Another year at the Common Ground Fair! I worked 37 hours between Friday and Sunday, and I went to work today for most of the day (what was I thinking??), so I’m a little crispy.

The fair set an attendance record on Saturday, and it was a busy day! 24,500 people. Our booth saw a good number of people, so we did a good job getting out the word about invasive plants. Here’s our two interns, Chris and Gwen,

Silly me, I brought the blank posters, so on Friday we didn’t have the big showy pictures. Good thing we got them in for Saturday! They really make people stop and look.

The big news at the fair? Can you see it?? The blue sign behind the kid’s daily parade?

Coffee!!! At the Fair!!!! This was big news. I’ve got electricity at my booth (for the laptop slide show), so, after purchasing two coffees (it was good, but it was not inexpensive), I continued to make my own.

A highlight for me was meeting and talking with Donna of the Wednesday Spinners. Here she is talking about dyeing with fungi. And some hats made of yarn dyed with fungi (and lichens-the purples).

She brain tanned her buckskin and doeskin, and it was soft and very pleasant. DH brought her some fungi on Sunday, and she was pleased. I’m seeing this as a good thing, his fungus obsession, and I can start experimenting with it for dye (in addition to the lotion). I already know the sweater I want to overdye with the superconcentrated chagga tea I made.

I didn’t make any fiber purchases, but enjoyed gabbing with Bill Huntington of Hope Spinnery (who has this great hat pattern that he hasn’t published yet, soon, soon!!!), Nanney Kennedy (the temptress) of Sea Colors, and Pogo of Friends Folly Farm.

The people were fun to watch, and the animals were beautiful.

Oxen, I’m still a little unclear about what these are. Castrated boy cows used as draft animals not as beef animals… but are they a distinct breed?? They get big!

Beautiful draft horses,

Donkeys.. the owner said that these creatures bite him, so watch out. I didn’t hear anybody yelp, but honestly, would you go petting a creature with big teeth and a large mouth when its owner said it bites him?

Sunday rained all day, and attendence was down, but it was still beautiful… sights, smells, and sounds…

i totally got caught

On Saturday, I was walking around the back of the fair, and passed a youngish, tallish, relatively attractive man, in a utilikilt, and my mind was wandering: oooh, a kilt, damn, I want one of those, how come they don’t make the utilikilts for women?, would it look so good on a woman, specifically me? and look at those boots, yowza. He must’ve seen some look on my face, so he says something like “have a good day” in this wicked accent (Scottish? Aussie?), and I realized he had the wrong idea. I was telling Bill that I almost told him it was his clothes I was lusting after, not him… but why spoil it.

and then I fessed up

Then the next day I saw a man I though was him, and asked if he was wandering around in a utilikilt. Yes. So I told him he caught me lusting after his clothes, and I thought maybe he’d gotten the wrong idea. He laughed, and looked at me like I was a nutjob, and said “have a great day!”. If you go next year, he works the Trillium Soap booth…

Can you tell that when my brother and I played Batman and Robin, I was usually Robin? (And he was the Penguin or some other nefarious criminal who had me tied up and requiring some sort of rescue)…. Anyhow…

The “Bat Light” was shining today at work…

summer in a glass

Since it’s now fall and all…

I have no idea what this is called, but it is incredible… basically a basil/lime/gin cocktail. nummmm nummmmm……

• “some” basil leaves
• 3/4 parts simple syrup
• 1 part lime juice (key lime juice is better than real-lime, and fresh is great too)
• 2 parts gin (something decent… tanqueray, bombay, hendricks, or see here for other gin recommends)

Muddle the basil leaves in a cocktail shaker. Add the liquids. Add some ice. Shake. Serve over ice.

You can also do the simple way and muddle the leaves in a glass, add the liquids, add some ice, and stir. But I think shaking it on ice is way better! I’ve also made with sugar versus the syrup and it’s good too.

colors of fall

On Saturday a friend and I went out, supposedly to do a bit of kayaking… but it was wickedly windy, and we spent some time checking in on yet another friend (seriously… did the phone die because of the battery or because something horrible happened…thankfully it was an issue of the battery, but things are rough for her now, so send out some good thoughts to her!)

Fall colors of watershield, yellow floating heart, some water-lily, and who knows what else at one of the two boat landings at the dam in Mt. Vernon.

Common Ground Fair!

The Common Ground Fair is this weekend… I’ll be there with our Invasives display (though it has changed since last year)… If you go to the fair, come visit me, I’ll be in one of the two environmental concerns tents.

This morning I was inspired to take quick snapshots of the stash… mostly it was the tops of the bins/drawers/bags/etc. To remind myself, really you don’t need any more yarn.

Because I went to fiber frolic today. With a local friend, and we met up with Lucia (who has not been blogging much lately… ahem). After what seemed like only a bit, another local friend (actually it was that Canadian) found us, but it was really nearly 3 hours later.

We were at Bill Huntington’s booth, where I made my first purchase… a single skein of windspun yarn. It’s darker and purpler than shown here,

This is to contrast (go with?) with some yarn I got from him last year,

Maybe I’ll make that Circus Tent Hat with the four colors… this pattern is probably the first thing I bought from a local fiber person, years ago.

Ran into Sara at Amy’s booth (no surprise there), and she said I need some sparkle. Eventually I made it to enchanted knoll, and I did succumb, to this,

Sparkly, but subtle… and the colors of mud, well within my color comfort zone!

We have a plan that on the first furlough day we’ll head out for a drink and sit by the river and drink and spin. Something sparkley and fun.

So up to this point my scheme was working…

But then… that wicked, wicked woman. Which wicked woman? A couple probably… but it’s Nanney Kennedy of whom I speak. Temptress. Seductress.

