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Waaay back in the beginning of November I got hooked on a site / idea called “Wovember”. The basic idea was to raise “wool awareness”; that real wool comes from sheep. Behind every wool product you buy is a real animal and the shepherd who raised it. There’s a whole farm economy and lifestyle in there that many people don’t even think about when picking out their woolens (or worse, their synthetics).
The fun part of “Wovember” for many of us was the challenge to wear 100% wool all month long. Hand – knit socks from pure fine wool? Check. Hand knit sweater from Juniper Moon Farm yarn? Check. A commitment to only buy 100% non – synthetic wool products? Check. You get the idea.
Then my friend Anna convinced me to enter a photo into the Wovember photo contest. It was a photo of her holding a JMF sheep she had sheared this fall. So I thought, why stop there? I searched out a few other photos I had taken at the farm and submitted a few of my favorites, never dreaming anything would come of it. I mean, the other entries in the contest were jaw – droppingly stunning, super adorable and very woolly.
So imagine my surprise when I got an email from >Kate Davies. I won first prize in the Sheep Photos category with this photo of Neve:
I am honored, excited, and most of all, stunned. Sheep and wool are near and dear to my heart and I am thrilled to have taken part in this!
I have finished a second set of Super Secret Baby Socks.
Don’t tell anyone, okay?
My friend Theresa got a pair just like this in green, along with a striped hat. This pair will go to my friend Laura, along with another striped hat.
Now that the pre – Christmas super secret baby knitting is more or less done (more to do in January) I can work on some holiday knitting.
On the needles now? A shawl out of luscious Malabrigo for my grandmother. I have visions of warm mittens, socks and Sluggy Bonnets in my head, too, but I doubt I’ll even get close to all that.
If only the weather would cooperate so I didn’t feel like a lump sitting on the couch buried in wool drinking coffee. Alas, the 60 degree – plus sunny weather is killing me in that regard. It’s hard to feel all Christmas-y, and I’m sweating under the wool.
But it’s okay. Maddie put a reindeer bell on the dog.
Have I ever mentioned that all of my front top teeth are fake? I’m sure I must have. They are all crowns, put in the year before Oona was born, both to make my smile nicer and also because my real teeth are pathetically soft and prone to problems.
When I was pregnant with Oona I had that awful condition where you want to vomit for nine months straight. For the first trimester I lived with it, considering that with the first two kids the nausea subsided by about the fourth month. But, after three months or so of constant sickness I had lost enough weight that my doctor became concerned and had me take a wonderful anti – nausea drug so that I could actually keep down food and water for myself and the baby. The vomiting stopped, but the acid reflux and the nausea never quite went away. You can imagine what none full months of stomach acid swimming around your mouth does to your teeth. Especially when the taste of toothpaste makes you nauseous.
This is all to say that I wound up with cracks all along the back of the newly installed crowns. They held up admirably the last few years, waiting to be patched and fixed and replaced as can be afforded (and let’s face it: who has enough money in this economy to be constantly dropping thousands of dollars at the dentist?).
This week one of my front crowns decided it had had enough, and while eating a mouthful of spaghetti, it cracked and fell right out. Crown, tooth and all. I was horrified. I’ve had nightmares like this. And here it was, fully realized. I refused to let anyone see for more than a quick flash to prove what had happened, and was thrilled when I got an appointment first thing the next morning for a quick fix. Fortunately there is enough tooth left in the gum that the crown can be saved (he used temporary cement to glue it back on for now) and I don’t have to go for an implant. UNfortunately, I have only the temporary save until the new molds and posts and whatnot can be done and so I have to be very, very careful while eating, lest I knock it back out. Thanksgiving isn’t going to be easy. I have been very paranoid about it falling out again before my next appointment for the permanent replacement.
Teeth and dental issues are one of those things that make me unreasonably angry and fired up. With all of the talk in the news about health insurance, where’s the push for better dental insurance? Let’s face it, almost everyone I know has put off dental work because of the expense. People sacrifice their teeth as long as they can before having them fixed. It’s not like teeth are unimportant to our health, either. Wouldn’t it be nice if we got 3 sets of teeth? The baby teeth, the set we grow as children, and another set in our 30′s?
