stuff i'm doing

thought i'd show you some of the things i've been up to besides knitting hats. these are the pics of some sweaters (mostly lambswool and cashmere) that i have felted and am re-constructing into armwarmers, ear bands, hats and bags.

these are in different stages of deconstruction/ re-creation. i love recycling stuff. the possibilities are endless!

Ramen Knitting 101

this is my first ever posted video. i found this on youtube, and am delighted to have a new use for ramen noodles since going the route of paleo nutrition. i may not be able to eat them, but now i can knit with them!

fiber goody giveaway and a chance to help

saw this on facebook (thanks DeAnna!) and wanted to share it with everyone.

Pete's Greens, an organic CSA in vermont, suffered a devastating fire recently. Juniper Moon Farm is having a giveaway in an attempt to help. you can enter the giveaway whether you donate or not, but every dollar will help this guy get back on his feet before the growing season! they have raised over $5,000 already. check it out here:

Juniper Moon Farm Giveaway

they are giving away an enormous amount of cool stuff, from books, yarns, fibers.....and again, you do NOT have to donate to enter.

kudos to Juniper Moon Farm for their huge hearts!

i've been busy

i have been in a sort of fiber seclusion. Turkey Day market is tuesday, and i have a few ufo's (unfinished objects) i need to..... finish.....and a dozen i want to start! two more events in december, but things will relax after tuesday. you'll hear from me then! promise!

knitting worms

"what is that?" you say. "what are you talking about? worms that knit?"

nope! knitting a worm! heidi has me all in a dither. with all the new found time on my hands after restructuring my life a bit, i have been able to delve into, and actually bring together, several passions. today it is homesteading (vansteading to many of us!) and knitting......

last night i emailed heidi to remind her that Brian the Younger had been doing vermiculture (composting with worms)in his rv when i met him in pahrump. i have some pics somewhere of the cute little guys and the resulting rich, black compost they produced, but thought heidi might be able to get brian to contribute his experiences to the vansteader information pool since i, as i told her,  don't know much about worm poo. i have long been interested in trying it (making it, not eating it) but becoming semi-mobile put a stop to that.....

or has it? i was interested when i saw brian's set-up, but he has a much larger rv with room for that sort of thing. i immediately dismissed it as impracticle in the rondyvan, which is a very silly thing to do. i should know by now that ideas should never be dismissed, only shelved temporarily until heidi gets me all inspired again, and ya throw a whole network of vandwellers and such into the mix :-)

so, the knitting, what about the knitting?

i remembered a discussion on vermiculture in small spaces that we had on a group called ishcon, where friends of ishmael gathered. it took some digging, but i finally found the thread, and lo and behold! i not only found the website of the marvelous woman who created "worm-ware", the sustainable answer to composting on the go, but a pattern for knitted worms! all on the very same website! now ya wonder why i think my life is pretty amazing?

i'm gonna quit rattling on here, and give you some links to check it out yourself. enjoy!

travels with worms

knit one red worm

cityworm

i can't wait to see where heidi goes with this! kylie, you too!

i didn't have time to be a hooker......

i caught the last few minutes of Laryssa's demonstration on using fiber combs. it was Laryssa who sold me the CVM (california variegated mutant) roving.

then i found Laryssa and Catherine's booth. i did not have time to learn to be a hooker. today, anyway :-) rug hooking was one of the many fiber pursuits that Catherine and i gleefully took up as the Side-Track Sisters. while my attention span waned, Catherine went on to master every aspect of fiber artistry she laid her hands on.......

one of Catherine's works of art. she is a cat lover :-)

more. sigh....

i am not sure who felted these bears, but my guess would be Laryssa? they were sweet.

