Two Shear Spirits

post Maryland wrap-up

That laryngitis I had must've slowed down my blog voice too. Here, a week later, our tattoo debs. from Maryland Sheep & Wool Fest.

 

Leading with some hometown faves , Crafty Brenda and Beth, two of the traveling New Haven SnB posse.

Here's RedThread , a raveler. I didn't realize it at the time but she's the one who designed the  snake scarf that inspired the Red Scarf project. I photographed Annalisa  of  the Orphan Foundation folks wearing her scarf. Six degrees of separation in the knit world? nah, only two. 

and Flo's friend  from Pittsburgh. May I just say? I met a lot of spirited Pburghers. What were you all passing around on that bus, anyway?

Flo is the title holder of most innovative tatt app. You'll probably need to click on this one to fully appreciate.

You can see all of these and more on our tattoo gallery, look over on that left sidebar.

I'll leave you with a couple of instructional images: Here's how you have a tatt applied at a show. Just call me the wet sponge goddess)

That's Nanney Kennedy,  of Seacolors getting herself decorated. You might recognize her from the first chapter of the book. I wanted to give a peek at her gorgeous sweaters, that's the real reason I'm posting it.

And how will you recognize me? Something like this.

Seeing sheep in the strangest places

I'm just back from southern Utah, where spring is still way around the corner. Thank goodness I had my warm beret. But sheep did turn up in unexpected places...like Arches National Park, for instance. There, among the gorgeous red rock formations I came upon, yes, Sheep Rock. There it is, being guarded by the Three Gossips.

A few days later I took a day-long boat trip on the San Juan River, which cuts through 1000-foot canyons. Along the way we stopped to see a small cliff dwelling and centuries-old petroglyphs that included images of bighorn sheep. There were a few live ones visible on the riverbanks, too. But my favorite souvenir of the day was this little willow-twig sheep that Marcus Buck, the boatman/guide, made for me, like those that have been found in ancient cliff dwellings.

return to the 50s

My last stop in Arizona was in Bisbee, where we spent a night going back in time – to the 1950s. We stayed at Shady Dell, which is a resort composed of vintage trailers. Our cozy spot was a 1957 El Rey, complete with a bakelite radio, retro furnishings, and copies of old Arizona Highways. For breakfast there was Dot's Diner, where we joined locals and visitors swapping stories at the nine-stool counter.
From Bisbee it was a long ride home, half a century, I guess.

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.

encounters

Tubac is the oldest European settlement in Arizona, and today it's full of artists' galleries. I stopped in at Rosso & Russ, where owner Ellyn Ahmer had racks of gorgeous tops and scarves made of ribbons dyed and knitted into lovely garments.Anna - the "Friday lady"- showed me some surprisingly soft yarn made from buffalo fiber and sent me to the Tortuga bookstore to alert them to Shear Spirit. It turned out that the clerk used to raise not only mohair goats but also Gulf Coast sheep. Small fiber world .

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....

rainbows

Here I am in Arizona.In the mountainside town of Jerome, actually. The place is full of art galleries and shops in the buildings of what was a mining town, then a ghost town, and now a fun place to visit. The weather yesterday was wild and dramatic-first rain, then snow, then sun and blustery wind. I stopped in at Knit1Bead2, which is in the old town hall building from 1899.Erika Raspberry has a shop full of delicious yarns arranged in banks of rainbow colors. That seemed pretty appropriate, because when I stepped outside, I could look across the valley toward the red rocks of Sedona and the wall-like face of the Mogollon Rim. The rocks at the bottom were terra cotta red, the top layers were white with snow, and the arc of a rainbow added color to the corner.

hanging in

Mittens at 13 Mile Farm, Belgrade Montana.

If you're reading this, send us some comments love!  There's something strange about hitting the publish button and realizing....no one knows we're here.

Joan is off exploring the southwest - I'm not even sure what state - and I'm fighting the entropy that is my office this week. I'm thinking I may need to set up some reward knitting on this or I'll never get the desk cleared.