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It was a lovely day, perfect weather and a great crowd. Tent problem aside (loaned it out, got it back destroyed), it went off without a hitch. What a perfect start to the fall festival season!

Of course, I came home with a couple of treasures – a lovely wine colored skein of yarn from Tucker Woods Farm and a pair of earrings from Keith O’Connor Pottery that so perfectly matched my Tussah Shawlette that I couldn’t possibly resist them – it was meant to be!!!

As always, my favorite market day of the year!

BFL rovings in some of my favorite colors for fall – freshly dyed this week and ready for Sunday’s Fiber Twist at Coventry Farmer’s Market.  The event runs from 11-2.  I’ll have a booth in the flag field and will be doing a dying demo right at my booth, probably mid-day.

Hope to see you there!

Finished!  This is my first handspun shawl – done in the tussah silk from Corgi Hill Farm and spun this summer and last.  Full details and more pictures can be found here, on my Ravelry project page.

I love how this came out – the entirely unplanned striping, the drape, the size, the shape – all of it.  Forget a Rhinebeck sweater – this is what I’m wearing to the fall festivals this year!

1. Dunkin Donuts coffee – try as might not to, I stop by the drive through on my way at least once in most weeks.
2. Mac, Jack and Sam – music to feline ears ’round here.   My picky Thumper loves this pouch style food from Weruva that we discovered by accident.  Of course, its sold in 8 packs and I’ve found it in exactly 2 nearby stores, who don’t sell enough to keep it in stock much, meaning that I have to find it weekly when it comes in – or get smart enough to special order a bunch.  The things I do for my boys…
3. Gas – I have dreams of a more fuel efficient car that I could fill up far less.
4. Groceries – gotta eat.
5. Dinner out with the grrls – and if I don’t, my world is seriously out of whack…
6. Something random from Target – I go in with a list every time, but I still come out with something unplanned.
7. Flowers – at least every week in the summer.  Flowers from Windham Gardens are my farmer’s market splurge, especially when she has sunflowers.
8. Fresh fruits and veggies from the farmer’s market.
9. Dessert – my bad habit.
10. Something from the vending machine at work – its right outside my door, so its all too easy.

This wasn’t an easy list to come up with – surprisingly so.  I wonder what others will come up with this week.

On September 11, 2001, I was living in Baldwinsville, NY and had been married to my now ex-husband for just over a year.  I was working in Syracuse as a behavior specialist for day treatment programs.  I remember so vividly that I had started my day early at a meeting at one program, then headed to another for the rest of my day.  I heard the news that a plane had crashed into the first tower as I listened to NPR as I drove from one site to the other.  By the time I got to my other program, word had come of the 2nd plane.  Some of my colleagues heard the news first from me, having no TV or internet at our program.  We turned on the radio and listened as events unfolded.

From early that morning, I had been trying to reach my oldest and dearest friend in Connecticut.  She had called me on the evening of the 9th to tell me that she had gone into labor with her second child and was headed to the hospital.  Not having heard from her since, I was worried.  Even with everything going on around me, I kept trying to call her, finally reaching her a little before 10 in her hospital room.  I cried happy tears as she told me that her son had arrived on the 10th, healthy and beautiful.  We spoke of what was happening, as she watching it on tv.  And then, she started to scream as she watched in horror as the first of the towers collapsed.  When we hung up, I remember wondering aloud to one of my co-workers about what kind of a world that precious baby had just come into that someone would do this to us.

So much of the rest of that day is a blur.  I remember calling my family, concerned that my sister-in-law sometimes worked in the World Trade Center, my relief that she was not there that day.  I remember finally watching TV when I got home and sobbing at what I saw.  I remember being too upset to knit, feeling little comfort in anything.

Ten years later, I also remember the sense of coming together, of feeling united.  I remember that my colleagues, a group of people who hated their jobs and barely tolerated one another, came together to comfort and support one another and attempt to explain the unexplainable to our clients.  I remember a larger sense of community that I had never felt before, when people talked about it, asked about it, wondered about the future.  There was a sense that we were all Americans, that we were all impacted and changed by that day, that we had a common goal and purpose.

When I look back on it and consider the world that baby came into and how its changed in the years since, I feel safer and more secure.  My shattered sense of security is once more intact, granted not to the degree that it once was.  And yet, in so many ways, I worry more now about the world in which that 10 year old little boy lives than I did on the day after he was born.  We’ve lost that sense of unity, of coming together, of being one nation.  Our country has become so divided, so fractured, people so intolerant.  I’m often struck by the hatred I hear from people.  If this is what’s become of us, then haven’t those out to destroy us accomplished that?

My wish on this day, in remembering what happened and those lost, is that we all remember that sense of unity.  Its time we come together once again.

For me, each and every time I see a beautiful, bright blue sky, I am reminded just a little bit of that day, of what we lost and what I took for granted before.  I hope to never forget that.

That’s my 12 quart stock pot – the BIG one – nearly full of rich, tomato-y goodness.  I started with this:

27 lbs of canning tomatoes from a local farm stand.  I peeled and seeded them by hand (side note – I bought a food mill specifically for making tomato sauce.  I was skeptical of even the smallest-holed disk, as the holes looked big enough for the seeds to go right through.  Tried running one tomato through it, then remembered why the one I had before got tag saled.  We’ll see how long I keep this one.), then threw them in the stock pot with a good helping of olive oil, garlic and onion, oregano from my herb garden and local basil and let that baby simmer for hours and hours.  In the end, this:9 jars’ worth of sauce went into the freezer after I used some of it for the eggplant parmesan I made while it was cooking.  I ate that up too quickly to snap a picture of it.  Oh so good and so simple – I used this recipe to make it in the oven.   I also made my favorite fall dessert while the sauce simmered – maple apple crisp.  hmmmm.  hello, fall!

