I blame Bergeron.

This weekend, I gained a whole new understanding of the phrase 'soaked to the skin.'

Green-Wood again

I spent a couple of hours on Sunday at Green-Wood, walking around and taking pictures of the spectacular foliage and interesting light and shadow effects that the lower angle of the sun these days has been producing. There were a lot more young people there than I'm used to seeing and I figured it must have been written up somewhere recently. (I was right.)


I love the way this dead tree is being taken over by vines. It puts me in mind of Pet Sematary, with the whole coming-back-to-life-but-changed-in-essential-ways thing, only not evil. I assume.


I'd never noticed these sweet little marker before, set modestly into the ground in an out-of-the-way corner:
The snarkist in me would respond with, "as opposed to...?" except that there's such a spirit of earnest populism here that I can't pick on it. Especially since he seems to have been an altogether admirable guy.

Three things I love

1. Heart-shaped leaves

2. Very tiny mushrooms

3. The 'please take turns' birdfeeder in the front yard of a house near my apartment

Recent knitting

I made these fingerless gloves last week out of some handspun silk/merino. Odds are, if you saw me at Rhinebeck I was wearing them:
They were pretty quick to work up and I was happy with them until they stretched out after a couple days of wear and I passed them along to a friend with larger hands. I'll make more though; those few brief days we had together sold me on the usefulness of fingerless gloves for keeping warm while being able to manage my metrocard or ipod or keyboard on the days the building owner decides not to heat our office.

I also finally started a project that has been on my list for ages, Kilronan, from Alice Starmore's Celtic Collection. I've been wanting to make a long black, cabled turtleneck for a while, and I like the way the ribbed waist gives this one a little more interest. I'm going to make it more fitted at the bust than this, but the side panels are a simple knit-purl pattern, so it'll be easy to make changes there.
This is the picture I took last week and then forget to post:
But since then, I've finished the cabled part on the ... lower back part (skirt? peplum?) and started the ribbing.

Rhinebeck

Rhinebeck was great — I got to see some old friends, meet some people in person I've only known online, admire the animals, eat a lot of lamb, buy hot cider from the adorable kids at the 4-H stand, see a lot of fantastic (and appalling, but mostly fantastic) knitwear...

Man, I love the luster longwools.

And goats!

There was only one thing that I really wanted to get while I was there and I did:
Sheepskin slippers from Shepherd's Flock. The slippers themselves are fantastic and I get to feel all smug about putting my money where my values are and buying goods directly from the person who made them. Bring it on, unheated bedroom!

I was also keeping an eye out for a sweater's worth of what I described to Marcy as "messy fiber" — a multicolor, multi-fiber blend to spin up into cozy, tweedy yarn for a very warm, casual sweater. I found this, which I adore, and bought two pounds of it. It wasn't labeled, but is definitely wool and silk, with maybe a bit of alpaca.
I couldn't resist spinning some up this morning and am happy that it's pretty much exactly what I was looking for. Virtually effortless spinning, very soft but still with good body (spinning fine wool bores me senseless), enough variation colorwise to be interesting while remaining wearable and reasonably subtle: yay!

October upstate

This year, for the first time in at least half a decade, I managed to get upstate in the fall before all of the foliage was gone. After some time with my mom, sorting through many boxes of old family photos (and snagging some that I'll post when I find someone to scan them for me — Mah 80s Fashuns: Let Me Show You Them!), I spent some time hiking with my dad. We went up Mt. Greylock on Saturday, which was a good, strenuous hike, but a little nerve wracking on the descent since it had been raining and a lot of the steep parts of the trail were wet rocks covered with wet leaves.
The summit was completely fogged in, but we had a couple of nice vistas open up on the way down once we were out of the clouds.
Looking out across the street from my father's front yard. The low trees in front are part of an apple orchard that goes with a farm stand a little bit down the road. We walked over Sunday morning to pick some for ourselves.
I'm pretty sure they were calling the pumpkins pick-your-own too, but it looked like they had all been cut off the vines and arranged picturesquely in the field. Funny, but sweet. And practical, I suppose, since they'd otherwise have to send people out with knives or risk them pulling up the whole plant.
I'm partial to the flowers that grow on the side of the road upstate in the late summer and early fall — Queen Anne's lace, chicory, brown-eyed Susans, all of the different colors of asters, especially the incongruous lavender ones that covered this hillside.We took a quick trip to Thatcher Park Sunday afternoon for the awesome views and walked a bit on one of the trails. We used to take class trips here to look at the fossils in the rocks along the trail, but I hadn't been back in ages. I'm sure I remember the trail along the bottom of the escarpment being closed completely for years after part of the mountain fell off, but I can't find any confirmation in a quick online search.
Geologically significant, field-trip-worthy rocks. They're pretty spectacular in person.

Quick announcement

I've listed some things in the shop, and will be continuing to update over the next week or so.

As a thank you for indulging my self-serving post, here are some flowers!

Jewelry preview

This weekend, I got out my jewelry-making supplies for the first time in far too long, and spent a few hours each morning playing around and making stuff. There are a couple of pieces in this batch that I really love and I'll be getting everything up on etsy in the next day or so.

Here's a sneak peek though:
I'm not using this photo for this reason, but I'm pretty amused by how much is reflected on the surface of the table.
This is from a cache of vintage chandelier pieces I lucked into a few months ago. They're a little heavy, but oh so sparkly!

An old back injury (from a car accident in 2000) has been giving me trouble for the last week or so, but luckily, one of the few things that really help with it is taking long walks. So I spent a fair bit of time perambulating all over the place, including a couple of hours at Green-Wood, where the light was beautiful and the wildflowers were rampant and even the mold was striking.