I told you there were a lot of people having babies around me lately. One of them was the Matron of Honor at my wedding last year.

Baby number three for her arrived in September. Nevermind that I just finished her sweater recently.

I dyed and spun up some superwash merino as I had done for the previous two. Only this time I underestimated the amount of fiber I’d need for the thickness of yarn I spun because I ran out with only a few more rows to go! But all was not lost. I’ve made two of these sweaters so far and they have all been for children of the same Mom. I found leftovers from the first one

And used them to complete number 3! That’s right. Yarn from this child’s older sisters sweater completed hers. I’m not sure if that’s weird, but since they were complementary and I didn’t have any more fiber on hand it seemed like the best option. I figured I’d find buttons that would bring it all together.

And then I remembered that I don’t have easy access to NYC and my usual button places any more! I haven’t looked at big box stores for buttons in awhile but the selection? Pathetic!! I couldn’t believe it. Luckily, Joanne’s seems to still have at least a wider selection than Michael’s or the like and I found something cute to make it all work.

And just for fun, here’s a mosaic of all three sweaters I’ve made for these siblings starting with the youngest and going to the oldest from left to right.

I’d like to say this is the last of the baby knits you’ll see here for awhile but there are at least 3 more on the way that I know of at this moment so this is not the end by a long shot!

Just in case you haven’t seen it elsewhere, I’m having a sale in my Artfire & Etsy shops this weekend!

Use code “THANKSGIVING” for free shipping on everything in both shops excluding the 2012 fiber club. That includes the sale section on Artfire which makes for some great deals.

Happy Shopping and I hope y’all had a great Thanksgiving! More knitting to come next post.

Awhile back on plurk a bunch of people decided to do a shawl swap and I decided to jump on the bandwagon. What really drew me in was that the yarn used to make the shawl had to be handspun! We were paired up and the person I would be making a shawl for was someone I had never “met” online. After a few messages back and forth I finally thought I had a feel for what she might like and got to work dyeing.

Lucky for me (and my swap partner) I had just gotten some 75/25 blend of BFL/Silk into the shop to try! OMG people if you have not spun this blend before GO GET SOME!! And ya know, there might be some here or here that you could try. But seriously no matter where you get it from go get some and try it! I love this blend so much! It has the spinning ease of superwash merino with that beautiful shine of silk and everything you love about BFL all in one blend! If you haven’t figured it out by now I *really* enjoyed spinning this up. While the colors of the top didn’t come out quite as saturated as I would have liked, I held out hope that my partner would like it.

Then I took a look through her Ravelry queue/wishlist and stumbled upon the Peacock Shawlette pattern. What a great match for the color yarn I’d come up with! I set to knitting as soon as the yarn was dry (didn’t hurt that I was already pushing the deadline and I happened to be home sick anyway). I’ve never knit a shawl from the long edge up before but I really enjoyed it! The cast on was a bit fiddly but once I watched the video that the designer included with the pattern it was no problem figuring it out. And to have the rows get shorter instead of longer with a deadline looming? Awesome!

My downtime at home helped me finish the knitting in just under a week (a record for progress on the knitting front for me lately). I suddenly realized that my usual “blocking board” aka our spare bed left us when we moved to NH, so I had to take advantage of sheet changing day, a warm apartment and a fan set to high to get it blocked and ready to send.

In a few hours it was dry and ready for a photo shoot.

By the time you read this the shawl will be happily residing in Colorado with its new owner! But I’m totally going to have to make one of these for myself…

Ever get completely sucked in by a knit? I started this on Saturday.

It’s a hemlock ring blanket. I can’t seem to put it down. I’ve already knit over 223 yards of yarn on it today alone.

I think the knitting mojo is back.

You may or may not know that Stitches, our delightful angora rabbit, has cancer for the third time. I’m not sure that I have said that “out loud” here, but tumor number three was found shortly after we moved to NH and around the time of my Dad’s stroke in the spring so it may have just been too much at the moment.

She had surgery for this same tumor twice while we were in NJ and after a lot of wrestling with the thought we decided not to seek treatment this time around. It wasn’t one of those decision you make and you say out loud or you sign a contract for. It’s one of those decisions that’s just been hanging in the ether for awhile. And even though we did not make the decision lightly and it means that the end of her life is more certain, we think it’s for the best.

That definitely doesn’t make it easy. And waiting for the inevitable is excruciating at best. We know what to look for after discussions with various people. She’ll start to loose weight (which I’m beginning to accept has begun) and a day will come when she’ll stop eating and it will be time to do the same for her that we had to do for Simba last December. I’m dreading that day. I know it’s coming but I dread it with all my heart.

