Hi, all. What a busy and wonderful weekend it was!

Spinning Guild
Saturday morning, Tony picked me up and we went to Spinners Flock guild in Chelsea, Michigan. It’s about an hour and I like the drive talking to Tony, as much as the guild. This time we didn’t have to rush back to Lansing because I didn’t have to work at 2pm. Foster Center is closed weekends during the summer. So we chatted until the place was nearly empty, and we had our fill of conversation.

Tasty Lunch
We decided to go to Ann Arbor for lunch. We like to go to Whole Foods market, where they have a deli that is out of this world! Remember, I have this huge list of foods I can not eat, so many places are out of the question. This deli has all sorts of healthy and vegetarian foods, and all the foods are labeled with ingredients in the deli case so I can actually try several different items. It is great.

I had a sesame extravaganza: Baked sesame tofu (this was absolutely fabulous, I wish I could cook tofu to be even edible and this is positively gourmet). Then I got emerald sesame greens which is kale and garlic and sesame plus a few other flavors. Yum. And I got a sesame broccoli stir fry as well. Then I got a cookie that I could actually eat (no milk/butter or eggs or corn/shortening is a pretty tall order if you are baking) and I was in heaven! Tony got a greek spinach pastry and chicken pasta salad, and some dessert I can’t remember right now.

I got some european black licorice and some good japanese twig tea as well, and picked up a dill plant (two years ago I planted dill and it went nuts, last year I couldn’t even find a dill plant… this one was sort of tired and yellowing so I’m hoping for the best). I was in heaven.

Then we had to hurry home so that I would be there in time for Anne to pick me up for the Habibi concert in Dearborn! I got home 10 minutes before Anne came over, it was a dash to grab a costume and makeup so that I wouldnt’ make anyone late.

Dancing in Dearborn
We (Habibi Dancers) danced at the Arab International Festival in Dearborn, Michigan. It is my favorite venue all year. I love the crowd, the festival, the atmosphere. The people really enjoy us, they really know what we are doing and really appreciate it.

Our costumes sometimes confuse them, though, because we don’t wear what they might wear in Egypt or Lebanon… we make up a sort of glitzy style that sometimes includes fake coins and sometimes beads, and sometimes mirrors. The mirrors they think of as a decoration for camels! Coins mean “gypsy” or something sort of like it… which can be positive or derogatory depending on who you ask (we do learn dances from peoples whose culture earns most of their money dancing, and they do decorate themselves with their wealth for a number of reasons). So people often stop and ask who we are, what our costumes mean. (Picture is me as Eudora in a costume, part of which started as the top of a three-piece Indian outfit I got in Chicago. I made harem pants instead of the ones that came with it. Last I added a hip wrap which is a velvet shawl I got at the Asian market and added Indian bells around it.)

I spent time talking with several folks explaining to them them that we are Americans who do this type of dance because we honor and love the dance and the culture… but that we make our own costumes most of the time, they are not from the mideast. Thank goodness one of our dancers is Lebanese, whose first language was Arabic. So in a pinch we can go get her and she can explain further.

During the concert, one young lady maybe 8th or 9th grade, took a liking to me. She came in on the side of the tent where the dancers were rather than sitting where there was a better view of the show. She was so excited that she knew most of our songs! She told me that she had been in the US (from Lebanon) only about a year and that she just loved our music. She said that she didn’t have too many friends at school. Poor dear was lonely, but at our concert she felt she belonged. She could sing along with all the music, and clap and enjoy herself. She spontaneously hugged me several times, and she hugged my dance director as well, after her solo.

At the end of the show the young lady insisted on giving me her bracelet so that I could remember her. She wrote down her name for me, and the name of her sister. I gave her my business card so she could perhaps send an email from school or something. I’m glad that for one night she felt at home here in the US. It is hard enough being a kid that age, it must be much harder if your primary language is not the same as that of your teachers and a good number of your classmates. I’m wearing her bracelet right now.

Planning for Summer Handpainted Yarns & Fibers
Sunday I spent getting my ducks in a row for my summer dyeing season. I have a lot of rescheduling and planning to do, to get enough fiber/yarn dyed for the plans I have going. I’ll be selling at the Ann Arbor Art Fair, at the Ann Arbor Fiberart Guild booth. That is only in about 4 weeks. After that I have a few more plans that are not quite solid yet, and I also have to build it all onto my website so that people can buy online. (Picture is a roll of Merino-Cross Top that just finished drying, I’m pleased with the colorway.)

