Good Lord, why does picking out paint have to be SO blessed hard?  I decided a few years ago when we started renovating this old house that I was going to stick with shades of neutral gray thinking it would keep things easy, but no….there has been nothing easy about it.  Nothing easy at all!

When we did our living room a few years ago, I slathered shades of gray on all of the walls to see what I liked and hit it on the nail with Benjamin Moore's Coastal Gray, which is a green based gray.  I was and still am so happy with it.

  When we did the dining room, Ken requested that we use a more pure gray color.  Well, the first choice that we put up looked almost pink…ick.
Ken being the frugal guy that he is, had our local paint guy balance it out to a more even gray and we went with that, but to be honest with you, I have never liked it.  It's a cold gray and I am a warm colored person.  It's been up long enough now that it will be safe for me to change it..ha!

So…I thought that I would love to put the Coastal Gray in my kitchen, but my floor is more of a blue gray with shades of soft gray brown, so again another different shade of gray for the kitchen and mud room.  These colors pictured are not very accurate, but you get the sense of my struggle. 

I need more of a brown gray or a blue gray and given that I am not a huge fan of blue, I am leaning more towards a brown based gray.  Ey yi yi!  I've narrowed it down to these 3 and think I will probably go with the one on the far right and have them desaturate it by 10%.  The one on the far left matches the bathroom floor tiles the best, but the amount of purple that I see makes me hesitate to paint a big kitchen with it.

See…..you can make yourself crazy!

Well, I was going to be delicate about this, or maybe find a way to incorporate a beautiful prose about nature for what greeted me in our yard today, but when you get an email like this from your husband who leaves for work before you do….you just have to go with it.

"Bear scat out by the telephone pole in the tick field .  Blog THAT!"

Yep….blogging every day is a challenge. :) 

Happy Monday!

Today we spent the morning working around the house.  Ken ran the mower over the yard to collect the last batch of leaves and trimmed the bushes while I clipped back all of the perennials so they could rest for the impending winter.  The Kayaks were put away for the season and the windows on the first floor were all washed….whew! 
We worked hard this morning so we could spend the afternoon watching the Patriots win…again. 🙂

Do you notice anything different in this picture above?  Yes…it's the end of an era for me.  The big garden has also been put to rest and will be grassed over in the Spring.  It was a hard decision, but we both knew it was time.  Now that the kids are grown, we really do not need the amount of food that we once needed with a growing family.
  Next spring we were going to have to rebuild all of the boxes and put up a new fence, which we knew would be very expensive and time consuming. The wood on everything was starting to rot, which is why it would need to be replaced.

I decided to do something a little different for next Spring instead.

Ken and I do eat a lot of salads so I love having salad greens all summer. There is nothing better than walking out to the yard to pick the greens for your meals…easy peasy and inexpensive.  I also use a lot of herbs for cooking both fresh and dried, so we have decided to build 2 beds similar to this one and add big wheels to them so that they can be moved to make mowing easier for Ken….or maybe even better if I can convince him to put down a patio like this so nothing would have to be moved at all and I could add a sitting area.  I have been trying to get him to do this for years. 😉

I like how easy it will be to add shade covers during the hot days of summer to keep the lettuce from bolting and frost covers for the early spring and late fall to extend the season.  This will make it so much easier for my back and we will be able to tuck some single vegetable plants that we enjoy in between the lettuce. 

It made us both a bit sad to say good bye to the big garden, but life changes and the new beds will make things more manageable for me next summer during busy times. 🙂

The only splash of color now is this little bucket of Mums and cabbage surrounded by pumpkins and the green yuck on the porch that is being replaced next year….and yes, I have dogs, so my gates have gates to keep them safe from the road and the wildlife that wanders frequently into my yard.;-)

I love, love, love Autumn, but I am always sad putting the gardens to bed because we all know what comes next.
  A chill is definitely in the air tonight….brrr!

Whew….it has been a very busy 2 months that will quiet down now for a little bit, at least on The Woolen Rabbit front.  I know I said a while back that I feel as though I have been chasing my tail since we returned home from vacation the end of August and it is true.  I am exhausted, but it's always nice to spend time with friends isn't it?  Being with fiber people is always time spent with friends and I always enjoy it.

Today I worked at the Northeast Handpinner's Open House and the guest speaker was Gail Callahan the Kangaroo Dyer.  She created the color grid which is a wonderful tool, that I frequently use, not only for fiber but for home decorating ideas. It  was interesting to hear her talk and watch her videos.  I enjoy learning new things and new ways of thinking about things, so it really was an extra treat to experience.

