the color of the weekend...

...is tomato red.

Saturday all kitchen burners were occupied with something other than wool.

Our haul was slightly less than last year: 26 pints (actually, 13 quarts because these boys are starting to eat like horses). Given the weather conditions, I am happy we managed to get this much.

We had a bit of a discussion about whether or not we were canning earlier or later than last year, until Primo declared we needed to "check the blog"! Lo and behold, it was exactly the same time. Since this is now serving as a journal of my life, I am hereby reminding myself to OIL THE PRESSURE COOKER RUBBER RING FIRST. This will make no sense to anyone but my father, and it's really boring and not worth explaining, but you'll have to take my word for it that my lack of memory presents a frustrating delay just when we are ready to be done with the whole process.

I got the burners back on Sunday, and made up for lost time, with completely different stock pots I should add. (Seems like I spend all my time peering into steaming stock pots these days, which hopefully is doing good things for my complexion.)

Colorway "Jersey Tomato" in Coopworth roving.

the results are in

First off, thanks to all of you who voted and also commented here or on the NJFF list or called me up personally to give me your opinion/suggestions/moral support. It was all much appreciated, even if I did feel a bit like statistician Marge Innovera* with my little poll. (I was positively thrilled, however, to find out that an ACTUAL opinion professional thought my question was well-worded! I sweated over it -- who knew that it was so hard to ask a question?)

So... drumroll please... my solution actually incorporates a bit of all of the suggestions. I had forgotten how dusty this particular venue can be, so unfortunately the protection that a plastic bag offers is a must. (I thought about cloth bags but I think that the dust could penetrate them, plus then they would get dirty. Plus they cost a lot, and I did briefly consider whipping up a few dozen myself, then promptly smacked myself silly until I came back to my senses.) I compromised by ordering biodegradable bags, similar to the ones I use for my cards, but obviously a different shape. I will be leaving a little of each skein out of the top of the bag for people to feel.

I'll post a sample next week, once the bags get here; I think the scheduled date is Tuesday. I am sure the mailman is tired of all these personal trips up my driveway but he should be pleased that I am doing my best to prop up the US Postal Service and the economy, all at once. Right now I have to go start work on today's delivery: yet more roving, in a quantity that shall not be mentioned.

* If you need a little pick-me-up, take the time to read through a few of these. "Bedtime storyteller... Juan Zapata; Staff chaparone... Theresa Crowd; Swimwear designer... C. Bigby Heinz." They are even funnier when read aloud by the Tappet Brothers.

vote early! vote often!

I am trying something new on this-here blog, because as usual I am in a tizzy of indecision and I need some help. I am back to dyeing this week, and quite frankly the undyed and dyed roving is starting to pile up a little around here, and I need to figure out how to package what I have done before I go too much further.

This is where you, my select group of loyal readers, come in.

I have three choices, all coincidentally starting with the letter "B":

1. The bag.

• Good: Easy to package, easy to toss on a shelf, easy to keep the wool clean.
• Bad: Not so easy to see and feel the fiber. Plus there's the whole plastic-bag aspect (and as I am one who actually washes out plastic bags to use them again, I hate the thought of being responsible for sending scads of them out into the world.)

2. The ball.

• Good: Shows off the colors, allows for touching, fairly easy for me to put together, fairly easy to work with when you are ready to spin.
• Bad: Takes up a fair amount of room and may be harder to deal with when I am putting them out for display in the booth (I do have some of those cube thingies to contain them, though).

3. The braid.

• Good: Braids are All. The. Rage. right now and it seems that every indie dyer worth her salt is braiding her goods. More compact and easier to store and stack.
• Bad: My very least favorite, for several reasons: it is a pain in the patootie to make up; when I go to spin it is a pain in the patootie to undo; and I think it crushes the roving I am using, which is fairly light and airy.

I have put a poll thingie over on the right hand bar of the blog, and I will leave it up for three days. Please let me know what you think! Fiber addict or not, which one appeals most to you? showcases the roving the best? and most importantly, would cause you to have an irresistible urge to purchase vast quantities of dyed roving?

You don't need to answer that last one. But seriously, any and all votes and comments are much appreciated.

stress buster

Remember the sweater I was knitting to take along on our vacation two months ago? Well, you don't really have to remember it. And I abandoned it well before our departure date.

In a nutshell, I was having trouble getting gauge with the yarn and needles. I thought I was happy with the drapey effect I was getting. Once I knit the entire back, however, and was well on my way with the front, I realized that it had gone well beyond drapey to "completely shapeless" and "lacking any sort of character at all" and, if I'm completely honest, "looking like something you could catch fish with."

Off to the frogpond it went, for the second time. Secondo had a great time helping me -- he ripped, I wound. That element of destruction is irresistible for boys.

After letting the problem stew for a while, it hit me in one of those just-waking-up epiphanies that I probably could solve all my problems by going back up to the original needle size while doubling up the yarn.

Eureka! It worked perfectly and now the almost-completed back looks like a proper part of a someday-sweater. I made stupendous progress this past weekend by knitting like a fiend while I was forcibly removed an entire state away from my dyepots. It was the only way I managed to keep my stress-levels under control.

Forget the calming properties of gently lapping waves; I'll take knitting any day.

living up to his name

Thanks to the long-delayed arrival of summer, Dusty is finally "blowing his coat." It's just like it sounds: his fuzzy, furry undercoat is coming off in chunks all over our house.

My LSH brushed him tonight, and produced a much leaner Dusty (we're not starving him by any means, just turns out he was a good percentage fluff).

So much fluff, that my LSH also managed to produce a lhaso apso (small child included for scale).

Although in my current panic mindset, I am thinking that I should have saved all that fluff and dyed it for my booth.

dying to dye

I have dabbled in dyeing from time to time. Dipped my toes in, as it were, while it didn't mean much of anything, except an abiding desire to experiment and master it once I had the time.

Of course, that last bit meant the kiss of death to my dreams of dyeing. (Careful spelling check necessary! The only dreams I have of dying are the ones where I am falling down an embankment towards the rail lines upon which a speeding train is bearing down on me... or is that my real life, after all? Jung would have a field day with me.)

Right now, the train bearing down on me is the quickly approaching fiber festival. My dreams of dyeing (and perhaps also expiring from exhaustion, but that remains to be seen) have been resurrected post haste. I had an idea of the effect I wanted to create; I did lots and lots of research to confirm my hunch on how to achieve that effect; I ordered the dye powders; I acquired the roving; I weighed and measured and pre-soaked; and finally it was time to just pull out the dye pots and get on with it.

Although it looked like a very deep dark purple while in the pot, I knew that was not necessarily the end color. Only the drying process would reveal exactly what had happened in there.

Drying in the sun the next day, I am thrilled to see the subtle color changes. I was aiming for something that would blend harmoniously while it was spun up, while not being entirely solid, so this is exactly what I wanted.

Hurray! Clematis colorway is done and ready for the booth.

Now onto something completely different.

hay yah

One of the sweetest sights I can think of: a full hay wagon outside our barn.

Even sweeter still: a kid helping stack the hay up to the rafters.

Sweetest of all: all that hay safely in the barn, ready for winter.

For me, it's hard to beat that kind of peace of mind.

You know you've got a whole different outlook on life when a good night's sleep is directly related to how much hay you have in your barn. Of course, the sheer physical exhaustion from moving all that hay may also have something to do with it.