corvikate

I got Noel for Christmas in 1993. She was a handful of piss and vinegar, ffting at the dog, who wagged her tail in greeting. In the last few years, she's been eating special food, as she had about 20% kidney function. Over the past six months, she's gotten very elderly and arthritic. This weekend, she stopped eating and could barely stand, so David and I took her to see Dr. Josh, and had her put to sleep. It was over very quickly. It was hard, but the right thing to do.

She was a good friend and loyal companion for 19 years, and I consider myself fortunate indeed. My little buddy - I can hardly believe she's gone.

Birdwatcher:


Dog bed! No, cat bed!


Tucked in:


WHAT.


And of course, my gorgeous girl:


She will be sorely missed.

So, my boss sent me to Hendersonville, NC to attend a conference as an exhibitor. (He's a good guy, and he always tries to make sure I get to go when these things are in the mountains.) Anyway, the conference is at an Episcopal retreat outside of Hendersonville. It's a lovely site, and the conference is mainly classes, with very few times during the day when an exhibitor actually has to speak to people. Heh. After the break this morning, I took a walk down by the lake.



Spring is just starting here - many of the leaves are still only partially unfurled, and are that bright shade of chartreuse that only lasts a few days. I didn't see very many birds, but I heard quite a few species, including my favorite, the wood thrush.

I also spent some quality time knitting in the shade next to my booth, which is under an overhang but still outdoors. It's delightful. After talking to a few folks at lunch, I drove up to Asheville to visit the Earth Guild store.


It's surely a bad idea to take pictures while driving.

I got some cotton rug warp (yarn) and a few other things at Earth Guild. I also dropped in at the nearby craft mall, where many local vendors sell their various wares. These scarves are woven with silk, tencel, and bamboo. They are not only lovely, but gorgeously soft and shiny.



I noted both the components and the going rate for these lovely items, to file away for future reference, and got a close up shot to remind me of the patterns.

I got caught in traffic on the way out of Asheville, and ended up getting a sub at the grocery store for dinner. Bleah. But I did get myself over to an AA meeting. I like visiting new groups, but rarely do so when I travel with David. So that was a nice way to end the evening. Tomorrow there's an evening event at the conference, so I will be hanging out there. The conference ends Friday before noon, so I will head back to Fayetteville and get there by dinner time. This is a very welcome break in my routine!

So, on April 20th, I went on a 14 mile paddle on the Neuse River. near Raleigh. It was part of a fundraiser for cancer research, called Hope Floats NC, whose participants paddled from Raleigh to the Atlantic over the course of a week. I joined them on Saturday afternoon, along with 2 other women. There were about 23 boats in the water. I got in between two groups of ten. The group in front of me set off at a good pace. This was as close as I ever got to them:


Ah.

The group behind me was never even in sight. Other than being overtaken by one kayaker about 3/4 of the way through, I paddled the entire 14 miles alone. It was wonderful! Of course, my poor wrists were about dead by the time I got to the take out.

This past weekend, Mom and I went to a knitting retreat in Camden, Maine.


The iconic Maine harbor.

There was lots of great food and fun knitters. On Saturday, we went to Swans Island Blankets for the day, to learn about yarn dyeing and blanket weaving.


Ferociously picturesque.

We learned about natural dyes and got a skein of each color to dye in the indigo bath:


The yellow is dyed in weld, the red is cochineal, and there are skeins of undyed hiding to the right.

Happily, they also gave us rain ponchos to wear while dyeing, otherwise I might be entirely blue still. I tend to forget what I'm working with, sometimes.

Results:




After lunch, we got to see how they make their very fine and rather expensive blankets. They even let us operate one of the looms, which was just awesome. Talk about a warping project - there are thousands of threads, and the warp is yards and yards long. (AVL air-assist looms with sectional beams, for those of you who care. Cool as hell.) They tie on a new warp, rather than re-do it each time, and who could blame them. (That is, they put new yardage onto the back beam, and rather than re-thread all those tiny little slots, they tie the new warp to the old and pull it through that way. Much more efficient. It takes 3 hours instead of 8.)

