Five (or Six) Senses Friday (the Long Weekend Version)

A weekly ritual of sensual reflection, adopted from Abby’s blog. Play along if you wish, in the comments or link to your own blog.

Tasting: Aronia berries…they happen to live in the backyard and I have this to say about them: most anything can be made palatable if you add cheesecake.

Smelling:

His technique is improving and it’s not getting any easier for me to leave the stuff alone. It’s worse when it’s baking and the aroma pervades every breath I take. Sigh.

Hearing: C’s soothing voice reading aloud to me as I spin…Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Again.

Touching: Seemingly endless poundage of raw fleece. Soak, rinse, repeat. I’ve got some wicked soft hands thanks to the merino.

Navajo-Churro

Been dyeing and listing some, btw…

Merino cross

Seeing: Progress on the Car Car…

Stripped. Since I took this, the floor has been sanded down to the metal and is ready for patching. Body work to continue this week and then paint paint paint. Hot.

Feeling: Anticipatory pins and needles. It’s going to be a long month.

Happy Monday…

Escape.

We really needed it.

Sometimes the ocean just calls to you, and you have to answer.

Sometimes you need to feel small and vulnerable.

Exhilarated.

Salty.

Sometimes you need a little reassurance.

And then the calm washes over you. The sea air penetrates every pore of your skin and you know that there was no better way you could have spent an afternoon.

It was there we cleansed our berry-stained fingers, searched for mussel shells and marveled at the dessicated shark in the sand. Oh, yes, our first stop was the organic berry farm…

We picked.

And we picked.

He said, “I’ll put one in the box for every one I put in my mouth.”

14 pounds later, we have 10 jars of blackberry jam, a 1/2 gallon jar of blackberry-apple fruit leather, a couple quarts of blackberry vinegar and a tray of blackberry-kefir popsicles in the freezer.

It feels really good to put something up. The garden has not yielded enough of anything to warrant preserving and so I was getting a little antsy to can something, anything. Soon, though, I will have the neighbor’s giant quinces to distract me. I see membrillo in my future.

The oxhearts are ready, btw. I rather like them as a bouquet, but they’re even better as a snack.

Next time: adventures in wool washing…14 pounds so far this week.

Affectionate Harvest and Otherness

Despite our ultra-bizarro summer weather, a few vegetables have actually managed not to die. The prolonged coolness of the last several months has left us with stunted squash and a pitiful tomato crop, but roots are reveling in it (even if we planted the seeds a wee too close together…”They’re hugging!”):

While I’ve been absent from this space, life has gone on in little creative ways. When it wasn’t 106 degrees, we could draw from nature without our crayons melting, but mostly I’ve been spinning spinning dyeing spinning while The Boy has been building sawing nailing painting. Quiet, lots of quiet. Internally, I’ve had a lot of work to do, so just keeping quietly focused is how I’m getting on at the moment. Many large life decisions looming…

Btw, when the crayons did start melting, we got an idea…

More on that later.

Well, triple digits and heat advisory in the forecast again for tomorrow…of course, I have plans to be outside and up to my elbows in hot, soapy water, washing some beautiful alpaca from Sandy over at the Homestead. In order to gear up for the fall season, I’ll be starting up a regular schedule for updates so you’ll always know when to expect new items in the shop. More on that later, too.

In the meantime, Putter has a new jet pack, so I need to make sure he’s not getting into trouble.

Wish I had a jet pack…

Happy Tuesday.

Five (or Six) Senses Friday (the Saturday Version)

A weekly ritual of sensual reflection, adopted from Abby’s blog. Play along if you wish, in the comments or link to your own blog.

Tasting: Chocolate Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. Yes, they are gluten free, and yes, they are delicious and addictive. Let me see if I can pull this out of my head for you:

1 1/4 cups of whatever your favorite g-f mix is (I make my own)

1/4 cocoa powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup palm sugar

3/4 cup peanut butter

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

1 of your favorite chocolate bars, chopped

Mix the dry, mix the wet, mix ‘em up together blah blah blah 350 degrees for about 10 minutes, and then consider them lunch. Not that I ate a pile of cookies for lunch. Ahem.

Seeing: A small harvest…no canning this year, that’s for sure, but they are pretty.

Smelling: Smoldering wood chips in the bee smoker. Should have photographed the huge comb covered in bees C pulled out of the hive today. Gorgeous.

Touching: Wet wool, wet wool, all week long.

