Turtle-like progress and flowers

I have been rather busy with yard work. We had a cool and rainy spring with some warm spells. This sent all the weeds into overdrive so I had weeds everywhere in my flower beds and under trees and shrubs. We have been battling weeds since they grew uncontrolled during our China stay. They all set seed and developed strong runner root systems and therefore we generate a large crop every spring. The key to getting things back into control is a ruthless weeding every spring - to pull up every little weed sprout. Then it is possible to keep the new growth under control over the summer and fall, resulting in fewer runners and seeds for the next spring. It is getting better but things are still a bit weedy in the spring.

I go around the entire house and remove all the weeds while patrolling already cleared beds for new entrants. It is pretty exhausting in the spring but makes the rest of the year better. It also leaves very little time and energy for fiber crafts.

I haven't taken photos of the flowers I planted this year yet so you are going to see the spring flowers that are already done and gone.

 I missed most of the lilacs due to really bad allergies. When the trees are flowering, I have to stay indoors because my allergies get really, really bad despite all the medications. But I caught the tail end of the lilacs. I have also got 3 Josee re-blooming lilacs growing in pots on the deck. We've had really bad luck with the ends of our lilac hedge. The first and the last 3 plants keep dying. I am trying to see if letting them grow a bit bigger on the deck before planting helps.

 Rhododendrons. I have 3 colors and this is one of my favorites.

 This is the least favorite of the 3 although I still love it. I love all 3 so it is merely ordering the top of the heap. It is peculiar, though, because I usually love purple.

This is my other favorite. I love the white flowers.

 Spider worts. These are a source of my weeds. They spread their seeds far and wide and I am still finding plants that entrenched themselves in odd places when we were China.

 One of my two azaleas. The others are pink.

 A pink weigela. I also have a darker rose/reddish color.

 I love this combination of colors. The blue of the fescue with the pink creeping thyme and the red of the Japanese maple.

 Tree peonies. My disappointment with these comes from their very short flowering period. But the flowers never disappoint.

 A gratuitous sunset. I've been taking fewer sunset photos this year.

 Blue irises with the last of the azalea in the back.

 Pink herbaceous peonies. I have a white also that wasn't photographed this year.

 The red herbaceous peony flowers with a light flare from the sun. Why is it guaranteed that there will be a heavy rain when the peonies flower? The rain makes them bend over till they are on the ground no matter how much I stake them.

 Siberian Irises.

We put up a bird feeder this year. I got a squirrel proof one and very carefully positioned it more than 18" away from branches as recommended. One morning we found a squirrel had happily swung a branch close enough to the feeder to grab it - Tarzan style. It was then happily holding on the feeder with one hand and eating with the other. The feeder will close if the squirrel's weight is on the feeder but this way the branch was holding the weight of the squirrel. Smart squirrel!

We then pruned all those branches so there is a dome now under the tree, as you can see. Our next non-bird visitor was a chipmunk. A chipmunk is light enough that its weight doesn't close the feeder. It just climbed down the wire hanger and was siting and eating. Birds didn't come when the chipmunk was there. My husband took an old metal sheet and bent it and made the baffle you see in the photo. It is unstable and slippery and is far enough from the feeder that the chipmunk hasn't climbed down over it. I've seen the little guy on the tree and down on the ground foraging for dropped seeds. But I haven't see it on the feeder so I think we've baffled it. Let's see.

The birds keep me busy filling the feeder every few days. They love it.

I started weaving the color gamp scarf in squares, which is the traditional thing to do. But I got tired of changing colors that frequently. So after doing one set of squares, I switched to rectangles. Each rectangle is 3x the height of the square. After two sets of rectangles, I will end with a set of squares so the ends match.

 Here is a rectangle and a half.

 I found it easier to knit in between other things. I finished the body of my Grapevine and have started on a sleeve. I've modified it to add the lace at the bottom and will add lace cuffs. I am debating throwing in a band of lace further up on the sleeve too.

I also, unusually for me outside of Rhinebeck, bought some fiber. Juliespins had a sale and I bought 2 braids from her. This one is called Fig Tree.

 This one is Fushimi Shrine. I tried to buy some colors that were not my usual saturated choices.

Inglenook fibers dyed a couple of colorways for the Tour de Fleece and I bought a batt from them. You can see the inspiration photo on the bag. I probably won't spin it in this year's Tour de Fleece but maybe next year. My plans for this year are pretty well set.

The CSA farm season has started. We had a few weeks of great strawberries. We picked more than my husband could eat and I can't ear fresh strawberries due to an allergy. So I make these strawberry crisp bars which we love. I am on the third and last batch this week. I think it is now too hot for strawberries. I eat raspberries and blueberries fresh so I don't bother making these with those fruits.

Next blog post will be about my Tour de Fleece plans. 

More from Rhinebeck

 I handed out dozens of these pins on Thursday and Friday as I checked in people. We like people to wear their pins so we know that they belong in the workshop area. 

 Remember the squirrelly singles from the singles class I showed you last week? I finished the skein and now you can see the after.

 Pretty straight and not squirrelly at all! The key is to semi-felt them. I soaked them in a wool wash like Soak or Eucalan and hot water. Then I went around the skein rubbing a section between my hands. After I did that twice, I started to see the yarn sticking to itself, so I shocked it a couple of times in cold water (hot to cold to hot to cold) and then squeezed out the water. Snapped it between my hands to straighten out the skein and hung it up to dry.

 I have too much twist in some places but it is straightening out. I do have to go around the skein and separate the strands as they are sticky. But they pull apart easily. A little more and I'd have a lovely felted necklace. The Shetland was the worst. The natural is the Shetland.