The guild put on a lovely lunch in addition to the color theory class which was very much appreciated after getting up at dark o'clock and traveling 2 hours down to work for the day.  Ken and I both really appreciated it.

It's been a very enjoyable and productive fall, but I am looking forward to a little down time and a new adventure that I will tell you about later next week. 🙂

 

I have been crazy busy this week getting caught up on orders and getting ready for a show in Newburyport, MA tomorrow, so when Anne Podlesak put up these pictures of a sweater that she designed with my Sporty Biffle I smiled.
As you know Anne has been a long time friend of mine and we have worked together many times.
I am always in awe of her designing talent.  I love this sweater in it's beautiful shades of warm gold.

Another extra special surprise was her book, Free Spirit Knits, that I received as a gift this week.  The photos in this book are breathtaking.  I will be giving this book a review next week….it is lovely!!

Have a wonderful weekend in your neck of the woods and if you are in Newburyport tomorrow, come visit us at the Hope Community Church for the NE Handspinners Open House

Learning is the fountain of youth,
No matter how old you are.
You mustn't stop growing.
Deng Ming~Dao

So…to continue a little further with yesterday's post about repetition, I am almost at the close of another pottery class.  I am going to take one more set of classes to learn a few specific things such as throwing a pot with a lid and a footed berry bowl, but then I am going to practice here at home.

This summer I was fortunate to find the same pottery wheel that we use in class on craig's list for a third of what it would have cost to purchase new.  Once we get the treadmill that my parents gifted to us for winter walking upstairs in the house, I am going to set up the pottery wheel.

I have been watching Tammy Jo's series called 365 days of clay cups.  She filmed this 4 years ago, but it's been fascinating to watch her growth as she goes along.  This goes right back to what I said about spinning 15 minutes every day, with repetition comes confidence and knowledge.  In this series, Tammy Jo commits to throwing a clay cup every day for a full year and I love that she shares her fails along with her successes.
While I won't be doing a video diary, once I get my wheel set up, I am going to do something much like this, except I will use the same block of clay and just keep repeating and recycling the clay until I have a good feeling for the clay in my hands as I pull it up. 

I have learned so much in my classes and a lot more watching Tammy Jo struggle along, so I am looking forward to giving it a try and gaining experience, growth and confidence.

Tuesday we glazed our pots and we will have an a kiln opening in a week or so.  I will share my successes and failures with you..ha!  I have met some super nice people in my classes.  I love the people who are drawn to the arts, whether it is fiber, paint or clay.  It's all good.

 

You may remember this picture from when I was demonstrating at Fryeburg Fair.  I have to be honest with you, it was a last desperation as what I had planned to do, failed and my second choice failed, so I looked at what was hanging in my shop and pulled off 2 skeins of Opal for a plain weave scarf and prayed real hard. 
(Note to self….get this done when you have more than 1 week to warp your loom.)
I figured that as long as I got something on the loom that I could demonstrate with, it was all good.  I wasn't thinking that I would have something that could be used, but I was pleasantly surprised with this….

I was so pleased with the fabric that Opal gave me and I will definitely be using it again for scarves.  The one thing I had wished I had thought about a little more was making sure I had long enough ends to twist, but truly, I was just praying that I could get something on the loom that was workable, because it's all about demonstrating, not necessarily the finished item when you are at the fair.
It's fun to see how much of an attraction a floor loom is at the fair and surprisingly it's always the men and little boys who are very fascinated by the mechanics of a loom.  I love watching them study me while I am weaving.

When I used to teach people how to spin, I always stressed to them that 15 minutes every day at the wheel with your cup of coffee was far more beneficial than an hour once a week.  I have decided to take that lesson to my weaving..and eventually my pottery throwing.

It's all about the process and repeating the process daily helps to cement that process.
I will be weaving a lot more this winter.

Life has a wonderful sense of weaving lessons into our days and love into our lives….and you all are a part of my life's weaving's by visiting me here and sharing your stories with me….thank you!

Who am I?  Blogging every day and joining a knit along, which I rarely do because you know…I don't usually do things that require a long term commitment because I know how easily distracted I get. I am looking at this KAL however as a distraction to the sweater I just can't seem to get finished, so it's all good. (more about that another day)

This KAL is for a mystery cowl, but it is also about mindful walking each week, which is why it intrigued me.  I usually walk about 4 days a week, so this part will not be hard for me, but I love the prompts that come with each clue delivery.  I am going to shoot for a goal of 5 days a week, if my back doesn't complain.  If it does, I have learned to listen to my body and will back down again.

