This autumn evening in pictures

Mostly Sugar Pie and knitting...

Report of....not from...Rhinebeck

This weekend is the NY Sheep and Wool festival, and I am not at it. It is about 800 miles away - you can't just make that trip willy nilly for every festival that happens to come up.

Worry not, fair reader. I am here to prove, mathematically - and beyond any doubt - that I am completely, totally and one million percent ok with that.

The weather report for Dutchess County is sunny and cool - perfect wool weather. Last year it rained. But....I'm ok with that.

These were my purchases last year (in the rain):

Surely, that looks like enough wool to keep a knitter happy for multiple years, right? You are correct. From that pile, I have completely used up 4 of the 15 yummies and 4 more projects are currently in progress. These projects represent only 47% of my total Rhinebeck purchases. I'm ok with that.

Clearly, if I knit at a consistent pace from last year, I still have a year to go before I run out of lovely, hand dyed yarn...that I can't purchase anywhere else and have to wait until one lousy weekend in October that requires me to drive 900 miles to obtain.

I also wound and attempted to knit with 4 additional yarns in the past year. Here is one failed attempt (Do you see the stripes?! I couldn't abide by the stripes):

So, there are 4 more only slightly molested yarns wound and ready to try again on a new project.

For the visual folks out there, let's take a peak at this information in a graphic format:


That sure looks like a lot of arrows. Eep.

But, we're still doing ok. Right? Still TONS of yarn to use in the next year or two before we need to go back to the most amazing, wonderful, beautiful, fun...I mean plain ole, boring, crowded Rhinebeck.

Just to make us all feel better, let's take a graphical look at the yarn we haven't even thought about using yet. The yarn that was so wonderful and soft and lovely that it was purchased (in the rain) and dreamed about the whole 1,000 mile drive back to Indiana, but just hasn't been allowed to be amazing yet. The virgin yarn I still pet lovingly and can't wait to find the time to cast on with.


Um.

Ok.

I know it just looks like three projects worth of yarn. Three little, tiny...projects. But, we're not panicking. Nope. Not panic...three?? Just three?

Uh. Think....think... It's ok. That's still 27% of the yarn. That will last until...let's get out the calculator here. Still not panicking....punch in some numbers.

Um. Ok. That yarn should last until...January, 2011. I will run out of Rhinebeck yarn during the coldest, darkest most miserable month the year.

I'm not ok with that.

I've got to go... my mom should be wandering through the lovely buildings of the fairgrounds right about now. Gazing among the booths overflowing with the best yarn on the planet. I think there is still time to give her a list and my credit card number.

Bernie in the fall

Bernie has been venturing out to the field with us these past few evenings. When we go to check on the birds and walk Sugar, the cat follows right on our heels.

He wanders around the pasture, but is never far from us. The turkeys find him to be endlessly fascinating and they follow him everywhere.

This freaks Bernie out. He puts his ears back, squats real low to the ground and runs to the nearest person as fast as his little legs will carry him. As amusing as that is, I'd rather our turkeys show a little fear of carnivores (no matter how tiny and ill equipped to eat them). The turks have a curiosity that is adorable, but I imagine they would also follow a raccoon or a fox right into their hole for dinner.

Socks of Autumn

I finished a new pair of socks this morning. They are the perfect fall socks - a great color, cozy and casual.

I also started my first ever colorwork. It is WAY FUN and I don't think I'll be able to stop. Ever. Except for when I'm squeeing with delight and asking Bill to "look at how awesome this is" every 28 seconds. He's very patient and sufficiently awed. It's one of the eleventy billion reasons I love him. (Another being his sweetness in taking the photos above.)

The design for this sock calls for yarn which is dyed in a gradient from one color to another. The sock starts like this:

...and ends like a photo negative - reverse of the colors it started with. In the middle it gets all blurry and muddled. It's wicked awesome.

This picture shows the colors much better.

I'm a little stuck at the moment on the instructions, but I'll get started knitting again soon.

A Wool Gathering

Yesterday, Bill and I traveled to Yellow Springs OH for A Wool Gathering - a sheep and wool show at a dairy farm.


