non sequitur

I need to promise myself that I will not apologize anymore for not posting.
Some days and weeks are just so busy, my mind preoccupied by numerous things, that even taking one picture takes a lot of effort. Let alone writing a paragraph.

Last night though I got to go to Caffe Lena *in Saratoga, and got to hear one of my most favorite poets: Carolyn Forche *. Her tenure at Skidmore College is ending, and it was the last chance to see her while she was still in the area.


I am showing the stage while the lights were still up. It was too dark later on to take a good picture.

The place filled up completely. While she started with two older poems from her time in El Salvador, she read from a collection of new and unpublished works. What a rare treat! She is a human rights activist, cultural ambassador, professor, and someone who just came out of cancer treatment. I love her poems because they are haunting, surprising, and accessible; the language just IS, it stands there and belies the immense hard work and practice practice practice that goes into every line.

The reading was cushioned by an open mic, and while the guys were sometimes funny and sometimes just guys writing about their, you know, thing, (Dan Wilcox and Alan Catlin being the exception); the ladies really showed the way: down to the hard details of what it feels like to be in a depressive coma after a son's death, to a gardener knowing how to pull up weeds just right. Or taking over six years before able to write about September 11, 2001. One young poet wrote about a simple scene of sitting alone on bleachers with a stranger a few feet away, and lighting a cigarette. Another, immensely talented woman poet with a severe speech impediment demonstrated a beauty of language that made me feel like all I needed to do was listen differently; I closed my eyes and was transported into another realm of the senses.

Leave it to women to show you how it's done, every time.

*I am , however, apologizing for the absence of proper accents above "e".

May Flowers!

Well technically I took them on Monday, April 29th. But today is a gloomy rainy day around here so I thought I'd send you all some flowers from my yard!

Front yard

Crabapple Tree in the back.

Have a nice weekend, everyone!

faces in Northampton

As promised:

Stephanie (owner of Wool 'n Word) and her friend Tomi.

Crowd shot at the Calvin. The place filled up almost all the way!

Attentive listeners from the Capital Region of NYS, Lisa and Megan.

My friend Kristine from Burlington, VT. You already know Lucy. :)

I gave them the quilt my friend Amy taught me how to make last August.

This blogger, and my beautiful friends.

S.E.X.

That's Stash Enhancement eXpedition.

While at WEBS, I got the following. I am only showing one skein per type of wool, suffice it to say I got enough for sweaters.

Cascade 220 and Northampton Wool for sweaters for me and Dear Husband. "Town and Country" from a fine fleece.



Brown Heather Northampton wool for a sweater for my son when he goes to or is in college. I think the act of knitting this will be for my benefit more than for his...

Merlot Heather Northampton wool for a cardi for me. I think it will be "Rhinebeck" from - you guessed it - a fine fleece.

I have been asked to make something for a baby girl due in September, on Labor Day...:) so I scooped up 5 skeins of this. What can I say, it was a bargain!

Meanwhile, the hexagons were decorating the dashboard in Elise's car all day.

Other than the baby sweater, I am in no hurry to knit the other projects, though they are very very tempting...

I have to run. Thank you for all your well wishes yesterday. I feel much better.

laying low today

I overdid it a little the last few days so I need to lay low today--IBS is acting up and I am on the sofa knitting and watching movies.

I'll leave you to gaze at this beauty, who I finally got to meet in person:

That's Lucy. 4 months old. She's a well knitted for baby. :) Here mom's blog is here.
And I SWEAR to you that I had no idea that she put me up there! (But I knew she might.)

Just got back from Northampton!

Here's proof that I went to Northampton today to see the Yarn Harlot!
She practically filled the house (The Calvin Theatre) this time. Took her obligatory Sock with Crowd pictures. Was brilliant and funny.
And WEBS was pretty much a madhouse.

Tomorrow I have a very full day, but I will post more on Tuesday, especially about people and the new stash acquisition.







My knitting friend Elise and I went together, she picked me up from the house, we went yarn shopping and out to lunch and ran into a million people. She drove us home. Dropped me off.

And I never took one picture of her.
I'm sorry, Elise.
Like Stephanie Pearl-McPhee would say, cameramnesia.

roving eye had

I just spent the better part of an hour preparing some handdyed roving that I bought last year. I am finally getting ready to spin again. I had two one-pound balls of roving which needed to be pre-drafted. About halfway through the first ball, I came upon some debris and then a shed skin of a larvae. I have never ever had this problem before. This roving lived on the enclosed front porch during freezing temperatures. I have another one which I checked immediately and it's clean (very very clean, in fact. It's from another company. Very carefully carded and CLEAN).

I threw out the stretch with the debris in it, and then realized that my palms had dye all over them. Am I going to be able to spin with this, and get dye all over me? I don't think so. I also don't think that I will unwind two one-pound balls of roving (they are the size of basketballs) to rinse the excess dye out of them--at this point I am not sure that is even possible.

Monday night is trash night.

I am not going to divulge the name of the company where I bought this roving. Their yarns are exceptional, but I have never worked with their spinning fiber before. If you want to message me about this on ravelry, my ID is KarinMT.


The hexagons, in the meantime, are nothing but fun.

And tomorrow, I am going on a daytrip to Northampton, MA, to see the Yarn Harlot at Webs (last parentheses of this entry: I hope she makes it there!!)

That oughta get that nasty roving right out of my head.