The First Really Summery Day
It was a great day. It hit 80 degrees which pleased me greatly. It was truly hammock weather! I got to be on the porch for a while while I was designing a sock and knitting the sample. I may have to rip it out and go up a needle size, but it is looking nice.

I got to take a walk with Brian to a local Chinese/Korean restaurant for dinner. It was very good. I still have to be careful what to order but it was delicious and I’m glad we went. Yum!

We were invited to a spontaneous gathering, friends had a bonfire and called us around dinnertime. However, I had so many other ducks to get into a row that we didn’t get out there. It would have been a great group of people, so I’m sorry we missed out.

Joy, the New Beetle, Shiny Again
Tomorrow I get my car back from the body shop, after a week. This is a gift, a delight. My beloved Joy will be “all better” and that makes me happy. (Thanks, Mom, for loaning me your car for 5 days during the busiest part of my week.)

My knitting friend, Sarah Peasley (Handknitter), came over Thursday morning for tea. What a wonderful way to start my day!

Sarah was knitting her Sally Melville sweater (the summer sweater, where part of it is knit on larger needles every other row to make it cooler). The sweater is in a manipulated garter stitch… very effective, a lovely texture. I haven’t made anything out of Sally’s books yet but I sure do love her writing style and teaching style. (I was lucky enough to take a workshop on using up stash yarns from her, in November 2001.) One of these days I will knit up a stranded-knitting sweater featured in her book “Styles.” Great book, if you haven’t seen it. It just went into paperback last year.

Anyway, I was working on the summer stole I’m making as a sample for my upcoming class (date still to be determined) at Woven Art. It is knit in garter stitch lengthwise. I was having some design issues with how to complete the stole, and because Sarah was working on her garter stitch item also, she was able to give me some very good input on what might work.

Well, I tentatively have finished the stole tonight. Sarah’s input was very helpful, and because of her I didn’t have to rip out and redo the last 10 (very long) rows.

I will take it to Nancy and see what she thinks, and try to schedule the class. There are a few things I might change about the stole, and if Nancy agrees, I’ll take it home and rip out maybe a dozen rows and reknit them. Pictures will follow when I’m sure it’s really done. It’s nice to get where I think I’ve actually completed something, though. I’m so focused on dyeing right now, with a little spinning, that it is hard to do much but stockinette sox while waiting in line, as usual.

Sweater Progress? Nope.
I did have the 20 minute wait in the allergist’s office Thursday, to play with knitting, too. The stole, having ten different yarns, was impossible to take along. Instead I took my Since-September sweater and attempted to finish off the neck facing. Unfortunately, I had time only for one good, college try, and it was too tight to get over my head. I ripped the crochet chain out and will try that again soon, I hope. Or maybe next week at the allergist’s office again!

My sister in law, Diana, sent this along from one of her fibery lists:

I just heard on another list that the owner of a brand-new yarn shop in Alameda CA had to have an emergency mastectomy .. and now she’s doing well .. but desperately needs some help in the shop. Anybody in that area who might like to have a little bit of pick-up work .

If you know someone who can help, have them email me and I’ll connect them.

After she sent me this note, I got the same basic information on the Socknitter list, from a knitter in Alameda. I don’t know anyone there, I think… but putting up the need here on this blog seemed one way I might help.

Someone on one of my knitting lists mentioned that they recently took a class on knitting in ikat style. The teacher was a fiberartist/weaver/dyer/tailor named Estelle Carlson.

I checked out a few of her works. The only pieces I see on the web are woven, rather than knitted. I wish I could see some of the knit pieces, but wowie! These are worth a good look.

Someone mentioned the Textile Workshop on one of my dyeing lists. It’s lovely stuff. I particularly like the pillows and scarves, although they even sell hand-printed fabric by the yard. Click on “Ideas and Inspiration” for a big variety of finished items.

I am trying to stay very focused on my artwork and creative activities, so I bring you a picture from the past. Last January when Brian and I visited his sister, Kathleen, and her hubby, Pedro, they took us to my favorite part of Jacksonville, Florida where they live.

The area I think is called five corners. It’s where you find retro-styled items and green hair dye, and vegetarian food. Love that place. It used to be mainly used items and now it’s getting slightly fancier where at some stores you buy new things in the style of the old things, but for many times the price. Such is life. I still love it, though, I must go there every time I’m in Jacksonville.

