Before I Go Off On A Rant...




I thought you might like to see how a sample of Ray Whiting's space-dyed roving came out after being spun and made up into scarf form. This 4.4 ounce sample of natural grey Jacob's sheep roving had been dyed in shades of blue and green. I'd spun it all up into singles, then plied it so that half of it was carefully aligned for a space-dyed effect and half of it plied randomly for a more tweedy look, then I made it into a simple, seed-stitch scarf for me. I rather like the half-n-half effect. Here it is modeled on a nice piece of ash:


















One of the more entertaining aspects of spinning your own stuff is the ability to play with different effects. I'm pleased with how both parts came out, but I prefer the side where the self-striping came out more strikingly. The other half produced more of a tweedy effect, with the exact same roving, spun the same way and plied at a different interval.





Now for the rant.



The entrie month of February been trying. Those of you who are astute astrologers will ask me why I am surprised, what with coming out of a Mars retrograde and all, but life has been both exasperating and burdensome lately.





Let's start with the cobbler's children. We live on a busy street, which intersects with a major road at the corner, about 100 feet away. As a result, our cats are indoor kitties, and while Shamu sometimes rockets out between our feet, he avoids the street and comes back yowling to the front door after a short while. Escapes from Cellblock Cat are few, far between, and usually of extremely short duration.





But last week our most timid cat, Blue, made a run for the border, dashing between my husband's legs when he stapped out to get the mail. Now we don't leave the door standing open in a houseful of cats -- if the door is open, we are going through it. No lurking in the open doorway. Cats are shooed out of the living room before the door is opened. Otherwise, our doors are closed at all times. The door doesn't stand ajar while we sign for packages, redirect hopeful Jehovah's Witnesses, or pay for pizza. We step outside to do that, and close the door behind us.





Shamu, the daring one, will wait for those few nano-seconds when the door is actually open and is occasionally successful in shooting out between our feet as we pass through a door. But Blue is an excruciatingly timid cat -- when company comes over, he dives under the couch and stays there until they leave. If I am rushing around the house in boots, he darts beneath a bed. Thunderstorms or fireworks send him under a dresser or behind a bookcase for hours on end.





We acquired him as a four-month old feral kitten, and it took him a long time to adjust to life in a people house. He graduated frmo being skittish to affectionate over the past four years, but he rarely comes out when called and still does not like being picked up. He will come to you when he feels like it, sit next to you on the couch, and demand a belly rub. But if you pick him up, however gently, he will object, and wriggle out of your arms, and go hide for awhile to express his disapproval.





But until now, he was never tried to make a dash for freedom. And now that he's gone over the wall, he is mocking my every attempt to get him back in, even sitting smartly outside the trap that I usually use for stray and feral cat management in our neighborhood -- and yes, it's been sanitized and de-scented. I do this for a living, which makes the whole situation even more embarrassing.





Which brings me back to the cobbler's children -- always needing shoes. And my friend the plumber, whose pipes are always leaky. And here I am, a person who wrangles animals for a living, vexed by my own cat.





I worry about him because he has a birth defect -- his rear legs are underdeveloped and bowlegged. However, his front end is normal size and very muscular, so he waddles along like a burly dwarf. He is fully able to defend himself -- none of our cats are de-clawed -- but he is not-so-big, and quite timid.





He's quite all right for the moment, lurking underneath the house and out of reach, but still too shy to venture far from cover. And I am sure that with a little fine-tuning of the trapping process, he'll be back in the house within the next few days -- but for now, he's holing up underneath the house, and slipping out for food when we aren't looking.



And? I got rear-ended again See my fall 2006 archives for details on my last rear-ending incident. This time, the damage was apparently minor (I may need a new bumper cover), and (perhaps you should sit down for this part), the driver was a college kid with actual, legitimate, up-to-date insurance.

Anyway, between a rebel-without-a-cause fur-kid, a spotty work schedule, a massive load of tax paperwork, the home stretch of Dave's Vioxx paperwork, the last appeals application for the Road Home post-Katrina benefits for Mom, and a few other things, a lot of obligations have kept me away from my blog this month, and I admit that I have been both indulging in writer's ennui and exploring Ravelry (perhaps a bit much) on days when my appointment load has been low.

Next time, I hope to have some fun news. Hint: wish me a safe trip!

Soup and Wool

We are in the middle of soup and wool weather. Early this morning it was like this:

Cold and foggy, intermixed with a steady rain that continued all night, through this morning, along through the afternoon, and into this evening. It didn't get out of the high 30s today, (about 3 degrees if you're doing Centigrade), and it did not stop raining for one moment. It's quite late but it's still drizzling out there.

The rain this morning was almost bad enough to discourage me from venturing out to the garbage can with a plastic bag full of feline offerings to the sand goddess.

Almost, but not quite. The daily deposits definitely needed to go to the garbage can, and the poor newspaper, damp and shivering in its thin plastic bag, needed to come in.

Few things say "winter in Louisiana" better than the smell of fresh coffee and the scent of a newspaper drying out inside the oven, turned to low.

Shamu, who ordinarily invests enormous portions of his waking hours devising ways to sneak past feet and get outdoors, took one look out the window and reconsidered all escape plans, opting instead for a premium position on the sleeping bag that stays out on our couch during the winter months:

Since the Ashford is parked in front of the same couch, and with Shamu curled up so fetchingly nearby, it didn't take much to convince me to settle in and spin the rest of the delightful hand-dyed merino roving I bought from Farm Witch last week. It is yummy, exquisitely soft, and lustrous, and it spins into a fine sockweight yarn. She calls the colorway "Chasing Rainbows:"

I am very fond of "Chasing Rainbows" and look forward to making socks with it.

While the spinning was going on, I had the dyepots busy, doing double duty in coloring yarn while also heating the house on this deeply damp and chilly day and helping us keep the thermostat turned way down while the stove did the work.

The result? Here is some yarn for the arts market coming up Saturday, February 5th. The long skeins are merino, but the three skanky-looking red skeins on the far right represent my first attempt both at spinning and dyeing 100% soy fiber. On my trial run with this new-to-me fiber, I found it a little tricky to spin -- it's very, very slippery -- but it made nice, smooth singles with good drape, and only the occasional minor kink or noil.

