Yarn for Sale! 2012 Fall
I don’t know why it takes me so long. I must wait months for the yarn to come back from the mill. Then I struggle to find time to dye the yarn. Then I must wait for my Website Goddess to make room in her life to put the skeins into an online shopping cart. […]
What Happens with Moisture, Heat, and Agitation?
No, this isn’t a blog post about menopause. It’s about doing something you love for four years then suddenly thinking, “Enough.” For me, it was socks. I knit sock after sock. Same pattern. Different yarns. I was happy. Content, even. Then a month ago I hit the wall. After knitting over 100 socks, I realized I […]
The Most Unlikely Farm Dog Ever
Last year was a rough year for dogs. Our half-Great Dane Sophie and our border collie Robin passed away. Both were nearly16 years old, not bad for large dogs. We still miss them a lot. Robin’s death left a hole in the farm too large to ever fill. Since it was my turn to choose […]
Felting by a Dummy
Felting is a cool concept. Knit something oversized in 100% wool, dump it into the washing machine for a short time, and the moisture, heat, and agitation will shrink it. Voila! The yarn tightens into felt. The tricky part, I am now learning, is controlling the shrinkage so the item is the size you want […]
Well, That Didn’t Go Well…
I’ve changed into dry clothes, and have calmed my nerves with Diet Coke and pretzels, so now perhaps I can write about this morning. It was time to move the sheep, so I walked up to the West Pasture (we’ve named everything). For the last two days I’d been walking up close enough to check the […]
The Scary World of Book Reviews
I bought an ebook to take with me on my recent writing retreat. The description made it sound great. The top reviews were great. The small sample I ordered looked great. I paid my $3.99, drove to my island retreat, and started to read.It was awful. Grrr. What an idiot I was.I am so naive, […]
Colors on the Way
My friend London, who’s been helping me dye my yarn, finds herself without time, thanks to training for a career change. So this means–YIKES—I’ll soon be on my own. She’s going to help me one more time next week. We’ll dye about 40 skeins, and I’ll hang on her every word. Then I’ll do the […]
Library Tour in Lake Country
There are at least 15,000 lakes in MN, and I think most of them are in the region I visited last week. As I gave 12 presentations at 9 libraries (most of them in small communities) in 5 days in north central MN, I kept my blog readers in mind, since Kristie had asked what […]
Lost Blogger Found and Returned to Her Office
Where the heck have I been? I’m so sorry to have disappeared. I don’t know where the time has gone…. Perhaps in worrying how much writing energy email and blogging and facebook actually consume in a writer’s life… Or recovering from a bad bout of irregular heartbeats that plagued me 24/7 for 2 months. Not […]
From the Cutting Room Floor
In Sheepish I mention the names of a few places on our farm, including Nacho Hill. What I edited out of that final version was how the name Nacho Hill came to be. It’s a bit petty, but what can I say?….…As Melissa and I built the farm, we quickly learned that the places on […]