Spinning

Navaho plied rainbow dyed roving

Copper Moth green and yellow plied together

Knitting

Click here for a closeup.
Whitby Sock from Knitting on the Road
Spirit Trail Sock Yarn

& Needlepointing (?!)

Love Hearts from Jolly Red

I had a great time in Rhinebeck.

Getting to meet up again with, Kerstin , Cindy, Carolyn, Sandy, Alison , Anj,Amy, Silvia and Claudia and meeting up for the first time with Deb, Kim, Mary Beth, Annie , Norma and Jen was very cool. I learned so much--Claudia showed me how to Navajo Ply. Sandy explained the pros and cons of text messaging. (10 cents!) Kerstin bought a spinning wheel! And that made me oh-so jealous!

I bought 3 bags full of stuff to spin at The Copper Moth.

Violet, Yellow and Apple Green

Scored some wool from Spinner's Hill this year--a heathery royal purple and heathery venetian blue. (Deb generously gave me her orange and purple Spinner's Hill fiber.) Still being consistently inconsistent in my color choices. No red. No grass green. At Spirit Trail Jen's booth, there were some beautiful light tan and light brown Shetland rovings. I bought up an ounce of each color to ply with the Spinner's Hill fiber. (And don't you know, I'm wishing I'd bought more of her sock yarn. It's my favorite. But more on that tomorrow!)

On the second day of the fair, I wandered around in a daze, and then had lunch... Last year, I went a little too crazy on day 2 buying spindles and lucets and doodads. This year, I just bought one thing and appreciate it more. And I cannot show you because I do not have it! It's this beautiful brown, green, teal, yellow, orange rainbow dyed Blue-Faced Leicester roving. That doesn't sound too pretty does it? Teal and orange? Ewwww. But ask Cindy, she'll vouch for it. The woman's booth had a skein of it spun up and it was beautiful. There was no more of the roving to be had but she said she'd persuade the dyer to make some more. So, I paid for the as-yet nonexistent roving and am waiting by the mailbox everyday!

The last part of that day was spent watching the Robin Spinning Wheel booth with Deb and Cindy. Honorary Robin Chicks is what Jen called us. I got to spin on his demo wheel for about 30 minutes. Heaven! It wasn't hard to be enthusiastic about his well-crafted and beautiful wheels.

From inside the Whistlewood:

Time flies...

Pretty flowers and a garden statue.

A friendly dog.

Yentala heading out for a long day of chores.

A tired horse.
~*~

Sheep masquerading as dogs.

A world-weary sheep.

Rhinebeck was wonderful!

Got my Bermuda Bag finally done! Yes, I finally just broke down and bought a staple gun only to find when I got home that I HAD a staple gun when I went to go put the new staple gun away. Funny.

Here I was too lazy to go down in the basement and rummage around the tool cabinet, but not tired enough to navigate Home Depot with two toddlers.

Hmmm. Weird.

So, you know what this means--the bag is done just in time to fill it with something to work on in Rhinebeck. But what? Or, should I just wait till I get there and figure out what said project might be at the fairgrounds?

I'm glad to be done with all the sewing and stapling and button sewing and buttonhole-ing and measuring whatnot that went into making the new lining and cover.

The angsty moments during buttonhole-ing are like those I experience when picking up stitches for fingers on a glove.

I didn't exactly match up the buttons on the cover to the depth of the buttonholes. (So that the cover would exactly cover the staples and cover on the handle.) It wasn't for lack of trying though. Wish I'd talked Dave into doing that job for me. Maybe for the next cover...

Here are some random shots of the bag for you:

New bag liner with buttons.

Inside of bag.

I'm off to Rhinebeck! Well, off to get ready.

Well, off to think about getting ready.

PS--the linen fabric used for the bag liner was handwoven by someone at Habu. I was afraid to cut it for fear of making a mistake and wasting it.

At Stitches East, I bought 2 balls of Grignasco Cashmere yarn in a great olive green. The yarn came in a kit for fingerless mittens. And, as I said before and keep saying in my head, "My first cashmere! Ohhhh!"

I was so excited about these mittens, that on the train ride home, I cast on.

The first cast on, the mittens were way too big.

The second cast on, they were too small.

The third cast on was just right. But it was only at this point that I was starting to realize that I didn't like how the the purl ribbing design was turning out.

Augh!

So, I gave up and decided not to use the pattern that came with the yarn and to design something myself:

My redone fingerless travelling vine mittens.

The travelling vine pattern is from Barbara Walker's Treasury of Knitting Patterns.

As soon as I finished one, look who came up and decided to try it on?

She said, "Mommy, is this for me?"

Obviously, she is an accessory girl just like me.

I finished Mendocino:

and a little baby sweater from Knitty:

Click here to see the whole thing!

The bug buttons were fun to make. They are just some old quilting fabric where I cut out little bugs and those buttons you can fabric cover yourself. (I cannot think of the name of them but the are easy to find at sewing stores.) They were fun to make!

I'm also working on a chevron scarf made out of Noro's Silk Garden:

Click here for a closeup of Shade 87

I worked on this scarf on the train ride over to Atlantic City to visit Stitches East on Saturday. I had a great time walking around with Carrie and meeting Knitty Amy, Jody and Christy. I think my favorite part of the experience was meeting everyone and seeing what was going on in the "Knitting Universe." Let me say, a lot of the knitting was out of this world, and not in a good way. Give me a little sheep festival anyday.

