into thin air

Literally. Eight days roadtripping from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Alamosa, Colorado & back, off the main roads. Multigenerational style. It was Roadside Attractions meets the Outdoor Southwest Experience, with enchiladas liberally applied along the way.

Tinkertown, New Mexico. Pure genius.

Alas not much in the way of yarn. I had this idea I'd run into little hidden yarn shops or ranches that sold local wool. I could have. But first, here's my posse: Do they look like they should be allowed near merino or hand painted wool of any weight?

close encounters of the fiber kind, part 1


Found in tiny Madrid NM.

While waitng for a sandwich at this cafe, I stuck my head into the Tapestry Gallery , in an old rail car from the Santa Fe line. Madrid is that kind of place. Inside, a nook of locally produced wool & yarns from Karakul sheep, dyed beautiful shades. One of the sons stuck his head in and yelled " Mom found yarn? Noooooooo."

It being the first full day of the trip and me being my delusional self, I felt sure that I'd a) remember the name & info from the woman who made the yarn because I read the label, like, twice and b) I'd be having lots of moments like this on the way and didn't want to spend all my fiber indulgence funds upfront. Can we blame the lack of oxygen at the elevation?

The sandwich was awesome, though.

So was this place, Bandelier National Park.

The journey, the lack of oxygen & the close encounters continue, next post.... for now I must get back to work, here at sea level.

all in a day's work

Some days are weirder than others, I tell you.

I've been working on a tourism gig, shooting assignments at locations to lure visitors to our state, showing people carefree and happy- while, of course, looking attractive in a real life kind of way. Can you tell how tough a gig this is for my subjects ? Yesterday was at an old-fashioned family run amusement park. It was charming, and nostalgic and a loooong day. We did rides, waterpark, arcade, 4 clothing changes and since I'd recruited sons & friends as models, there was some -uh- - human resources management . ("yes! You have to do the roller coaster. Again! I need bodies in those cars..and try to keep your eyes open!") And a little creepy - think of coming nose to nose with this as a toddler. Clown-phobia?

When I got home, I found our pet russian tortoise still ailing. The treatment recommended : a daily bath in tomato paste. I'm the only family member up for this project. We feel terribly guilty, this pet is supposed to live over 100 years and here we are knocking him off after only 15 or so. We ended up with him as a fluke but still, I hate to have a dead exotic reptile on my watch.

In knitting news, I was waiting for 15 minutes in public and pulled out my shrug in progress. A stranger commented"ooh, you must be a saint, knitting with such skinny yarn". Having been a Nice Jewish Girl all my life, I didn't know what to say. I'm pretty sure I'm not a sainthood nominee, but let's say IF I was, shouldn't it be for something better than merino fingering weight yarn?

buy more, whine less

...in which we discuss, yet again, the downside of not buying enough yarn for a project and what happens later.......

We can really keep this to a show & tell, I think. The show:

The tell: This is the arm of a shrug I'm knitting out of the softest, most wonderfully colored Cherry Tree Hill Farm supersock merino. The colorway is Wild Cherry. Both balls.
One is from the initial purchase, the other from a second source, different dye lot. I'd like to have a good reason that I didn't buy enough in the first place. But then, I didn't care about the dye lot issue because I thought I was making a Kiri shawl and figured it'd just have a darker coordinating outer edge.

The Kiri and I parted ways over incompatible social habits . I like to talk, she wants silence and undivided attention. So needy, that shawl.

So I started a shrug. I decided to change the yarn ball at a spot I designated the elbow, making it a 3/4 length sleeve. Until a jury of extended family decreed that the shrugee (my sister) would really like it better full length, flaunting the flared ribbing over her hand base. Did they care that this ruined my attempt to make the color change in a way that made design sense, or that it added 5 extra inches of knitting to my plan for each sleeve? Naw.

I hope that adding a matching color-morphing sleeve and a back, along with some coordinating ribbon woven through the eyelets that you can't quite see on each wrist, will somehow pull this together.

And if not, let's just be thankful that I'm not a perfectionist and this sister has the delightful habit of loving and appreciating all handmade gifts, especially those that are quirky in some way.

I'd have knit more this week but considering where I was and some of the company I was in, can you blame me?

the 20¢ solution

A brilliant suggestion by Jessica at Zarzuela solved my not-enough-yarn-to sew-up problem. Embroidery thread ! It comes in gazillion colors and best of all: 20¢. Who knew that anything cost 20¢ anymore?

