Bye Bye, Blogger

I have not been cross-posting here for some time.

I have a new blog here: http://thespunmonkey.wordpress.com/

and archives can be found here: http://thespunmonkey.livejournal.com/

I'd Rather Be Eating a Blueberry

We've been missing our New England friends.
So we play with crayons:

I made the crayon case for our cross-country trip from some wool felt and embroidery thread. The last few weeks we've been using the beeswax crayons to make rubbings of leaves in grandma and grandpa's backyard. Then we send them to VT friends who may not have a fig tree or bamboo growing in their backyard.

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I'm pretty sure I'm going up with the little guy to visit C at the farm this weekend.
I know I will want to stay there.
Being separated by 6 1/2 hours drive, I might as well have stayed in New England to enjoy berry-picking season. I WANNA BLUEBERRY. And then I wanna make blueberry ice cream out of it. And then I wanna make blueberry pie. And muffins. And smoothies. And waffles And syrup for the waffles.

What was I talking about?
Oh, yeah...the farm. If we go up, I will just want to stay there with C and live happily ever after...and I would totally just camp there until we had the funds for our dome, but I have commissions and new wholesale and it's already time to prepare for the holiday show season and STITCHES (yikes). I cannot set up studio in a camping tent, and I'm hoping my wooly efforts will get us closer to being together, which I would love to make happen before the end of the summer (rapidly approaching...eeeeeeek!).

My other option for the weekend is to stay here and let C come down for a week, which would save me the pain of saying hello and then goodbye-for-who-knows-how-long to the woods and the river and the farm, which will make me immeasurably sad. I don't function well in the suburban landscape. I have two more days to decide. I just miss him, damnit. And I miss water that doesn't have chlorine in it and I miss tromping through damp woods.

So, a shameless plug: I have been updating Etsy with oodles of Monkey Mitt Kits and felt. Every penny goes in the dome jar! Spread the word. We need to be a family again, ASAP!

Oh, and in other news:

ME: Can I make a little banner to put over the door that says, "Welcome to our Dome-icile?"
C: Ummm...NO.

I'm so going to do it, anyway. Tell me that ain't some funny shit.

Backwards and Not So Far Backwards

A couple weeks ago we tried the Merry Go Round:



This about sums up how he felt about it:



But, then, yesterday, we tried THIS:



Oh, HELL YES.

Children + tools + paint + freedom to do whatever they want with it all = LOVE.
They don't just give out the tools for nothin', though. One must earn 'em:



Seriously, watch out for Mr. Dangerous.
Anyway, grab a tool and then...build stuff! Something small, or add on to something big:



There are structures, houses, boats, all over the place, mostly built by kids! There are also slides, a zip line and some pretty serious rope nets to climb in/on/around.

Recycled water-dispenser bottle drums!:



My dude, workin' it:





So, yeah. Merry Go Rounds are scary. Give my boy a saw.



So...



Bring your friends:



And,

Renegade silliness

Okay, so everyone is off doing Summer things. Fine, that's fine.

Instead of wishing it all away for everyone else while I pine for the beginning of my new enchanted life by the river, I will post these stolen photos:

Kim and I goofing off with yarn.

Eling, myself and Kim, ready to pack it in.
Stolen from Jamie: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mary

janesattic/

Knit. Read. Bed.

Found

Unfinished projects.

In a box.

A little early. Or late?

From my great-grandparent's steamer trunk. Not sure which family member played with crochet cotton, but there are many intricate doilies and finished projects I did not bring home with me. The unfinished goodies, however, I have plans for.

Happy Wednesday!

Presently...

...there are PEARS.

Many pears:

That's one table...the rest are spread out over the hearth and in a basket, and oh, there are plenty more on the tree. Pear butter, here we come! C's mom already sold several pounds to a neighbor via Craig's List and that very same neighbor saw my tub of yarn and bought two skeins (thank you, Amy!!). Three cheers for laziness, as I had planned to be out on a bike ride with the li'l guy. Actually, it's not all laziness. The small person ate entirely too much fruit over the last few days and kinda needs to stay close to home today unless I want to bring lots of spare clothing. Yep. There are grapes ripe on the vine and baskets of pluots so temptation to gorge himself has been great.

