I FELT IT

It's hot and windy in Lovely LAconia today. Clouds have moved in during the afternoon, but no rain is expected until maybe tomorrow. Maybe. The farmers are worried.

One of the things I decided that would add some zip to my festival display was various and creative uses of my fiber. (Not everyone spins, dammit.) Last year at Maryland, I bought Carol Huber Cypher's book Hand Felted Jewelry and Beads, read quickly through it and promptly put it in the bookcase. Until this week.

I can't say I care for many of Carol's designs. The mere idea of wearing felt jewelry makes me sweat. Felt flowers for my hairdo, on the other hand, I could imagine. So I gathered the required bubble wrap, plastic, towels and soapy hot water, along with some pink, purple and green bits of wool and silk. The technique wasn't hard and thirty minutes later, I had this.



It was actually rather fun. It was nice to do something besides knit and spin. (I have been trying to work up to sewing some clothing for quite awhile since I still have 45 yards of silk noil waiting and much of my current wardrobe is strangely shrinking.)(Don't hold your breath.)

The spinning and knitting, by the way, of the current shawl is proceeding. This one is uncharacteristically monotone, at least once knit up. The original fiber was browns and pinks with dashes of gold, blue and purple. (I'm positive that the border will contrast.)



So anyway, as the one flower dried, I studied it and began mentally designing a myriad of others in fantastic shapes and colors. I make no promises, but if more do materialize, I will let you all know.

a joke

Q: How many hipsters does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: What? You don't know?

Also, I want to credit Found Magazine for the deeply wonderful Bunnee drawing.

Tomb Stones

Between us, Sweetie and I have buried three bunnies since Friday.

The first was one of the five babies - he asphyxiated in a burrow, snuggled up behind another baby. That one was almost gone, too, but was revived and survived. Nobody ever said that bunnies were the sharpest knives in the drawer, but at least this little dumb one went to sleep to never awake.

Whilst I was in Franklin, Quentin of Wry Neck passed on.

Also whilst in Franklin, Stubby's hindquarters were somehow affected. Either he was injured or was somehow ill. Today the town dogs broke his neck because he couldn't move fast enough. This was just after a phone conversation with Sweetie about whether we should cage the Little Warrior or not. Damn. Stubby was a love and I cried hard.



Tomorrow, we build a fence. I am ashamed that we are such slack asses that it takes something like this to get us motivated to build the fence that we have planned to erect for at least two years.

We Back

It was a mixed weekend, a give and take, a ying and yang.

The festival was, for the second year, sparsely attended and many other vendors I spoke with, but not all, said that sales were meager. After my expenses of motel and gas, plus product cost, not including my time, I broke even.

On the plus side, my booth came with excellent lighting and it's own ceiling fan. I made new friends, bought sock yarn, made trades and came away with ideas to improve my presentation. I received pleasing comments about my fiber and the two shawls that I was able to display on the clean white walls.

Considering that I had not worked hard in the preceding weeks to prepare, and that I had miscalculated the date, the fact that I got my shit together and made it there at all is remarkable.

By way of cookie magic, I discovered that my blog has been nominated for best knitting blog name, by whom, I do not know and actually, for what purpose, I do not know.

But it is still cool.

uh oh

Sometimes I don't know how I can screw up my existence any worse. And then I do.

The Franklin, Indiana Hoosier Hills Fiberarts Festival is THIS WEEKEND. Not a couple of weeks away.

I am taking what I have, fiber wise, and five bunnies. Wish me luck.

Slow Monday

Sweetie is back to work doing start up at the potato chip mines. We had a wonderful three day weekend.

Everyone around here had hoped for rain but we didn't get more than sprinkles last night. Today is cloudy and hazy and hot. I am, of course, sequestered inside with my best friend, Central Air.

I have some photos! The latest shawl has been blocked. I am quite pleased with it. I have begun spinning for the next one.



Here is the evidence that I have been actually working. (I know. It's hard to believe.) This is pink Fuzzarelly Fiber for the Hoosier Hills FiberArts Festival in Franklin, IN.



Some of you know that I enjoy finding unusual vinyl record albums. I love this one. You cannot make this stuff up. What were the producers thinking? This shows the back.
The front sports a bright pink price sticker from Walgreen's - 87 cents. What a bargain!