Chix...the album cover

Yeah.

In other news, I got the kind of feedback from my last Etsy customer that makes you feel all lovely-squishy inside and it made my day and quite possibly, my whole month. Thank you!!!

A while ago, my husband read Out of the Silent Planet by CS Lewis aloud to me whilst I spun. The descriptions of the Malacandrian landscape are so vivid and delicious and...I don't know...palpable. It has inspired me to work on an ongoing series of corespun landscapes...I love the way this technique lends itself to otherworldly explorations of texture and color, ethereal yet solid, like just the moment in time and space where earth meets sky. If that makes sense. I am calling this project, simply, the Landscape Series. Anyway, here are the latest:

Landscape Series #2
Dreamy-soft llama/targhee blend makes up the bulk of this batt, with some sari silk, coopworth, sparkle and crimpy white nylon-y fiber. Two of these will land in the shop and two will make their way south to Baltimore tomorrow.

Landscape Series #3
I have no idea what all loveliness and fairy dust are in this batt, but I'm guessing a bunch of cotswold and corriedale chunks. It's spun up from a crazy quilt batt by Sandy and the Sheep at Homestead Wool and Gift Farm. Very squishy and light and super-textured.

In other other news, the fellas being sick and the kiddo being on Spring Break this past week has left me no choice but to pretty much liquidate my shop to meet the minimum number of goods to send down the MDSW. Bah. I haaaaate just meeting the minimum. It is my nature to go above and beyond always, in all things. But, I just don't have the kind of situation that lends itself to meeting quantity deadlines at this time. I refuse to skimp on quality, so that leaves me with...not as much stuff.
And now the pickle: Opening weekend for the Farmer's Market is this Saturday, May 3rd!!! I did hold back a number of new yarns for said event, as much as I would have liked to send more of them down to the sheep and wool fest. Bigger and better felt pieces are in the works, and I should have at least a few done this week, and the new greeting cards are pending the arrival of a few supplies...designs are already narrowed down. Kiddo goes back to school, so I will have at least six hours of uninterrupted studio time this week, which may not sound like much, but it is always so refreshing to be working on art during daylight hours that I treasure every moment of it.

Anyway, we are building my market booth tomorrow, and I think it's going to be beautiful when we are finished with it. I will probably need to work on my sign a bit during the week...use a bit of the leftover house paint perhaps, as C reminded me that milk paint would wash off in the rain. Duh.

Update tonight will be on Etsy...I have little energy for re-sizing photos and messing with Dreamweaver. Must spin more and off to bed.

and the winner is...

...my own judgment. so, no one answered my poll, but that's cool. i think i'm going to go with the hemp paper because it's pretty and i like the texture.
edit: okay, so livejournal told me no one answered the poll, but insubordiknit says i got eight answers! how weird! so, screw my own judgment...the people speak and i'll start with the 100% recycled and maybe just get a few of the hemp to see what people think of it.

i have piles of batts to spin, but i'm feeling very run-down and may just take tonight to rest...C has the day off tomorrow and i'm sure if i sweet talk him, i'll have a few morning hours of spin time.
it's not as if he will be driving me four hours round trip in the afternoon/evening to get my real fake tooth, or anything.

oh, but he is!

tomorrow i will be whole again. i can't believe how the extraction of one tiny tooth has so profoundly affected me. how much it made me not want to get up in the mornings or look at myself in the mirror, or go to anyone's house for dinner...
it's not just vanity, although, as much as i hate to admit, that is surely part of it. and it isn't so much that something is missing, so much that there is a hole there to replace it. a hole i cannot forget about, as there is either a tongue poking into it or an uncomfortable, ill-fitting contraption to fill it (and the rest of my mouth). and somehow this hole represents some dismal failure on my part, a weakness. a how-can-i-be-such-a-pushover. i have been beating myself up for the last few months for letting someone yank a piece of me away without doing any research or seeking out alternative solutions. i am always seeking for alternatives to every convention, but this time i thought they knew better. and now i know they were wrong and there is nothing i can do about it. that tooth was not a lizard's tail or an ivy vine. it will never grow back and tomorrow i inherit a new contraption that will need constant maintenance for always.

i know it's just a tooth. but it became a whole heckuva lot more than that for me, and i'm just trying to honor that here. a tiny thing that came to represent so much...fear being the most notable...fear of losing control, fear of accepting myself and the cards i am dealt.

needless to say, many lessons learned. an important step in my personal journey, whose harshness will now be tempered with a bit of well-placed porcelain, cast just for me...

as usual, the little guy can sum up my experience with a single expression:

and now i am off to cuddle my evening away with a mug of steamy cocoa...Spring is good for warm days and chilly nights...my favorite combination.

life is good.

night night!

bullet points...

-I have not worn long woolen underwear for at least a week, and the forecast is for continued Springy-ness.

-I picked a bright, sunny spot for my booth at Market, so as not to let myself hide in shadows, as is my inclination. I am proud of this.

-Poo-Poo Lip Balm is Yucky, according to my son. Seemed like important information to pass along, should you ever encounter such a thing.

