The first thing I did when I woke up Friday morning was to check the weather.  Nor’easter? Six Inches of SNOW in Binghamton?  Not a good omen.  But that doesn’t stop the Weather Witch

The car and camper were packed and ready to roll.  Rachel got to the house around 10:30am – we loaded in her stuff and we were on the road.  We had expected the worst weather wise, but as we hit the Berkshires the sun peeked out from the cloudy skies and there were even patches of blue ahead.  “Enough to make a Dutchman a pair of pants”, as my Grandmother used to say.

We arrived at the campsite and got it all set up and ready.  We just couldn’t figure out how to turn on the heat.  I had brought along a small electric space heater just in case.  Fortunately some fellow campers stopped by and showed us how it worked.  HEAT!  YAY!   Rachel and I shared a snack then decided to take a little nap after our long drive and hard work setting up camp.

That evening we headed off to Rhinebeck to meet up with our knitting buddies, Amy, Britney, Liz and Liz’s son, Chris (although not officially a knitting bud, still one of the ‘family’).  We had an awesome dinner at Foster’s Tavern.  Then we all headed off to our perspective accommodations and to bed with dreams of fiber fantasies dancing in our heads.

We got back to our camp around 10pm, fired up the heater and crawled into our beds, anxious to get good nights sleep and to be up and at the festival grounds before the gates opened at 9am.

Up early and after a quick coffee and muffin – we were on the road to the festival.  We thanked the Goddess Asphaltia for awesome parking and for running into Amy and Britney as we got out of the car.  We were all in the park by 9:15am.

Let the Fiber Fantasy begin.  Rachel and I started with the Alpaca and a quick trip to the Little Barn Tent.  Last year Brian and I had stumbled upon this vendor at the end of the day and although we acquired lots of goods it was clear it was picked clean and we had missed some good stuff.  This year, Rachel and I SCORED!

We managed to get through the Little Barn tent and at least 4 barns before we had to take a trip to the car to unload.

Alpaca and Angora… YUMMY!

Yes, Jena, I did pet some cute Llama’s and Alpacas for you.  They were so cute.

Is that a face of a Babydoll or what?

The two things that I really wanted to acquire were a lovely spindle (I found two must haves), and I was hoping to find a nice fleece.

The one on the left is a Tom Forrester Spindle with a Spalted Maple whorl with an Oak Shaft – it spins like a dream.  The one on the right is a Lily Spindle.  Its three layers of different woods, Cherry in the center, Walnut on the edge, and on the bottom is Olive wood.   These are made by Gilbert Gonsalves who also makes the gorgeous Robin Spinning Wheels.  Since I will probably never own one of his gorgeous wheels, I was happy to get one of his spindles.   They are both just beautiful.

As you can see I really scored on the spindles, but what about the fleece?

On the ride down Rachel had told me about a black fleece she and Amber had to give up last year, so I got this idea in my head that I wanted to find a fine, dark fleece this year.

Having hit most of the barns and grabbing a yummy Gyro wrap, we headed over to stand in line for the fleece sale so we could get a good shot at a top fleece when the doors opened.  Fines to the right front… I headed directly there.  The first dark fleece I spotted was really nice, but had those white nits on some of the locks that you can never get out… the second one – in the back….  SCORE!  I grabbed it and didn’t let go.  Its 4 lbs. 7 oz. of a Dark Merino Lamb, Coated fleece.  I don’t think I have ever seen anything so lovely.

After the fleece sale, we had been through most if not all of the barns, had spent all of our fiber dollars and the dogs were barking.  What we both really wanted to do was go back to the camper, have some munchies and play with our new fiberlicious acquisitions.  This is exactly what we did.

As we munched our fresh baguette smeared with brie, fresh apple slices and enjoyed our Jack with Cokes, we knit, we were toasty warm, and we listened to the pending weather reports of doom for the next day.  By 10 pm we were done in.

The next morning we were up early, with dark grey skies, and looming bad weather (and the fact we wanted to get home so we could play some more with our fibery purchases) we packed up and headed out.  Stopping for breakfast at a diner in Saugerties, the temperature was cold and the clouds really look ominous.  I was glad to be on the road early.

We hit rain just a little before the exit off the NY Thruway towards Boston.  By the time we hit the Berkshires the snow flakes were so big and wet it was like getting wacked with snowballs.  But the traffic kept moving at a fairly even pace and we were home by 1pm.

