Erica/Jillian Yarn

My friend Erica makes the best yarn. She has a great color sense and blends colors on the fly. She puts things together that I never would, and they look fabulous. My friend Jillian set out to do what Erica does. She watched Erica spin and watched how she put colors together and figured out a way to explain it to me so I could do it too.

I have a stash of fiber that's so special to me that I can't bring myself to spin it. It's called the Box of Love (tm). I knew that to try this technique, I had to spin something I really, really loved - so into the BoL I went. My friend Lynne Vogel doesn't dye too much anymore, so her braids are almost sacred. They make gorgeous yarn, but they're so precious that I've had a hard time parting with them. I had 3 oz each of Blue Jean Baby and an unnamed green colorway in 75% BFL and 25% tussah silk - dreamy. I knew these were the ones.

Lynne Vogel Ltd - Blue Jean Baby

Lynne Vogel Ltd - unnamed greens

You pick 2 colorways that have at least one color in common. It's kind of hard to see (because my camera is dying) but there's an ice blue that is common to both of these. Then the trick is to strip the top down and hold a piece of each colorway while spinning. I spun a pretty thin single, knowing that I would ply it. The picture of the single below is blurry, but you get a good idea of the way the colors blend together almost giving a barber pole effect in a single.

Blurry single still on the bobbin

When you ply the 2 singles together the colors blend and swirl like an Impressionist painting (gorgeous even though I say it myself).

2-ply in the skein after washing

end weight: 5.9 oz
wpi: 12
fiber: 75% blue faced leicester/25% tussah silk

Fiber Festivals 2012

Here's the list of festivals I want to do next year:

January 28

Winter Wine & Wool, Jackson, Michigan

May 19

Michigan Fiber Fiesta, Greenville, Michigan

July 28-29

Castle Farms Fiber Festival, Charlevoix, Michigan

August 17-19

Michigan Fiber Festival, Allegan, Michigan

September 29-30

Northern Michigan Lamb & Wool, West Branch, Michigan

October 27-28

Fiber Expo, Ann Arbor, Michigan

I've applied and been accepted to Winter Wine & Wool and Northern Michigan. I will be applying before the end of the year to every place else. Castle Farms is already wait listing vendors so I'll be hoping someone has to back out of their commitment for that one.

It's an ambitious list. I'm hopeful that if I commit early, I'll gain momentum. Next up, signage.

Book Review: "The House at Sea's End"

The House at Sea's End (Ruth Galloway #3), Elly Griffiths
originally published: 10 January 2012 (I read a review copy)
finished: 11 November 2011


The third in Ruth Galloway book is a wonderful addition to the series. There are several things I love about these books: the setting (bleak English coast), Ruth's job (forensic anthropology), and the characters. They are regular human beings - no one is a super hero - they could be the people you see on the bus every morning, just going about their lives.


In this installment, Ruth is back from maternity leave and is juggling her feelings about new motherhood with going back to teaching and catching a new case. Griffiths neatly ties what's going on to a previous point in Ruth's past - giving us a little insight into Ruth's present. I found the story line that ties back to World War II very interesting. Clearly the war is still on the minds of many Brits - much more than for Americans. There are some twists and turns, and I can never figure out who the criminal is, but it was a good ride.


Griffiths is getting better and better at telling her stories. While I object to the way she constantly lets us know that Ruth is fat and feels badly about it, it's clear that she does care about her main character. The other characters are developing as well. I hope Cathbad continues to show up, he's great comic relief in his flowing cape. Well worth the time spent reading and I'm looking forward to Ruth's next adventure.

Art in the Park

I've done this show since its beginning. My friend Kate Kehoe organizes it and the table fee is basically a fund raiser for the senior center where the show is held. She does one in the fall and one in the spring. Every show I wait and wait to see if I want to spend the table fee to get myself in. Every time I miss the deadline and Kate drops me an e-mail, "Are you interested? You've got a table if you want one!" So I send in my table fee. My proceeds from the spring show barely covered the table fee and gas to get over there (it's about 40 minutes from my house). 


