crosspatch creations « Karen Squared

Posts Tagged ‘crosspatch creations’

Finished Handspun

Monday, June 8th, 2009

Fiber: Crosspatch Creations
Source: Rhinebeck 2008
Colorway: Blue/Multi
Yardage: 268 yards
Weight: 4.2 oz.
Ply: 2
WPI: 13

I finished this yarn up a few weeks ago but I am behind in my spinning posts so I’m just getting around to blogging about it.

This is the second time I have spun Crosspatch Creations and I just love spinning this stuff! It’s nice to just spin and not strive for consistency like I usually do. Instead, I realize I’m not going to spin “perfect” yarn and enjoy the spinning, the feel of the bumps and nubs slipping through my fingers. It’s wonderful. And it makes wonderful yarn too.

This is what I am working on now. It is the Alpaca and wool blend I picked up at this years CTS&W. I loved the mix of red and brown together and couldn’t wait to start on this. It does have a lot of vm in it though that I didn’t see when I bought it and that has taken a lot of the fun out of spinning it. It’s not much fun to have to stop spinning every minute or so to pick stuff out. I will finish it, but it won’t be soon enough for me.

I joined the Nutmeg Spinners Guild and went to my first meeting on Saturday. The meeting was on creating balanced plied yarns and this is the result of my time at the meeting.

It is a 3 ply and I only ended up with about 50 or 60 yards but I like how it came out and will find a use for it sooner or later. I drove up with Marcia and had a fun day, although she kept making me eat the delicious cookies she made and I think I gained about 5 pounds.

Hope you had a great weekend!

Tags: crosspatch creations, handspun, Spinning
Posted in Spinning | 11 Comments »

Rhinebeck Weekend

Monday, October 20th, 2008

I made it to Rhinebeck on Saturday. It was a lovely drive up with Marcia and Marcia and despite the crowds it was really nice to go after missing it last year. I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it until the last minute this year and I think that not knowing if I could go or not made me want to go all the more. The reason I wasn’t sure if I could go or not was because my former job (yes you read that right), has this thing called flex hours and they gave me flex hours on Saturday. Their definition of flex hours are that they schedule you to work over and above the hours of your normal schedule…maybe. They schedule you for flex hours after your normal shift, which I was fine with seeing as I was already there anyway, and also on your days off, which I was not fine with. You have to call in one hour before your flex schedule starts and see if you are indeed working or not depending on if anyone else called in or if the store is just busy that day. It made it impossible to ever plan anything definite on your days off and I just couldn’t deal with it, so I thought it was best to leave before they invested any more time in me, and I in them. I felt really bad and hardly slept the night before I quit, but I am glad I did. I couldn’t live my life being on call all the time like that. Anyway… I will admit that quitting a job this time was much easier than the first time I did it. It must get easier with practice. That’s probably not a good thing.

Seeing as I was again unemployed, I was good at Rhinebeck and only came home with a little fiber. This is Crosspatch Creations Signature Blend from Carolina Homespun. I love this stuff and this was the first booth I went searching for.

And this is a blend of Jacob, Shetland, Silk Noil and Flax from Maple Row Stock Farm. I couldn’t find a web site for them though. I saw a sample of it spun up and it was gorgeous. If it comes out half as nice for me, I’ll be happy.

I brought my camera and as usual never took any pictures. I ran into only a few bloggers this year for some strange reason. I know a ton of them were there, but I couldn’t find them. It was definitely chilly and I should have dressed warmer, but all in all it was a nice day.

On Sunday I relaxed and made some pumpkin bread. I froze one for my mom and will bring it down to her this week. The other one is almost all gone already. I used the recipe I found here and the only changes I made was to double the spices and to eliminate 1 cup of the sugar. I also used 2 loaf pans instead of 3. It uses applesauce instead of oil or butter and was surprisingly moist and a lot less calories.