Comments!

Hey, I got another comment on my blog!! I came up with an idea as I lay in bed this morning not wanting to get up….. I think I should run a contest. A commenter contest. So here would be the deal. For the next 3 days, anyone who leaves a comment would be entered in a drawing. Then I would draw a name, and send a small giftie to whichever name is drawn. The trouble is that the commenters would have to identify themselves somehow – I think you can come up with a quite innocuous name that maintains your actual anonymity. But then, the winner would have to be willing to email me your actual address so I could send the thing. Hmmmmm. It is an idea. Just a way to find out if I actually have any readers. I’ll write a whole post dedicated to just that.
       I am doing very well with my attempts at solar dyeing. A few days ago I set up some white wool with some yellow and red dye poured on, I rinsed that yesterday and put some wool that was pink from exhausting the previous dye bath into what was left, and that is now a nice orange. The original stuff is nicely variegated. Only bad thing – I broke the glass I’ve been using over the top. I think I will try mending it with duct tape.
    I spent a good part of yesterday – guess what?? - spinning more brown/purple stuff!!!!! I’m enjoying it because I like the variegation. I like the way it changes as it moves through my fingers. I also like listening to my cd books – I now know all about The Wars That Shaped the Western World (as in Peloponnesian, and Punic, as in ancient Greece and Rome. And I am learning about the American Founding Fathers. I’m getting terribly educated while doing “useful” work. Well, we’ll see if anything ever comes of these skeins. I will probably have enough for an entire sweater, but doubt anyone would buy a full pound of it. I did start knitting a nice pair of loosely knit wrist warmers with it.

I am knitting straight from the spool, so it is a bit coarse. When I am done I will wash them in HOT with a bit of agitation to bring out the softness.
    That brings up a concern I have. I am worried about when I will need to go back to reality in a few weeks – when classes start up and I must be teaching. I won’t be able to do much spinning, but what I am worried about is getting myself up earlier. I guess it will mean getting to bed earlier. No more staying up to watch the Terry Jones series on People of the Middle Ages that we discovered on Netflix. That won’t be such a loss. It’s just that going to bed at 9 does not mean I go to sleep at 9. Well, after several days of getting up earlier maybe I will manage to get to sleep earlier. It’s just that I have so much to do before I can leave for work. Or rather so much I want to do: stretches, write, meditate, feed the buns. And if things return to the usual, feeding the buns may be all I end up doing.
    I think I had better feed this wee beastie of a mouse. Every 2 hours gets kind of tedious.
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Wellesley Fair Article Link

The Wellesley Fair may  have some unforeseen benefits. A reporter was there from the local paper, and he took a photo of me and put it and some info into his article. Here's the link:

http://wellesley.patch.com/articles/the-massachusetts-marketplace-festival#c


So maybe some folks will visit my Etsy shop, and maybe even this blog because of it. Here's a request - if anyone does visit this blog, found by whatever means, send me a comment!!!! I kind of feel like I write to nobody..... Of course this morning will be a bit disappointing, as there is little fiber or bunny news. Sorry.

My schedule is all messed up this morning. After sleeping poorly because of being awakened in the middle of the night by a howling dog (yes, you Tigger) who we finally found under the bureau – what he was howling about we’ll never know – I had to get up early to feed the adorable wee mousie. It seems somehow less adorable very early in the morning…. I tried to go back to sleep but was just lying there with my brain going a mile a minute, so I got up, and rather than do all the stuff that needs doing, like stretches and feeding the buns, I decided to just write and perhaps thus cool my brain.
    Speaking of cool, it has been hot hot hot (how ya feeling? Hot hot hot) and I am tired of it. It is hard to be outside spinning. I suppose next year, after our basement is all finished, I could sit in there and spin, though I hate being down in a stuffy basement instead of out in the lovely air. It rained last night, so maybe it will be cooler.
       We watched a really dumb Netflix thing about the Universe. The label said it was made in 2006, but it really had been filmed in 1989 and was really dated. So we turned it off and watched a Terry Gillium thing about medieval peasants. I knit on the scarf for Ally, but the trouble is that I must count with that scarf so it is hard to knit it while listening to my French Literature tape, or while watching a video.
    Ok, I guess I’ve rambled enough. Today I will spin more purple/brown – I will be spinning that for quite a while. The new technique of spinning one full bobbin, then another full one with ½ ounce bits separated by a contrasting color, then plying 1 ounce at a time seems to work well. 
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I am not especially happy with this situation. The other computer has died – perhaps due to something about the power cord since it just loses power shortly after turning on. So I am writing at the big computer and I do NOT like it. I am spoiled by sitting outside in the nice cool breeze. And I prefer to write on my lap, which I have just discovered I can do with this, too, why not?
    Well, after swearing off fiber forever yesterday, I still managed to spin up 3 small skeins of the purple/brown stuff. I wound off 2 of them, and will knit the third right from the spool. Wrist warmers? A headband? Something small just so I can see how it comes out.
    Tiny Mousito is still alive and going strong and acts starving every time we go to feed it. It is also getting a bit more rambunctious, scrambles about all over its box. I think it will need an actual cage of some sort soon. It is unbelievably cute and so so so tiny!
   Oh, here’s something exciting: I made another Etsy sale!!!!! I spent quite a long time yesterday putting up a few more things – just skeins.

Boy, it is time consuming. I need to streamline it somehow. For one thing, I take a mazillion photos of each skein, then go through them all to choose the best 4. And fix them all in various ways. If only I could just take one photo and that was that. Then it takes time to write up a blurb for each one. I have saved the blurbs I’ve written so I can use them as a template of some sort, changing details as needed. Today I must go to the po to mail off the purchased skein.
      But first, I can't resist including this little montage of the T-boy and I sharing a treat. Note the drool strand in the 1st photo...

 Ok, it is nearly 9, I’d better get a move on.


