What Housework?

So close and yet so far away

A lovely neckwarmer...

...that I didn't swatch for. This is some of my own silk/merino and while I like the yarn and the simple pattern (the Stacked Eyelet Cowl by Ami Madison), it would have been much better with a 20" circumference instead of the 24" I ended up with:

It really isn't going to keep my neck very warm with that kind of roominess. I could fit another head in there with me.

Since there is no way I'm going to bother ripping this out, I can either add a pin or something to cinch it together in front, or maybe slice up the back, cut out 4 inches, and sew it back up. At least the yarn is nice and soft...

The weather has turned distinctly autumnal here in Vermont (read: Hard to Dress For). The days go up to 80 and it's been very sunny. But the nights are cold. I believe last night got down into the mid-40s. It does inspire the knitter in one to get to work, though. Besides whipping up the barrel cozy neckwarmer, I have started another pair of socks for me and an earflap hat for my nephew. He is in 9th grade and has been begging me for a patterned earflap hat in maroon and cream.

I am positively itching to spin but time is tight right now. I may have to take up Carole's challenge to spin 10 minutes a day, because I know once I get back into it, I'll keep going.

The socks are, once again, from Favorite Socks (scroll down for the associated A Piece of Vermont sales pitch). This time it's Priscilla's Dream Socks, which I'm doing in stripes using two shades of the Long Trail superwash seconds.

The hat is the Norwegian Star Earflap hat by Tiennie, and for that I'm using O'Wool.

Right now it looks like a teeny wool bikini top.

***

SHOP UPDATE. To avoid offending any readers who hate to read a blog that seems more like an ad for the blogger's yarn business, I'm saving the shop news for the end here. I fully understand if you want to bail right here. But if you want to see some cool new stuff, read on...

There has been plenty going on at A Piece of Vermont Yarn & Fiber, including a decent update of bamboo blend sock yarn, much of which sold after the recent update to the mailing list. There's still some left, however.

If you haven't done so already, please check out the Kits & Combos section. There you'll find two copies of Interweave's Favorite Socks, each bundled with a skein of bamboo sock yarn:

and, even more exciting,

three Dye & Spin kits!

I love these! Each kit contains a copy of the Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook, 8 ounces of undyed Blue-Faced Leicester top, acid dye powders in three primaries plus black, squeeze bottles for mixing, and a dust mask. (You provide gloves, white vinegar, plastic wrap, and a stainless steel stock pot or electric steamer.)

If you are not familiar with the Twisted Sisters book, it is not a learn-to-spin book. Rather, it is a book devoted to handspun yarn (esp. with a drop spindle) made from fiber you've dyed yourself. It's part color theory, part dyeing lesson, part spinning, part knitting. The book assumes you have basic spinning skills. Various basic sock patterns are included, but I really consider this book more of a dyeing and spinning book than a sock book. I go back to it over and over.

If you have ever been curious about how to make cool handspun yarn, this is the kit for you. You'll have enough dye to do plenty more yarn or fiber down the road. (The book includes instructions on dyeing yarn as well as fiber, but the focus is definitely on the fiber.)

***

School started today so I will have more time in the shop now. Today I'm working on dyeing more bamboo blend sock yarn (which will be seeing a price increase on Sept. 1) and Blue-Faced Leicester top. I will have more Learn to Spin kits going up at the end of the week, as well as some other book/yarn combos. A skein of bamboo blend superwash with Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks, anyone? Or, for the newbie, how about Ann Budd's Getting Started Knitting Socks? And keep an eye out for some beautiful new drop spindles in the coming month...

Fall is here, people. Knit faster.

Three-quarters smug

Breakfast:

To you, this may be just another cholesterol-laden platter of food. To me, it's an accomplishment. From the top clockwise, we have a store-bought English muffin, but followed by an egg from our own chickens, potatoes from the garden, and sausage from our own pork.

We're batting .750 for a homegrown meal.