I have to show the buttons, too:

The stats:
A 3-6 month size (really. I know it looks large. Lets just say she'll enjoy it for a long part of her babyhood) for a neighbor baby who'll be popping out any day.
pattern: a hoodless Daisy baby cardigan
yarn: Jaeger Baby Merino superwash. Love it.

Next up: I'm using the no-longer-a-Kiri yarn to make a funkier version of the Shimmer shrug for an end of August gift. I'm going to make it less elegant and more artsy.I hope my sister will appreciate this assessment of her shrugly needs. I'm shortening the sleeves, and foregoing the lozenge pattern on back - yeah, already learned my lesson about this variegated yarn and a lace pattern. I'm thinking maybe a row or two of a honeycomb stitch just to open it up a little. I've got about an inch of one sleeve going, but a nice car trip to the beach in Delaware this week should help.

Kiri B Gone

That's right. I made it to row 47.

Its just, well, the Kiri, she is the right pattern at the wrong time.

The yarn is wrong. The intense varied colors are so beautiful but not on this. The symmetry and repetition are lost.



Its not doing the yarn or the pattern justice. And I am all about justice.

Also wrong? I'm a social knitter. I knit while sitting with others. I like to talk with those I sit. The Kiri, she demands the attention. This morning my friend Peg invited me over for a swim & knit.

Here's the conversation:

Peg: So, what're you doing next week?
Me: Mmmmm, hold on, wait till I get to the YO.
Peg: Oh oh I'm sorry....so, look at this row and tell me if I increased right.
Me: Yeah, Mmmmm, oh damn, hold on,it looks like you did it.....2,3,4, 5 K2T, hold on, wait till I get to...
Peg: Oh, sorry. What do you think of...(interesting idea for neighborhood crazy parade next month)
Me: Damn. Was that a YO? Hold on...(*cursing, counting,cursing, repeat from*)

I will make a Kiri in the future, out of a lovely solid yarn, when I'm having some quiet knitting time to myself. For now, the Kiri, she is history. My sister will still receive a wrap of some sort later this month, it will be made from this wonderful variegated soft yarn that I'm still crazy about. It will NOT require undivided attention.

Maybe a simple short shrug-like sweater. Or...can you say Cla-po-tis ?

symmetry is a journey

Come with me on my train trip. Tear your hair out now, or save it for the end. The cafe car is two cars forward, by the way.

New Haven CT 2:11 pm
I depart. I'm working on my Kiri shawl. All is well. I cast on 2 nights ago with size 10 us needles, at row 4 moved to size 9 needles. Still seems loose so I switch now to size 8 needles. I am on row 9.

Bridgeport CT 2:47
I'm on row 15. I take a good look at my scrunched up shawl. I'm not happy. The early rows are too loose and messy.

Stamford CT 3:05
I'm ripping it all out.

NY City 4:02 pm
The cast on and early rows are done. Things are looking up. The Big Smelly Guy who's been sitting next to me for the past hour is gone. I try to look unapproachable but a young man sits next to me. At least he's thin and has no odor. I try not to poke him with the needles.

Trenton NJ 4:35
I finish chart 1 ! I start row 23. Kiri's looking good. I am Too Cool for a Lifeline.

Philadelphia PA 5 pm
Row 27 and something is definitely wrong. I tink back 2 rows, knit them again. Its even worse. I re-tink. Its getting messy. I curse that there is no lifeline. I try to re-knit.

Wilmington DE 5:35 pm
Row 27. Still. There are more stitches on one side of the center than the other. No amount of recounting changes this. I spread it out and notice the center stitch is not straight, its zigzagging. This is an imperfection even I cannot live with. I rip it back to the cast on rows. I curse a little more (see Philly, above).

Baltimore MD 6:20 pm
I'm on row 5. I am knitting ve-rr-y carefully.

New Carollton MD 7:10 pm
I get off the train. Its been five hours.
I am on Row 9.

_________________________________

later that night...row 19

waste not, buy more

See the squiggles of pink variegated yardage inchage? Its all thats left, after knitting the baby cardigan. The only way I got through the baby - remember we're talking baby- neckband was by snipping cast-on ends from the corners and tying them on to the working yarn. Pitiful, no?