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Utter Failure

    Bad title. I should not focus on the failure part, rather on whatever lessons I learned, whatever enjoyment I had, whatever good may have come from it. I speak of yesterday’s complete waste of time and energy at the Horticultural Fair in Wellesley. I made two sales of <$100. Not as bad as that fair at Look Park several years ago where I sold absolutely nothing… This was not a particularly good venue for me (ya think??) since it was more of an agricultural fair, and people were not so much on the lookout for handcrafted items. Add to that the major malfaut on the part of the orgqanizers of hiring a very loud rock band to play Beatles covers right in front of me. I couldn’t hear myself think let alone talk to anyone about my stuff. It was a good thing I had the display so people could see photos and not have to ask me as much. A lesson: I should more carefully check out a fair before I pay good money and go to all the effort to sell at it.
    I did get rather majorly depressed: “Nobody wants my stuff” “Why do I bother working so hard at this?” “I am wasting my time and energy which could be put to much better use fighting global warming” “I pretend/think/imagine I am a ‘fiber artist’ when really I am just a dilettante.” That last hits a nerve since I’ve felt like one ever since learning the world in Mr. Walker’s English class junior year. and G’s little mouse is an even smaller example of this misspent, ill appropriated energy. Here’s the story: Friday night I get a call from G at Cumbie’s on rt 9. She and K had biked there and found a tiny baby mouse in the parking lot. What should they do with it? I suggested many options including leaving it there (let nature take its course), putting it out of its misery, feeding it to Snakey, and trying to care for it, which would be very hard and time consuming. Of course they decided on the latter, apparently mainly at Katie’s insistence. So we now have a tiny baby mouse, probably a week or so old (eyes not yet open) that every few hours must be fed kitten milk replacer with a tiny syringe, sometimes by G and sometimes by me. And what will we do with this mouse when it is grown? Probably catch it with a mouse trap when it ends up in our kitchen…. I have suggested that we invite K over to teach her how to feed it so that at least they can take turns. And when we go to Oregon, maybe she can take it. And maybe her new kitten will find it and dispatch it….. Well, one thing I can say is that it is adorably cute, voracious, and must be hardy to have made it this long.

It brings back memories of hours spent caring for the girls’ tamagotchies (?) when they were little.
    One may notice that I have no interesting fiber news, things I’m working on, and all like that. That’s because I am so discouraged that I don’t even want to think about fiber today.

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Getting Ready for a Fair

What will today bring? Much work I fear. I did a lot of spinning yesterday to get ready for tomorrow – I have 3 new skeins of light (Lucky) gray, and the three of white. I still have a lot to do since I need to put labels on all the unlabeled skeins, which includes all the angora/alpaca/wool stuff, and the pink stuff, as well as the new angora. I also, yesterday printed up a bunch of photos that I will use for the informative display at my booth. I’m not yet sure how I will hang it. I also really hope the tent support part comes today. Well, I think I will set up the tent and think about it. I think I could hang the display from the metal supports. My other idea was to hang it on the wooden shelves, but I think I will bring that big mirror that I had last Christmas Fair and hang that on the shelves. Well, I still have to actually put the display together. I need to get double stick tape and I’m hoping Hastings has some. I’m thinking I will go (maybe walk, maybe bike) into town to get the tape, return the cd booklet to the library, and get a dowel to fix the wheel. The flier broke yesterday (it’s been loose for a long time), but then – I have the flier from the wheel I bought (and immediately regretted buying) in Maine. I no longer regret it! I need to now drill out the broken dowels, and glue in new ones and clamp the whole thing (the old one) to fix it. In town I must also get cash for the fair.
   
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Computer Issues

I got the computer to work better – I did whatever it is called where you put it back in time a few days. I ought to run some virus checks and all that on it now. Well, after I write. And IF it stays running. I managed to upload yesterday’s blog and decided I would start writing now while it is still on. I’ll have to continually save. But I have it inside which is not that nice, the computer itself is unbearably hot, the noise from it is much louder here, and besides that I have not yet fed the buns and I stopped my stretches in the middle to deal with this. An upset to my routine!!!!! And I don’t like writing on the table like this. I want the thing in my lap, but it is crowded at the table and the damn thing is so hot. I’ll try anyway. Ok, maybe this will be better. Wouldn’t it be great to have a real true laptop? One that one could actually carry around and use on one’s lap. Well, maybe one day. After we get one for Geneviève. After they are both done with school. By then Kent will decide that he has to move to Hawaii and then who knows what the hell will happen.
    Religion and faith. Why do I have no interest in writing about those? Much more compelling to write about mundanities. Oh, by the way, good news: my cancer sore is getting better. It was really annoying all day yesterday. I realized that if I were very busy (as in at work) I would be distracted and would not notice it so much. Or if I had nothing to do and could just relax and read it probably would bother me less. But as it is, I am trying to keep myself motivated to do things – spin the angora, get ready for Sat, get other not very exciting things done, and in that situation something seemingly small like a canker sore is really distracting. I suppose, in part, because many times when I have trouble staying motivated I’ll take a small break to eat something. But with the canker sore that becomes its own ordeal.
    Today- I really have to do stuff like pay bills. I want to spin 3 more ounces, this time of Lucky fiber. On a more fun note, I started working on putting some photos together in a kind of montage to use in my booth. I think we need a new color cartridge in the printer, so I will need to do that today early on.
       I guess the thing to do right now is feed the buns, meditate, then spin up the gray stuff. Oh and I have the solar-maybe-dyed stuff to rinse out and see how it did. Maybe I’ll do that first. I imagine there will be lots of dye left over so I’ll need to find more wool to exhaust it. I guess I’ll wash the rest of that fleece.
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Oh brother. I was going great guns this morning – I did everything that needed doing pretty well in the right order, I’m writing before I meditate, but, as usual, I got distracted. I decided that I would try to upload photos directly here on this small computer, and now I am having trouble. I think perhaps this computer does not have the correct program to accept photos from this camera. I don’t want to spend a lot of time messing with this. There are many more important things to mess with. I’ll post appropriate photos later, as usual.
    I decided to get this litter of babies out of their hutch and give them some socialization time. Because they are in the hutch, they spend most of their time hidden away, kind of cowering in the back of the enclosed part. I’m sure most of the time they do not cower, they just sleep all snuggled up, but when I open the door they cower. I want them to get more accustomed to people. Unfortunately, it being summer, I don’t have all those lovely students to socialize them for me. Right now they are at the completely adorable stage.
    I picked up Ophelia Speaks from the 25 cent shelf at the library yesterday, and have been reading some of the essays written by teenage girls, pretty interesting. One started out saying that she got a journal and wrote in it every day, mostly about religion and faith. Hmmmmm. And here I write mostly about things like how well or poorly I slept and (which I was thinking this morning I would say and so I will) how I have a canker sore on my tongue. I guess these are the things that occupy my mind. I guess I am just lame. Oh well.
       Last night was spinning at Webs. I finished a skein of grey angora and started one of white. I want to get several more spun up for the upcoming fair in Wellesley. I’ll add the link to it here.
http://www.masshort.org/component/option,com_events/task,view_detail/agid,106/year,2010/month,08/day,07/Itemid,1000002/catids,25|19|24|30|18/
and the dh agreed to come with me – miraculous! It will sure make the set up and take down a lot easier.
    I started a bin of solar dyeing yesterday. Unfortunately I missed the best days for that, when it was so so so hot in July. And it got pretty hot (125 degrees inside the bin) yesterday, but it looks like today will be cloudy. Well, I will just leave it there until it gets sunny again and hope for the best.
    And now I am really hungry (and I have a canker sore on my tongue) so I will meditate and then eat!
Visit my new Etsy Shop!! http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

Some more photos - yarn and bunnies!

