Bloomin’

We have added Bloomin’ to the Darn Pretty™ circular special!

Sizes US 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 are included at only $59.99!  Vermont Rosewood and Purple Passion sale continues.  There are a limited number of Bloomin’ sets available, so hurry!

New Colors, New Page . . . New Car!

We’ve had a busy weekend already – and it just got started.  This morning I put up some of the new colors on our etsy page.  We have 19 new colors up there and all are available for immediate shipment.

On Facebook, I finally put something up for a DyakCraft page.  Facebook is still foreign to me, but I’m getting there.

And last night Tom picked up a new old car – a twenty year old Saab 900.  I had an ’89 years ago and loved it.  It was, and still is, the best car I ever owned.  Tom’s Volvo wagon has an issue that needs addressed and is earning him warnings from the local police. Until that is repaired, he needed a way to get back and forth from the shop.  Truly, it was another good reason for him to spend too much time on Craigslist!

But he did good.  He found a nice 900 for less than it would cost to have a shop work on the Volvo.  This will buy him the time he needs to fix the Volvo himself. Wave to everyone, Tom:

New Hampshire Sheep and Wool

Just two more days!  I’ve been carding all week and have more new colorways – these will be available at NHSW come Saturday morning.  You’ll find us in the Bingo Hall – I believe the directory lists us under Grafton Fibers.

One more week!

Just one more week before New Hampshire Sheep and Wool.  Hands down, this is my favorite event of the year.  From the committee members to the vendors to the customers – this is where I get a chance to see all my favorite people.  Well, nearly all.  Okay, most of my favorite people in the northeast.  And, best of all,  it is the only show where I get to see my family, as Tom always brings the boys to the festival for a day.

It is also the only time of year I miss the FiberShip.  As little as I enjoyed driving that beast around the country, I loved camping at NHSW.  The fairgrounds are a relatively short drive from home, which gave me loads of time after set up to wander the grounds, talk to the sheep, and enjoy an always wonderful potluck dinner.

There are bigger festivals out there.  Bigger is not necessarily better, however.  The vendor selection at NHSW is excellent, the animals are from top notch breeders, and the hot apple crisp with ice cream outside of the Bingo Hall where our booth is located is amazing.

Maybe that’s been my inspiration this week.  I’ve been in a color/fiber rut lately.  I’ve just felt sort of stuck and uninspired.  I haven’t spun any yarn, let alone worked on any sort of project, since the beginning of the year.  It’s one of the longest fiber-dry spells in my life, and it has left me feeling rather unconnected. And then I started to card for the show.

I dove into the fiber I had ordered for NHSW and saw that key colors were missing.  After a few moments of panic, I started grabbing colors and putting them together in new ways, building one combination on the previous one.  Suddenly, I found myself with a bevy of beautiful new colorways and a rejuvenated excitement toward my work.

This morning I photographed a handful of the new colors that I cannot wait to bring to the show.

All these and more will be found on the shelves next weekend in Hopkinton, NH.  If time permits, I’ll put up another grouping in a few days.

When it rains it pours

and pours and pours . . . all day today.  After nothing but snow yesterday.  Which made it a perfect time for Tom to get one brilliant idea after another.  Brilliant ideas for Tom translate to a need to update the website for me.  For starters, he gave me some of our Golden Oak Darn Pretty™ Needles to put up on the home and needle pages.

Hand made from Dymondwood, as are our other needles, the Golden Oak needles have the warmth of oak and the superior strength of the Dymondwood.  For those who prefer their needles not be as colorful as our others, these are the perfect solution.

Next up, he asked me to put up a better image of his gorgeous straight needles:

Then he announced he wanted a sale on our 12″ Harmony™ Loom.  Fair enough.  We put that up on the loom and fiberstore pages.

Snow turned to rain and Tom found images of our Hummingbird™ Hooks that he really liked and asked me to do something with the images.  The result:

I thought the rainy, gloomy day needed a sunrise of Sunrise hooks!

