I've been working from stash a lot recently. It's fulfilling to create something awesome without having to buy any ingredients (and better for those of us buying fire wood and oil for the winter and paying property taxes anyway) The bronte's mitts (and matching cowl, I haven't gotten a good picture of that one yet) were spun and knit from cashmere I stashed last spring. The socks I knit next week have the potential to put an actual dent in my sock yarn stash. Over the weekend I needed something simple to knit at a knitting get together, so I started this:



Clapotis. I'm only five years late to the party. (my cell phone washed those colors out, they're much brighter in person) Mine is a small scarf-sized one. I'm using 150 yards of handspun silk - the silk top entered my stash in 2007 (? I think so anyway) and I had it spun and plyed by spring 2008. This was the silk that I first learned to navajo ply for. That was Lara's suggestion, and it was she who planted the idea that the yarn would be good for a clapotis as well. When I recently dug the yarn out of my handspun stash I realized that my idea of plying (at the time) didn't involve adding any twists to the plies, but rather just aligning them next to each other and hoping they made friends. So I started this project by running the whole skein through my spindle again adding more twist to the plies and re-setting the twist. It made the thick-and-thin nature of the yarn much more consistent and made the pure silk much shinier and less fuzzy - so that's a win for me! And this pattern really is well written and a joy to knit. It's been bus knitting the last few days in spite of how simple it is (as I said to another friend 13059 ravelers can't all be wrong)

Last night I did a little cooking from the stash too. Not from the yarn stash though. I decided I needed to cook something new, and I wanted to use a few of the 40lbs of delicata that I'd pulled from the box because they had breaks in the skin. So I invented something new (is that even possible in cooking?) Here's the recipe for "squashed rice"

2 small/medium delicata
2 cups uncooked rice
4 cups water
1/4 tsp each of curry, ginger, sage
6-8 shakes of worcestershire sauce
salt and white pepper to taste

Cut the delicata in half, scoop out the seeds and chop into bite-sized-ish pieces. I leave the skins on my delicata, they're tasty.
Put the delicata, spices, worcestershire sauce, and water into a pan and bring to a boil. Allow to boil while you finish emptying the dish washer for about 5 minutes. Turn down to a simmer and add the rice. Cook until all the water is absorbed. Add salt and pepper to taste.

That's it! I'm sure black pepper would work just as well, but I was making a point of shaking things up and using the spices that had migrated to the back of our cabinet. I'm eating some just with butter right now for lunch and it's tasty, but it could also be served as a side dish with any number of lovely fall meals.

We served this under apple cheddar bratwursts. I just browned a red onion and several brats, then added some chopped apples and apple cider, simmered until everything was cooked and squished the apples a bit with a fork. (side note, these apples are crisp and sweet and just a bit tart and hold up really well to cooking and the flesh isn't all mealy raw - and I've been collecting them out of the ditch on the side of the road ever since the wind blew them all out of the tree last weekend. The un-tended, un-pruned, un-sprayed ancient tree on the side of the road with not another apple tree within 200 feet.) I put this mess on top of the rice and grated cheddar cheese over the whole thing. I worried for a moment that I shouldn't add the cheese because there might already be too much going on, but I was wrong. As we know, everything is better with cheddar cheese on it!

I had a long weekend and it seems to have eaten up more then it's fair share of time.  So let's review what I got done!

I'm just about done with gardening for the winter:

But that's not my harvest.  Nope, someday I hope to get a haul like that from the garden, but this is a photo of the storage crops my local farm stand was selling.  I think Foote Brook Farm actually the closest farm to us.  They're all organic, and it turns out they sell winter storage crops in bulk.  I love it.  There's no good scale in this photo unless you know how big my kitchen island is.  This is 50lbs of potatoes, 40lb pumpkins, 40lbs delecatas, 25lbs carrots, and 40lbs tomatos.  The tomatoes were a real score because most farms in the area barely have enough for themselves due to blight.  I'd pretty much given up making pasta sauce this year, until I found these!  More on the pasta sauce later.  I will highly recommend Seeds of Change for (among other things) they're great hints on long term storage of your autumn harvest.  Or at least I think I recommend them.  I'll let you know how things work out.  After all, picking up 50lbs of organic potatos for $38 is a steal of a deal, but only if they last long enough for us to eat them all...

