Rube Goldberg lives!

or is at least being channeled right here in my studio!

as I said yesterday, all of that lovely yarn would have to be wound up into balls before the knitting could begin

thing is, I don't have one of the actual tools intended to do this job with, so there was a bit of puzzling over how to do this (after all, one can not exactly stretch out 1900 yards of yarn in a straight line anywhere!)

this was the solution -- loop the skein of yarn over pegs on the warping board (some tweeking required to find exactly which pegs worked best for the size of the skein), then guide the end of the yarn through the loop on my thread stand (it is designed to hold a large cone of sewing thread) then on to the yarn winder
and it worked quite well, thank you very much!

here is one half of the yarn all neatly wound

I plan to wind the other half today if I can get to it before it gets too hot

(it was too hot in there to do more than one skein yesterday -- there's no air conditioning in our house, and it was 98 degrees and the only swampy is a portable unit in the family room!)

and someone should explain to me why I'm always working on projects that involve sitting under quilts or winding over a mile of wool yarn in the summer!

guess I'm working the warmth of the summer into those projects intended to be used in cooler weather


I'm happy (ok, giddy, delirious, doing figurative cart wheels!) to announce that the quilting of the endless expanses of sky on the flower piece is DONE! today I will start working on the "mat" part of the quilting -- yes, just chugging along (I think I can, I think I can)
since the two big knitting projects are finished, I started on a smaller project

I just love the look of the bright yellow and white stripes

it looks cool and summer-y

and this little goodie is actually 1/3 of the way to being complete

(nothing like a smaller, quicker project to make me feel like I'm actually getting something done!)

I started a project at the sewing machine yesterday too, but it's another Christmas project, so I'll not be showing you any pictures right now
one more block!

waiting time is productive time


yesterday I spent some time working on the necessary paperwork to enter items in the State Fair -- I had been thinking that I didn't have much to enter this year -- au contrair, mon ami! I had a lot more entries than I thought, so the check writing at the beginning of August (when I write the bills for the month) will include a hefty check to them -- so far every year's awards has more than covered the entry fees, so I'm hoping it will again this year

and I'm tickled to say that I've been accepted into a show of my favorite sort -- one that is indoors, and doesn't require me to lift tables, set up a tent or be out in the heat/wind/rain for hours and hours! in November and December a variety of my work (fiber and jewelry) will be on display and for sale in Lambspun -- a most cool store in Fort Collins, Colorado (and the store author Maggie Sefton modeled the yarn store in her mystery novels on) -- the whole twisted path to this show appearance is quite remarkable, and as the time gets closer and I get pieces ready I'll tell you about it -- meantime, I'm just doing a happy dance -- oh, yeah, and adding a whole lot more projects to the "to do" list!