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A sure sign that summertime is here – the Coventry Regional Farmer’s Market opens on Sunday. We’re super excited because The Painted Sheep will have a booth there on opening day!!! Farm fresh fruits and veggies, great peeps and fiber! Can it get any better???
It promises to be a fantastic day and our booth will be full to the brim with wonderful, fibery goodness. All that dyeing I did recently will make its appearance on Sunday – skeins of my Jasmine Laceweight, Alpaca Blend Roving, Merino Superwash Rovings dyed spot style and tons of BFL rovings. All that and I’m doing a dyeing demo. I don’t have a time yet for the demo – check the schedule when you arrive at the Market. A couple of changes for this year – the Market will now be at the beautiful Nathan Hale Homestead on South Road in Coventry rather than its old location on Rt. 44. The new location at Hale Homestead is bigger and better and its historic setting is just perfect for the Market. Click on the Market link above for details and directions. The Painted Sheep will have different look from last year too – gone is the (hideous) striped tent. This year will be in our brand new white EZ Up tent. Keep an eye out for our Painted Sheep logo sign that we’ll display on the front of the tent. And the colors – all that color is bound to catch your eye…
The Market is open 11-2 on Sunday. We hope to see you there!
One last thing! Did you wonder what the 25 pounds of roving that I dyed over the weekend looked like? 
Holy Sheep! That’s a lot of wool! The stuff on the left is the Guild’s order, you’ll see the stuff to the right if you come to the Market!
I’ve seen so many bloggers do this meme in the last week – about time I joined the fun.
1. What was I doing 10 years ago? We were living in our first apartment in Syracuse (the really fun one, where the neighbor smoked so much pot that it wafted in under our door, we occasionally got to kick some odd guy off our stoop and ask that he go smoke his blunt someplace else and the next door neighbors lived “commune” style with 2 very scary pit bulls). Needless to say, we were apartment hunting! I had just finished my first year of grad school at Syracuse University and working part time at Exceptional Family Resources. Ev was working in a rehab program for people with addictions and mental health problems. We had just gotten engaged and were starting to think about our wedding. We were cat-less, hard to believe and I hadn’t yet started to knit, spin or really do much other than study in my “free time”.
2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today? Clean up the dye studio – I still have fiber on drying racks, start to label yarn and fiber for Sunday, buy paint for my office – its being painted while I’m in Louisville, read/edit several reports and sadly, do final paperwork with one of my managers, whose last day is today.
3. Snacks I enjoy: Chocolate, ice cream and occasionally, kettle cooked chips.
4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire: Pay off my house and student loans then buy a bigger (but not huge – I’m not really the mansion type) house and take more classes – paid for in cash of course! Quit my job, though it pains me to even think about that. Keep going with The Painted Sheep. Use my spare time and money to work for causes that are important to me.
5. Places I have lived: Marlborough, CT; Willimantic, CT; Syracuse, NY; Baldwinsville, NY and New Britain, CT.
6. 5 peeps I wanna know more about: I’m not tagging anyone today – play along if you want to!
One thing not on my list that I did today – started the Oh! Canada shawl. I’m not sure if my trip project or not – I’m inclined to start That Little Scarf and the Pave Socks today as well. All three are Knitspot (Anne Hanson) patterns, who I think is now my favorite designer ever. I pulled out all three projects last night – three patterns, with different yarns that I had put together at different points over the last few months. Here’s the weird thing – they’re all navy, the color I always say I hate and never wear. Perhaps I was going through some weird phase and didn’t realize it? At any rate, I love them all and really want to start them all.
Have a great Thursday!
Can you believe its the last Wednesday of May already? Where did the month go?
I digress: let’s get on to the WIP’s, since its Wednesday after all. You know I finished Melody. I made no progress on the Jaywalkers. I did cast on another project last week: the Morehouse Scarf. This is another of my long time UFOs (I’m sticking with the plan to always have one actively on the needles). Last week, completely exhausted, I was desperate for something small and truly mindless to work on when I can grab 5 minutes to knit. This scarf fits the bill perfectly – for both the project I needed and the yarn. Finally – something that works for this yarn, that has been frogged so many times. This incarnation is the Four Play Scarf from Brooks Farm. Here’s the start of the scarf:
My goals for the week are a bit vague. I’ll keep going on this scarf, definitely. I have to choose something (preferably just one) new project to take to Louisville. I envision a lot of knitting time – the training that I’m going to is only on Tuesday and Wednesday during the day – between the flights and the downtime, I should have plenty of time to relax and play. I really want to start a Knitspot scarf or shawl – maybe That Little Scarf or Oh! Canada. Or maybe a new pair of socks in Painted Sock Too. But not all three – much as I want to cast them all on now, park it on the deck and knit all day… Decisions, decisions!
