*tap tap*…is this thing on?

Are you there, Dear Readers? It’s me, The Delinquent.

Or maybe, The Down. Or, The Drowned In So Much Rain Methinks the Sun Will Never Shine Again. Perhaps it has been too few mornings with said sun peering through the trees, or the two weeks+ of miserable head colds in this house, or maybe I am sharing in the longing as our seedlings get leggy trying to reach the outdoors. Whatever it is, I have not felt inspired to do much more than mope. A pile of dirty dishes is enough to make me want to cry. I don’t even know how many days ago it was that I took the above picture (in between the last long string of rainy days and this one), but at least it reminds me that the sun is still there somewhere, behind the Wall of Gray Formerly Known As the Sky (is there a symbol for that?).

These guys cheer me up a little. They have attitude. They also live under artificial sun at the moment, so are unsympathetic to my plight. But, you know, they’re Cute and sometimes they like to tolerate a snuggle.

The goslings pretty much live on Mars. They come when I honk, even though C can produce a much more realistic honk than I. When they grow up, they can live in one of the many lakes that are forming out on the back 7. I’m thinking about growing feathers and webs, myself, so I can live there, too. It certainly isn’t looking good for vegetables at the moment, so learning to eat grass and bugs might find it’s way onto my To Do list for the summer.

But, lo! I haven’t been entirely useless. Above are some of the goodies I have been updating the shop with this week. More to come this evening. Click the photo and it will take you to the shop, where you can play until the sun comes out again.

Oh, and THIS: *Saturday, May 21 from 10am-3pm*
Jamaica Fiber Festival @ the Jamaica Town Hall, Jamaica Village, VT. Local fiber folk with their wares, alpacas and bunnies, oh my!

I’ll be there with lots of everything. If you’re local, it’s a sweet event. Please come check it out!

Oh, and it’s INDOORS. (thunderstorms in the forecast, you know).

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The Crapola and The Goodness

Crapola first: I haven’t been posting because I’d love to have something else to talk about besides how preparing a cross-country move is rapidly destroying my soul.
We are seriously tense over here, people. C and I don’t usually argue over petty bullshit, but here we are, doing just that. I’ve been purposefully avoiding most forms of communication with my friends. It’s so much easier to shut down and be an asshole than to feel my heart break every time I feel closer to a good friend I’m soon to leave behind.

Goodness = The weekend was awesome. Stacey and I went out to see Jill Sobule at the Iron Horse, and I am really going to miss that venue. Jill was full of Adorable and Charm and Hilarity, and I had a very nice sparkly water with lime. Before the show was a shared pile mountain of deliciously greasy tempura (hence the sparkly water to settle the tum) and a solo-effort chocolate truffle that was much too large and delicious for one person to consume (but somehow I managed it).

The next morning was you-know-what (which, btw, I had totally forgotten about…I’d like to think I honor my mothers every day) and I was allowed to sleep in (7:50am!!!) and a pile of french toast awaited me at the bottom of the stairs. Sleep + Toast = The Good Life.

The rest of this week I can pretty much do without. Our tenants (yeah, the new ones who moved into the house we haven’t been able to sell) just decided to move out…a week before C leaves and so now we scramble to get new tenants in.
We have friends to buy our wood, though, and I might even get $100 for the sad Subie that is minus one cylinder. It’s all about balance, right?

Oh, and before I forget…and this one’s for the locals…well, the locals who are into fiber:

This Saturday, May 16th 10-4pm…The 6th Annual Jamaica Fiber Festival
in Jamaica Village, VT

Come visit. It is my last New England hurrah. 

And when we get to where we’re goin’ and I have a whole new set of locals, there will be this:
 

Here: on July 18th and 19th! Woo!
 

I’m teamed up with Kim of Infiknitty for this event, and I’m very excited! It’s a fabulous way to be welcomed back home. I’m keeping just enough of my studio here to keep up on production while 99.5% of my worldly belongings are on the other side of the continent. I’m borrowing a spinning wheel and I won’t have my drum carder, but felting gear is very minimal, so I will be focusing on the summer Tangled scarves and a couple of new kits for the show involving a sweet little mitt pattern and some dyes. 

Happy…what day is it? Thursday! Happy Thursday!

A Post…all proper-like

Hello there, internets! 

I have been absent for so many reasons.

1: Prepping for shows…one down, one to go before we move! For a report on Twist Fair, scroll down.
2: Playtime and yummy things with good friends.
3: Our internets was brokity-broke. For more than a week, which made it easy to fall off the posting-horse.
4: A general malaise about the impending uprooting of my life…
5: Many trips to the pond.
6: More, I’m sure, but who cares? Here I am! 

That whole malaise thing is boring me to tears, so I’m pretty much done with it. I have no choice but to go with the flow and see where this takes me, so I might as well make the best of it. There are dear friends, fog, old growth trees and granite to climb…all waiting for me at the end of this, and hundreds of other Items of Goodness I could note if I just put away the fear. Right here in this little box.