It was a perfect weekend and I cannot wait to do it again next year!

And then we are on our way to Rhinebeck!  I keep checking the weather reports and it is going to be cold, cold, cold.  But now it’s saying that there might be snow on Friday.   I really don’t want to tow the camper and set up in snow so I would appreciate anything my weather witchy friends could do to ‘adjust’ the weather.

Last Saturday I was heading over to my studio to do some more dyeing of our misc. skeins for the sale bin.  I decided to swing by GrotonFest to see my friends whose daughter had a booth there to sell her tissue paper flowers.  When I called she said she was located next to the alpaca I practically ran.

Next to her was St. Isidore’s Alpaca Farm from Lunenburg, MA – OMG! They were so cute – sorry no pics I forgot my camera.  I asked what then did with all their fleece and they send it out and have it processed and spun into yarns.  They had lots of beautiful alpaca yarns for sale, but then out of the corner of my eye at the end of their table….  white fluff in a basket?  Is this Cria?  Yes it is!  Quickly I checked my wallet to see how much cash I had on me.  I managed to scrape up enough to purchase 4 oz. of this.

When I got home later I picked it (little or no VM) and separated the longer (3-4″) locks from the shorter (1-2″) ones and picked out a few second cuts.  Then I wrapped the longer locks in mesh and set them to soak in soapy (Unicorn Fiber Wash) warm water for about an hour, then rinsed and laid them out to dry.

It feels like cashmere or Angora… it’s that fluffy.  I am thinking of blending this with some other luxury fibers (cashmere, yak down, baby camel) that I have in my stash.

Now my mission at Rhinebeck is to find the perfect spindle to spin this on.

Some other stuff I have been up to.

Mary, Laural and I had our annual Salsa Canning Weekend.  We used 40 pounds of tomatoes in the process.

Along with red and Vidalia onions, limes, garlic, poblano and jalapeno chilies.

I think this was our best batch of Salsa yet.  We got about 25 pints total out of this and more than enough for us to “taste test”.

As I mentioned before we had Lowell Open Studios and I did get the wall outside the studio lettered and painted.  It’s a little ‘off’ but it works.

There were a ton of people who came by to check out the studio, sit and knit, and eat lots of the food too.  It was a great weekend followed by the regularly scheduled Saturday Open Studio the next weekend.  Cindy and I finally made rent for the first time!  YAY!  Which is why I was back in the studio dyeing to replenish the stock for the upcoming Holiday Weekends and an Artisan Holiday Fair I’ve signed up to do on the Saturday after Thanksgiving in Westford.   So stay tuned for those announcements as I get more details.

Back to the grind now…

Wow! I have been a bad blogger   I have lots of things to blog about but no time to pull them together.

Lots of knitting, dyeing, open studios, salsa making…

But for now a beautiful picture from this weekend is all I have time for.

It’s been crazy busy,  and to paraphrase Frodo: I feel like I’m being stretched thin like butter over bread.  Too much to do and no enough (quality) time to do it in.

Work is so depressing, more layoffs, not knowing if I get to keep mine only to lose it in a month or two.  I really don’t like feeling this unstable with regard to being employed.

But with the employment I can continue to afford my pleasure – the studio!

Speaking of the studio.  I’ve been working on the outer wall.  It’s still in progress but here is what we’ve done so far.

By the way,  Saturday Open Studio is this weekend, so stop by if you are in the Lowell area.  I will be here from noon to 5pm at least, probably earlier and longer.

I’ve also finished spinning the rest of Caroline (the Alpaca) remember this from 2007 CT Sheep and Wool?

Well it now looks like this!

Sorry for the crummy phone camera shot.  I am waiting for a new lithium battery to come for my camera.  This is 100 grams, approx 568 yards of fine laceweight.

And here is the sample skein I did first.

It really wanted to be frog hair thin.  This is the two ply I got out of this.  This is about 200 yds.

I think it wants to be the Aestlight Shawl (rav link here).   But that will have to wait for now.  I really must get going on the kimono project.  More on that later.

Yes, I really have been spinning.  And I finally found my camera in the bottom of my spinning basket.

See – I finally got the hang of spindling spinning and as you can probably guess… I am addicted to spindling.  Now I have been purchasing spindles for years with the high hopes of falling in love with it.  It just took a little time to warm up to it and get the hang of it.

