Update on the Fiber Front

I've been busy. Yesterday I was determined to complete the lace scarf I had started using shetland handspun yarn. I got the last design charted only to discover after starting to knit that I hadn't enough yarn. I did have a bit of grey shetland roving so I started to spin. I finished a small skein of yarn before the fireworks started last night; I guess I'm picking up a bit of speed as that's the fastest I've gone from roving to finished product ever! Of course I couldn't knit as the yarn was still drying after setting the twist...so what did I do? Why, I started another project!

This lovely Noro yarn has been calling out to me from a corner of my bedroom and saying it wanted to become a Bugga Bag. OK, I started to make the transition. And I restarted the Unbiased recycled purse from Knitty.com for good measure. This time I hope the directions are error free as my last nearly finished attempt at Unbiased had me swearing and ripping. I guess these projects seemed so quick to finish that they hardly count. Now if I could finish my pi shawl that quickly, I'd be jumping for joy. That's currently on hiatus.

Strangely enough, the counter on my antique yarn winder has started working again. I assume the humidity has made the wood swell just enough for the gear to catch the cog. I was surprised as I wound on to hear that powerful snap again. I thought I had broken it. I wonder if there's a way to keep the wood hydrated all year long.

And my last thrill of the evening is that I found an ad in the local paper for a local spinning guild that meets in my little town on Thursday mornings. I'm very excited to think I might break away this week and spin with some experienced folks. What fun!

The baby went to camp

How does this happen? The maturity of your children seems to grow only with startling leaps. One minute he is holding your hand as he crosses the street and planning to marry you when he grows up, the next he is telling you that you are embarrassing him in front of the counselor. And he's gone. Oh, I've been through this before and I know he'll be back, but we have our children with us for such a brief time. And even this youngest that started out as a 5 pound little bundle is taking his first strides toward independence. I'm grateful that he is reaching out eagerly to embrace it, even at the alarming age of 8. And let's enjoy the prospect of a week of dinners with no scatological humor!

On the fiber front, I swatched half the way to camp this afternoon only to find out the yarn was just too bulky for the pattern I was attempting. It's an ebay purchase, a melon colored wool and acrylic blend, apparently bulky in weight. So this evening I found the pattern I had originally intended for the yarn, a cardigan in Family Circle's Easy Sweaters. It will work up fast and the yarn was so incredibly inexpensive that I don't mind knitting it up to match my favorite sunflower t-shirt. Frivolous, you say? The defining adjective of fashion! The real reasonI started it? I needed a mindless knitting project for the summer meetings to come. Sanity is possible only with needles softly producing something lovely. I'm 8 1/2 inches up the back last count. Photos to follow when the new camera arrives.

The perfect summer day

Low humidity, low temperature, clear skies...how perfect! I even had to wear a sweatshirt to pull weeds in the garden this morning.

Thomas is off to camp tomorrow. He'll spend a week and is very excited about it. We got him all packed this afternoon and he spent some time watching the Live 8 concert with his sister. Don't get any ideas about things being too idyllic around here. Although I was able to spin some wool/angora fiber I bought at our local sheep festival ( Jefferson County Sheep Festival), there was the usual dissatisfaction with dinner and the ever present namecalling. We wonder about charging for each name called and at the end of the summer we can send the proceeds to Heifer Project International or another worthy cause. A quarter per name, maybe? This could have many positive effects, one of which might be to slow down the growth of the new puppy fund that Elizabeth is accumulating. Do we really need another chewing and peeing machine? The possibilities are endless.

I look forward to some car knitting time as we drive to camp tomorrow. I really need to finish one of the shawls I've been working on.

Strawberry Season in the North

This morning we started the day by picking 18 quarts of strawberries. And the smell of them has been following me around all day. There's a wonderful roadside stand that I pass every morning on the way to work. It's run by a young couple who have built a home and worked the surrounding sandy soil to produce the best fruits and vegetables in the area - all of this in just a few short years. I love to give them business and stop every chance I get. This morning it was u-pick strawberries.

There was a lovely breeze keeping away most bugs and the humidity hadn't joined us yet. The berries were small, but they still produced that thrill as you crawled around moving leaves and suddenly, there it was: a lovely clump of ruby red berries. And this thrill is chief in mind even after hulling 11 of those 18 quarts. Here's another reason to frequent this stand; we paid 12.00 for the 18 quarts. And with any purchase over 10.00, a handful of fresh basil was free. Yippee - pesto and strawberry shortcake for dinner. Yes, summer is finally here.

I did a great deal of plying on my Babe today and still have a lot to finish. That didn't stop me from carding another batch of the excellent Navajo-churro fleece from a sheep named CoCo I have and spinning that up. It's irresistable and I plan to ply 3 strands together when I finish this last bobbin. I haven't done that yet.

Still looking at digital cameras to replace my Mavica. (We're leaning toward a Kodak EasyShare. ) I'm anxious to post pictures here again.