I actually spun and plied and washed my first one ounce skein of the purple brown!

Oh, and yesterday I took a bunch of photos of adult bunnies (some of which I posted) and some of adorable babies

adorable baby (2 weeks)

adorable baby AND lovely wrist warmer

baby and Papa (Blizzard)

And I started to organize the bunny photos. Just a start, it will take quite a while to really get it functional. I want it easy to access individual photos of each adult. That way I can post them with the appropriate thing offered for sale on Etsy.



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Parental Photos

Here are photos of the parents of the baby buns that I showed a few days ago:

 MOM (APRICOT) WITH ONE OF THE BABIES

 DAD (BART)

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Exciting News!!

Here’s some exciting news: I SOLD SOMETHING ON ETSY!!!!!! I have to look more closely at the email to see which wrist warmers it is, then send it off pronto today. How terribly exciting. And someone has requested that I reserve the brown new baby bunny. Not sure how I will get it to her.
On other fibrous news, I am finally spinning the purple/brown stuff. I will take a photo.

I want to make 1 ounce skeins, so I have thought up a great technique. I am spinning one bobbin of 2 ounces. Then on the next I will spin ½ ounce bits, and separate each with some obvious bit of some other color. Then when I ply I can do each ounce separately. Much less taking on and off of bobbins this way.
And final fibrous news – I decided to try knitting the cowl for my niece using a pattern I found on Ravelry. I will have to link to the blog that has it.
http://knitsnthings.wordpress.com/simply-knit-one-stitch-lace-scarf/
  It is lacey and pretty cool. I’m afraid, though, that I’m going to have to put it aside this week while I spin and knit up some stuff for the fair in Wellesley this weekend. I hope the part for the Easy-Up tent comes in time, otherwise I’ll be doing some creative duct tape work.

Visit my new Etsy Shop!!http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

I got a comment!!!!!!! That means that someone has read or at least glanced at my blog!! How exciting! But uh oh, it also means that people might actually be reading this and maybe I should watch what I write. I have a deep-seated fear (that comes, I believe, from being the youngest of 4 sisters) of annoying anyone. I assume by blabbing away  I will eventually annoy someone. Too bad.

I am a bit concerned about this late rising thing and what will happen when works starts back up in a month. It might mean that I have to give up a lot of my morning routine, and probably what will go first is MP’s. Or maybe I can try to get myself to bed earlier. We watched a rather lame NOVA video from Netflix about “the invisible world” and then I messed around for quite a while trying to get a photo to post on Ravelry to advertise bunnies for sale. Then when I did get to bed it took forever to get to sleep. Perhaps that’s what comes of having regular tea AND a chocolate cookie late in the afternoon. How lame is that? Tea after noon means I cannot sleep??
    Before the nova thing, and after a quick and late supper of toasted cheese sandwiches and Barn Farm salad, I carded more!!!!! I am finally doing the final card – combining all the different fibers that I will spin up into this purple/brown stuff. It will not be perfect, but I am ready to be done with it.
    I let a few bunnies out to runs this morning. It’s been so hot I haven’t done that in a while. I think they will enjoy the munching and I hope not do too much digging. I’ll probably switch them when I’m done writing to give another group a chance.
    Once again, I have not really written anything that I can reasonably put in a blog. So maybe this idea will not work very well. I certainly won’t have the time to write morning pages AND a blog. One will have to give.
Hmmmm - but look, I did decide to put most of it up anyway. well, happy reading world!!!
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A Post for Practical Reasons

I want to put a photo of the bunnies I have available for sale on Ravelry, and it looks like the photo must be on the internet, so if I post it here, I can type in the link to it.... maybe?

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New Thoughts

I have a new thought about the whole MP/blog “controversy.” I’m thinking I could write out my mps, then past part of them on the blog, skipping the more sensitive/personal stuff.
For example I can rant about the stupid purple stuff I’ve been carding for 3 months now. Nasty nasty purple. I THINK I have a final solution which is to combine it with dark brown wool, light brown angora, and a bit of the gold wool. I’ve spun up some samples and it looks quite nice. Very autumnal. Now why in all the world could all this not go on a blog? It could. Would it be interesting and would anyone in the universe be interested in reading it? Who the hell knows, but it’s not like that’s a major condition of writing one, nor much of an expectation
I’d like to think about something more uplifting. Is there anything? I think I will finally finish carding this purple/brown stuff so I can move on to other things. I have a couple of fiber ToDos: work on the dog hair stuff, and take photos of some “black” angora for someone who contacted me via etsy. I think I would not like to offer to do custom work via etsy. It is one thing to list things I have made and see if anyone wants to buy them. It’s another whole thing to take orders for stuff and then have to make it. Ok, that sounds like more of a real business, but I’m not sure I so much want that. After all, I do have an actual job and I don’t want this to become a complete burden.

Visit my new Etsy Shop!! http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

Continuation

Back to my questions:

What they are made of?
I pretty much answered this in that my stuff is made of angora, wool, sometimes alpaca, sometimes silk, occasionally bits of synthetic yarns cut up and added in. The angora and wool are basically local (to me), the alpaca and silk I get from nearby fairs, the other stuff anything goes (Michael's?). A lot of what I make is naturally colored rabbit or wool, but I also sometimes use dyes. Sometimes natural dyes (mostly walnut -> browns, and lichen-> purples), more often at this point commercial dyes (mostly Pro-Chem).

Details about my rabbits?
Oh boy, this is where I can go on and on and wax eloquent and use the cool names I came up with. Or not. Basics: my rabbits are mixed French and Giant. They are not registered and I do not show them. They are "dual purpose" meaning that of the litters I raise some rabbits are sold or kept for fiber, while some I use for meat. Yes, I do all the meat processing myself; no I don't like to do it, but I do; yes, rabbit (especially home raised like mine) is delicious and very healthy. I keep my rabbits outside all year round in wire cages protected from the weather. When possible, I let them out in little runs to eat grass (and dig, something they seem to love to do). They are well cared for and I would say seem basically comfortable and content. They are not house pets and I do not sit and watch TV on the couch with them. I do try to handle the babies a lot so they get very comfortable around people.

Superlatives designed to entice you to buy?
Skip this one for now.

Interesting tid-bits about me to emphasize the fact that you would be getting something made by a real (and very likeable) person rather than a corporation?
In fact, skip this one, too, as it is getting late and I am tired and I think I'll go read some Balzac.
Visit my new Etsy Shop!! http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

The next stuff I need to think about writing, or perfecting, since it already exists, is the front page etsy blurb. And then blurbs for each item listed. And it seems like on this blogger there is the possibility of “pages.” Meaning, I suppose, little descriptive blurb type things, I wonder if they can include photos. If so, I could put the photos of: me harvesting fiber

me carding

me spinning…..

plus some of the rabbits.