Hearing: The neighbors, as usual. But not the karaoke neighbors, so it’s somewhat tolerable.

Feeling: Anxious. Been putting off too many important discussions and now have a knot the size of a cantaloupe twisting up my insides. However, a very productive Saturday allowed me to forget about it for a while.

Here’s to a brilliant Sunday, filled with sighs of relief and lifting of spirits. xoxoxo

Coming and Going…

I’ve been hiding behind a Cloak of Busy. It’s not the same kind of late summer busy I had grown accustomed to in VT…prepping food for winter storage, stacking wood, making sure the chimneys get cleaned and the oil tank is filled, jamming, soup-making, kraut pounding…and as much as I am aching for all of those things, I will not complain about the other kind of busy that is doing it’s best to fill the void. This year, I am swamped in preparing my little fiber biz for the fall/winter season with orders to fill, shows lining up and commissions a-plenty, for which I am very grateful. There will be updates soon, but here’s what I’ve got so far:

Saturday, October 2nd: The 5th Annual Art, Wine and Chocolate Festival from 11am-5pm at the historic waterfront in Suisun City, CA.

October 28 -31st: Stitches East at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford, CT at the Indie Spun booth, the only all-indie artist handspun booth! So far, returning vendors this year include Traveling Rhinos, Crafty Scientist and myself.

Shop updates will be minimal for a while, but I’ll do what I can…

Caution

In otherness, yesterday we had a little Monday Project, The Boy and I.

A dear friend has a babe on the way and we were asked to contribute something that could be hung on a mobile. So, we busted out our Mad Finger-Knitting Skillz and came up with this cutie. The chenille stems were The Boy’s idea, and provided a little extra stability and shape to the body.

Here’s my half-ass tutorial: finger-knit a short length, 6 inches maybe (we used bulky handspun for this). Curl one end over on itself and stitch it down for the head. Run a chenille stem through the body with ends out for antennae, and stitch it up. Finger-knit another length that, when spiraled on itself makes a nice-sized shell. Stitch it together as you would for a rag rug and then stitch it to the body.

The rest of the week looks like this:

And this:

I work outside this time of year, and The Boy occupies himself by making a Long Line of Everybody, coming and going, coming and going all day long. Unless, of course, there’s some construction work to do in the mulch pile.

Happy Tuesday!

Throw the crib door wide…

The Big Pile? Done. Fini. In the mail.

Bound for sweaterhood.

New projects are consuming me at the moment…more on those later…but I did manage to send a wee mountain of yarn and hand dyed top to Urban Fauna Studio in SF and have started setting aside some things for a new shipment to Purl Jam next month. Thank you so much, NJ knitters, for sharing all your wonderful projects on Ravelry!

Speaking of projects by New Jersey knitters, Lelah has created a wonderful pattern with my plied yarn, the Califon Cowl. If you are on Ravelry, you can download the pattern for free, or find it here, on Lelah’s blog.

I stole these photos from her, btw. Thanks, Lelah!

In other news, The Boy was put in quite a quandary over why in the world someone, let alone everyone, would want a fake forehead on their real head. Perhaps we’ve had a little too much TMBG in the car lately.

Oh, and we made art.

Not a Freight Plane.

Happy Wednesday!

Five (or Six) Senses Friday and What Showering Does to My Brain

I don’t know what it is about getting in the shower…the ideas, they just flow like…well,…are you going to make me say it?

Fine. Water. They flow like water. It’s as if, in every drop, there are tiny particles of matter that get sucked into my pores, travel up to my brain, and form into the building blocks of some grand new plan. Usually, fresh blocks get stacked away for later reference…I might dry off and jot down some notes to come back to at a more appropriate time in my life or sometimes, on a lucky day, I think of something I can apply to my life right now. The latter is usually a small something. Nothing to write home (or blog) about. Lately, though, the idea blocks have all been compatible and building upon one another. I am not merely stacking them in a corner of my brain to collect my mental detritus like so many cobwebs. A structure is taking shape…something I think I can create in real life and soon. Sort of. A few more showers, and I think I’ll get there.

Running is like that for me, too. The world around me melts away and my consciousness shifts from focusing on my stride to plucking blocks from the stacks and dissecting them, slapping some mortar between a few and sticking them together, or just sorting out the rubbish. In this way, my route takes no time at all…I hardly know what I’ve been thinking about that whole time until I reach home and scramble for a pen and paper. I’ve tried other forms of meditation and been left feeling frustrated and spiritually incompetent. Spinning is very calming, but I wouldn’t describe it as meditative anymore (I used to). But running…yes, I do think I’m getting close with running. Perhaps if I spent most of my waking time either running or in the shower I would have a lot more of my shit together.

