Category Archives: nature
8.23.10 New Post!! You don’t have to read about my lightning scare again!
Yesterday Mr. Lady and I went on what I think I can only call a “date”. It was the day after our 28th wedding anniversary. I will not quibble. He did go grocery shopping and made a Baked Ziti (recipe from America’s Test Kitchen) on the actual day and then did some laundry too.
Anyway, yesterday we saw Inception. ***It was the best movie I have seen in a long time.*** If that was not mind bending enough we came forth from 3 hours in the dark theater into the light of a thunderstorm. What is it with wind and rain, thunder and sunlight all combined? Very surreal. Still not all. As we were driving away, in the VW Beetle with new front shoes, there was a rainbow. Not just any rainbow, no way, because we had just seen that crazy movie it had to be a special rainbow. In fact it was the brightest double rainbow I have ever seen. Did you know that the colors in double rainbows reverse themselves? Physics rears its complex head again. There were people in other cars but most were on cell phones and driving. We were not quite like this guy though. We went to Chipotle. It was not too much after all that weirdness. And it was not in our front yard this time. Then we went home and walked Suziedog who was most grateful.
I have been working on some knitting. Doing sort of a KAL with my sorority sisters of knitting, the TNKers: Tuesday Night Knitters, most of whom are knitting an honorary EZ piece. 100th bday you know. I started the BSJ a couple of times and just was not feeling it. So I took out a cone of LB 1878 from the local pharmacy (??) and began the Stonington Shawl (Ravelry link). Pretty easy, I decided to jazz up the center square with the eyelet. The yarn is some that I bought for weaving stash and is knitting very nicely. It is a soft 4 ply, fingering weight, probably from South America somewhere.
In an impromptu weaving burst, a new warp was wound onto the LeClerc and is deciding how to be threaded. I say that because I was just going to thread it for plain weave but decided to throw in some basketweave stripes. See, it is still deciding. The warp consists of some “sport weight” knitting yarns that have been hanging around me for a while. The solids were bought and started as a sweater from an Interweave Knits some (more than 10) years ago. The multi was bought at the yarn swap/sale a few months ago. We will see what comes of it.
All of my bruises are resolving. It has been about a month since the freakish incident. The only residual seems to be that my hand, where I didn’t even realize there was a bruise at first, continues to bother me. It will throw out a purple tinge every now and then and become sore from nothing in particular. That is the bone I think I cracked. Thanks to everyone for all of your good wishes! I really appreciate it.
And the Emperor is not so sure about me using his bedroom for weaving.
7.3.10 Too Hot for Hose
And maybe HO’s. And certainly ho’s in hose. (Finally Maureen, finally) It has been so hot here that 80 is the new 60. Everyone knows this but still I mention it.
Don’t panic, I know you want the pictures because that is my favorite thing on most blogs. Here they are:
Spinning: 50/50 roving from Kid Hollow Farm spun as a singles, no idea the yardage but the fiber weighs about 1.5 lbs
I boiled those bobbins and the skeined the yarn wet.
Weaving: I warped the Harrisville loom last week with some cottolin in a Finnish Twill. Trying out some singles linen weft but I think I might just weave it off as hand towels.
Knitting: Knitting is progressing slowly on the Malabrigo Lady (ravelry link) in the color Bergamota. It is a sweater knit from the top down. If you are a knitter and have not done a top down sweater, I suggest that you cast on for one immediately.
On the travel scene, I went to Nags Head, NC for a couple of days and then home for a few days, packed up again and drove to Tuscaloosa Alabama. Thank the powers that be that my eldest daughter Anne got an offer from the University of Alabama for a place as a research assistant in grad engineering. Cuz that trip was hard. That is all I am going to say about it because venting is no longer theraputic. Or so they say. Here is one picture:
And the baby hawks have hatched and are learning to scream and hunt. One got his talons stuck in a pine cone in my front yard the other morning. Very amusing but I only got one very blurry picture of the adventure.
Thanks for checking on me! I am going for some iced tea. Because one of my photos of Hollywood Cemetery was short listed for a Schmap. This one:
5.3.10 The Aftermath: Hurray Hurray the First of May….
On the First of May, Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival (MS&W) was like heaven and hell. It was divine and it was overwhelmingly hot. I was among people who understand my fiber obsessions but it made me not a little ill to see how much materialism is involved in fibercraft these days. We all need a 7 Step program I think. Still, I am glad I went with my friends Linda, Issy and Barbara from TNK!
Of course I came home with a bag of items that I am happy with. Being a MS&W first-timer I really just wanted to go for the sake of being there at least once. I had no real mission to carry out which for me is the way I roll, maybe to minimize disappointment. I have been to numerous fiber events and know that if I get my heart set on something it will probably not cross my path in the adventure. I am also not determined enough to enter booths that are packed with people grubbing for things I probably already have.
I don’t have any photos of the actual experience. That was an “on purpose” due to the fact that I would have had to carry my camera. And I had other things to carry, namely water. Anyway, a camera can focus attention or distract. There are probably lots of other blogs out there with pictorials of the people (and poor animals!) sweating and panting in the 90-something degree heat. I do wish I had a photo of the young boy scout taking his turn with a sandwich board advertising sandwiches. He was staggering up and down the hill in front of his troop’s booth. He deserved to get his photo taken and put on a blog. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about fiber but he was doing his part.
I do have photos of my swag.
From our stop at FibreSpace in Alexandria. This is a gorgeous friendly shop in Old Town on Fayette Street. You need to go there if you are in the area. The yarn is Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine and it is started to be a Miss Woodhouse Shawl by Wendy and the ball became a tangle. I have my work cut out for me as soon as I finish this post. The little project bag is a “Pretty Cheep Project Bag”. Cute eh?:
From the HGA booth with very friendly ladies and info about Convergence. This is 18oz. (+/- 3150 yards) of “Silky Too” which is 75% rayon and 25% silk, hand dyed by Laura Bryant of Prism Yarns. Plans for it to be a warp for the loom.: 
From Gretchen at the Solitude Farm booth:
I will put a picture in later. It is 2 skeins of Karakul in a bright red. Very scratchy but guaranteed to felt any yarn held with it.
From Barbara Gentry at Stony Mountain Fibers. I always patronize Barbara’s booth wherever I see her. I bought my first wheel from Barbara in about 1991.:
From Deirdre and Greg at the Still River Mill booth (they sell gorgeous yarns with cashmere, yak, bison and qiviut). I had my first fleece processed by these nice people.: This is 1 oz. of a gorgeous blend of 50% qiviut/25% silk/25% merino called Spring Fling.
From Gale’s Art booth, a Trindle. This was the only thing I sought at MS&W. Don’t really know why. The Trindle drop spindle is the brainchild of trindleman on Etsy. Probably best to read his statement there. It is difficult to photograph a Trindle, this one weighs 0.7 oz and is production #929. Can you imagine making over 1000 of these? I wish I could remember what the shaft is made of but the beads are raku.:
From a booth that I can’t remember, a block print and some bargain yarns:
And lastly, the finches are almost fledged. Their parents sit on the banister and scream at them to get out of the nest and get going. I am screaming as well because I want to get that nest down and scrub the wall!
