Two Shear Spirits

tattoo you. and you,. and yes, you too.

So there I'll be at Maryland Sheep & Wool tomorrow & Sunday handing out tattoos. And signing books (see sidebar)

I'm bringing my camera so I can shoot you for  a rogue's gallery of tattoo'd knitters. (I know, they are only temporary. Born to Be Mild and all that).

I decided I was looking too much like the sheep I shoot so went for a haircut this morning. My naturally messy hair is super curly in back and sort of wavy weird on the sides, so I asked the hairdresser to get rid of the floppy sides. He refused.
"No. I am not giving you a mullet".
"But....could we call it a sardonic mullet?".
"No."
"..a sarcastic mullet?"
"No!."
"..a retro layered cut with no mullet reference at all?".
"NO!"

and there's THREE of them

I was planning a post about a fun magazine shoot I did last week,.

This is an out from the take while waiting to get started, you'll have to look in TV Guide in a couple of weeks to see the real thing.
So instead of  behind the scenes with Jon Stewart or NY or knitting or reminiscing about meeting Joan in Arizona a year ago to visit our Navajo sheep herding subjects for the book or anything else remotely interesting I will say no more.

Because I am home with the flu. With my whole family. All the guys. And me. It isn't pretty.   I think this sums it up.

sharing the warmth

It was a gorgeous spring day here in Santa Barbara, and I hit the tennis court – not a time to be wearing knitwear. So I was happy that I'd sent a Taos beret to my niece, Suzanne, in New York, where winter has not yet left. Here she is...preparing happily to face the elements.

Of course, winter is not completely over in California. Just in case, I'm still working away on my wool Montana tunic. As it happens, I've got two trips coming up – to Utah and Tortola (in the British Virgin Islands). Guess which one I'm hoping to take the sweater on...

signs of winter, signs of spring

There was snow on the mountains behind Santa Barbara this morning. I tried to take a picture but the white stuff on the slopes merely blended into the white of the clouds, leaving an indecipherable blob. We're having a series of cold rainstorms. That's a comment we all follow up with, "but we need the rain." Still it's cold and damp, and I'm waiting for the the FedEx person to deliver the skeins of wool I ordered from Thirteen Mile Farm. I've been wanting to try the Montana tunic from Shear Spirit. Yes, indeed, that is the trouble with working on a fiber book. Even slow, novice knitters like me want to try it all. Gale can whip up a hat before the temperature rises, but it may be spring before I get to wear the tunic. Or I could make a trip to a colder clime. We'll see.

Meanwhile, three (maybe four) of the phalaenopsis orchids in the greenhouse window in my shower are sending up little spikes. They should be in flower by March. Will I be wearing a hand-made sweater when they bloom? Stay tuned.

weather alert: red

It's been nasty cold around here, so I decided to make me a new hat.  There's something about a bright red hat that makes January more tolerable. I love it. My 14 year old son, who served as photographer here as well as fashion critic, gave my new look the thumbs down. "Wretched" was, in fact, the rating. His brother, who is now far too involved in himself to worry about whether his mother is embarrassing the family with her very existence headwear, observed that it was "hey, pretty good, I ,uh, actually thought maybe you bought that one".
pattern: Thorpe by Kristen Karpur
yarn:  Cascade Pastaza & trimmed with recycled sari silk yarn
needles: size 8
my 2¢: Oh the joy of a top down hat. This is a quickie.I had fun crocheting on the trim, even if it is a little foo-foo. To use a technical term.   

All that handling of the llama/wool left me jonesing for some 100% alpaca. Natural,undyed, luxurious alpaca. If there is a downside to working on a book about fiber farms, it is developing a taste for wonderful yarn. So I contacted our friend Carol at Victory Ranch in New Mexico to ask her to send me some of her yarn, and she told me, it's cold. Double digit below zero F cold. That is wretched.

gale goes retro style

I've been exhibiting oddly retro behavior this week. I resumed my quest to make the best baked mac & cheese .  We went through weeks of this a couple of years ago.  Very high caloric weeks. This time, I cut right to the chase.

(Long story follows to tell how I cut right to it) .
Last spring, my older son rode shotgun when I did the west coast Oregon to  San Francisco leg of the Shear Spirit book photography. Here he is modeling cashmere at Goat Knoll, just for reference. (Another pattern that, sob, got cut due to space.)  Everywhere we went, we stayed with ranchers and farmers and friends of friends in their homes, and everywhere we went, people wanted to feed Leo. Don't let his build deceive , he can eat you under the table, and still look waiflike, asking if there are seconds .  I am not kidding, I am still getting emails from people we met saying they cooked something or other they think Leo would enjoy. Ribs in Texas. From- scratch pancakes with fig and peach preserves in Oregon and, in California, at Old Mill Farm, Barb made us her most wonderful mac and cheese.

Here's her kitchen, can't you almost smell the good things that come out of it? That's Barb herself, bringing in salad and eggs.   Here's where the chase got cut to. We had a quick consult and you'll never guess where she got  the recipe. Uh huh. From M-Diddy, herself.
Martha's scary-perfect domesticity creeps me out but she's got style to spare and man, can she bake a mean mac & cheese. Barb knows a Good Thing. Quest is over.

p.s.  there is no jump, haven't I said enough? I  can't figure out how to get rid of that line once I engaged it.

playing hooky

The weather took a turn for springlike.  I couldn't stand being inside my office working yesterday.  Fortunately I had the perfect excuse , my Australian friends mates were visiting for the first time in six years. They needed someone to help revisit old haunts around town. I needed to brush up on my slang. Bob's your uncle! Good on ya!
It's not the beauty of the southwest, but lunch on a deck looking out at the Thimbles isn't bad for a New England January, is it?

There's nothing like old friends. The 14 year old girl, left, is a knitter now. She went through all 160 pages of our book in tiny pdf form on my laptop. Twice!  She loves the alpaca lace shawl and can't wait to have the "real" book to get knitting. She wants to see an alpaca ranch! Do you  love this girl?

The only animal life we saw though, and I use the term life lightly,  was in a hunters' boat coming out of the saltwater marsh.

I know it's not entirely normal to show dead ducks on a knitting blog, but there was something about how they looked....