I also harvested the last of my beans, they're still not dry enough for shelling, so I have cookie sheets of beans all over my living room for the next week...  I split my alpine strawberry plants up and spread them out.  The domestic crowns I planted last spring look pretty good too.  It's going to be a massive strawberry bed someday, but hopefully by next year it'll be big enough for more then just grazing on handfuls of strawberries (not that there's anything wrong with that either!)

While I was out in the garden I had to run in and grab my camera.  The setting sun was shining in under the clouds and painting the already orange hillside a glowing shade of gold:

Which the camera barely catches.  Oh well.  It totally botched the shot of the snow squall on the same hillside about 10 minutes later, so I'll spare you that photo.  This was also the weekend I stood around being the cheerleader for Neil while he puts in the storm windows.  I'm sure I could do it if I had to, but he's much better at getting them in without pinching his fingers or dropping them - and with giant sheets of glass dropping them is really frowned on...

Knitting, lots of knitting.  In fact knitting took up most of my time this weekend, and I'm ok with that.  I took a break from the cabled hat that was causing me so much grief, and knit a mitten:

It's an icewine mitten, in sport weight yarn (coopworth, from the sheep and wool festival) I changed the cuff from ribbing to braids and snowflakes, and did the cuff on size 1 needles.  Then I moved up to size 2 for the hand.  It was a bit tight, so I blocked it before starting the second, and that make it just perfect!  I blocked it over a tall skinny honey jar that's just over 8" around.  This stretched the floats out and evened the stitches so perfectly.  Someday I'll knit the mate.

I finally knit Verity:

To go with the Just enough ruffles scarf I made last spring:

It's warm and squooshy, the handspun white has a lovely texture.  I also managed to save almost, but not quite, blue yarn for the hatband.  It's knit back and forth binding off the hat sts at the end.  And I ran out with this many sts left:

Of course this is some blue I kool-aid dyed and spun as a batch months ago.  There's no chance of having any more that matches. Luckly there's a tab that overlaps so I just finished up with white yarn and the tab was just long enough to hide the little white square.

So yeah, knitting took up a lot of my weekend.  Knitting and also writing up knitting patterns and taking knitting pattern photos, and some knitting pattern charts.  All that I and still need to do some seious knitting pattern layout.  But soon, there will be more knitting patterns, so that's good.

So that hat, it's still not working, but I have another idea that I really think will work this time. I just need to re-work the lower portions of the chart. I should note that I'm not re-knitting an entire hat here, but I've just been re-knitting the decrease portion. Furthermore I've been just re-knitting the top 5-10 rows of the decrease portion for the last five or six tries. But for my next attempt I need to re-knit the whole crown (still not the whole hat) so I'm putting the project in the time-out closet until this weekend when I can sit down and focus on try 13.

After fussing with the hat last night I was so fed up I spun instead of knitting:

This white will (hopefully) combine with some blue I dyed from the same fiber, and make Ysolda's Verity hat. There's a really solid chance this hat will be my quick knitting fix as soon as the yarn is dry, because even my attempts at getting a quick knitting fix are being foiled right now, allow me to demonstrate:

The sleeves for the sweater I'm knitting need two needles, size 7dpns for the cuff (I don't own any, they were "borrowed" by a "friend" who I haven't spoken to in months now) and size 8dpns (which are in the closet with the hat I'm not speaking to)

But it's ok, because I have cashmere. Which will become bronte's mitts(on ravelry):

The good news is the pattern calls for over 300 yards because it's written holding a sock yarn and a fuzzy yarn double. So I can totally knit these to full length with just my cashmere. The bad news is I want smaller needles then the pattern calls for because I'm not holding any yarn double. And my size 3dpns? They're in a sock project right now.