In one of the newer retro-furniture stores there, we saw a chair that appeared to be knit of grass or a related material. It was pretty darned cool! Here is a full sized picture and a detail of the “knit” fabric. I actually was more tempted by a chaise lounge in the front window but we had no way to fly it home with us, so we went home empty handed.

Making it Better
Someone wrote (I had a little email crash yesterday so I don’t remember who) that my picture of Brian on his birthday wasn’t flattering enough, and my pic by my New Beetle showed him up. Funny how we see things… I don’t think that is the very best pic of me.

As for Brian, I really like that picture, it shows his hair well especially… but I’m so in love with this man (OK, I’ll stop gushing) that I think he looks good, period. Any time. Any picture. And no, we’re not exactly newlyweds. We’ve been married about six and a half years. He’s just really good to me! Lucky me, as I’m sort of a handful some days.

To make it up to him, here is the official promotional photo for our duo, The Fabulous Heftones. I am pretty sure I’ve used this photo here on the blog before so I was trying to give you a bit of variety. Here he looks maahvelous, no questions asked. He doesn’t usually dress in a tuxedo, though… and I was trying to show you the mellow Brian that day. Whatever.

The Fabulous Heftones, as noted in an earlier weblog entry, will be playing next at Melott Fest at the Wheel In Campground in Leslie, Michigan. We play at noon on Sunday, June 22. This has been a fun year. Usually we play private gatherings (we have one on July 5, at someone’s home) but this year we have had a wonderful collection of public performances as well. I’m enjoying this change.

Tony’s Project
In other news, my friend Tony called today and then came over briefly. He started a new project, a fairisle swatch that probably will become a sweater, out of Ballybrae yarn. I’d never seen this yarn before, it’s nice. It reminds me of Sportweight Peace Fleece or lightweight Philosophers Wool. Little flecks of color like Donegal Tweed, but two ply. Very wooly.

I don’t know how he does it, but Tony can knit stranded with pretty long floats, and then stockinette, and not have the stranded knitting pull in at all. He can get the same gauge for the whole thing easily. His swatch looked great, and it hadn’t even been blocked.

I was so glad to see Tony today. He always makes my day. What a good friend he is, he’s on my team completely. Thanks, Tony.

I’ve Been Quiet
Maybe you noticed that I’ve not been writing as much about my adventures. I’ve had plenty… a day in the car where I knit on several socks-in-progress, and I finished one pair for my Sis-in-Law, Diana. On Brian’s birthday I finished a pair for him, as well, from Regia Stretch yarn. I don’t have pics yet, but that makes 81 pair so far.

I also went to the knit-in at Woven Art on Sunday. It was fun to see my friends Sarah, Irene and Diane (and Nancy, of course), plus one of Nancy’s daughters and a bunch of young knitters I hadn’t met before or had met in passing. We had a great time.

I’m bumming out because I am going to have to miss the Knit in at Yarn For Ewe this weekend. I will be dancing in Dearborn (which is my favorite dance venue every year… so I’m not complaining about that) and won’t probably get home in time to knit. We dance at 7:45 in Dearborn and will grab dinner before we come home. Who knows, maybe I can do the last hour as I did last month, but probably it will be just too late this time.

ColorJoy Wool Time
The biggest reason I’ve not written about my adventures, is that I’ve been trying to really focus on dyeing wool. It’s a relatively new thing for me, as far as artistic process. I have a dye studio we put together in our basement, last November. I’m getting the kinks worked out as far as where things go, and so forth. I’m having a lot of fun with the colors but I’m still pretty slow at the process.

Hopefully by really putting the blinders on I can get in a rhythm and start producing more effectively. I am selling some yarns at the Ann Arbor Fiberart Guild booth at the Ann Arbor Art Fair in mid-July, then I have some other tentative plans in August, September and March thus far. So the more efficient I can get, the more stock I can have to sell.

I’ve made some very pretty one-ounce lengths of merino-cross roving lately, they are very exciting to me. I’m playing with a few types of yarns as well. I have a computer class that cancelled this week and next, so that gives me two more nights to dye. I’m hoping that is a good omen.

My friend Lili writes about an Australian site with adventurous knitting in many colors, Women of Fibre. Check it out!

