Outside...

The sky looks fierce. Everything is the perfect hue...saturated, vivid...all the lilac trees I can see through this window...varying shades of gorgeous. Wicked, wicked dark clouds overhead and I'm just waiting, watching. We are starved for rain. Every flower, every blade of grass, my own dry skin all pining for a fresh drink.

Come on thunder, come on thunder...
(this line of a song running through my head all day long as the colors of the sky dance between blue and charcoal, blue and charcoal...tense and so romantic).

things and stuff...

*Kiddo is sick, so update is late. Later today, though, I'll get a few yarns and scarves up in the shoppe.

*Not goin' to Art Star, after all. There was a miscommunication somewheres and my product was not reviewed on our application. It was suggested they could let it slide, but I'm not comfortable with that and I don't think most of the other folks there would be, either. So, go check it out if you're in the Philly area and visit In Hope while you're there. I'm sorry I'm missing the event, but If you're a Bratt local, I will instead be at the regular Saturday Farmer's Market, from 9am - 2pm.

*It's HOT today. I love it. On the menu is building the raised beds for my kitchen garden and getting some seeds in before tonight's rain. *edit: rain, which did NOT happen. Boo.

*I played with felt this weekend:

*I also played with "weeds." Now that the house is on the market again, I have to care about non-edibles. Don't get me wrong, I adore flowers and bees and butterflies and all that good stuff...I just don't care about tending it. I'd rather it get all wild and jungle-y, but apparently that doesn't sell a house. So, out with the bee balm and all the "too much." I'm going to try again to dig up hollyhocks without breaking the taproot, and hope for no more thorns in my fingers (there are rose vines everywhere).

*Here's the yarn I was making while Little Guy colored the walls the other day:

It's much richer in color than the photograph suggests. I have issues with photographing browns and blacks, lately. I promise it's a very yummy chocolate brown, alternately wrapped and corespun. I was going to keep it for myself, but brought it to market and it walked away with someone...

*Lemongrass is my new best friend.

*I've decided to start tagging my entries. I can't ever find anything I want to reference.

My budding artist...

The house goes on the market again on Tuesday, and the Little Guy just discovered that crayons work on things other than paper...walls, for one. window seats, for another.

So much for spinning while he's "entertaining himself."
I thought he was doing puzzles.

Wednesday...Or What To Do With Dandies When You Fail At Making Wine

mmmmmm.....BISCUITS!

thank you, folktalefibers!

I'm hoping to collect a bunch more dandies before they all turn into puffballs so's I can make dye to play with. I am waiting on some white romney from the mill, but I'm sure the petals'll be fine for later if I just stick them in the freezer (???).

Slated for today are a bazillion-and-one errands, and then Boy has a playdate at the cemetery by his school. Nothing like a cemetery picnic on a gorgeous sunshine-y day. Although, for the record, we are desperate for rain. And lots of it. I shouldn't be watering the veggie bed in May.

Small Dog Takes A Swim

My boy has a small dog:


His name is Small Dog.
Boy and Small Dog were playing by the pond one day, throwin' some sticks. Tra la la la...stick, stick, stick.

Boy: MAMA?!?! Where's Small Dog???
Me: Um...I don't know. Is he in your pocket?
Boy: No. (pause) Mama, he's swimming!
Me: Uh-oh. Were you holding Small Dog in your hand at the same time you were throwing sticks???
(no answer)

Small Dog was indeed swimming. A little further out in the pond than could be reached.

Sigh.
Time to call in...the Papa-Creature.
Without hesitation, he takes off his pants and steps into the frigid water. He's got a hoe...to aid in fishing out Small Dog, who is "swimming" at least three feet deep, a bit too far out from the edge. This pond has not been dredged anytime in the recent (and perhaps even distant) past. Papa-Creature plunges the hoe in the general direction of Small Dog, sending up a cloud of silt in the water. If Small is not on the hoe, then he is buried, lost forever to the muck. The hoe is pulled slowly, gingerly to the surface, and proudly astride it is Small Dog himself. Hooray! But,...what's this? Oh yeah...who-knows-how-many layers of silt. Papa-Creature is stuck in the muck up to his knees! He is sunk, he is sinking! Now it is my turn to come to the rescue. I grab the hoe and set Small Dog carefully in the grass, brace myself, and manage to help pull the Papa-Creature out of the water without falling in myself. I am a hero! (Well, we all know who the real hero is, but at least I got to take part in a Daring Rescue). The Papa-Creature has now become Cold-Naked-Man, and runs off to get a towel.
I say to the Boy, "Let's put Small Dog in your pocket," and we go off to collect more sticks.

Oh, and here's some yarn:

Seaweed Salad

Bah.

No wine.
We weren't able to get the supplies we needed in time to continue to the next step in the process. Bah and Boo.