But when I put it in the dyepot, my hard-won soy singles instantly shriveled into a stringy, curly mass not unlike Ramen noodles, causing much consternation and even more swearing. Fortunately, as it cooled off, it began to relax into its previous drapey state, but as you can see in the picture, the skeins have only relaxed about 50%. Hopefully they will unkink and lengthen as they dry, encouraged by a little gentle tugging. I won't panic yet. I don't understand this behavior in a fiber that appears to have no memory whatsoever. Wool, yes -- the slightest bit of overspin vibrantly comes to life upon exposure to steam or hot water.

Maybe soy is sneaky. Maybe it just pretends to be lifeless. Anyway, it looks all miserable and dorky, hanging there next to all that happy, well-adjusted merino. Poor things, I'll give them a little more attention tomorrow.

Colorways, left to right: "Tequila Sunrise," "Killarney Woods," "Enter the Dragon," "Beach Grass," "Pacific Sunset" (all merino) and "Passion Fruit" (soy fiber). The soy fiber is actually the fine, silken waste left over from comercial tofu production. I think that is marvelous, and I'd like to use more of it, if I can ever get it to behave.

While the yarn was drying, I cleaned and put away my enamel dyepots, and started cooking in an old cast-iron pot on the stove, a pot that has made countless batches of gumbo.

After dinner, I perused the yarn I got from Knitivity for my birthday a few weeks back. The one on the left was a delightful gift from Lisa Louie, the rest was my annual birthday splurge: "Tannebaum" in Biagio singles, "Lake Berry" sock yarn, and "Watermelon" sock yarn. The photo got the basic color of the Watermelon correctly, but doesn't catch the subtle gradients of color.

Also, what to do with those now-empty holiday cookie tins? It occurs to me to save them for next year as presentation boxes when giving handspun yarn as gifts. What do you think? Re-using an item that is ordinarily discarded or recycled, and providing a handy, moth-proof container for the yarn at the same time ... not a bad idea, I think.

I suppose that this catches me up a little bit, at least for the moment. I've left my readers with little blog fodder lately, and I do apologize. I've been up to my ears in tax and my primary typing finger is injured (it feels strange typing with the middle finger instead, while holding the damaged appendage aloft).

Wool was dyed and soup was eaten today. Sweaters and socks were worn. It felt good. But let me tell you something -- if I hear of anyone from Idaho archly declaring that it's too hot for wool in Louisiana?

I'm gonna run right up there and smack 'em.

Auction Results

The winner of the shawl auction is Kathryn Wagner, who won the Ebay bid at US$420 and who raised the donation amount to US$700 to benefit the Kagyu Thubten Choling Buddhist monastery in New York State in memory of Lily Chin's mother and sister. Thank you, Kathryn!

Thanks to all who participated in the auction, either by bidding or encouraging others to do so. Lisa and I hope that those of you who bid, but did not win, will make a donation to the monastery anyway. See previous post for details and a link to the monastery. They take Paypal and welcome donations of any amount you can afford.

I have been neglecting the blog these past few weeks due to a monster flu and sinus infection, a compatibility issue between Old Computer Stuff and New Computer Stuff, the preparation of Ye Olde Income Tax, and also? A gash on my index finger which impedes typing, spinning, tax preparation, and knitting.

More blogging soon. Thanks for your patience. In the meantime, you may want to go visit www.knitty.com and drool at the new designs ... and check out the new sock yarn at www.knitivity.com.

Carry on.

"Voodoo Shawl" Fundraiser Auction

Remember this? It's the beginning of a shawl that I started early in 2007 as a special fundraiser. It was still on the needles, which were tucked under the basket in this photo, to show off the Blue Moon yarn. Shortly after taking this photo of the half-done shawl, I sent it on to Lisa Louie in Maui, to finish up:

Now it is finished, and ...

as promised, the completed prototype of the "Voodoo Shawl" pattern has been placed up for auction to raise money for the Kagyu Buddhist Monastery in New York. Lisa Louie and I wanted to collaborate on it, so I knitted half, and sent her the shawl-in-progress to finish. This was also an excellent opportunity for Lisa to test-knit the pattern before it is offered for sale.

Upon completion, Lisa's husband, Paul, photographed the shawl on the beach at Kahului, Maui (Lisa is the model) and Lisa posted the Ebay auction last night. The yarn is Blue Moon "Socks That Rock," colorway "Chapman Springs":

Dammit, hell, cuss and swear. For some reason the beach photos first uploaded as wee thumbnails, but I am still having problems with scaling, so until I can get these photos to be big enough to see properly, I will throw in an addtional photo of the same shawl in a Koigu colorway, but this is just a bigger picture of the same pattern in a different yarn -- a stunt-double shawl as a stand-in until I can correct the above pictures -- this is not the shawl up for auction:








Here is the descriptive copy that my collaborator, Lisa Louie, wrote for the KnitU list:

Dear KnitU:


As regular readers of KnitU may know, Dez Crawford and I have been working jointly on knitting a shawl as a special fundraising project to honor family members a friend has lost. At long last, the shawl is done and has been listed for auction on eBay at this link.

We all have people in our lives who are so important to us there aren’t words to describe them. When these people leave our lives, especially when it is too soon or unexpected, the loss is staggering. When you lose two of these people close together, their absence can have an almost catastrophic effect on your life.

It is also wrenching to watch a friend suffer through a loss of this magnitude, and as knitters our first reaction is to knit something special for our friend. Since our friend is a renowned knitwear designer and friends with a huge number of knitters, and already has a plethora of hand knit items, we wanted to find another way to offer comfort and help. Hence the shawl, and the auction.

Most of you are already aware that our friend, Lily Chin, lost her mother and sister last year barely a month apart. It is in her mom’s and sister’s honor, and with Lily’s consent, that we created and are auctioning the shawl. All funds raised go to the Kagyu monastery in honor of Linda and Mabel.

The monastery’s building project was chosen by the Chin and Lee families for those who wish to donate in memory of Linda Chin and Mabel Chin Lee. You can get information on, or donate to, the monastery at www dot kagyu dot com. Removing the spaces and inserting the proper symbols will take you to their website.

As this is a fundraiser, we encourage everyone to view and bid on the auction. We also ask that if you are not the winning bid, or if you are unable to bid on the shawl, that you make a donation to the monastery if possible. See the EBay listing for a link. Small donations are gratefully welcomed.

For the record, the shawl pattern is an original design, under our own copyright. All funds raised will go directly to the charity. Dez and I bought the yarn, did the knitting, and will pay for the shipping to the recipient and the auction costs.

