Life in the fast lane

(Moonrise over the farm)

At least that's how it seems these past few weeks.....which I know is pretty laughable to some of you who work full time away from home and also manage to maintain things on the home front. I'm such a homebody and cherish my quiet time on the farm, but it's been a whirlwind of activities during the month of May.  I can't really complain because everything that's been going on has been so much fun.  I'm just feeling a little disorganized and behind in the chore department.   I've discovered that those chores don't seem to go anywhere.  They sit there waiting until I get myself together and starting working on them-which can be bad or good, depending on how you look at it.

(some flowers in progress)

(Marlene and I made these beauties)

Last Friday I had so much fun in Nicola Brown's felting workshop that was held at Jan Durham's house.  I went with a very small goal. I wanted to learn to make felt flowers and I accomplished that, plus had such a fun day with my table-mate, Marlene Williams.  Everyone else worked very hard on bigger projects like nuno felted scarves and iPad cases, but we were content to play along with our flowers.  I'm very happy to know how to do these now and can see unlimited possibilities for using them as embellishment on lots of things. Nicola is always fun to take a workshop with and if you ever have the opportunity, jump on it.  She's gone on to teach in California right now, then will be returning home to Ireland after that.  I'm hoping she'll be back in Kentucky to teach again this time next year.

I've got more good stuff getting ready to happen and I'll be back soon with news about that.  Happy summer everyone!

(Haven't tried duplicating these poppies in felt, but I'm thinking about it!)

(my beloved peonies are blooming-avert your eyes from the weeds!)

 So, it's back to real life.  The Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival is behind us and it was pretty terrific - the best yet!  I saw so many of you and met lots of new folks and answered the question, "What kind of sheep are those?" at least a hundred times.  Everyone who got a look at my girls in their pen wondered where they got those gorgeous curly locks.  For the record, they are half Wensleydale and they've got luster and curls galore.  My grand-daughter, Jordan, was a fantastic help the whole weekend and grandson, Coleman, pitched in on Saturday and Saturday evening for the Farm-to-Table dinner.  It was great fun having them around.

(Carson enjoying the view of growing, growing grass)

So what's happening around the farm this week?  Mostly regrouping, reorganizing and gearing up for the next event on the calendar.  What's not happening?  Mowing .... mowing that desperately needs doing.  Mike reminded me last night that I'm always in this agitated frame of mind in May and early June because the grass it growing and it's raining and getting the timing right for mowing is so difficult.  We've even hired a little help this year and are still struggling to hit a day when he's available to come mow and it's not too wet.  Our farm is one of those "picturesque", hilly places that makes mowing a bit of an adventure, even when it's dry.  You do not attempt it when the ground is wet.  Mike also reminded me that this phase will pass and soon enough the grass-growing frenzy will slow down.

Tomorrow I'm off for a felting class.  The fabulous Nicola Brown is here from Ireland again and I'm taking one of her workshops.  Honestly, Nicola is so much fun to be around, I'd take the workshop even if I didn't already know I was going to learn so much!  Nicola comes to the states for teaching gigs at least once a year and we're so lucky to be on her itinerary.

So, here's a question.  If you knew you were going to have only two days to spend in New York City, what would you want to see and do?  That's going to be part of my next adventure and I'm having trouble making a plan.  I need help!

The joy of making friends while dyeing

I hardly know where to begin.  This past Thursday, Friday and Saturday Tanglewood Farm was the gathering place for a natural dye workshop and it was such a great experience.  Dagmar Klos, who wrote the Dyer's Companion came here from Chicago to teach twelve of us the joys of dyeing wool with natural dyes.  We learned to do the math (it wasn't too scary!), prepare our fiber and the dye matter and so much, much more.  I'll confess that beforehand I was a little worried about how the studio would accommodate that many of us for three full days and if people would enjoy themselves while they were here.  I needn't have worried.  It turned out to be the most wonderful group of women and by the time it was over, I felt I had gained a new group of kindred spirit friends.  The camaraderie and teamwork displayed during the three days of the workshop were examples of every good thing I know about a group of women coming together for a common interest.  One of the best things I noticed was that though we ranged in age from 30's to 60's and many different walks of life,  every single person spent time in one-on-one conversation and sharing with everyone else.  Thank so much to all of you who braved the country roads and lack of road signs (!) to find your way here.