We would try again this weekend, but we will be busy with finishing up the fencing for...some new secret friends. To console ourselves, we talked a lot about the productiveness of our rosehips in the late summer. We'll just make sure we have all our ducks in a row (and fermentation locks and yeast and what-not) ready ahead of time for making rosehip wine. Sounds yummier to me, anyway. The dandelion-day was not wasted, however. I really enjoyed sitting in the sun while C was building raised beds in the garden and the little guy was pushing a seed spreader around, collecting rocks. So I had to toss a foul-smelling bowl of overly-fermented dandelion petals out into the yard...but at least it was a glorious midday spent picking the petals and getting sticky yellow fingers. Would not trade it. Nope.

I think it was Saturday that the seeds were direct-sown, and we already have baby lettuces, tatsoi and purple mustard greens. Hopefully, many more seeds will go in this weekend...depends on how things go with said secret friends. I want my peas!

As I type, Etsy is being a bitch (I have to re-load four times each time I try to add a picture to a listing). I've spent a half-hour just on one listing, and if I weren't doing other things (like this), I would probably have given up on it a while ago. Am also FINALLY getting around to my Sunday (cough) update. Heh. It will be done by the time you read this. I am feeling very relieved, and like I can take a tiny bit of a break for the rest of this week because my unsold goods from MDSW came back. I sold more than half of what I sent (yay!), so I feel pretty good about that. It's funny...I always think I know what will sell and what won't, and I am always wrong. Anyway, it means I have ten new items for market this weekend without even trying. *big sigh of relief*

This is good because I am behind on Mother's Day/birthday prizes (I know, I know), and so am glad to have a couple nights to devote to finishing those up. I owe my Mims a Calorimetry (spun the yarn for this during the last market day), and I'm working a can't-tell-you-much-except-its-needle-fe

lted-and-I'm-really-excited-about-it something for my other Mom.

And because I cannot leave you without a pretty picture:

looking...

...my age.

Or, maybe I just look exhausted. After looking at this, I've decided that I should start caring about my appearance again. If not plucking the unibrow, perhaps at the very least trimming the fly-away Boris Karloff-esque bits. C has always really liked my crazy, unkempt brows, and I thought that was great because it saved me five minutes here and there to just leave them be, but...
Anyway, I took these pics for a fabulous friend of mine who sent me this gorgeous piece of jewelry. She only asked for a photo of the piece, like, six months ago. Sorry, Cinder! Will email them to yous shortly.

In other news, I picked dandies:

and we'll be making wine. They are currently steeping in water, and we are hoping to track down some fermentation caps before I'm supposed to start the next step tomorrow. The beer/wine making supply shop is, of course, closed on Mondays and Tuesdays (and yes, we drove there to find this out). So, I guess I should say hopefully making wine.

And we ate these:

Definitely in my Top 10 Things I Love About New England. I sauteed them in garlic and fresh raw butter, added some feta, mustard and balsamic and holy wow. The little guy was so very excited to be eating "Spirals!" that he cleaned his plate and asked for more. Oh, how I adore thee, Fiddlehead, and how I weep for the shortness of your harvest season.

And I made some yarn:

Well, that's the short and sweet of it. Tonight I have a date with some denim/hemp/wool batts...what a freaking mess. Now I remember why I dislike carding plant fibers. There was a fine layer of fluff all over everything in the room.

Happy Monday...

A day in the sun...

I woke today, refreshed and feeling much better...so I decided to take one more day off from crafting to work on the studio space and garden. C had the day off, so we took advantage and made some things happen:

Raised beds, baby. Oh, yes. These are for the lettuces.
And then there are these precious babies:

From left to right: borage, broccoli and...melons! There are 'maters and peppers and lots of culinary herbs, too. Everything else (corn, peas, squash, etc.) will be directly sown this coming weekend, so long as frosts remain absent from the forecast. And flowers! I'm planting bachelor buttons and Job's Tears...hooray for nature's perfect bead! I hope we are able to harvest before we move.

And I was actually a wee bit productive on my sick-bed yesterday. I think I mentioned that a peruser at market requested I have some examples of how the corespun yarns knit up, since I had a plethora of the landscape series on display. I was just going to play with a simple scarf or some such, and then decided that I should really have a free pattern to go along with this series of yarns. So, the One-Hour Corespun Hat was born!

I will take better pics and make up a nice little pdf. Hard copies will go out with orders and I'll make sure to have a free Ravelry download, as well. It really took me less than an hour, knit flat on US 19s. I will also provide instruction for knitting in the round, which I would have preferred had I some size 19 circulars.

So, we're all feeling pretty good and accomplished around here, AND, we have a brand spanking new realtor coming tomorrow. It has been one whole, solid year since we put the house on the market. Time for a fresh approach, a lower price and some mooooooovement. Oh, my sweet Cali, we are homeward bound.

:)

Market pics!

So, my insane (in a good way) husband, built me a timber-framed booth, with mortis and tenon joints and everything, cut from trees in our own backyard. Here is a picture of our $4.97 structure:

Yes, I know the chalkboard is blank...I forgot the damn pens. Next time it will advertise workshops and private instruction as well as some pricing info for the scarves. We all forget something on the first day.

Here is the side you can't see in the above pic:

There are more pics on my Flickr (thespunmonkey) if you wanna see some other views.
After a little roof tune-up, it's going to be a great spot to hang out and spin in public on Saturdays. I love being next to Laurie, who sells gorgeous perennial plants and Bingo granola is on my other side...yummy, local sprouted goodness. We're also going to build a little platform for the chair/wheel because the ground is a bit too lumpy, and on a day like yesterday, damp.