The sock project in question could be a quick fix, after all the second sock just needed a gusset and toe. So after being foiled by Bronte's mitts this morning i snipped the contrasting heel yarn and picked up some gusset stitches. When I knit down to the bottom of the heel I discovered a slight problem. I've knit the flap, but I haven't turned the heel yet. So now I'm going to have to re-join the yarn, turn the heel, and pick those stitches up again.

It's ok, maybe I'll try these icewine mittens, which I got yarn for at the sheep and wool festival. But the pattern calls for worsted weight yarn on size 2 needles (those are some DENSE mittens) And the yarn I got is sport weight yarn, so I need to re-work the chart to add a touch of width. It's no longer a quick fix when you need to re-work an entire mitten chart.

I know all knitters go through this once in awhile, this thing where nothing works out the way you expect. I guess I should just be glad that (most) of my problems are showing up at the beginning of a project and not at the very end after I've put in lots of hard work, right?

I had a great day at the VT sheep and wool festival on Saturday. It was a rainy day with a lot of drizzle and more then a little all out rain but my friend and I had pretty good timing and managed to be in buildings already any time we heard the rain begin.

The festival was at the tunbridge fairgrounds this year, which were beautiful (in a misty, and muddy, sort of way)

The vendors were almost all indoors (I felt really sorry for the few who had only their pop-up tents to keep them dry) And the animals were all in nice dry barns. I had a giant maple creemee in spite of the cold (they were only serving one sized creemee, huge) And I pet a cashmere goat! (and picked up the farmer's card, in case someday I want a cashmere goat of my own) It was wet, so I didn't take many pictures, but I did get my camera out for the Ravelry meetup in the evening:

We got a picture of everyone wearing handmade garments:

and of everyone's hand-knit socks:

Overall it was a wonderful day in spite of the rain. And it encouraged me to finally finish spinning the cashmere I picked up at the NH sheep and wool festival this spring:

Here it's hanging to dry after I set the twist. Cashmere can bloom a lot during the setting of the twist, which also causes the yarn strand to be shorter. I measured the length of the skeins after setting the twist to make sure I knew my yardage, and a good thing too! my niddy-noddy is 72" around, but these skeins post-twist-setting were only 62" around! So I have just 176 yards of fingering weight cashmere. I'm going to find a lovely, lacy pattern for fingerless gloves for this (I think)

And from the festival I picked up 3 skeins of sock yarn (I'm thinking colorwork with the blue and green ones) plus two skeins of sport weight coopworth (also thinking colorwork, apparently I want to start some colorwork projects) plus some pretty mill ends mystery fiber (it's really soft and nicely springy)



After spinning I made tries number 7 and 8 on a cabled hat pattern I'm trying to design. The pattern is so clear in my head, but getting the cables to do what I want is becoming frustrating...

Sunday was actually a nice day (what is that burning ball of brightness in the sky called? sun?) So I went out into my garden to do some cleanup. I've pulled all the dead plants (and weeds) from the squash, broccoli, lettuce and tomato beds, and I pulled 2 rows of corn stalks (some of which I bunched up for decoration around the outside of my home) Bonuses of the winter cleanup were finding a domesticated strawberry plant in the squash bed, along with bajillions of little tiny garlic bulbs. I think this is a nice side effect of dumping the kitchen compost right into the garden!

I'm waiting for some yarn for a deadline project. The deadline is getting closer and the yarn (apparently) is not. It's making me twitchy.

When I learned the yarn was on it's way I decided not to get too attached to any other knitting project, and instead focused on my spinning projects. I finished the sparkly alpaca/bamboo blend.


And moved on to some pure cashmere.

