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?

Happy Labor Day! (belated)

I hope the end of summer finds you well and ready for new beginings this fall. We are already deeply embroiled in the start of school. The boy begins second grade -his first year with an agenda book (big deal) and without his big sister, who is now a big middle schooler (how many times can i say big in one sentence? It's the big time around here, i tell you!)

There can be no start to the school year without our very own Kensington Labor Day parade. The boy child marched with the cub scouts (and rode the cub mobile)

and the girl child decorated and rode on the church float

(she does "wholesome" well doesn't she?) She may as well ride while she can as she has a full schedule this fall, with starting middle school at a magnet for the visual and performing arts, starting year-round swimming, scouts, choir, etc. Stay tuned to see how it all goes down; I'm not even remotely sure.

Before summer ended, the kids went to their grandparents near the beach in Lewes, DE for ten days and gave the lovely Jack and I some time off. He finished an accounting course, then we headed off to the beach for a few days. All we did was sit on the beach,watch the olympics and eat, and did we ever eat! It was a crazy summer, with me working every other night and Jack in class on the nights I was home. A little like single parenting, with a lot of phone calls. Mostly we saw each other at swim and dive meets. Our long weekend away was a relaxing way to re-connect after all that craziness. And before he starts a master's program in accounting.

I know we'll be okay; many families have done this kind of things before and have managed just fine. I do have a bit of a pit in my stomach, but once we are going full speed ahead, i'm sure it will work out. the other change in our lives is that i'm now working days. I'm glad because it makes it easier to pace myself ( I don't dye for 4 hours and then go in an do an 8 or 10 hour shift in the hospital-very exhausting) and now i'm home when my babies get home EVERY DAY, as I feel I should be, and want to be.
Alright, enough blathering and belly-aching. I have been knitting and spinning and dyeing up a storm.

These are socks for the Lovely Jack, to keep his big tootsies warm. I knit them in the Sanguine Gryphon's traveller sock yarn in the colorway France. Absolutely beautiful. A perfect balance of tones and shades. Yum! She dyed these in my house last february with Lauren present and i liked them so much i bought them from her website a few weeks later.

The pattern is Wendy's generic toe up sock pattern. The man requires a very close fit, which, combined with a large ankle (he is 6' 3" after all), made the knitting a bit, well, let's just say, i ripped it afew times to get this right.

I have also been knitting a side to side cardi of my own design. Inspired by Gryphon's Fate Interrupted sweater and a gorgeous colorway i dyed to make a weeding present for some friends who married this summer. I started out trying to make a blanket but became frustrated with the mitered square pattern i was making up and frogged. On the way home from taking the kids to their grandparents, i was stuck in Chesapeake Bay Bridge traffic for 5 hours after a terrible accident and knit the better part of a front piece. since then, this thing has gone so quickly, i have been forcing myself to slow down. the yarn is Dragonfly Twist, a worsted weight merino yarn with one ply in superwash. the superwash takes up the dye differently providing a stripey look in the skein and a heathered look in the knitted piece. It's lovely, trust me. And the yarn is SUCH a pleasure to knit; so soft and springy. Even nicer than sock yarn; hmmm, perhaps i should order some for show season?

Mostly I have been spinning this yarn for a sweater for the lovely jack.

I bought this fleece in New Jersey last fall. it was a beautiful, fine Romney fleece that i purchased for $4 a pound. I have been washing and carding it ever since last October. It is a gorgeous charcoal grey color and so soft! I have been blending it with a bit of this merino cross that i have also been pricessing slowly, also purchased at New Jersey. The fleece is so soft and bouncy, but a bit short of staple and the color is putty. Not so nice. It does take dye well, and I have learned to live with lumps and bumps in my yarn (we call it "art" or "tweed"). The merino cross adds somebounce to the romney and i think in the end it will make it nicer to wear, although i wish i'd had the sence to dye it a bit darker before blending it with the nice charcoal Romney as it lightens the finished yarn. It is still quite pretty. hopefully i'll remember to show you the pattern i'm thinking of knitting from Norah Gaughn's Knitting Nature. It's cable pattern (my man likes arans) but not so traditional (I like less traditional).

Well, it's time for me to quit loafing, so i leave you with some yarn drying in the garden.