How The West Was Spun

A Taste of Winter

True to fall here in Utah, we just moved past it in a day or so, and went on to winter.  We had had lovely temps last week, but a cold wind blowing in from the northwest on Friday ushered in a bit of the white stuff, even here in the valley.  (Ski bums will be delighted to hear the higher elevations got as much as 6 to 8 inches of the white stuff.)  All things being equal, then, it was an okay weekend to have to work.

It's now sunny out, but still.... ahem... brisk this morning (temp around 37 degrees F) here.  Hopefully the weather will hold for the next 36 hours, as I have a family semi-emergency to attend to and will be flying out of town for 3 days. 

If you've placed an order through the website in the last day or so, alas, I have to say that it will not likely be filled and shipped until I am back (after Wednesday).  The cooler weather also means skeins of yarn don't dry in 3 hours anymore, so anything that gets dyed today will have to wait until my return to ship out.

Have a great rest of your weekend and stay warm and dry where ever you are!

All for now....

Where I'm At

(Apologies to the grammar police - the above is one of my LEAST favorite phrases, but it does have a catchy ring to it..... soo.......I used it anyway.)

Fall has finally arrived here.  Or maybe winter.  It doesn't seem entirely certain as we had snow in the mountains here this weekend and Monday morning, which is a far cry from the 90-degree weather we had the previous weekend.  Nothing like just jumping in with both feet, eh? Slightly more moderate temps with highs in the 70s here for the rest of the week. 

Diggs and I rode training tours 5 days last week, and managed to sneak in a quick tour on Saturday before the rain that heralded the front arrived midday.  And in between times, I've been making some progress on various knitting projects.

My "Birdsfoot Stole" a Virtual Yarns kit is perhaps 30% done.  It is a soothing, relaxing knit and I totally loved sitting with my feet up on Sunday, listening to it rain, watching some football and letting the stole cover my knees.

I may be gifting this to a worthy recipient who is going through a rough patch right now, but I'm not 100% sure it's a color she'll like.  This capercaille in the Hebridian 2-ply is the devil to photograph.  It's not this dark.  But it's also not this light:

Somewhere in between maybe.

Anyhoo, I will see the possible giftee in about a week, and I thought I'd subtly find out if this might suit her.  If it does, then I can finish it up and send it to her as a surprise gift.  If it's not her cuppa tea, it will not pain me in the least to keep it for myself!

I have been stalled on the edging of the Victorian Lace Today scarf I'm working on out of Kidsilk Haze.  I've not gotten the edging pattern going into an easy groove, so it's a slow-going, count the rows/stitches kind of process, and I've been preferring to plop myself down for an easy 30 minutes of knitting a night, while skeining for Miriam's new shawl pattern in the upcoming kit for the store.  If I can get motivated for a bit mid-week, I have some horse doctor appointments to sit and wait at, which might be a good time to get un-stalled on that project too.

All for now....

Aspen Grove Shawl - September Kit

Miram's done it again!  This month's kit is perfect for fall, just a little wisp of a shawl to throw around your shoulders as the weather cools down.

The design concept:

The shawl is designed in 3 parts. Each of the 4 repeated wedges of the shawl begins with a gathering of leaves, then moves downward into the twisting, odd trunks of the aspens, culminating in the feather and fan edge, which reminds me of the strata of decay on the forest floor, shot through with the communal roots of the aspens above.

The kit for this project comes with a pattern containing both charted and written instructions to knit the lace shawl shown, plus a large skein of merino/silk (Zephyr) yarn to knit the pattern in your choice of 1 of 2 colorways: the Quaking Aspen colorway (shown here in the sample), a rich blend of a grove of aspen trees in early fall, bright greens with hints of lemony yellow, or in Vermont Maples, all the vibrant reds, oranges and burgundies the state is so well known for in the fall (shown below).

As always, free shipping for US customers and discounted shipping for Canadian and international customers on orders placed before October 1.

All for now.....

Horsing Around

Several years ago, when D and I got our horses, Cathy, who is an enabler of the best kind, casually mentioned how...now that we had some horses.....maybe I would think about doing endurance racing with Diggs when he was old enough and trained up.  Pshaw, said I.  Never.

So then, a few months later, Cathy sends me a gift box "for Digger" with a great wool saddle blanket and a pair of split reins that she used when SHE used to ride and train for endurance.  And tucked under all of that was a stack of magazine clippings and notes about endurance training.  You know....because she didn't have horses anymore and what would she do with them, but it seemed wasteful to just throw them away.  But.....no pressure - just for reading interest.  You know........ Pshaw again, said I. Never EVER.

So THEN, she starts casually sending me photos of her horses and her trailer, and places she rode endurance rides, and when I finally had the chance to visit her, "my room" had ribbons and maps and pictures from her endurance rides on the walls.  And of course we talked horses for 2 days while I was there (and some fiber stuff for good measure).

I ask you......How is a person supposed to resist this kind of subliminal brain-washing?  I apparently am not immune, because Gee!  I had a brilliant idea - I'm going to try Diggs at endurance racing.  (I cannot imagine where this came from!).  Anyway, the boy is now old enough and trail saavy enough, and we have started to put some training miles on him for our first ride together down in Moab (land of the red rocks) the first weekend in November.

