Road Trip to Maine

In which we make good our brief escape from the humid mid-Atlantic

All the online maps claim that it will take us 8 hours to drive to Maine.  For the record, I don’t believe this (although I desperately want to).  It takes us 8-10 hours to drive to Boston, and our destination in Maine is reportedly two hours north of there – if we don’t stop for gas or food, which we will.

For the drive, and for subsequent hours of our week-long vacation, I have packed:

  1. four fiber-related magazines
  2. one volume of Vogue’s stitchionary
  3. one cowl project
  4. one shawl project
  5. one sweater project
  6. an extra ball of special leftover yarn for another possible cowl
  7. two spinning projects
  8. 7 spindles and a kniddy knoddy
  9. two books – Ahab’s Wife, and a biography of Frederick Law Olmstead
  10. my mandolin

This means I have one tiny suitcase and a bag of toiletries for me. Plus three shopping bags, one backpack, and one basket full of fiber projects.  It always takes me an inordinate amount of time to pack for any trip.  It took me longer to locate all the size needles I need for my vacation knitting projects (2.5 hours) than it did to narrow down vacation clothing options (rain coat?  check.)  It’s a good thing we’re taking my car, and this is what I love about taking my car – I can fill it with whatever I want, and I can take a lot with me.  I know it’s overkill, and I don’t care; I would rather have brought too much than be sitting on a beautiful pebble beach, or lunching on the trail at the top of a mountain, wishing for the one thing I left at home.  Bug spray and sunscreen?  Check!

I am not taking the kayak, and we’re just going to see how that goes!

carknit

Tour de Fleece 2016

who wants to spin when there are lavender fields in France?

Tdf2016-1
Spinning during Tour de Fleece event, 2016 – Southern Cross Fiber, ‘Esmerelda’

I had a list of great things to accomplish during the month of July.  July is the month during which the world’s top professional bicyclists tackle the physically intense, scenically beautiful Tour de France.  It is also the month that thousands of yarn spinners around the world follow along, watching the bike race and pedaling on their own spinning machines.  My list of fiber to spin during the Tour now seems embarrassingly optimistic.

tdf2016-3
‘Closer to Home’, Southern Cross Fiber, BFL/Silk – finished yarn

In the past three weeks, I managed to: 1. create a couple skeins of yarn which were already half spun when I started, and 2. spin a tiny bit of new fiber into singles.

The thing about France is – it’s beautiful countryside.  The thing about the Tour de France is – it’s fascinating to watch from the air, which is of course how the majority of it is broadcast.  It’s like watching water flow over rocks in a stream, or like watching ocean waves.  It’s mesmerizing.  Similar to watching fiber slip through your fingers, really.  Except you can watch fiber slip through your fingers at any time of the year, and the Tour de France is only in July.  I could hardly bring myself to look away from the screen, and as a result, much less spinning of fiber was accomplished.

tdf2016_12
More Esmerelda for Tour de Fleece – spun on my antique Norwegian Rose wheel

Also, I got distracted.  See that little blue ceramic bowl in that first photo, on the left?  I made that.  In fact, I got so excited about making it that I signed up for a ceramics class and made more of them.  It turns out, three hours per week is a lot more time out of your week than you think it is, in some ways, and a lot less time than you want it to be, in others.  Throw in a few family gatherings and a wedding weekend, and – well.  I discovered I’d run myself out of fiber time!

esmereldafiber
Esmerelda – perfect for the Bright Tomorrow Shawl

Knitting also proved to be a huge distraction during July.  I found a shawl pattern in the very colors of Esmerelda, the proceeds of which go to benefit blind people in Congo DR.  It’s called Bright Tomorrow, and the benefit group is the Sight is Life project.   I found it soon after it was published, bought it on the spot and started spinning for it.

A week and a half later, I fell in love with the first clue of a mystery knit-a-long, at the exact same time that one of the local yarn dyers in the city was having a 10th anniversary sale/ weekend – and down I went.  Here’s my Clue#1:

philosophersmkalshawl1
Philosopher’s Stone Mystery knit-a-long shawl – Clue 1

Next month, August, is going to bring a fabulous, and much needed, vacation.  Me and My Guy are going to Maine!  We’re staying with friends, and are really looking forward to music and relaxing, and the stunning vistas and cool breezes of the coast.  I’m pretty much all packed – that is, except for anything not involving wool…