I pulled out the 2 different colors of Sporty Kashmir and while I think one would match with more, I am going to use the one that I love, even though I have a skein of the same colorway in Opal ready to go for a small shawl.

Many of you see my walking pictures on Facebook or Instagram, but this little girl really made me smile as I walked along today.  These cows are rotated between a few different pastures and this week they are in the pasture very close to the road where I walk.  I love watching them….the curious babies, the protective Moms and the ones who could care less and just keep munching away on the pasture grass. 

It was a nice walk and now I am casting on "A March Through Time"

 

When I am looking for designers to work with on my yarn club, I spend a lot of time on Ravelry, looking at their designs and looking at their websites.  When I happened upon Elizabeth Doherty's website, well, how could I not fall in love with a "Blue Bee Studio".

Elizabeth made this lovely hat for our yarn club last year and then went on to create an e-book called Metalworks based on the stitch design that she used for her yarn club design. It is a great collection of designs.  Go take a peek.

Elizabeth is also very generous and sent me a copy of her new Top Down book and I have to tell you that this is one hard print book that I will never let go of. I know that every one says a bottom up sweater with set in sleeves fits better, but…..the 2 sweaters that I wear all the time are top down sweaters that I was able to tweak along the way given that I could try it on a long the way.

This book is full of really good information.  While this is not a conventional set in seamed sleeve, but rather a sleeve worked in short rows starting at the top, it's a brilliant way to knit a sleeve, giving the sweater the look of a set in seamed sleeve.  I have done this once before with my Bluebell sweater and I love doing a sleeve this way, once I figured the instructions out.  Elizabeth gives very clear instruction about how to do short rows and she also gives super information on how to adjust your stitches based on your swatch.  I am SO not a math person, but the way she explains it is very clear and concise, so much so that I think I might be able to sit and figure this out.  No easy feat for this ADD brain.

When Elizabeth sent me the pictures for her final project, Rose Gold, for her e-book that she created using my Emma yarn, which I love, love, love, the one thing that jumped out at me was the beautiful sweater that she was wearing.  I quickly asked her what the pattern was, because I love it and Elizabeth quickly sent me the pattern, Helvetica…thank you Elizabeth!!

I swatched both WW Kashmir and Neshobe for this sweater and while both yarns would work, I love the fabric that I got from WW Kashmir.  So soft and relaxed.  I was going to use this group of Cape Cod Blues that I had on hand, but those are not colors that make my heart sing, so I am going to dye up a sweater lot this week to match a few skirts that I have purchased this week for a new adventure that I will tell you about maybe next week.
 ~
If you are on the fence about getting this book…jump right off this fence.  You won't regret it.!

Soooo….here I go.  I wasn't go to do this again after doing it last year, but as I was walking on Friday I thought it might be a good brain stretch for me.  I've had a rough few months and have been pretty quiet here on the blog, but I have missed chatting with you all and this will force me to do just that. 🙂

I have also decided to add another little challenge to start off November.  I am going to stay away from Facebook until next Sunday, which I think will help me with the NaBloPoMo challenge of posting every.single.day in November.  My blog posts will show up on Facebook, but I won't be reading there to respond to any comments.

I used to spend my mornings with a cup of coffee catching up on my friend's lives by reading their blogs, but in this fast paced world, most of my blog reading has been replaced by skimming through Facebook a few times a day.  It will be nice to spend time reading blogs again with my morning coffee.

That was a lot of thinking on my Friday morning walk, wasn't it?  I almost always enjoy my morning walks, especially if it is a sunny day.  As many of you know, my husband, Ken, has also been walking most every day and has now lost 25 pounds.  I asked him yesterday what he thinks about when he walks and his answer shows how very different we are.  He told me that he doesn't think about anything, that he tries to keep his mind empty and just observe his environment. (he walks at dark o'clock am).  I was incredulous!  Seriously, I said?  I told him that when I walk I spend most of my time thinking about my day, about what might be troubling me, what might be making me happy…solving life's problems…ha!  I do also enjoy observing my environment as well too though and as I walked on Friday, it was a beautiful and crazy windy day. 
We were blessed with an amazing Autumn up here in the mountains and while I am sad to see the leaves depart, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the leaves dance across the driveways and streets as I walked along my journey home.

I look forward to talking to you on this NaBloPoMo journey too!