Why bull terriers should not be left alone with small children:

Markers aren't always washable.

  ¶ 6:40 PM

  One of the Fun Things To Do this summer includes spinning for the Tour De Fleece - a spinning event that runs concurrent with the Tour de France every summer. The idea is to find something that would challenge you personally, and try to achieve that goal during the three-week Tour. I have now been spinning a year, so why not try to do an achievable goal? I have friends who are also participating, which helps in the fun.

My friend Abby Franquemont is directly responsible for my wheel, so when she formed a team, I had to join in. Her team is called Team Suck Less, and that's the goal, one must by the end of the tour Suck Less. Oh, and you have to spin a mile in a day by the end of the tour. I'm not that good at production spinning - the most I have spun in a day is perhaps 500 yards (if I spun an abby batt and navajo plied it to about 125 yards which means three ply worth of singles and then the plying job in a day, which is exhausting for me). So I made the comment, can I just walk a mile while spinning? And Abby said, "You define the mile." So I vowed to walk a mile while spinning, and try very hard to Suck Less at spinning, and joined the team.

Today, Heather and I picked up our spindles and some silk and headed to the local high school track.

Here we are!

and we're walking

I dropped my spindle a few times more than Heather did. We had to stop and untangle at least once. We got lots of odd looks for spinning in public, and we walked on the outside edge of the track not to disturb the serious joggers. It's very hard to hold a spindle in motion and operate a camera at the same time. But we did succeed.

Just me

And I suck less. :)  ¶ 12:23 PM

  This is the beauty that is life at Camp in the early morning before anyone is up:


This is how I'll always remember my da:
  ¶ 10:51 AM

  In case you aren't aware of the Doings of the Sock Knitting World, and most of the readers of this blog just know me, there is a major event coming soon the first week of August that is being hosted by the Yarn Harlot and Tina of Blue Moon Fiber Arts called Sock Summit. This event is new this year, and seems to be Shangrilah for them what knits socks. They have acquired for teachers simply amazing people and all of the classes sold out within 24 hours of registration opening. This is not stopping people from planning to go and hang out in the merchant area or sit around and discuss socks and knit socks and meet other sock knitters internationally.

The sheer fact that such a convention will exist means I have to carry a mop around me when I think of it, because of course I'm going to drool. Realistically, looking at my budget, it won't happen at all, and I'm comfortable with that. Really.

We have a place on Ravelry for the store and the Tsarina's Flock to discuss things related to our Sock company where I am the Tserf and general office grunt. Now, the business is going to the Sock Summit - both the Tsarina/Lisa and Gwynivar/Jen will go and run the booth and sell sock yarn and tsock kits. Naturally, they have asked if I will be there too. I have foolishly stated that if the company does $5000 in sales between TODAY, July 9, and when Gwynivar leaves for the Sock Summit (probably August 3ish), then they will take me along too. What amazed me was that Gwynivar and the Tsarina have both agreed to this.

So, while the odds are Slim to None of this happening, I'll keep you posted. For those actually interested in helping this happen, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.  ¶ 6:10 PM