An Ode to Old Friends (longterm, that is!)

I mentioned on Plurk last week that I was off on a pilgrimage to my childhood village--Huntington, Vermont. Unfortunately I neglected to take pictures of the town: it's a little village in a valley in the mid-mountain area between the foothills and the higher peaks of the Green Mountains. It's south of Richmond, kind of north and east of Hinesburg, and west of Duxbury. Camel's Hump, the 3rd highest mountain in Vermont is mostly situated in Huntington. The "wrong view" of the Hump, as seen on the Vermont quarter in the U.S. State Quarter Series, is in Duxbury (the view you would get on Interstate 89 coming north from southern and central Vermont). Don't ask--it's a touchy subject!

Anywho, when I lived there from age 4 to 18 (I turned 18 in October 1981), the population was roughly 800-1,100. Now it is over 1,800! Phew--population boom! My father worked for IBM way back then, and my mom and dad saved a clipping from the Burlington Free Press--an article stating that Huntington was bound to become a 'bedroom community for IBM'. Lol. I didn't enjoy it much as a kid--I wanted to be from a big city like the ones we saw on tv. I also didn't want to be taken as an uneducated redneck--and times when we would go "into town" (which meant Burlington) were painful, especially in the winter, as we'd be wearing those big ol' Sorels (heavy Canadian-made winter boots with felted liners) or 'Pacs' (as the green rubber/plastic boots were called back then) as Huntington had tons of snow, and people in Burlington would be wearing sneakers! lol. This was before the Interstate System was built in Vermont. I think we got the Interstate in 1973 or 1974.

Pics in this post: click on for larger view

--top: pic of huntington
--Joyce modeling my merino/alpaca/cashmere lace shawl.
--Kim, who is laid up with a knee operation. HER kitty loves
to sit in her lap! (note: our kitty will only do this if we have paper on our lap).
--The mosaic vase picture Joyce made for my 40th

Back to our story. I do, however, have very fond memories of my neighbor Kim, and her mother, Joyce. Our houses were about 20' apart in the front, but we had about an acre of land in the back. I spent a lot of time hanging out over at their house. Joyce was like another mom to me, but also more of a friend. She was into plants, tea (Woohoo! And you wonder where I got it from?!), all kinds of crafts: knitting, crocheting, etc. And these days she's into folk-art painting, needle felting, mosaics, and way more wicked cool stuff. Oh, she's over, well--let's say she's over 60 something--spry as a hen, and way more energy than most people I know!

Kim was like another sister to me. We still have a deep friendship, and try to keep in touch with each other. Joyce and Kim have been to our house in Jericho, and J and me make a visit usually once a year, around the fall, to see them.

For my 40th birthday (5 years ago), Joyce made me a mosaic of a vase with roses! It's really fabulous. See pic at right.

I'm just blessed that we have stayed in touch with each other, and can share old times, and continue with newness in our lives.

ETA: I wanted to add that I neglected to put a paragraph in this post along the lines of "It took driving 'cross country in 1987 and spending a short time in LA for me to appreciate Vermont and many aspects of living in Vermont. While J and me do travel around a bit, we always enjoy coming back to Vermont. It has changed a lot in the past 20 years, and I'm also a bit older, but at this point in my life I have learned to appreciate many things that I didn't before."

Of Blueberries and of Lace...

Well, it sounds like a good title! Kind of Victorian or something.

Click on pics for a larger view...

Of Blueberries: we have 4 or 5 blueberry bushes in our fenced-in garden. Basically every other year we have a bumper crop. I've read that honey bees are the number one pollinators of blueberries, and with the tremendous loss of honey bees in New England and the U.S., J and me were really worried about getting many berries--and big ones at that. Well, take a look at this bowl of berries! They are huge! (Note: that's a quarter in the bowl.) J's been picking them (and blackberries) for a couple of weeks now (he's the #1 berry picker in this house), and I've been reaping the benefits of his hard work and time amidst the prickly bushes. Don't worry--I do a fair share of the work! I do all the canning and preserving (including occasional blueberry jam!). The really talented hard work.

