Another rainy Saturday

There is no Saturday Sky picture as it is, once again, gray and raining. We seem to be in a weather pattern that has 1 or 2 nice days, followed by a whole bunch of wet. It would be a really bad idea to stray from any paved or graveled area as you'll definitely get very muddy and possibly stuck.

Gypsy is contributing to the generally poor housekeeping around here by tracking in much muck (and whatever else attaches itself to her). The pic is from one of her cleaner days.

I spent part of today putting some finishing touches on DD's Halloween costume. She makes quite the fetching pirate. I hope I can manage to get a picture of her in it.

The rest of the day was spent on my "homework": Cleaning up the sock machine before it gets repaired. Well, after much scrubbing, wire-wheeling, buffing and oiling, the pieces look pretty good. Let me tell you this, there are many, many pieces to this thing. In addition the machine itself, there were accessories with it, like a spool winder, a ribber, most of a swift, tools, weights and bits that you use to start a sock and do the heel. I even cleaned up the old needles that were with it. New ones are available, but I'm just frugal enough to want to make the effort.

I did finish my first little skein of silk the other day. One of the things I learned was to never ever ply silk from both ends of the ball. It will be much better for your sanity to make the effort to put it on two bobbins, then ply it.

Is there any knitting getting done? Well yes, but the only finished item escaped without it's picture being taken. It was a wee little hat for a newborn. One of DD's friends has just become an aunt.

Saturday at Rhinebeck

Wow. I was completely unprepared for how big and how many people would be at Rhinebeck! You could not ask for a nicer day: sunny, the trees at peak color and just cool enough to wear a sweater. There were so many choices of fibers, raw, processed, natural, dyed, in batts and in rovings. There were thousands (maybe millions) of choices of yarns of everything from laceweights to super bulkys in every color combination imaginable. When you weren't looking at fibery wonders in the booths, you could watch people. It seemed like almost everyone was wearing something knitted. It was serious eye candy!

I played and participated in Rhinebeck Blogger Bingo. I didn't manage to check off everyone on my card (or even get a bingo), but I did find Beverly, Cynthia, Spider, Katy, Dana, Beth, Stacey, Cathy, Iris, Dawn, Deb, Sorka and, of course, Stitchy. I also ran into Amy, Juno and Stephanie. It was truly delightful to meet fellow bloggers, not to mention completely overwhelming at how many of us were there.

As far as stash enhancement goes, I was quite restrained. There is a ball of Meilenweit Mega Boots Stretch in an appealing blue and red colorway, because, after all, I must get sock yarn whereever I go. A ball of fabulous looking (and feeling) laceweight from Skaska Designs. Galina cashed me out; I felt like I had met royalty! Last, but not least, 1 pound of CVM. It's washed and only needs a bit of flicking to be ready to spin. Want a closer look? Here you go.

Today brought two new additions to our household: a mom and baby chinchillas. DD adopted them from the local humane society today. Bubba is checking them out and they really don't seem too concerned at all. The mom is the largest chinchilla I've ever seen. It's a real shame chinchilla fur is short because they are one of the softest critters you can cuddle.

Rhinebeck, Here We Come!

Awhile ago, our spinning guild (GVHG) chartered a bus for a bunch of us to go to Rhinebeck this year. I had wanted to go there for quite a few years because it sounded like a great festival. I do have a largish stash, so my main reason to go this year was for fun and to try and meet up with other bloggers. Coincidently, Stitchy came up with the marvelous idea of Rhinebeck Blogger Bingo.

As I was gently reminded earlier today, I needed to put up a picture of myself. I really dislike having my picture taken, but here it is anyway. I plan on wearing my Olympic sweater unless it's raining. In that case, there will be a white anorak over the top of it. If warm, a white tshirt. In either case, I'll put a Bingo Square button on each shoulder. My hair, thankfully, doesn't show up well in the picture. It's dark brown, fairly long and quite frizzy; pretty much out of control; I usually put it up with one of those big claw clips.

