Foothills Folly

Mostly photos of my evening so far: today it snowed, then got cold:

Here the Indoor outdoor temperatures at 10:00 pm:

And soon after:

Then about 15 minutes later:

(And edited to add it is 4.8 degrees F. at midnight! )

CPTV is showing  “Live from Lincoln Center” with the NY Philharmonic:

Here’s part of the brass section:

I’ve finished warping the borrowed table loom.

Here’s a closer look; it shows the header, of homespun. I was going to use the same homespun for the scarf, but the warp is fingering weight and the reed is a 12 dent reed, and it makes the heavier homespun feel like shotgun pellets, hard and bumpy.

 So, all the best for 2009!

Today, a Sunday, (no surprise, a blog day), I drove up northward to attend the Mass Sheep and Wool Festival, and had a short but great time. I drove the back roads there, as the crow flies, and it was almost 30 miles longer than the less direct but bigger roads home! Egad!

But there were sheep, lambs, goats, and sheep dog trials. This was one happy little group:

I had hoped to see some dyers from Ravelry and did see Amy, aka Boogie, from Spunky Eclectic: and here she is at her booth:

We spoke for all of 30 seconds; probably she didn’t expect a fiber-club Junky fan to be quite so old and socially inept! But I did buy two superwash merino hanks of fiber, and hope to actually spin sock-worthy yarn.

They are Soylent and Purple Haze; can you guess which is which?

Vendors (I didn’t get the name) from Northampton MA had a booth of wonderfully dyed fiber– here are the rovings dyed with natural dyes, a wonderful display of color in the sunshine:

I watched the end of this competition; it had to do with sheep, people, and what the people were wearing. The gentleman, black sheep, and child (grandchild?) won the category for adults and children, Too cute!

Again, a vendor’s name I didn’t get:

She dyes the yarns for these vests; I am a vest lover, and wish I’d gone back to get her name or to see if she sold the patterns.

I wasn’t going to but I did– buy more roving. This 8 oz. was from Gurdy Run Woolen Mill in Halifax PA; it’s a wool, ?, and silk roving.

I thought this gray fiber, and the next, from Biltmore Wool Barn from Brewster, MA. a mystery roving with sprinkles of color, would both work with yarns I am spinning for a vest. In fact, they may get plied together.

I had most definitely decided not to buy any unprocessed fleece; but a recent Ravelry thread about the spinning of Cotswold encouraged me to buy some Cotswold lamb fleece, from Heidi (the lamb) via her shepherdess, Lisa, of River Valley Farm, not far from me, in Lenox MA. I may wash some of it tonight:

I had a fine time; what spinner/knitter doesn’t enjoy a fiber fest! On the way home I shot photos out the window; some of them may turn into paintings, and if they do, I’ll blog about it here!

Another Sunday, another blog post day. I have been planting new fruit trees; trimming rampant vines and killer invasive roses, starting veggies, potting up things for the garden club sale, and potting up other things for the forest garden workshop I am taking next week. And, without any help from me, things are blooming. The Nanking cherry, now 15-20 years old:

This year it is just covered with blossoms; and nearby the Sand cherries are blooming. Much younger bushes, they are not so heavily covered with blossoms, but the cherries are a bit larger than the Nanking cherry.

Also blooming yesterday and today is my lovely apricot. And it has been warm enough for the bees to have been very active; hope that means a good crop. Of course we could have a frost, or the trees could get buggy (I skipped the dormant oil spray this year). I can’t be the only one who cheers on the honey bees; so glad to see them!

One of the early tulips is this species type:

They last so much better than the taller, more usual tulips. Year after year they come back, and bloom early. I hope I remember this next fall and put in some more. I also noticed this year that although the bees ignore the daffodils and narcissus, they love the earlier blooming crocuses; another one to plant more of this fall.

A shrub I remember fondly from my childhood was an azalea; I was always amazed at how early it burst into bloom. This is probably not the same variety, but the color is similar:

These are the daffodils and narcissus in front of the house; the white patch on the lower left edge is the cat’s chin; she loves it that the sun has warmed the earth. She also loves it that I am out there working in the dirt and she can roll around in the newly exposed soil.