Of Lace: Sigh. I lost the 'Sunray Shawl' I started in May. Somewhere between here and Easton (NY) it disappeared. I've also ditched the 'Rose of England' for a spell, as it was too frustrating to accomplish with dull needles. So, I found 'Springtime' from the same book by Marianne Kinzel: First Book of Modern Lace Knitting.

This pattern is a square one (the 'ROE' was round) and a lot more fun--but maybe I will bore of it too soon? I'm using the dusty rose alpaca/merino lace from Elann.com.

The second picture is a shot of the pic in the book. The last picture is a closeup of the center square, which is the part I have finished, chart A.

So, as you can see, there is lots more to do! But it's fun...

Note to self: less Plurking and more Etsying (putting my stuff on my Etsy site)

RU Plurking?

Blame Jason on this one, really. Seems I'm having a midlife crisis or something. Like I really need yet another techno thingy in my life! I mean, i just starting blogging about three months ago. I was talking to Jason (of Jason Knits) in Cali last night, and he asked me if I had heard about Plurk yet. Well, I had just heard about Twitter about a month ago--now I gotta plurk?

After seeing a news story last night about using Twitter for feedback on customer service, I decided that now everyone will be using it so I'll pass up on that. Like, I had bypassed both Facebook and Myspace (too adolescent for me I guess), and Twitter is going to be Uber popular now (probably be bought up by Coke or Uni or some huge mega global conglomerate thing), that I should jump in on the Plurk bandwagon. So, I'm Vtknitboy on plurk. There you go!

What's a Stash?

Lol. In the '70s and '80s, a "stash" meant something far different from what we knitters and spinners call a stash these days! I'll let your imagination wander. My purchased yarn stash is on a spreadsheet--over 85,000 yards of it! I woke up at 2 am and thought, what's the conversion to miles? So I grabbed my handy-dandy cell phone and punched in the numbers into my unit converter and came up with, gulp, 48.28 miles! Phew! Now that's a stash!

So, someone asked me how much fiber (unspun) stash do I have? Here's what I found around the house in terms of roving (in ounces):

7 white alpaca, 2 superfine brown alpaca, .5 superfine camel down, 3 dk brown alpaca, 3 quanaco, 16 super soft fawn Icelandic wool, 16 super soft silver gray wool/merino blend, 3.25 gray and color silk/merino, 23 superfine white something—alpaca?, 1 white angora, 10 black lamb’s wool, 12 silver grey silk/wool, 6 white alpaca, 20 silver/grey wool, 12 jet black lamb’s wool, 32 dk brown lamb’s wool, 48 dk brown lamb’s wool (different shade), 16 black gray wool, 32 white friesian sheep wool, 32 white sheep wool (low grade), 8 lt brown camel top, 4 gray alpaca (northstaralpacas), 4white huacaya alpaca/merino (northstaralpacas), 4 black blend (luke: northstaralpacas), 7 green/purple merino top, 4 teal/purple soysilk/merino, 4 white Shetland.

That's roughly 330 ounces, or about 20 pounds of fiber. I think I can get a couple of sweaters out of this... ; )

And then, there are over 5 fleeces in the garage not washed yet, and some other roving, but nothing fabulous--that's all in the house. Oh yeah, then I have about 2 pounds of cotton, in various blends...

J says "sell, sell, sell!"

Cheers!

Knit Witch Contest!

I found this on one of the blogs I visit, and heck, it looks easy and won't cost you a cent!

Check it out: Knit Witch Contest for a new yarn store opening up. Contest ends July 31st! Act quick! Amia Yarn Company.

They are concerned about American and local products. I share in those concerns!

Surprises and Gifts...