Also, Timothy Hoffman writes that he read my travelogue about the trip Brian and I took to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. It turns out he has been some of the same places we went. In fact, he stayed at the same hotel we stayed in, in Valladolid, Yucatan. (See picture.)

He writes:

I enjoyed reading about your adventures in Yucatan and would like to make you aware of my picture gallery that contains many shots of Yucatan.

I have a few shots of the courtyard/restaurant of El Meson del Marquez hotel in valladolid. Many beautiful memories.

This is one of my favorite places in the world. Do be sure to check out his photos, especially those of Valladolid. Many people do not know of this lovely place, it is not a big tourist destination. However, I really loved being there. The hotel had a wonderful restaurant and everyone was very kind to us.

Thank you, Timothy, for writing.

I love you guys, you write to me and it makes me smile. I wish sometimes that I were not so socially-oriented, but I am. I love connecting with others, and I think usually this is a good thing. Anyway…

Mary Ann S. writes (about some yarn I got online which was too dark for what I wanted but we figured out that it was perfect for her):

Remember the beautiful Jaggerspun teal yarn you won on eBay – and subsequently sold to me? Thought you’d like to see the end result…

…My circle of friends are not knitters and really don’t appreciate my ‘art’…

…The shawl is the Boundary Waters pattern. The finished piece measures
approximately 65″ square… photo has it folded and on my shoulders -
making me think of being wrapped in the Caribbean (which is why I wanted
that particular color yarn.) It weighs just a little over 4 ounces – made it
on #8 needles – and it took a few months to complete. It is one of those
things that I worked on when my husband wasn’t around and the dog wasn’t
pestering me…

…Thanks again for your kind words. I knit ALL the time – and I knit
everything imaginable – but lace knitting is my favorite.

Mary Ann, thanks for letting me know about this happy ending. Your shawl is beautiful!

Emma also wrote. She is so kind. She reminds me of things that matter, like sitting still for a moment here and there. And reminds me that a little knitting can go a long way in the mellowing-out department.

She mentions, in the nitty-gritty-knitting department, that what Elizabeth Zimmerman meant when she said thick yarn takes more than you can imagine and thin yarn less, that she was talking about weight. Thinner yarn takes more yardage but less weight, and thick yarn the opposite. That makes a lot of sense. The fat lumpy-bumpy scarf had yarn positively huge in parts, and I only had 214 or so yards but it made a substantial stole.

I am now working on a summer stole for a class I’ll be offering at Woven Art this summer. It has a very thin shiny rayon yarn as its unifying strand, with all sorts of “froofy” yarns (is froofy a word?) to go with it – shiny ribbon, eyelash of every sort, and a few others for interest. Very fun, very lively. All sorts of pinks, corals, fuschia, and a tiny bit of a soft green for variety. All handpainted by Nancy McRay. It should be great fun. Maybe you can tell from the picture of the “before” yarns, how lovely this piece will soon be.

I have had one of my two-day allergy headaches for two days. I am hoping that tomorrow it will be gone (cross your fingers for me, if you would). Meanwhile, I limp along from one appointment to the other. I’m grateful for appointments, as most of them are about earning an income. All income is a gift, really. Being self-employed doesn’t mean “being your own boss,” as is popularly believed. It means “every customer is your boss… if you are lucky enough to have customers.” Not so glamorous, but still something I enjoy and value. I have many income sources rather than one, and I don’t get bored, at least.

Art and Teaching
Enough about my mundane musings… let’s talk art. I stopped by JoAnns Fabrics where I am teaching decorative stencilling and stamping for the home, in a week. I really like my supervisor/contact person there, though I worry that she is very tired from a job that would make anyone exhausted. I am excited for a venue where I can teach different subjects than I have been teaching over and over at Foster Center. I’m also looking forward to teaching at Woven Art one of these summer days. And maybe other venues, as well. I love teaching and work is a very good thing, as noted above. I’m open to what the universe offers me. Teaching is such a high, I was born to do it. I’m excited about this change in my life.

Sara the Dancer
Tonight I went to the dance concert for my Goddaughter, Sara. My, she is turning into the loveliest of young ladies at the age of 17. I’m grateful that her mother, Jo, invites me to all sorts of events, so that I can be an actively involved Godmother. I’m so happy to be in the kids’ lives. (This fuzzy picture I took of Sara in August 2001 when we traveled together to Montreal. She is wearing a flamenco dance skirt. She just loved that skirt but it was very expensive. The shop allowed us to take a picture since she couldn’t buy the skirt, which I thought was kind.)