Have a great day!
Almost year and a half in the making, Melody is finished! The important details:
Pattern: Melody’s Shawl by Morehouse Farm
Yarn: Morehouse Farm Variegated Merino Laceweight, Quad Skein in the Waterlilies colorway (from the Monet Colors line). I ended up with a few yards left. Love the yarn – it feels surprisingly stiff for merino but softens to this soft, buttery bit of heaven with a good soaking.
Needles: US 10, 40″ Circular Harmony Wood from my Knitpicks Options set. Bound off on a US 13.
Size: 87″ long by 14″ wide
Started: January 2007, I think. The kit was a Christmas present from Ev in 2006. Finished May 26, 2008. Check one more long time UFO off the list!
The fun thing about Melody is that its knit entirely in the round, then cut open. I don’t think its truly a steek, since you’re actually dropping stitches then cutting. Its all done in stockinette stitch. At the end of the row, there’s a set of stitches that will be dropped. You knit them but the twist the stitch on either side of the set to secure them. After binding off all but that set of stitches, you drop them and let them run all the way down. Then you cut through the middle of the unraveled yarn to form the fringe. Fun! I took pictures of the whole process.
Midway through the knitting: 
Dropping stitches:
Ready to cut: 
Fringe: 
Blocking: 
The finished product is the picture at the top of the post. No modeling shots today – bed head 
To answer the obvious question, no I’m not worried that it will unravel. Wool is sticky, don’t forget! Dropping the stitches was surprisingly difficult – I started with laddering down the stitches adjacent to the twisted stitches, then tugged each row out. Not only did they withstand a good tug, it was the only way to unravel it. That was before blocking – no worries that it will come undone.
The finished size was a surprise. It was so scrunched on the needle that I couldn’t get a sense of how big it was. The row gauge changed significantly with blocking. On the needles, it looked to be about 24 inches wide and maybe 60 inches long – once it was cut and blocked, it stretched to 87 inches long which shrunk the width to 14 inches. The size is perfect for wrapping around my neck a few times or wearing wrap style around my shoulders.
Is wrong to think that after all this, I can’t wait for a cool day to wear it?
One of the highlights of this weekend was Sweet Caroline – both the colorway and the plant that inspired it. There’s a story behind both. And of course, the thought of this gets the song running through my head – sing along with me and I’ll me explain.
Of all the flowers in my gardens, Sweet Caroline is my favorite. And when I refer to gardens, I mean all those I’ve had – in our current house and the house in Baldwinsville. My first attempts at gardening were at the house in Baldwinsville. I had no idea what I was doing. I got lucky and found a fabulous local place, Phoenix Flower Farm, that specialized in perennials. The owner was so helpful to me, showing me all kinds of wonderful things that I could plant and inviting me to come visit the farm frequently to wander the gardens and see things as they changed during season, picking out things here and there for my garden. He was especially good at helping me choose things that would both do well in our snowy climate and that would add a special touch to the garden. On one of my mid summer visits, I fell in love with a bright pink hibiscus, with a beautiful yellow center and deep green leaves – Sweet Caroline (of course, named after the Neil Diamond song). It looked like something that belonged in Hawaii – not the middle of snow country. The owner was encouraging and adamant that I would make it work in the garden and that it would make a perfect centerpiece. Still skeptical, I planted it mid summer. The next year when everything but Sweet Caroline came back in the spring, I returned to the farm, explaining that I needed a replacement for my beloved hibiscus. I was sent home empty handed and told to be patient – that it would come back bigger and better. It took its sweet time, but it came back. I was rewarded with a beautiful show of those bright pink flowers every summer that we lived in Baldwinsville.
Our move to CT in 2005 meant leaving our garden and all of the wonderful plants. I kept detailed notes and pictures of my favorites. The first spring in our current house, we planned our garden and started looking for our favorite plants. The one thing that I just couldn’t find was my Sweet Caroline. I looked for it in every garden shop, asked about ordering it – no one had and no one could get it. I planted a couple of other varieties of hibiscus instead – pretty but not so pretty as Sweet Caroline.
During a dye day sometime last summer, I recreated Sweet Caroline from my memory of the flowers in a colorway of the same name. Bright pink with bits of yellow and deep green, just like Sweet Caroline in bloom. And yes, I sing the song every time I dye it!