Finally – I think finally, as the day is not over – he sent me images of his new Inline Hooks.  These are slim versions with the same famous hand carved head that graces all his other hooks.  Those went up on the site – at an incredible price.  He is offering Inline Hooks for $13.99 – and an 8 hook set for $89.99!

If we lose power this evening as predicted, he can carve by candle light.  I, however, have to get back to my spinning, as I am using the electric wheel to spin up the January, February, and March colorways.  I must get this yarn done in order to get the quarterly project underway – a project I am weaving on the Harmony™ loom.  I can’t spin on the electric without power, but I can weave on the Harmony™ loom by candle light just fine.

Postscript: After a relatively snowless January and February, I think we have enough, don’t you?  This is our fence today – normally three feet tall, it seems to have all but disappeared:

Chapter one . . .

When the boys were toddlers, two songs were guaranteed to make them smile and sing along (or, in the case of our youngest, who was a mere baby, keep time with his feet and fingers) as we ran endless errands – Alan Parsons Project’s “Psychobabble” and Elvis Costello’s “Every Day I Write the Book.” It’s the latter song that I found playing in my mind this morning as I pulled up the  WordPress site. It’s a cold, quiet morning in Vermont – a good time to add a blog post.

I was surprised to realize that I had not written a single post in January.  Tom presented me with a gift the other night, which has inspired me to write again (and also nudged me to get something up on the blog.)

That’s the first ever turned-by-Tom tulipwood pen!  If that won’t get me writing, nothing will.

I have written so  many posts this month, but they have never made it as far as the computer screen.  They were composed in my mind and seemed to be content to stay there.  The one that stands out as needing to be posted is the one I was composing after the regional Elks’ Hoop Shoot Contest two weeks ago.

Winning the event for the town in December qualified Nick to go on to the regional contest.  He has had a tight basketball schedule this season, with a practice or a game most every day.  There has been no time left over for practicing foul shots, so we arrived at the contest location early to give him some extra hoop time.  He began shooting and continued to do so for an hour as other boys and girls  trickled into the gym from 5 area towns and warmed up with him.  He looked good.  He was shooting well.  And then the competition began.

Can you remember back to your childhood to that one competition that you blew so badly that, although the pain of the moment is long gone, the memory of total humiliation resurfaces from time to time?  For me it was a gymnastics meet.  As Nick missed shot after shot, I could feel my ankles twisting on that balance beam.  My heart went out to him.  He took his time between each shot, focused as he always does – and missed.  Again and again.  It was as though an invisible gremlin was perched atop the hoop, gleefully slapping away the ball each time Nick put it up there.

With each basket he missed, however, we grew more and more impressed with our son.  He never lost his cool.  He continued to focus and shoot each basket as if it were the first one.  The disappointment didn’t  show on his face until he sat down at the end of the second round, knowing that he had not only lost, but had come in dead last and had done so in a very public way, in a gymnasium filled with folks from all over southern Vermont.  He put his face in his hands for a brief moment, shook his head, and then sat up to watch the remaining boys take their turns, applauding as the boys completed their turns.

The match ended, the winners were announced, and Nick stood up and strode across the gym with a smile on his face.  He thanked the organizers.  He thanked his sponsors.  He posed for requested photos.  He congratulated the winners.

It is much easier to be a graceful winner than it is to gracefully lose as badly as he did that day.  Although we had hoped he would do well, in the end, he did far better than if he had won the competition.  He demonstrated in a public, and yet quiet, way the strength he possesses.  Nick has been through a great deal these last few years.  Yet he set all that aside to do what he needed to do and present to the community the rock solid person that is Nick.  I told him then, and I want to say it now – Nick,  I stand in awe of you.  You are an amazing person.  Love, mom.

Seeing double.

As those who read this know, my car died last month.  We ended up with a wonderful replacement, of which I have already posted.  And then yesterday Tom’s car died.  We knew it needed work, more work than it is probably worth doing to the vehicle, but we were ever optimistic that the vehicle would make it a few more months.  It was not to be.  2009 is leaving and is taking prisoners with her – the car is one of them.

