Knitting, Fiber, and Friends

I've been working on my moorit shawl, the boring one that's for reenactment dress in the winter, functional but not particularly lacy in the interest of keeping warm. It is growing, I'm now on my 4th ball of yarn, thinking about what I'm going to do to finish off the long edge. In between washing some of the fleece from NJ and getting it into the dyepots, I did a swatch from the Beginner lace pattern in "A Gathering of Lace" with the Merino/Kid Mohair yarn I finished the other day. This pattern gave me a fit. I didn't know why it wasn't turning out right, but I wanted to see the color in a swatch so I could decide if I liked the yarn. (I do, especially in the sunlight-it's beautiful!) That brings me to the wonderful evening DH and I spent with LizzyB and her DH and their furry children. Liz was able to figure out what I'd done wrong in the pattern and help me come up with a solution. I'm actually probably going to start over or do the Faux Russian shawl from the same book, but I learned a heck of a lot. Liz and I talked fiber while the "guys" talked about guy stuff. Liz shared some of this beautiful light brown Merino fleece with me, and I gave her some CVM (and to share with Lady Vee). I have the Merino soaking in hot water as we speak. It was so much fun to explore the fiber and yarn in Liz's stash and we even got to spin for awhile, all the while enjoying good food, good company, and good fun! Mark and I can't wait to return the favor, with dinner and fiber and fun at our place. :)