As for the etsy front page:

What would an Etsy Explorer be interested in about me and the things I create?

Would you like to know how I make things?

What they are made of?

Details about my rabbits?

Superlatives designed to entice you to buy?

Interesting tid-bits about me to emphasize the fact that you would be getting something made by a real (and very likeable) person rather than a corporation?

I wish I knew what would be most useful, though I suppose the reality is that some people want one thing, some another, and many don’t care about any of it, just want to see the items themselves and how they look.

Well I will do my best.

How do I make things? I start with the rabbits and I harvest their hair/fur/wool usually by plucking or brushing it out, sometimes by clipping it. I also start with raw wool that I usually get at local fairs or directly from friends that have sheep. I wash it, sometimes dye it. There are many options throughout the process of making yarn, and I use most of them at one time or another. One option is to blend the fibers. In this case I use my drum carder to align the wool and combine it with angora. If I blend in plucked or clipped angora, the resulting yarn is smooth and even. If I blend in brushed angora, I end up with lumpy stuff that makes a textured yarn. Both are wonderful. Another option is to card or flick-comb the wool by itself, then spin that alone. If I want to add angora to this version, I will usually spin the angora alone, then ply the two strands together.

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2 post in one day!!

What could I write about all my bunnies? After all, I have a lot of them, and a goodly number are actually pretty grumpy and annoying. It’s not as if I have 2 beloved rabbits that live in my house and sleep curled up on my bed with me. No, these are outdoor rabbits and in fact are more like livestock. Not that I am completely unappreciative of them. They are lovely. They look great, they are beautiful and on the occasions that I do take them out (besides to pluck or dose with vasoline) they are soft and lovely and soothing. It is also true that some of them are a pain in the neck to feed or groom. Some lunge at me when I reach for their dishes. Some of the guys spray anyone next to them and make a big mess. Some of them scratch and bite when I am trying to groom them. But still, those ears….. especially Bathsheba, Lucky, Angel…. The more French style ears are not quite as interesting. But they are still nice. Maybe I should focus on just what they look like/feel like, and not worry about the whole personality thing. I had thought, way back, to do like the character in the book we read for book club long ago. I am referring to the book that takes place in Ireland about the woman that makes beaded necklaces, each of which she names with some quality, like Perseverance, or Loyalty. They went like hotcakes and she apparently made her living this way. Ok, reality check: this is a novel (and not such a great one to be honest). I had thought I would give each rabbit a personality like that. But I’m afraid most of them would have personalities like “Grumpy,” “Nasty,” “Protective.” I mean which rabbit could be said to be “Steadfast” or “Radiant”? I could give them those names, but I would be lying. Not the first time I suppose.


Lucky of the Alluring Betty Davis Eyes (she’s also mean – call her Mean Girl??)

Bathsheba the Beautiful

Beatrix the Bashful (perhaps not true, but nicely alliterative)

Bo (for Bovine) the Misnamed…

Alice B. Tolkias the Archetypical Albino Angora

Apricot Jam the Sweet (sometimes)

Crystal Cave the Wondrous

Charlotte the Survivor

Cassandra Prophetess

Angel Face with Ears so Soft

Blizzard the Wizard, Big Daddy

Amber Waves of Grain (soon to join that grain in the stew pot)

Bartelby AKA Bart the Wild and Crazy Guy

Onyx Earth Mother

Bavarian Cream Penultimate of Soft

Ok. What does one think of all those? They just might work.









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Not Morning Pages

What an idea! I am currently at the family property and had sat myself down to do some writing about things in general, then decided, hey why not do it on this computer of my b-i-l’s, and then I will transfer it to the blog. That ever-present, never-sleeping blog.


First to explain – I have missed 2 (two! Count ‘em, TWO!) Morning Page/Blog days because of this, as it turns out, aborted “backpacking trip.” The idea (of the dh) had been to park at Jones Nose, part way up Mt Greylock, then to hike up a mile or so and camp at a very nice place that he found while hiking last year. Well, as it turns out, 1) one cannot park overnight at Jones Nose and 2) one cannot camp on the AT except at the shelters. Both things that me friend was wondering about when I described our plan to her yesterday. Points for her! I was assiduously not worrying about any of the logistics, but was leaving it all to the dh, whose plan, as I have clearly stated, this was. Anyway, by the time all this became clear, we had driven to Greylock and so decided to stop at J’sN and just hike up to that spot and then maybe pick blueberries and then come here to the farm for the night. Only when we started up the trail it started to pour, so that ended that idea. For my part, I will say that I was pretty content to be hiking in the rain, after all it was not cold (or rather I should say, because of the rain it was not hot, which it otherwise would have been) and so I did not mind being wet. But the dh wasn’t happy and so we bailed. The point of all this being that I did not write this morning because of getting ready to go, and in fact I did not write yesterday morning because I thought we were going to go then, so I was trying hard to get everything done that I needed to do before going (including things like planning the college visit trip to PA), so I didn’t write. By the time the decision was made not to go (because of a forecast of rain all day) the morning was over, and one cannot do Morning Pages in the afternoon…. Ok, that is lame, but I did some carding, then we went to do errands and get tea, then I did more carding and my friend came over….. so went the day.

On another note, what I need to write, besides this rambling, is to write up stuff for my etsy descriptions. I find that I actually hate writing those descriptions. Cutesy, Hallmark style upbeat descriptions are just not my style. Maybe I should try being more “myself” with them, instead of trying to be like I see on other people’s pages. Not that everyone is cutesy. I just don’t want to be raving about how great I am, how great my rabbits are, how great my yarn is. Though of course it is great. But no one seems to want to buy it (oh sob sob, poor poor me……..). I mean if I am trying to have a business, then the point is supposed to be to make stuff that people will buy, and to work on “selling myself.” But that is very tedious. So maybe I will try being more free and easy and (gasp) honest, and see what happens. I need not put every last thing I write on etsy, after all.