I can't say enough good things about Dagmar.  If you ever have the opportunity* to take a workshop from her, jump on it!  She's such a good teacher.  She's warm and encouraging and keeps you focused and on task with just the right amount of direction.  This was a very hands-on workshop.  We learned by Dagmar patiently taking us through each step of the process.   Added to that, she was the very best kind of house guest (and was even willing to eat leftovers on her last night with us!).  (*You should make a note right now because if all goes as planned, she'll be coming back to teach at the 2014 Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival!)

 I'm pretty sure Dagmar has never had to conduct a class in the kind of working conditions I presented her with.  We spent time around the table in the studio to begin each day, but after that we were mostly in the barn aisle with our dye pots.  Between Luna being part of the class on one day and the alpaca boys continually peering at us over the fence, to the birds flying in and out of the barn over our heads all day,  our natural dyeing class was surrounded by nature.  She was a great sport about it and never complained.

I'm going to take this opportunity to thank great friends for helping me feed everyone while they were here.  David saw to it that we had fabulous food from Shaker Village (everyone especially loved the tomato celery soup), Mary Cherrey baked her famous banana bread and cookies to help fuel us up every morning and Teresa presented us with an elegant lunch on Saturday that had everyone thinking they'd been invited to a fancy Derby party!  I can't tell you how many times people told me how lucky I was to have such good friends who are fabulous cooks!  (Believe me, I know how lucky I am!)

K. Crane was my partner in crime for this workshop.  It all happened because we had a conversation about how fun it would be to have a natural dye workshop here at the farm.  K. volunteered that she knew Dagmar and would be happy to talk to her about coming to Kentucky sometime in the spring.  And the rest, as they say, is history.  K. was instrumental in helping me get it all set up and she also spent a considerable amount of time skeining up half of the 900 mini-skeins we needed to have prepared ahead of time.  (I'll confess that I used making mini-skeins as my excuse for watching many years worth of "Monarch of the Glen" within a 3 day period!) Thanks so much K. for all your hard work.

(Chris and Robyn cooking their stinky bugs - cochineal)

(our indigo solution)

(So many glorious colors - all from natural dyes!)

I have lots of pictures to share from the workshop and will be posting those later this week.  My friend Sara came out on Friday and took some really good pictures that I want to share.  (I'm not so great at taking pictures when things are happening around me - these were all snapped with my iPhone.) 

Common Ground

Last night, as part of my working on the entertainment committee for the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival in May, we went out for a casual dinner with our friends, Richard and Teresa, to a local barbeque place.  The owner is a big supporter of bluegrass music and a fine banjo player himself, so there is nearly always live bluegrass music on the stage.  I was hoping for the chance to talk to him about scheduling some good bands to play at the festival.  Unfortunately, he wasn't there last night, so I'm still working on that, but the evening turned out to be good for several reasons.  We don't often find ourselves in places where there might be live honky-tonk music being played, but that's what we got last night and it was fun.  (Plus, the barbeque was excellent!)  The band,  Kentucky Hoss Cats, played a good selection of what I would call "classic country" (Merle Haggard, Hank Williams, Sr.) and were quite good and entertaining to watch.  (I have little to no tolerance for the "new" country sound, but love the old-timers like Patsy Cline and Merle Haggard.)  So, here's what I'm finally getting to in the title of this post.  Feeling a little out of my element, what would you guess might make me feel I had something in common with the folks sitting around us?  Why, discovering another fiber person, that's what!  Just before our food arrived at the table, I was looking around the room and here's what I saw, sitting under the big screen television that was showing the University of Kentucky basketball game.

(Don't you love the glance from the guy down the way?"

This is Albert and as soon as we saw him, Teresa and I were all about getting to talk to him and admire his crocheting.  Albert told us that he knits too, but finds crochet more relaxing (it has the opposite effect on me, mainly because I don't know what I'm doing!)  When I asked if it would be okay to take his picture and blog about meeting him, he didn't even hesitate to give me his okay.  In what other context would that have been possible?  Not many that I know of.  I feel like I made a new friend in the fiber community and the whole experience makes me smile every time I think about it.

It also makes me think I need to haul out my yarn and knit pretty much anywhere I feel like it.  That doesn't make me quite as brave as Albert, but I'm going to work on it.  Who knows how many nice people I might get to meet!