Based on my experience last summer, I have decided to move my garden to the country. Now that I am thankfully gainfully employed, it proved tough tending my garden. I would get home late and tired. Weekends we went to the country. My tomatoes felt unloved and unkempt. Weed growth soared.

So here are two views of my newly planted beds.

The tall stuff growing at the right end of the upper photo is garlic. I have tomato plants and a wide selection of herbs. The tomatoes have spilled over into the bed below our stone wall where the rhubarb grows. This is where once long ago, pre-children I first grew tomatoes. It is an excellent spot as it gets lots of sun which reflects warmth off the stones. It will be fun to see which bed yields best.

Here are a few more photos of Frosts enjoying the first sit on a newly washed front porch:

So very wonderful to have summer coming right along. And even more exciting to have Alex and Ferd both about to arrive for a great visit. More on that shortly…

I began working on the sweater last fall just as Sandy hit. I knit the sleeves in the dark. Actually, I knit them over an over as I strived to get them right.

This was my first steek experience. I am still not sure I did it right.

But here it is.

The schedule was for Jim and I to head out last Friday. We would have the weekend for travel, recovery and play. Sunday night the week kicked off with the annual Random House Cocktail Party. My colleague and co-conspirator, Wayne, would join us Sunday night for the first of many dinners. Monday morning the fair began. We had a packed schedule with appointments running through the day from 9 to 5 most of the three days we would be there.

Bologna is a smallish city with many very old buildings, cobblestone streets. Landing at the airport it was easy to see that Spring was more advanced there than at home. The grass and trees were greening. The air was still quite chilly and the weather would prove to be uniformly grey and rainy throughout the week. Walking the streets of Bologna in the rain, the cobblestones gleamed with moisture and the streetlights and store signs glittered in the wet air. It made for an even more romantic picture of this very old city. The rain was never a downpour so it was perfectly easy to walk around and see the sights. Umbrellas were necessary equipment and because the city was so small, the best way to get anywhere was to walk. All that walking was just as well as the food was unbelievable and it would have been criminal to abstain from the Primi Piatti–and I promise you neither Jim nor I abstained.

Saturday we were pretty wiped. The flight overnight was fairly comfortable but that first day is always rough. We had a three hour layover in Paris.

Fatigued knitter at Charles De Gaulle Airport

Post-knitting nap

An amazing view through the window as we flew over the Pyrenees.

Armed with restaurant recommendations from an experienced colleague, the eating festival began Saturday night with dinner in a unabashedly charming and fabulous restaurant called Da Cesari.

Stepping into the restaurant from the dark and rainy streets was both a little intimidating and a transformative experience. At this point in the week we had not yet put our feedbags on and we did not try to pace the couples on either side of us. They were both working their way through the five-course meal with paired wines like indomitable pros. We limped through the appetizer and primi piatti and felt that was the worst we could do. It was all delicious and we shared tastes and took our time. The local Sangiovese wine was amazing.

Sunday we were back in form and began to explore the city. This included lots of walking around as well as a climb up the Ansinelli Tower. One of the two most prominent towers punctuating the central, old city, this is the only tower open to the public.

The Ansinelli Tower

A very narrow staircase runs around the perimeter of the tower. Extremely narrow in places, traffic travels up and down the staircase and people must hug the walls to make way for traffic in the other direction. Besides the upward and downward struggle, the effect is very much one of entering a deep mine shaft as the incredibly thick walls of the hundreds year old tower seem to close in. In moments of claustrophobia, you can only remember that the tower has been standing for seven hundred odd years, it is unlikely to fall down with you in it.

Don’t look down–or up!

It may have been strenuous, but there was a payoff.

The red tile rooftops of Bologna

Wandering the city we saw many remarkable old stone buildings, piazzas with charming restaurants, vegetable and fruit stores bursting with fresh offerings.

Winding narrow streets.

The produce looked outstanding.

How old could these stones be?