Dez and I also have several collaborations in the planning stages. While we are all missing Aunt Gail, we have another fundraiser for Susan G. Komen in Gail’s name. This new project was the catalyst for the creation of the “Aunt Gail” color way at www dot knitivity dot com which will be used to honor Gail and her legacy. And no, we’re not making socks. More details will be forthcoming.

We both hope you’ll check out the auction and bid if you can.


Aloha,



Lisa



To view the auction, click the following link.

Click here: Knit shawl fundraiser- Lily Chin - eBay (item 260201437813 end time Jan-15-08 19:06:12 PST)

To donate to the monastery, click here.

Our most sincere thanks to everyone who views this shawl, bids, and/or makes a donation to the monastery. The monastery welcomes all offerings, great and small, and they have a convenient Pay-Pal link if you don't bid on the shawl or win the auction. Please consider making a donation in any amount in honor of Lily's mom and sister. Lily has brought the world so much joy with her beautiful patterns; this is a small way that we can each let her know that we are still thinking of her and remembering her loss.

I Think I Have Anthrax

Perhaps that is a slight exaggeration. But it is not a good thing when you look at the prescription and you realize it is the very same antibiotic used to treat anthrax.

It is also not a good thing, when the doctor looks up inside your nose and says, "Oh, my."

But that is what she said, when my husband dragged me to the after-hours clinic today. I was hoping to tough it out, but I woke up this morning unable to breathe through my nose and unable to touch my face without flinching.

The doctor also shook her head and said, "You have a terrible sinus infection." And then she gave me an injection of cortisone, some potent decongestants and the abovementioned antibitotics.

"Go home," she said. "Get in bed and stay there for a couple of days."


Technically, I am in bed. I am ensconced on the futon in the spare room, with pillows heaped behind me like a proper invalid, keyboard in my lap, with warm cats deployed along the length of my body. I can see the montior screen from here -- the desk is right next to the futon and the keyboard has a long cord.

I am in bed, and doing nothing except typing and knitting. She did not say that I had to get in the bed without a keyboard, knitting needles, tea or a book.

So I might as well do a little catch-up writing, and talk about the yarn and fiber and spinning I have in the works.

I was pleasantly surprised, my first few times at the arts market, to have more than a couple of people ask about hand-dyed rovings. Some were spinners themselves, and some were looking for gifts for spinners. After the first request, I dyed some roving. I found that presenting two ounces of roving in a large Mason jar went over well as a holiday gift. The roving is simply squashed into the jar and the lid placed on, with a bit of scrap yarn for decoration.

Presenting roving this way is not a good long-term storage solution, but it makes a nice-looking gift package, and it is also wise as protection from toddlers with sticky ice cream fingers.

Two samples are in the photo below. Left: "Tequila Sunrise." Right: "Margaritaville." These are food coloring dyes and will look darker when spun into yarn. Yes, I want people to think "lotsa happy fun" when they spin my stuff. There is also a portion of cat in the upper right hand corner of the photo (see the fur and the rabies tag?), but I'm afraid I had to edit my boy Seven out of the picture in order to get a good closeup of the wool. I doubt he'd take it personally, but please don't tell him that I cropped him out. I promise to post a lovely photo of him for you to admire in an upcoming post.







If the buyer divides "Margaritaville" in half and plies it against itself, they will get a flecked, tweedy effect with the yellow and hints of white.

Also, in the following photo, I've been playing with dyeing singles in gradients of green and russet colors. Top: "Peas and Carrots." Bottom: "Lettuce Knit." Getting good greens makes me grin more than any other color. Maybe it's just that I'm not such an experienced dyer, but I find that good, rich greens are hard to accomplish.

I think my very favorite thing, and it's getting to be somewhat of a signature with me, is to spin fine singles, space-dye them, and then ply them together. It means two extra steps in the winding off, but I really love the play of colors. "Peas and Carrots" was space-dyed after plying. "Lettuce Knit" was dyed before plying. The colorplay has a lot more depth, I think.

This yarn in the next photo was flat-out, total fun. Regular readers may remember that when I added my pre-owned Ashford wheel to the family, she came with some accessories and two fleeces: one was in fairly good shape but the other had been stored unwashed, in the grease and full of vegetable matter, smashed unceremoniously into in a five-gallon tin for almost 20 years. It emerged from the can as a hairy, dirty, waxy lump. I nearly threw it away, but my Capricorn subconscious wouldn't tolerate that, so I salvaged it. Salvage operations required a good, long soak in Dawn and cold water, then a second de-greasing soak, and two good, cold rinses.

I don't find the resulting wool soft enough to be suitable for garment-quality yarn, but I'm frugal, so I made rustic-spun singles and I came up with a good felting wool suitable for purses, rugs, and slippers. The college-student crowd at the arts market bought me out of wild colors last time, and they always appreciate a bargain, so I've dyed these in wild colors and priced them less than first-quality wool. I have lots more of this salvaged fleece, and it will all be rustic spun, and boldly dyed for felting projects. This colorway, called "Summer of Love," was photographed drying outdoors on a cool, dry, sunny day in late November.

And now, an abrupt change of subject. Sort of.

The other day, I visited a friend who is a legal secretary by occupation, and a painter by vocation. I wanted to tell her about my experience at the arts market and wanted to encourage her to apply for a booth space of her own.

When I arrived, she was working on an oil for an upcoming show -- the figure of a lone man on a grey street in a big city, a painting with strong contrasts and deep shadows. The man wore a long, grey overcoat and a brimmed hat reminiscent of film noir and of our own fathers.

After a few minutes, she draped the work-in-progress and set her hands to stretching a new canvas.

Our coffee mugs sat between us on the paint-splattered table in her garage studio. I perched on a stool, knitting with my own handspun, hand-dyed yarn.

We talked about our friends, her dogs, her daughter's school, and her own paintings. We discussed how people perceive and define art differently.

We were not having this discussion at the graduate-school level by any means. Terms like "postmodern" or "dadaism" did not come up. We simply talked about what we think is beautiful, what is emotive, what makes us think, and how other people react.

What makes a thing "art?" Why is a thing "art" to one person and not to another?

Is it art if a pedantic art critic says it is art, and not-art if a nine-year-old thinks it is art? If I fail to understand it, is it not-art or am I simply dull-witted?

We were talking about these things lightly, sometimes amused, sometimes bemused, relating stories of people we knew and the things they liked, tales of how some work that she was sure would be a hit had flopped, while people went wild over what she thought would be dead-certain duds.