Sara looked so comfortable in her own skin tonight. She smiled a lot, looked confident, and looked actually like she was enjoying herself during her tap number. Ballet is difficult (she’s en pointe for the third year) but she sticks with it and looks lovelier each year. It is a very good discipline, in my opinion.

I was never good at ballet but I always found it good balancing for me, almost like meditation. (No, I never was en pointe… and it’s a good thing, since now I’m having foot trouble anyway.) If I couldn’t stay balanced on one leg while dancing, my personal life was likely unbalanced as well.

Most of the ballet classes I have taken were since I graduated from High School. It’s hard to find adult ballet classes, at least any that fit in my budget. Now that I’m in the Habibi Dancers there is little time for a second dance discipline in my life, anyway. I would like to do some basic ballet classes again someday, though, if all things worked out.

Spinning Update
I tried Navajo Plying on my new wheel tonight. It’s a process whereby you make a huge crocheted chain with your hand and then ply that chain together, making basically a 3-ply yarn in sections. Mine was overplied, no surprise, but when I washed the skein it did relax somewhat. I’m not horribly out of the ballpark. The yarn is prettier plied than it was as a single ply. It was a sort of celery and pink (from a roving exchange) and just paler than is my typical style. I’m grateful, though, because that one ounce of fiber made me 27 yards of navajo-plied yarn as a test before I started in on yarn that I really have a plan for, as far as knitting it up.

My plan was to use the 8 other fibers still on my bobbin (one ounce per color, approximately) for another stole, hopefully with the brushed teal mohair Jillian gave me the other day at Borders. I was warned that the mohair may just make the bright colors look duller, so I will swatch before deciding for sure (trust me, I have other yarns to make stoles with that will look GREAT with the mohair if this does not… I love fuzzy mohair yarn). If it all goes well, 8 (ounces) times 27 (yards per the one ounce I already measured) makes 216 yards, about the same amount of yarn I had for my lumpy-bumpy stole. I think it takes less yarn for smaller gauges (that is what Elizabeth Zimmerman said anyway) so I probably have enough to make a stole. I do have a few more handpainted rovings I can spin up for the project if need be… I stopped only because my spool got full.

The newly-plied yarn is still drying. It’s not all that interesting to look at, but perhaps I’ll get pics one of these days.

Family Saturday
Off to sleep. We have two family gatherings in Grand Rapids tomorrow, for Brian’s family. One is a graduation, one a retirement.

I am actually looking forward to the knitting time, as I have not had much of that at all this week. I knit most of the foot of a sock today waiting in line at the dance concert, and I finished some ends (not all) on my Since-September Sweater earlier in the week at CityKidz Knit! I tried to pick up on the socks for my sister in law, Diana, but got confused by stitches that had fallen off the needles so gave up easily for another day. I think I can finish the toes for one of her pair and at least get past the gussets on her second pair, tomorrow.

We’ll see what we’ll see. I’d love to finish something in the two-hour car experience. I seem to have many projects, but they are all stopped at places that need concentration, and I have no concentration to contribute most of the time.

Have a grand Saturday! (It was finally warm here today, may it stay nice for a few more days anyway.)

Can’t say much today, overwhelmed with stuff to do… but we had a great time last night at Borders in Arborland. Four of us went, Daphne, Krista, Tony and me. Krista graciously drove so that the back seat people would be more comfy (I was one and it was fine).

When we got there, my online friends Mary S., Janine, Mary, and Jillian were there. Jillian, bless her heart, brought me a large grocery bag of yarn. What a friend she is… she handed me two skeins of garnstudio silke-tweed in dark turquoise… to die for. Those are my best color in the world. It’s 52% silk and 48% lambswool, very fluffy yet shiny with a dull sheen. Yum. Two skeins, total of 400 meters.

I spent all night looking in magazines trying to find some pattern for it. I don’t have enough for anything by itself. Found two other yarns in my stash that will work well with it, now trying to figure out what it wants to be. I don’t need another project, but turquoise gets me every time. This yarn says it gets 23m and 30p in 10 centimeters square. How many stitches per inch is that? Any suggestions on what I can do with it? I have some shiny cotton from Germany in raspberry (about 5-6 skeins at 140m a skein) which looks about the same size around but the ball band doesn’t say a gauge. Oh, and I have one ball of rainbow/shiny Ironstone Paris Nights acrylic/nylon/metal which is slightly lumpy bumpy but in the same ballpark, also looks good with the first 2 yarns. I have 202 yards of that. Suggestions??? I may end up with another stole. I think I’ll have 5 or more of them before I’m done. They *are* perfect in the summer to protect against air conditioning.