The grey and rain couldn’t possibly dampen our spirits.

Jim’s selfie with spouse.

Thus the rhythm for the week was established. We had days packed with meetings from 9 to 5. All day Wayne and I met with publishers and presented Storia or built upon existing relationships to acquire more content. Our meetings were great but tiring. Jim would explore the city and have his own adventures. After the day’s work and a brief nap, it was time for another mind-blowing dinner.

As the week progressed, we moved towards the entire five course extravaganza. Walking to and from dinner and pretty much everywhere else became our only salvation. Each evening was a tremendous combination of outrageous food, delightful restauranteurs, charming settings and good companionship.

Monday night at La Drogherie della Rosa with our hosts from Little Tiger.

When Thursday dawned it was time to head home. It seemed like we had been away forever, but it was the perfect combination of work and play. It felt like a vacation and yet, at the end of the week, I was pretty tired. It was my first Bologna. I hope there will be many more. It was even better because Jim was there to share so much of it.

Dining with my best friend.

Happily I have every color of Kool-Aid they ever stock at our local Stop&Shop. Mixing the Kool-Aid with vinegar brings back memories of dyeing Easter Eggs. I would say dyeing Easter Eggs with the kids but inevitably after two eggs, they were done and I was alone in the kitchen dyeing eggs by myself. This is similar to the pumpkin carving and tree decorating experiences at the Frost Home.

Next step is a good soaking for the roving. The water should be cold as one goal in all of this is not to cause the roving to begin felting. Wool wants to felt when it is agitated and heat helps the process. After about 30 minutes of soaking, it needs to be gently rung out of excess water.

I thought long and hard about where to do this dyeing process. I like crawling around on the floor for extended periods less and less. It is too cold outside. Can’t do it on the carpet. At last I remembered that our kitchen table was created to roll dough out easily and comfortably. No, I have not yet in four + years ever used the table for rolling dough, but will work great for dyeing roving. When applying the dye, the roving needs to be thoroughly doused in color, but not too much. Penetration through all the fiber is important, but the next step requires wrapping plastic wrap around the fiber and you don’t want leakage.

After wrapping the roving into a long plastic-wrapped, Kool-Aid-smelling snake, it gets set into a pyrex dish of some sort and micro-waved. The neatest thing is that when the roving is done, the dye will have been absorbed into the fiber and any water will run clear. It is just like magic! I micro-waved the fiber for about five minutes until the condensed beads of water inside the plastic wrap appeared clear.

The smell of Kool-Aid with just a touch of vinegar pervades the air at this point. The roving is steaming hot and needs to have a chance to cool before it can be handled. The sense of anticipation to see what is under the plastic wrap is almost overwhelming. I usually have to go do something in another room to control myself at this point!

I almost forgot to mention the most essential tool in any crafter’s arsenal. Not many people are blessed with this secret weapon, but I am pleased to say that I have the best helper in the whole world.

The steaming roving can slowly be unfolded across the counter to continue to cool. The condensation continues to obscure the actual colors and depth of the dye. Ohhh, I hope it is colorful!!

Voila!! Wet but colorful roving drying on a rack. After the plastic wrap was removed the roving got another cool bath in fresh water. Despite this the twin smells of Kool-Aid and vinegar waft through the house. The smell will stay well through the spinning process. It isn’t nearly as nice as the natural smell of lanolin, but sheep don’t come in these colors naturally so it is a tradeoff.

The dye isn’t perfect. I need more practice, but I think it will have a very interesting effect when it is spun. The roving will need some extensive pre-drafting to separate the fibers. They have felted a tiny bit from the handling. I will split the roving into long strips and alternate the colors so there will be progressions through all the color changes. The bits which don’t have as much dye will simply add to the color changes.

With the Bologna Children’s Book Fair on the horizon next week, it will be a while before I can try to spin this stuff, but it has been great fun playing around with it. Plus, I got it all cleaned up in time to cook dinner which makes me much more popular at home than all the dyeing and knitting in the world.

