playtime *cough* I mean, WORK

tee hee

Yes, I played with dye today. I tried out a new (to me) method, and I'm hoping, hoping, hoping that I did not just felt my first round of luscious organic merino. It's quite possible I didn't. Then again, it's quite possible I did. I won't dare touch it until it's cool. Today, I am in love with the Gaywool dye color "Mushroom." Seriously beautiful.
So, I got a little kettle-y with it, and a little paint-y with it, and we'll see what happened tomorrow....

In the meantime, would you like some basil?

Or maybe some plantain seed???

I rescued it from the lawn, and promptly pan fried the seeds in butter. They are a very yummy addition to salsa. Or pretty much anything.

Okay, back to the dinner-making and the spinny-spinning.
xo!

And, it's off...

into the ether

with a prayer to the craft gods

i don't know why this is so important to me

i am hoping third time's a charm

In non-BBB news, I now have a vehicle. This excites me.
misshawklet thought I had dropped off the face of the earth, so I decided it was time to give my blog a little attention. There just hasn't been any Blog Mojo coursing through my veins lately...and it's not that I don't have a plethora of topics to explore...I certainly do think about writing... and then I shake my head and turn to one of a thousand other things I need to do today.

I've been knitting:

And felting:

...whenever there is a moment.

I have been filling consignment orders, for the most part, and working on a commission to spin several pounds of husky dog/wool into three billion skeins of worsted-ish/bulky-ish 2-ply. I didn't realize how hard it would be to spin endless white since I spend so much of my crafting time working with color blending. Yikes. So, I do a little bit here and a little bobbinful there...and it will all get spun eventually. Otherwise, I am squeezing in items and projects for the upcoming Twist Fair. Next on the list is to start embroidering my table cloth/banner. It shouldn't take too long, as I'm talkin' GIANT embroidery with big yarn. Embroiderer I am not, but I think it will be decent enough. It's the color that's important, as my table will be in a corner and not in the main room. Yes, this is a job for safety orange! (you know what I'm talking about supersnackcake!).

I'm looking forward to neighboring with egg-a-go-go and partying like rock stars with sarahcoyne and suncloudedover in our swanky hotel room. Now, I just need about...oh, several more weeks of crafting time, please?

And I just purchased a bucketful of gorgeous silk ribbons from Pink Peppercorns (onfruitstreet) for the to-be-revealed-at-Twist-Fair super-secret project.

Late.
Bed.

a stolen meme...

...perfect for my contemplative, if not somewhat crappy mood.


Here's a list of things you may or may not have accomplished in your life.
Mark what you've done in Bold and what you would want to do in italics.

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said "I love you" and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby's diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment (it's happened once, but i really wouldn't mind if it happened again).
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger's table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Played touch football
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie (technically, a Chinese soap opera...does that count?)
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an "expert"
83. Got flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. Kissed on the first date
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised children (well, workin' on it)
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over ("city" is pushin' it,...how about "town?")
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn't stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn't have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Touched a stingray
110. Broken someone's heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone's mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Para-sailed
132. Touched a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad - and the Odyssey
135. Selected one "important" author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office (at school)
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you're living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn't know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone's life

The rain just stopped.
I had to set pans in the pantry to catch water that is DRIPPING from SOMEWHERE. Fabulous.
C is going to be late, late, late.
I'm wishing we just had a little yurt and a greenhouse in some little meadow surrounded by woods. Right now I hate this house and how I have to spend so much time in it alone. For a while, I was feeling relieved from our decision not to sell, but now I am consumed with dread for the impending winter and heating this monstrosity.

But, the rain did just stop.
And the little guy is smiling.

ESP or some scary shit.

so, the storms were kind of crazy this afternoon. as in, "if you hear thunder, don't go outside! cloud to ground lightning!"
so, all afternoon i had this horrible feeling that C is working on some roof somewhere and has been struck by lightning. turns out he was in an attic, being electrocuted by his equipment. twice. he's fine. all voltage and no amperage or something like that. incredibly painful, though and he's a little shaky and totally zapped of energy (pun not really intended, but it could be, i guess). he said that it was basically like being struck by lightning. felt it go up one arm, through his heart, and down and out the other arm. i guess some bolts of lightning you can walk away from and others fry you. if this was house current, he would have been pretty fried.
anyway.
freaky.

August 6th, 2008

It's raining again.
It will stop on Sunday, maybe, but we still won't get any sun.
We had a looooong difficult winter, and were very much looking forward to a nice late summer. Hot. With sunshine, building projects...oh, drying out some wood for winter, perhaps? Well, there are LEAVES TURNING ORANGE in Vermont, as I type, and our veggie plants are rotting from having wet feet for too long. I think I might actually be looking forward to winter, even if just for the reflective quality of snow...perhaps some vitamin D will bounce up into my face as I walk to and from the woodpile, and cure some of my malaise.
I can't believe I'm saying all this in the first week of August!

