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.