Etherknitter

Treading water

I seem to be in the appropriate season for treading water.  I'm barely keeping up with anything:  knitting, spinning, organizing, gardening, work, life.  Sometimes it's too hot.  Other times, it's too much.  There's too tired, too busy, too overwhelmed, and too happy.  Odd mixes make for mixed posts.

I started, FINALLY, my Amazing Lace project.  The Leaf Lace shawl has begun.  After slogging through the provisional cast-on, picking up the two stitches, knitting those ridiculous two stitch rows, and picking up two live unzipped stitches, I knew I could show you the beginning.  Here it is.  That is what it felt like, and it's the best shot I could manage in its infancy.

The yarn is Judy's silk/merino in the Blueberry colorway.  It will be exquisite.  My poem, for Challenge #3:

Knit-along, curse-along
Leaf-lacing, knit-it-wrong
blueberry color
Pretty shawl,  easy pick!

Now blueberries are healthy
Vitamins, minerals
When I start in the lacing
I taste arsenic.

I'm putting in a life line NOW.

The clematis survived everything that the New England weather dished out.  Their petals are durable, without looking waxy or hard. 

Clematis 'The President', and 'Dawn'

Gardening is all about flora AND fauna.  Bees, deer, voles, woodchucks and rabbits cluster to what's good, along with the hapless gardener.  I saw a small blur of motion in my peripheral vision earlier this month in the garage.  He waited for me to get the camera, and brazenly posed.  Then he hopped out the door, and, under cover of darkness, laid waste to my iris foliage.  Of course.

One year ago today, Cassie convinced me not to toss my newly-rented Louet through the family room window.  She talked me down via AOL IM, and it all followed from that.  Should I thank her for today's Polwarth link? 

L is for Laurel

Mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia) is the state flower of Connecticut.  It is also the derivation of my name.  My mother never told me why she chose it.  There is never an end to all the things you wonder about after your parents die, things that will remain unanswered forever.

Laurels like acid soil, some shade, and even moisture through the growing season.  Deer nibble on them, but not enough so that we all can't share.  They line I-95, up on the rocks, at the wood's edge, in the eastern portion of Connecticut.  Driving that highway is a real treat in mid-June.

They are popping into bloom as I write.

Fleeced again and again

This package arrived at my door.  We love Mr. UPS and Mr. FedEx.  Mr. Etherknitter was concerned that this one would give birth before I got home to open it.

He couldn't guess what it was.

Way back, on another timeline, in another universe, I lost my fleece v1rginity with a beautiful Rambouillet.  I had fondled Norma's Plain Vanilla sweater at Rhinebeck, and wanted to spin something that was as soft and springy as that.  I sent it off (with some grey alpaca top) to the Wooly Knob boys.  I have a Rambouillet 85%/alpaca 15% mix.  I am in love.

Despite one of those soul-sucking days at work, I ran upstairs, spun/plyed/photographed.  I think this project ranks high on the hubris scale.  I'm beginning to accept that about my fiberlust.

The alpaca ends up adding not a great deal to the mix.  It spins like a finewool.  The grey fibers give me a plying guide, and I'm hoping it eventually adds softness and color to the FO.  This will be fun.  This will take a very long time. 

Did someone just say 'alpaca'?  Oh.  That was me.  I can't see any surprise in blogland about that, by now.  Ever try to shovel the water out of a hole at the waterline on the beach?  Yeah, that's me and fleece right about now.

I met Lorrie at Wild and Woolly's Monday night knitgroup.  She's the boss.  My ears perked up when I caught that she was also a spinner.   She took me to an alpaca farm. 

Midnight Thunder's cria fleece came home with me.  It's a lush, shiny, true black that is impossible to catch with Mr. Nikon.  It was really really difficult to sit in Sonja and Jeff's kitchen completely surrounded by alpaca fleeces, and act nonchalant.  I didn't embarrass myself.

The garden is trying to recoup from 18+ inches of rain in the last month.  It's a different garden every year.  The herbacious peony blooms were annihilated by the rain.  I got pictures of the tree peony blooms before they became mucinous masses of moldy mush.  The poppies?  Good thing their continued existence doesn't depend on pollination in the Etherknitter garden this year.

Paeonia suffruticosa 'Godaishu' is the White Queen.  (Usually that title goes to the wisteria.  This year, she is sulking and refused to bloom.  The tree and shrub company tried to kill her last year, so she's spending this season recovering at the spa.)  The voles have been undermining Ms. Godaishu, so I planted another one just in case.  Same name, different sources, vastly different flowers.

Godaishu's neighbor is Shichikufujin, another tree peony.  No, I can't say that fast five times.  She ended her bloom time as the pink mush balls.  Before the rains came, she was magnificent.

I have just been able to start knitting again.  Something about having an endpoint for bone healing, and not having to anticipate surgery/recovery, helped.  I turned the heel of my Schaeffer Anne sock in front of Peet's in Lexington (KIP, no one even looked), and swatched for Tess' microfibre ribbon top.  Pictures soon.

I ordered 2.5 gallon zip bags from Amazon to organize my stashly stuff.  Does Rubbermaid make the best plastic storage bins for fleece/roving/yarn?  Does the Container St0re offer anything interesting?  What is the preferred blogger/knitter/spinner product?  I need bulk storage.

With a little help from my friends

Today's report in the New England Kernel of Medicine notes a startling breakthrough in the

healing of severe tibial trauma.  The stimulatory effects of Knitting Mojo have been found, in a
randomized, prospective, uncontrolled study, to facilitate healing of open segmental tib-fib fractures.  After multiple doses, calcium was noted at all three fracture sites.  This therapy, pioneered by Kellee of ObsessionduJour, was conceived and delivered, via the ether, to the Massachusetts test site throughout the month of May.  The effects of therapy were measured twelve weeks after injury.

While the researchers are unwilling to speculate as to the relative contributions of different therapies (i.e. knitting vs spinning vs crochet), the wife of the patient was heard to say, "I don't care what you guys think, it's all the fiberistas who can take credit for this one."

While the test subject will not be able to jump for joy for several months, his
long-suffering wife is doing a delirious-with-happiness dance.  No further surgery is anticipated.

YOU DID IT.

And thank you all for helping me to survive the experience.

This is what I found when I walked into the bedroom multiple times since NHS&W:















And this is  how we are celebrating:

Paeonia suffruticosa 'Hinode seki'

She has pride of place in the middle of the garden.  I thought she was red.  Delayed gratification is defined as blooms produced a year and a half after planting.  And then, the color is a surprise.