ROADTRIP!!!!!

We went everywhere - and here you have it mostly in pictures:


This is bullshit on the Interstate in Cleveland. A 90 degree turn? REALLY?

We stayed with the wonderful melseyknits and her husband. It was fantastic, they were wonderful host/esses and lovely, fabulous people. Until we had to leave......


...After defeating Melinda, I revisited my Robot Army:

I am SO fascinated by the windfarms that are cropping up in Iowa, and - having not grown up there - it is wonderful to see them on the horizon and integrated in the landscape. I think they're beautiful.

We visited Inga on her farm to see these Baby Burgers:

...and all the pigs and sheeps and goats and chickens too. In fact, there was some chicken farming involved.

I can't even talk about Milwaukee - we did too much! It's such an awesome city! That will have to be a later post.

BUT! Then we went to Ann Arbor, and went to Zingerman's:


Ohmigod I can't even. It's all too much.

But then we saw Stacey in her latest handknit:


And all was awesome again! Really, this lady is spot-on. If you are in Ann Arbor, I highly recommend getting coffee or scotch with her!

We had our portraits done in Canadia:

I knit these socks on the road:

And we picked up this awesome toolbox:


And so much more! Milwaukee will have to be it's own post - it was all too much.

A lot of people have expressed interest/concern for our tolerance of one another through these road trips. Honestly, we travel REALLY well together. Dale does most of the driving because I can knit and talk (if he is a passenger, he is usually reading, which precluded conversation). We rock out a lot. We listen to a LOT of NPR, when we can get it (we have the NPR map, but there are a bunch of dead zones/shared channels/&c...) We get a little bit crazy, but it is usually mutual. We pack a lot of healthy-ish snacks, we take frequent breaks. We've done this a few times, but every time, I manage to find more awesome roadside attractions - I'm already planning where we can (potentially) stop next year.

Sweet Potato Pie & Liza Minelli

I've accidentally involved myself in many "____-alongs" for the coming months, and I'm trying to make some headway. Above, some Wensleydale (swoooooooooon) in the "Sweet Potato" colorway from HelloYarn. This is for a Spunquistadore Singles Spin-Along/Knit-Along for shawls - I'm planning on knitting the Aeolian shawl from the latest Knitty. I've got some beads on standby.

This was a blast to spin! The Wensleydale, with it's long staple, made this easy to spin to a laceweight, and eased my fears a whole bunch about it falling apart if you just LOOKED at it. I split the original roving up by color - I wanted the color progression to flow through the length of the shawl, with darkest tones along the lower edge. Hopefully, this will all work out as planned. I've got around 800 yards of the yarn. With the beads and the expected haloing, I'm hoping for a somewhat ethereal shawl.



I also finally got around to spinning up and plying these GIGANTIC batts from the Enchanted Knoll Happy Hooves Club. The batts are HUGE! This is the "Cabaret" colorway, though I have been fondly referring to it as Liza Minelli, what with all the sparkle. Seriously, so much sparkle. Everywhere. All over me.

I'm knitting on a secret project right now, so no pictures of that. But I'm driving out to Ithaca this weekend, so LOTS of car knitting! I plan on having many finished objects by the end of the weekend.

Meanwhile, in the real world......I'll be teaching a leather paring workshop next week. This will be my first foray into TEACHING leather-work. Based on other classes I've taught, and working with leather myself, I think it will once again be a matter of teaching-by-feel. It's tough to teach tension! I've been tossing around a lot of different approaches to this, and what I NEED to cover, but you never can know in advance. Also, continuing on my quest to have a decent-sized library of books-in-sheets available - the docket grows larger, and I am (thus far) unable to keep up.