I recently picked her up, which I hadn’t done in awhile and had a good look/feel of the area. The tumor is about as big as the palm of my hand right now. You’d never know anything was wrong with her from looking at her. She’s still happily munching away and laying in the hallway or bouncing around the house like she always does. But I cried. A lot. And I finally did something I’ve been putting off for awhile. I sent for her medical records from NJ. When the time comes I want the new vet to know that she wasn’t neglected.

My friend Diane knows about all this. Diane is one of the sweetest people you would ever meet and I’m lucky to have her in my life. She’s got her hands full with her own life stuff right now and yet she found the time to do this:

At the Southern Adirondack Festival there was a vendor selling needle felting kits. Diane bought the bunny and with some of Stitches fiber and a few pictures she made it into a life like replica of our little girl!!

How amazing is that? Even the ears are perfect!

I’m going to cherish this forever. And when our baby is no longer with us it will be a sweet reminder of the little life we tried so hard to save.

Thank you Diane. From the bottom of my heart.

Bet you didn’t expect to hear from me again so soon, eh? Well I’m announcing a contest for the shop today and thought this would be a good place to explain it in depth since other forums only allow 140 characters. So here it is!

Contained in that tote bag is a wonderful fiber/yarn related prize for a lucky winner (and you get the bag too)! That lucky winner could be YOU! The prize has at least a $50 value, possibly more depending on how entries go. It might also be adjusted depending on whether the winner is a spinner or a knitter (or maybe both). This contest begins today (November 1st) and will run until December 31st with a winner chosen on Jan. 1, 2012.

So how do you get your chance to win? You can enter in several ways:

— Tweet, Plurk, G+, Facebook, Blog, post on Ravelry or find some other way to promote this contest to others. Make sure I see your entry and EACH time your name will be thrown in the hat.

— Make a purchase in either the Artfire or Etsy shops from now until Dec. 31st. Do that and your name will be thrown in the hat THREE times.

— Do a random act of kindness and send me an email at Zarzuelasfibers [at] gmail [dot] com to tell me about it. What’s a random act of kindness? Something you do for someone that you may not even know without expectation of reward. Pay for the coffee of the person behind you at the drive through. Give someone you don’t know a gift. Donate to a food pantry. The possibilities are endless! Do something like this and tell me about it and I’ll put your name in the hat FIVE times.

Why am I doing this? It’s been a great year for Zarzuela’s Fibers and for me. Without your support none of what I’ve accomplished would be possible. The best way I know to express my gratitude is to give something back to you. And if we can spread that good will throughout the fiber community and beyond, what could be better? This is the time of year to look back and remember just how lucky we are and give something back where we can. Won’t you join me?

Wishing you and yours a spectacular end of 2011 and beyond!

As we are still tourists in our new land we decided that we had to go visit the Keene, NH pumpkin festival on the 22nd. We weren’t disappointed either! What a festival!

Never have I ever seen so many carved pumpkins in one place!

Glad I didn’t have that guy’s job though!

There was food and music as well and even though the weather wasn’t the greatest we had an amazing time. Keene is a really fun little town too.

The greatest thing about it? The sense of community. Something like this event wouldn’t be possible just anywhere. No one disturbed the displays, everyone was contributing to the attempt to break the world record (you are asked to bring a carved pumpkin to the festival!). It was amazing.

There was even pumpkin bowling!

And when night fell it got even better!

Come to the Pumpkin Festival you must!

See the complete set of photos we took here.

Wishing you all a happy and safe Halloween!

There seem to be an awful lot of people I know having kids lately. It’s making me a little afraid to drink the water at times. Of course when friends have kids one must knit for them!

First up was actually one of HWJF’s friends. They had a girl back in April and while the blanket was all knit up it took FOREVER to remember to go get the ribbon to complete it. HWJF helped me pick out the yarn during a quick stop at Webs early in the year. Luckily the new Mom and Dad are quite happy to NOT have everything for their little girl be pink!

Dishcloth Baby Blanket

Pattern: Dishcloth Baby Blanket by Kenny Chua
Yarn: Cascade 220 Superwash Paints
Needles: US8
Knit: 1.15-1.23.11

I think I did most of the knitting on this one while we were running all over New England this winter and in the midst of trying to figure out if we were really going to move to NH. Great mindless knitting for the car. I bought three skeins but I never seem to be able to figure out how to use them up properly in this pattern and I really only needed a small amount of the third skein.