Have fun everyone!

Belated Saturday Sky

I actually did take a picture of the sky on Saturday. Obviously, it didn't get posted until now. I spent Saturday at a friend's house. She has put together a group of sock machine knitters. This was quite convenient as DH had brought home a sock machine from an auction earlier this year. One of the other members is an absolute whiz at repairing them. He looked over my Auto-Knitter and declared it to be in very good shape and only needs one part fixed. My homework is to clean up all the parts and to try to put it back together myself.

I have been knitting some, but have gotten distracted by putting together this wallhanging. I've wanted something much more fall-like for above the woodstove for quite awhile. Bubba was my fairly constant "helper" with this project.

Now that it's definitely fall, the days are shorter and there's a chill in the air, it's feeling like spinning and knitting weather. I believe that it's time to do a bit of stash diving and see what appeals to me.

In the meantime, I dug out my fake pumpkin. As much as I enjoy carving out a real pumpkin (and that great pumpkin/candle smell), this one is much easier!

Friday the 13th

There was about 3 inches of snow on the ground this morning; however, our neighbors to the west (like Buffalo, NY) got almost 2 feet of snow. Let's all send them good thoughts that the snow will melt off quickly and that the electric comes back on even quicker. It's just not fun to have no electric for an extended amount of time when it's chilly out.

To give some scale to this area, it takes us approximately 1 hour to drive from here to Buffalo. In that fairly short distance, you can go from bright blue skies to raging blizzard and back again many times during that trip. Who gets clobbered with squalls is mainly dependant on wind direction and how warm the lake water is. Lake effect is like that. I imagine if you're not used to it that it could be a bit disconcerting.

Gypsy likes snow almost as much as she likes a big pile of leaves. She came in this morning with big snowballs stuck to her legs. I missed the picture with her face almost completely covered in snow.

WTF?

One of the ways we deal with our weather around here is by saying (and actually meaning it), "If you don't like it, wait 5 minutes and it'll change."

Sometimes it takes a little bit longer than that. Yesterday, we were comfortable in shorts. Today we have this. No, those aren't extra dirty windows, that's wind-driven snow. It's not accumulating at all, which is good since I have yet to get out things like winter coats, hats, mittens and shovels.


The other day when we were out and about, we found a door with various signage on it. Just what does this mean? Let's face it, this is not one of our finer moments!

OK, now that snow is starting to stick around. As you can see, the last of the peppers are "iced" with a coating of snow. It's looking like I might just have to dig out some winter gear after all. Now where did I stash that stuff last May?

A Very Blue Saturday Sky

Today was one of those picture-perfect fall days. There wasn't a cloud in the sky (really, I'm not making this up) and about 65 F. Gypsy and I went for a walk in the park, because, really, what else should you do when it's that nice out?

For absolutely gorgeous, it's hard to beat a sugar maple in the the fall.

We are really lucky to have a park like this nearby. Some of it is wide open cut grass and there are some nice pavilions. Best of all are the miles of trails through fields, woods and even swamps.

These bushes have lots of little white berries on them. Normally, the leaves are a very dark red in autumn. I have no idea what they're called, but they're everywhere.

Even fluffy milkweed looks cool. These were still on the plant, but there were some on the trail that looked like little angora bunnies sunning themselves.

And last, but not least, a single leaf on a bed of moss in the woods.

Random Wednesday

This Wednesday is particularly random as I've been having trouble sleeping, so bear with me. I found this little guy outside the other day. Praying Mantis' are just so cool; they have no concept of what size they really are.


Gypsy is her usual charming self. She chose to decorate herself with a flower. Actually, it just got stuck on her fur. It's just amazing what that dog can drag in on herself. Autumn is one her favorite times of year. She just loves to find a great big pile of leaves and burrow in it.

I found this quiz the other day:

You Are Half Baked Ice Cream

In reality, you're just a quarter baked

What Flavor Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Are You?

That sounds about right.