With a sense of impending doom this morning, I got the girls up, we packed the car, and drove over there. We were an hour early - for some reason I thought it started at 10! We drank some bad hot chocolate and ate some bad donuts and muffins to kill a little time before we could set up. I was annoyed and irritated at every little thing and I think it was because we had done all this work and I wasn't expecting anything from the show. I always say, "even if it's a bad show, I get to spin for a whole day, uninterrupted and that's good enough". But if I'm honest with myself, it's not enough. The time spent to dye and package all my wares, hauling it all over and setting up a booth in addition to smiling and being pleasant for an entire day is kind of a lot of work. Pleasant isn't really my nature and I'm quite solitary so making small talk (with other vendors as well as customers) is hard for me. 


Turns out, it was worth it. I took Erica's advice and made sure to greet everyone and actually talk to them. I looked for something to compliment (great sweaters, cool boots, interesting necklace), asked if they were knitters and/or spinners, told them they couldn't just look - they had to touch, etc. It was fun - if I can make a sort of game out of it I enjoy it a lot more. Now, while my fellow vendors were my best customers, I did manage to sell a couple of skeins of handspun and that ALWAYS makes me happy. I managed to make back the booth fee, buy a tank of gas, and have $$ left over!


I do like doing this show. It's in a very supportive neighborhood, my sister always brings me a latte, and the other vendors are amazing. However, this is one of the shows that I have to think about really hard for 2012. Is it really worth my time and effort if I'm aiming to do larger shows? I love supporting Kate and the seniors, but how valuable is it for me?

Fiber Shows

I've been doing a couple of small shows for the last couple of years. I didn't start dyeing because I'd make a lot of money. I started dyeing because I love the colors, so small shows have suited me fine. As long as I made my costs back, I was happy.

 This last August I did what was recommended as a good show. It wasn't. Something good did come out of it, however. It was a multi-day show and I asked a friend to come and booth sit with me. She's a graphic artist and works in marketing. As the show was slow, we had a lot of time to chat. She gave me tons to think about regarding future shows, marketing, what my booth looks like, and how I react to customers.

 Here's the tip of the iceberg of what I need ASAP:

1. Signage (seriously - I have no signs) 
2. Table coverings that match (and don't look like I got them from a flea market) 
3. A booth layout (a designed plan for a 10x10 space) 
4. A show plan that includes how many and which shows I want to do 
5. An inventory plan (including fiber bases and colorways) 

 Future needs include:

1. A long term business plan 
2. New camera to take better pictures 

Some of these things will be easy (and even fun) to do. Others will require some soul searching and hard work. I think I'm ready for it. Nothing makes me happier than splashing dye, except maybe when people come to my booth especially to show me what they've made from the fiber they bought last time. That's great fun!

(Is anyone else having trouble with Blogger these days? It's being very wonky and not letting me format on a consistent basis.)

Noooooooooooo

View of the back deck

Power Outage

There was a big storm blowing through tonight. Wind, some rain, 20 degree temperature drop in 3 hours - the works. I was worried all the way home from our field hockey banquet that our power would be out. I was right. 

We all stomped around being pissy and lighting candles. I called the Hub (who is currently in Florida) for instructions on how to start the generator and called in to report the outage. And then, the power came back on. Just like that. 

The next time I complain about it always being hard, someone needs to slap me upside the head and remind me of this moment. It was easy and I'm now toasty warm and the lights are on.

Shoulder Pain

I love to swim and had to stop several years ago because of right shoulder pain that turned out to be a torn rotator cuff. I had to have surgery (which was the most painful thing ever) and it scared me off swimming.

This spring a co-worker and I signed up for the gym on campus and convinced each other it was time to move. I decided since my right shoulder hasn't given me any problems since surgery, it could handle some swimming - so I took the plunge and LOVED it. We went 2-3 times per week and were having a great time. A couple of weeks ago my left shoulder stated hurting. I eased off the swimming, but the pain didn't go away - time for a doctor's visit. (I suspected it was another torn rotator cuff and was trying to fool myself into thinking it would heal on its own.)

