Yarnover and Blankie

I am so utterly exhausted. I didn't end up getting to bed early last night like I planned. Instead, I stayed up late watching Borat, which is hilariously funny, and also very telling about American culture, in many cases quite unfortunate. One of the things I found most interesting was how the media handled one certain situation in the movie - the scene at the rodeo - in the news clip that was part of the extras. Anyway, I won't say more in case you haven't seen it yet.

I still managed to drag my hiney out of bed at 6:30 this morning and get out the door by 7:30. It would have been quicker, but everyone else woke up too and I wanted to help get breakfast ready for Joe to serve the girls before I left. I still managed to get over to St. Paul and into Arlington High School, where they've been holding the event these last several years, just before the keynote speech began.

What is Yarnover? Well, it's the annual event run by the Minnesota Knitter's Guild that involves all kinds of amazing knitting and fiber-y classes usually taught by the best in the field including big names from across the country. There is also a market place with vendors from all over the region - yarn shops and mills and other knitter-friendly people. It's pretty great, or at least I always have a good time. Annie Modesitt was our keynote speaker this year.

Anyway, I had signed up for an all-day class with Janette Ryan-Busch all about handpainting yarn. Let me just say that I had a great day. Janette is this awesome farm gal who does all kinds of amazing fiber stuff, along with running a farm in Iowa.



I learned a bunch of great tips on handling dyes and making pretty yarn, but even better, I had a great day just playing with the colors and watching what everyone else in the class came up with. As promised to my classmates, you can click through on the following two pictures for the full-resolution version. Then, if you want to save it to your hard drive, just click on File-Save Image As and choose a place on your computer where you want to save it.





Here are the skeins that I created today, hanging to dry at home



Janette also brought a big pile of her samples for us to see and buy, and I brought home this beautiful skein of hers. I love her dye style - very uninhibited and unstructured, and cool because she uses small bits of color seemingly randomly spread through the skein, which knits up with fewer big pools of color.



The day was also great because I got to see a lot of awesome knitting friends and acquaintances. I only wish I had more time to socialize.

A couple other quick things. I bought this really cool mug from Jennie Lanners at the marketplace today. I already have one of her bowls, and I love her work. Such cute little sheepies and yarn! I have no affiliation with Jennie, don't really know her other than having met her a couple times at fiber events in the last couple of years. I just like to give praise to awesome people where I think it is due. Go check her out!



Also, one of the things we got as gifts with our registration package were these lovely little stitch markers. They are so cute! I would seriously consider buying more to give as gifts, but it wasn't clear to me where they came from or who made them. If anyone reading here knows more about them, please give me a shout-out!



Okay, on to the Blankie update. And crap! I had a picture of the whole thing, but it somehow got deleted. You'll just have to look at the closeups for the week. Sorry to disappoint, but I will share that the blankie had a lot of fun today. Every time I pulled it out to show to a friend, it attracted a little crowd.







Now I'm going to go weave in some more ends.