But spinning (and yes I can spin on the bus) doesn't seem to fill the role of knitting very well for me. And all the other crafty/gardening/etc things didn't seem to be filling the void either. Yesterday I was finally given permission (apparently I needed someone else to say it) to pick up some knitting. I'm feeling better - but I still wonder where the yarn is!

Tonight (hopefully it doesn't rain) is orientation night for the Vermont Brewer's Festival. Which will be going on all weekend at the waterfront in Burlington (hopefully it doesn't rain). If you're in the area, you should definitely attend. I'll be there all day Saturday. (hopefully it doesn't rain)

While I wait (impatiently) for some new yarn, I've actually gotten a bit done on my Tour de Fleece spinning challenge.  There's a group on ravelry, and daily prizes, so I'm always motivated to actually take pictures of what I've spun up.  And sometimes I make them into cute little mosaics 'cause I think other people's mosaics are awesome:


See, pretty cool huh?  And that's probably what I'll be doing this weekend too!  Spinning, and making photo mosaics.  I hope to take the boys for a hike on Sunday, but saturday is supposed to rain.  Good thing more netflix is on it's way to me (The Lion in Winter this time, I admit to just randomly adding anything with Patrick Stewart in it.  Which reminds me, everyone who loves science should see The Eleventh Hour.  I was maybe a mini-series, because there are only 4 episodes.  But it's british, and Patrick Stewart plays a brilliant and ethical government scientist who tracks things like black plauge outbreaks and global warming cover ups and all they get the science right which made me happy, not angry like CSI.  Ok, runaway parenthesis over!)

The rest of my weekend list involves exciting things like "mow the lawn" and "bake bread" and "tie up peas" I'm really looking forward to my quiet weekend.  Hopefully I enjoy it and don't feel too isolated.  Oh yes, and I need to stalk the chicken coop in case the missing hen comes off her nest to eat...  I'm still hopeful!  And apparently a little scatterbrained this afternoon.  I blame work.

Neil's gone on vacation with a college friend for awhile. This means I'm in charge of all the animals. I'm looking forward to some alone time. My plans are big. I'm going to leave knitting projects all over the house (ok, I do this anyway, but it might get worse), eat seafood (he hates seafood), and watch movies that he always moves to the bottom of the netflix queue (merchant of venice is on it's way right now) I've also got my mom and sister coming up for a a visit, good 4th of July plans, and some really gorgeous yarn in the mail headed my way.

And, since I'm not committed to enough projects yet (don't laugh!) I'm joining the Tour de Fleece! The idea is to spin some fiber every day during the tour de france (spinning, cycling, see the connection?) some people set themselves major goals during this like "I'm going to spin enough for a sweater" But since I already have a July project with a deadline I'm setting my sights low. I've got that purple and gold 3.5 ounce batt of fiber that's been ignored far too long and I'm going to finish it by July 26th (If I had the time I could probably spin the whole thing in just 1 day - that's how low I'm setting my goals, 'cause I DON'T have the time) If I finish before the 26th I'll reward myself by starting in on the cashmere from NH sheep and wool.


See that red lantern in my new icon (go MS Paint skills, go!) Red Lantern is the term for the person at the END of the bike race. Yay for low expectations!

What a crazy weekend - but crazy in a good way!

1) Went out for a sunset paddle in our (old, beatup, but actually ours) canoe (that we got for free - see beatup, and old) it doesn't leak! Yay! we paddled around the marshes of lake Elmore where the peepers were SO LOUD. Loud in that way that makes your eardrums ring. Did you know frogs could do that? And we saw a bat! It was awesome.

2) Saw the Star Trek movie. I quite enjoyed it. Spoilers ahoy! ( and under the cut )

3) Saturday Rained All Day. I spent the day with a good book, a kitty in my lap, a dog sleeping on my feet, and some knitting. I finished the sparkly teal top hoping I could wear it to the NH Sheep and Wool festival on Sunday. Other big events of the day included a shower, and checking on mama chicken. It was a really exciting day...