What's left isn't even enough to sew up the little seams. I'd like to chalk this up as an isolated case of bad planning, or humidity induced negative knitting mojo. But I can't. I've gotta wake up and smell the tofu. I am just not generous enough when I buy yarn. It took 3 extra trips to the yarn store to get through the Clapotis in the spring, and just this week I bought enough yarn only to make a Kiri shoulder cover, not a shawl.

Anyone who knows me would tell you I'm generous, if you don't include certain family members and the subject of allowances. So why so stingy with the yarn?

No time to delve into the psyche. Some other time we'll explore my non-stashing tendencies, and the absence of cats around here, too. But today, some action, I ordered more yarn for the Kiri. I've got a train to catch and some YO's to do.

this week the knitting spirits....

Smiled when they placed me at a primo legal parking spot in Boston, directly in front of Newbury Yarns with one hour to spare before a tedious job would begin a block away. Obviously a collaboration with the Parking Spot spirits, this is a biggie.

Ignore the snooty address, the owner is so friendly, the yarn choices really good and no pricier than elsewhere. Some sale baskets, too. She guided me to this Jaeger Baby Merino. I wanted pink, soft, and washable, for a neighbor baby arriving soon. I am apparently incapable of choosing a color when I can get a colorway instead. Despite liking a solid color knit. Variegated: the yarn of the terminally indecisive.

Winkedwhen my joy in how quickly one can knit a baby cardigan -those little short bodies! those little stubby arms! - was tempered by realizing I was done with sleeves and had only inches of yarn left. Thats right, not enough for a baby neckband. Thats close.

I ripped back and shortened the sleeves by a half-inch, repeating the little stubby arm mantra, and hoping to just squeak by. I love working this yarn.

Nodded with a 20% yarn sale nearby,to be followed by good knitting time later this week on a train to Washington for work. (Another new yarn store to me, another friendly owner and great variety. I'm on a roll.)
Train knitting is the perfect time to make something I need to pay attention to- unlike car knitting, noone will ask me to check a map, look for a sign, switch the radio or other demands that makeme forget if its a YO, PSSO or K2T next.
I decided on a Kiri shawl for sister Marla's birthday. She loves pink, I'm loving pink wool, we both love shawls. I uncharacteristically swatched some pink mohair I had here and found it too heavy and 70's afghan-ish in the lace stitch. I headed out looking for something light & less hairy than a Kidsilk Haze - one lurch of the trian and I'd be cussing and dropping stitches in it- and determined this time to get a solid color yarn.

I fell in love with one skein left of Cherry Tree Hill merino supersock laceweight. Soft! Flowy ! Washable! What colors! Variegated !

thinking outside...of everything

Sometimes life intersects art in the most perfect way. Take a look at who I was working with this week, at Mass MoCA

This guy really knits. I know you want to see close ups:

Do you love the attention to detail? Do you hate when your needles bend from the weight of a heavy knit, too? It took 3 months to plan and two days to knit the flag, over July 4th weekend. It'll be in the courtyard till July 11th so you better hurry, or if you visit this summer, you can see a video of the action. He said it was actually reverse stockinette, with two excavators moving the 25 foot needles and the artist on a cherry picker platform, helping the loops over the needle points.

There's also a display of his piece The Evolution of Knitting in Wartime. He created the needles and coordinated cases that'd be issued to soldiers in all past US Wars, as if knitting was the weaponry they took to battle. Complete with ageing and descriptions of materials. Its too cool. I had a little moment where I thought it was real. I think my mouth gaped. I hated to leave. But go see for yourself, its worth the drive. A place that celebrates those of us who use more than a teaspoon of brain, and ask "what if.....?". And then do it.

Faithfully submitted by one who uses just barely a teaspoon herself ,and thats only on good days.

point/counterpoint....

On the upside, the Knitting Spirits sent me everything I asked for - and more. Thanks for your birthday wishes, the new subscribers, and for the knitting presents from my sisters. I received Stephanie's book. I'm linking to her main blog today, because her description of the glory of a home office while your older children are on summer break so totally mirrors my life. Right down to the throbbing vein. Except I shout "ass" when I get crazed and loud, not "arse".

At least I spend some of my working days on location shooting. Like tomorrow! Special bonus that tomorrow's photography involves an artist and an improbable knitting installation, at Mass MoCA. As vivid as my imagination is, I can't quite grasp how this works.

