for the mystery knit along,  I just had to buy something.  This was too beautiful to pass up.

Progress Report

The Cowl is done.

The first 5 squares of the afghan are done and sewn together in a strip.  3 more strips to go.

I have added an Excel spreadsheet to the sidebar.  You can click on it to see progress on each project.  I will be updating it from time to time.