The doctor told me to stop swimming completely and she gave me a requisition for an Xray and a prescription for PT. The office called today and told me it was "degenerative joint disease". A quick Google search tells me that's doctor-speak for osteoarthritis. This is a condition where the cartilage that prevents bones from rubbing together wears out. It seems I've won the lottery - most people don't get osteoarthritis until after age 50 (and I'm not there yet).

The shoulder is really an amazing joint in that the humeral head doesn't actually have something to fit into like your femoral head does. The whole thing is held together with muscles, tendons, and ligaments - that's how you have such phenomenal range of motion. From where my pain is located, I'm assuming I have acromial-clavicular osteoarthritis - so my collar bone and the tip of my shoulder blade are rubbing against each other and causing the pain.

What's the treatment? Physical therapy (scheduled already) and probably some sort of occupational therapy to learn how to move better without the pain. I won't even get any good pain killers! The best treatment is NSAIDs or plain old Ibuprofen. I guess it was just a matter of time; my mother has arthritis all over. It just kind of sucks in that I've found some exercise that I love and I'm prevented from doing it.

ATC #02

Lisa and I played for several hours with our inaugural ATCs. (Of course, I also had to check out her studio and while she mostly loves making art at her dining room table, she also has a way cool nook in her well-lit basement.)

This was my second attempt. I choose another ATC that I had put gesso on thickly and swirled with the paint brush.

Layer 2: I used 4 different watercolor crayons to lay on color, mixing some (orange and red in the lower right) and leaving others alone (yellow in the upper left). There's a green border around the outside of the card.

The beautiful thing about watercolor crayons is - when you add water, they bleed and blend and swirl together in the most amazing way. If you use just a little water, you get great control. More water and they tend to run together in really beautiful ways.

Layer 3: I had some green gems with silver borders. So I put those on the card and began to draw around them with the acrylic paint. The edges were too harsh - the marker tips didn't lend themselves to blending at all. So I colored over those with a lighter green watercolor pencil. I didn't wet that part because it softened up the acrylic paint and I was afraid water would wash off the fuzziness.

This one is definitely not finished yet. I'm not sure where it's going to go, but it's looking for something to go into one of the corners without the gems. I'll show it again when it's finished.

ATC #01

I went to my friend's house and she was so interested in the artists' trading cards, that's all we worked on. Here is my first:

Please excuse the slight fuzziness of the photo. Our digital camera is on its last legs and the screen was all wonky when I went to take the picture. I think I need to add something for scale as well, but there it is.

I'm not exactly sure it's finished, but it's finished for now.

Instructions:
1. Layer 1: cover ATC with gesso and create some sort of texture (I think I just put on a lot of the gesso and swirled it with the paint brush)

2. Layer 2: cover the gesso with acrylic paint in marker form. (I used several different colors in random shapes and sizes. I wanted something that would just be background - then I covered that background with a green acrylic.)

3. Layer 3: tear small rectangular pieces from green cardstock, create a tree trunk with brown, create a sun with orange. I used cardstock that had a white core because I wanted the white to show through and I tore the paper so that it did. I poured out a big splotch of white glue and kind of dredged the paper through the glue before adding it to the ATC.

When it was all dry, I took some sand paper to the whole thing. It distressed the tree trunk beautifully and scraped off some of the acrylic as well. I do like the way it turned out, but there may still be something I need to add after I live with it a while.

Daily Creativity

I've been thinking a lot about doing something daily to just be creative - to play, really. I have tons of supplies from my scrapbooking days and have been looking at Artist Trading Cards. This is a form of art that's about the size of a baseball card, but is personally created. The scale is tiny (2.5 x 3.5), so doing one every day is completely within my scope. The problem for me is ... getting started. I have the cards, I have tons of materials, I just can't sit down and DO it.

On Friday, I took my girls out for dinner and just as we were sitting down, a co-worker hailed me from another table. I saw him and immediately started looking for his wife, who's a collage artist. We've been trying to get together for months now for her to give me a tutorial on collage. She said, "Geez, we need to schedule some time. Next weekend is bad and the weekend after that is bad too!"

I said, "Then it's Thanksgiving!"

She looked at her husband and then at me and said, "What about Sunday?"

He nodded his head and I said, "I'll be in town for brunch at another friend's house - Sunday afternoon will work!"