But enough about art, back to me and my birthday gifts. My sisters also ordered a beautiful custom made needle case from Crippenworks. Sister Lulu had noticed me pawing the merch longingly at the Ct Sheep Show. They had a large case- straights & circs & dp's-oh my!- made from vintage 40's floral upholstery & antique button closures. Could not suit me more. And as for a wool sale magically appearing, Lauren reminded me of a LYS that has a great July sale, so I'm ready & patterned up, waiting for it to start.

Point: while watching all of Godfather 1 & 2 last week, I made an offer you couldn't refuse finished knitting my stretchy green cable tank. Counterpoint: I can't show it. The camera is broken & in repair. I'll sew it (the tank, not the camera) and give it a blocking attempt( again, the tank). Can you block cotton with spandex? Maybe the camera will be back by then. I need to rent one to work tomorrow. Thats a definite downside. Except, I get to test a new model, so I guess that's good, if a bit nerve wracking.

Next upside,the joys of deciding what to knit next, and knitting gifts to start & (downside) finish before August ends. Its all about balance, right?

burnt offering, maybe?

O Wild & Wooly Knitting Spirit,

I beseech thee, accept my humble apologies. I cannot make the offerings of my time as I give so willingly in colder weather. May it please you that my warm weather activities involve getting my tush off a seat and using my hands to do things that leave no room for pointy sticks? Verily I have sat and knitted all winter on Sunday mornings while drinking coffee. And many evenings while watching movies. And other times that you may have toted on your cosmic stitch counter (or do you forget to turn the little wheel every few rows, too?).

I have served up knitting happy hours to increase your minions. While snow fell, I have sacrificed the hours, nay, the days looking at yarn on ebay, reading knit blogs till my eyes crossed and my fingers began a Clapotis of their own will.

But now the sun warms us and my hands are holding kayak paddles, or bicycle handles, or weeds, or sculling water. The yarn grows gritty with beach sand. Though I try to knit in a wet bathing suit, it pleaseth neither of us. May it please you that accordingly, my body switcheth from bulky to sportweight? No, I thought you care not about that one.

Rewardeth my cool weather allegiance with knowledge of a good yarn sale now, so I may plan for a return, via luxurious wool purchase, to your flock of the faithful. And, as long as you're at it- send me one more blogline subscriber, so I can round subscribers up to 30 by my birthday this Friday. Lo the subscribers total is verily less than my years, but it'd sootheth my ego when looking at stats.

return from limbo

Limbo: the week between school ending & summer activities starting. I work - well, normally you'd call it that- out of a home office. Which means this week, I call it SURRENDER. We hit the road to hang out on the beach in Delaware, one of my favorite spots on earth. With some of my favorite people: my parents, a niece & nephew. Sun, sand, crashing waves and the annoying habits in close quarters cherished company of family.

I finished the back of my simple sleeveless tank, and am loving this yarn. That 1% stretch gives it a jellyfish-like quality, you can mush it into any shape without distorting it. And its soft and airy while looking nubbly. Here's the see-through view:
That nubbly quality made me worry that the cable up the front will look like a big vertical sneeze, but so far, a couple of twists in, its looking well defined. I'll show it next time.

I'd have knitted more on the beach but a tetherball pinky injury slowed me down. Remind me that I stink at all activities with the word "ball" in them, please! That didn't stymie me. I read a whole book one day. And we amuse ourselves endlessly together.

What did stymie me: my niece, seen here at solataire, watching me knit and saying "oh, I can see you wrapping that yarn around. I don't knit like that, I knit like Granma".

This stopped me cold. My mom is an amazing knitter. She's fast, she twitches her index finger like a bobbin, you barely see it move, over the needle points. When I was a kid I thought it was magic that knitted fabric appeared, like she was waving her finger as a wand. But many people do that. The truly amazing part is she knits ambidextrously, knitting across and purling back without turning the needles and knitting around. And not just in stockinette, in any stitch combo. Without looking. I have tried, and tried, but I can't do this. No matter how hard I stare. It makes the hair thats still inside my scalp tingle. I'm sure its good for your left-to-right brain but you try it.

And if you can do it, don't tell me. That goes double if you're good at beach tetherball.

how hot was it?

Too hot. We who live on the shore take pride in being cold at night well into July. We act humble about cool breezes while others sweat just a couple of miles away inland. We keep a poker face at discussions of central air conditioners or really efficient fans. We don't need such things. And we try not to brag about it.

