It Must Have Been the Food

Spinning Guild yesterday was an absolute ZOO! They had pot luck, and by the time I got there (with nothing for the potluck, a solid hour late, and no breakfast in my stomach!) there were tons of people, and lots of people were set up to sell, so we were all on top of each other. And, I must confess, I arrived in a SNARKY mood. Snarkiness at guild, if you ask me, is as bad as showing up at church in a snarky mood. Suddenly those adorable little girls in the row ahead of you seem ill-mannered and out of control. No, you shouldn't go to guild feeling snarky and you shouldn't go to church feeling snarky. And so it is said.

In spite of my snarkiness, I did have a good time and came back with all kinds of excitement to talk about. First, I must tell you my cardinal rule of attending guild: Thou shalt not spend the grocery money on baubles. I blew through my rule right off the bat when I saw these lovely shawl pins made by Kyla Williams.

Do I need a shawl pin? Ummm... no. So, maybe the shawl pin could be for my sister-in-law, since I drew her name for Christmas. Yes, that's the answer. So I plunked down the grocery money and bought the shawl pin. Then I sat there thinking, Oh darn. My sister-in-law is an athlete. She's not the type to sit around wearing a shawl, much less a shawl that needs to be pinned to keep it on you.

What to do, what to do?

Then I came across Theresa, who was the first person to buy some of my fiber when I first started showing it at guild,. She made these absolutely adorable fingerless mittens with my fiber that she spun:

Well, negotiations began, because Theresa, it turns out, has a knitting machine and is soon to have an antique sock knitting machine. Wow! It turns out that she recently took a job for a clock repair company, and one of her jobs is to clean up the storeroom, and lo and behold, the owner had a sock knitting machine in the storeroom. He had bought it for his sister, who never took to it (Perish the thought! Is she INSANE?) So he's going to let Theresa have it.

So now I need to point Theresa to "the sock knitting machine guy" - Theresa, his name is Fred Houck, and you can hunt him down at http://interprizez.org/GVSMC/ Fred can look over your new-to-you antique sock knitting machine and make sure it is in good shape, or repair it if need be. And then, once you have your sock knitting machine in tip top shape, you should look up Carol Bonczek. Or try Serena Rachels. They are both sock knitting machine enthusiasts. I know that Carol teaches people how to use theirs. I'm not sure if Serena does.

So Theresa and I looked over my yarn, thinking that a shawl might be made, but then I told her that I was really longing for a sweater, so she ended up taking a skein of commercial sock yarn to make socks, and all my blue benny bunny/alpaca that I spun up, to make a sweater. We haven't nailed down the details yet on how much fiber Theresa gets in return for her knitting skills, but I'm sure we'll work something out. Theresa, just take a look at my etsy site and see if there's something you like. If not, give me an idea of something you would like, and I'll see what I can do. I suspect that Theresa is a woman who likes glitz, so I am thinking of making up a round of fiber that has lots of firestar in it. Stay tuned!

By the way, I don't think Theresa has a website or blog yet, but if you'd like to commission her skills for some of these darling fingerless mittens, just drop me a line and I'll track her down.