I'm Back!

Sorry for the week long absence. It's hard to believe that it's been as long as it has since I last posted. How time flies when you are not really having much fun at all. There has been quite a bit of drama going on in my family which required my attention and energy. My laptop is also broken, which means I have to venture up to the third floor to use the computer. This is Conor's domain and is such a mess that I find it hard to focus on writing a post when I am distracted by the squalor that he and his friends have created. I realize that I could make him clean it, but I choose to save my fights with him for more important battles that one can have with an almost 18 year old. I do have to remember though, that now he has his license I do hold the car keys, and he is quite interested in borrowing the car on a regular basis. Perhaps the third floor will be cleaned this weekend.

The Phat Fiber Sampler Box sale was once again a giant success. I think the boxes sold out at each selling in under one minute. Truly amazing. Here are the samples I sent in this month. The theme was Green, either the color, or eco-friendly. I chose to send in fawn colored, undyed corriedale fiber, hand painted mostly merino wool dyed in the colorway Trillium and worsted weight wool yarn dyed in the colorway Leaves of Grass. Larger sizes of the samples are for sale in my etsy shop.

I am enjoying the challenge of producing samples to go along with the theme of the month. For May the theme is Showers and Flowers. I already know what yarn sample I am going to produce, which goes along with the showers part of the theme, but I am still working on the flowers part, which will be dyed fiber of some sort. I need to start feeling better so I can venture down into my dye studio. Dye studio is fancy talk for a portion of my basement where I do my dyeing. I would love some day to have a place where I can dye that is not in my basement and has great light and lots of space. Heat would be a nice thing too. Dyeing in the basement when it's 20 below outside is not a fun activity.

I took these pictures last week. This is my cement garden dragon and my cement Buddha. I love them both. I found them at a church bazaar when we lived in New Jersey, and they moved to Massena with us. It makes me happy and makes me think spring is coming when I can get them out and place them in the garden.


Look at those day lilies behind the Buddha. I think they have grown another 4 inches since I took these photos. Don't look at the pool liner on the edge of the picture. It is not very attractive, and we have a lot of cleaning up to do in the yard. The problem has been that it has rained, or snowed, so much that the leaves don't have time to dry up enough to get out there and clean them up. We are supposed to have a sunny Saturday, so backyard cleanup will be on the agenda, especially if the boy wants to use the car. I hold such power now. It is a wonderful thing.


We also have a lot of day lily dividing to do. I love day lilies. They don't require any work (well, they do have to be planted, and divided occasionally, but other than that they don't require any work), they spread prolifically and there are so many different varieties, blooming throughout the summer into fall. My sister Jane lives near a nursery called Olallie Daylily Gardens. It is located in the foothills of the Green Mountains in Vermont and is an organic day lily wonderland. I want to try to visit the farm this year as I spend hours looking at their beautiful catalog when it arrives, and it would be fantastic to see fields of them blooming. Jane goes every year and had some absolutely gorgeous flower gardens before she and her family moved. They now rent a house, so I don't think much effort is going into perennial gardens.

I promise to be better about posting. I do miss it when I don't blog, and hopefully life has calmed down a bit for now. I say for now, because I know it won't last, but I will enjoy it while calmness is here.