Karen's Blog/Scenes from the Woodpile

Well, two months of my life flew by … without my posting a blog entry.  It was a very busy two months; John was gone for a lot of it so I had extra chores, we went to art festivals, I had markets, I was busy canning …  but life seems to be slowing down a wee bit now.

If you don’t know it yet, I’m having a free shipping event in my yarn shop from now until the end of November.  Lots of wonderful yarns, and I am happy to offer gift services too.  If you want to purchase yarn for another lucky recipient, just type in their name and address for the ship to.  Should you wish me to include a card, just note that in the comments , along with what type of card it should be (happy birthday, get well, etc.)  and what you want me to say in the card.  Regular shipments will be neatly wrapped in white tissue; Christmas presents will be wrapped in holiday tissue.

We have a new kitten in the house.

Meet Bandit.

Cute little guy, the other three cats tolerate him, some more than others.  They haven’t learned though not to swish their tails;  Bandit finds them so attractive to pounce on.

Knitting and spinning and other craft work took a back seat for the last couple of months but now I’m contemplating what I want to work on again.

Oh my word.

This hotel, in Schaumburg, defines “luxury” for me.  I can’t upload pictures right now but I will when I get home.  My hotel room is bigger, I swear, than my living room at home is.  :boggle:  And I have a chaise lounge in my room that I can recline on.  It’s wonderful.  Fabulous.  I feel like a Fairy Princess.

Yesterday I set up the booth, after unloading the truck Wednesday night.  Last night was the market preview; this morning the market at Stitches opens to the general public.  I’m waiting to see how this market might be different than Sock Summit.  I hope I do well; I’d really like to come back here next year.

Things are very expensive here though.  We don’t even get free wi-fi in the room so I can’t use my Kindle to connect to the Internet.  But I found cheaper food options in this place, and there’s a coffee vendor, so all is good.

I’m trying to figure out just where August went.  I leave on Wednesday for Chicago, Stitches Midwest.  Didn’t I just get back from Oregon???

Today I spent dyeing yarn.  I decided to try something different in my dye methods and, for the most part, I got what I wanted.  I still need to experiment however.  I did take this photo of my lace yarns, each batch of sock yarn had a skein of lace yarn in it, so you can see what I dyed today.

I think the orange skein is not quite so bright in real life, but you get the idea of what I dyed today.  I might dye up some more lace yarn tomorrow, haven’t decided yet.

Yesterday we got new residents here at the farm, baby chickens.

How many chickens can fit in a corner?

They are cute now, but thankfully when they grow up, they will no longer be cute as they are destined for a trip to the processors mid-October.  John was terrorizing them this morning, naming them Chicken Teriyaki, Chicken Marsala, Fried Chicken …

I’ve started to unearth the garden from the multitude of weeds.  I found out that the brussels sprouts plants are starting to form baby brussels.

Future yumminess.

One of our cats has taken to drinking water from the ceramic fish that spouts water in our little pond in front of the house.  I finally had my camera with me when he started doing that this morning.

And now, I need to bag up garlic and collect vegetables for this afternoon’s market.

Sock Summit was, in a word, fabulous.  Yes, it was another art fair, one of many for me this year.  But still, the name Sock Summit conveys something far more guilded and lovely and wonderful.

I’m still on the fence, determining if the costs involved were worth it.  I’ll have to wait and see if this endeavor generates more sales in my shop.

At any rate, I did have the camera along and here is a gallery of photos that I took:

Enjoy!

Howdy all,

I owe people emails, but I’ve barely been able to keep my head above water this week.  I got home on Tuesday, after two very long driving days.  That, plus changing two time zones in less than 24 hours and having a market yesterday and getting ready for Powderhorn Art Festival this weekend have made me into a zombie.

Zombiely yours, Karen

Yep.

Four days until I leave for Portland and Sock Summit.  Where did the time GO?  Wasn’t it yesterday — January — when I found out I got in?

Staging of what is going to Portland has started.  We have a wall of bins of yarn in the kitchen.

I hope to empty these a little.

And I still have three bins, at least, not in the photo.  Lists have been started too, for supplies and for foodstuffs.  The last of the yarn was dyed this morning so I have a couple days yet to rewind and label.

I finished this little baby sweater last night, for my cousin’s almost 2 month old grandson.

Made from 1 skein of Opal yarn, with inches left.

It was a very satisfying knit and is so cute!!!

And — no post is complete without a kitty photo, is it?

Sleeping Cat Pile

It’s so hot here right now — high temps plus high dew points — that they are trying to find any place cool for napping.

That’s pretty much what I’m saying around these parts, these days.  I seem to be a) dyeing yarn, b) rewinding yarn, c) labeling yarn, d) picking fruit of some sort or another, or e) making jelly.  That there is the sum total of my days.

Knitting?  Oh, I did finish my Camp Loopy 1 Project, Pamuya.

Hi, I'm blocking.

Project 2 is a cabled sock or mitten set, I’m making socks.

Really, it’s quite boring around here.  Unless you like to look at dyed yarn.

I'm ready to be tagged!

10 days and counting until I leave for Oregon.  Eek.

Strawberry season started here in MN a week ago, but the weather last week was less than conducive to picking.  Finally, today, we had a nice morning, a light breeze:  perfect picking conditions.

John and I went to the Strawberry Basket and picked a few strawberries.

OK, we picked 73 pounds of them.

Once I get done here, my afternoon will consist of washing and hulling the berries.  Some will get turned into juice for jelly, some will be turned into fruit leather, some will be cooked for jam, and some will be frozen for next year.

The kitchen smells divine when I walk past these ruby-hued beauties.  Too bad I can’t bottle that.

We have, at last count, 4 baby kitties now.  Two of the older ones have now graduated to starting with solid food.  We’ve been bringing them in the house twice daily to get them started.

Hi -- My Name is Tang. I love food.

Hi -- My Name is Mocha