 Here you can see some over-twisted (for singles) thinner parts.

 Not too bad for a few hours worth of work. I'm hooked on how easy singles yarns are! I think I could get a cowl out of this. I have to see how many yards it is but loosely knit, it should work. And since it is semi-felted I can knit it loosely without worrying about it falling apart. 

The key to getting this is to add enough twist so that the singles does a lazy curl when you let it go slack. For a good twisted yarn, you want a nice ply-back that is even and hanging straight. For this, you want a bit of a curl, maybe a few twists and that is it. Of course it needs to hold together. The thick and thin was easy as I used the technique that Jacey taught us last year in the Thick and Thin coils class. I really need to play with this some more too. They are fun yarns to make. I think this winter I will focus on sock yarn and textured yarns.

We also spun a DK weight singles and a lace-weight singles in class but I haven't finished spinning them yet.

 This is the DK-ish weight. The fiber is Falkland. They are all Spunky Eclectic dyed colorways.

And the laceweight. This was the hardest to accept. You have to have faith that the fiber will hold together. The red is Wensleydale - no problem there. Long staple length. The purple is merino. That is a challenge. I think I will get light fingering and not laceweight out of this. All of them get finished the same way as above. 

 I live in a beautiful area. The other morning, I was walking downstairs and the colors and the light caught my eye. It was like a painting to see the fall colors in the early morning light. That is why there was a Hudson River school of painting. The light is amazing!

 Looking out over the Catskills above.

 This is angled a bit the other way because there were clouds catching the reflection of the early morning sun tinging them with pink. Remember the pictures of Uluru at sunrise and sunset. We looked at the reflection of the light in the rock. This is exactly the same thing. Isn't it beautiful!

 I was working in the garden today cleaning up the dead annuals and perennials like the peonies which are done. I'm usually pretty lazy about this but I've been working hard in the garden all year and I'd like to put it to bed properly. It gave me the chance to get some fall shots of the yard. I tend to focus on the spring and summer. That's a burning bush with a weigela in the back and an Eastern redbud that is going to make a giant mess in a day or two.

 The grass - which I will cut down in the spring so the feathery plumes remain all winter - against the dwarf weeping maple. That one will turn a lovely dark crimson in a few days. I'll try and catch it when it does.

The smoke tree, which turns a beautiful burgundy. One of my favorite trees as it is beautiful in the spring, summer and fall. 

 Now on to the Rhinebeck purchases...

 Wood Beams for my spindles and my kitchen cabinet handles which need a spruce-up.

 A 1 lb Cormo fleece from Foxfire farm. The color is just gorgeous. And look at the crimp and the length of the locks!

 The Gotland - 2nd place winner. I have a little more than 1 lb. I don't know if you can see the silvery gray in the picture. It gleams. I think I might make a singles  yarn with this. Don't know yet. It has lovely long staples and is soft. I love the curls.

 A braid of 75% organic Polwarth and 25% silk for socks from Gale's Art. I thought the extra 5% compared to the usual blend might help with durability.

 I got two spindles. A Forrester - apparently from his private collection. That red bit is leather. He is selling off his spindles and has had a stroke so no more masterpieces from him. And I lucked out on a Jenkins Egret. It is larger than the Swan but roughly the same weight - 35 gms. Maybe I can do some low-twist singles on it? I have been wanting to try that on the Swan too.

 I don't think I showed you this spindle. I bought it a while ago on a destash and haven't spun with it yet. It is a Bosworth Moosie. 

 And, I happened to be at my computer the other evening at 9 pm, which is an uncommon thing. There was a Jenkins Finch update and I snagged this little beauty. It is only 14 gms and will fit right in with my Kuchulu and Delight. I just realized that I have one of each of the Jenkins spindles except for the Lark. I need to do a major project on a couple of them. The Kuchulu, Delight and Swan have been used a lot. The Aegean not so much as I got it right before I went to China and I spun mostly on Trindles there.

 I think it is time to give the credit card a rest and focus on doing something with these babies. 

 I am setting myself a Tuesday blogging schedule so that I can catch up on all the travel. I may go backwards from now or just write about the things that occur to me. I don't know. But doing it regularly will help.

Butterflies!

Taken in my sister's garden since I don't seem to find the time to photograph mine! I have the identical butterfly bush and similar phlox.

Knitting my handspun!

We've had a lot of rain these past few weeks in the Northeast of the USA. LOTS OF RAIN. The garden is very green, but it isn't good for the tomatoes. There are lots of green tomatoes but not very many ripe ones. Tomatoes need heat and sun to ripen. Let's hope for a bit more heat before the fall sets in. Time is now running out as our first frost date is in about a month.

However the rain brought out the wildlife. A doe and her baby were grazing on the weeds at the edge of our property. I happened to be working from home and was able to snap a couple pictures of the fawn. Great pictures of the rear end of the fawn!

Here's a little bit of the fawn's head. It is looking up at its mother. This was the last I saw of the fawn as it scampered off with its mother to graze somewhere else.

On to knitting. I haven't been spinning much. I got the idea to knit an iPad cozy from a post on a Ravelry forum. It seemed like a great way to use this skein which had some odd colors in it. Lots of a boring natural and then some nice colors. But the proportions of the colors were off for most applications. But it was perfect for the iPad cozy.

I didn't enjoy knitting the brown. It is a very rough fiber. Now I am on to what feels like merino. I am not sure how much yarn I have but it should cover the iPad. If I have more, I will make a couple of giant one row buttonhole handles. Otherwise, it will just be a slide-in cozy.