Blue Ridge Parkway 75th Anniversary
Cooler days with the garden winding down have turned my thoughts to handspinning, and thanks to Blue Ridge Heritage, Inc., the group that is working on a project on the Parkway, I was able to represent them and Meadows of Dan at Cumberland Knob during the 75th Anniversary Festival. I was spinning on my walking wheel, one of my favorite things to do on a cool day, while Kathy Dulaney of Highland Farm created beautiful baskets. It was wonderful to share the experience with Kathy; her farm produces Highland cattle and beef. I've been fascinated with these beautiful and useful animals since I first saw them in Scotland. She's also just lovely to watch as she weaves her traditional Appalachian baskets. Unfortunately we had some bad weather during the weekend so we had plenty of time to chat as we worked and visitors avoided the fog and didn't flock as expected to the festival. I managed to spin a pound of Texel wool into singles and I'm pretty sure Kathy completed at least three baskets.
World Wide Spinning in Public Day 2010
We had much better luck yesterday with the weather as June and Kathleen joined me for World Wide Spinning in Public Day. I had such a good time; there is nothing like having such congenial fiber folk join me for a spin-in. Several people came by and talked to us and we even met another spinner. Kathleen is such a talented weaver and she finished a shawl while she was here and it was nice to cuddle with it. June was spinning some beautiful black Shetland that was working up in to a nice tweedy single. I had some rough wool roving that I dyed in a hurry for Folk Fair in peach for the Virginia Peach Festival theme. It's spinning up quite nicely, though. Kathleen took a great picture of her mother and me that is on June's blog. I really like it!
The tomatoes are starting to roll in from the garden but almost everything else is done. It may be the dry weather but it's looking like an early fall. Grass is starting to turn brown and there's a little color here and there in the leaves.
Button those socks!
And here we have another finished item. I was almost late to work because I was determined to get that second sock finished! This is a charming pattern from a delightful sock book called Think Outside the Sox, mentioned in my last post. Button-up Socks by Annette Devitt has, as suggested by the title, a buttoned closure on the cuff. The rest of the sock is made interesting by a mesh pattern on the upper side and the fact that you use two different sized needles for the instep and sole. This is the first time I was able to follow a chart with very few errors on my part. Speaking of errors, though, there are a few in the pattern so check for errata before you begin to knit!
My next new project is to finish up a couple of old projects that are long overdue for some attention. Cooler weather makes it much easier to contemplate working with heavier wool!
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