We gnawed at the perennial question: why do so many artists have to struggle so? Why do most people more readily embrace mindless entertainment than good art? Is it because of the simple fact that interacting with art requires some degree of thought -- which frightens many people -- while interacting with pop culture requires only passive observation? Does art live in the hands of the artist or the eye of the beholder?

We also considered: is art craft? And: is craft art?

We both said "yes" to both concepts. And then she gestured at my hand-dyed work and said:

"I paint on the canvas. You paint in the canvas. Same thing."

So I pondered that. I thought about all the fiber artists I know who put so much of themselves into every dyebatch of yarn and into every skein of handspun fluff. I thought about how difficult it is to explain to some people why I have to make things. I have to make garments from scratch, I have to make yarn from scratch, I have to make colors, I have to write. These things are not mere pastimes or hobbies. They are powerful and singular urges which cannot be ignored. It's like being hungry, or needing to go to the bathroom. I will be miserable unless and until the need to knit, spin, or write has been vented.

I don't have to explain this tangible need to a painter, but it's difficult to explain this urgency to people who think of arts and crafts as mere pastimes, activities which exist for the sole purpose of occupying an idle mind, like the word-and-number puzzle booklets you can buy at the airport.

Before I went home, I told her one of my favorite art stories. It happened to a young man I knew back in the 1970s, a young man named Jeff who was a sidewalk painter in the French Quarter of New Orleans. I had a bit of a crush on him, back when my high school friends and I would take the streetcar downtown on Saturday mornings and wander around the French Quarter all day.

Each morning, he set up his easel on the flagstone sidewalk outside of Jackson Square, right across the street from the Cafe Du Monde. He'd work on a classic New Orleans scene in oils, while intermittently knocking off quick little oil portrait sketches of tourists for a modest fee. He worked earnestly, in all kinds of weather.

Once when I passed to admire his work, Jeff was all smiles and told me that something remarkable had happened to him. Around midday, he was hungry, so he closed his paint box, laid his brush rag across the backrest of his folding chair, and asked a neighboring artist to watch his things for a few minutes while he went to buy a sandwich.

When he returned, a tourist was holding up his brush rag, scrutinizing it carefully. The man asked him, "how much do you want for this?"

Jeff was puzzled, thinking perhaps that the man was rather ineptly trying to make a joke about modern art. In jest, Jeff replied, "oh, I was planning to ask five hundred, but I haven't decided on a firm price."

The man reached in his wallet and pulled out a wad of money. "I'll give you one hundred," he said, wagging a cluster of twenties at Jeff. "I'd pay more if it was mounted. Also, you need to sign it."

Jeff looked around, thinking there was a camera crew and a TV comedian waiting to pounce on him, but nothing happened. He looked at the rag, smeared with layers of blotchy color, and asked the man if he was serious.

He was.

Jeff signed the rag and took the money.

Beauty is always in the eye of the proverbial beholder. I try to keep that in mind when I make up new dye jobs. I think it's important to offer something for everyone. I can't just dye everything in my own favorite colors.

I've run out of things to say and now I think I can finally fall asleep. It's quite a trick to try to rest when you've just had a jolt of cortisone.

I'm off to sleep. Carry on.

Into 2008

I am starting to believe in the power of publishing one's New Year's resolutions for all of one's blog readers to see.

My top resolution for 2007 was:

"Do everything within my own personal power to make 2007 not suck."

Toward that end, I managed to at least face, if not conquer, most of the resolutions on last year's list, and indeed, 2007 sucked a great deal less than 2006.

Going back to my 2007 New Year's post, I can report that:

I have lost five pounds, not twenty. But hey: five is five.

Closets have indeed been cleaned. All but the tool closet, anyway. One must be realistic. A good deal of junk, obsolete computer components, paperback novels, ill-fitting clothing and other miscellany have either found new lives as garage sale merchandise, or as charitable donations.

I have not read (or re-read) one classic book each month, but I have managed one per season: Origin of Species early in 2007, Pride and Prejudice in the summer, Walden in the fall, and, this month, the poems of Robert Frost.

Speaking of whom, I was saddened today to read in the news of vandals breaking into and damaging Robert Frost's historic home. The vandals apparently thought that breaking into the home and using the antique wicker furniture for firewood was a good way to celebrate the holiday weekend. Barfing in the parlor also occurred. Police believe it was a group of juveniles.

I hope they catch the brats who trashed Frost's place. Their behavior speaks of a combination of self-indulgence and abject stupidty that makes me want to spank them and spank their parents.

Extra licks for the parents.

I've loved Frost since adolescence, and I have two favorite quotes:

"A civilized society is one that tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity."

and:

"The best way out is through."

The lofty goal of "better understanding finances" was simplified to "better organizing finances," and progress was made toward that end.

The ridiculously lofty goal of "stop trying to be all things to all people" has been abandoned. That one might require therapy. Or more yarn. We shall reconsider.

The humble goal of taking multivitamins and calcium each day: accomplished on most days. Likewise with the drinking more water resolution. Eating healthier leaves something to be desired but we're eating a lot less in the take-out and frozen dinner division than we were in the aftermath of Katrina, so that's progress.

Getting to bed earlier. Not so much. Still working on the insomnia and also on the not trying to be Superwoman thing, so midnight laundry still prevails chez Mambocat.

Career goals: getting my consulting business off the ground has been bumpy, but it's still happening. Happening on a smaller scale than I would like, but happening.

Creative goals: getting patterns ready for sale: that's starting to happen, albeit very late in the year.

Spend more time with friends and family. Yes. Not as much as I'd like, but I've had more of that, especially real-life face time.

Flossing daily? Maybe not so much. But more often? Yes.

Walking outdoors each day? I was really good about this when it was not raining or blistering hot, but not so much once summer kicked in. Either way, at least I walked outdoors more often, especially in the spring and fall. Still, I'm doing one hour on the treadmill at the YMCA twice a week, regardless of weather, and at least one outdoor walk per week.

Stash organizing? Major progress. Not in any kind of spreadsheet-and-labels way that other people can understand, but in terms of household tidiness and being (mostly) out of sight when not in use, great progress has been made.

Buying less yarn? Admittedly, my real goal was not to buy every single skein of yarn that made me go "ooooh." And I have been prettty good in that respect.

In 2007 I accomplished some big things. In New Orleans, Mom's house is repaired. Here at home, I have started selling my handspun at the arts market (on the creative front) and I am also close to launching some patterns along with Lisa Louie (creative front also) and I am trying to get my consulting business going (on the work front). Dave is doing better, I've been in touch with friends and family more often, I've visited my dear friend Leef, and I am taking better care of myself.