The outdoors has a hold on my attention; I did spin this March fiber from Amy at Spunky eclectic. It’s called “mud season”; I spun it and then plied it Navaho style, very poorly! Love the colors tho.

The frame shop is driving me batty. There is either no new work, and therefore no money— or there is plenty to do, but, life intervenes. We’re swamped, but I am off for this forest gardening workshop! Can’t win; must figure out retirement!

It’s been mostly cold, snowy, and blowing today. There was a patch of sunshine during the afternnon, and I sat in the big dining room window in the warm rays and spun some llama roving I got last fall at Rhinebeck, from the Northern Vermont Llama Co. They take folks on Llama treks, and sell their fiber. It’s two tone so it’s spinning up tweedy. I have to decide whether to ply it to itself, or to some other single, a tan or dark brown . I have a bit more to do, of the 4 oz. ‘bump’, and then I’ll experiment.

This is the fiber, about half-way spun:

I don’t know the name for this type of thin-spun roving; not ‘pencil’ spun, more like ‘ruler’ spun. Fun to work with, and looks like this on the wheel:

Here’s a photo of this morning’s snow and the old truck:

Someone left me a card in the shop door for their scrap metal pick-up business; I may take tham up on it this spring. The neighbor would love me.

The cold and snow make me hunker down, glad to be in the not-so-warm (unless one is quite near the wood stove) house . We’re burning wood from the second pile; it’s punkier and wouldn’t last ’til next year, but it’s also wet and slow to burn. So far the chimney is staying clean—haven’t had to send Sam up on the roof. I managed to get three paintings done for the art league show at Noble Horizons. Did I say ‘done’? I at least put them in frames and gave them titles and prices, but they are more like the idea of paintings than like real, authentic, finished items. Especially when I got them out in the sunlight—-I must say they looked so much better in a dark corner of my living room! Last year I sold two little ones; this year I expect I will be bringing these back home in February.

I’m loading up the palette with fresh paint, as I need to practice getting to ‘finished’ with my work. Ditto for my knitting. Have not yet begun the promised Koolhaus hat. Haven’t added a stitch to the maze hat, also promised although it seems a bit small for this large-headed family:

This is an easy way to do two-color knitting, knitting with one color on a round and slipping the other; but somehow I am off on my last round second to the last round and not sure whether to tink or push on. The maze is a bit wonky and I don’t think errors will be too noticeable. Yarn is two colors of Knitpicks Swish Superwash.

The next rumpled-hat looking project is the Hemlock Ring Blanket, through corrected row 35, now ready for longer cables. It is the next WEBS knitalong but I need a head start in order to keep up— The yarn is a thick 2 ply from Bartlett Mills, Fisherman tweed, in Dark Heather. I’m anxious for it to get large enough to keep me warm as I knit!

And lastly I swatched the Secret of the Stole ii, in knitpicks Shadow, the color of which I think is sunset heather, but maybe redwood heather, and which will become apparent as I knit on and need to find the remaining skeins. The clues will begin to be posted tomorrow a.m., so I imagine I am already behind on this, unless tomorrow is a snow day—possible, but not likely.

Watched a PBS show last night on the plasticity of the neuro-matter in our brains; I think all this knitting helps with the new synapses IF we get it right. Not so likely, either.

I love the new beginning feeling that comes with the 1/1 date. I have made some sweeping resolutions; one of which is to get outside more: (starting tomorrow!) (I am nothing if not a procrastinator!) I am up for changes in five categories: Health, Wealth, Art, Life, and Permaculture.  I think that about covers the essentials. I would have put in a spinning and/or a knitting goal, but they seem to be my default activities and don’t need any encouraging.

This is the storm of yesterday; I didn’t get a photo of today’s; kind of looked the same. I would miss this season if I ever went south for the winter. Especially that cozy feeling of a ’snow day’ with food in the house and no where one needs to go.

Mitzy has taken over the tree; I know she thinks we brought it in the house just for her. To her credit she has been a huge help at undecorating it, though I’m not yet ready to take it down.