It was a very nice day. Our first stop was for lunch in town. Yellow Springs doesn't seem like it belongs in Ohio...it seems to be a little bit of California transplanted to the Midwest.


The town was full of diverse people out enjoying the day. There was a farmers market, which drew a lot of folks, and the sheep and wool festival brought people in from out of town, but it seems like a place that is always buzzing (and I mean that in more ways than one). Though it's a small town (population around 3,700) it seemed like an engaged, active community.

It was a fun town to visit. We admired well-maintained old buildings, ate some pizza and yielded the right-of-way at a stop light to one of Yellow Springs notable residents - Dave Chappelle.


Then it was on to the fiber! There were lots of fiber farmers there with their animals. We pet all sorts of sheep and stared at a very intense llama.


The gathering took place at a fabulously agro-tourismy dairy farm. There was mini-golf, tons of playground space for kiddos and lots of fun animals to feed. We saw the fattest Barred Rock chicken ever and had goats chewing on our shirts


Naturally, there was ice cream.


And yarn.



It was a pretty nice day!

Write a post...help a dog.

You all know Sugar, right? Sugar Pie, Sugarino, Puppy Pie, the Fuzzy Bear.

We like her. She keeps us warm in the winter, and licks our plates clean so we don't have to scrub so hard when we're doing the dishes. And she's super cute.

We found her at the fabulous Indianapolis Humane Society and knew right away she was our dog.

I have a confession. I don't like puppies. They're a lot of work and kind of a pain in the butt, and you don't know what kind of a dog they're going to be. How big? Will she like people? Want to snuggle? Will she eat my cats?

That is why I, personally, am really glad we adopted A Dog (though, if you want the trouble of a puppy, the Humane Society has them too).

Sugar was only at the Humane Society for a few days when we snagged her. They treated her, and us, awesomely. She was spayed, given some shots, and played with by great volunteers. We were sent home with tons of great info and the best dog on the planet.

If you are so included, check out the the PEDIGREE Adoption Drive on Facebook. Pedigree is raising awareness for homeless dogs by donating a bowl of food to shelter dogs for everyone who becomes a “Fan” or “Likes” The PEDIGREE Adoption Drive on Facebook. So far more than 1 million bowls have been donated.

Sugar Pie thanks you.

Uck. Brown.

I have discovered an odd mystery of life and knitting. It's so complex, most of you won't really understand. You'll just think I'm nutters. I'm not, though. This is a real thing. But don't feel bad if you don't get it - it is pretty complex.

I think Brown is going to kill me.

Whatever - you know I love brown clothes. Like, everything I own is brown. I've been knitting my first ever sweater (for the past two years) and...guess what? It's brown. When bought the yarn, my mom pointed out that everything I own is already brown and...really, it's BROWN - didn't I like the coral or the antique rose or even the dusty green?

Nope. I went brown.

I'm excited that this sweater might even be done for fall to join the rest of my brownish wardrobe. I bound off the bottom edge and am halfway through one arm. The pattern told me to do this fancy bind off (apparently they didn't know it was my first sweater). It looked crappy. Like this:

So, I did my plan ole bind off (BO, for those in the know). It's way better. Go sweater! I can't wait to wear your lovely brown-ness.

I've also been working on a scarf for Bill for the last two years. It too is brown. Dyed with our very own Estate Walnuts.

But these socks are killing me!! They're so....brown. It's really wrong. See what I mean:

Uck. It's a gosh darn travesty. You see it, right?

Socks are supposed to be orange and yellow and occasionally blue.

I'm knitting them to try something new - brown is the September color for a knitting group on Ravelry. So, I decided to play along. A few months ago, that same group was knitting in white (white!) and, while I was quite skeptical, I joined in and these socks were the result:


Awesome right? They're one of my favs, but I never would have done it on my own. I mean, who knew white could have so much zing??


So, I was hoping for a similar earth-shattering color epiphany this time around. Brown, though? I dunno. Just looking at them puts me into a coma.


Maybe I'll go work on that sweater instead...