And you, dear readers? What's high on your list for 2008? I've found that reachable goals are highly motivating. What are some of yours?

Happy New Year to you all! May 2008 bring wonderful things to each and every one of you.

Okay. I'll Wear The Hat.

But You Will Pay.

"Okay. I will wear this stupid, ratty, Santa Claws hat. I will wear it for exactly fifteen seconds and then I will try to shred it, as many cats before me have attempted, ever since you knitted it in a moment of cabernet-induced inspiration. Even cats know that you should never actually do something if you think it is a good idea when you are drinking...

...and, by the way, you have seven seconds left ... so you better take a picture."







And so it was done, the annual Cat-in-The-Santa-Claws-hat picture, and thank you very much, Annie. It was your turn, after all. Bella was Santa Claws last year.

So it's Christmas Eve.

Our little tree is decorated in the living room, and outside, due to the lack of a hard freeze so far this year, Plantzilla remains robust, so she has been adorned with lights ....





...and the picture above is maybe a great excuse for someone to hint at my husband that all I want for my too-close-to-Xmas birthday is a tripod, so I can do night shots with a long exposure without it looking like I have had maybe too much of the Bailey's.


Knitting is done, except for Dave's vest, which he will have to get on Boxing Day. Years, ago, we adopted the fine tradition of Boxing Day, on the 26th, to begift one another and to begift friends.

Mom's pullover is done and wrapped. Why do garments look so awful on hangers? Sigh. But a hanger will have to do for display purposes, as I have no Mom-like model and this is a surprise. It's done in a superwash wool for easy care and casual wear:




And gifts are wrapped, with a little help from Bella and maybe also from the aforementioned Bailey's. In the photo below, Bella is inspecting some of my handspun.

It's so easy for a knitter who spins to think of something to give to other knitters. Knitters never whine and say, "but you gave me yarn last year!"





And best of all, two years and four months after Katrina, Mom's house is done, inside and out. That is a long time to wait for your house to be fixed, but it's done. There are a few window screens left to paint and to re-screen, and a few other little details remain, but Mom's house is essentially finished, down to the exterior paint job:

The color is called, "Enchanted Sea," and I'm quite fond of it. If you're not from the area, you may not know that many New Orleanians paint wooden houses in bright, cheerful colors -- cerulean blue, hyacinth, carnation pink, mango orange, you name it. It's a local tradition, and so much more interesting than the whites and neutral colors you see in so many other cities. There is also an old New Orleans belief that bright blue keeps evil spirits away (particularly when applied to the front door). You'll find this belief among the Gullah people in the American Southeast as well.

So I'm relaxed and happy this Christmas Eve. We had gumbo for dinner, the cats got treats and catnip, and I got most of my knitting done. I've talked to lots of friends and family on the phone. I am as done as I'm going to get.

Happy Christmas. Thanks for being a reader. I hope you and yours have a wonderful holiday and that Santa leaves you sacks full of yarn.

Beware the

Unaknitter

I didn't do it on purpose. It really wasn't my fault that Mr. C., the nice post office counter man, the man who has competently taken charge of my packages for more years than I can remember, the man to whom I entrust the timely management of my birthday cards and insurance payments ... no, it wasn't really my fault that Mr. C. was looking at me strangely in the post office today.

It was chilly early this morning, so I put on a hoodie when I went out the door for my walk. And in addition to being early it was also bright, which required sunglasses ... then the wind picked up, so I pulled up the hood.

And then when I went to the post office a little while later, I had packages -- several of them, in fact -- which required me standing in the long, long line and scrawling on little pieces of paper while I balanced the pile of boxes in front of me in a little tower on the post office floor, scrawling madly and frowning at my slightly leaky pen and all those little labels and pieces of paper, and then periodically nudging the little tower of boxes along with my foot as the line progressed.

And when I looked over at the counter, Mr. C. was looking me up and down, head to toe, scrutinizing me in exactly the same way as a mother evaluates her teenage daughter before allowing her out the door to go to school.

I had entirely forgotten about my morning walk, and I'm not the sort to admire myself in every reflective surface that I pass, so I had no idea that I looked alarming. And also? I am entirely absent of any notion that maybe I should consider dressing like a woman in her forties instead of like a thirteen-year-old boy.

So it is completely not my fault that Mr. C. stared for awhile, and I stood there wondering if maybe my fly was open or there was an unspeakable substance on my jeans ... and then Mr. C. cracked a grin, and started into a jelly-belly laugh, and then he cut his eyes toward the reflective window nearby, so I looked over my shoulder, and of course I fell out laughing in the middle of eighty-seven Christmas-laden people standing in line at the post office, because I was standing in the post office, in the post office for gawd's sake, and I looked like this:

That will be all.

P.S. -- That scarf you can see a tiny bit of? That is my weirdest knitting accomplishment -- greatest amount of praise for least amount of effort. I made that back in Nineteen Eighty-Something. I found some speckly black-and-white loopy mohair on sale, and didn't knit it, then later I found some weird speckly black-and-wite ribbon yarn on sale, and didn't knit that either ... but the two yarns, purchased years apart, happened to match exactly ... and then I decided I needed a salt-and-pepper scarf to go with a jacket (which I no longer have) and I knitted that scarf in plain old garter stitch and used the ribbon yarn for the fringe. That's all. And it has become my workaday scarf. But it never fails, whenever I wear it, that two or three people stop and ask me where I got it. You'd think the entire staff of Queer Eye stayed up all night picking out yarn, the way people carry on over that stupid black and white garter stich scarf, even when I look like the Unabomber. But do total strangers ever notice eighty gabillion hours of Fair Isle or cablework?

Nooooooooo.....

Knitting Asylum Yarns
at the Baton Rouge Arts Market

I'll be selling yarn and spinning at the Arts Market again today -- Saturday December 18 -- from 8am till noon. Corner Fifth and Main in Downtown Baton Rouge, in conjunction with the Farmer's Market. Read two posts back for details! The previous post about Apple Leef Farm is new, so be sure to read it if you haven't checked in for a few days.

A Way-Too-Short Weekend at

Apple Leef Farm

This post is a wee tad on the picture-heavy side, so I apologize to those of you with dial-up service. Go make a cup of coffee while it downloads, and come back when you're ready. You can click on all the pictures to make them larger.

All done? Good.

Something tells me that y'all would like to see these featherweight, hand-dyed, felted, wool stoles live and in person, but a picture will have to do:

Something else tells me that you'd like to know more about the person who makes them, and more about the shop they live in.