Think again this week. It was hotter than all of last summer. It was too hot to eat. It was too hot to knit. That hot.

You couldn't have found a crankier bunch than in our sticky abode. Not even a breeze on the beach last night, till the cold came in and chilled us all back to (our version of) normal. In an amazing science discovery, I opened the bread drawer this morning and found a loaf so molded from the past days' heat & humidity that it was actually fermenting. It was generating heat. The whole drawer was 10 degrees warmer than the rest of the room. Eeeeuw. Can we lay off the fossil fuels and heat with bread mold? Grant money anyone?

In knitting news- or non-knitting news- Saturday was World KIP day. New Haven this time of year is one happenin' place.
I was on the Green for the big drumming events as part of the Arts & Ideas Festival, with plans to swing over to the Harborfest and then to visit the local KIP'ers a few blocks away. But between the dancing precision drum corps, the salsa dancers, the african djembes, those huge Japanese drums, and the costumes, we never saw a knitter.

green thing

What is it about this time of year? Just when the weather screams "Go to the beach!" I'm overloaded with stuff: meetings (professional, community, neighborhood...you name it, its having a meeting this week), jobs & end-of-school and general life goings-on. Knitting & gardening, well... not so much progress. Here at chez sheep shots this seasonal transition time is never easy.

In all this busy-ness I realized something. I will knit wherever, no second thoughts, in anonymous public. Since I travel to locations (mostly by car, for the day) for my work I often take the knitting bag along in case I get to my destination early, or end up at a lunch break in a restaurant alone. Strangers around? No problem. But I don't like to knit at meetings of groups I belong to, unless its a very small group & everyone knows me well. Its like some weird shyness seizes me.

So, lets just say if I got over this, I'd have logged enough knitting time recently to have made some real progress in my green cabled tank, which I'm shaping a little so it won't be baggy on me. But I haven't , so I didn't. Instead of the ribbon yarn the pattern calls for I'm using the Classic Elite Star which isn't all that appealing as a skein. Its 99% cotton and 1 % spandex. You'd be surprised how stretchy 1% makes it. It knits into a nice soft cottony boucle, like this:


Twice recently strangers have commented that they liked the color, both times telling me "Its the hot color this summer!" which I'm sure is a compliment. Instead they saw fear in my eyes when I made a grimace-y smile to thank them. Panic. I'm not that up on things! Too much fashion pressure!

Longfellow slept here?

Actually he didn't. But my in-law's house sits on Minnehaha Creek, which leads to Lake Nokomis and I can't help thinking of the Hiawatha poem when we're there. You can drive on Hiawatha to get to Nokomis, in your Winnebago. Wearing Cherokee jeans. I could go on.
I was there, in Minnesota, last weekend. I finished the clapotis in my first 10 minutes of knitting, and was glad to have it in the chill. My sister-in-law lavished such compliments on me -uh, I mean it- that I will make her one. I'd enjoy knitting another clapotis, everytime I got to a drop the stitches row I felt a tingle of entertainment that the knitting was performing for me, instead the other way around. The details:

• pattern: Clapotis designed by Kate Gilbert , who must be very very clever.
  
• yarn: ggh Safari, a mostly linen yarn, on size 5 needles.
  
• adaptations: The pattern repeats were increased in width and length by about 30% to have it come out close to the designed dimensions. Although it stretches........

I made a stop at Linden Hill Yarns in hip Minneapolis to get a new project underway for the rest of the visit and plane ride home. I was in town for a funeral, an unplanned trip. The owner, Jan, and the knitters-at-the-table were friendly and so very patient when the frazzled part of the weekend hijacked the decision lobe of my brain. I was struck dumb with indecision over which cottony yarn to buy for a tank top with cable.

The Rowan Calmer on the counter was all but paid for when I was seized by doubt - the pale tasteful lavendar might look gray in certain light and that wasn't what I wanted. I dithered around, deciding & undeciding. Just before I made us all insane, I noticed a table-knitter working with some Classic Elite Star. I'd overlooked this yarn, not imagining how it'd knit up.
I wasn't sure about the color until Jan told me it was called granny smith green. Clearly this marketing approach works on me: Named for a fruit I like? Why, sure I'll buy it! I've never knit with a 99% cotton 1% spandex before but the stretch is nice, and should cut down on the sag factor of the finished piece.