Visit my new Etsy Shop!! http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

Today's Goal - Photos

Today’s focus should be on taking more photos so I can post more things to Etsy. Oh, AND I got the information for signing up to join the Western Mass Artists and they provide a web site for each member!!!! So, again I need photos for that. And big time I need to organize the photos on the big computer since right now they are all over the place. I keep waiting for a non-rainy overcast day to take photos, and I was hoping to get a friend to help me, but these days I feel like I have no friends (sob sob). That’s not really true; it’s just that a couple of them, the ones I was hoping I could get to help with photos, have not responded to my calls. The friend that does respond, and is loyal to the end, I am hoping to get together with today to do some writing. If we do, I will try to work on getting epithets for each rabbit, and writing up good descriptive blurbs about what I do, my animals, my processes….etc.
Here’s something exciting: I did my errands via bicycle yesterday! It was actually fun, it provided me some much needed exercise (somehow treadling a spinning wheel does not do it) and I felt very honorable for not using any fossil fuels or spewing any more co2 than what I was (admittedly very heavily) breathing out. And I was able to return the thermometer that I bought to use with the solar oven I made (out of cardboard – very high tech) that only measured to 120 degrees, not very helpful for an “oven.” I actually exchanged it for a candy thermometer that measures between 100-500 degrees F, so that should work. And speaking of solar ovens, I tried dyeing some wool using the black bin covered with glass technique. It certainly got hot enough. I was trying to do some lichen dye that has been sitting about for a long time. I don’t actually know if it was a second attempt to extract dye from the lichen, or what, so I don’t know how good it would have been in the best of circumstances, probably not very. At any rate, it dyed the wool a rather pale pink, which is nice enough. What I really need to do is try it with commercial dyes that I know are still strong.
The etsy fast group (other fibrous folk) has some sort of blog list and I was thinking about putting mine on it, but then (gasp) someone might actually read this. Oh dear. Part of me is definitely just as happy to have no one do so.
I have nearly finished the grey stuff; I started knitting it up last night and I think it will be lovely. I’m using probably a needle size of 1. Yesterday I also (while listening to my cd about court cases of the century – very interesting) played around some more with the rest of the purple stuff to finally decide what to do with it. I tried blending with brown alone, then brown and grey angora, then brown and white angora, in various ratios. Not sure which I like best, must look at it again today.
Tomorrow the dh and I are supposed to go camping – actually backpacking – on Mt. Greylock. I think it has the potential for being fun, though I’m a little nervous about the backpacking part since it has been so long. I think my back will hold out…. And I do not want to spend a bunch of time gathering all the necessary equipment, much of which is probably at the other house, so I told dh that he must do that! I’d probably better put my mind to food, though, or we’ll be eating some disgusting freeze-dried stuff that will cost a fortune.
Time to meditate and get on with the day!

Visit my new Etsy Shop!!http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

A Rather Dull Ramble

What to write today? I just wrote a long email to the dd that is far away, so perhaps I satisfied my writing needs. I am royally sick of the ongoing Butt Burn that doesn’t seem about to abate. It sucks and I’ve been really careful about what I’ve been eating.
I did 2 rabbits yesterday which is always hard but feels satisfying after. And I moved 3 of the big babies to a larger cage. I left one with the mom because she actually looked kind of lonely by herself! And the new babes are doing well – I will post some photos.

Here’s a grumpy thought: I was at my bookclub meting the other day, and one of the members was talking about these beaded watches she’s been making – basically she strings big fat beads and adds a watch to it, so one can wear it on your wrist. They are very nice, if you like that kind of thing, which I don’t really. Anyway, quite a while ago she showed them to us and was asking about trying to sell them, did we have any ideas, what should she charge, stuff like that. Well, she put them somewhere on consignment and was telling us Sunday that they had all sold! I should be very excited for her, it is good, and I do wish her well of course, but also of course, I felt competitive and was feeling very discouraged. Of course, people would rather pay $10 or whatever she charges for a nice jewelry watch than $10 for a tiny ounce of handspun yarn that they don’t know what to do with. Well, people do at least some buy my yarn at the fairs, and I can’t say it is in any way fair to say that Etsy is not working since I only have 3 items up. I need to take more photos and get going on that.
It was really hot yesterday and I had a hard time getting much accomplished after the rabbits. A friend came over for lunch and we talked about something called the Transition Towns which I will look into more, sounds very good. After that I kind of floundered. Part of it is feeling crummy because of the butt burn thing.
Oh, I just took photos of some hats and I was going to describe what I’ve been doing. I’ve been knitting up this new style – all in k2p2 rib, and using up bits of yarn so they are a bit wild in the color department. It’s lots of fun to do and is satisfying because of using up the small yarn balls. I will post a couple of photos.

Unfortunately, the photos look crummy. I really don’t have a good place for taking nice photos, some sort of nice surface or background. I suppose I should just stick with the white poster board. We’ll see how these look.
I will finish this second skein of the grey stuff I’m spinning,

and at some point fairly soon today I need to go do errands.
What a reject posting. Ok as morning pages, rather awful as a blog post!!

Visit my new Etsy Shop!!http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

Impending Disaster

I’ve got to get this off my chest. Very late last night, after I had been in bed for already a long time trying to get to sleep (it usually takes me a long time) the dh came to bed, and told me that he’d read something really scary and he didn’t want to tell me about it because it was too scary, but then let me know that it had to do with methane and the gulf oil leak. Well, I tried to be comforting, but let me tell you, it made for a bad night. It played into all my worst worries and nightmares and feelings of failure. It seems he had read on line (he spends way too much time on line) about a possible methane bubble that the now blown out well had tapped into. The idea is that this is going to lead to a massive outpouring of methane into the atmosphere that will cause a mass extinction similar to what occurred at the end of the Permian (not sure about that, I’ll have to check). And you know what? This is possible. And even if it does not occur that way, surely adding even more methane to the atmosphere from the rupture, even if it is not a massive bubble, cannot be a good thing since as greenhouse gasses go, methane is far more “effective” than CO2. And there is already a huge problem with methane being released by thawing permafrost in the Arctic. We may already have reached a tipping point as far as warming is concerned. The idea of a huge disaster that destroys most of life on earth does not freak me out as much as the idea of gradually destroying everything. The reason is, that if there is a massive die-off, then presumably I and my children will be part of it, and that will be that. Life on earth will go on in some form or another and over the millions of years that these things take it will evolve into new fantastic forms. I don’t feel as if humans are the pinnacle and if we are gone there is no more point to anything (not sure there’s much of a point anyway). What freaks me out is the sense that things are going to get a lot harder soon and life for my children is going to be very difficult. Will that spur me to some sort of action? Some sort of letter writing campaign? I am feeling like I should call our “wonderful” new senator Scott Brown to urge him to vote for the extension of unemployment benefits. The reason is a bit convoluted. It seems like people really vote from the standpoint of their pocketbooks. If they are feeling really pinched, they’ll vote out incumbents. If they are feeling more flush, they are less likely to. If the unemployment is extended, maybe there is less chance of congress losing too many Dem seats. Keeping the Dem majority will at least make it slightly more possible that some sort of reasonable energy bill could be passed. That is my reasoning. Not that it will work, since I don’t think there’s much chance he will vote for it, but I think it will pass anyway because of the lovely Maine Republicans. Yay Maine.