When I haven’t been hiding my hillbilly-esque smile from the world this week I’ve been busy with some super – secret knitting.
Between the holidays coming up and friends with new babies and friends expecting babies I am busier than ever. I can’t imagine where I’ll find the time to get it all done; and I haven’t been over ambitious this year, either.
We’re also enjoying cozy season by bubbling large pots of chicken carcases to make stock. I love the way the whole house smells after a day of slow – boiling the chicken with herbs and vegetables, and it’s most enjoyable to sit by the fire and knit all day while it simmers and sizzles on the stove.
Oona likes cozy – season food as much as I do. Soups, stews, pies. Tonight I am making a chicken pot pie and she is more thrilled than you could believe a four year old would be for such a thing.
These are definitely the days I live for. But with better teeth.
Lots of pictures. It was a fun fall day and I wish I had room here to post all 400 something photos we took.
I’ve been feeling increasingly crummy the past few days and woke up today with a full – blown head cold. So although there is stuff going on (pies! knitting! school!) I am too tired to upload pics and share just yet.
For now, enjoy these sweet pictures I took last week at the farm of Caroline and one of my new babies (I’m pretty sure it’s Adelaide – she’s a tad curlier than Sophie. Or it may be the other way around. I’ll have to ask Caroline what I decided. My brain’s toast).
Also – how awesome is that hand-knit sweater vest she’s wearing? She’s mad talented.
I finished my Far Away / So Close shawl last week and was waiting for a good day without rain to take pictures of it.
As you can see Emily is still quite fond of modeling knitted goods. Fortunately she’s actually good at it.
When I bought the yarn back at Rhinebeck I was in love with the fall colors in it – all of my favorites. But then, while I was knitting with it I was afraid it looked a bit too much like an old couch my parents had in the 70′s.
However, once I blocked it I feel in love all over again. I love how perfect this is for throwing on on a nice crisp autumn evening.
The colorway is Spices and it’s from Maple Creek Farm yarn. I would love to buy more of their yarn but their website seems to be non-functional and I can’t find any on the internet. I should have bought some back at Maryland Sheep & Wool this spring.
Either way this was an easy and enjoyable knit and I will certainly be making plenty more.
So we on the east coast are having a small “thing” this weekend. Just a little stormy thing you may have heard of called “Irene”.
As if the earthquake (and subsequent continuing aftershocks) we had earlier this week weren’t excitement enough! (Yes, we’re only about 10 miles or so from the epicenter of that little shaker).
But onto Irene. We’re in central Virginia, safely inland. We’ll see plenty of rain and wind and I am sure the river nearby will be flooding (it does whenever we get significant rain, and I am glad we don’t live very close to it). Our creek out back will overflow and our yard will be a nasty, muddy swamp. Also, since our power tends to go out at the drop of a hat I am fairly certain we’ll be without power at some point over the weekend. Hooray for generators! (Though they do take some of the excitement out of a good ol’ power outage, don’t they?)
For all of these reasons we’ve gotten our hatches battened – down and our tanks full of gas and our larders full of provisions.
Except rum. It seems I have somehow managed to overlook rum. How on earth will I make my Hurricane Cocktails without rum? Ah well, first world problems.
What we DO have is a freezer full of prep work. Slow – roasted tomatoes, bean & cheese burritos, marinated chicken, sandwich rolls, and fresh pasta.
I made pasta, y’all. Thin spaghetti and pesto ravioli. I now owe a whole new debt of gratitude to the folks at Kitchenaid, who make a kick-ass pasta roller set for the stand mixer. Susan gave me the recipe and a run down of how it’s done and I was off! The spaghetti and ravioli are in the freezer awaiting a plunge in hot salty water when we’re ready to eat them.
I also went out and filled the chicken coops with lots of dry bedding since it promises to be a wet and muddy and miserable few days for them outside. All the towels and napkins have been laundered as well as fresh under garments for everyone. The dishes are all clean. The house has been (mostly) picked up and vacuumed.
I have plenty of knitting projects to work on and a Kindle full of books to read. The kids have plenty of books, paper and crayons and puzzles.