Being very pleased with my wagon, he began searching for a Volvo to use for work.  He found a very inexpensive one in central Vermont.  This morning we woke up early, went to breakfast at our favorite diner, and then headed up north to check out the car.  As we neared the house, I asked him about it.  “I’m not sure.  It’s a sedan, I think.”  And what color?  “I believe it is blue.”   We pull into the driveway and there it is – a maroon wagon!

After wondering if it would be too weird to have the same car, albeit slightly different body styles, he took it for a ride and said he would take it.  We turned a few heads on the way home.  Folks must have thought we were headed to a Volvo show.

By the time we hit Woodstock, the snow was coming down rather heavy.  We stayed off the highway and took the scenic route – and scenic it is.  Gorgeous hills covered in fresh snow, with deep, dark lines cut through pastures by snow covered stone walls.  A stretch of the road was almost dark as night, with snow laden pine boughs forming a thick canopy.  It was a beautiful drive.   By the time he got home, he was in love with the car.  Here’s hoping both of them last.

Now to clean up for New Year’s and get some rest in so that I can make it to midnight.  We were woken late last night by one of our son’s friends.  When I asked who was calling at that hour, she began to fake a Swedish accent and give me a fictitious name.  That might be funny in the afternoon.  In the middle of the night, it loses something.  And then, of course, the dogs had to go out.  But the moon was full and bright, so naturally the dogs decided it was a perfect time to take off running.  By the time I got everyone back in and settled, I was wide awake.  That’s no longer the case.

2010 is almost here.  I am so full of hope and promise for the new year.  I want to be able to more than nod when 2010 arrives.  Shoveling is done for now, laundry is going, another hour of cleaning, and then I think a New Year’s Eve nap is in order!

We made it!

For the first time in three years, we had both electricity and running water for Christmas.  We were able to open presents under a lit tree, have freshly baked bagels for breakfast, and do the dishes when everything was said and done.

It’s a good thing we had electricity this year, as a certain present for a certain little boy depended on it.  I’m still in quiet mode today, but I have to share what happened when our youngest received the one thing he has wanted for the past several years – an iPod Touch:

He recovered shortly after the photo was taken.  And the loom in the background – that would be the tapestry loom I received from Tom this Christmas.  I mentioned months ago that I wanted to get back to tapestry weaving in the coming year, and apparently he was listening.  He began searching classifieds and Craigslist until he came up with a lovely Glimakra in pristine condition.  Good man.

Oh Christmas tree

The really cool thing about bringing home the tree this year?  My boys were able to carry it into the house!  Two of them are bigger than me.  No more struggling to get a tree off the top of my car or slipping on the ice and falling underneath the tree as it goes up the stairs.   We carried in the groceries and I was able to turn to two of the boys and say, “Would you bring in the tree, please?”  It was an awesome moment.    Later that day, the youngest – no slouch in the size department, either – carried all the ornaments down to the living room, and the three of them set to work.  I could get used to this.

And no more fighting over who gets to put up the star. There have been years where the star had to be placed three times – once by each child.  I guess when you are able to reach the top of the tree while standing, the placing of the star loses some of its appeal.  That task is now firmly in the hands of our youngest boy – the only one left who still needs a chair to reach the top.

Star placement admiration:

No star placement battles means there is more time for decorating hugs:

The last ornament – it is always Tom’s guitar:

We have a winner!

Nick woke up Saturday morning and said, “I’m going to go get a trophy today.”

Huh?

The local Elks lodge was holding their annual Hoop Shoot on Saturday.

“Nick, you can’t count on winning.  You don’t know what the competition will be like.”

“Oh, I’ll win.”

We walked into a gymnasium filled with children practicing their shots.  Our conversation went something like this:

me:  Go warm up, Honey.

Nick:  Nah, I don’t need to.

me:  Nick, get out there and warm up.

Nick:  Why should I?  I don’t need to.

me:  Get out there and warm up or we’re leaving.

Nick:  All right!

The result:

I guess he didn’t need to warm up after all.   Yay, Nick!  Next stop is the state tournament – a lot of free throw practice is going to have to take place in the next month.