Is that all enough of a rant? I had to get it off my chest. On to fiber (am I hiding my head in the sand by spending so much of my time thinking about fiber??????

I finished one skein of the really nice grey stuff. Perhaps I’ll post a photo. Then I spent the rest of yesterday in town having tea with a lovely friend, taking the dd to get her bike tire fixed, going to the library where I got Canterbury Tales and more cd books (to listen to while I spin – see I’ve tied fiber in), and then – paying bills (oh wooooohooooo). And then I cooked a big steak for supper, which as far as methane goes is really bad since cows are a huge source of methane. But I’ve had the butt burn really bad lately, so I decided to go with meat since that usually works for me. And today I really ought to do a bunny which will provide more of that (without, I assume, the methane – I think it is just ruminants).

Visit my new Etsy Shop!!http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

Yarn and Hutches

Today I am doing my Morning Pages Blog on the big computer in the living room. I will try writing on Word, then transfer it, but I seem to have trouble with that. The only way I’ve gotten it to work is to email it to myself, copy it from the work email, and then paste. If I try to paste directly from Word it doesn’t work. Go figure.

I felt kind of crummy most of yesterday, so other than spinning the gray stuff

 I didn’t get a whole lot done. DH was great about fixing up 2 old hutches

One of which, as you can see, has a bunny in it. They are kind of small, so really just temporary for adolescent babies and such.  He also cut a hole in an old picnic table we have, and we put the deck umbrella through the hole so there is now a table again on the deck. Very handy. As he noted, I am very pleased, in large part because we spent no money. As for the frame of the old (formerly glass) table, I’m thinking it could work very well as a frame to hold up more temporary cages. I would put some studs across it, then the cages could sit on top. It’s an idea. Or I could try freecycling it. OR, I’m even thinking, I could cut a section of ¾ “ plywood to fit on top, paint it, and there we go, all fixed.

I think I will be feeling better today and will be more productive. I went to bookclub last night and felt like a slug. Partly it’s frustrating when we go to someone’s house for our meeting and then the big focus seems to be on eating. Last night I felt like I couldn’t eat much, due to the dreaded Butt Burn issue. I’d rather we just met at coffee shops. Our next book is To Kill A Mockingbird in honor of its 50th. And our next meeting is not til September, so that gives me lots of time to read some of the other books I’ve been wanting to read. Right now I’m on a bit of a Balzac kick. The group chose The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford from my group, so that leaves Under the Volcano and Darkness at Noon that I can read on my own. And maybe a Doris Lessing.

I have a big todo list to work on.  A lot of paperwork type stuff that I think I will do once it gets hot. It’s not supposed to be too bad today, and it might thunderstorm this afternoon. I should put out the laundry now, so I can take it in if it rains.

Visit my new Etsy Shop!! http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

dizzy

Today’s big issue is that yesterday I gave blood, and today I am dizzy. It comes, I assume, of not following their directions thoroughly to drink 4 extra glasses of water. And in the afternoon we drove to Winchester to see the basement walls, and then to Shrewsbury to take the Gma to supper. So I got very very hot and probably was sweating. Anyway I am trying to take it easy today. Not hard for a basically lazy bum like me.

Let me think about what I still need to do:

Take more pictures of stuff to put up on Etsy

Take more pictures of rabbits – one of each adult, then pictures of me in the process of yarn creation, and photos of babies!

A big one – figure out this kit idea. It seems like it would be helpful for people interested in buying yarn if I had kits for them to knit things. But I get stymied because it seems like to make that work all my yarn should be the same grist and same size skeins. Or tailor skeins for particular projects. But I don’t want to stuff all my skeins in kits so people can’t just buy a skein by itself. I’ve thought of having instructions that include how much of what basic thickness yarn to use for them. That would mean grouping yarn by size which gets tricky. I could just group by Bulky, Medium, Fine and give the other potential names for those – dk, worsted, etc. I could even have a few Extra Bulky and Extra Fine. Then I could suggest how much of any of those would be needed for each item – hat, scarf (though that one can really vary, but say, a 5’ long 12” wide scarf), wrist warmers, socks, headband.

Other things I do need to do:

Vasoline the rest of the bunnies – I did 6, 9 to go

Clean cages

Eventually get those metal roofs on the cages that need it

Fix up the 2 derelict hutches

A nice thing to do:

Start spinning up the grey stuff for dn and hubbie.

I did have an actual thought this morning. There are been many many times when I have basically gone around all day having conversations in my head with various people, or sometimes with a therapist if one was in the picture at the time. Well now I go around thinking about what I am going to write here. I bet other people that do blogs have this experience. It’s kind of odd, and in fact kind of dumb. In a major way I am very glad that no one reads this, it makes it more free. Although there is always the potential for discomfort if someone does eventually read it, since they can always go back and read previous stuff. And I’ve put the link up there on the Etsy page so anyone can read it all. Well to all those reading hordes, I apologize for the ramblingVisit my new Etsy Shop!!http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

Not really disaster, I'm just being dramatic, but when we got home from the outdoor concert last night, I went out to feed the buns

and found that the umbrella attached to our deck table had blown over in the thunderstorm and broken the glass top of the table. The good news is that the table was the same kind of glass as a windshield, so it shattered instead of breaking into big shards. Still, it means that I no longer will have any shade on the deck, nor a table, AND I stepped on one piece that was sharp and it got stuck in my toe. I did manage to get it out, and the dh very nicely vacuumed the whole deck this morning. I need to vacuum our entryway, which is where I got jabbed, and clean off the picnic table which now has a rabbit on it, and move that to the deck. As for the umbrella, I don't know. The table has support wood in the middle under the top, so I couldn't just drill a big hole for the umbrella to fit through. I suppose I can prop it up which will work in a pinch. Most of what I do fits the “in a pinch” model anyway: cages that are jumbled together, the kitchen faucet with the duct tape covering the hole, the entire basement waiting to be finished…….

Yesterday (on a more pleasant note) was quite nice. We went for a hike (in the roasting heat, but it was ok). We had to wait until after my dentist appointment (no cavities!) and after I could pick up the veggies at the barn at noon. So of course by then it was already roasting hot. We decided not to bring the dog which was a good thing. We spotted a car at the north end, near the concert we went to after, and started at the south end, and hiked along the Pocumtuck ridge.

It was about 4 miles, very hot, very buggy with nasty little gnats, but still nice. And the concert

after, at the Energy Park in Gfield was nicer for being tired and feeling like we deserved a rest. It was a free concert to kick off the Green River Festival which the dd will be going to all weekend w/ friends. Dh is jealous of her, but I think I would get bored with sitting all day listening to music. And the groups last night were not that great. A little too “country” for my tastes.