You can read some great basic info about endurance racing at the national organization's website and more about this specific ride here.  Diggs and I are going to start small and do the 25-mile ride, rather than the 50-miler (there are also 100-milers, although not at this particular race).  These are timed events (you must complete the 25 miles in 6 hours or less, including a 1-hour vet check/rest break) but you also have to meet certain criteria such as pulse rate/respiratory rate parameters AND have your horse be judged "fit to continue" by the vets who keep a close eye on all the horses to be sure they aren't being overly taxed by the race itself.  It's also a great time to go and see some beautiful country and ride your horse all day, so what could be better? 

So, we'll see how it goes and if Diggs enjoys himself - which is really an important part of the whole thing if you are going to be spending that much time with your horse - and how he does with the vet checks.  Wish us luck!

PS - Cathy ALSO sent Diggs a gift for my birthday (yes, this is horse-person logic) this year, which she made for him.  It's a horse "leash", 2 mobius'es linked together, knit and then felted.  And of course, she added da bling (silver and purple beads) because the boy is nuttin if not fashionable.  Cute, eh?

All for now......

Great Basin Fiber Festival

We had a lovely time at the Great Basin Fiber Festival this weeked.  Busy, but lovely.  How could it not have been when we saw so many old friends and made lots of new ones?  Not only did a large group of the Utah and Idaho grrls come out and support the shop, but several old friends from the east coast found their way west to Salt Lake for a visit too!

Here's a group shot (seen in several other spots, I'm sure, in blogland already!):

Kim, Carole, Susan, Terry, Margene and me in our booth.  Kim and Judy-of-the-deep-pocketbook also spent time chatting and shopping.  It was really wonderful to be able to get to spend even a bit of time with everyone, although we were busy enough on Saturday that I didn't have much time to talk. 

And a HUGE thank you to Nicole (why can't I get your mac blog link to work???) who drove down from No. Utah and spent the entire day on Saturday sitting in the booth, helping bag sales up and even stayed to help D and I pack everything up for the evening.  We signed you up for next year too, dearie!

You may also notice a certain yellow stole draped artistically over my chair there on the far left.  Yup.  The Bee Fields stole made a trip out to Utah.  Now, The Other Anne, aka George, had said she'd send me one of the 2 lace pieces to be on tour for the show, so I wasn't really surprised when the stole arrived this week.  I WAS really surprised when she included a note letting me know that it was mine, mine, mine (!!!!!!) to keep for ever and ever, amen.  Mwah!  Thanks, George!  You know I will treasure it always.  (Although I did have to wrestle it away from several people intent on liberating it for themselves.  Hmpf.)

So now that our show season is over, the Bee Fields frenzy is starting to wane, and I have finally finished a large wholesale dye order, I am hopeful I might be a bit more of a regular blogger again.   We shall see!

Tomorrow, another long-awaited gift post and some horse stuff.

All for now......

Labor Day Weekend

D and I decided I/we needed a little break from the house.  I find if I stay home and "relax", I generally have a long list of things I could be doing, and not being at home forces me to actually not do anything.  Both of us had to work the Labor Day holiday, so we decided to take only a quick 24-hour trip up to the mountains to camp overnight on Friday night into Saturday.

We went back up to the general area of our Blackhawk Trail ride, and camped at the northern end of the Nebo Loop Scenic Byway.  Even though it was stinkin' hot in the valley, it was a lovely 78 degrees up at 8000 feet with bright blue skies. This is the view across the meadow from our campsite.

We spent a nice evening sitting with our feet up around a small fire pit, cooked out on the grill, and I read and did some knitting.  Very nice and relaxing, and considering it was a holiday weekend, pretty darn quiet and peaceful.........

Until 9:00 p.m. when a group of BYU students rolled in and set up camp about 4 sites away from us.  It is a sad, sad state of affairs when today's youth feel the need to blast Christian rock music - and then, after their next-door camper neighbor (who had little kids with him) told them to shut it off, decide to serenade us with a LIVE concert on his guitar.  He obviously was INTO his music, man.  I was sorely tempted to drive my truck over there and let them listen to my entire Zeppelin CD collection so they could learn what REAL music was, but eventually they shut up and we all went to sleep.

The next day, D and I took a driving tour along the entire Nebo loop, which we hadn't done before.  We climbed up to about 10,000 feet, and took some gorgeous scenic views of Payson Lake:

Mt. Nebo (elevation 11,923):

and Utah Lake (slightly hazy because of a small wildfire the night before, but it's in the upper portion of the photo - click to make bigger).

As we trundled south along the Loop, we began to enter the fire zone.  You can take a look at my previous entry for the news story on the fire, if you haven't already.  Amazingly enough, even though there are sections where the fire burned so hot, the ground is black as coal, small shoots are starting to regrow from the bases of the sagebrush bushes already. Not a lot of vegetation, and it'll be slow to come back, but it will eventually.

 

It was a very nice way to spend a quick day away, and our friend, Dan, was kind enough to watch the critters for us.  Sunday, we took a quick ride, and then it was back to the dye pots!

All for now.....