Now, I'm smug about this. I admit it. And I had planned to put this photo up to show how excited I am that we are actually seeing results from our (mostly my husband's and brother-in-law's) work around here.

But last night we had dinner guests (the female half of whom will be reading this post!), and the male half maybe got a bit weary of me bragging about the homemade sourdough bread (excellent), the pork chops (delicious), the sweet corn (sweet and juicy!) and the blueberry sour cream coffee cake (yum). Smug, no question. He suggested that maybe I'm a little overboard on the locavore/homegrown thing and that maybe I'm buying into a fad rather than actually feeling the true motivation for providing our own food.

Nuh-uh!

But it got me thinking that maybe I am a bit giddy about the whole whole-food thing. In my defense, I swear it's not because I want the rest of the world to see me as more aware, environmentally responsible, or whatever. It's mainly because (a) I have never really grown food or raised animals before and I'm amazed at how satisfying it is to have a direct connection between our food and its source and (b) it tastes so damn good.

So, continuing with the smugness, check out our red potatoes. The good news, they're beautiful:

The bad news, what you see there is our entire harvest. We had about 50 feet of red potatoes planted and only about a dozen plants survived the rain and runoff that has plagued this summer, not to mention the weeds that are so thick and tall it takes a machete to even get to the rows. We have russets coming soon and as far as I can tell they aren't totally rotten. We'll see. Garden upkeep has not been at the top of my to-do list ever this year...

Believe it or not, the rain has let up around here for several days in a row! It's enough to get you dancing in the streets. Hot days, cool nights, a light breeze, and abundant sunshine. Perfect late summer weather at last! The drop in humidity encouraged me to finish these:

Love them. Love the stitch pattern:

These are Ann Budd's Undulating Rib socks from Interweave's Favorite Socks book, made with A Piece of Vermont Yarn & Fiber's bamboo blend sock yarn.

Speaking of which, I have a shop update coming soon which will include more of the bamboo sock yarn, plus a few copies of the Favorite Socks book, and a special feature: a dyeing/spinning/knitting kit I can't wait to get out there. I think a bit of jewelry might be making an appearance next week as well.

For now, summer is winding to a close. The windmill is doing its job (although the boys had to move it to a more effective location in the corn field). Here it is early in the morning, beyond the apple trees:

I caught a halfway decent sunrise shot, too:

The turkeys and chickens enjoying some cantaloupe:

My old cat giving me a "Please open the door and don't make any sudden movements that might startle them" look:

And my makeshift nostepinne (organic but not, I'm afraid, homegrown):

Next on the needles, I'm working up this neckwarmer in a silk-merino blend and will be starting up yet another pair of socks from Favorite Socks. Stay tuned for a shop update in my next blog post or, if you don't want to miss it, join the shop mailing list for fast notification.

Now I'm going outside.

Welcome to Vermont...

...where it's always Mud Season!

That picture is from the county fair, although we went during a brief hiatus from the summer-long crappy weather. Besides the mud, it turned out to be a good night for the fair, although the selection of rides was slightly reduced because the ground was too wet to set them up.

I like the Ferris wheel.

So what's going on around here? We said farewell to our Fresh Air child on Tuesday. I wish the girls had hit it off better, if only for the selfish reason that I could have relaxed a little while they went off together for hours of summer kid fun. But it rained almost the whole week and I confess it took a lot out of me to keep them both occupied. Still, it was a good experience, and if we do it again, I know what I would do differently.

Things are back to normal now, and a lot is going on. We said goodbye to this old thing (which I swear already had rust and a skiing bumper sticker when we moved here, but which I confess I did not work hard to keep clean, inside or out):

and hello to this:

Wow, a fridge that has an ice-and-water dispenser in the door and, hey, the door even closes all the way. What a treat.

And yesterday, a friend made this for me:

Don't you love it? She makes and sells silver wire and beaded jewelry around here and I've been trying to get her to sell online, through A Piece of Vermont Yarn & Fiber, even. Whaddya say? Would you buy something like this?

