FO

Here's the aforementioned shawl:

Having my husband take pictures was excruciating. I prefer to be the one behind the camera, especially for self-portraits. Anyway, as soon as I can manage to find a moment (or three) to type up the pattern all nice and purty and create a pdf, I will have it available in my shop and on Ravelry. I used two skeins of corespun for this piece and was pleasantly surprised at how far those two skeins went. I'm planning on knitting up a whole bunch of examples in different colors.

Today, however, is all about the felting. I had an amazing market day this past Saturday, and I can tell already that it's not the yarns that will be my bread and butter this fall. I am shifting my focus for fall and winter shows to handmade felt. Of course, I will still be spinning plenty, but my scarves are becoming my signature item, especially at the farmer's market. I should have known I needed to build up my inventory of these after December's Baz Biz in SF. I'm setting my goal to getting ten scarves completed each week, which is a bit lofty, but I'll do my best. I am worried about sourcing enough humane merino, as now I have two distinct styles...the pieces that are made from locks, and the pieces made from roving. The locks felt is very freeform and funky, thicker and with raw edges, while the roving scarves are smooth, with clean lines, and can be made paper-thin. There are no local sources of fine merino fiber that I can find, and it's really important to me that the wool I use for felting also be as humanely-sourced as the wool I use for spinning. I suppose getting myself to one of the fiber festivals this fall will be the key to finding some small-farm merino. I can't believe I haven't been to the Vermont fest or Rhinebeck, and I've lived here for almost three years. This fall I plan to change that!

On an entirely different note...I think I've changed my mind. It IS necessary to have a vehicle when one lives 40-minutes drive from pretty much everything. The car has been officially dead gone broken crumbing-in-the-yard for two weeks and I'm already getting stir-crazy. I have a three-mile round-trip walk to the post office, and twice yesterday I attempted it, only to get completely drenched in a sudden downpour 1/2 mile from home. WITH the kiddo in the stroller. Definitely need to score, at the very least, a bike with a kid seat to get us through until winter. A good entrance to play in the river is a 20-minute drive, and I just don't think I can spend the hottest months of the year baking in our backyard. As much as I would love to hang out and watch the garden grow, there are times when one simply must have a thorough dunking in cool water. Anyone wanna barter for handspun? Ha.

I will admit, though, that yesterday's drenchings felt pretty amazing. Kiddo even fell asleep, soaking wet, in the stroller on the way back, probably because he was finally cooled down enough to relax. I was just as soaked, when we made it back to the house, as if I had taken a dunk in the river. :)

Off to play with hot, soapy water! Happy Wednesday...