First, can I say that I am so over this rain? I think we've seen the the sun for a total of three hours in the past week. I know I spent four years in Oregon, so I should be used to the rain, but I'm watching the weather forecast right now and it's showing rainclouds all this week too.

Boo.

At least I have lots of indoor hobbies, right?

And I may have picked up another one this weekend. Knitting is such a gateway craft for me: it beget spinning, weaving, dying, and now, needlefelting.

Meet Hedgie, my first needle-felted creation. When I saw this class offered at the Fiber Gallery, I knew I had to take it because hedgehogs? So cute!!

I found needle-felting to be quite intutive once you get started and I managed to only jab myself in the finger once.

I may have to pick up some more tiny bits of roving and make some more felty-friends!!

This is what a day's worth of dying by a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs (and one real pro) looks like and is yet another reason why I am a part of the bestest knitting group ever.

Because these guys?

Awesome.

One of our members, Bristol, happens to be an all-around fiber pro and locally dyes yarn and fiber for the Fiber Gallery and even made a nifty hand-dyed fiber/yarn calendar for 2011.

As part of one of her bazillion jobs, Bristol also works as Creative Designer and Instructor for SuriPaco farms and she needed a few guinea pigs to test out SuriPaco's facilities for upcoming dye classes. The Portland Knitters on the Town (PKOTT) were nice enough to oblige.

Aside from the usual group we were joined by Aimee's husband and the young Maggie (which was a good thing since our regular Maggie was out of town) and the adorable Sadie.