While Tangerine Dreams

Selling Ice to Inuits

We just got back from visiting my mom last week and came back to summer like temperatures which have us swimming everyday since. Ever since (here we go) Craig knocked me up again, I haven't been able to ride my bike by the river lest I insanely fling myself into it. Being in water's been like a food craving. It's like when I was in labour with Edie - I kept asking my midwife "is it time to go in the kiddie pool yet?" "no"  (two minutes later) "should we tell Craig to fill up the tub now?" "no" (knit, knit, knit).

So what does a girl do in one of the swelteringest days of the year? She sets up a table at the local farmer's market (the one that our super duper underground top secret famers coalition started) and tries to sell yarn. Yeah. Craig thought that was a greaaaaat idea. Let's just say it was a slow day.

Recent Happen(sp)ins'

I can spin! I can spin without it making me want to puke! I know, the above pun sucks. It's a pregnancy thing. Speaking of pregnancy things Soulemama, like me, is expecting in late fall. She revealed this a couple of weeks ago; unlike me, she's been pretty good at keeping this a secret - I can't contain myself from spilling these kinds of things immediatly. Mine promises to be the longest pregnancy in the blogosphere for sure seeing how I pretty much told you guys before I even told Craig (kidding). Especially because I keep bringing it up and blaming everything on it. Very exciting to be bunning the oven the same time as Bradgelina and a celebrity blogger; especially such a freakishly talented crafty one at that (last time I was stuck with Gwenyth Paltrow and Liv Tyler) - what a lucky lady! Note that there will be lots of kopy-kathing krafting going on over in these parts in the next couple of years. Can you imagine the cuteness she's going to crank out (Amanda and Angelina)?

 
So, I'm in that glorious, glorious what they call the honeymoon trimester. I feel pretty much like my old self except riding my bike up hills I have to now lean back on my cruiser with straight arms and double chin making myself look like Pee Wee Herman in pregnancy drag. Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, when I was just going about my business not being pregnant (think I can mention pregnant a couple more times?), I joined a couple of exciting fibre clubs. First one is Loop's Spontaneous Spinning Club and for April we had to submit a photo of a flower we want our batt based on and the two above are what I sent Steph. And this is what I spun up from what she sent me in return:

Isn't she amazing? There's so many ingredients in this yarn I might get carpel tunnel if I try to list them all right now. Think everything shiny and soft. A long, long time ago I also joined Hello Yarn's Fibre Club; way before this auspicous night that changed our lives . I have only been able to spin it up recently due to the dizzies;

It's shetland wool and I think I'm going to lug these two skeins along with some other goodies kicking around to the new Farmer's market in town Sunday morning. It'll be nice to rake in the big bucks again and allow Craig the opportunity to take some time off this summer to get some projects on our blank canvas piece of land done (please note the heavy drippy sarcastic though wishful thinking). Poor man still has to build himself an office and Edie a play house before the fetus formerly know as Drippy Head makes his/her debut. Edie renamed him/her Butterfly. And Barney the cat Fluffy.

Strawberry Monster-itta

Here it comes. The strawberry fiend. Luckily the local organic strawberry farmer is right next door. We use to barter soap for strawberries. I wonder if he'll take yarn?

Now she's had a taste, there's no hope. Want to hear something crazy? We had a friend come over last week and dowse our space for negative energy. The house is all impressively charged positive except for one spot; my computer area. Just as a disclaimer, whenever I start to whine about my Etsy shop being slow and wah, wah, I haven't sold anything all month, I'm not fishing for sales.This for me virtually going for calamari and beer with you and me with my beer buzz venting just to share. SO, I move the computer to the kitchen table (negative vibes really ick me out these days) and, this is the wacky part, I then made four sales this week after a whole month of nada. Weird!

And then she leans in for the kill. The yarn's a goner. Kidding! If you want it it's in my Etsy Shop! What a cheese ball I am. Speaking of Etsy Friday, my fiber/felting mentor just opened up her own shop Wooly Mammoth - she is so, so talented. My Calgary knit buds are having a Zombie sale and a new but dear cyber friend's shop just rocks. Have a great weekend. Let's do calamari again soon.

It's Cookie Around Here

I don't know if it's the change in season, or the conspiracy movies/gathering date nights, my own personal favorite season of reflection, or my feeling of need to explain the naming of my spring etsy sale the It's Crazy Crazy Sale.

I'm looking at my shop the last few days (and mildly disgruntled nothing has moved in the last couple of weeks) and I start hearing my mother's voice. I seem to have fictional dialogue with my mom a lot in my head around this time of year. It's weird:

Kahhhtee, leesten to meeee. Stop acting so creezy. I see you doing leetle beets of everything. Peek somtheeng and steek to it. Stop beeing so stew-peed!

Again, it's not an ode to Talk Like a Pirate Day, I'm trying to do my mom's thick Spanish accent via blog again (it's better in real life).  God knows I love my mom, alot, and though our world views clash sometimes there's always a strange whiff of truth in what she has to say.

I've been tripping out lately on the craziness of the world. You know, doom and gloom stuff. Ignorance is such sweet bliss but I've come out of the initial despair of these encounters to heed attention to what I'm spending my time and energy on. Questioning what's important, right now.

So, I guess what I'm saying is I'm going to see the spring/summer as an opportunity to stock pile more art yarns into my shop (spinning's my true love right now) which entails washing, dyeing and carding a storm and then re-direct the rest of my time and efforts into staking  out the garden, perhaps raise us some chooks, nesting up the home front a bit more, and basically stop speading my interests so thin again and focus on home and community. Of course, I'm still here blogging because it helps so much with organizing the crazies but I'll be trying to step away from the laptop a little more too. I'm going to have a real cookie now. And finish the pajama ensemble I just cut out. See what I mean? Here's comes the voice again...