Meanwhile, C is up in Trinity County in temps that will be near 110F today. He is doing serious outdoor manual labor on a neighboring farm involving trenching and plumbing and so he has to wake early to get a good start before the heat becomes unbearable. In the afternoons, he jumps in the river. I guess it's not so bad to be down here where it's somewhere between 80 and 90F each day, but I sure would prefer a river to the community pool.

Oh, and working backwards as promised, the weekend before Renegade was an awesome spinning workshop led by Jacey Boggs of Insubordiknit at Knit One One in Berkeley, CA. Yes, I participated in the video and had learned most of the techniques before, but there is nothing like being in a room full of enthusiastic people bouncing all kinds of creative energy off each other. I loved the workshop and the fabulous people I met and I would do it again and again and again. Jacey is wicked-talented and hilarious and come on, people...she wore her Yarn Bowl Hat:



There was laughter and silliness galore, and of course, a whole lotta this:



There's a Flickr set here for the rest: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thesp

unmonkey/sets/72157621640065513/

And for you locals or potential Bay Area visitors, Knit One One is a great space offering wonderful classes and events, including a craft sale every 4th Saturday of the month.

Alright...I'm gettin' OUTSIDE.

Disappearing Act

It's just easier that way, sometimes.

But then I have this back-log of awesome things I should have been blogging about all along and have no idea where to start. Usually it makes sense to start at the beginning. Well, boo convention, and besides, I haven't been uploading my pictures in that order. So, I'll start with the most recent thing and work my way back.

Renegade!

I had a lot of this on my table:

And a crap ton of scarves:

As usual, more people than I can count asked about Rhoda's dress and IT'S STILL NOT FOR SALE. Damnit, I look good in that dress, too! Needless to say, I need to make a pattern for it and go into a whole new biz.

At least she sold some scarves and put in her share of the work, rather than just standing around looking pretty in what I used to think was just a simple, yet nicely cut, run-of-the-mill white dress, maybe kinda boring but nice with jeans. If only I felt comfortable dying cotton this sucker would be black and I would wear it more than Rhoda does. SORRY, this is going way tangential. The real point here is that I LOVE GRIDWALL. I borrowed it from my Sis, and it made such a sweet way to display the Tangled scarves and some of the fancier yarns. I now want gridwall all over my non-existent studio.

Slight progress on that, but more later. This is about Renegade.

It was lovely to hang out with Kim-X...please check out her bunnies!
Mostly we sold a little, and knit a LOT (btw, I think the Whisper Cardigan is from Hell. The deepest, most fiery pit of Hell), met some awesome people and maybe wished that the show was Saturday-only. Sunday was much less busy in our little world, and I wanted to be curled up with C on his last day down here in the Bay for a while. Fort Mason Festival Pavilion was GIGANTIC and it was completely filled with vendors. There were well over 200 booths, which means around 300 vendors, I'm guessin'. In my opinion, it was overwhelming as a shopper and I didn't even get around to seeing everyone there, and I had plenty of time away from my booth to explore. I left with a Spincycle pattern, but only drooled over their fantastic yarns. Oh, and a dress from Texture, blue plaid hemp/cotton...too big but it was deeply discounted and it will be a nice project for learning how to take things in. Oh oh, and some manly yarn from Traveling Rhinos so that I can maybe knit C a hat he likes this time. I had some to/from BART adventures with Blas and Jamie (thanks, guys!) of Urban Fauna Studio and will be scheduling some felting and possibly spinning workshops at their shop in SF in the next few weeks while I'm still down here.

So, it was good...a little overwhelming, but good. In fact, I might eat my words and actually apply for BBB SF. I just might. Ha!

There are more pics at my Flickr set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thespunmonk

ey/sets/72157621793317408/

Btw: selling spinning/felting fiber? Good last-minute decision.

Leftovers slowly going up on Etsy.

Next post: Weekend of July 11/12. Spin workshop with Jacey! Also, beach adventures and train rides, OH MY!