So, I'm busy gathering my supplies and creating an artist box to take with me so she can show me her techniques. I have something like 40 blank cards in my hands right now and I ordered a couple dozen more. You can get them at local craft places, but I've also ordered some from Dick Blick. I think it's reasonable to do one every day and see where it all goes.

I've put some Gesso on 10 cards and I'm hoping they'll be dry before I leave tomorrow. I'll take those as well as some that haven't been treated with anything. In my artist box is paper, some Mod Podge, and some other odds and ends that may be useful. I can't wait to get started!

Campus Visit

Tomorrow I take my youngest for her first campus visit. It's a small, liberal arts college here in the midwest. She doesn't want anything too big and eventually (thinks she) wants to do physical therapy. It seems like a good place to get a well-rounded education that will set her up right for graduate school. The other couple bonuses are, it has a field hockey team and it's only about 1.5 hours away. I just want to get a feel for the campus - see how the kids interact with each other, how much a part of the surrounding community it is, how big it is, are the buildings old and covered with ivy or brand new and all glass, etc.

When it came time for my son to look - he wasn't interested. He wanted Big 10 and as soon as he got accepted to MSU, he was done applying (he was fortunate enough to be invited to apply early, so got the acceptance early). I wasn't convinced such a big place was good for him. Turns out, I was half right. He stumbled and fell during his first 3 semesters, but realized what he had done and took some summer classes to make up for it. He seems to have turned it around and is making huge efforts to get back on track.

My daughter never had it as easy as my son. She struggled early to get the hang of reading and it took her so long that she struggled with everything else as well. The bonus here is that she got some terrific help and created some lifelong study habits that she'll take with her when she goes to college. I don't worry that she can do it (I know she can). I worry that I can't do without her.

I find these last couple of high school years bittersweet. She's a fabulous kid and has been since we brought her home from the hospital. She's ready to go now and while she hasn't hit the "terrible teens", I'm sure we'll have some trying times ahead. She's my Sassy girl and even when we're on each other's last nerve, at the end of the day, she's the only one I want.

Migraine

I've always had headaches. Seriously, ever since I can remember I've had them. In high school, the doctors thought it was because I needed glasses. So I got glasses. Still got headaches. The older I got, the more severe they got until I had the classic migraine - flashing lights, nausea, photophobia - the whole nine yards. These necessitated trips to the emergency department and 3 different (massive) shots. They'd give me anti-nausea meds, anti-dilation meds, and pain meds. On those trips, all I wanted was to be back in my own bed with a waste paper basket next to me.

Between my 2 kids, they changed to visual disturbances. The first one made me think I was having a stroke. These start as a pinpoint in the center of my eye (usually only 1). The pinpoint gets bigger and bigger until it moves out of my vision altogether. The thing sort of looks like a backwards, vibrating C, shot through with metallic colors (green, blue, red, and silver). There's usually no pain, but it feels like someone closed all the windows in my head and started smoking cigars in there. Disorienting, but I can function.

About 3 years ago, the classic migraines came back. I went to the doctor and asked for some of those new triptan drugs. And they work - with a couple of caveats:

•  You have to KNOW you're having a migraine and get the meds on board within a few minutes or the vessels dilate and there's no stopping them. Then you just take giant pain meds and hope for the best (which for me is a pretty intense headache that lasts for about 3 days).
• If you're NOT having a migraine, you get a giant rebound headache from the meds. So you end up taking milder pain meds and it goes away after a couple of hours (or a day at the most).

Here's what I know about my migraines:

• They're cyclical, so they're tied to my hormone levels. Since I no longer have the equipment that tells me my hormones levels are fluctuating, I forget about them. Which sometimes leaves me without my meds nearby.
• Sometimes, food tastes funny. Not bad, just "off" somehow. A couple of months ago, nothing tasted right about 2 days before the headache started. I knew it was coming, so I was ready for it, but it doesn't always happen this way.
• About 1 in every 6 headaches is going to throw me right on my ass. I am literally in bed with an eye mask and a clear path to the bathroom because all I'll be doing for 3 days is sleeping and vomiting.
• Wine can sometimes trigger them if I drink without also drinking a glass of water for each glass of wine. 
• They mostly occur on the left side of my head, but will occasionally swing to the right.