So, I have to distract myself from the reality of global climate change and make things:

Pink Sugar and Synapse
cobwebby felted merino with recycled sari silk.

More fun with knots:

Macrame II
knotted scarf with corespun wool, wood and ceramic beads.

In other news, I think I finally have a car! When the Volvo kicked it, I thought...no problem, I can stick close to home, take lots of walks with the little guy, get to know our little piece of land, do "city" errands on the weekend when C is home. HA HA HA! We've had so much HEAVY rain the last couple months, that even the three mile round-trip to the post office has been impossible most of the time. A magical tip from a friend, however, has shown us the path to a '95 Subaru...for $600. All she needs is a set of tires before the winter, and we're golden. Or maroon, as the case may be. I am sure, now, that all of our car troubles over the past couple of years here have been due to the fact that we've avoided the quintessential Vermont ride. Now, all we need to do is slap a "Vermont Yankee is Closing" sticker on the back and we'll blend right in with the rest of the Brattleboro area!

I'll leave you with this:

Oh, and craftyscientist, expect an email tonight with your long-awaited pattern. Many, many apologies for having taken so long, but I've been under-the-weather and forcing myself to actually go to sleep at night. To answer your question from our last convo...I used somewhere between 250 and 300 yards, but I think it's a lot closer to 250. It's easy to make it smaller or larger depending on how much yarn you've got.

Absent.

No Market for me today...the hardly-any-sleep schedule I have been maintaining for the last few weeks has landed me in bed with a sinus infection. Bah. My head throbs looking at this screen, but there is only so much sleeping and feeling sorry for myself that I can do...it was time to at least say hello.

Hello!

Anyway, there is just something so wrong about being sick in the summertime...although, later today we are to have thunderstorms galore, so I suppose I will have even more reason to stay indoors and take care of myself with copious amounts of tea. A little easy knitting, perhaps. I should stop right there, as I see where this is going...a little knitting...oh, maybe I can handle a little spinning...and oh, there's that next batch of felting all set up and waiting for me...until I find myself exhausted and feeling worse because the urge to create outweighs the natural instinct to protect the self.

So. Knitting and no more.

Highlights from the past week or so of life and craftiness:

Berry-picking is the grandest, most wonderful thing about summertime, in my opinion. Well, that, and the utter lack of snow.
9 pints of organic blueberries became one pint dried, two quarts frozen and seven jars of blueberry/peach jam. Going for round two this Wednesday, because I WILL be feeling better.

When I wasn't jamming, I was wooling:

The heart on the cobweb felt in the upper left photo was purely accidental, but totally perfect.
The yarn on the upper right is to celebrate Jacey's soon-to-be-released art yarn instructional DVD I had the pleasure of participating in earlier this year. It's my fave technique, so much fun to spin and the resulting yarn just makes me giggle at its cuteness.

More herbs. More tea. Must close eyes for a while.

not an update (biz-related post)

x-posted from July 24 livejournal:

As in, there will be a hiatus on updates to the Shop. I have discovered that keeping up with the shop whilst also being a vendor at the Farmer's Market every weekend, plus the impending fall/winter show season, plus a few other heres and theres, is just TOO MUCH for this mama. So, since I enjoy selling in person and it is a well-documented fact that my website gets virtually no traffic, I would rather focus on events and consignment for the rest of the summer.
Etsy will still get some love, but spending hours and hours updating a few pieces to the website is just not worth the time.

Will point ya'll in the direction of other shops selling my wares as soon as they have product in their hot little hands.

it's raining, it's pouring

x-posted from July 23 livejournal

and so GRAY.

I shouldn't have seasonal affective disorder in the middle of July, but this girl needs some vitamin D.

Good story: a dear friend of mine and I took our kidlets to a lovely farm yesterday to pick raspberries. They seemed a little picked-over when we started...I slowly filled a pint or two...and then this thing called the Sun (really awesome, hadn't seen it in a week) came out. Within five minutes, berries that moments before had not been ready for picking, began to ripen before our very eyes. Soon, we had 12 pints between us and left very satisfied.

So, now we are back to GRAY. And raining. Until Monday.

And I am off to card some wool the color the sky would be if it was paying any attention at all to the fact that it's just about the middle of summer.

edit: Sexy tractor pics coming soon.

Four Words

I Rock the Pesto.

There is no photographic evidence, so you'll have to take my word.

I do have photographic evidence of crafting, however:

Into the Woods
Fruits of my time at Market, doin' the spin-demo thing...

Bedtime. xo