After weaving, they soak and dry the blankets, then they "pick" them. Sheep's wool always has vegetative matter (hay chaff and the like) in it, and they have a couple of women who stand over the blankets with surgical tweezers and pick these tiny bits of crap out of the weave. The picking takes about 3 hours. When the man explained this, Mom said, "You don't charge enough for these." Everything's organic, the yarn is locally sourced, no chemicals are used in processing. These are in fact very nice blankets, warm and lovely, and worth every penny, if you have that many pennies to spend.

We were looking at one blanket in particular, and the owner began to explain how it was made, and I said, "it's double weave," and so I was marked out as a weaver. (I'm so proud.) The whole day was just fantastic.

The next day, we had a Fair Isle knitting class in the morning, using small balls of the Swans Island yarn that had been packaged up for just that purpose, and we started on some fingerless mitts for a first project. The teacher has written books on Fair Isle and colorwork knitting, and was a wonderful instructor.


This one is Mom's mitt. As soon as I got home, I put my project on two circular needles. Knitting with double pointed needles is like trying to knit with a hedgehog. And look at all those ends to sew in: yikes.

Now I'm back at work and getting caught back up. This weekend is the Women's Serenity Retreat in Oak Island, so I'll pack up again tomorrow and head out. Zoom, zoom!

The weather was unbeatable: low 70s, sun, just great. I went paddling on Saturday:



We were at Horseshoe Lake, a partially filled-in Carolina Bay. There are gazillions of carnivorous pitcher plants here, some of which were beginning to bloom. There was also a terrific headwind on the lake, so we did not spend as much time out there as we have in the past. The water was high, so we did get to a normally-inaccessible section by paddling through some cypress swamp on the western side.

Here you can see last year's plants along with a few buds and a flower just starting to open:



They send up new "pitchers" every year, as the old ones dry up and turn brown over the winter. Eastern NC also has Venus flytraps and Sundew plants. The soil is so poor in these swamplands that these plants have turned to insects for their food. Ain't nature cool?

Yesterday, David & I finally built our raised bed frames, and I filled them with dirt, manure, and some plants. Six tomato plants, a couple of peppers, and a zucchini. (One zucchini has been known to feed the whole block, so one it is.) I may go find a summer squash plant to put in with the zucchini, for balance, but it may turn into a squash invasion. One can only hope!

I also dug up a little patch near the patio for some herbs, and put in a forsythia bush in another part of the yard. I planted two peony bushes last fall, but so far, only one is sending up leaves. Phoo - I hope the other one shows some life. I love love LOVE peonies. The two rose bushes I planted with Wally's help back in 2007 are still alive, no thanks to me, and one of them even blooms now and then.

Since the rain barrels are not yet set up to collect water, I ran the hose around the back of the carport so that I could water the gardens out in the back of the driveway. (The damn dog steals my tomatoes, so we went outside the fence.) There are rabbits in the area, so I put chicken wire around the gardens, too. I don't know how to make rabbit stew, and I don't want to know.

Anyway, there was a lot of toting and bending and lifting and stretching and OW. Got my workout, though.

The weather was terrific, but I was laid low by a head cold - the kind where you blow your nose every five minutes, while your eyes water madly and a sneeze is a giant relief. That was my weekend. I went to the Carolina Fiberfest both days, because I'm not very smart. I wanted to see the sheepdog demos, but they were only held on Saturday. I did have to purchase some yarn, but only two skeins.


This is for Amanda. It just feels weird to be in a yarn tent without you, honey.