And if nothing else keeps me going, I have two New England visits already planned for the fall.

So…Twist! 
Customer flow left something to be desired…there were some pretty long lulls of zero traffic, especially on Saturday…maybe it’s the economy or maybe it’s that no one could get into town and park because of the Pride parade/rally/thing that was happening downtown. I did pretty well, anyway, and received some really amazing and validating feedback. Sadly, there were quite a few folks who mentioned that they would buy something if they, say, had a job or weren’t broke. Being in that same boat myself, I wished I could have plunked it down for some of the other great vendors there, but the almighty Swap be praised, I did make some awesome trades.
The Candy Thief and Bill Pickles ( ) were my neighbors. They were swell and didn’t think I was crazy when I was on a moth-murdering rampage (they were flying around in the venue and seemed very interested in my stuff…my guess is that costumes are stored somewhere on that floor of the building…don’t know for sure). I’m 99.9% sure I didn’t bring any of those little bastards home with me, but all my goods are on a freezer rotation just to be 100%…
Casey helped me start my Candy Thief collection, and here she is sporting her Spun Monkey acquisition:

There were clowns harrassing amusing the vendors and shoppers, one of which was very impressed by my partner-in-vendoring whipping out a pen and a key to start a knitting project with…

Where I’ve Been…

Here:

I have a few hours of tagging ahead of me before I can ship a big fatty box to Cloverhill Yarn Shop for MDSW. No sigh of relief, however, as production mode shall remain in full swing until C takes my studio away…I will have zero fiber for nearly an entire month. I am building inventory like a crafter possessed. No sleep for me. Oddly enough, I don’t even want the sleep. This deadline business has been fueling my creative fire rather than dampening it. I just can’t get enough wool play.

There are other places I’ve been….mainly enjoying the quiet of the housemates (a family of five) having been away for two whole weeks. I had no idea how much I missed about having my own cozy home. We function much more smoothly as a family unit on our own…I need a village, not shared housing.

I’ve also been in packing mode in between things like eating and felting. We’re aspiring to a much higher standard of pre-loading organization this time around, because we won’t be able to unpack right away when we get there, maybe not for several weeks or months, and will undoubtedly need to find this or that in a box somewhere. I’m not at all anxious about this and that’s a BIG FAT LIE.

Okay, I’ve gotta know…

***BRIMFIELD LADIES***…what is UP?!?
which day? can it be on a weekday, like Friday? (I have a fiber fest on the 16th I really shouldn’t flake on, but will if I have to)
I want to see you all and fight over buttons at least this once before I leeeeeeaaaaave.

 

The Little Guy and I…we stand alone in wellness, looking down over the wreckage that turned our home into The Vomitorium. We’ve pounded the probiotics, the honey-lemon and elderflower teas, smoothies of homemade yogurt and summer berries. We step over the casualties…3/4 of the household brought down, and we are ready for them to all feel better so we can have normal meals again, use the bathroom whenever we want, and in my case, to get some work done again.

I still have not ordered my camera. The whole wheel thing really has made me nervous about investing in any moderately expensive piece of equipment for my business. I can find the Xsi for $600 or $219 depending on the website. My gut says go for the reputable biz that I’ve trusted for photography equipment forever and pay the higher price, rather than take my chances with a place that is obviously selling it for less than cost or perhaps it’s just a knock-off???? Ugh. I really should look into whether or not there’s a place in Bratt I can go to buy locally if I’m just going to pay full price anyway. I excel at making things a lot harder than they need to be.

In other news, there are several things I’m prepping for:
Twist Fair, May 1 and 2, Northampton, MA
Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, May 2 and 3, West Friendship, MD (sending my stuff down with the Cloverhill Yarn Shop…I won’t be there myself)
Still on the fence about applying to the BUST Spring Fling Craftacular and Art Star in Philly. If I don’t apply to BUST I’ll be doing a local fiber fest that weekend in Jamaica, VT. I’m just worried about putting too much on my plate right before moving.
Anyone do the Spring Fling last year? Any thoughts? I did the BUST Holiday Craftacular the first year of the event, but haven’t applied to any of their events since. It’s kind of a long haul to a very unfamiliar place for me, but now I have some family in that area so it could be a fun trip on the train.

And then there’s filling up consignment/wholesale accounts…I want to have everyone taken care of before I take a month or so off during the move.

Speaking of, we are now in the planning stages, trying to figure out how the heck we’re going to get ourselves and our stuff 3000 miles west. The way we did it last time was ridiculously expensive…we’re hoping to find some info about train cars but research is less than fruitful. Anyone have a transporter we can borrow? Preferably one that won’t bring us to the other side as insects, please.

Oh, and it’s snowing today.
Happy Thursday!