Welcome to the shop at Apple Leef Farm. The farm features fiber-bearing animals, flock guardians ... and a wonderfully welcoming fiber arts shop. Not only does Leef offer fiber arts classes, but she also has two delightful, cozy and spacious bed and breakfast cabins, and if you'd like to camp out in the nearby woods, you can do that too.

The shop offers yarn, weaving and spinning supplies, and both classes and weekend retreats for knitting, weaving, felting and spinning.

Here's the great wheel at the entrance to the shop, Leef's workhorse wheel to the left, and her plying wheel on the right, with a sampling of spinning fibers and finished yarns in the background:

Leef offers a wide variety of spinning fibers: colonial and mutilcolor fleeces and roving from several breeds of sheep and goats ... alpaca ... natural-color organic cottons, recycled cotton from blue jeans, and pima cotton ... combed tops, pima sliver, cotton lints, and seed cottons ... carded silk cocoons, raw silk cocoons, silk hankies, bombyx and tussah silks ... soy silk ... bamboo ... flax ... A-1 bombyx silk bricks ... kid mohair locks and tops ... corriedale-cross rovings in natural colors ... moorit ... wensleydale ... and a variety of blends of most of the above fibers, may favorite of which is a yummy merino, cashmere and angora blend.

Leef offers a variety of ready-to-weave cotton yarns for weavers, organic cones and dyed cones, as well as hand-dyed warps.

She also has felting wools, blanks for shibori dyeing, and a wide variety of dyes, as well as finished, ready-to-use silk blanks for scarves and kimonos.


In case you're wondering? I haven't mis-spelled "leaf." Leef is the name of Leef Bloomenstiel, my dear friend who runs Apple Leef Farm, along with her husband, Les.


Before I tell you more about the farm, I shall tell you about my friend Leef.


There is a certain quality to friendships forged in times of trouble that cuts through all the ordinary facades and meaningless chatter which usually cloud our initial perceptions of another human being when they first appear in our lives.

During less trying periods, we might have coffee and host cookouts and take walks with a new acquaintance countless times, without ever really getting to know them in a real and meaningful way. You may go on for years, chatting about politics and gardening and the weather, without ever opening up to one another or seeing the roots of that other person's soul.


Leef and I met at a herpetological society meeting over twenty years ago, and we quickly realized we had much more in common than our interest in reptiles and wildlife, and the fact that we both like to knit.

Before too long, we realized the we were both dealing with nearly identical life-straining situations, and as we formed a two-woman support group, we found that our creative energies ran in the same direction as well.

We humans gain acquaintances when we realize that we share a few common interests with people whose company we find agreeable -- we may share the same views about politics, work for the same company, enjoy a few pints at the same tavern, live in the same neighborhood, or share the same hobby. And many acquaintances who are baseball fans, Trekkies or joggers soon develop fast friendships. The common interest served merely as an introduction -- an icebreaker handed to us by the Fates: "You're a knitter, too? And a computer enthusiast? A reptile geek, birdwatcher, and hiker as well? Wow, we have a lot in common!"

Common interests are handy, and a person's interests tell you a lot about them. But the best friendships are forged between people whose values and passions are deeply symbiotic -- people who bounce energy off each other in such a way as to bring out the best in each other.


Now about the knitting part. When Leef and I first met, we learned that we both enjoyed knitting, and soon we were getting together regularly to knit, have coffee, and work through our life problems.

We became friends in the green-screen days of computering and in the infancy of the Internet, search engines and AOL. At the time, it was difficult to meet other knitters, so it was delightful to have another knitter with whom to share resources, tips and techniques. Finding the original Knit List was a coup for both of us.

She was a farm girl stranded in the city, so she made sure that her kids grew up hiking, camping, riding horses and visitng their grandparents in a delightful Louisiana hill-country town, not too far away.


Neither of us is the sort of person to have a casual interest in too many subjects. We both are the sort who dive in head-first and earn ourselves a seat-of-the-pants PhD when any interest grabs firm hold of us. Before we knew it, our common interest in knitting led to spinning and dyeing, and Leef took off from there into weaving. I weave a little, now and again. Small things, when the mood strikes me.

But Leef is a certified, bona fide Weaver.


Over the years we went through life changes, Hurricane Andrew, job changes and her mother's death ... and I experienced her kids growing up.


This friendship began twenty years ago. Life has taken us in different directions in recent years, and Leef and her family moved to Texas, partly for job opportunities for her husband, and partly so she could have a small farm, but distance doesn't change the qualitative nature of a solid friendship.


Unfortunately, we hadn't seen each other live and in person in far too long, so I hadn't seen the new farm, or the new store (they recently moved from their mini-farm closer to Dallas).

So the store kind of bowled me over when I walked in. Years ago, we spent so much time talking about having a studio, a yarn shop ... a place to teach knitting, spinning and dyeing. We would spend hours dreaming up what we'd sell and what the shop would be like -- some cozy seating in a corner, the teaching studio over here, natural light from over there, and of course we'd have to have a coffee bar.

And now here it is. I sorely wish we were doing it together, but I am so happy for her that she has it for herself.

Below is the part of the store that serves as a weaving studio and class workshop. Note the floor loom on the left, a triangular loom partly filled with a handpainted warp, bags of fleece, and yet another spinning wheel:





You need to know that when Leef teaches a new weaver or spinner, she doesn't just set you down and show you the basics. If you go to one of her weekend retreats, you will come away from it really knowing how spin or weave. Leef is the sort of person who teaches her students not only what they need to do, but why they need to do it. She wants you to walk away from her studio with a complete understanding of the process.


On the opposite wall from the loom and teaching area, she displays some of her yarns and felting supplies, as well as a selection of felted stoles and gossamer hand-dyed silk scarves.

The dyeing workstation is out-of range to the left in the picture, and includes a stove, sink and work table.


I remember Leef's early dyeing experiments -- hiking the local woods and creek banks searching for flowers, bark and roots to find ingredients for natural dye recipes. Then it was out to the backyard with a propane burner and an old canning pot, standing over dyebaths until she arrived at the perfect shade of green, brown or yellow. I remember picking sack upon sack of railroad daisies.

After Leef moved to Texas, my work schedule became enormous, but when I had any time at all to myself, I took to the same locations in search of wild indigo plants -- the invasive descendants of indigo crops grown in the plantation days of south Louisiana. Indigo requires a lot of plants and a special touch with the dyepot -- and although I enjoy working with natural dyes, I have never gotten past a wan blue with my own efforts.