I wish we went into every weekend this prepared.
This is an incredibly overdue post. BUT I think I have finally figured out this whole Mac thing and how to use my photo program effectively enough to post again.
A few weekends ago I took the train up to Boston to stay with my dear friend Jenny and her lovely husband Ken. (Note: 12 hours on the train equals mad knitting time. Knit a complete pair of baby socks on the way up). She’s been to Virginia numerous times but I had never been to stay with her. I was very excited, and the trip did not disappoint.
For the first time ever, I finally made it to Salem, Mass. I studied quite a bit about it in college and in my spare time since, but I was beyond happy to finally get there in person.
Unfortunately, we lamed out on the whole museum experience. When you get old friends together (our friend Amanda met us there) who haven’t seen each other in awhile, time seems to get away from you. Even still, I wouldn’t trade the time we had there for anything. It was just wonderful.
I spent a lot of time looking at all the old houses. Salem, like the rest of New England, is full of great architecture.
We did take in the tour at the Salem Witch Museum, which though it ended up being not the one we had intended to do, was still fun.
We had lunch at a pub called “The Old Spot”, full of photographs of Old Spotted Pigs, the breed for whom the pub was named. Our bellies full of Cheese Fries with Gravy (drool) we headed back out to take in the town and get some gelato.
See? Great architecture!
Did you know that Salem is also on the water? Gorgeous!
Salem was perfect and next time we know just where to go. We’ll also make a beeline for the ancient cemeteries for some photos of the elaborate gravestones.
After our day at Salem Jenny took me to one of her favorite places, Portsmouth, NH. If you’re ever there, please be sure to stop by The Friendly Toast restaurant ( Guinness – battered onion rings anyone? ).
Noticing a trend? Yeah. Jenny and I know how to do food.
Another sure – fire sign you’re in New England? Lobster rolls being advertised everywhere. If you’ve never had one, you need to make it a goal.
More excellent New England architecture. Clearly you can see where my heart lives.
There’s a great little park full of flowers in Portsmouth where Jenny and I stopped to rest.
It’s right on the water. And do you know what’s on the opposite side of that water? (This blew my un-geographically smart brain) MAINE. I immediately made Jenny get back in the car and drive across the bridge so I could say I went to Maine.
I am a nerd.
I very much did not want to leave and return to the south. Although I have come to love my home in Virginia, there’s nothing like the restorative power of your homeland. The upside is that the 12 hour train ride back got me pretty far along on a shawl I started while at Jenny’s house (and I brought Polar Birch Beer & Drake’s Cakes home with me – we can’t get those down here).
The train may have been an all – day affair but now that I know how easy it is to hop on and go I am certain I will be making more trips north to see my friends.
And the architecture. You can’t forget that.
Just in time for the 4th, it’s time to give away THREE (50 gram, 100 meter) balls of Noro Silk Garden! Two are colorway number 341, the 3rd is number 326.
To enter, leave a comment about your favorite thing to do on the 4th.
Entry is open until Sunday night at midnight.
The winner will be chosen at random and announced on Monday.
Good luck friends and have a fabulous holiday weekend!!
As I mentioned last time, the kids are away this week and so the pressure is on to get things done before they get back. It’s actually more difficult than I would have thought, because with no one needing me every ten seconds I can lose myself in things for a lot longer than I probably should and before I know it I’ve spent far too long reading rather than cleaning.
It’s okay. Relaxation is good for me, too.
Yesterday I spent the day with Susan and Caroline over at the farm working on sewing projects. We had all been lusting after a dress made with this pattern, and it just so happened that I have it. We played with fabrics and zippers and sewing machines and in the end managed to finish a skirt from this Amy Butler pattern. We’re not necessarily the most productive team when we’re having too much fun enjoying each others’ company. But it was just what I needed to break up a week of sequestering myself for the purpose of house cleansing. Being around the animals and hearing the sweet “baaahs” and “maaahs” is wonderfully rejuvenating.
And now, on to the BIG news.
I will be shortly giving away 3 skeins of Noro Silk Garden RIGHT HERE to one lucky reader.
Details to come!!!!!!
Gratuitous Wren picture. Lord, I love that lamb!