4) Fiber day! Neil slept in longer then I had anticipated, but since he was humoring me all day I tried to be accepting. I pulled a colorwork vest that needed some love out of the closet:

I'd finished it before, only to find there was way too much fabric in the arm cuffs, and they stuck up at the shoulders like something from star trek. So I'd ripped them out, and stuffed the whole mess in the closet for 2 months. Sunday morning knitting cuffs was a perfect way to use up that extra time. They're still bulkier then I wanted, but I think it's just because the yarn is bulky.

5) On the drive down I finished the first of mom's socks:

Happy Mother's day!

6) It was so cold in VT (40F that morning) that I wore my flannel lined jeans and a wool vest (instead of my summer top) of course the clouds parted as we crossed the Connecticut river, and the weather at the festival was gorgeous!

7) Fiber! Neil was very patient with me all day (he says it was nothing) I got to see every building and all the vendors. After the 3rd vendor building he did make a comment about "everything's the same in every building" I guess if you're not a knitter/spinner maybe you won't appreciate the difference between two kinds of sock yarn, or a corridale VS a shetland fleece. (even Neil could feel the difference with the cashmere fiber)

8) I went in with a plan - I have trouble buying fiber online so I wanted spinning fiber - and in 4-8oz amounts so I'd be able to make something with whatever I spun up. I had only 2 projects for which I was allowed to buy yarn. I also had a budget, and it all worked! I got:

corridale from The Fiber Fetish
Shetland (in 4 colors) from Spin-a-bit
Border Leister x Romney from a vendor I don't remember
AND
Cashmere (pure cashmere!) from Cashemeres by Kate
also:

Pretty Jewel sock yarn from Mocha's Fiber Connection for a sweater/shrug thingy - this was one of the two projects I was allowed to buy yarn for. I was looking for about 1200 yards of sock yarn in a soft, not-to-warm, fiber and in a nice neutral brown variegated colorway. I snapped this up so fast when I found it (1100 yards 65/35 merino/bamboo in a colorway called "forest path") and it was a good price too!

9) Neil really liked the animals:

sheep, little goats, alpacas, more sheep, and a border collie herding some goats! This collie was amazing, the handler said they use her to herd the tough animals, like pigs. I didn't know you could herd pigs... Neil says his favorite was definitely the collies. I kept thanking him for being so patient all day, and he kept saying he really didn't mind at all and was having a good time. I'm so lucky, I love him!

10) On the drive home the clouds were still hanging over VT - we could see them as we approached. We got home, decided it was dreary enough for a fire and crashed in front of the wood stove. I unwound from the day spinning some of the pretty pink alpaca/bamboo mix on my little blue spindle. I need to get that project finished to make room for the cashmere! I hope that now that I have a decent spinning stash I'll actually spin more because I don't have to worry so much about running out of fiber.

Yesterday I woke up and the snow was half-covering the fog lights on the subaru.  I never did measure it (I suppose I could measure the car fog lights and figure it out) but we must have had at least 20" of snow!  Needless to say the car wasn't going to make it out of the driveway until the plow showed up, so I declared the whole day a snow day.

I did everything I wanted and nothing boring (like chores)  I spun up my berry blue koolaid dyed merino:

It's so washed out in the photo though - the white bits are really blue, and the blue bits are screaming koolaid berry blue in real life.  It's a bit more intense then I wanted it (I'd be really happy if this photo showed the true colors)  The creation of this yarn was to fufill my burning desire for some pretty handpainted roving.  I can't remember what I want to buy, but it was too expensive.  I think I did a pretty good job "hand painting" this with koolaid.

I spun it up with some dark green BFL fiber, the process of drafting and introducing the green muted the colors in a lovely way.  I ended up with almost 300yds, which is odd since I thought I had enough for almost 500, but I think I'll spin some plain white merino to complete the projects I want with this yarn.  The goal is to make a matching set of the verity hat and just enough ruffles scarf.

