st. louis

It's spring break! I decided to visit a friend who moved to St. Louis over the first weekend, not too far away and still warmer than here sounded like an overall good deal.

We checked out the Arch (which does not span the river, contrary to what I thought) and were glad it wasn't a windy day.


Went to the MO Botanical gardens...




And checked out the Anheuser-Busch Brewery, with all of its great beer themed ironwork as well as the beer ;-)


Unfortunately, I was trying not to buy craft supplies for lent (I'm not catholic but giving up things for a limited amount of time appeals to my not-sure-what-to-call-it nature) but on the other hand decided to check out some local yarn stores and wound up getting a couple of skeins of Fleece Artist, some roving, and a book on ganseys. I think I should probably reflect on my unnecessary expenditures while finally doing my taxes...

January - February 2009

(I'm a terrible blogger, from now on I'm setting myself a goal to blog at least one every couple of months)

School has been busy, but I think the busier I am the more I manage to get done in all aspects of my life. I've organized my stash and sold off some more stash yarn. This was in part to justify buying a drum carder secondhand, but the carder needs a little adjusting before I start using it in earnest. I'm been spinning more regularly and the practice definitely helps. Now I just need to finish my taxes... ;-)

This is some Ashland Bay Merino Top I purchased at MDSW in 2006. I finally started spinning it and my goal is to knit myself a handspun pullover out of it. I'm aiming for a heavy worsted to chunky 3-ply yarn.


I just finished spinning up a total of 7 oz of singles divided evenly onto 2 bobbins. That's about a third of the total I think I need. I've never knit with my handspun before and I'm not sampling. I have been checking the rough wpi time to time by doing the fold-onto-itself method (does this trick have an official name?) but I still consider myself a newbie and my spinning is only just starting to even itself out. So with a tiny bit of apprehension, I'm still very excited!


I have a couple of knitting projects going on the side, a vest and fingerless gloves, but compared to the spinning they really aren't getting much attention at all. Hopefully I'll have those FOs to share in a few weeks though since Spring Break is coming up;-)