The coffee was on

and then it was not.  Santa must have flown through Vermont at record speed last night – at least, that’s one explanation for the winds we heard howling all night, the same winds that swept away our power this morning.  Fortunately our traditional Christmas breakfast requires minimal power to prepare:

The 1903 Glenwood handled it just fine.  Thankfully, the power has returned, as I doubt the stove would have done as good a job with the dinner ham.

The rest of the day will be spent spinning, knitting, a movie and a game or two, watching little boys – and big boys – play with new toys, and sipping egg nog!

Merry Christmas, all.

Color me

excited!  Our ColorWays™ Club got off the ground yesterday.  I have put up a page on the blog for postings for the club, though it will be a bit before I put anything there.  But it is here, it’s begun, and I am truly jazzed at the opportunity the club gives me to invent, experiment, and stretch my ability to work with color.

I have been working with color my entire life.  I was taught to weave in 1964 by master weaver Marietta Jones.  She started me out on a four harness Structo loom warped with cotton thread.  I wove white tea towels embellished with dark red purl cotton in a rosepath pattern.  Red has remained one of my favorite colors to work with.  I rarely wear it, almost never use it in graphic work,  but my strongest fiber works have  always included reds.  Purple and I have a long history, and it is the color that I am most identified with, but red was there on that very first warp.

But I digress.  (That happens easily where color is concerned!)  The Club is up.  We’ve created a group on Ravelry to support it and give everyone a venue to show off their work, their ideas, and even their own unique sources of inspiration.   We hope you’ll join us in this exciting venture.  We aren’t sure where it is going to take us, but the journey should be a colorful one!

Hat’s off

the needles!  Woo hoo!

The pattern did not call for a decrease at the point where the brim meets the hat, and I found it to be a wee bit loose.  I crocheted a band to pull that area in a bit and snug up the hat.  With the leftover yarn and a crochet hook, I did up a psuedo flower of sorts to attach over the cross of the crocheted band.  It’s a pretty decent hat – and it is a knitted object that I completed.  Amazing.

Holiday Sale

We’re getting buried in snow as I type, but we are also buried in a particular style of needle – our Darn Pretty (TM) Needles in Stripes – and we are offering them while supplies last at the incredible price of $9.99!

Order them via our FiberStore or by calling the studio at 802-869-1880.  Enjoy!  And stay tuned – another post is coming shortly on our newest project . . . .

Let there be

Lights!

A huge THANK YOU! to the crew from Allegheny Power and Light, who drove to Vermont to repair the damage from last week’s ice storm. The oil lamps were romantic, but after 5 days with no running water, who’s feeling romantic?

We did accomplish some wonderful things this week, though.  Two boys learned calligraphy.  One picked up knitting again.  And another began weaving (be still my heart!)  One child has gone so far as to decide he no longer needs the amount of material possessions he once craved.  And I learned to knit in the dark.

Granted, it was easy knitting, but knitting was never my greatest skill.  I’ve been a weaver all my life, a feltmaker, a spinner, and a crocheter for some time.  I have been far more likely to crochet or weave with yarn than knit, but this past week I discovered it is much easier to knit in the dark than crochet or weave.  It’s getting colder and the boys need hats – lots of hats, as they lose them so often.  So, hats it was:

The vertical stripe is a pattern from Knitty; the other two are just knit in the round until you are near the top, decrease until the stitches are gone, and put a pom pom on top.  And still on the incredible-blue-needles-from-Tom, a to-be-felted hat, pattern courtesy of the talented folks at Brown Sheep:

Frozen Time

A quick note to let folks know we are still without power.   The shop’s power is on at last, and we are frantically making up for lost time.  The house remains dark, however, as does the main computer – if we are not responding, try us at the shop address – thestudio at vermontel dot net.

A multitude of shedding dogs and boys and no vacuum for days is not a pretty sight, but amidst all the destruction outside, there is a loveliness to the storm – it’s as if the Ice Queen has come to Narnia again.  I enjoy the nights without the electrical hum, and the boys have learned to knit, crochet, bead, and write in calligraphy – all by lamplight.  Evenings have been, in their own way, more beautiful than the crystallized trees.

If you are waiting on an order from us, know that we are doing everything we can to get it ready for you as quickly as possible.  And thanks in advance for your patience and understanding.