-I need only wear my "stay plate" (fake tooth in retainer form) for three more days. On Friday, I will be made whole again.

-My "Spam" folder currently contains these three gems:
More meat is never excessive
High-end watches for respectable people
Learn how to be masterpecker

-I will delete these gems promptly.

-At the library the other day, the little guy was making a Picture-Book Mountain (remove all picture books from the shelves and stack them in a pile on the floor....I love cleaning up this one), and came across a Teletubbies book. We do not use screen media in our house (no TV, no videos, etc.), so he has never encountered said abhorrent creatures (and I'd like to keep it that way). He brought the book over to me, pointed to the freakish dancing blobs on the cover and said, "Hippies!"

- Duuuuuuuuuuuude.

-I have been spinning: Dream
I had a beach dream the other night...I live in southern Vermont and have not seen a beach in almost three years. I wanted to spin myself a seashell.

-There are some very exciting developments underway that will bring us back to Cali before the end of the year.

-More on that later.

-Happy Tuesday!

burn baby, burn

...my skin, my muscles...the sunshine and a full weekend of hard labor has me wanting a cool bath in a tub full of aloe gel...and then hot packs after that...but i think i'll just settle for a good night's sleep.

it doesn't look like much, but:

The plot for my herb garden is tilled. Later this week, we'll be raking in manure and compost and if we're feeling frisky, will start directly sowing seeds into this and the veggie garden plots...just the hardier stuff, as we may still have a chance of frost. I have starts brewing for the rest.
I have been raking all week and weekend...there seems to be endless debris from last fall to clean up to give the grass and bulbs some breathing room, and all manner of sticks and stalks to clip down.
Timing is not everything, but is much in these matters, so I failed dismally in meeting my personal quota for MDSW and Farmer's Market prep. It just seemed really important to be digging in the dirt this weekend...and Saturday was site clean-up day for the Farmer's Market...a community effort to get the market site all cleaned up from a brutal winter and for all the vendors to choose their spots for the season. I was at the bottom of the list, having not been a full-time vendor before, but there really isn't a bad spot at this market. I have a very sunny six-foot site for my booth, so will have to be creative in construction for maximum display space as well as maximum shade. We have this week to design it and gather materials, and then we need to build it this coming weekend...a whirlwind, really, especially since C is working all week and I have my appointment for my bridge (finally...I will be whole again!) this Friday.

So...no website update tonight, but...I did get some spinning done this week...and some over-dying, too! I don't want to use acid dyes anymore, because our waste-water gets dumped directly into the watershed, so I had given them all away...but I still have jars of dye I had already mixed. I was craving a session with the kettle, and so overdyed a bit of pink merino top...which was a new experience for me. I was terrified I would felt it, but it came out great. It's the purple in the pics below. This summer I'm going to explore some truly non-toxic dying options...
Anyway, here are the results of the overdye:

Ectoplasm and His Purple Friend
a matchy little pair of singles, spun a very sport-ish weight...

And now, to sleep off my sunburn...

I'm a farmgirl...

I used a pitchfork yesterday...really! I think that makes it official...my farmgirl status, that is. I raked and raked and then I pitched and pitched...gobs of leafy matter for the fabulous chickens. I think we're officially friends now. See, the fella is the one out there at 6AM feeding them and what-not every morning, so he is their super-hero and I am just that other human, the useless creature that visits them during the day and steals things and tries in vain to lovingly pat their silkiness. BUT, then I brought them LEAVES! Oh, their joy. It was infectious. They scratched and spread it around and cooed and warbled...how they have been longing for a taste of Spring! Their ranging yard is still under snow, poor dears, but soon they will be happily chickening about in their tractors all over the pasture. Anyway, a pile full of mucky, rotten leaves full of tiny, yummy grubs and things and now we are tight, those chickens and I. Tight.

And this will be my duty all week long...when I am not in fiber-prep-madness mode. Rake, rake, rake. Pitch, pitch, pitch. We are determined to stay on top of it and get the most fabulous garden in the universe rolling this year...we have a billion-and-one butterfly-and-bee-attracting flowers to plant, and climbing peas for shade (and snacking) around the sandbox, a veggie garden to map out whilst we start our seeds indoors, and bricks to lay for paths and patios.

In shoppe news, viva_death and I will be rockin' the Art Star Craft Bazaar May 31st and June 1st. Whoot!
So, the mad crafting will continue beyond MDSW, but I think it will be really good for me to keep the momentum going, challenge myself to find new ways to keep the creative mojo fires stoked, and have fun whilst I'm at it.

Happy Monday!

comings up...

2 thingses:

The Brattleboro Area Farmer's Market starts on Saturday, May 3, and I will be a regular vendor this time around, with my very own reserved booth! I am terribly excited, as I can really make the space mine, with hooks and shelves and, and...all manner of displayity (yes, this should be a word), with the bonus being that I don't need to take it down and put it back up every single weekend. I just bring me and my stuffs and all is well. Market happens every Saturday through late October, rain or shine!!!

