Busy, busy, busy

So I haven't posted for a while---July has turned out to be a fairly busy month, Tour-de-Fleece aside (I'll get to that later). We started the month off with a visit from my dear friend Barbara and her two children. I barely made it home in time from a Lions event that I cut out early on to greet her and Emily and Dan. We immediately made our way to our favorite Antiques store (The Antique Mall in Quechee, VT---if you're in the area, it's worth the trip!) to prowl around there. We picked up a few items, tasted some chesse and then went to the Harpoon Brewery for dinner. I think our dogs were a hit with Dan as he spent lots of time with them and asking questions about them!

After their visit, we helped our friends bring in the hay---sheep in Vermont need to be fed about 7-8 months out of the year---and so, summer months are spent cutting, raking, tetting, baling, and storing hay. It was a particular joy this year as we have had quite some humidity which makes even getting near the hay less than desirable.

On Saturday, July 10th, I went to the ChainLink (CGOA) conference in Manchester, NH. It was fabulous! First off, I ran into Doris Chan (one of my favorite crochet designers) and she graciously signed a copy of "Crochet Lace Innovations" for me which has a design that I'm crocheting right now. Well, no better place than a convention to get inspiration for your craft. I took a class on crocheting Bruges lace with a lovely lady, Susan Lowman from Arizona. Check out her site: Susan@theCrochetArchitect.com. I'll have to post pictures of the lace I've made in the next post. Of course, I bought some yarn (for Chan pattern) from The Elegant Ewe of Concord, NH---they also have a website and they are really nice!

I've been busily trying to find a new venue for our knitting/crochet/fiber group here in Windsor, VT. It's taken a bit of back and forth, but we will be meeting at a very nice community room every other Thursday evenings. These changes have finally forced me to hone in on a name for our group and the group has decided upon the Mt. Ascutney Fiber Arts Group.

My last bit of news to report is that my spinning wheel has been extremely lonely this month---yes, I've failed miserably at the 'Tour-de-Fleece!' As a matter of fact, I didn't ever really get started on my batt (It's Complicated) although, I certainly can use the name of the batt to explain my July. I started a new part-time job as an anesthetist for an ambulatory surgery center (2 days a week) as well as maintaining my other part-time job (2 days a week) for a gastroenterologist. The good news is that with the drop in humidity around here, it actually feels like weather for spinning. It's difficult to motivate oneself to spin WOOL when it's 95 degrees out and 60% humidity!

Stay tuned, I'm hoping to get 'It's Complicated' up and running------for now, I'm going to go do some laundry (our dryer was just fixed yesterday after being down for 3 weeks)!

Hot, hot, hot.........

It's 93 degrees Fahrenheit here in Windsor, VT and weather.com says it feels like 101. I concur. I'm not particularly fond of the hazy, hot, and humid type of weather----I moved to Vermont almost 7 years ago to escape that. Lucky for us, we don't have to put up with too much of it as Vermont tends to have more tolerable weather conditions than New Jersey (my state of origin). Right now, I just praying for a break in the trend which may come within the next couple of days----as an anesthetist, I spend most of my waking hours in a super-cooled environment---so my body is "used" to being cool and so, this weather poses a problem to my equilibrium.

Well, enough about the weather-----the DH and I helped our friends hay this week------yes, if you think just moving around in these weather conditions is tough, try slinging bales of hay in it. We have about 180 bales in the barn of first-cut hay and we are happy campers about that---'tis more than enough to get us through the coming winter. The HUGE field that our friends hayed brought in ALOT more than what now resides in our barn and we're still wondering where to store it all.

July 3rd (the start of the Tour de Fleece) has come and gone and I must confess that I have not yet begun to spin my project for it (see prior posting). I will, however, "catch up"----many, many tasks (besides haying) have hindered me from sitting down at the spinning wheel---but I assure you, that I will not disappoint Team CogSpintive! We are all aware of how 'life can get in the way' of our intentions.

I am proud to say that I've skirted all of my sheep's fleeces and they have been sent off to be processed into roving----even in the heat, I've made some progress (oh, talking about the weather AGAIN!!).

This Saturday, my friend Jennifer and I will be going to the Crochet Guild of America's annual show in Manchester, NH. I'm going to be taking a class in Bruges lace and also cruising the market for any and all things unknown to me---looking forward to it---should be fun and I'll bring back a full report on it here!

Stay cool everyone!