De-Tree-ing and Photo Ops

So Sunday, I got up and made 30 Banana Chocolate Chip muffins from scratch. My house was a smell-o-rama, but I didn't eat any of them. Des and Tony took me and Tony's mother (my friend and ex-boss Cheryl) out to brunch at Wild Wings. Nothing like starting your gastronomical day with HOT. LoL.

Des made me a GORGEOUS handbag, with "loose" pockets inside, large enough to hold a couple diapers stood on end (or a paperback book), and a bottle of water (or Mtn Dew), and a zipper pocket big enough to hold my reading glasses, a lipstick, and my DL/Debit card. Wonderful!

Then they came to my house and hung out. Tony got hold of the chain saw and started making short work of our deceased tree.


Understatement of the Weekend: He grinned and said, "I like chainsaws."

We have thought of lots of things to make of the tree, now just have to get them done before the wood gets too dry or hard to work it.

The little girls spent time dancing in the living room, and bouncing on the "damp-een," as Beverly calls it. Des put pics of that one on her blog.

Beverly took camera in hand and snapped some pictures for us...
Des! And Tony! She was very excited to "help" in this manner. I love seeing the world from her 2 yo eye-view. Everyone seems very, very... tall. LOL!

IN OTHER NEWS...
Today (ooops, yesterday, sometimes being a night-owl can be SO confusing) two of the girls had 4-H sub-regional presentations in Crossville, TN, about an hour's drive away. Made me glad to live in our beautiful little town, close to beautiful Knoxville.

Diantha did a tabletop exhibit on Fiber Processing and Spinning. She won 1st place in the Clothing and Textiles category for Jr. High. Veronica did an oral demonstration/explanation of Spinning and Knitting, also. She took a high-score 1st place in Clothing and Textiles for 5th grade. I am proud of the girls and their efforts! They will go on to the Regionals. Don't know the date or place yet. Here they are with their blue ribbons!

By the time we were done there, drove back, drove 40 minutes the OTHER way to drop Diantha off at Des' to help her (since she is still feeling lousy), and got home tonight, we had been gone more than 12 hours. I have some new yarns done, but too tired to list them. Tomorrow is another day!

Who the HECK is Squanto anyway?

My latest yarn series is Squanto and The First Thanksgiving. Why would I choose that? I have some GREAT ideas for yarn series for Christmas... why not go on and get those up? Some reasons:

I LOVE Autumn! For those of us who are Olfactory learners, it is a Smell-O-Rama!

I LOVE Thanksgiving. Not only is it a uniquely American holiday, but how can you go wrong with an entire holiday devoted to eating? Break out the Maternity pants and pass the yams with marshmallows, I say!

I LOVE the idea behind Thanksgiving. Most of us aren't NEARLY thankful enough. No, let me rephrase that. Most of us don't give a minute of thought to anything we have to be thankful for. In fact I would venture to bet there are a lot of us out there who think we don't really have anything to be thankful for.

It irks me that our Major Retailers skip right from Halloween (news flash, not all of us "do" hell-oween) to that Major Moneymaker, Christmas.

Every one of my kids so far has loved the book Squanto and The First Thanksgiving.

So who was Squanto anyway? He was an Pawtuxet Indian brave (hey, I know the Politically Correct term is Native American, but as a partial Native American, I don't take offense to the term I grew up with, Indian. Besides, you expect a woman with 7 kids to be politically correct? HA!) under the leadership of Samoset. Their tribe befriended our totally discombobulated Pilgrim ancestors and kept them from starving... teaching them to hunt like snipers, plant a dead fish in with their corn and bean seeds to fertilize them, showing them how to survive the drastic climate changes of our Northern Atlantic coast. (For more info, visit http://www.nativeamericans.com/Squanto.htm )

Because of these, some of my yarns are called:

Squanto - a lovely wool in self-striping reds, oranges, and tans

Venison - earthy tan and brown wpp;cashmere/acrylic

Planting Fish with Corn and Beans - pale gray wool hand dyed with yellow and green

Cornucopia - deep rich colors!

Log Cabin - deep red, tan, brown, black in 100% rustic silk

Johnnycake - looks like homemade bread! A nice thick chunky yarn.

and Pumpkin...

Well what can I say? Pumpkin is a very fine 80% wool/20% nylon yarn in pumpkin tweed with slubs of cream, tan, and blue. The entire sweater this came from weighed a mere 204 grams... not even 7 oz. At 800 yards to a 100 gram skein, this would make great lace or the softest socks. I said to Richie (my dh, who for years went by Dick, until one of our pastors' wife couldn't bring herself to say it), "Shall I hand dye this yarn?"
" No, honey... it looks great just like that. "

And I tried to listen to him. Really. In fact most of the time I do listen to him. No REALLY! But after being up several days, poor lil' Pumpkin has no one to heart it. So today my itchy fingers, that haven't had a good coat of dye in a week, got hold of Pumpkin. I overdyed some areas a nice earthy olive green, and some areas a nice dirty brown. Now Pumpkin will be Pumpkin On The Vine, and I think it is much happier.

Speaking of pumpkin, I have a funny story. We built a scarecrow with a Cashmere sweater (don't gasp, someone partially felted it so I can't unravel it) for a head, a flannel shirt, my old jeans, and my dh's ancient boots that he wore on a 22,000 mile motorcycle trip. No really. We set him (the scarecrow, not my dh) up on a haybale with some pots of begonias and some pumpkins, out under this totally ridiculous shelter that some previous owner of our house built out near the road.

I came home from my daily walk escape a day later to find the scarecrow lying on the haybale with his "head" on a pumpkin, a newspaper as a blanket and his boots off and setting next to the haybale like he took them off for a little nap. I figured the Neighborhood Vandals got to him. But no, one of my kids said to me, "Mom, the scarecrow kept falling over so I gave him a little rest." Hmmm. My kid is the Neighborhood Vandal.

Tomorrow is busy... I have handmade double-pointed knitting needles to mail, my daily walk, three of us have quilty objects to finish for a challenge, by Wednesday. School for the kids, two more yarns to unravel/dye/put up in the shop and I have some merino batts I am nearly dying to try to spin. But finally I got a chanceto take a picture to share, of the scarecrow.