The biggest changes around here have to do with the shop. I've got Courtney Allenson designing a block-print logo for me. And I've got Louet and Interweave products going up on the site. Together, they helped me make these: beginners' spinning kits!

One already sold, but this one's still available:

I also had a not-wonderful dyeing experience, which left me with 10 skeins of almost-wonderful Colonial Superwash yarn. Only I have finally reached a decision and they will, from this day forward, officially be known as Long Trail. (I thought of going the Prince route and calling them something like ^@#)* , but Long Trail seemed catchier.)

The imperfections run along these lines

and mean the skeins are all 20 percent off. I'm seriously tempted to make a little striped scarf using the pink and orange or maybe the purple and green...

As soon as time permits, I'll be uploading some Interweave books, which I will be offering with my yarns and fibers. Buying Favorite Socks, for instance, will entitle you to a reduced price on sock yarn. First I have to go in and re-code the yarns so this will work, but it's coming.

My particular favorite socks are not finished yet. But both are almost ready for toe decreases. In the meantime, I started a sweater (Ravelry link) for my SIL, who is soon going to be shivering at her son's football games. She had some health problems this summer which, the doctor says, are going to make her more sensitive to the cold. And she's about the only in-law of mine still waiting for a sweater from me.

I've already got the sleeves done. Bless you, bulky yarn.

Meanwhile, summer flies by. Yesterday, we stopped by the Charlotte Berry Farm (very cool website, very cool place, with a peace-love-granola feel and the Dead playing in the background). (Note: This town in Vermont is pronounced Char-LOT, not CHAR-lut.) It took maybe a half-hour to pick 8 pounds of berries. I must go back for more. Muffins this morning!

Judge and jury

Well, I did it. I survived my first year (possibly not my last) as one of three knit/crochet judges at the 2008 Addison County Fair & Field Days. Phew. I couldn't resist taking a few pictures, although I failed to get shots of some of my favorites as I was too busy trying to figure out the convoluted classification system (Why "I.G-2" instead of "Knitted Hats"?) and passing judgment on 3 hours' worth of handmade items. Without a potty break.

I loved this sweater, even though these colors would make me look terrible. Someone is going to be a stunner (and warm) this winter:

There were a few cute baby sweaters covering a variety of personal tastes:

What I believe is a sheep puppet from Spin-Off, although it wasn't made of handspun:

And a great tam:

This, however, was the show-stopper, and it went on to win Best in Show over all the other handwork winners. It's a handknit bedspread or coverlet that had to be done on size 1s if not 0s:

Amazing.

Although it didn't affect the judging, I found it very entertaining that the other two judges and I had such different tastes. I gravitated toward the natural-fiber dark-colored items; they swooned over the pastel baby clothes. I suppose that made us a good team. :-)

This won in the rug-hooking category. Isn't that adorable?

While I was waiting for the judging to begin, I found a couple of cool "still lifes" in the produce area, made by local veggie/flower farms:

Closeup:

And this:

Now it's been pouring buckets, as it usually does during fair week. Only this year, they're actually evacuating nearby families. Yikes.

I have been plugging away on my July (ha) socks, but proof that I have knit in the past showed up yesterday morning, on my just-walking 11mo niece. She inherited her Daisy sweater from my nephew, who was rude enough to have been born a boy. He didn't wear it.

I don't like the way that band is rolling, but what can you do?

Milo is still inspecting vehicles part-time:

...when he's not pretending to be a squirrel:

Zoom in a bit:

Down below, Calvin is getting the distinct feeling that someone is watching him:

The windmill is up, over there on the right:

Sadly, while it has been raining in vast quantities, the wind has not reached the 3-to-5 mph required to turn the thing for any length of time. It's like the Dead Zone around here.

