Spring and string

First, spring.

The giant snowpile next to the sidewalk has melted enough to reveal snowdrops. February is definitely over, and there’s a possibility of spring arriving eventually. I expect at least one more big snow, though.

Now, on to string. This arrived last week from KnitPicks. It’s worsted weight Wool of the Andes in the claret heather colorway, and it’s all Tamie’s fault. She didn’t have quite enough yarn herself for free shipping, so she forced me to purchase some to round out the total. Forced, I say.

There’s enough there for a cardigan. (No really, Tamie made me do it.) I’ve chosen the Bristow cabled cardigan pattern from Knitty.

So far so good. The cables look, well, cably, and the piece seems to be generally sleeve-shaped. I’ve never knitted either a sweater or anything cabled, so this is quite exciting.

I traveled to Poughkeepsie NY this past weekend to teach a tablet weaving class at an SCA event. It’s one of my favorite events, a gathering of fiber and other crafty types, followed by a teacher brunch at Thora’s house the next day. Alas, Thora was ill, which was dreadfully disappointing (and I hope she’s feeling better by now!) because I enjoy spending time with her, and don’t get to very often other than this event.

I made an excuse of this trip, and took Friday off work, driving most of the way and spending the night in a motel. By myself. Where it’s clean, and quiet, and nobody bothers me. Hah! I planned to get far more accomplished that evening than it did, but it was a relaxing break nonetheless. I even managed to miss driving in the torrential downpours (like we need more rain). I have in the past left Saturday morning, but that’s a completely insane thing to do and I have no idea why I’ve done it more than once.

My class went fairly well, though two of the six students had never done any tablet weaving. It’s better as an advanced class, but we all managed okay. Unfortunately I realized Friday night that one major chunk of my handout was completely useless for its intended purpose – good on the history, unusable for the how-to. So I’ll be rewriting that.

I took a class on sheep breeds and got to pet many, many samples. I might need some Karakul lamb.