dyeing fiber: walnut

The goal is to collect enough walnuts that fall from my neighbor's tree to both dye some yarn to make her a scarf and to add a skein to my growing "Minnesota blanket" stash.  The first few days, Maya and I scrabbled over the patio, and I'd sneak through burrs to collect as many little walnuts and their husks as I could, and then a week or two passed and we could gleefully collect dozens, our hands heavy with the nuts, little squirrels shaking fists from the branches.  They're soaking now, waiting for their time in the pot.

uncial calligraphy

I've been puttering away at Minnesota Center for Book Arts' certificate program.  The classes I take come in spurts, and now that the possibility of shifting geography is in discussion, I must hunker down and complete the program if I want to honestly add it to my c.v.  I love the ways in which I can allow my interests collide:  using my hands, making words, the tactile feel of paper, of fiber.

I am not quite sure where this will lead me.  I love handlettering, and I've saved a few envelopes with my (our) name(s) and address written with a particular flourish, tacked them onto the refrigerator.  There's something dashing about seeing one's name a little less ordinary, especially when reaching for the broccoli.  I have to remember, when I do this, that it doesn't all fall into place immediately, that learning to write took years, that my handwriting has changed so much over time.  I also learned that I hold the pen wonky and I should treat this like art as opposed to dashing off a quick letter to my grandmother. 

I practiced what I expected I would write the most:  the names of my family, my children.  Maya, Finnegan, Ryan.  Mother, father, sister, brother, grandmother, grandfather.  It felt like meditation.

apple orchard

I love the sounds of an orchard:  the thup-thup-thup of my son's feet against the packed earth, the shimmering leaves against each other, the snap of an apple stem.  My kids pounded up and down the aisles, tree limbs whipping by, sun slanting and dappling and doing all that autumn magic.  We filled a sack, sucking on honey sticks, and Maya mountain goat'ed the enormous wooden train in the yard.  Sweet goats snuffling in our palms.  Collecting recipes for apple-things.

oh, autumn, you make me swoon

It's so beautiful as we settle into the briefest of autumns.  Here's the sumac of my blog's namesake, which makes me swoon.  I'm hoping to harvest some for one of my first home dyes, but I'm moving so slowly in gathering the outside materials:  the mordants, the afterbaths, the actual fiber. 

In the meantime, I'm enjoying simply being outside and breathing the fresh air.  Winter is so stinking long here in Minnesota, and I know this is the place I call "home" (after a decade in Tennessee, then a half-decade or so in Wisconsin, Minnesota is now the longest place I've ever lived, and this address is the one I've had the longest of any other)--I still surprise myself every time I find myself missing snow.  Where is the Southern girl in me?  I think she's completely and utterly gone. 

Again, we didn't go camping this summer, which I regret.  Again, I didn't register our canoe and get it out, which I also regret.  But, there is always next summer! 

August and early September are so lovely for all of the wildflowers.  The little asters, the showy goldenrod.  We have to remember all these things when the landscape gets a bit grey.

The mushrooms have been pretty fantastic lately too:  one the size of my hand!  We collected some acorns, hoping no squirrel would come down and shake its mighty fist at us.  We watched for walnut trees to help my bucket (but a week later, our patio was swamped from our neighbor's tree, so I was a bit anxious without need).

The second picture of this lichen is my favorite photo of the day, though I love the ones of my family too.  I just have a thing for this yellow and this pattern of varying circles and oh, autumn, you make me swoon.

And I saved two pictures of us for this post too.  I've decided to be judicious, for the most part, about public sharing (as opposed to my private family blog) of my family, but sometimes I just love the people that are with me too much to not share.  Here's my bear with her papa, the love of my life, and then he took a photograph of me nursing Finn, and I hesitate to include it, since there's that whole bearing-all thing, but it was just one of those moments.  Ryan took the camera and shot randomly (with a macro lens, no less) and at that moment, Finn decided to pull my shirt up, the little punk, and I kept trying to tug it back down.  In the end, you can guess who won. 

wisconsin sheep and wool festival

I think it's safe to say:  I love the sheep.  I get all giddy-girl squee-ish when I see them--I just want to reach out and hug those puffballs and say thank you and I love your wool and want to come and live with me?  Obviously, if three dogs and a cat (and two hooligan children) (they're such cute hooligans) are a tad overwhelming, then perhaps opening our little squiggle of a backyard up to some smelly, messy ruminants probably isn't the wisest idea, so I will stick with my state and county fairs and my festivals and will do a little giddy dance internally so I don't crash all over the place.

The lambs here were only something like three days old.  Little wobbly legs, sweetest little looks, eager tugging at mama's teat.  I looked at those mamas and my look said to them:  I hear you, mama.  I've been there.  In fact, if one of my babes were here right now, I'd be there right with you.  Yank, tug.

I didn't take a slew of photographs of the barns with all of the roving and yarn and oh and swoon and the spindles and the wheels and the carders and oh and the looms and the books!  I was too busy drooling with my eyes.  The first day, we did reconnaissance, though somehow my little Maya, who came along to meet my own mama on this unique take on the girls' weekend, finagled an all-sheepskin ostrich toy out of my mother, and the second day we came armed with patterns and a plan.  And then the plan devolved, but I did leave with some gorgeous sock yarn, some yarn my friend on Facebook said resembled ground beef, and some yarn to make a really amazing sweater for my girl.