Hurricane Season

I an effort to stay a bit current here, I have left the spinning wheel. Today is one of those days that promises to rain, making it difficult to go out and dye with both burners blazing, yet it is not really raining. A Friday that feels a bit like a Monday. It is a very grey sort of day, and there is not much one can do about it.

It is good to keep going, and sometimes it is just the thing. We are still adjusting to the new school year around here. The boy is happier in school but is still feeling his way around with his friends, i think. If only hurricanes would stop raining out his soccer games! The mermaid is back in the water, swimming with a year-round team and that always makes her happy, as it would any aquatic creature. She is having fun learning to dance and is finding her way around in her new school shockingly well. Who is this well-adjusted young pre-teen and what did she do with my anxious, crying two year old?

Jack has started back in school this week, so the party's over for him. And I'm still proudly riding my bike to work. I admit it isn't that far, but it makes me feel good and the hills in our neighborhood do raise my hear rate a bit. Phew!

I tried to take my fancy new lens off to take pictures of my knitting and not surprisingly couldn't quite manage it. I know it's pathetic but I do have my reputation as a techno idiot to maintain. In the meanwhile, I explored the limits of the big zoom lens in the yard. This antique rose is called La Reine Victoria. She was an anniversary gift from my mother-in-law, Dorothy.

I have not dyed this week, although I have skeined quite a bit in an effort to get ready for show season. This year, I will be doing the New Jersey Sheep and Wool Fest with Gryphon and Lia the first weekend in October. We had a terrific, but dirty time last year; in fact that was out last show with all three fates present (our third fate, Sarah, is in Afganistan til' may. May she hasten back safely). The best part about the show, other than new Jersey knitters and spinners, of course, is that we were in the animal barn last year. The sound of little sheep talking filled our ears for two lovely days. The bad part about the show was being in the animal barn and getting dirtier than I ever thought was possible, between the dirt floor, the wind, and all of the hay and straw. It was very windy.

Gryphon will then go down to SAFF, with Paula Woolarina, and hopefully some of my things. And finally, we'll be at Stitches east in Baltimore November 6-9th. wow! The grandmother of all fiber and yarn shows, here we come! So, there will be as much dyeing as I can amanage around Dragonfly headquarters.

Now, before I run off to bed (this post has taken an embarrassing number of days to complete), a fashion show. First, i would like to show you Jack's socks, finally completed to his specs. Knitted in Gryphon's Traveller yarn, France colorway using Wendy's generic sock pattern. His feedback? "A little loose."

The modelling children, aka the mermaid and the skateboard dude.

Showing off the hat I knit from this crazy yarn spun from a beautiful Loop spontaneous spinning batt
This was a dreamy spin and so much fun to do the crazy art yarn techniques, especially the slubs and knots and cocoons. and someday i'm really going to give it to the friend i made it for, really.

Also showing off my firt art yarn ever hat. This has been presented here before, but never with such aplomb.

I like the way sk8ter dude looks like an alien in this picture; see, no pupils. It would not be the first time we have wondered whether he is possessed.

For those of you concerned with my sweater spinning, i'm up to nearly 8 skeins, with 3 more to go, of tweedy grey yarn. Next time I'll show you the pattern i plan to make with it. Hopefully.

Finally, these mushrooms below are the same mushrooms as the ones in the beginning of the post, less than a day later. Cool, huh? And oddly breast-like. No idea what they are. We'd planned to continue to watch them to see what happened, until they met an unfortunate end under the lawn mower. I won't mention any names. You know who you are.


And no, it wasn't the cat, who is clearly plotting world domination, or something else fiendish, don't you think?