I’ve been tagged by knittinggal.                                

Random 7 facts about me:

1) I was born in Portsmouth, NH, 1960.  Pushing 50 but still young at heart!

2) I’m a mother of two beautiful daughters and a wife of a very sweet man. 

3) I’m a canoe instructor, go paddlers!

4)  I own The Local Needle yarn shop and love yarn, knitting, fibers and the people that use them.

5) I have jumped from a wing of a plane, twice in my life.  Yes, there was a parachute attached.

6) We own a food chain.  (My dog, 2 cats, 2 saltwater aquariums, oh, and Dennis the duck)

7) I’m a Girl Scout leader.

That was actually a little hard for me…I don’t enjoy talking about myself.  Probably due to the fact that I don’t lead a very exciting life, but then I’m content not to, just hand me my knitting! 

Give 7 random facts about yourself,  include the seven facts and the rules in your blog.  List 7 others to tag and provide a comment on their blog so they know that they are now tagged!

With the exception of Life in the Zu, I thought I’d tag a bunch of fellow Floridians.

Life in the Zu

The Daily Stitch

Chronicles of a Yarn Obsession

Yarns, Needles, Books and Life

Somewhere Knitting

Gadabout Knitter

Island knitter

Life’s journeys…

My sister has a motto, “enjoy life’s journeys”.  I’ve thought of it often since she mentioned it.   When you ponder this thought, it places your mind at ease and you try to find the enjoyable side of the situation you are faced with, after all, it’s a journey.

We all have catastrophic journeys that can be very challenging to heart and soul, they will not, or cannot be enjoyable.  I’m not speaking of those, I’m talking about the little paths and turns that life takes and most often, without a moments notice.

 A few months back I began down a new path when I attended an Alpaca show here in Jacksonville, (sister mentioned above has an alpaca farm, Crystal Springs Alpacas).  I was surprised by a few things…but mostly…the lack of fiber, fleece and yarn at the show.   

The show was almost completely about the breeding and care of the animals, nothing about fleece.    Hmm…  

What is the alpaca industry all about?

At the same time, a new alpaca magazine was being born, Alpaca Solutions, The Ranchers’ Guide to Alpacas.  

I chatted with the publisher for a bit at the show and suggested he include a few articles in his magazine about the fleece end of the industry.  He thought it was a fantastic idea, then told me when the deadline was. 

Needless to say, I began my journey of writing my first ever published magazine article. 

I can’t say this journey started out as enjoyable, it was actually quite difficult.   I continually had to remind myself that the reading audience would be alpaca breeders, not alpaca knitters.  My entire goal was to let alpaca breeders know that there are a group of people in the world that can be labeled “fiber enthusiasts” and that it would be to their advantage to locate them and involve them in their fleece and fiber processing. 

So here’s a link to the magazine, my article begins on page 15, entitled, “Where’s The Fleece?” 

Enjoy the magazine, it’s free and online (pdf format), and I’m greatly flattered that they’ve asked me to write another.

Chalk up and cheers to another journey!

On May 1, 2007, Schaefer Yarns made the following announcements:

The NEW COLORS are here! From inspiration to fomula to dye pot, they’ve had a long journey getting to the Color Concepts stage.  There are 26 NEW COLORS, 17 in wool and 9 in cotton.  By request, a number of them are monochromatics in shades of green, purple, brown and rust.  We hope you love them as much as we do! 

                 Dian Fossey (new monochromatic)Correta Scott King (wool)

  Isabella of Castile (cotton)

New Knit Kits are available.  Here’s a picture of Lola Bunny Love.

 The put-up on Martha has changed to a 4 oz skein (330 yards). In addition, the gauge should be 5.5 on 7’s (not 4.5).  It’s a true DK.

Speaking of DK yarn, our new mercerized pima cotton DK, Susan, will be available in June in all 18 cotton colors.  It’s the same quality as Laurel, just lighter, as requested by many of Laurel’s devoted fans.

