County Fair

camp, day one

just a few quick highlights. i am yarn drunk and must nap before mad arrives.



heather (girlwithahook on etsy and ravelry) made this amazing knit and freeform crochet shrug.


and there is this really smart and sweet 13-year old boy in the class named tiger!
more pics here.

So last night I tried the translucent mohair technique, but used Cotswold instead. Today's a tdf day of rest and I just finished knitting my first sock ever.

heirloom vegetable

out of the dyepot

I was distressed that the jolly green took over the pot! But the yarn is turning out kind of pretty. Pics to come.

Here's last night's tour-de-fleece misadventure:

I love the little birds. They were an antiquey find from a mother's day spent with my mom. The ribbon is from an estate sale where my mom helped me dig through decades of mostly unappealing sewing notions that belonged to a doctor's wife. The wool is Shetland from a sheep named Rose Merta who lives at a local farm. Lately I'm getting so into Shetland wool, which comes in colors called Musket, Emsket, Mioget, and Shaela. I would have loved a fleece with a Gaelic name, but I picked Rose Merta's which turned out to be grey. But with black shading. It has adorable little locks that were too beautiful to disturb. I kept many of them intact them during carding and spun around them. I kept asking myself what embellishments could improve this fleece rather than take away from its beauty. What adornments would suit Rose Merta. Really, I would like to just wear her coat as-is. I am so enamored with Shetland sheep but I don't think they would do well in our woods.


That's Elderberry looking on at my yarnie antics. Maybe I can spin her a halter! I keep saying I'm gonna ride her down to the corner store for a strawberry ribbon sugar-free ice cream. One of these days, when her hips fill out a bit more, I will.


Taking yarn pics every afternoon has been one of the joys of summer so far. Today, we went to the cafeteria and I had baked spaghetti and salad bar. Then we strolled down to the PTA thrift store and I scored some vintage embroidery. Sometimes I think the hub and I are seniors in our middle-aged nubile bodies. This little town is a place time forgot, a modern Mayberry, even if someone recently tweeted that it had an unfavorable ratio of meth addiction to college degrees. But this summer, with its heat and fans and chicks and chiggers, and even panic attacks, I am feeling about ten.

this is my latest from the last two days. one ply i spun at the guild meeting saturday, and then i did the other last night and plied them together for a slubby bunny yarn. it's pure satin angora and it is snuggle-rific. on this day of rest i'm gonna make some felt nubbies for pluckyfluff and try to do some knitting.


40 yards
1.75 oz

my first adventure with extreme tailspinning ... was hoping it would look like tentacles...

when i was minding my own business last night, spinning on the deck of the ship, a storm came along


a kind soul tossed me a life preserver and i washed up on a beautiful beach of white sand and seaweed


safe on the island, i waved to the friendly sea monster out at sea

I couldn't resist these figurines that were hidden among the bric-a-brac at a thrift shop near my mom's. I found out they were made by a British company named Pendelfin back in the 70s, and their names are Lucky Pocket and Muncher. Muncher is eating pizza and drinking beer! Ebay is full of em, including a rabbit band with a guitar-playing rabbit that is named after my hub! Not that I need more kitschy collectibles, I truly do not, but oh! these faces.

here's last night's pirate-granny-rope yarn before setting. it's dorset (i think) wool spun thick-n-thin, then wiggly plied with chenille, old lace and ribbon, and alternating with some wrapping and granny stacks. i can just see tossing it out to shore or to the occasional overboard rabbit...

day four of tour de fleece

this is spun on an elastic core with nubs and scraps. i love the idea of grabbing whatever is around, just like the birds do.

and this one is uncarded corrie, and long robins-egg blue cotswold locks, and some shetland and jacob, and some long patches of thinly spun angora, and a little bit of vintage millinery

OOC

we are out of control! i should be thrilled with the dense and quick growth on my cosset lamb, but i'm always amazed how much work her coat is. i spent at least two hours today working on her, and it's only been a month since i clipped her. i am seriously thinking of finding a pet grooming school and taking a class on how to use clippers and blowers since i am too afraid of them (the tools, not the bunz) to do a good job. but just brushing and pulling out loose hair was so tactile and meditative this afternoon - i really wouldn't mind if that's all we do, ever.

you know how you can read something over and over, and then one day you read something new and it just clicks? there was a description on one of the angora message boards about how french angoras have non-synchronous coat growth, so that they are losing hair all the time and have hair at different stages. finally i think i understand and will have an easier time of managing my hairy friends. it's just been strange because they are each a little different in terms of their hair growth and grooming needs. Prissy and Butch really require minimal grooming. Prissy has tons of guard hairs and nice thick wool underneath that (almost) never matts. I really don't think she's a satin at all now that I've learned and seen more. Mr. Butch's gorgeous clouds are so fine that he'll matt a little if it's humid, but his coat grows back beautifully even after clipping and he does well with brushing once a week or even less. Cosset and her baby Junior are a totally different story. i think they are actually wooly wookies. they seem to require a fulltime aesthetician (that's me) to keep them on track. luckily all this wonderful fur they are growing is a boon, not a curse, and it's worth every last second it takes to care for them.

i got some exciting news yesterday that the local community artspace has a studio opening up that i could move my fiber-y endeavors. it might go against good sense in a way, putting the cart before the horse as they say, to rent a studio before i become an artist. but but but, it isn't expensive at all, and it would be a way of keeping my house from being taken over by fiber - plus i could meet people and all that. the place has a great vibe, and the working studio space even includes gallery space, coffee shop, and an outdoor area where they have events. they also have a bunch of working fiber artists, even have weaving classes, so i'd learn a lot too. it would also help me in terms of so many personal goals - structuring my time, organizing my stash, and working toward my dreams. kinda scary, but i think it's a-Go.

flowers and bows

i'm having such fun already with the tour-de-fleece. spun most of the day while watching three, actually 3 1/2 movies. it felt very much like a holiday, even with no pool. i weeded the garden early and it was fun, playing in the dirt and with the hose. after movie no. 1 we almost went out to eat and to the movies, even got dressed and headed down the bumpy driveway, past the partying neighbors, but i just wasn't into it so we turned around and came home and went back to spinning and movies. it was good because around 9pm the fireworks began and the hounds got very upset.

i'm amazed that as long as i remember to eat, i'm in a pretty good mood, which makes me wonder if my depression all these years has been food-related. the affirmations that i promised to do, they make me feel a bit silly, but they seem to be working as well. although i took my main affirmation from nietzsche rather than my stack of louise hay cards, which may be counter-productive. still, i love july.

* happy 4th! *

golden polaroid birthday

this is my baby sharklet. we are having fun with the ebayed sx-70.

This article was passed along to me and I'm still chewing on it: Beyond Dominance and Affection: Living with Rabbits in Post-Humanist Households by Julie Ann Smith. I'm liking the acknowledgement that pet-keeping can be mutually transformative, since pets are less-than-popular in animal rights circles these days. And framing house rabbits as creatively post-human is cool enough. I'm just not sure about canonizing the HRS as opening the way for this becoming-rabbit. If anyone wants to read and discuss, give a shout!