Actual Fiber Content

The knitting and spinning homies have had some serious fun of late. Here we are outside Heidi Parra's newish shop in Port Gamble, Washington. It's called "The Artful Ewe" and is chock full of hand painted yarns and rovings and art-felted wearables. Go see, buy, drool! She also has a website of course... She's only open on the weekends. Here I am trying to choke her to death so we can make off with all her merchandise. From left to right the talented lovelies are; Sandi, Rebecca, Heidi (not long for this world), the head of Mary B., yours truly, and Beth. We did significant damage in the store after this shot but she says she'll just make more.

A few days before I left for India, more of the knitting/spinning/dyeing homies had a dyeing party at the lovely and talented Evanne's house. Much fun was had and it couldn't have been a better packing-avoidance opportunity. Evanne has a lovely house that she and her husband Del have been remodeling. Look at the work he does! They picked out each piece of the stone work individually for its color and shading! See around the stair treads? Gorgeous! All that cabinetry in the kitchen is hand-done.

Tazo is their very large chocolate Doberman boy. He's such a sweetie and he hung around each of us collecting all the pats, massages and general good will he could - including some heavy leaning on us so we'd get the hint. Evanne told me that eventually he'd go off and hide in bed after he'd had enough. Sure enough he suddenly went missing and I went in search. At first the bed looked almost flat and I had to look for a patch of blanket that was barely whuffing up and down with his breathing. He was not best pleased that I disturbed and exposed him.

He soon tunneled back down and disappeared!

I know Sister Nina is loving these pictures. Nina's big Dobie boy "Cisco" was such a loveable guy. She lost him a few years back - boy did I cry. He was the model for this Fiber Trends pattern along with her Havanese "Mickey" (the little black doggie - Havanese as in Havana, Cuba) - also now sadly gone - lots more crying on both our parts. Darn dogs go way too young, ya know?

Evanne has many a fiber bunny from which she makes wonderful angora roving blends. I think this one's a Frenchie...or is it a German?

She also has a veritable flock of canaries with the strangest haircuts I've ever seen... None of the pictures came out as they were very shy, but they look a lot like this. Could they have requested early Beatles' look-alike wigs? Do they make hairpieces for canaries? As soon as we'd walk away and quit staring at them they'd burst into the loveliest of song.

So most of my pix from this fun dye-in were blurred thanks to Mr. Chirptechie - who always has to play with all the settings and possibilities when he uses the camera, and never puts is back on the ever-helpful AUTO setting for me. After 23 years you'd think he'd get that I'm setting-impaired. A few pictures did come out though.....

Here Evanne is applying dye from pre-blended dye bottles onto roving with much supervision from whoever was close enough to advise - in this case from left to right - the talented lovelies: Mary M., the arm of Mary B., Pat, and Evanne with the giggles.

Here is the lovely and talented Natasha carding tons of alpaca fiber from an animal on her father-in-law's farm.

The lovely and talented Ryan was there too but my pictures didn't capture her true loveliness so I'm using this picture from another event.

Here is the lovely and talented Peggy, twin sister to the lovely and talented Rebecca, neither of whom was EVER going to buy a wheel or get into spinning. Heh!

Here are the talented lovelies Rebecca (left) and Mary M. wearing their own knitting of course.


Here is the lovely and talented Sandi spinning away while her dye batch cooks. Never waste a second of fiberable time, that's our Sandi!

Here is the lovely and talented Beth with Evanne's cat as a neck warmer / scarf / massage artist. She basically did not move from Beth's neck for hours and gave her the full heat treatment.

Here is the lovely and talented Mary B having a blast dying in a Rival 22 qt. turkey roaster that I bought a "few" of on eBay. They work great! Mary has since broken down and bought her OWN turkey roaster because she can't wait for the next dye party.

So by now you've noticed that all my friends are both lovely and talented! That's cuz it's true! They all are!

Here is all the yarn I brought with me from Seattle to India this time:

Plus

Plus these to finish.

I figured lots of sock knitting would be totally portable and last me awhile. Hope not to finish up too soon and go into deprivation.

Turns out many of the waitstaff at the hotel, co-workers at David's client here in Pondi AND our Driver have all been busy marrying and procreating in the two years since my last visit. Everything is turning into baby hats. Started a couple as soon as I got here - didn't like them, ripped, restarted, ripped restarted - dagnabbited rule of three is everywhere.

Finished one yesterday and it fits the baby eggzactly! Shoot! The idea is to give them something to grow into! I always forget how big babies' heads are. Not sorry I never had to find out the hard way either!

Finished another that looks like an architect's bad dream - that one may be on its way to the frog pond (total rip-outtage for the unfamiliar...rip it, rip it, geddit?).

My inspiration? The picture below shows one of the God's chariots (called juggernauts - and this is the actual origin of that word - from the Sanskrit) that get pulled through the town by people on foot during temple festival days in Chidambaram.

Baby Juggernaut.

Maybe not the hattiest of shapes...

Closeup of some of the very detailed carving on the juggernauts.