Here's a color wheel:


And I'm on a roll. This was the first project we did in "ABC's of Color" - four analagous colors blended to four different degrees. Teacher chose the colors and put them in kits for this one to get us started. There are two greens and two yellows here - though the uninitiated would call two of the shades "browns" rather than yellow and green. I learned on Day 1 that there is no brown. Every brown is just an unsaturated shade of something else.

This piece consists of four different degrees of blending on hand combs. From left to right: blending hardly at all; blending a bit more; blending a lot more; and then blending to near 100% homogeneity. Great exercise.

After doing three projects with pre-combined colors, and then one project of our own custom blend, shown previously, we were all absolutely swamped with blending and spinning, and we were told, "Now do it again" - we were to pick again 16 balls, no more than 2 balls of a single color, out of the choice of 73, and make another blend. We thought she was crazy, but we all marched up and did it again, and I for one loved being overwhelmed with such fun "work."

( Technical notes no one cares about )

Looks kind of Christmasy, doesn't it?

Remember I went to Oregon and I took some retreats and workshops in spinning... The best was a 3-day class in "The ABC's of Color." After a day or two of learning about color and doing some projects where the teacher assembled the colors, we were instructed to go up to the table featuring 73 different colors, and create our own custom blends. We had to pick 16 1/2-oz balls and no more two of the same color, meaning at least 8 colors and preferably more.

I went like this: I chose my favorite color, which is dark green tending towards blue, and took the split complements, which would be violet tending towards red and orange tending towards yellow. I made half my balls green - 2 balls each of 4 shades of green. I homogenized these into one shade. Then I chose four different oranges and four violets (of which two were the same because there weren't enough choices). I chose the oranges and violets to be the same dark intensity as the green.

Miguel's on Main, newly opened Mexican restaurant at the bottom of Main at Battery Street... I am highly impressed! Fresh-tasing salsa and a delicious Margarita balancing sweet and sour flavors (without resorting to the sugar-and-white-vinegar flavor encountered elsewhere). My entree was enchiladas with swiss chard and portobello mushrooms - an extremely adventurous choice, and if they could do that well, they have my high confidence! Best of all, portion size is perfect. Most Mexican restaurants just pile high the rice and beans because they're cheap, and the whole platter swims in bubbling greasy cheese. Here, I got a modest half-scoop each of rice and black beans, a bit of lettuce & tomato salad, and my two or three enchiladas. This wasn't the kind of too-small portion you get at some fancy places, either; it was really just right. Huzzah! Oh, and only $6.50 for the Hornitos maragarita and under $70 for two drinks, one salad, two entrees, and two desserts? Insanely great! My new favorite place! OH - And Xopher's dish came with a side of hominy, those big limey corn kernels, I call them posole - authentic and one of my faves.

One day or night while I was sick in bed with the flu, I played the alphabet game in my head trying to use sheep breeds. Damn, I know a lot of sheep breeds - add in just a few non-sheep fiber animals, and I can do practically the whole alphabet.

( The list )

The weaving I was posting in-progress right before my vacation - I made it a cushion cover. I think it looks nice next to the blue cushion cover I did long ago. This is going to be my new specialty. Uses up scratchy sheddy mohair, doesn't have to "fit", and nobody else at Sheep & Wool has them.

A warm day by local October standards, between Bend and Sisters, Oregon.

100% handmade!

I started this weaving this week.

I'm a little kiddie and I've just gotten shorn... hey this door smells funny.

This was the actual setup at the fair. I'm full of ideas for improving it next year.

OK, I think we have finally achieved "as good as it is going to get."



Next, to figure out how exactly to transport it all to Tunbridge. But leave that for another day.

Starting to organize the Wiseacres "harvest" - about 18 different colors of locks, some yarn, plenty of white washed & unwashed, and three goats for sale. Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival is this coming weekend at Tunbridge, VT fairgrounds.

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

This is a book you don't have to read; you literally get it all just from reading the cover. The fine print on that produce rubber band in the picture is the 7-word diet:

"Eat real food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

Eat real food. What's that? Real food is mostly not packaged at all. If it's packaged, it's got 5 or fewer ingredients on the label. (This is the 5-Word Corollary of the 7-Word Diet.) Individually listed vitamins and minerals count against the 5 ingredient total, because if they have to add vitamins and minerals, it means the thing is refined enough that they took the natural nutrients out, and tending against being real food.

Not too much. OK, you've chosen your real food. Now don't go nuts!

Mostly plants. "Mostly" = no need to go vegan. And "plants" is important to remember. None of this 'vegetarianism' a la "I'm a vegetarian so I'll have the cheese enchilada with huevos rancheros." Cheese and eggs are not plants. Eggs and dairy are animal protein with all the health effects, both the benefits and drawbacks, of actual animal flesh. A 'lacto-ovo vegetarian' is not necessarily doing anything positive for his health - and not much for the planet or ethics either, given how we raise chickens and dairy cattle.

It makes for a really good system. Choose the shredded wheat, with one whopping ingredient - whole grain wheat - over the Smart Start Fun Fiber with Oat Bran TM, with the two-inch ingredient list. Choose the donut with 'lard' in the ingredients, because there are only four other ingredients, over the breakfast pastry with the ingredient list that takes up the whole side of the donut and requires a magnifying glass.

Spun flax fiber has been discovered dating back 30,000 years. And it's dyed - pink and turquoise! Eesh... Miami Beach lives. Read all about it. Elizabeth Wayland Barber is understandably very excited.

This is a nice little blog entry about spinning, even if she can't spell "its", by the Yarn Harlot, who wrote the really funny book I passed around, Knitting Rules!.

Rembrandt has been moved into his Bachelor Pad until breeding time.

To see pictures of the latest summer weekend at Wiseacres, ( click. )