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve even taken to making spindles similar to this one, but I just don’t have the artistic flair to embellish them as nicely as this one is.  And one thing I have discovered that although I have a beautiful walnut spindle and another fairly fancy one.  It’s these simple spindles that work best for me.

I also dragged the wheel out, to spin some of that lovely alpaca I had carded up, only because it was so lovely and I still have more control with the wheel than I do with the spindle.   So let me share my two skeins.  On the left is the alpaca.  See how thin and lovely it spun up.  On the right is the corriedale cross I picked up this year at NHSW.  Both of these are two ply.

Only 4 more days until we go camping!!!!  Now I just need to decide what fiber to bring with my spindle

Finally summer weather!  This weekend was perfect – mid 80s, low humidity, cool evenings perfect for sleeping.  I am ignoring the few leaves at the tops of trees that are starting to get that tinge of red.  Today it’s in the 90s and the humidity is beastly.

Since Saturday,  looked like it was going to be perfect weather all day, I washed this.

Remember this?  It’s the California Red wool fleece we got this past spring.  It’s lovely and although I was disappointed that there is not a hint of red.  It cleaned up nicely and the crimp is great and it’s very soft, so  it looks like it will card and spin up into something lovely.  Once I got it rinsed and laid out on the back deck to dry, I headed over to the studio.

I love when it’s cool and quiet at the studio.  It was so nice, I decided to spend most of the day there enjoying the cool breezes, a large Dunkin Donut’s Iced Coffee, NPR’s Prairie Home Companion on the radio and coloring fiber.  I finished dyeing at least 18 skeins and I carded up some luscious grey alpaca.  The alpaca is the one I got at the CT S&W in 2007!   It was rather dusty when I first got it and I did rinse it several times last year, it’s still a little dirty but not too bad.   It carded up beautifully.  I only ran it through the carder twice and there was hardly any veggie matter.

Last week I had made 8 simple drop spindles from 2 1/2 inch wooden wheels and dowels.  So I put together some Learn To Spindle kits – one drop spindle, a few ounces of fiber and written instructions.  I was going to try to embellish the spindles but I’m running out of time.

I would love to get Lee, from the studios to teach me how to turn wood to make some spindles… or even better con talk him into making spindles.  His wood work is gorgeous!

My friend Alicia and I are planning on playing with a glass melting kiln that works in a microwave.  I’m thinking glass whorls for spindles and buttons!

So many ideas, so little time.

All this is in preparation of the Lowell (city-wide) Open Studios on the weekend of September 26th and 27th.

Then Saturday night I took Alicia’s daughter (who was home alone) to see Julie and Julia.  We both thoroughly enjoyed the movie.  Who knew Julia was not only passionate about food, but passionate about life and love too.  I should have known.  Now I am looking forward to reading her biography and memoir.

Of course after a movie of all that food, we were famished when we got out in spite of the popcorn we had devoured,  so we stopped for some take-home chinese. YUM!

By the time I got home I was too tired to knit or even watch TV so I just jumped into bed.  The weather was perfect for sleeping – cool and dry, so I actually slept in (8am) what a luxury.

Instead of the usual Sunday morning ritual of coffee in the sunroom with the talking head political show(s).  I got ready and headed back to the studio to re-skein the now dried skeins that I had dyed the day before and card a little more of that alpaca.  Cindy stopped by to pick up the finished skeins and some fiber cones to wind off into more skeins to be over-dyed.  87 more to be exact.

Again it was a lovely quiet day so I cleaned up the mess I had made the day before, and called it a day.

A quick stop to pick up some salad fixings and I actually got home in time to have an early dinner (grilled steak, fresh salad, and baked potato).

Before I settled my butt in front of the TV for the evening,  I dragged out my wheel from the corner of the room, dusted it off, oiled it and dragged out all the singles that were languishing in my spinning basket and plyed them up (1 skein of a brillant white romney, 1 skein of charcoal shetland) then the carded alpaca started calling to me.  This stuff is divine!  It’s spinning thinner than anything I’ve ever spun before – real frog hair.  I think it wants to be a shawl.  Like I said there was little veggie matter, and I had rinsed this a few times when I first got it, but it’s still a little dirty.   I finally had to force myself to stop and go to bed.

Tonight I will spin the other two batts, ply the singles and wash up the sample skein.

And now the start of yet another busy week filled with getting the car fixed (fan belt needs replacing), dentist appointments, and getting packed to go camping.

