Learn to spin for 10 cents!

Okay, 10 cents,  a spindle, and some wool, but still it's a darn good price for the Respect the Spindle video, and for a limited time you can get the downloadable version for just ten cents. I just grabbed it myself. It's an MP4, which will load directly into iTunes to play on my iPod Touch as well as on my computer.

Here's the link: Respect the Spindle Video Download

It's Was My Birthday Yesterday, so Let's Go to Hood River

In my world, that makes sense, anyway. Yesterday -- yes, U.S. income tax day -- was my birthday. My father was an accountant. It couldn't be helped. And because, dagnabit, they still make you work on your birthday, the whole birthday thing didn't really get started until I got home and we could go out to dinner, then have some cake at the Konditorei, (nom!), then have some presents. Books, books, books, about my three obsessions: fiber arts, gardening, and cats (that the LOL Cat Bible on top: "In teh beginning, Ceiling Cat maded teh skies an teh earfs an stuffs.")

Just coincidentally, this weekend was the very first Columbia Gorge Fiber Festival, so of course I had to go, being my birthday weekend and all. First the day started with some knitting friends who took us out to breakfast, which was extremely sweet of them. Then we headed to Hood River to have a look at some fiber.

Maaan, most of my pictures came out blurry, but I have a few that turned out so-so. Hubby had his camera, so I'll have to wait for him to process all of his shots.

As far as local fiber festivals go, this one was on the smallish side, but all of the offerings were wonderful. Dicentra Designs, Abstract Fiber, Three Fates Knitting, Spindlewood, Woolgatherings, and many more were there.

Mmm... can't you just smell the wool fumes?

Gorgeous hand-turned spindles by Spindlewood:

Bright, painted rovings by Woolgatherings:

We lunched at the hotel at the Best Western that hosted the event, and had a lovely view of the Columbia River and the gorge -- and the lovely spring weather, so generous with its liquid sunshine:

This is what a good hubby who entertains himself with a photography hobby while I go and entertain myself with the fiber and yarn looks like:

I was good, though. There were many temptations, but I couldn't possibly knit or spin fast enough to keep up with everything that I wanted to bring home. I wanted some alpaca roving and found that at Cherry Hill Alpacas -- I even got to look at a picture book of the alpacas that each bag of roving came from. I also got two hand-dyed stacks of silk hankies and a small project bag.

A pretty good day, all in all.

FO: Minas Tirith has handspun?

The needles have been pretty active lately, working on a scarf of my own design, but I also managed to get in some wheel time and finished one of two hanks of wool top from Dicentra Designs -- colorway Minas Tirith. She's got several Lord of the Rings colorways, actually.

Hubby took the picture -- his camera club has an upcoming contest with "Before and After" as the theme. What do y'all think? Wool top before and after spinning -- and sitting on a shearling fleece.