Baby bunnies seem to be doing fine. I took some photos yesterday of the big babies, from which I will make a for sale poster to put around, and I took some of adults that I can use on the Etsy page. I will try to do more photos today. I would very much like to make a whole montage of how I harvest and process the fiber that I can put up in a booth. Oh - I sent in the form to sell stuff (I hate the term “vend” ) at the event in Wellesley in August. Perhaps that will make up for missing the fair here in July. Plus it is a new area, new people to tap into….

This technique of writing on the laptop in the sun room, then transferring to the blog seems to be working well!

Disaster on the Home Front

Not really disaster, I'm just being dramatic, but when we got home from the outdoor concert last night, I went out to feed the buns  and found that the umbrella attached to our deck table had blown over in the thunderstorm and broken the glass top of the table. The good news is that the table was the same kind of glass as a windshield, so it shattered instead of breaking into big shards. Still, it means that I no longer will have any shade on the deck, nor a table, AND I stepped on one piece that was sharp and it got stuck in my toe. I did manage to get it out, and the dh very nicely vacuumed the whole deck this morning. I need to vacuum our entryway, which is where I got jabbed, and clean off the picnic table which now has a rabbit on it, and move that to the deck. As for the umbrella, I don't know. The table has support wood in the middle under the top, so I couldn't just drill a big hole for the umbrella to fit through. I suppose I can prop it up which will work in a pinch. Most of what I do fits the “in a pinch” model anyway: cages that are jumbled together, the kitchen faucet with the duct tape covering the hole, the entire basement waiting to be finished…….

Yesterday (on a more pleasant note) was quite nice. We went for a hike (in the roasting heat, but it was ok). We had to wait until after my dentist appointment (no cavities!) and after I could pick up the veggies at the barn at noon. So of course by then it was already roasting hot. We decided not to bring the dog which was a good thing. We spotted a car at the north end, near the concert we went to after, and started at the south end, and hiked along the Pocumtuck ridge. It was about 4 miles, very hot, very buggy with nasty little gnats, but still nice. And the concert after, at the Energy Park in Gfield was nicer for being tired and feeling like we deserved a rest. It was a free concert to kick off the Green River Festival which the dd will be going to all weekend w/ friends. Dh is jealous of her, but I think I would get bored with sitting all day listening to music. And the groups last night were not that great. A little too “country” for my tastes.

Baby bunnies seem to be doing fine. I took some photos yesterday of the big babies, from which I will make a for sale poster to put around, and I took some of adults that I can use on the Etsy page. I will try to do more photos today. I would very much like to make a whole montage of how I harvest and process the fiber that I can put up in a booth. Oh - I sent in the form to sell stuff (I hate the term “vend” ) at the event in Wellesley in August. Perhaps that will make up for missing the fair here in July. Plus it is a new area, new people to tap into….

This technique of writing on the laptop in the sun room, then transferring to the blog seems to be working well!

Visit my new Etsy Shop!! http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

Getting to be a pro

I THINK this is going to work. I did get this “ancient” (remember – 2004!) laptop to connect to the internet with the help of the WONDERFUL computer help desk guy at work – above and beyond, he did not have to help me with my home computer. It is very very slow (because of being ancient – 6 years old!!) so I am gong to write on Word, and later transfer it over. But it means that I can sit out here on the lovely deck, in the nice cool (before it gets scorching hot again in about an hour) and write, and I am doing it after I’ve fed bunnies (they are happily munching away) and before I meditate.

I spent a chunk of time last night playing with the new templates, etc for this blog, so I hope things will look good. I don’t think the signature link will be live, but there is  a place for links on the side, so I will use that, instead. There are all sorts of other features which I will need to explore to see which might be useful. One nice thing about using Word to type is that it self-corrects some typos, and capitalizes at appropriate moments. Very nice.

Oh – more exciting fibrous news: Bathsheba also had her babes. She is in one of the cages with the enclosed hutch attached, so she made her nest and had the babies in there. She also uses the inside for her bathroom, though at the other side, but still…. I’m not so sure the fumes are that great for the babes. I’ve been cleaning out the poops every day, but I kind of wish I could move them into a nest box. I haven’t actually even looked at hers, because last night when I found them and was going to get them out she got very grumpy at me, so I decided to wait til this morning. I need to get the fur snipped so no one gets tangled. And I’d like to check colors. Angel’s seem to be doing fine, though they are both kind of small. And this all begs the questions: what (as the dd wonders) will I DO with all these rabbits? Well, I’ll put it right out here – these are in fact “dual purpose” rabbits, so some are destined for the stew pot. Not a process I love, but I do it. I could go into great detail on my thoughts  on the subject, but suffice it to say that I do in fact eat meat (with my digestive issues, that I can expand on another time, meat works very well for me, thought I still don’t eat a lot of it or every day) and I feel like if I am going to eat meat, better to do it responsibly and raise my own as much as possible. This way I know the animals are humanely raised and humanely killed. We also just joined a meat csa from which I get 5 pounds of sustainably raised meat each month (we share that with one other family). We’ve just done one month so far and it was great.

Well, wow, look at all I’ve written…..

As for the rest of today – dh is home today, and we made plans to go hiking then to a free concert. I’m a bit concerned that it might start to rain later, and we cannot leave until I have picked up our CSA vegetables at noon – though I could ask the dd to do that (she’ll probably say that we have too many vegetables already and not want to (she does have a mind of her own, that dd).

Ok, time to meditate. Maybe I’ll try to upload this to the blog.

Visit my new Etsy Shop!! http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

a Test

this is a test to see if the Etsy link I have added to the bottom of each post will work.
Well, it's there, but not live...

Visit my new Etsy Shop!!
http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

A thwarted attempt

I decided to attempt using our "ancient" (2004!) laptop outside to write this morning, but I can't get it to connect to the internet. It is a total pain of a laptop besides being huge and bulky. It sucks because I had been thinking that I could lend it to my friend whose laptop had died, but if it won't connect, what is the point? I have often had trouble in the past, and can usually by some magic incantations get it to connect, but of course, being magic,one cannot write them down or commit them to memory. So it goes, and thus I am again stuck inside to write.

I think I should go back to the technique of writing first before I meditate, so I can purge my brain of whatever random thoughts are in it. Not that it would truly work, since more random thoughts would still pop up.

My friend did "purchase" an item from my Etsy page, and it worked fine, so that is good. I need to find someone with paypal to try that part. And of course now I need to repost that item (back to its original price). In a bit I will put up a photo of the lovely dark stuff I am carding, destined to be spun up fine and then knit into the stuff for my niece. The rambouillet  I am using is really soft and nice, and not too messy or tangled.