So, after a long day of shopping at Stitches, all I ended up with were a few little balls of chenille from Habu and 2 balls of cashmere from Sophie's Yarns. Ohh, my first cashmere....

And the back

Becky and Noel cut all of Becky's hair off this morning. In some places it is 1/2 inch long and in others 8 inches.

Annoying little buttonholes.

I had a grand plan to make buttonholes on the sewing machine. Thought it would be less fiddly. And possibly neater.

I made a knitted swatch with which to test out the machine buttonholes. I actually bought matching purple thread. I was ready!

Or so I thought. To make a long story short, the machine didn't cooperate. I didn't know what I was doing. I got tired and went to bed.

When I woke up, I decided to rip back to where knitted buttonholes should begin and now here I am--measuring out where to place said buttonholes. And you know how I hate to measure. Blech!

Somehow measuring placement for machine buttonholes with the whole band done seemed easier because I could sew a buttonhole, cut it open and try it. Then on to the next buttonhole.

But with the knitted ones, I've got to plot out the whole placement beforehand and hope I got the distances between holes right.

Not that there's a big difference there between the two ways in terms of fiddly, as it turns out. .

Well, let's have a look:

As you can see, I am cross-training thru the fiber arts--sewing, upholstery and a bit of who knows what else. Oh yes, I know--ruler using.

I hate measuring things. What a pain. Hunt down the ruler. Gotta write things down. Which necessitates finding a PENCIL! Sheesh. Too fussy. I'm too impatient!

To get around this measuring thing, I've honed my intuitive measuring senses down to the centimeter. (Milimeters are too much to ask, and veer into the too exacting mode where I call in a certain person who actually gets off on measuring.)

But getting back to ME--I'm the kind of girl who can go to Ikea and pick out curtain rods without measuring and be spot on. I can do rugs too. Take me to Ikea!

I can also tell myself when to wake up in the morning and then do it.

Should I put that on my resume when I go back to a salaried* job with vacation time and a benefits package?

Anyway, the Bermuda bag is getting an extreme makeover. At first, I thought just a replacement cover would be nice, but after looking at the muslin lining, and weighing whether or not I could take the staples out and then somehow get the old cover off and a new cover on, I thought I'd go for that too.

Right now, I am at the point where the lining needs to be reattached and I can't get the original staples to go back in. Me fingers are just too big to hold the itty bitty staple (3 mm wide, thank you--I actually measured just for you) while preparing to bang it with a big hammer. It just didn't seem prudent. So, does anybody know anything about itty bitty staples that can go through wood and cloth? I have an upholstery staple gun, but it shoots out staples that would crack the handle. And that wouldn't be pretty.

Does this mean I have to buy yet another staple gun?

I hope that answers any questions you had (or didn't know you had--wink wink) about my Bermuda Bag.

----
*don't get me started on "working" mothers versus "stay at home" mothers and that jazz about "going back to work" Hello--I never stopped working and I am on call all day! All mothers are working mothers. And I'm not in the camp that says one type of mother is better than the other just in case this sounds like I might be. I'm not! Thank goodness women have the right to choose which lifestyle they want to have. (Idealistic as that statement may be.) Just don't ask me, "So, when are you going back to work?"

I have been knitting on just one thing lately:

Mendocino from The Childrens' Collection by A&J Starmore
Click here to see the buttons.

I am knitting this for a friend's daughter. It's easy and quick and needs to be done by tomorrow.

I do believe I spent more time driving around to all the local yarn stores looking for an appropriate aran weight yarn than I have actually knitting it.

Nobody had a tooth-achingly bright pink aran weight, wool yarn. (Can you imagine?)

In a last ditch effort, I tried Cascade 220 in a bright fuschia, but it wasn't thick enough. And winding up those hanks of yarn would slow me down too much anyway. I gotta get knitting! No time to wind hanks! "We're burnin' daylight!" Come on.

Who me?

So, I went with Bazic yarn in a purple color. Eh. Not my favorite, but it was there. Yes, it was there. And I was in a hurry so gimme what you got! And that is generally how I pick yarn in a yarn store. Only under the gun and in desperation.

Otherwise, give me a computer and about 10 minutes, and I will find the best price and get the color I want. The only customer service I need is Priority Mail.

I hope you understand that I don't have money to burn by paying an extra 2 bucks/ball for yarn at the LYS (sometimes at certain yarn stores they throw in an extra serving of Attitude too--no charge!) when I could get it online for way cheaper. I have heard the argument that we must support our LYSes, but I don't buy it. In more ways than one.

And I already donate to the charity of my choice.

But, then again, I refuse to shop at Wal-Mart because they are putting all the little stores out of business and they sell cheap crap.

Ahhh! Guess that makes me a riddle. Or a hypocrite. Personally, I prefer riddle, but you can call me a big old hypocrite if you want. I can take it.

That said, the yarn store I bought my yarn at is the best in Delaware County!

I leave you to pooh pooh my attitude if you choose. I've got to get back to knitting! Deadline, you know.

(especially in you don't like Bush)

If you haven't already, be sure to register to vote. There's not much time left to do so....

For an interesting article about the debate, go read James Wolcott.