All, coming soon to The Local Needle!

The Local Needle received several new colors of Heirloom Breeze cotton. 

This cotton yarn is amazingly soft, just a touch of wool (30%) and a little bit of Lycra gives it a great bit of bounce.  

• Finished projects will keep their shape
• Perfect for those shapely tanks or shells
• Soft enough for baby

On the shorelines….I had a note from Holly at Seacoast Handpainted Yarns that my order of sock yarns is done and drying.  We should receive it near the end of next week.  This yarn moves FAST, so keep an eye on the New Arrivals.

I cast on for Knitter’s Spring 07 Loden Mist on Saturday (5/5/07).   

I’m using Louet Kidlin (in Woodland) which consists of one strand of kid mohair and one strand of linen. 

At first I hesitated using this yarn because the linen is much lighter in shade than the mohair, (which is not always the case with this yarn).  I have found that from a distance the garment has the color of the darker mohair and yet up close, the lighter shade of linen brings notice to the stitch pattern. 

This yarn knits to a bit different guage than what the pattern calls for, so I went down a needle size to a US 6 and I cast on for a small, to make a med/large.  According to calculations,  it should be right on the money.

It will not be as light and ‘frothy’ as the description reads, due to the linen content, but I’m hoping will still be very pretty.  Like most lace projects, the beauty is in the blocking.

I just learned that the Georgia forest fires have crossed the border into Florida and there is a mandatory evacuation just 15 miles (half that as the crow flies) from The Local Needle!! 

For several weeks all of NE Florida has had a smokey haze in the air and on some mornings your car will be blanketed with a light layer of ash. I can only imagine how much worse it must be in Georgia. 

On the contrary, yesterday was the first day that NE Florida saw clear blue sky for quite some time.  It was a bit cooler than normal and we opened our windows to enjoy the last bit of coolness before the heat sets in. 

Around 2 am, I awoke to a heavy smoke smell and quickly closed all the windows. Then today came the nearby evacuation, which you can read about here. 

We’ve had one rainfall since February 2 of this year and it wasn’t even an inch.  This river has become a creek.

Each Sunday our service begins with a prayer for rain, amongst other things.

The south could really use some rain!

Just a quick note for a shop update…The Local Needle has just received in shipments of Louet Euroflax Linen and Kidlin.

Euroflax Linen Sport weight is a great yarn for summer garments, like the Sleeveless Tuxedo Shirt in Interweave Knits Summer 2007. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Or take a peek at these Louet patterns.

Kidlin laceweight gives the softness of kid mohair with the strength of linen. 

Perfect for lace projects like these. 

This all began when I was doing a little tag surfing and checking out some knitting blogs.  I ran across ’ All in A Days…‘ and discovered two tutorials on knitted Amigurumi.  I found it interesting and thought it might be something a knitter could have some fun with.  So I decided as soon as I was done with my current project, I’d use up a little scrap yarn and try my hand at knitted amigurumi. 

At the same time….and you will begin to see how scary the human mind can be….my daughter was participating in a old Spanish reenactment in St. Augustine (The Nation’s Oldest City).  The last day of the event, we planned on walking the cobblestone streets and browsing our way through some of the quaint and unique shops.  One of the those quaint little shops was a Vera Bradley boutique. 

If any of you have a teenage daughter, you can probably understand how this discovery could weasel it’s way into that section of the brain that also screams “chocolate”!   …and that clever salesperson behind the counter probably already knew the workings of a teenager when she announced a trunk sale in 2 weeks.  Needless to say, daughter wanted to attend the trunk show in the worse way. 

 While she’s doing odd jobs around the house (to spend at the trunk show), I cast on for Kumochan, and while shaping it’s head, can’t help but wonder what I will name her/him.  

Here’s the brain on yarn…..I dreamt that night, that daughter wanted more than just one bag at the trunk show, ….she was wildly flailing her eight arms and was telling me “But everyone else carries eight bags!” 

Meet Vera BRATley.