In the end, I cooked for 8 hours, stuffing my fridge and freezer with food for the week and long into the winter.  I wanted to use a fire hose on my kitchen when all was said and done but after 4 loads of dishes  (by hand mind you – feel free to send a dishwasher, preferably male, about 6 feet tall, dark hair and eyes, though the portable electric kind would do in a pinch), I crashed into bed feeling happy, exhausted and completely satisfied with what I had done all afternoon and evening.  Some snowy day next winter, I’ll be able to pull a taste of summer of out of my freezer – how wonderful will that be?

Here goes:

1. Northstar Mittens and Hat – to go with my fabulous red pea coat.
2. another Malabrigo Twist Scarf in 2×2 rib – I picked up the yarn this summer and have already deemed it my project for when I’m up at Harrisville in October.  I’ll need a mindless project for the long, fabulous evenings of relaxing with my classmates at the boardinghouse.  If previous classes are any indication, the wine will flow freely
3. Tremblant Mittens – I have a skein of Bijou Basin Ranch Bijou Bliss in Blush for the main color, with a plan to pick up a skein of the natural for the pattern when I’m at Rhinebeck.
4. My Wisteria sweater – I need to finish this, preferably for Rhinebeck and my trip to Harrisville, which is the following week.  I’m on the cable section at the bottom, then it just needs sleeves.
5. Movie Night Socks by Anne Hanson – I’m on track with my pair a quarter goal (sort of – just realized its September).  These might be my October-November-December pair.
6. Felt Clogs for the niece, nephew and almost nephew – Yup, there’s 3 of them now, since my brother has a “keeper” of a girlfriend (his word, which I agree with whole heartedly) who has a son who’s my niece’s age (its like a bonus – lucky, lucky me!).  The little buggers just insist on growing like weeds.  Felt slippers will be fun, easy to do in the hectic holiday season – and easily replaced when they outgrow them.
7. Vitamin D – this looks like it would make a great wardrobe staple for fall and spring.  Maybe I can squeak it in post-holidays and wear it in the spring?
8. My Autumn Splendor Cardigan – this is next on the list of WIPs to finish.  I don’t think I’ll actually finish it this winter, but at least I can pull it out and work on it.
9. More Beaded Ornaments – I’m still replacing the ones that broke in last year’s Christmas tree disaster and have a couple of kits to make.  Happily, I also found a Leisure Arts book of patterns for them and Michael’s had the yarn for them in convenient little packages, meaning I just need beads and clear bulbs.
10. Daybreak – The yarn is wound, the pattern is printed and ready to go.  And as soon as I finish the last 5 rows of seed stitch and bind off my Tussah Shawlette, I’m starting this one.  I love Westknits shawlettes.  So much fun!

I also suspect I’m going to get sucked into the Hexipuff/Beekeeper Quilt thing, like with so many others.  Its such a perfect use for scrap yarn and so portable.  Resistance seems futile.

No doubt there will be other things that grab my attention along the way.  Good thing I have 2 extra long vacations and a conference across the country (I love long flights for knitting!) that will make for lots of knitting time in the fall and early winter.  From there, I’m hoping for another good snowy winter to free up my time

What’s on your must knit list?

Cables or colorwork?  Not an easy choice.

In the end, it was colorwork that called to me.  So yesterday, I started this:

Pretty quickly, I had the start of something wonderful: Oh so heavenly!

I have until October 15 to finish them.  Its timed perfectly for showing off finished projects at Rhinebeck, whether the weather cooperates for wool-wearing or not.

The reason I joined another KAL and started something new, when I have so many other things on my needles (a quick survey of “active” projects – the nearly complete Tussah Shawlette, Double Heelix Socks, a red scarf for OFA and the Wisteria sweater that I’d like to finish for Rhinebeck)?  The KAL thing seems to motivate me to start and finish a project, its just plain fun to work on a project with others and well, there’s prizes involved in this one.   No doubt I’ll finish this one before the deadline.   And then I’ve used some of my stash.  See?  Works out well all around.

No worries about another WIP here.  

Finished – during the storm and the resulting day off   The pattern is Earth and Sky, AKA the Westknits Mystery Shawl KAL pattern.  The yarn is Valley Yarns Huntington, their nice basic superwash merino and nylon sock yarn.   I ended up doing the large size, which means that its a nice generous, keep you warm kind of shawl while remaining lightweight.   I had to make an “emergency” run to Webs (I know, the hardship) for more of 2 of the colors in order to do so.  So glad I did – this shawl is absolutely perfect for keeping me warm in my office, which it happens to match (not intentionally either).   The finished size is 60 inches across the top and 22 inches long.

Perhaps the best part?  I started and finished this during the month of August, pushed along by the “deadlines” of having another clue  come out each week and the goal of finishing by today.  This knit-along thing is brilliant, for those of us who need a little motivation to finish things.   I love the idea so much that I’m joining another one – the Foxfire group on Ravelry is doing another KAL.  This one starts on Sunday.  Perfect timing, right?  More details on that one to  come.

Full details on my finished Earth and Sky are here.