I was not quite so lucky on the ribbon. I think I bought 3 yards and it just *barely* made it around!

The next project was pretty special. My BFF from high school called me a month or so after our wedding to tell me she was pregnant. I knew I wanted to make something special for her kid but couldn’t quite figure out what. I finally settled on a baby surprise jacket and dyed up some superwash merino in the colors of a theme they had in their nursery when I saw it.

Not a great pic but you get the idea. I decided to spin a three ply yarn and wanted to make sure I had a good amount of yardage. One problem. I spun it WAY too thin! The three ply came out closer to sock than worsted weight! After much consternation on my part since I pretty much don’t know squat about the size of babies (and I knew there was no way the kid was going to fit a sweater in the fall if I knit it in this yarn and he was being born in May) I decided to make a toy with the yarn instead.

Bunny Blanket Buddy

Pattern: Bunny Blanket Buddy – Knit by Lion Brand Yarn
Yarn: Handspun three ply superwash merino
Needles: US6
Knit: 5.29-6.29.11

This was a pretty simple and well written pattern. Once again, it was pretty mindless knitting for the most part because it is actually pretty similar to the blanket above for the majority of the knitting. The tricky part comes when it’s time to make the head. I thought it was a little weird the way it was done, instead of being knitted in the round the head is knit flat and seamed up the back, but I suppose that makes sense because of the ears. It wasn’t too difficult once I got my head (ha!) around what they were going for.

The only thing I suck at more than planning a proper yarn for a baby sweater?

Embroidery. Oye. I hope the kid doesn’t have nightmares for ever because of that but I did what the pattern offered and don’t exactly have any tools in my pocket for a mod for this one. The instructions said to do the embroidery after sewing up and stuffing the head, so I used a few drops of fray check to keep the stitches in. Knitted toys are obviously not my forte.

But hopefully both of these very loved children will have a gift they will cherish for years to come. I’ve got another baby project on the needles now and plans for a couple more in the future. I’m tellin’ ya, they just keep coming!

… since my last real post.

- Teaching. A lot. I’m working at two studios and one of those studios has a contract with a Waldorf school so I’m doing about 8 hours of yoga teaching a week. It’s great but it can also be draining. Thursdays are my longest days with 4 classes that have me leaving the house at 7am and not getting home until 9pm. Working with High School students has definitely been interesting. It’s all really great experience for me (and hopefully for my students as well!) and I’m very grateful for the work.

- Vending! Zarzuela’s Fibers appeared at the NJ Sheep and Wool Festival as well as the Southern Adirondack Fiber Festival! Both shows were great and it was nice to see so many familiar faces and meet some new people as well. Thanks to everyone that came out! Needless to say there was a lot of dyeing going on there for awhile to get ready for two festivals so close together.

There’s been a bunch of other stuff going on too. My parents were hit pretty hard by hurricane Irene so there was much concern going on over that. They are fine but the house, one car and the utility shed were not so lucky. The house has since been repaired and so has the shed (at least enough to get it through the winter) but the car was totaled. Mom is now the proud owner of a brand new 2011 Subaru Forester and HWJF and I drool every time we go near it because we’ve been lusting after one just like it for several years. Good thing she didn’t get the blue one or there may have been some tears shed over here.

HWJF and I are still tourists in our new land. We took a Segway tour with his parents when they came to visit for Labor Day. So. Much. Fun!! If you’re ever in Manchester you *need* to do this!

We went to the beach in Maine awhile back. Seeing this picture on my phone on what is currently yet another rainy day in NH gives me hope that the sun will return!

There hasn’t been much knitting recently (but I have a bunch of things I finished and haven’t yet blogged about so stay tuned!) but there has been a fair amount of spinning. One of the nice parts of having a dyeing business is that I have to get to sample things before they go in the shop so I know I’m giving my customers a quality product. Enter some merino/silk and you can imagine just how hard a job this can be!

There’s my 2 ply yarn in the Nightfall colorway. It’s already grown up to be a cowl that I will share with you soon.

There was also a bit of corriedale that I started spinning while vending.

Not sure what that will become just yet.

That’s where I’ll have to leave you for now. A big thank you to everyone that wished us a happy anniversary on that last post too! We celebrated with a hockey game in Portland, a pack of tickets to our local team and a Keurig. I bet you can’t guess who got which present!

… I married my best friend!

Happy Anniversary HWJF!! Here’s to many more!!