I’m so excited that Grace and I are taking the pop-up camper on it’s maiden trip to Hermit Island for a week.  I cannot wait and hope to hell the weather stays like this!  I doubt that I am going to make it to Fiber Revival or not, probably not as that is the last day to pack up the camper and care.

I think I will just have to settle for doing some demo spinning at the Westford Farmers Market tomorrow afternoon with some of the ladies from the Westford Spinning Group.

Last Thursday we went to Lowell’s Boarding House Park to see Joan Baez.  It was a great show!  She sang Joe Hill, Silver Dagger, Christmas in Washington, Diamonds and Rust.  She mimiced Dylan in Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright and finished off the encore with The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.  AWESOME!

Chili Relleno Casserole

Preheat to 350F  – butter a 9 x 13 baking dish.

5-8 Poblano Chilies – roast, seed, peel and chop into 1″ pieces

3 (small) cans of mexican chopped chilies – drain well.

2.5 -3 cups grated monterey jack cheese

2.5 – 3 cups grated cheddar or colby cheese

In a blender:

6 large eggs

1 cup evaporated milk

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cumin

Blend until foamy.

Starting with a mix of the peppers make a layer 1/3 of the peppers in the baking dish, then one third of the cheeses, continue to layer for 2 more times, ending with the cheese.  I compacted the peppers and cheese just a little bit.

Then pour the egg mixture over the top.

Bake for 45 mins to an hour until set in the middle and brown on the edges.

Let sit for 20 minutes before serving.

Easy Peasy Cornbread

Preheat to 350F – butter an 8 x 8 pan

1 pkg of  Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix

1 pkg of Jiffy Yellow Cake Mix

Add 2 eggs and 3/4 cup of buttermilk

Mix well pour into buttered pan

Bake 20-25 minutes

As soon as it comes out of the oven, in a small boil mix 1 tsp. sugar with 1/4 tsp. salt and sprinkle the mixture lightly over the hot bread.  Let sit to cool for 20 minutes then cut and serve.

SEE!  I really am knitting!  Sorry for the blurry cellphone photo.

Basic Sock Pattern with a seed stitch ribbing and a flap heel.  I don’t like ribbing or any pattern on my foot, so I keep it simple on the feet.  These were really mindless to knit but satisfying too.

Malabrigo Sock Indecita I think is the colorway.  I love this sock yarn.  I hope it’s durable yarn too.

The fireworks in Groton were spectacular as usual.  There were a lot more people  attending this year.     Maybe it was because it was a Monday night, or maybe it was the lack of other fireworks in the area that were cut due to budget restraints.

We had fun on the fourth with friends, and lots of food!

I brought shrimp to grill.

1  package frozen Emeril’s Louisiana Shrimp (Jumbo) raw, cleaned and shell off.  These are American wild shrimp and they taste better than the other shrimp.  Defrost in fridge overnight.

Then about an hour before you are going to grill them, rinse the shrimp well and add your favorite marinade.  I used a yummy Cajun Citrus Marinade that I found in the store.  I did add some extra lime juice and lime zest.  It’s very spicy!  I reserved  about a 1/4 cup of the marinade and mixed that with about a 1/2 cup of mayonnaise to use as a dip for the shrimp.

Grill them 3-4 minutes per side or just until firm and pink.  Don’t over cook!

I also made a Szechuan Cold Noodle Salad

1 lb. cooked and cooled angel hair pasta

Dressing

3 tbsp. tahini

3 tbsp. tamari sauce

2 tsp. sesame oil

1 tsp.  thai chili sauce (or more to taste)

2 cloves of garlic- grated

1 inch knob of ginger – freshly grated

mix well then toss the noodles in and coat well

Add whatever veggies you like – I used

1 chopped cucumber (unseeded)

1 chopped red pepper

1 stalk chopped celery

1 cup mung sprouts

3 – 5 scallions chopped (green parts too)

handful of grape tomatoes halved or quartered

Chill and server cold or room temperature.

I was hoping for leftovers, but there weren’t any.

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I have been working on the malabrigo socks.  Unfortunately the ball o’ yarn has become a tangled mess and I’ve been avoiding dealing with it.

No spinning – no Tour d’ Fleece sadly – not from lack of fiber, just the lack of time right now.

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Best quote that I heard from a friend of mine.

“I’m not afraid of death….  I just want to save it to the very end.”

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Hermit Island in 40 days!

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