Leef had started getting serious about felting -- hats, slippers, you name it -- shortly before her family moved to Texas.

Which brings me back to where I started.

Now I know you are curious about those stoles. Leef produces these amazing, drapey garments in Nuno felting, a technique in which she felts and dyes wool onto a silk gauze. The end result is a rich, drapey, exotic-looking fabric which makes me think of something that perhaps an alien ambassador or priestess might wear as ceremonial garb when meeting with Captain Picard, or attending a meeting of the Federation. Each one is an individual work of art.


To the lower left, below the stoles, you will see a display of dyed silk scarves, befitting Stevie Nicks at the height of her gauziness ... and I do mean that in a good way! These scarves are as light as a feather and display equally well either ironed flat or dried in a scrunched-up technique -- not unlike making a broomstick skirt.

There are also some yarns for sale -- some handspun, and a selection of comercial sock yarn. She also carries a sleection of bamboo knitting needles, and every conceivable accessory or tool you might need for spinning, weaving or felting, from dyes and niddy-noddys to spinning wheels, looms and drop spindles.





There's more yarn in the picture below, and dyeing supplies in the background. Do you also see the hand-dyed gauzy silk jacket, graced with a felted lace stole? Leef offers both materials and classes to make all of these things:






Leef's farm is in Van Alstyne, Texas, just a tad off the beaten track -- a scenic drive through the rolling hills north of Dallas. But if you are a fiber enthusiast anywhere in the Dallas-Forth Worth area, Oklahoma City or the general Texoma region, and you're up for a day trip, you'll be glad you went to the trouble to find her.

Leef is happy to arrange weekend retreats for any guild or other group of fiber enthusiasts who'd like to spend a weekend on her farm. In addition to the two bed-and-breakfast cabins, there is ample campground space on her property. You can contact her directly to discuss classes, arrangements and prices, depending on the classes you want to take and the size of your group.


For directions to the shop, hours, and class information, contact Leef at:

http://www.appleleeffarm.com/

I'll leave you with a photo of some of the farm animals: here's a little cluster of sheep, presided over by Doc, a 30-year-old horse whose hobbies include coyote-stomping, and Murphy, a llama who not only provides fiber but also serves as a flock guardian. You can see Murphy just above the second sheep from the left:






Next time, I'll tell you more about the farm animals, the land, and Leef's plans to expand the services she and her husband offer.

At the moment, you can contact Leef through her website and see what's new at the shop. If you have a group of friends who are interested in a weekend retreat so you can learn to spin or weave, you can arrange that as well.

Knitting Asylum Yarns
at the
Baton Rouge Arts Market!

For all of you local knitters and crocheters -- I will be spinning and selling handspun, hand-dyed yarn at the Baton Rouge Arts Market on Saturdays this December.

The Arts Market ordinarily takes place the first Saturday of each month, but during December, the market is open every Saturday for holiday shoppers.

The Arts Market operates concurrently with the Farmer's Market. Artisans set up in the parking lot at Fifth and Main in Downtown Baton Rouge, adjacent to the Farmer's market, which operates along Fifth Street.

There are many artists with photography, paintings, pottery, felted art, hand-dyed scarves, jewelry and many other fantastic things for sale.

Hours and Location:

Every Saturday in December, 8:00am till Noon
Corner of Fifth and Main Streets, Downtown Baton Rouge

Why not bring your holiday shopping list and spread your Christmas, Hannukah and Kwaanza cheer with handmade items from local artisans and baked goods, jam, honey, candies and whole food gifts baskets from the farmer's market? Hope to see you there!

P.S. -- The post immediately below is also new.

The Fate of

the Free World

Is At Stake

Just in case any of y'all are nervous about getting on an airplane anytime soon, I want you to know that before my little jaunt began last weekend, I made a ruthless assessment of those items known to present the greatest threat to public safety, namely:

Toilet articles greater than three ounces in size.

And not only did I assess these items based on the Official Bond-McGyver Danger Chart of Scariness, but I also secured them into acceptably small portions and encased them in the only terrorist-proof substance known to the FBI, the TSA and MIT that can protect us from chemical weapons, explosives, and mayhem of all kinds:


The quart-sized zip-lock clear plastic bag.








I bet you feel safer already.



And while toothpaste, mouthwash and shampoo in quantities greater than three ounces must be secured in checked luggage, the TSA finds it quite acceptable for plastic-encased, breast-shaped amounts of liquid greater than three ounces to be enclosed in gel-filled bras worn upon one's person.



This actually means that if you forget to put your highly hazardous saline eye drops in a quart-sized zip-lock bag, you may find yourself in serious trouble, but you could waltz right through the security checkpoint wearing a 42DD bra filled with plastic explosives, and the TSA people wouldn't ...





...well, I am sure they'd bat an eye. But you'd get on the plane just fine. And so could a couple of Fem-Bots.



And, while I cannot bring a cup of decent coffee or a bottle of water through security, either in my hands or in my carry-on bag, I am permitted a wide variety of items in my checked luggage, including, but not limited to, crowbars, yogurt, cattle prods, ice picks, peanut butter, cricket bats, Jell-O and throwing stars.



Go figure.



Fortunately, the items that can be packed into my checked luggage include these fibery things:














Fear not, the cropped-out cat snatching at the silk fiber (Seven) was not included in my checked luggage.




Clockwise from left: emerald-green coned silk; dyed silk waste fiber ready to be carded, Ashford mini-noddy, and two skeins of hand-dyed alpaca.



I probably could have brought the yarns through security just fine, but explaining the niddy-noddy and the silk fiber might have been a stretch, so it all went into checked luggage.




I will leave this as a teaser for today because I have a rather long and picture-heavy post coming up about my weekend at Apple Leef Farm.

Knit On, Gail

It's the end of Thanksgiving week, and, in the blogging community, it has become customary, among those of us who post our thoughts for the world to read, to make a public account of the things we're glad for.

I am glad to have known Gail McHugh. And I am so deeply sorry that I never got to meet her in person. It's amazing and wonderful that through this astounding thing called the Internet, people can make friends in far-flung places, friendships as solid as the face-to-face ones we value at home. Gail was one of those friendships.