I mean, look at this, (and this)

There were more colors, and they were better in person…

And she had puppies… puppies!… come on, is that yarn not irresistable enough on its own?? It’s soft and sproingy, and it feels incredible next to your skin.

I moved out of my typical color scheme, into what Nanney termed “personal growth”. Hah! Actually, I do wear these colors, but not so much the pinky purple. Anyhow, this will be the PG sweater.

(this is a really crappy pic of the colors, they are richer)

Saw lots of people and got to gab with many of them. We met a young bunny, whose owner was looking for a name, and fell in love with G’s suggestion of Milkweed. So, meet Milkweed,

who was, as one might imagine, incredibly soft.

This is a picture for my SIL, who is a “dirty hooker” (she leaves her ends until the end, which makes sense to me!).

By Susie Stephenson. It’s an incredible vest, and may be in the Farnsworth this year. Can you see the embroidery inside? There’s a couple messages, and lots of clothing tags (think Pendleton and Harris Tweed) too.

Hope you’re having a good weekend. I better get knitting, eh?

I went to SPA with my friend G for just Saturday. First we shopped (next year I think I will set up my wheel first), and I was totally taken with the color of this yarn,

1700 yards of lace weight wool from Kim at The Woolen Rabbit, to make this incredible shawl,

The Maple Leaf Shawl… yowza! The pattern is supposed to be hot off the presses in a couple of weeks. There were a LOT of people in this booth, and I was kind of stuck against the table, so I kept handing out skeins of yarn to everybody… and the shawl. I think between trying it on (several times) and passing it around, that at least 3 other people bought the yarn and pattern in the 15 minutes we were in there.

Two ounces each of 3 shades of natural brown icelandic lamb from Frelsi Farm Icelandics to make some mittens. I really enjoy talking with these women, and was happy to buy something from them. The fleece is soft and full of lanolin… too itchy for my face, but perfect for mittens.

In the last minutes of vendors being open, I nabbed 4 ounces from Pogo,

And I got an early birthday present! The Lazy Kate for my Ladybug! Thank you so much!!! Here it is set up at SPA, with Patty and Julie (and their Ladybugs!)

We had quite the discussion about oiling your shaft (I had to know, since this is all new to me). So I went off to get some oil and Amy said, oh, no, you need to vaseline your shaft. And then she showed me where to put the oil.

Also had a lovely lunch with G, Lucia, and Brenda, and saw lots of other people. As always, not as much time to spend with them all as I would’ve liked. Maybe next year.

spinning

So what was I plying? My first yarn on the Ladybug!

I had spun up two bobbins, each with 4 ounces of wool blend from Amy (in the Chiquita colorway) that I got when I got the wheel… but apparently my spinning changed between bobbin one and bobbin two, because when I finished plying this morning, I had some extra…

So I thought, why not try Navajo plying. Pogo showed us how in that class last spring, but I’ve never done it… Some googling helped, but clearly I need practice!

(there are a couple of little, I don’t know what they’re called, nubs? corkscrews? sticking out of the yarn).

Top to bottom, about 320 yards, 200 yards, and 25 yards. Some of the dye came off on my fingers when I was spinning, so I think I will give the yarn a vinegar bath, and hang it to set… I am pleased enough, but know my plying (and spinning) isn’t really even!

It is interesting to see how the colors are different in the Navajo ply, and I can see that once I get better at this whole spinning and plying thing, I might do more of this.

I started on that icelandic…

more snow?

We’re getting more snow as I write… and it’s supposed to be a real kick butt storm. Even though it was relatively warm the other day, the snow didn’t really so much melt as compacted. No place to pile more, so in preparation for another storm, somebody was busy today…

(not me… )

and then there were none

Goldfish that is.

It may have been that plecos I introduced. Or that pea. The former floater sunk and was dead, so I flushed it away. The plecos had its nose half out of the water, and the two big goldfish had the ick. We tried a couple of days of ick therapy, but then plecos died, and we decided to put an end to their misery… they really looked awful. So we buried them in an icy tomb. Cruel or compassionate? All we knew is that we didn’t want to flush living goldfish… they might end up in the river and get well and reproduce and wreak havoc.

My other Rhinebeck purchase, It Itches, signed by Franklin! Who is so photogenic. Whereas I am not (you only generally see the good pictures). I was perhaps following the advice from a mammography visit a couple years ago where the technician said to “love the camera”, and not just for her pictures for that day, but because it helps keep those neck wrinkles from showing up…. Note to self: don’t lift your chin so high, it makes you look piggy nosed!

I told Franklin I thought maybe he thought I was some sort of weird blog stalker because he never responded when I told him the dream of mine he was in… he chuckled. And since you know you want to know… Here it is,

I go to his house (which was one of my old houses). He says “Oh good, you’re here, you can help me choose a watch”. And then we sat around in some living room looking at a watch catalog and discussing the merits of watches with faces, where you feel that time is continuous and circular versus digital watches, where you feel that time is linear and has a beginning and an end. We may also have been knitting. There were a few other people there too. After a bit, a rather snarky woman (his roommate) comes into the room and declares “OK, all of you, out now”. (DOLORES??) So I gather up my things, and realizing I can be careless, I look in the couch cushions and also under the couch. Where, when I lift the couch skirt, Lo! and Behold! There is a row of neatly stacked hand knit socks, maybe 3 or 4 pairs high and maybe 10 or 15 wide, all with color work like Latvian socks… and the aroma of lanolin came wafting out from under the couch.

I don’t think he really is a big sock knitter, so I don’t know where that came from. Maybe they were Dolores’s.

We are still without a usable PC at home. Wah Wah Wah. So this is just a quick post and I hope to catch up on some blog reading soon! My last Rhinebeck purchase is not photo-worthy, a couple of dye packets for another dyeing experiment.