"may the forest be with you"

http://twokniveskatie.blogspot.com/

Endless Mountain Fiber Festival part I

i was out of fiber, and needing to make hats, so last week i headed to the Endless Mountain Fiber Festival to see what i could find. EMFF has only been going on for a few years, but has really grown, and is getting better every year. above you see a sweater knit from dog hair. scrumptious! i hereby vow to never shave Mutt again, and go back to harvesting his fluff. this was found in the booth of Kristina Conroy of Spunwoven Designs. she does custom pet hair spinning and can be contacted at http://www.spunwovendesigns.com/.

there were lots of critters there. bunnies and llamas and alpacas. and sheep, of course. i picked up a bag of alpaca from Dunn Spun Yarn. i haven't had a chance to spin it yet, but the test strand promises to be lovely :- ) Luann and Mike dunn do hand-turned knitting needles, shearing, and hand-spun yarn.

talk about spinning skills. i stopped by cyndy donohue's booth, where she was spinning flax. it's hard to tell from the pic (i was using a camera phone) but she is spinning two-handed, as in two threads simultaneously. i was pretty impressed.

here you can see the two bobbins, each with their own orifice. i wish i had had more time to talk to her, and find out more about her. i did look up her etsy shop, and she has cool stuff there......riverrim.etsy.com

my big score of the day was a fiber i have been lusting after for a long time....California Variegated Mutant, an endangered breed. i am spinning it on my small hatchtown high whorl spindle, and will get photos as soon as i get more spun. probably this week-end at the rendezvous....you can read more about CVM at http://www.nationalcvmconservancy.com/

"may the forest be with you"

san antonio

i made it to san antonio on the 24th of january, and spent a week visiting my friend ron. it was during this week that mutt had his petsmart adventure, which would make for a lousy association with the city. fortunately, mutt adores ron, so it will not bother him to go back at all. ron has the trailer you see above in a really nice trailer park outside of san antonio. lots of driveway space for the rondyvan, as you can see from the picture above. i was plugged into electric, and had use of his wifi. the shower house/ laundry was right across the street, so it was a really nice break from the road and the truckstops. not to mention all the time ron and i spent yakking and staring at our respective computer screens.....
we did get out on some adventures. i got to see the alamo.......if not the movie, this time :-)
ron took me to see the yarn shops of san antonio, and i was dizzy to see all the yarn and fiber....
and issue #1 of the first ever knitting comic book, Handknit heroes! what a hoot! sweet mike will love it! he can now have his comics, and knit it, too!

one significant little adventure we had on this sightseeing roadtrip was that as we were tootling down the interstate at about 65 mph, the doors to ron's wheelchair lift in his sportsmobile flew open! ron was able to get to the side of the road safely, where we determined that mutt had jumped up on the sofa bed in the back of the van, smack dab on the remote that activates the lift! poor mutt, we had just gotten him to the point of not being afraid of the lift, and actually riding on it. how do you explain remotes to a dog? he remains suspicious to this day....
finally, on friday, my first texas barbeque. we caravanned to lanno, texas where ron spoiled me with the best barbeque in texas. i could believe it.
all sorts of brisket and ribs and super chops and sausage. they were out of goat when we were there. oh, darn, we'll have to go back :-)
the pits are amazing, and the smell is heavenly.
i got to watch the guys carrying hot coals with the shovels. i had a pile of ribs, and ron shared his hunk of beef with me. we didn't bother with sides or salads. that is a waste of gastronomic space. we took the leftovers with us. mutt was pleased. i don't think i ate again until 24 hrs. later.....

from lanno, ron returned to san antonio, while i continued on to dallas, in search of stevie ray.....

meet deanna

i am so psyched to be going to this next weekend. this is one of those very cool things that keep serendipitously popping up on this trip. (yesterday, mike's granny asked me "what is your itinerary?" and i answered honestly " i haven't got a clue" !)

anyhow, mike found this on tara's blog, and asked if i wanted to go to it. i think i was in oregon at the time, headed for 10k ways. i had had vague thoughts of going to eugene and portland after the campout, but hadn't planned on going to washington. but this "knitting thingy" , as mike calls it, was too interesting to pass up. mike then offered his driveway as a layover until the 30th, and that sealed the deal. i was on my way north.

and i am so glad i did. original plans had mike and i meeting "face to face" for the first time at the 10k ways gathering in southern oregon (although we knew each other already from the yahoo group "vandwellers"). heavy smoke from the california fires that were concentrated over jacksonville, oregon put an end to that.

heidi from vandwellers had been teasing mike about learning to knit. now, real men are up to any challenge, and since the only thing mike doesn't know how to do, apparently, is knit....well, there you have a recipe for a new direction for my roadtrip. i am blessed to by here at mike's surrounded by his warm and wonderful family, and getting to know him so much better.