I'm taking a break today, as I am muchly under-the-weather, but have plenty on the plate for this coming week. The card printing will hopefully commence, and it was requested by a few folks that I knit up some of the corespun so they can see how it looks. Happy to oblige! I think I will be much more prepared for Art Star at the end of this month than I was for Baz Biz and the MDSW this weekend. I am wishing now that I hadn't committed myself to the latter, as I feel I didn't send down a good representation of my work. It was sort of thrown together, stuff pulled from months ago, and it just didn't even really look like my spinning anymore. There were a few new pieces that I was proud of, but other than that, I kind of think it would have been better just to pass as I'm feeling very self-conscious about it.

Well, off to update the site and then pass out in a chamomile-induced haze.

to market, to market

Yes, of course, it rained most of the opening day of the Farmer's Market. We learned a lot about the roof of our structure (needs more). I am currently drying many yarns and scarves before they get stored again. BUT, C built the most gorgeous, amazing booth for me. Roof will be extended in the next couple of days so there won't be any problems on future rainy market days. My camera ran out of batteries (drat!), but I borrowed my booth-neighbor's camera and he will send me the pics so I can post 'em up for you to see...(and so you all can tell me how awesome my sign is that I painted with cheap-o hardware store paintbrushes and old acrylic paint that has been freezing and thawing in the barn for the last few years). Our structure cost a whopping total of $4.97.

Due to the above-mentioned rainy-ness, it was a slow biz day for everyone at market. I wasn't expecting fantastical sales on the first day, anyway, so no worries. I received some lovely compliments that just made it all worth it, even whilst chilled to my damp little bones.

And FYI, hanging out in the open-air of an icy-cold, wet day is not such a brilliant idea when you have the beginnings of another nasty Spring cold coming on. I am feeling much worse than I did this morning...yippee. So, in case I feel too much like garbage tomorrow, I made sure to take pictures of the yarns I will be adding to the shop, in case I need to do my update in my jammies with elderflower tea by my side.
Here is a preview:

I made a bunch of scarves, but not sure if I'll get a chance to photograph them...depends on the weather and if I feel like standing up at all. Right now, I am thinking about a hot water bottle, pillows, a blankie and some chamomile tea.

Night!

Break time...

Yes, I know it's after 10pm, and Market starts at 9am tomorrow (if you're local, come visit me!!!). But, really, I just need to take a freaking break. I am still labeling and pricing, and have two scarves left for the second stage of felting...

Here is Rhoda modeling the latest:

Super squishy-soft merino, was a bit greasy and resisted felting...I took advantage and let my fingers pull it into cobwebby-ness...
I think Rhoda looks hotter in my dress than I do. Sigh. This is the dress I was wearing when I first kissed the father of my children. It always makes me feel beautiful and it happens to compliment most of the colors of scarves I have available for Market tomorrow.

Some other things that will be there:

A very productive week. It's too bad I had to stay up every night until 1am to make it happen. I will be caught up soon, and then can have a more sane kind of production schedule. Heaped the plate up a little too high this time around. Ah, well.

Booth is not quite finished, but will take pics tomorrow...It is wanting of a shelf/cabinet-y thing that will probably go in before next week's market.

Okay, back to the hot soapy water.
Wish me luck!

mourning my upside-down friends

Firstly...the bats. It is so strange not to hear them making their summer home in our barn at night. To see the few, confused creatures that are still alive, flying about during the day in a mad search for food, salvation...and to think that they, too, will soon die and we will have no upside-down friends guanofying our stuff in the barn, eating our mosquitos, and occasionally sneaking into our house to swoop by our heads while we're watching a scary movie, is just heartbreaking. They have been part of our Vermont life, and we adore them, and now my heart aches for them. The bat population in New England will be decimated by white nose disease this year, coincidentally (or not) very similar to the colony collapse of the bees...this is one theory:

"Some researchers say the evidence of emaciation and the unprecedented numbers that are emerging early from hibernation, apparently in a desperate search for food, could be suggestive of chemical interference with hibernation metabolism or of an insufficient availability of food for the bats to store enough fat to last until spring. Extensive spraying of some pesticides might be capable of altering metabolism. Or such spraying could severely diminish the amount of insect prey that bats require before entering hibernation. Northeastern states have experienced a major increase in pesticide use to combat West Nile Virus during the past few years." from this article

Fucking chemicals. I will not go on, as I'm feeling quite a bit more misanthropic than usual, and I'll spare you all my piss and vinegar. If you want to read more, click the link above, as there are more theories being explored and without my bias. Just this, if you will...

"...many of America’s largest remaining bat populations and the ecosystems they protect may be at extreme risk. When ecologically and economically essential creatures as diverse as bees and bats begin to die off in large numbers, there may well be a “canary-in-the-coal-mine” message that we cannot afford to ignore."

Secondly, I am alone.
Felt shall commence. Pictures later.

Thirdly, I lust for THIS, if you must know.