My partner thinks I have an over-abundance of yarn, rovings, and fleeces. (I do, and he would prefer that I start using up some of my stash before buying more.) But there's something about surrounding myself with these wonderful things that can be transformed into objects of beauty, function, and fashion--well, maybe not the fashion, this is Vermont, after all! I'm quite positive I lived during the 1880's through the 1930's. I have the "Depression Mentality" where I need to have dry and canned goods stocked up to take us through times of trouble, and I also am horribly drawn to the Victorian England time period (as a "Born to the Manor" type, of course.).

Click on pics for a larger view...

J and I try to do as much as we can to reduce our carbon footprint on the planet. We hang laundry outside in the summer, have a small drying rack to dry hand towels, dish towels, etc., and have changed most of our light bulbs to the energy saving kind. (Although, we are both concerned about how to dispose of these when they die--they have mercury in them.)

So, (there was a point to this) I was out in the garage, fumbling through the stacks of boxes of yarn, rovings, and fleeces (sorry--no pic; it's way too messy) looking for this large wooden drying rack we had when we moved from Burlington to Jericho a bunch of years ago. Alas, I never found it, but I found that I had all this fiber I had totally forgotten about.

In the stacks I found (among tons of other great stuff): 2 pounds of dark brownish-gray wool roving (enough for a sweater, plus), 1 pound of Icelandic roving (unfortunately, it's the rough, long and itchy stuff), the Russian cashmere spindles I bought at SOAR '97 at Smugglers' Notch, a Judy's Kick 'n Spin spindle, a Takli and bowl (for spinning cotton), and 1 pound of mohair dyed pinkish red, and sky blue. What finds!

In today's mail, I received another box from Kenny in Houston--fabulous yarn for socks! Fibranatura Yummy 100% superwash wool, in turquoise blue, salmon-orange, browns and greens (I'm color blind--what do I know.), and a skein of Acquerello superwash wool/nylon hand-dyed in a deep, dark reddish brown. A color he promptly described as, well, blood-clot red. Tigger is in the above pic modeling the yarns. There are two pics of tigger, as he's so darn cute. Thanks to Kenny for the care package. You are a great friend!

And, you ask, why does Tigger look so grumpy in the pic with the yarn? Because I moved the newspaper he was sitting on so that I could take the pic! He will not sit on our laps, but the second a piece of newspaper is put down, he jumps right on it and curls up and takes a snooze! I was reading the paper and he decided to plop his royal butt right on the paper! He's really quite a character!

Knitting projects: I finished the second of the Jewelled Steps socks. Love. Them. Although I have to redo the bind-off. And, I started a pair of Monkey-Socks by Cookie A., but the toe-up version. Although, now that I've done 2 reps of the pattern, I kind of like the idea of the purled base under the "V" in the pattern. What do you think? Leave a comment!

I'm using the Audacity yarn by Black Bunny. She's a member of the Knitters for Obama group I'm in on Ravelry.com. And, she's fabulously talented. I'm doing the linen stitch on the bottom (see second sock pic) for more durability.

Oh, I almost forgot! In the Knitters for Obama group, we are doing a second fundraiser--an afghan of the U.S. flag. The red and white stripes consist of squares with raised reliefs of the states. J and I were on vacation in Seattle and Victoria, and they were so sweet to save Vermont for me to do! Woo hoo! Here's a pic of my square before I sent it, and a pic of all the squares before being sewn together by one of the group members.

A couple of my friends are experiencing some rough medical problems with family members, so I ask all my friends out there if you could take just a minute or two out of your hectic life and say a little prayer, meditate, or just send some positive, healing, and loving vibes out to the Universe.

Your thoughts would be much appreciated!

Peace and Love to you all!
Chris

Government House Gardens, Victoria, BC

Oops! Forgot to add the write-up of the Government House Gardens!

The Government House Gardens, were just minutes from where we were staying in Victoria. While we thoroughly enjoyed the Butchart Gardens, we were amazed at the GHG! There were only about 15-20 people milling about the gardens, so we were able to enjoy the gardens at a leisurely, relaxed pace.

Enjoy!