Other then spinning I made myself a fancy panini for lunch, took a 2 hour bath, finished a pretty good book, and watch some Star Trek.  It was a good day.

Oh, and I'm almost done with Star Trek through netflix.  I've watch Enterprise, the original series, and the next generation.  I've also rented Buffty and Firefly through netflix.  We like to alternate dorky TV with non-dorky TV, and I'm not sure what I should try next.  I could always continue through deep space 9 and voyager, but I'm not feeling it.  Anyone want to recommend a dorky TV show I might like?

I don't usually find myself drooling over things on etsy, but EVERYTHING by Butterfly girl designs is gorgeous.

Especially this:

I've been wanting another drop spindle for awhile.  I wonder if this will still be available next week when I get paid.  I'm glad I don't have credit cards anymore - because I'M WEAK when it comes to fiber...

ETA: I may be weak, but the spindle is MINE NOW. Muhahahahaha......

I was starting to feel a little crazy with the number of knitting projects I had going at once, so I sat down Tuesday night and worked on just one project for the entirety of one netflix DVD.  And tada!  I finished the love scarflette:



It's a bit short, about 36" but it's also very narrow (that's why it's a scarflette, yes?)  It used just 1 skein of frog tree alpaca, I bought two, but as usual I got tired of knitting this scarf quickly.  Why is it that I can knit a sweater without getting bored but my scarves are always a little short?  Anyway, I have no idea what I'll do with the second skein of alpaca, but I'm sure something will come along eventually (or someone on ravelry will desperately need it for their project, I love it when that happens)

My poor lilac bush wasn't prepared for the heavy wet snow we got:



And now it's all droopy.  Dear shrub: It's definitely time to drop those leaves.

The chickens pretty much laughed at me when I opened their coop door yesterday.  I'm trying to convince them to come out into the snow or it'll be a very long winter in the coop for them.  We carefully placed the doors on the coop so we only have to shovel a few feet from the plowed driveway so they'll have space to roam all winter, but the plan only works if they come out at all.  I know from the chicken tracks that a few of them did come out, and stand in the clearing where the car had been parked, and hung out on our covered porch, but I suspect quite a few spent the whole day inside.  I was hoping at least the brahmas (with their feathered feet) would be brave winter-loving birds.  This was the first snow ever for most of them, maybe they'll get used to it with time.

My spinning wheel and I are going to pose for artists this weekend, should be interesting!  I hope they don't expect me to stay too still while I'm spinning.

( fibery goodness )

And in other news the Yarn Harlot has put out a challenge. Knitter who can get really famous people to hold a partially knit sock for a photo can send the picture to her, and people will donate to doctors without borders. Great idea huh? Good thing I always have a sock on me, just in case!

I've been on a knitting roll recently! But I have no digital proof. Second finished so-called hat: done, no pictures. Bug hat: done, blocked, no pictures. Swirl pool mitten: one finished, but I might rip it out and completely re-do it, I'm not sure how I feel about it yet - but still no pictures. I did another 1.5 inches on the increasingly large and slow blanket during the VP debate (am I the only one who hated how Palin simply refused to answer questions and got away with it? It's easy to not fall on one's face when one sticks to a handful of well trained talking points). I've gotten enough done on the doggy sweater to know I think it needs to be ripped back significantly and re-knit (oops)

Why so much knitting? I think the cool rainy weather this week has pushed me over the edge. It's a speed/production edge I didn't even know was there. It's been less then a year since I noticed that I had crossed a threshold where I justknitfaster. Maybe this is what justknitfaster feels like in autumn, who knows? But still, no pictures. And I think that's for the same reason. My camera and my camera phone (arguably better then my actual camera) both have failed in these poor light days. Apparently I'm only allowed to take pictures on the weekends in fall/winter.