Having an adult child living at home can be pretty frustrating. It has nothing to do with how much you love them. It is simply the combined frustration of seeing someone with talent not get on with life and the worry that they will never get on with life. This person may feel they have a clear idea of their own future, but for reasons best known to them they are neither communicating this plan or seeming to implement it.

Here is  a photo of my second born child. Well, here is a photo of what he looks like to me from an emotional standpoint.

.

If you don’t recognize this animal, here is a link to help you out. 

He’s cute as the dickens, but he needs to get out and make a life for himself!!

But all that is behind me now and I have been having a fantastic time this past weekend and this holiday weekend spinning away. It is completely mesmerizing to hold the fleece in my right hand and pinch the fiber as it is pulled by the action of the wheel onto the bobbin. My left hand is focused on drafting and the right hand is pinching and my feet are pumping back and forth. When everything is working just right it is simply magic.

I love the qualities of the roving I have bought. I bought a variety of qualities so that I would have some to practice on and, with the better quality, a reward to look forward to. I tried to find the most unprocessed roving possible. I have both natural white and brown fleeces. They smell of lanolin and I love the feel of the lanolin on my hands as I spin it. The brown fleece has lots of particles of hay and straw in it and as I draft it with my left hand, the bits fall onto my sweats leaving little piles. It is all clean and not at all gross, it just reminds me of where this fleece came from. I have always loved finding little bits of straw in yarn as I knit.

As my left hand drafts the roving, the individual fibers sort themselves out and the roving which flows to my right hand is a collection of wispy fibers fanned out to twist into the proper weight ply. That is somewhat idealized. The reality isn’t quite that perfect yet, but there are moments when things seem to be working.

This is yet another skill which can only be perfected after much time. I see that very clearly. My yarn is not always even and the twist is not quite balanced, but I think I could spin a powerful lot of fleece into lumpy, semi-usable wool before I ever got to the point that something gorgeous came off my wheel. That said, I am having a complete blast and I do think the yarn I have made, while decidedly rustic, is gorgeous in its own way.

Here are the four skeins I have made to date. The one on the left is the second Skein I made. The first skein is to the right. You can tell that the second is much larger and the balance of light an dark colors is better. The second skein from the right is probably the most troubled. It has some significant twist and balance issues. I am not sure how it will be to knit up. On the extreme right is the fourth skein. While the plies are thicker than I would have liked, the yarn is perfectly balanced with the twist of the plies balancing out the plied singles. It is relaxed and should be great to knit with.

My new goal now that I have learned the rudiments of spinning is to spin, ply, skein and knit a sweater from roving. A complete sweater which would be as self-produced as possible short of raising a sheep, shearing it, washing and carding the wool and then spinning it. Wonder how long it will take to get to that point?

I feel really badly about this.

Thanksgiving weekend has almost come to a close. It was a quiet holiday, but there was much to be thankful for. After a wild fall of weather, a quiet weekend was both welcome and relaxing. We spoke often of those who were not with us–or we with them. Of course, Alex topped the list. Ferd was right there with him. As I set our dinner table, I thought of Bobbie and used her silver as a way to insure that she and the memories of Thanksgivings past were well represented. It was sweet to reflect on last Thanksgiving and our fun visit to the Kuntz’s and Dawson’s at Lake Geneva. It was equally sweet to think of Frosts from Florida to Michigan, Texas to Georgia and the good times we have enjoyed together in the recent past.

I give thanks for my beloved spouse, for my three amazing children, for Dakota who makes me smile, for my extended family, for my friends both new and old, for my job and the security and sense of accomplishment it brings, for my crafts and the joy they give me, for good health and enough to eat and a roof over my head. I am thankful for my good fortune and mindful of those who have suffered especially this fall with the storms and I hope for the best for them.

Monday will bring the everyday rush and cares. The crazy run up to the Christmas holidays, but for the balance of today, there is time to savor and reflect.