I also volunteered to work in the weavers' guild booth on Sunday afternoon, so I returned the following day, armed with tissues, cough drops, and a bottle of Purell Advanced, which I used after each tissue. It was only two hours, and I'm pretty sure I didn't infect anyone. I did learn a little weaving trick - a nice bonus. I must report that weavers are just as bad about enabling as knitters. The booth across from us was a mom with her 13 year old boy, who spent most of the weekend weaving on the loaner floor looms in our booth. He loves weaving, and now he needs a loom. I found another good one on Craiglist and forwarded the ad to someone I thought could track down the kid's mom. She raises alpacas and sells fleece and yarn, so he's all set for fiber.

I woke up feeling much better this morning - congested and tired but not sneezy/runny/tickly/AAIGH. So I came to work despite having a really good excuse to skip it. I will leave early today, as I have my second journal class tonight. There are only six classes, and I have to miss one at the end of this month. I don't want to miss any others.

The first class was interesting - it turns out that this is a combined bookmaking and weaving class, so the first three classes are to make the journal that we will weave in. We made the cover & endpapers last week. I am so not a painter, and I never feel competent to choose a color scheme or design, but I forged ahead anyway. I can't wait to see what's next. We may be sewing folios tonight!

Man, I need to do something about my yard, it's a wreck. I'm just glad you can't see all the doggie landmines. I need to get out there and clean those up. Won't happen today - it's pouring rain. Ew.

David and I went to Mom's yesterday and made Easter dinner for ten people. He made lamb, I made rolls, mashed potatoes, and asparagus. Aiden was there with his girlfriend, Abby, and Andrew & Erin were there with their awesome kids. Dinner came out well and everyone had enough to eat, so mission accomplished.

The bathroom STILL has no door sill. And now we have discovered that the sinks leak. The plumber is supposed to come today to fix that. (Expletives deleted for redundancy.) We have been using the shower and it's wonderful, at least.

I've signed up for a class in Raleigh that starts tonight - Weaving A Journal. I saw some samples of weaving journals - basically, you make simple looms by wrapping yarn around cardboard, and I guess we will bind those into journals. Time to try something new!

The bathroom remodel is SO close to done. We are only waiting for the door sill to be installed - it was supposed to be today but there was a schedule conflict, so now it's tomorrow. I replaced the putty-colored switches and outlets, but I had to order one of the outlet plates online, as the store was out. I also ordered a roman shade for the window. The fancy-pants towel bars are supposed to be delivered today. Finally, I need to find or buy a floor vent cover. Everything else is done. The shower is gorgeous, the floors are great. Since the vanity turned out to be smaller than the one it replaced, the room feels larger. I'd originally chosen an off-white for the walls, but once it was painted, I didn't like it much. I got some light aqua paint, and had the contractor do the outside wall and the shower wall, and that looks great. I will post pictures once it is truly finished. We are really looking forward to putting the furniture back and getting the cardboard runners off the floor.

The tile guys (who will be installing the sill, too) are Korean. David was stationed in Korea for a year and he LOVED it. He loves Korean food, he loves Korean people, he speaks a little Korean, and he is very happy to have them working in the house. He asked me last night to make something for them, as a thank you for their fine work, so I got the bananas out of the freezer and made three loaves of banana bread for him. I hope they enjoy it.

Hard to believe it's mid-March. Summer is going to be rough.



I went on my first kayaking trip of the year this morning. What a delight! And a bit of a workout. It was overcast and a little cool, which is good paddling weather.

I also shopped all over town for towel bars for the bathroom, but didn't find anything suitable. I ended up ordering online instead. I still need to find mirrors. The vanity came with mirrors - unfortunately, the electrician put in the outlets before the plumber put in the plumbing and the vanity, and we now have outlets directly above the faucets. The original mirrors won't fit in the space now. (Imagine my delight.) I also need to replace the outlets and light switches - they are that vile putty color. I haven't decided whether I will go with white or black instead. (What the hell are people thinking? Never mind.)

Now it's not even 10 pm but I am about to keel over. All that fresh air and sunshine wore me out!

It's the most wonderful time of the year here - the whole neighborhood turns into a wonderland of flowering everything. The pear trees are starting, the cherries are in full bloom, and the dogwoods will be next.

BAM!