Yesterday the dd and I went on a college tour. It was actually pretty fun, even if it is not a school she wants to go to - the tour guide was absolutely adorable, but as dd noted, she never said a word about academics!

Oh - big news!! Angel had her  babies - 2 of them! Finally I get something out of Blizzard - he has not seemed very effective in the mating department lately. Bathseba is acting decidedly broody also. It's just as well having these small litters, I hardly need more babies. I tried again with Lucky and Onyx - ever hopeful, but I doubt anything will come of those. 

What else is there to say? I think this blog idea is not the ideal way to do morning pages, because I do feel constricted. Like I don't exactly want to tell the Universe (even though the universe, and in fact not even a single soul, actually reads this) things like if I am feeling grumpy and about what, or complain about the things I usually complain about in my journal.

I think I will clip the nest hair for the new baby, take a pic and take a pic of the carded stuff that is so soft and lovely.

Here I go

My first day with blogging as Morning Pages.... Now I can't think of anything to say, which is very normal with morning pages, even though all morning while doing everything else I do - stretches, feeding bunnies, meditating - I've been thinking of things to say.

Well, this will be very rambly, but that is ok. One thing that I am not at all sure I will like, is having to write this at the computer, instead of sitting in my lovely sunroom (except today it is more of a rainroom). SOMEDAY I will get myself my very own laptop, then I can sit in the sunroom and still do this, as well as many other things. Someday. After we get the dd her laptop, which she will need for going to college, and in fact wants now, so she can do her homework (and facebook) in her room instead of int he living room.

As for things fibrous: see from above, the photos of the pink stuff I FINALLY finished spinning. This has been a long haul because of the hours spent carding and blending the purple, and it was not the nicest fleece, so it took a lot of work to get the bits of hay and tangles out of it, and then I blended and blended in the gray angora. then i did not like it, so I've been trying all kinds of options. I finally settled on this, for which I had to card up the pink and white angora, then blend it with the purple. I am happy with the result. It is super soft and will certainly fluff up a lot, as it contains a lot of angora. I think I will post it on my Etsy page, and I must figure out how to link to that from this blog.

Today's fibrousness: I am working on making some yarn that I can use to make a neck warmer and probably a hood or cowl for my dn and her new husband. I have some very nice dark rambouillet that is super soft, and I think I will blend it with angora. Should be fun.
time to get to it.

hello world!

I think I will try again with the blog thing, because I now have an ETSY page, and blogs seem to go along with them nicely. I've been writing morning pages pretty well all summer, maybe I will substitute this and focus on the fibery side of life, as that is a lot of what I write on the morning pages anyway.
Plans:
- take more picckies of buns that I can use on the etsy page to better describe where the fiber for my stuff comes from (dd says I already have WAY too many bunny photos, but too bad).
- take pics of more skeins and put them on the page.
- firm up some sort of instructions to go along with skeins.

plod plod plod

I still as ever plod away with this web page. It looks way way better, I'm getting happier with it. However, I have for my own organizational purposes, divided my skeins of yarn by: 100% Angora, 100% wool, Angora Blends and Plies. I realize now that these are not effective divisions for most people, especially since it is not really clear what is meant by a "ply" or a "Blend." I sometimes use other fibers besides angora and wool, and I use all sorts of combinations. I think I may reorganize by grist/weight/count - you know, like fingering or worsted, those rather fluid hard to pin down descriptive terms. But they are ubiquitous and they will be familiar. Oh dear, more work.
I have also been taking Marcie's advice and checking out other blogs and even (oh risky - what if they think I'm stupid?) leaving little comments. Mostly like saying how cool the stuff they make is. What I really want to say is - oh wow, the stuff you make is WAY COOL and way cooler than the stuff I make and I feel incompetent in comparison. But that does not seem very positive....

Better?????

Well I like this better. Brighter, more interesting. Slowly slowly slowly it all comes along. Now I am off to my Conscious Communication course which is where I learn to communicate with people. Maybe blogs are not the best way, you think???????

logo

So here's the logo I was working on. Hmmm. I don't luuurrvve it, the yarn is faded, as it must be so the logo shows up, but maybe it should be a bit less faded. I also made on with ferns in the background, but it seemed busy and besides the fact that I like ferns, what has it to do with my bunnies or yarn or anything?

HELLO??????????

Hello world. Are you there? I just can't help but wonder if ANYONE, EVER reads this silly blog. Does it matter? Well, maybe not since for years I have written a journal and no one reads that, at least they'd better not..... and part of the point of this is just to keep myself feeling like I should make progress on my web site so I have something to post. But still, it would be interesting to know if anyone reads it. After all, I look at others' blogs and they get all sorts of comments. But poor old boring me gets none...... 'sob.' I suppose what I need to do is read and comment on others' blogs and maybe then they'll look at mine. I will try that.
Meanwhile.....if anyone out there in bloggerville reads this post, could you please please please leave a comment, even anonymously, so I know you exist. If no one does read it, well maybe I should go back to my journal and be done with it (so there!)

Piccies!!!

I spent a good chunk of yesterday doing more with the web site logo. It is not on this computer, so I cannot post a piccie of it, but here are a few of other things.
First a really cool skein of a style I've been working on lately.
Next a sock, done but for the few rows of angora to be added to the top.
Last a pair of socks with said angora. All these socks I'm knitting from yarn I spun ages ago that has been sitting around and I decided, time to do something useful with these. So there you have it.
Today I will dye with a friend!!! (Think Jonestown????)

The Dreamweaver/Photoshop Interface

So in an effort to make the pages look better (a very good friend who has lots of web page experience gave me some very good suggestions) I am TRYING to figure out how to put an image or some texture behind my logo. This means getting more involved with Photoshop and it is NOT intuitive. I think (being, as I am, of a “certain age”) that I need to get an actual manual for Photoshop. Most everything they have at work is on-line which does not do it for me. I need an actual book that I can pick up and flip through. I found one old one at the library at work; later today perhaps I can go to the public library and find something a bit more recent.

Meanwhile I have been at least spinning some cool stuff. Someday I’ll perfect the photography aspect of blogging and post photos of these cool things.

And so the day begins – must actually go in to do actual work today (I’m “off” for the summer, but I have a meeting today).

ttfn

The web page progresses

It is coming along. I have made several pages and they even link to each other. I'm not thrilled with the way they look - very simple and one could even say dull. But I;m not sure I have the patience to make it perfect. I still have to figure out how to get it hosted and acually on line. I spend a lot of time messing with the photos i have of skeins - I'm not thrilled with them either. Oh dear, it's what comes of having high ideals. Time to get to the food bank farm and then cook supper.
ttfn
oh, btw, I finished Harry Potter!!!!!! shhhhh no spoilers here.....