She also brought me a zillion skeins of teal mohair, which she says are mine if I want them (Yes! Yes!) and some other very fine yarns that will go to my kids at Foster Center. The mohair will probably be the base yarn for the next handspun stole. The next handspun will not be as fat or lumpy, and the strands are pretty small so I’ll be plying them somehow, and then putting it with mohair. I was looking at black mohair online but the teal will be even better and I won’t have to spend a dime. Thanks, Jillian, for sharing. My pocketbook thanks you as well!

Ever had a day when the phone rang with so many telemarketers that you just got plain grumpy and cross? I think I may have started out in a grumpy mood anyway (there is no sun here today and it was 52 degrees F again, when will we ever have warmth?) but now I just need my knitting kidz who make me smile… or I’ll bite someone’s head off for no reason.

Good thing that knitting is in an hour and a half away.

I’m in trouble now. I went to Amazon to price some more used books, and since they sort of track what kind of books you read, they suggest books when you get to their home page. Evil!!! And now, there is a book called “Goddess: Martha Graham’s Dancers Remember.” Drat.

I love reading books about dancers (especially modern/contemporary/jazz dancers). I have read about Alvin Ailey, Judith Jamieson, Dorothy Bird (Bird’s Eye View, a well written book), and as many books on Martha Graham as I can find. Now this.

I’m trying to focus my alone-time and I’m not doing a very good job of it. I’m trying to stay on track with changing my primary focus to knitting and hand-dyeing animal fibers. I don’t watch TV or movies (I don’t like them at all so this is no sacrifice). I try to limit my online time but am not particularly successful at that. Perhaps I socialize too much, I seem to always be at one guild or another. And now there is a book about Martha Graham from the perspective of 30 of her dancers. How long can I resist?

By the way, in my opinion, the best book about Martha is out of print. It’s titled simply “Martha” (subtitled The Life and Work of Martha Graham) and is written by Agnes DeMille, a dancer friend of hers (Agnes did broadway while Martha created Modern Dance, so they did not compete while being in the same field). This book is not only a historical account but it is told so well that I was riveted, as if it were fiction. Fabulous.

Why Martha Graham? Well, I studied modern dance in high school although I never got good at it. And what I’ve found is that some modern dances bring me to tears from their beauty (although some leave me less than entertained but I still respect the pioneering in them). Martha was quite a woman. She didn’t fit in. Yet she knew who she was, and she stood tall being that self, regardless of the reactions of outsiders.

She started dancing at an age when most would have said she couldn’t catch up. She knew who she was, and stuck doggedly to that vision, when sometimes it seemed that nobody understood and often there was virtually no money. She changed the course of dance, actually created an entirely new danceform in one lifetime. A very long lifetime (1894 to 1991), but compare that to the evolution of Russian ballet.

When I get discouraged, and think “Nobody Understands” me on this earth, I read a quote from Martha in a letter to Agnes DeMille, and I get encouraged again. Here is that quote:

There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening
that is translated through you into action,
and because there is only one of you in all time,
this expression is unique.
If you block it,
It will never exist through any other medium
and be lost.
The world will not have it.
It is not your business to determine how good it is;
Not how valuable it is;
Nor how it compares with other expressions.
It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly,
To keep the channel open.
You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.
You have to keep open and aware directly
to the urges that motivate you.
Keep the channel open.
No artist is pleased.
There is no satisfaction whatever at any time.
There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction;
A blessed unrest that keeps us marching
And makes us more alive than others.

      - Martha Graham to Agnes DeMille

Where did the weekend go? I had thought I’d have leisurely time in the studio dyeing, maybe turn the heels of two pair of “wait in line” sox so I could knit ‘em in public again, maybe finish the ends on my sweater. Maybe, even, I would work with Brian Sunday on our yard. Well, I did weed a bunch of tree saplings yesterday for maybe a half hour (the box elder trees are growing like groundcover this year, what is the deal?) but that was my entire gardening experience. I did a lot of things but nothing for very long.

