My thanks to those of you who tried to let me off the blog bACKlog hook, but… there are some things that really need to be documented. So I’m going to go for sort of a hodgepodge for a while here - some from Column BB (Blog BACKlog), some from Column B (BACKlog), and some from Column RN (Right Now) - until such time as I (A) feel kind of caught up, or (B) get sick of trying to catch up.

You may place your bets now as to which will happen first.

So let’s see - the oldest thing I owe you is a couple of final wrap-ups on Lauren’s wedding and the Circle Jacket, including some vague how-to (see? you wouldn’t want me to skip that stuff, would you?), and that must legitimately wait a little longer because I haven’t yet seen all the pictures from Lauren’s end, what with her being just a little busy, what with the new marriage AND the house renovation AND the end of the school year AND the pregnancy. (Like how I threw in that last bit, all casual-like and everything?) But I do think we’ll get there pretty soon.

Meanwhile, the next oldest main-top event languishing in the hopper is from almost exactly a month ago - MA S&W.

Others covered most of that ground pretty effectively while I was still struggling with the after-effects of my Close Encounter of the Mattress Kind, but I have a few pictures and thoughts to add. What I do NOT have pictures of is the batts I made for various people, because, well, the mattress episode kind of knocked out my plans for taking same before presenting them. (They’re really hard to photograph, too, but the mattress excuse is my story and I’m sticking to it.) The Mood Indigo sock batts I already showed you…

… were of course a birthday present for Dan, along with one of my “Painting on Velvet” batts in black with purple and gold. (Yes, I called it “Assyrian Cohort.” You knew I would.) There was also some birthday BL/silk for Marcy - I’ll be making this one again so there will be other opportunities to show it to you, and the same is true of the other “Painting on Velvet” batts I made for Jesh and Cathy-Cate. (Jesh blogged hers, actually. And I think Dan did the same with his.) That’s part of what I needed the darker silks for.

Anyway, what I consider wholly remarkable about these batts is not the batts themselves - though I admit I was pleased with them - but the way they brought out my inner five-year-old. For the rest of the weekend I made a complete nuisance of myself to these four unfortunate souls whenever I encountered them (which was pretty often, as we tended to hang out together, shop together, schmooze together, etc.), pestering them to show off their batts. “Hey, didja show her what you’re spinning?” “Hey, didja show her what I made for you? What, you aren’t carrying it? Want me to go back to the booth and get it?” “Hey, didja tell him where that fiber came from?” “Hey, didja didja didja huh?”

I think it’s safe to say that this sort of behavior did nothing to uphold the vaunted dignity of Tsarskoe Tsocko.

I think it’s safe to say I didn’t much care. I was having fun and I was showing off (and they were very kind and tolerant). So there.

Other than that, what is there to tell? It was Cummington, and Cummington is always (yeah, this was my second time, so I am almost entitled to say “always”) a golden weekend to look forward to and to treasure in retrospect. Cassie and Juno were sorely missed, by me at any rate in a you-can’t-go-home-again sort of way. But in defiance of my expectations, even with them (alas!) not there… Cummington was still Cummington. In some ways more so because I was so much less green about who and what was to be seen there.

For instance - remember this picture from last year?

That was taken in front of the Merlin Tree booth, and little did I understand then what that meant, let alone realize that the gentleman in the kilt was none other than Dave Paul himself. This year, better-informed, I made a beeline for the nice man in the kilt, and had a long and lovely chat with him about Canadian Production wheels and cup-holders and long-draw and other spinny matters; tried out a Hitchhiker, too, while I was at it.

What a difference a year makes.

So let’s see, what else?

There were lambs.

Lunch time. All together now: AWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

There was a yurt, right next to our tent:

It was cool and pleasant in there, even during the hottest part of the day. I particularly like this decorative detail on the inside:

There was a brief abduction scare:

Nice lady was so enthralled with the asp on Cleopatra that she grabbed up the prototype, leg and all, and ran across the way with it to show her friends.

Mostly, there were friends. (And there was Stuff, but I’ll show you that next time.)