And witness the first two garden tomatoes of the season, soon to be followed by a gazillion more. These weren't even quite ripe enough, and yet they were miles ahead of any pale, mealy, bland hothouse tomato ever. So sweet.

This has been a random post, and that reflects how life has been lately. This is a week in which we pay out property taxes (swoon), college tuition (clutch chest), and workman's comp (bite fist), and in which I purchase a Large Appliance (more on that in the next post). My husband copes with the financial pressure by buying a(nother) ATV. WTF?

I have received a pretty big shipment of bamboo yarn just waiting to be skeined and dyed, but we have an important out-of-town guest this week from the Fresh Air Fund, and she trumps yarn, I'm afraid:

(Don't be fooled by the sunshine; this was a passing non-shower.)

Today we were planning on heading over to the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum for a very cool boat ride, on which an underwater camera relays video back to the surface showing Revolutionary War shipwrecks at the bottom of the lake.

Unfortunately, the forecast is calling for heavy rain, with showers and thunderstorms.

But no wind.

Bountiful harvest?

It's slow growing here at the Lazy J. This is half of our blueberry crop to date:

Not to worry, there are at least a half dozen more unripe berries still coming along. I just hope we have enough freezer space.

Some things are growing, fortunately:

And some things are about to be ready for picking:

And picking:

We have no shortage of tomatoes.

The sunflowers are making a meager but sweet show:

The menfolk have devoted great time to Assembling Things Without Reading the Instructions:

I contributed by almost kicking this across the shop:

Rather than attempt to help, I lay low and snapped the occasional picture. Can you tell what we have here?

Now do you know?

Simulated wind:

If it hadn't started raining just now, this windmill would be riding out to the pond to start its aerating duties. Maybe tomorrow?

There is one other piece of news that needs sharing. Remember the contest? I asked you to come up with names for my two main sock yarn, the superwash wool/nylon and the superwash wool/bamboo/nylon.

As it turns out, I didn't make any decisions. From the beginning, I had my own idea of naming the wool/nylon yarn Long Trail, as this hiking trail runs the length of Vermont and seems appropriate for a sock yarn dyed in Vermont. But no one else mentioned this, so maybe it's just not a good idea. I did hear tons of great suggestions for the yarns but nothing that totally grabbed me, maybe because I'm still hesitant to name the yarn at all. I don't want to create more confusion; I'd just like to have a "brand" identity with my yarns (listen to me! Yikes.).

Anyway, since I couldn't decide whose name to choose, I randomly picked two comments out of a pot:

And the winners are Christine and Sharilyn, both of whom get to pick a free skein of yarn. Christine hasn't updated her blog in ages, and I haven't heard from her yet, so if anyone knows where I can contact her, please let me know.

Speaking of the shop, thing have been busy. I am officially a Louet dealer now, although I haven't set anything up yet on the website. Also, I am officially an Interweave Books dealer, too! I'm starting small, but soon you'll be seeing deals on book/yarn combos.

Business is good but time and money are limited, so I'm falling behind here. I promised spinners a fiber update and while I have posted some undyed BFL, merino/bamboo, and local alpaca to A Piece of Vermont Yarn & Fiber, I'm have yet to put up the very yummy dyed BFL and merino/bamboo bumps. Here's a teaser:

The bamboo blend in the middle will look pretty pathetic until I fluff it up a bit. But the colors are to die for. You'll see.

As for yarn, I had a little bit of inventory left after my last Kaleidoscope Yarns order, and then Helen and Norma came through town and pretty much cleaned me out. Not that I'm complaining. Norma and I had a delicious lunch in Middlebury and I've heard through the grapevine she's setting it up so I go to Vermont Sheep and Wool this year and finally get to meet Lee Ann. This sounds good to me.

So now, I have almost nothing in the shop. I have an order of undyed bamboo blend coming in, but getting to it could be an issue, as I have run out of child care several weeks before my daughter has run out of summer vacation.

It's possible I could get a lot of yarn dyed before September.

But the pigs aren't flying yet.