The Cloverhill Yarn Shop will be rockin' booth #27 at the Maryland Sheep and Wool fest the weekend of May 3 and 4, 2008. The Spun Monkey Fiber Shoppe will be featured at said booth, along with 17 other fabulous indie artists. I'm honored to have a place there, and wish I could go check it out in person, so...all of you go! Check it out! Send me a full report! Cloverhill has set up a countdown blog with info about the artists, contests and other joyous what-not.

I'm in a bit of a tizzy about the latter, as I have had very little time to create...mom visiting, kid sick, husband sick. I have staved off the sickies myself, but taking care of everyone and everything has left me with zero spin/craft time. So, I'm hopping back to it this weekend, and hope to get a mad stash piled up for both of the above-mentioned events before the end of the month. I might have to put off a few of my new offerings and works-in-progress until after Market starts, for the sake of my sanity.

To help myself tie it all together, and also for chronicling my personal film photography project, I have a new friend:

It's my new favorite journal in the whole wide universe. Blank on one page, lined on the facing page. I can sketch an idea, and then write about it, and be able to look at both at once. Perfect. Bonus party is that the journal has a protective plastic sleeve that makes it feel and sound like a library book. mmmmm...crinkly.

And here, finally, is the Chocolate Cherry DROP jacket on me:

Sorry, it's the best I can do with my little outstretched arm.
I want a thousand of these buttons.

...and I have found a few spinny moments:

Bohemian Rhapsody
Some cotswold roving hollyeqq dyed up for me in hot magenta and black, all mashed up in the carder with gobs of contrasting colors of sari silk. I find yarns with sari silk very difficult to photograph, I think because of the way the fibers reflect the light. Anyway, yes, I am still on the core-spinning kick. I think the weekend has some very even, sport-weight 2-plies in store for me, though. I need some wheel meditation time.

Okay, off to a play-date we go...
Happy Friday!

tiny friends!

A box full of sweetness came in the post today:

C built the most amazing brooder for them, and he's been hanging out in the barn with them all day and most of this evening. It's pretty adorable. He was way more excited about them than the kiddo was...got all curled up on the shavings and just adored them all night. I think it brings back very fond childhood memories for him.
When they are big enough, they'll join our grown chickens and soon, I hope, they'll all be out ranging in the pasture...you know, the one that will be free of SNOW. That day will come soon, yes? Let's not even talk about the inch of snow that was on my car this morning and the GIANT FLAKES of the stuff that continued to fall from the sky for...a while. The rain, however, did wash most of it away, so I'll shut up about it. The crocuses and irises are still shooting up, a few are even blooming already, and I can see that the black-cap raspberry bushes really want to do something. We pruned the crap out of it last year, so I'm hoping for a bumper crop...like, enough at one time to make a nice project, like a pie.
Anyway, we are loving the sweet li'l chickens, and I think we've found a better hatchery...these little girls are much more robust and happy and healthy than the ones we got last year.

I'm sure the Little Guy would have appreciated them more, but he looked like this for most of the afternoon:

Wasted. This picture was taken shortly after he fell asleep standing up. Standing up! It was totally bizarre, but a little bit later he definitely had a fever and was quite obviously not feeling well. When he feels better, I'm sure he'll curl up in the shavings with his Papa, too.

I have actually been knitting, btw, and finished a project:

My first me-sized sweater! I will model it as soon as I've blocked it/set the stitches. This is a heavily modified version of the Garn Studio jacket about a million Ravelers have already knit up. I adore it, and would definitely knit it again, but probably not with Malabrigo. It is fabulously soft, and they have nice colorways, but I think if I sneeze while wearing this jacket, it will probably felt. Breathing will definitely pill it. I'm thinking a dark, tweedy two-ply yarn in the heavier gauge next time...
Anyway, the buttons are by Happy Silence, and I heart them much, much, much.
I wanted to make the collar longer, but I ran out of yarn. Boo.

This weekend will be all about list-making and scheduling for the insanity that will be the next few weeks. I did make it into the Farmer's Market, and while I am thrilled and looking forward to it immensely, I have a lot of work ahead of me this month to get ready for it, plus MSW, plus possibly Art Star, plus deciding whether to put updates on hiatus for the shop or to try and keep up on that, also. Plus, a personal project I'm working on and would like to chronicle in my journal...still thinking about the format. It involves my first baby...the one that eats 35mm film and has been sadly neglected for a couple of years. My sampler of b/w films has arrived, and as I loaded the TMax 400 (not my favorite, but I'm saving the Ilford and the Plus-X 125 for after I've gotten my feet wet again) I was transported back in time, bathing in chemicals in the lab, relishing the magic that happens in the dark...

feeling experimental...

piles of the same fiber selection, including rovings and clumps of locks...
One pile was mashed up in the drumcarder, the other pile was not...I ended up with these two yarns:

Lichen and Autumn POP!
Can you tell which is which?

And yes, I know it's Spring here, but there are two hemispheres on this planet and each deserves a celebration of the changing seasons...

Am currently posting on Etsy...will get them on the website later...

In other news, my child turned 3 yesterday. Did you know that on the eve of 3, the male child begins to practice the age-old craft of belching the alphabet? More on this and other fascinations later...