Anyway, onward ho to FSF. A weekly ritual of sensual reflection, adopted from Abby’s blog. Play along if you wish, in the comments or link to your own blog.

Seeing: The finish line. 1600+ yards of 3-ply just about done. Phew!

Tasting: Teff! It was very exciting. I love discovering gluten-free grains that don’t suck. The whole grains were soaked overnight, cooked up like polenta and then fried into little cakes. The taste reminded me very much of acorn. Pardon the gratuitous pile of bananas.

Hearing: Rock.

Touching: Dry, crunchy grass underfoot. Oh, summer.

Smelling: Fresh baked bread.

Feeling: Excited. There are some good things lurking just under the radar. Will reveal soon.

Happy weekend, all. Enjoy!

Another One Bites the Dust

***

We really thought we’d found it this time.

And now I feel like a deflated balloon. As much as we want to pursue cooperative farming, the timing is just all wrong for us. For now, we just need to be our own little family in our own little nest with our own little garden. Regroup. For a year, maybe two or three.

Emotionally, this past week was a roller coaster and I still feel a wee off kilter. There was a fabulous dip in the American River…that was good. I was productive once we got home, and that was good, too. There were bike rides and a transmission installed (but the clutch fork broke. drat and bother.)…all in all, the goodness outweighed the one crippling sucker punch and I’m entering this new, sparkly week with fresh plans and renewed hope.

The Boy has a morning summer camp this week (his first one!) and so I am working very hard, as you can see. I intend to finish up some commission work, get started on some more goodies for Purl Jam and eat a lot of comfort food (read: hot chocolate and toast with apple butter.). One of the teenagers is also away all week, and so I may even have some quiet moments to sort out the many jumbled piles of ideas cluttering up my brainspace. So, what am I doing here?

I dunno, but I’ll pretend I’m working by letting you know I’ve brought down The Beast from the attic and we’ve been making these together:

And I might be letting go of some falklands, too. Dyepots are firing this week. Just sayin’. Oh, and the picture will take you to the shop.

Off to the quiet. Enjoy your Monday.

*** Daisies help.

Five (or Six) Senses Friday (the Saturday Version)

A weekly ritual of sensual reflection, adopted from Abby’s blog. Play along if you wish, in the comments or link to your own blog.

Seeing: Golden afternoon light…from indoors, this week. Couldn’t handle working continuously at this triple-ply in triple-digits, so brought the ol’ workhorse inside.

Touching: Dry, dry heat. No escaping it.

Hearing: Robins. Gobs of them. Or how about, a gob. It will be my new Term of Venery: today I heard a gob of robins.

Tasting: The first corn of the farmer’s market season. For as long as it lasts, I will not get enough.

Smelling: Oleander, oleander everywhere.

Feeling: Inspired. In a million different ways today. I really need to have a studio again.

We’ll be up north tomorrow, meeting a family and poking about their 10 secluded acres, the beginnings of a farm. They would love some help cultivating their dreams, another set of heads, hearts and hands to do the good work. Perhaps I will have more to say about that when we return…

Third Time’s the Charm

“You feel so heavy,” I said, pretending effort. “Like lead. I can’t lift you right now.”

“Mama, you need to close your eyes.”

“How will that help?”

“When you close your eyes, you can stretch your mind.”

And then I lifted my little sack of lead as if he were so many feathers.

***

So, for the last month I have been playing with blue and green, trying to recreate a colorway that was a “mistake” for a customer who would like a sweater’s worth of it.

The first attempt was exactly what I had wanted when I dyed this colorway the first time. A little white, some green and an overall sense of blue.

The second try featured a little white, some blue and an overall sense of green. Really far off here, folks.

So, I closed my eyes, stretched my mind and the last of my yellow dye powder, and finally, seven pounds of falklands later, I have a winner. A little green, a little blue and an overall sense of white. Phew! Why is it so much more difficult to use less dye?

Now I spin up ten more skeins of this 3-ply and hope I still feel up to spinning just as much of the too-blue and too-green Gaia for sweater kits, because, yes, I did dye over two pounds of each colorway before I test-spun it. Wheeeee!