Gail McHugh was the internet moderator for KnitU, a service of Knitter's Magazine to provide an online community for knitters everywhere. It was her job each day to preview massive amounts of e-mail, perform magic with HTML, and manage a huge and highly interactive list of enthusiastic cross-commenters on KnitU. Each day, she turned a friendly swarm of e-mails into a list which thousands of KnitU subscribers all over the world read along with their morning coffee or tea. The daily posts on every conceivable knitting topic -- from the latest technique debate to the most pressing charitable need -- were interspersed with Gail's wise and witty editorial commentary.

This was a job she performed with diligence and good humor year after year, and she did it exceptionally well.

Gail was a master knitter, but she did not knit socks, particularly yellow ones. When she was a very small child, an adult handed her double-pointed needles and fine yellow yarn, and tried to teach her to knit and make socks in the same go. For reasons that will never be understood by anyone except Gail herself, the knitting part firmly took hold, but fumbling with sock needles at an early age scarred her for life, so she forever avoided making -- even wearing -- socks. In fact, she avoided socks at all costs.

She did not avoid the Red Sox, however, and was a loyal and enthusiastic fan.

I'm so glad she got to see Boston win the World Series this year.

When I stopped hearing from Gail off-list around that time, I figured she was caught up with managing KnitU and keeping up with the World Series. I had no idea her health was crashing. She was burdened with chronic ailments, and her doctors had been juggling her medications, but there was no indication of terminal illness, so her death took everyone quite by surprise.

I also suspected that she was busy with her current charitable cause -- rounding up donations of knitted items for Covenant House in New Orleans, a well-established community service providing shelter, care and couseling for homeless teens and kids in New Orleans. Gail was one of the first people to step up to the plate after Katrina to realize that, even though no one was freezing to death in the immediate aftermath of the storm, that there would be a need for warm garments during the damp, chilly and windy winter months yet to come.

Between Gail, Ray Whiting of Knitivity, Joan Hamer of JoanKnits, and a few other knitters, a hat drive began in 2005 to "bundle up New Orleans." Gail's prescience was right on the mark -- New Orleans and Gulf Coast aid services were overwhelmed with donations of clothing for warm weather, but as winter approached, there were shortages of warm things. Not only were homeless people in need, but so were thousands of citizens camping out in damaged homes or living in drafty FEMA trailers. Gail's was an enthusiastic voice reminding people that even though New Orleans is in the South, it's not Hawaii, and while 36 degrees and rain might be welcome in Michigan ... to someone in New Orleans, that's cold, baby, and we don't wear shorts in that kind of weather, we bundle up in warm things. Pass the woolies, please!

Gail continued to remind people of the ongoing need in 2006 and into 2007. Even in her last few weeks on this little blue planet, her thoughts were focused on that ongoing need, and she raised a challenge to the KnitU community once again to round up hats and scarves for New Orleans.

Elizabeth Zimmermann used to say, "Knit on, through all crises." So that's what I'm going to do. I'll miss Gail terribly, but I know she's somewhere out there, sitting next to Elizabeth, casting on.

If you'd like to make a hat or other garment to warm a homeless teen in Gail's memory, there's still time to get it there before the holidays. Send a hat, scarf or other warm garment made of superwash wool, a machine washable wool blend, or acrylic yarn to:

Covenant House -- 611 North Rampart Street -- New Orleans, LA -- 70112 -- USA

Remember that teens come in all shapes and sizes, in both sexes. And also don't forget that, stunningly, some of these teens are homeless with a baby or toddler in tow. Please include a note to Covenant House that the donation is in memory of Gail McHugh. And if you make a comment here stating what you sent, I'll add your donation to the totals. We're hoping to round up one thousand items by the holidays.

So long, Gail. I am proud to have known you, and I'll miss you.

And speaking of New Orleans, get yourself over to Knitivity and spend some money.

Look: pretty wool. Ray dyes this himself:

The above, and the other yarn photos in this post, are Ray's yarn. There's lots more. Go and see.

I started to be all coy about writing this part. I was going to post pictures of my works-in-progress using Knitivity yarn, and I was going to coo and purr about how lovely and soft it is, and how you should go check it out, but my Capricorn nature won out, so I'll cut straight to the point:

Not only is Ray Whiting the key person in starting up the drive for hats for New Orleans, he is a fantastic yarn-dyeing entrepreneur as well, and at the moment he can use some business at his website. Ray puts out some amazing dyework, and he is trying to make a success of his business on a shoestring. After riding out Hurricane Katrina in his New Orleans home, he relocated to Houston and is trying to sustain his yarn-dyeing business on his own. Like any small business, the first couple of years are hard.

And, like all retailers, Ray counts on the holidays to make ends meet, and holiday-season sales truly are a make-it-or-break-it deal for a one-person operation.

Ray provides stunning dyework on excellent base yarns that wash and wear beautifully, he offers generous yardage for the price, he provides outstanding customer service, and he's a really nice guy who is community-oriented and who deserves your yarn money.

Also? You can order your yarn in hanks or pre-wound. You can even order custom dye jobs.. Ray has an impressive selection of colors and he is also selling handknit Christmas stockings and his shop model hats at the moment.

Bonus: if you buy yarn from Knitivity to make your hat for Covenant House, you'll double your Karma points: warming up a kid in need and helping a deserving artist succeed in his business.

Enough reasons to go have a look at his site? Good. This is "Glacier Lake," my personal favorite Knitivity colorway:

I'm also thankful that I got to see my family and my husband's over the holiday. I'm proud for the bravery with which no fewer than three of my own relatives are facing cancer treatment right now, and I'm happy for the way the rest of my family has pulled together to support them.

I'm glad for the good cheer provided by my husband's family. Let's say that it's after dinner on Thanksgiving, and you have about fourteen people crammed into the kitchen drinking wine and coffee and helping put away the dishes and the leftovers, and they all get into a good-natured debate about which is the best kind of knife and how to sharpen it, and then, to underscore his point, your nephew-in-law goes out to his car to fetch his knife roll (he's a chef), and he unfurls it on the kitchen table, and there are enough knives in there to make a Stephen Segal movie ... and no one thinks this is the least bit odd? Chances are, you are among my kin.

We cook.

I'm glad for the readers I have, and for the yarn friends I have made on the Internet. I know this sounds all mushy and smarmy, but I still think it's magical that I have a box with a screen that lights up and connects me to people all over the world -- good, solid, real people with whom I can connect at the touch of a button.

Thanks to all of you for reading my offerings, and thank you for your comments. Wherever you were this past week -- sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner in the U.S., knitting in Australia, or spinning yarn in Ireland, I hope Thanksgiving week was good to you and yours.