miss elephant

I'm loving this golden shade of yellow today. I seem to be catching flashes of it out of the corner of my eye everywhere where I look. The sun is sometimes bright and sometimes dull, and then it flashes bright again across the rooftop of my neightbor's house.

I've been up since six. I'd intended to sleep in, but the bright sun woke me (and since we haven't seen it for what feels like weeks) I was up and out of bed, in the garden and in the studio. Who needs sleep when there is so much to be done?

As you can see I have a new design in the hoop. I've been thinking about elephants for a while. An elephant is the symbol of mental strength and clarity in Hindu mythology. They represent honor and attract all forms of wealth - spiritual, emotional, and physical. I've always thought of elephants as strong and patient - and kinda goofy.

I love all of the illustrations of elephants that people have put out there. They are so colorful and full of patterns and light. An elephant's form can be drawn in so many ways and still shout "I'm and elephant, folks!"

This "Miss Elephant" is going to go on another pillow. I plan on using the elephant print fabric as well. My next pillow is going to have some sort of buttons or snaps so that the inner pillow can be removed for ease of washing. I guess I'd better learn to sew button holes.

Still spinning the yarn. More of our combed top can be found here. (We have some shades with golden yellow.) I have another 4 ounces of fiber to spin before I can start weaving. I probably won't be starting that until me and Miss Elephant have wrapped things up.

Happy weekend, everyone.

P.S. All of the flowers in the arrangement came from our garden. No sooner had I made the decision not to go digging up all my neighbor's irises then my own irises (which I thought were all pale yellow) started blossoming out into the rich purples and golds that I had been admiring in my previous post.

More encouragement to honest . . . and patient.

round + round we go

 Is it really only a little after one in the afternoon on a Thursday, and I'm posting a blog? Yeehaw. I wrapped things up early at work and was able to come home after lunch. My husband is currently out of state doing some training for the Army National Guard, so that means I have the entire house to myself.

The tea kettle and I are going to have a lovely afternoon.

Here's what's currently spinning on my wheel. I'm looking for large color transitions here, that's why you can see that blocks of color in the combed top. The finished yarn is intended for the loom and I'm just itching to get it set up. It may be a late night.

Aqua blue. This shade of blue and I have been flirting around for a while. I need to make something out of it so that I can flash it around town.

I have an audio novel that I'm listening to this afternoon, Becoming Jane Eyre. It should put me in the mood for spinning yarn and reading spooky 19th century gothic tales.

i'm nobody

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody too?
Then there's a pair of us - don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

Emily Dickinson

Do your favorite poems ever just pop into your head? Mine do. I was making enchiladas tonight, surrounded by the smell of hot peppers, when suddenly a snippet of Emily Dickinson flitted across my brain.

I'm nobody . . . who are you? Are you nobody too . . .

And then I couldn't remember the rest, but knew it had a really good punchline, so I had to run upstairs to find my volume of Dickinson poems to put my mind at rest. It's not really a rest though, now I'm thinking of other poems that this particular poem calls to mind.

Irises are blooming in my neighborhood. I love them. I love them so much I almost want to take a shovel and dig some of my favorite ones up in the wee hours and transplant them in my own yard. But that would be wrong. Karma would probably make them not bloom. So I just have to admire my neighbor's blossoms from the right-of-way and remind myself that not every beautiful thing in the world requires ownership. Some things we just have to admire from a distance.

Yarn, yarn, yarn. The two colorways posted above are called greener pastures and golden fields. More to come.

up home

Returning from a weekend up north with a stash of lovely images on my camera and a full belly - not to mention leftovers. The rhubarb's coming in and the lilacs are blooming. My parents got a batch of new chicks. Some egg laying hens and some for our freezers in the fall.

My niece stayed out on the farm with us on Saturday night, so we had the privilege of chasing her around. She now knows how to open most doors (locks don't stop her), so we are all on watch to make sure she didn't run off chasing the kitty when we weren't looking.