A couple of weeks ago, I stopped at a local garden center. I stopped dead and squealed when I spotted them – my Sweet Caroline! I found it!!! At last! I picked up one for me and one for my Mom for a Mother’s Day gift. It made my day. They’re little shoots still that Ev planted them in the flower bed in front of the living room window this weekend:
In late July or early August, I’ll have the floral version of this:
Sweet Caroline on merino/tencel. While Ev planted, I dyed up the colorway inspired by my favorite flower. Can’t wait to see the two side by side!
Dyeing: done!
Melody: finished!
Garden: planted!
Me: sore all over but so, so happy!
All that was finished since Saturday night (not to mention that Ev painted the bathroom ceiling while I was gone Saturday). It was a very productive weekend. Here’s a rundown and pictures of what we accomplished this long weekend.
Dyeing – the Guild’s order is done and my shop is restocked. After yesterday’s record-breaker, I woke up this morning and immediately thought, “I should just do a couple of extra pounds of BFL for the shop while I’m at it”. No doubt I was still fuzzy from the muscle relaxants! In spite of my sore muscles, I did indeed do 2 pounds of BFL for the shop, in addition to finishing up the last 5 pounds of BFL for the Guild. Grand total for the weekend: a whopping 25 pounds of roving. Holy shit! Its a LOT of roving. Here’s a picture of just yesterday’s 12 pounds of dyeing:
Once its all piled up, the weekends’ dyeing will cover my 6 foot table – at least 18 inches deep. As you can see, I played with colors! I did a lot of my more popular colorways and experimented a bit with the merino/tencel. Here’s pictures of my favorite stuff from the weekend:
Merino/Tencel Rovings 
Alpaca Blend Roving
Merino Superwash Roving
Here’s the sad news: this was just a tease, unless of course, you come to the Coventry Regional Farmer’s Market on June 1 or the Nutmeg Spinner’s Guild meeting on June 7. No Etsy update until after June 7. In all fairness, only the merino/tencel and the superwash are ready yet – the rest (including the Guild stuff) needs to be pre-drafted and packaged yet. The good news, for me at any rate, is that the dyeing is done. The rest will come in bits of spare time over the next week or two.
Melody: finished this afternoon! Woo hoo! I did two things absolutely against my knitter’s better judgement: I dropped a whole lot stitches and then cut. Melody is now a fringed rectangular shawl, as she was meant to be. Right now, she’s getting a good soaking in some warm water and Eucalan, then I’ll pin her out to dry. Pictures of every step and the finished product tomorrow. If you catch me in the right mood, I might even model her…
Garden: we planted our herbs and our vegetable garden today. Well technically, Ev planted. My back would have none of it. Believe me, I tried. I’ve been aching to play in the garden. I “supervised” – meaning I placed plants where they should go, Ev moved them around before planting them and I kept my mouth shut. Say hi to my hard working hubby! 
We kept things simple this year, planting only what we know does well and that we will eat every last bit of: tomatoes and peppers. Same varieties as last year in the tomatoes – Roma, Big Boy and cherries and like last year, a total of 6. In the peppers, we did red and green bell and a jalepeno. And as usual, we did our herbs in pots on the deck. Nothing like walking outside to snip fresh herbs for dinner. I can’t wait for summer! While Ev worked, I walked around the yard and took a few pictures of the gardens on the front and sides of the house. 
This rose bush (one of three that have been at the house for years and years) is about to bloom. As usual, its loaded with buds. 
The Siberian Iris is just starting to bloom and my day lilies are taking off. 
Both of the Fairy mini-roses that I planted last year are doing well – in fact you’d never know that I pruned them way back around Easter. 
We planted 3 lilac bushes (3 different varieties) during our first spring in the house. For the first time, all three bloomed this year. This one’s my favorite. 
This is the “problem child” of our yard. We didn’t plant this forsythia, nor did we plant the hydrangea to its left or the climbing rose to its right and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why they’re planted this close together. The forsythia is doing well – so well that its threatening to choke out both of its neighbors, especially the rose. Much as I love forsythia, I’m trying to figure out how to get rid of it without taking out both of the other plants. Ev wants to “prune” it. I see a battle in our future. A decision for another day. I’m ticked that everything is doing so well in the yard.
I’m exhausted, sore and I still need to finish washing out some of today’s dyeing. More pictures of the weekend’s activity over the next few days. Hope you had a great weekend!
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