Oh yeah! And I finished plying the yarn I spun and began plying at the spinning demo. I got 285 yards which A) is a decent amount of yarn enough for a real project! and B) is pretty close to the 300 yards I predicted I'd be able to spin and ply in about 6 hours.
This math is pretty easy: 300yards / 6hrs = 50yph / 60min = 0.83ypm x 36in = 30ipm / 60 = 0.5ims So, if you didn't follow my shorthand, I spin about half an inch per second, and when I think about it that way it sounds just about right.

After spinning I dyed it with koolaid. I wanted to go blue over the blue-gray wool with flecks of color, but the koolaid in the blue package was actually bright red (I've been tricked! Stupid Tropical Punch, why are you in a blue package?) So red it is, and it's really quite nice, even Neil agrees. But still no pictures.

It's harvest season!

( And I went away for the weekend )
ETA: I just broke down and called the store that has the perfect buttons.  They were still there and they're going to ship them to me!

My spinning demo was a great success!  I even got to shake the governor's hand.

There were only a few local merchants, and I was in a corner so I didn't see much of the others and I have no idea if it was a good day for sales, but it was a great day for demos!  I answered some variation of the "how does the yarn go around the big wheel?" question more times then I could count.
( re-cap )

I'm 26 now! It's funny, when I was growing up I was always the oldest - or close to it, in any group. But these days I get to be the baby all the time, it's kinda fun! And it also makes being 26 feel cool and awesome and young compared to all my 28-30 year old friends.

The other thing my birthday always does (every year without fail) is make me realize how much I suck at remembering other people's birthdays. This is especially bad since that has been my new years resolution TWICE in a row now. So, um, sorry everyone! You're all much better friends then I am when it comes to remembering birthdays...

I just bought myself a few birthday presents in the form of some books I've wanted forever (Nurk, Sunshine, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle) and more yarn then I really should be allowed to purchase all at once (what? the baby alpaca was on sale! I couldn't help buying enough for a nice sweater... And all that other yarn? I needed it - it's for projects for other people. Projects I've already said I'd do so that yarn was totally justified. The fancy pattern book, yeah, maybe that was excessive, but it's my birthday!)

Tonight Neil's making me a fancy dinner in honor of my birthday.  Tomorrow I'll be in Morrisville pretending to be a real spinner and knitter!

I swear these fall weeks just fly by!

Last weekend, along with meeting the local firefighters I went to a picnic with friends and went contra dancing for so long that my leg still hurts a bit today (oops)  On sunday between my leg (I was limping at the time, I think I pulled something and kept dancing on it...) and the steady rain I spent the whole day on the couch knitting, reading, and watching TV.

( knitting project updates )

This weekend I'll be doing spinning demonstrations at the La Moelle Festival in Morrisville on Saturday.  This is the first year of this "celebration of french culture"  They're going to have french and indian war re-enactments, culinary classes, genealogy classes, and local merchants demonstrating classic crafts (including a blacksmith who I hope I get a chance to watch!).  The lady organizing the merchants is the Bee's Knees owner and she came to our knitting group looking for fiber arts people.  I'm not selling anything (I don't have anything to sell) but I'm the token spinner!  It'll be interesting since I've never done this before and I know I'm not the best spinner in the area, but I'm willing to give it a shot!  If you're in the area and want to stop by and give me some moral support I'd love to see you!

Hopefully on Sunday I'll find time to preserve more food!  We have corn (and hopefully more from the CSA today) and I really need to make relish from all my cucumbers (since I still have pickles from the last two years)  I'm a bit sad that this is the 2nd to last CSA pickup - it hasn't been a great year for veggies - but I'm glad to be supporting a local farmer in this economy and poor season and we've still had more veggies then we can eat - just not quite as many for preserving as usual.  I still need to re-cook the rose-hip jelly too...

ETA: lookit!  My name is on that La Moelle page!  I'm a real spinner now!

I got out of work early yesterday for a dentist appointment.  They gave me a clean bill of heath, yay!  I love when they don't even feel the need to tell me to floss more.