Dan brought Strider with him - bless ‘im, he schlepped him in from the car on both days, and set up next to the booth to spin and accept congratulations.

From his parents, among others, whom it was really nice to meet.

I took a little spin on Strider, and a very charming fellow I found him.

He was not the only handsome wheel present, however. I had brought my 24″ saxony, complete with custom cup-holder (hey, did you know? they’re making them with optional slots now so you can fit a mug with a handle), and Jesh very obligingly did some of my spinning for me.

Oh hell, one more, because I love my pretty wheel.

I think Jesh loved it too. Lucky for me it wouldn’t fit in her pocket.

Here’s a bad picture of AmyBoogie showing off an advance copy of her new book, all inky-stinky from the press! This is old news to those of you who have bought it since then, but it was pretty exciting at the time and it’s still pretty exciting now.

Here’s an even worse picture of Dan and Lynn debating the relative merits of potential warps.

Here’s Marcy trying to decide which of several beautiful alpaca blends is most calculated to induce a swoon in Sandi Wiseheart.

Here’s proof that Cathy-Cate came to our booth in person…

… and so did Kathe:

Both sporting beautiful handknits whose names I now disremember.

I don’t remember what two out of these three are gazing at so intently…

… but one of them sure doesn’t look any too interested in it.

And here again….

… of Jesh, Jen, Kathe, and Cathy-Cate, which would you say is least enthusiastic about being photographed? (How many guesses do you need?)

Jesh, incidentally, was wearing her beautiful Hyrna Herborgar shawl, made in 72 hours:

She was also carrying her first handspun/handknit sock:

Ahem - let’s take a closer look at the stitch definition on this bad boy, shall we?

Jesh was also wearing a necklace that matched the stoneware whorl on some of her spindles (including the one I stole from her a while back).

Which reminds me - it’s hard to believe now during the present monsoon season, but here is proof that once upon a time there was a thing called sunshine.

Saturday night, due to a crazy comedy of errors of the You Couldn’t Make This Up variety, a bunch of us ended up having dinner together in one place while Marcy and Lynn and MamaCate had dinner in another; we hated splitting up the party, but I can’t deny that we had a riotously great time. You may already have seen this picture on Dan’s blog (taken by Kathe, I cleverly deduce, since she isn’t in it):

And that was just the beginning of the evening.

Jennifer is still determined not to let on that she’s having a good time as long as I’m the one wielding the camera…

… but Kathe isn’t imposing any such embargo on herself. She is, however, apparently pretty shocked by something Dan tells her -

- which may go some way toward explaining the subsequent determination that sometimes one beer at a time just isn’t enough:

I, um, don’t remember much after that.

But it was a great weekend. Mattress or no mattress.

Column RN; Stuff I’m Working on Right Now

• I’m in training for the Tour de Fleece, as a member of Abby’s team, Team Suck Less. One-Day Challenge Goal: spin a mile within one calendar day.
• I’m working like a demon on Club Tsock #3 - which is appropriate because we’ve just come up with a particularly devilish scheme for how to work one section of it. This is NOT the same thing as “particularly difficult to execute” - I really don’t think it will be - but it does include kind of an interesting thought experiment. More on this soon - I’m really trying to break out of the stealth habit.
• Speaking of which… I’m working on a couple of Tstealth Projects blah blah blah.

Column B; Scenes from a BACKlog

Items from the To-Do List, some Done, some Un-

• Done: Prep Firebird for public release.
• Done: Release it.
• Done: Make new web page and Ravelry ads for Firebird
• Un- : Run said ads. Why? Because…
• Un- : … long overdue updates to Tsarina home page. Sigh.
• Done: Prep Frenchman’s Creek for public release.
• Un- : Release it. Any minute now.
• Un- : Get cracking on ads and page for Frenchman’s Creek, and…
• Un- : … about those updates to the home page…? Yeah, really, get cracking on those too.

I guess we know what I’m going to be working on next.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 6:04 pm and is filed under TsockFlock Club, Bloggerei, Spinning, Tour de Fleece. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.