so back to deanna, and her "knitting thingy". turns out deanna knew me through my blog, and was excited to have mike and mutt and i there. i am so excited and honored! she gets it that knitting needles are just one more sharp thing in my arsenal, and i wanna learn how to fight off cougars! i have been wondering, though, if i should switch some of my bamboo circulars in for some sturdier heavy metal ones :-) i will let you know what she says after next weekend.....

here is the link to her very cool blog:
http://www.whoaphotos.com/blog/2008/07/26/knit-n-nature/

or click on the blog title "meet deanna" above....

tribalfyber

turkey day 2007: a portion of our stand in the barn at a local farmers market where you can buy pasture raised meats, organic veggies, handmade soaps, and other sustainably grown or locally produced items. alot of the hats we sell are made from locally produced fiber and spun, dyed, and knitted by local artists. we had an amazing day here...excellent sales made even better by the chance to hang out with cool people who, like us, are trying to live more lightly on the earth.

catherine, one of tribalfyber's talented fiber artists, sent me this pic. she is back to doing her sorcery with the dyepot, and i am getting inspired to fool around with fiber again. we were on hiatus after several months of frantic knitting and spinning to stock up on warm woolen things for the fall and winter shows.

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i am going to spend some of my upcoming "down time" beginning to stock up for the next round of shows this fall and winter. i got a call recently from a library that holds a huge auction every summer and would like us to do spinning demos as one of the vendors. the crowd at this place would be the type that wouldn't pause at the notion of spending $30-$40 bucks for a hand-knitted hat, but i'm not certain how many people are gonna want to buy something woolen on a steamy july day. in october at the pumpkin festival, the crisp october air seemed to drive people to wildly shove money at us in order to get one of our hats, although i like to think that it was because they were smitten with our funky, one of a kind creations too.

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which brings me to another crossroads. i have to start booking the fall shows now, and reserving our spots. but my future is rather uncertain, and open to many new possibilities. i am itching to get on the road, and am reluctant to commit my time so far in the future. i need to explore the possibilty of taking this show on the road, or going exclusively internet with it. and i have to consider the fact that some aspects of my future are completely out of my control.

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and as always, the forests and the quiet places are out there, just waiting. i can choose to get as far away from civilization as possible, and enjoy the solitude, or maybe find a tribe of like-minded folks to hang out with.

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we'll see.

so i get questions

so i get questions. i love them. someone wanted to know if i owned any other shoes besides mukluks. so here are my favorite summer boots. actually, they are woodland indian 18th century era high topped center-seam moccasins. i love footwear that molds to your foot. they are light, they breathe, and you can move nimbly and quickly. these are great for bushwhacking, they protect your legs. when the soles wear out, it's easy to sew new ones on. the downside? they are as slippery as shit. i don't know how the indians stayed upright on wet grass.....

another recent question....."do you have a foot fetish?" haha! no. if i have a fetish, it's kindness. kindness is the sexiest thing going. try it.

in the upper left corner of the pic is some roving. i was thinking of spinning the yarn for tara's socks, but changed my mind. i'm gonna use the canadian polworth/ kid mohair so i can get them going quicker. can't have my girl with cold feet.

new old jeans and the joy of socks

just a pic of the jeans i found in my closet, and the sock i just finished.....you can see the beginning of the second sock on the needles. this is a labor of love. i was so burnt out by production knitting for the shows over the fall, that i thought i'd die if i cast on another hat. so i decided to get me a pair of socks done. for me, this time. i haven't had a handknit pair of socks since catherine made me a blue pair some time ago.....which i still wear, i might add :-) i wear her love this minute, in the form of a shawl she spend countless hours spinning and then knitting. thanks, catherine!

catherine is my best friend. she is one of the very few people who truly knows me, and accepts me as i am, and makes me a better person for it. she is one part of a collaboration we call tribalfyber. she does magic with her colors and dyepots, and i aspire to learn the craft as well as she knows it.

so, socks. oh, the joy of socks. these are being knit from a canadian yarn-- part polworth wool, part kid mohair. soft and strong, they will make the perfect mukluk socks.

i think i should knit tara a pair for cold nights in her van, so she could be warmed at once by the lofty yarn, and the knitting love.