Oh Frankie You're So Fine...

What a long shot! I deemed this the Frankie Hoody because I had to Frankenstein some pink and green fabric together due to lack of yardage of one to complete it (oooo...deeeeep). I'm not sure what to make of it but I do know is I hosted our weekly knit circle last night and my dear friend Harmony freaked out when she saw it and screamed "OH MY GAWD THAT'S SO TACKY! In an awesome way." I think I know what she means. I feel very Mindy from Mork and Mindy in it. Or Natalie from Facts of Life. Kind of how I longed to be Kimberly from Different Strokes so long ago (look how little Edie's hair is there!).

And instead of a cord I used the shoelace idea from Intertwined for the hood. The yarn is felted Creative Spaced yarn from last month. (I have a new idea to once a month spin up all the excess from all my different projects. Last month turned out gorgeous (I should take a picture)! This month is a little scary fresh off the drum carder but that's what a love about this process; I'm usually pleasantly surprised!)

Being Etsy Friday; not to direct traffic to my shop or anything but if you check out this and this item, guess what? Edie was the photographer for both! She has a good eye though she begs to be in the shot the whole time.

Who's mama's little ham? Oink, oink!

Lunar Lemonade

Checked out that spectacle Wednesday night? Gorgeous, but was with that unnaturally sparkly star to the right (not pictured but we were looking at it through binoculars - really kaleidoscope-y and unnatural looking)? Hmmm... that's a little disturbing.

Speaking of unnatural, this week's Fiber Friday challenge was Citrus so I came up with this kiss of Kool-aid-dyed goodness. My first time playing with coils and it was too much fun. I wish there was a spin cam so you could have seen the orgasmic expression on my face when I pulled off one of those little beehives. It was pretty satisfying seeing something so cute materialize from out of nowhere. Love the new Lexi Boeger book!

And speaking of art yarns, this one's a good idea; wedding dress yarn. Why not?
A sweet little bunny for some bunny's bedroom.
I like to collect these.
Learn something new everyday, hey Craig?

Do Get Lippy with Me

There is a Ravelry group called Fibre Friday and a couple of weeks ago the challenge was body parts. I was wanting some white yarn with some kind of red winter berries peeking out so I thought red lips would be berry similiar. I'm really slow with these challenges but they're a great way to get the creative juices juiced up. This week is citrus so I'm leaning towards some kind of Tangerine scene for some reason.

Forest Floored

I'm feeling better today. Got me some flu the last few days. Drinking tea right now as oppose to my usual triple shot latte so I probably won't be as interesting (I'm just a chemical kid I guess). But look what I was up to probably just as that nasty flu critter was entering some facial orifice. I took me some of those items up there, local corridale and merino I hand dyed last week, some scraps from my sewing endeavours like some vintage flower power fabric that is now my purse and velour from a track suit I made last week that came out way too ugging to show its face on this blog, and bits of Bronwyn the Romney sheep from way back.

Lovingly shoved them into the drum carder at the local Threads Guild. Quickly turn the cranky cranky before someone shows up and says what the hell are you doing to our drum carder?

And came up with some lofty lusciousness that I spun into this:

Forest Floored. Because, you know, it looks like the forest floor. Too much fun this process. I love it. Just wish I had more time to knit now!

The Corazon Kid

Mmmmm. Chocolate Covered Hearts. This is some merino from CopperPot spun up with some needle felted hearts plied in with some pink metallic thread. I just want to...

Eat it! Why is this picture so small? Edie loved this yarn as soon as she saw it. I never seen such excitement from her regarding something I made. She immediately wanted to know what I had planned for it (so cool how she's putting it all together now!). So I said, "I don't know. Want a hat?" Oh, yeah, she wanted a hat. Bad. So I made her a hat in about a night and she LOVES IT!

I was worried about the hearts being too wobbley as it seemed they were literally hanging by a thread but I just had to weave in through a stitch or two and they were secured. She wore it out on her date with Dada this weekend and Craig said lots of people were commenting on her hat and she said "my momma made it". Oi, my ovaries.

Scarf it Up

I couldn't contain myself. I had to knit up the Flora skein I spun up last month. And strike a cheesy pose about it. I used gigantic needles and lots of drop stitches to really milk it for time and space. And I'm so pleased with it. It only took a few hours of mindless knitting. I think I like mindless knitting. There's a lot around here trying to distract me on my precious knit time. Namely a little critter named Barney. He's learning though. Attack my yarn and out you go to the freezing cold to think about it what you just tried to eat.

Have I mentioned it's cold here?  I've been making alot of neck warming devices as of late. I added one more to the shop today. I think it's something to do with the over acted throat chakra I've been diagnosed with a long time ago (or was it sluggish? I can't remember). All I know is that I grew up hating turtle necks and now I feel naked - in the freezing cold sense - if my throat isn't covered. What's up with that?

To celebrate the deep freeze (which has only been minus 8 degrees Celcius but we've have gotten a bit soft since moving out here) we pounced upon our friend's skating rink/pond. Edie borrowed her little buddy's skates, which she sported for the first time at their solstice party this year and I borrowed his mama's.

Oh yeah, too much fun. Craig played a shinny and me and my girl enjoyed some hot toddies afterwards under a big blankie. Stay warm and later, Skater (I'm talking to you, Blonde!).