Road Trip
I must confess, the thing that took me away from the studio on Saturday I am delighted to have done. The Quiltery in Battle Creek (Lynne Evans’ shop) has a socknitting gathering each May and October, and I went. She has a very nice selection of sockyarns, and had a brand new shipment of all sorts of new Regia colorways, plus a big basket of Opal (there is no Opal in Lansing or within 45 minutes). I have purchased Lorna’s Laces there before but she had only a few skeins this time. She had some of that Cleckheaton Tapestry yarn, either DK or light Worsted weight which is washable (and sox from which I’m wearing today to stay warm).

She gives us an original sock pattern she wrote herself, each time we go to this gathering. This time it was a lovely sort of clock pattern, where it was a lacy stripe going down the side of the ankle only. She had done it in a mottled yarn (an old opal with no striping) and it was lovely in that simple colorway. I’m not sure I’ll do this pattern since I am so happy knitting stockinette, but then again it may be just the thing for a yarn I haven’t swatched yet.

Lynne gave us a 20% off all knitting items sale for the day. I picked up the new Knitter’s magazine (check out the hats by Merike Saarnit) and one skein of Regia Line Steps in medium gray for Brian (one skein is two sox) and a skein of Opal (cobalt and turquoise with cream and black) for me. It isn’t as though I don’t have yarn already, but for some reason these self-patterning yarns I just crank through. They take no thinking and I can knit them at computer labs and the doctor’s office, post office, all those places where I just can’t do cables and colorwork.

I left the Quiltery about 1pm, and then on the way home (it is about an hour) I got to the intersection where I could turn north to go home, or take one more exit east and go to Marshall. I love Sue (I wish I knew her last name) at In Sheep’s Clothing, so I went there. I am so glad I did. She greeted me with a big hug and we chatted quite a bit. What a welcoming place that is! I ended up picking up the Lucy Neatby Fiesta Feet pattern I ordered from them when Lucy was here teaching, plus I picked up a Spin Off magazine and two skeins of DK turquoise merino/acrylic yarn… regular price $4.95 a ball, and at 50% off, what a deal! It’s really soft but I’ll have to knit it on tiny needles to make it durable, I think. I may do these toe-up since the balls don’t have a lot of yarn in them. I’m so grateful I have tiny feet, I can do this sort of thing where others can not.

Sue suggested that I go home via Old 27 and stop in at the Yarn Garden in Charlotte. She didn’t have to twist my arm much. I’ve only been there once, when they first opened (with my friend Tony) and the owner, Kim, was very gracious. They also have a little bit of spinning fiber as well as yarn and I was very tempted to get some hot lime green roving but I resisted. I have enough roving to last my spinning career a long way! When I start using up the roving I already have, I will move on to more. Roving takes up a LOT more space than yarn, and my living room is already overflowing with boxes of wool!

I did pick up three balls of Anny Blatt cotton-candy-pink wool/acrylic DK weight yarn (at 20% off!) for some fun sox. I’ve never knit with Anny Blatt yarn before. I thought I’d put pink eyelash in rolled cuffs with this yarn, but tried it yesterday and didn’t like it much so I may rip that out (just a few rounds, nothing major).

Chance Meeting at Travelers’ Club
Sunday I had breakfast with my friend Marian at the Travelers’ Club. When we were there, Krista noticed me and came over to say hi.

She may join the crowd going to Borders on Tuesday night. We may have a very full New Beetle! If Tony and Daphne and Krista and I all go, those poor souls in the back seat will have to be very friendly! The lucky one will sit behind me, because I have short legs… but Tony is tall and will need the front passenger seat. Poor friend in back!

It should be a fun trip anyway. It’s great that my bug is such a quiet car on the road, because we will all be able to hear each other and have a nice conversation anyway. (Have I mentioned how much I love my car?) It’s just an hour so it won’t be too bad.

Sale, Sale!
Sunday I put up some knitting books for sale, and from that page I created links to the few handpainted yarns I have still in stock (new batch intended to be up for sale in the next week or so). The page for the books is http://ColorJoy.com/forsale/books.htm

Today I’m busy shipping the books I have already sold, and maybe I’ll get down in that studio after all! CityKidz Knit! is at 5:30 and I have no appointments before that. Yippee!!!

Someone on one of my lists (Socknitters?) a while back posted a link to yarncar.com. An artist covered his classic Imperial in yarn. It’s very cool, check it out!