We all thought she would love the baby chicks (and she did come around) but initially she took one look at her mother holding a baby chick and said quite firmly.

"Put it down."

We made rhubarb dessert, the kind with the yellow cake mix and heavy cream. You can't beat that one, it tastes like it took more work than it did, and it keeps really well in the fridge.  Just make sure to bake it long enough, mine got a bit flat in the middle.

We need to get all of that yarn updated to our shop. And I promise I will over the next couple of days. The handspun above is from the colorful batts that I had up last post. Ashley was true to her word and had it all spun up. She plied the colorful yarn with some of our creamy combed top. We all agreed that the combination made the flecks of color from the mohair pop more.

Hope you are all enjoying a relaxing Sunday evening and that lilacs are blooming nearby.

fiber love

We got out the wool carder last time I was home and started to blend an assortment of dyed CVM Romeldale wool with some dyed mohair. Ashley made some lovely batts of fiber that she promised to spin up soon. (Hope that's true!) I'd forgotten how much fun it is to blend different fiber types. You kinda get stuck in a rut with one means and methods and just go with that - you know what I mean?

It's nice when something new presents itself.

I have to blend some batts for myself soon. I'll be making another quick trip up to the farm this weekend for yet another wedding. My brother is visiting from Philadelphia, so we will be pulling out all the stops. By that I mean, we will have multiple fish fries (if the river provides) and sit long through the morning hours chatting with cups of coffee.

I'm looking forward to it all.

That's my dad on his tractor in one of the images above. He was cleaning out the sheep barn last time I was home and spreading the manure on the cornfield. I'm happy that I caught his black angus beef cows in the shot, as well. Those girls are skittish! Details about his small herd can be found here. I don't want to upset anyone, but my parent's farm is a working farm and we do love our grilling - especially when it's an ethically raised, downright wholesome product.

Happy Friday, everyone - hope you get your grills fired up!

happiness is

When I was younger I was a big fan of self help books. Back then I was a naturally happy person without many troubles, so it seems odd to me now that I would have devoured book after book on self growth and development. I think I used the books back then as a gauge for how well my own life was going, at the time I was single and young, blessed with good health and (thank goodness) a healthy family too and the books seemed to affirm all the good things in my life - everything I was doing right without even trying.

All of the lucky things that I just took for granted.

So having read all of those books I thought I was prepared to face the challenges that life throws at us with confidence and ease. To face those challenges all I would need (I thought smugly, back then, when I was reading those books) was a witty slogan to persevere. For example, any of the titles from the hundreds of chapters I read.

When you get knocked down, get back up again.

Pray.

Be kind.

Do unto others as you would yourself.

Happiness is a choice.

I'm focusing on the last one today. About happiness. About choices. Choices take effort and determination. You find your thoughts tripping back into the negative and you have to gently pull them back and remind yourself to breathe. To pray. To hold and take things lightly. To be flexible. To treat the ones you love with the gentlest care.

Oh, yes. Happiness is a choice.

hello sheeps

Ashley and I made an impromptu visit to the farm yesterday afternoon - I swung by her place and picked her up on the way north. Once there we met up with our nieces, grandma and rest of the family.

My niece had on a yellow hoodie that my sister wore as a child. My mom tied the hood up and I had a flashback to my childhood. Suddenly, I was looking at my sister as a little girl instead of her daughter. My niece has her father's grin, however, so I couldn't imagine she was my sister for long. She has too much of her own personality. What a little trickster!

We played around with pots, pans and dye. I wanted to see if I could dye fiber to transition in color, instead of having random color placement, so I used some rectangular pans and placed the fiber in them "accordion-style" and then poured the dye on in strips. Turned out pretty neat. Hopefully it spins up like I want it to. I plan on using these for some more weaving projects.

Can't let the loom get dusty.

Oh yah, I'm going to finish my lace cowl today. I only have a few rows left. Then I can block it and see how it looks. I've never made a cowl before, or worn one.

Hope you all are having a fantastic Memorial Day.