Is it time for me to have another talk with my doctor about these? I don't know. I can usually cope. During the epic ones, I swear I'm going to talk to her. Then it passes and I'm fine again for a while. The thing is, there isn't really a hard and fast pattern - no way of knowing the classic ones from the visual ones until they hit. 

I also have to say, those of you who don't get them don't understand. I work with people who say they've never had a headache (lucky). Then there are those people who think you're shirking when you've moving slow because there's a vise crushing your head. They can't see it, so it doesn't exist.

I'm on day 3 of the cycle today. Didn't have the meds on Monday, so I suffered. When I get home, I'm going to lie down in a dark room, keep flipping my pillow over to the cool side, and be happy that I escaped with a mild one this time.

Wovember

Stop me if you've heard this one.... My sister used to go to a needlepoint store that was half needlepoint and half knitting. It was right around the corner from where she worked. One Christmas, she drew my name in the family exchange and gave me a small needlepoint canvas with all the thread needed to complete it. It was fun, helped pass the time so when I finished, I asked her to take me into the store for another one. While I was looking around for a canvas, I was enchanted by the yarn - but I didn't know how to knit.

Over a couple months' time, I kept going in to look at the yarn. They had a child's Peter Rabbit sweater. It was mostly white with a giant, intarsia Peter Rabbit in the middle of the front. I loved that sweater. They wouldn't let me buy it, "Sorry, that's a shop sweater and we can't sell it. It comes in kit form though."

I said, "I don't knit."

They said, "Honey! We'll teach you." And then signed me up for Saturday morning classes.

I figured that I'd knit one sweater, hate it, and be done. What happened was I got sucked into the world of fiber and let me tell you, I fell hard. Within a couple of months, I was searching for a spinning teacher because I wanted to make my own. Then I started taking any class or workshop I could get myself to (knitting, spinning, weaving). Dyeing came next and voila, 20+ years later, I'm still doing it. I just finished a sweater over the weekend, I have an Etsy shop that sells the fiber and yarns I dye, I'm making plans to travel to a wool show in Maryland next year, and my best friends all share the same passion I do for all things wool.

What's Wovember? It's a way of life. How often do you wear wool and not even think about where it came from? Time to praise sheep and all things wooly. Don't tell me wool makes you itch - you're just not wearing the right kind. It's getting cold and trust me, it's going to be a long, long winter. Go dig out those sweaters, mittens, and blankets. Better yet, dig out that old knitting project that you gave up years ago because "it was just too hard" and have a go again. Find a yarn shop or ask a friend to help you (I LOVE to teach people). There's nothing better than pulling on a hand-knit pair of socks or wrapping up in a luxurious scarf. Keep yourself warm this long winter and praise the sheep!

Best Weekend Ever!

I have a posse. They are women I've know for a while (from 2 to 16 years) and we all share a passion for knitting and/or spinning. Last year, we were bummed out because we couldn't afford to go to the Spin Off Autumn Retreat (SOAR) even though it was practically in our back yard. We decided we could have our own retreat, and we did. We call it BLAR (Black Lake Autumn Retreat) even though BLAR II was in April this year.

BLAR was last weekend. We left on Thursday morning and all met up at ... Black Lake. Here's the count, by the numbers:

9 women (and one baby)
4 days
2 lbs of M&Ms
7 six packs of beer (2 different versions of Guinness!)
7 lbs of bacon (we ate bacon at every meal on Friday and Saturday)
20 movies (including Bridesmaids, Jane Eyre, Persuasion, Kinky Boots, and The Secret of Road Inish)
several pounds of fiber spun
1 sweater seamed up
countless minutes of breathless laughter

Mmmmmmmmm!

I LOVE these women. We never fail to have a good time together and every time I approach BLAR weekend, I worry that I won't have as much fun as last time. Every time I come home, I think, "THAT was the best one ever." Re-entry has been hard. It's only Tuesday and I'm already thinking about sleeping in on Saturday. But, I'm looking forward to April 2012 for the next Best! Weekend! Ever!