Next post, show & tell of the stretchy green apple yarn in progress. I'll leave you with some uptown Minneapolis color:

this, that & some sheep

First up the book swap : we have a go! The blogless Susanne will soon be cabling with Alice Starmore. In 4-7 days, I'm told. Her copy of Scarf Style is heading to my happy home. I recommend this swap thing. I gave a thought to Ann's suggestion that Starmore is a keeper for my library. Flipping through the harbor scenes and remembering all the times I'd considered knitting the fishermen's guernseys, and what yarn I'd considered........... Nah. Off it went.

Life has been getting in the way of my knitting. Which, truly, is better than the reverse. But, still. My Clapotis has maybe 20 minutes of knitting left to go on it. Sadly, it'll be making its debut at the funeral of someone I'm going to miss very much, my mother-in-law. I don't want to say more except, if you smoke? And you enjoy it even though you know its not good for you? And its really hard to quit so you put it off for the month, or the year, or the decade? Just quit now.




I've made valiant efforts to get yarn for a new project - something sleeveless and cottony- but the weirdly limited hours of yarn stores are thwarting me. (ooh, thwart, a candidate for the Nake-Id word list ) . I've been thwarted three times since Friday.
Hello - leisure time activity? Need to have the stores open more leisure time hours. Its a thought!

dyeing to share

Overheard, whispered frantically, unaware of me listening:

"Before you go in there - Mom's getting freaky! First, she buys kool-aid. Then she sticks wool in it. And now..she's cooking it. In.... the microwave!"

Yes, its true. I've never purchased kool-aid for drinking. Forcing them to drink natural fruit juice. The cruelty! The freakiness!

It was easy, it was fun , not messy at all, and smelled fruity. First, what was once a skein of Brown Sheep in a natural whitish with gray became this in Berry Blue. (its wet here, don't worry, it lightens up). A second skein failed to get discernibly green when dyed in Arctic Green Apple. The Arctic flavors, it turns out, are all opaque & frosty looking so maybe that's the problem. The second time around, in 2 parts Watermelon Kiwi and 1 part Berry Blue, a happy ending.


I'm now one toe away from the slippery slope of buying a bunch of natural wool on ebay , dyeing it and taking a table to the nearby Saturday morning farm market later this summer. I was telling this to my friend who, instead of saying how utterly ridiculous this would be, said hey, cool, I'll help. I told her she's an enabler.

Dyeing aside, I started to figure out that I wanted to knit with it. Maybe a scarf or shawl? I keep noticing scarves I like on other blogs from the Scarf Style book, which brings me to propose a

Book Swap

My copy of Alice Starmore's Fishermen's Knits is unloved. I bought it when I was on a guernsey/gansey kick years ago , then never found anything in it that called to me. I guess the three patterns I'd been fixated on at the time were enough. This has nice photos and much beautiful multiple cabling but I never could commit to a knit. True, it made me want to sail to the pub and share a pint with the fishermen but that's not the point, is it?

Wanna swap? Your copy of Scarf Style for my copy of Starmore's Fishermen's Knits. If you want to see some action from this book, take a gecko at Wendy's Inishmore Challenge, flying on her needles as we speak.

If you're interested, email me at ezisusATsnetDOTnet, and we'll exchange delivery addresses.

Please pass the word on this, I really like the two dozen of you friends who visit me but maybe you don't want to swap.....

project(ing)

Two whole weekend days ahead to get projects underway.
Here's a Sheep Shots Partial Project Picture.
I promise I won't keep aliterating but I might mis-use the word hank lower down. Just warning you.

The Brown Fleece you see is in one of four tin flower window boxes that are plunk in the middle of the living room, along with eight brackets. We've been tripping over them there since I didn't hang them last weekend. In one, the Brown Sheep natural that I'm thinking of dyeing.

Earlier, I was doing a photo favor for an artist friend. As she was watching me, I was whining to explaining to her about not having enough time for kool aid dyeing , I just couldn't rationalize it because the first step, of winding the skeins into big loops (hanks?) seemed too much given the to-do list. She's a friend who just loooves a project. She looked here, decided I should be dyeing whole sweaters (yes plural) worth of yarn next, and immediately unwound and hanked the first one for me. It made me unreasonably happy for the rest of the afternoon.

So I just need to get the photo work (at least 4 hours worth) promised out to Fed Ex, the window boxes hung & planted , the weeds pulled the social events attended and its Kool-Aid time for me. But first, off to yoga. Later!