 The amaryllis opened yesterday; the picture does not capture how red it really is. Kind of the red of this yarn:

The Fleece Artist sock yarn was part of a raffle prize from the fall Spin-Out. I wasn’t able to go, but made a donation to the Heifer Society—and was delighted with the prize package that arrived yesterday—Thanks, Cara, and all your sponsors!

I have been spinning, this fuzzy fiber I carded a few months ago—is it the alpaca mixed with wool?  Or the moorit locks from RHLindsay? Inquiring minds want to know, and I have forgotten.  Lesson learned: always label!

Lastly, Sam, and girl friend Kath, dressed for a dinner out at Bizen’s, everyone’s favorite Japanese restaurant.  I stayed home and made my own sushi!

This is my backyard view, this afternoon. A storm around us; overcast; but still so much green for the last bit of October. (I need to trim some of these shrubs so as to not lose my view of the mountain; but I have to do it on a weekend cause they aren’t really on my property.)

I have tried to get rid of the sumac in my yard, but here it is:

The red and the bit of yellow resemble, in a far-reaching way, the roving we used in the spinning workshop at Rhinebeck on Friday. Margaret Heathman was our leader, and she was soooo encouraging. We were given dyed roving to spin and ply five ways:

On the left is a strip of the roving; on the right it is plied with a red; the ones in the middle are single plied, plied from the inside and the outside of a center pull ball, two strands hopefully spun in a similar thickness and length and plied together, and some that is Navaho plied. That was the name of the workshop: one painted roving prepared five ways.

I was happy to be shown Navaho plying, and did some more at home but I still need a lot of practice, actually I s**k at it. But the relaxed day of spinning and plying was perfect for honing my hardly existent skills on the wheel; I hope they have spinning classes next year!

I am just now looking for a hat pattern to knit, using these yarns. A rolled brim one, I think.

I returned today, armed with some more cash, but resisted these oh-so-clever wheels, by The Merlin Tree, so easy to carry, so durable, so cute! I didn’t take his card, but Saturday he remarked how he had the least expensive wheels at the festival, and just down the aisle in building A were the most expensive!

This wheel is made by Tom Golding, I hope I have the name right (I think I do now as Lunassa recognized herself spinning and helped me out here, thanks!)– so lovely it belongs in a museum! I didn’t try it; too unsure of my abilities to recognize greatness, or even appreciate it. But what a wheel!

This next wheel was in with the The Merlin Tree’s Hitchhiker’s; an antique made in Connecticut, my state, but as I looked at the old wheels here and there around the festival, I realize I don’t have the patience for the old and somewhat archaic. A good lesson for me to learn!

(more…)

I actually got to the NYS Sheep and Wool Festival early-ish, so the crowds were not yet thick and impenetrable:

(This was  Ellen’s 1/2 pint farm.)

I watched some judging; they all looked good to me. I am a novice at identifying animals, but these were goats:

The 12 noon gathering was fun; here is our Ravelry leader, Jess, oohing and aahing at a baby. Bloggers tried to find squares; and we all pretty much blocked traffic.

As I left that little knoll, I saw Stephanie’s sweater, and had to be a bit dorky and put my camera in her face. She was off to get some wool. Which is what I did, though I restrained myself from buying a fleece, and loaded up with various rovings, natural and dyed,

from various types of sheep and other fibery creatures. I had a blast, in my quiet old-timer’s way, and am headed back tomorrow. This was the very thinned out crowd heading home, with me right behind them:

I really really like the patterns of Jane Thornley, of Nova Scotia. They are almost freeform, and allow one to choose yarns and colorways and be a bit adventurous. She sees patterns of colors and textures in nature and is able to translate them into knitted fabric. I am enraptured by them. I am working on the Medici Coat, only I hope to make it a vest. This is the first 6 inches or so:

And here I have added more rows; neat how my Harmony cable cord matches!

I hope to have this done, with collar, for Rhinebeck. Should be doable. I ordered a heap of yarns from EBay to work on this; some have not yet arrived, but the lichen Colinette Giotto from England arrived so I began and am liking it, although I think wearing it I will look like a piece of upholstered furniture!