thank you!

Thank you everyone for the compliments on the yarn colors. I am hopeful that very soon, my handdyed yarn will be available online for purchase. Melanie and Alison of Dye-namics and I are trying to figure out a way. They are an established dye company with a website. Please check them out! I have had socks from their yarn for years and they are holding up much better than some of the Very Famous Brands.

Some of you inquired about my new job. My new boss, Lori, and I actually were co-workers for a while at the Honest Weight Food Co-op, then she cut back on her hours because she also had two small businesses she was running. One of which is a personal chef business. She has a professional kitchen, her business is expanding, she needs help....one day we got to talking. I needed better hours to be able to write my book. She could use my help. The rest is history. I am still a member of the co-op, putting in 3-4 hours a week, thus getting my 26% discount on groceries I buy there.

What can I say. It was a little serendipitous. She's a knitter and a spinner and a weaver.

Speaking of work, today I am actually home, simply trying to breathe. This sudden and intense onset of spring - summer, really - has made my seasonal allergies so much worse. I got new drugs yesterday, and an inhaler. The new drugs are knocking me out just a little, this post took me a very long time to write....I'll talk to you tomorrow.

still here

I didn't mean to not blog.

It's just that I've dyed 95 skeins of sock yarn during the last few days, added several paragraphs and revisions to the book manuscript, and generally kept things flowing smoothly around here.

Also, and I can't for the life of me remember if I've told you, but I started a new job a couple of weeks ago. Basically rearragend my life a little so I would have more time to dedicate to the knitting book I'm writing. So far it is working out beautifully, with the added bonus that my new boss is a knitter and a spinner and a weaver. We make healthy food from total scratch together AND I can talk knitting while we cook! How cool is that.

Tomorrow, I am headed up to Saratoga Springs to visit with a local yarn shop owner who is interested in looking at my sock yarn.

I'll talk to you when I get back. Meanwhile, check this out!

a shower of babies

...or: the week in pictures.

On Tuesday, I made a little hat for a new little guy. Below is the hat next to the picture in the book natural knits by Louisa Harding. I figured, newborn size for a two-week-old ought to be just about right.


Was I ever wrong.

That little guy not only was too big for his hat already (good for him!!) -- he also did not appreciate us trying to even have him try it on for one minute. I have never met a baby with such a distaste for hats at such an early age. Right after we took the hat off, he calmed right down and kept on sleeping.

The yarn I used was Nashua Cilantro and size 8 needles.

Meanwhile, on the very same day that we were visiting this new baby, another baby was brought into the world to some dear friends of ours who are adopting. A little boy who weighed almost 1.5 lbs less that the one I made the hat for.

Would you agree with me that it is OK for me to send the hat to the baby who was born exactly during the time that the hat turned out to be too small for the first baby?

I will make more things for each little guy as they get older, like when they hit the ripe old age of a month or two.

In other news, I took a natural dye class at Wool n Word last Saturday. Unbelievably, the weather held up.

The colors I used were called: osage, logwood purple, cochineal, turmeric, and brazilwood.

This is one batch from the whole class.

My rovings are back in the garage, trying to dry. It has been raining so much that my backyard is once again a swamp and I can't even traverse the lawn to try and retrieve the wool.

We are promised two dry days this coming weekend.

Last week, Crafty Girl wanted to learn how to sew on a sewing machine.

I pulled out my trusty old Kenmore and away we went. She picked it up like that and we made two gusseted totebags.

Here she is making purse tissue holders all by herself.

There are no proper pictures of the projects yet, she has been going to camp this week and I am working besides trying to be an Olympic knitter.

I am sorry I have been very lame in the emailing department...I have had the nicest, most wonderful missives in my inbox and I apologize for not getting back to you.

College move-in day is a week from Monday. I am trying very hard not to knit anything for him.