Almost three months ago, we lost Nina to kidney failure.  And now? Dulce is in the emergency room at MSU's small animal hospital.  She had a tooth extracted on Monday, and has been going downhill since then.  Sadly, this also reminds me of the death of my first cat, Tija, who died several days after a tooth extraction.  She was 18, and while I was heartbroken, she had lived a full life.  Dulce is 12.  That is not old for an indoors cat.



I hope to get more information soon.  Meanwhile, think good thoughts for my sweet Dulce.

A few weeks ago P surprised me with a trip to Marshall, Michigan.  I was feeling a little clausterphobic and a day-trip was such a great idea!  We had buzzed through Marshall the year before during their WWKIP fiber festival, and I purchased some handspun shetland, some fiber, and four linen handwoven dishclothes. 



Marshall was once proposed as a potential state capitol for Michigan - and apparently the locals thought the deal was done because they built a governor's mansion (now the home of the local DAR).  The bid was lost when the railroad decided to build through Lansing.  The architecture in Marshall is beautiful, and we followed a historic walking tour to explore a bit further.



We saw some houses for sale, including the Cronin House (available for $550k - with only two previous owners - last year it was on the market for $1.2 million)



Somehow, unbeknownst to me, we were in Marshall on the exact same weekend as last year. Score!  Fiber Festival!  This year I came away with two skeins of beautiful angora, wool, silk from Keeping Traditions.   


Beautiful beautiful yarn. Yum.


A sweet, small festival with all local breeders/growers.

 
The llamas kept a close eye on Zeby.  He kept a close eye on them. Hand dyed local roving.

A lovely local weekend!

Knitting has fallen off at the LYH recently - finally some warm weather!  But the fiber-play hasn't stopped here - I have been taking a Rigid Heddle Weaving class at Woven Art for the last few weeks.  Tuesday is my last class - dare I warp one last project?

My first project was a scarf, in Nancy's hand dyed yarn, the warp being Newport (cotton) and the weft Kona Superwash (100% superwash merino wool). 

My selvages were a bit wonky on my first project - not paying attention to how the warp was laid out had much to do with it. And perhaps an eagerness to not have the project look 'sloppy'.


Project 1 was a plain weave beaten to hell and back.  You can barely see the cotton warp between the wool weft.

Project 2 was a slightly wider scarf, and warped with my LissaBeth alpaca yarn grown, spun, and hand dyed in Michigan, and purchased at a local fair.  The weft was 1 ball of Rowan Felted Tweed in color 164 - a light grey with flecks of black in it.

I managed to control myself and did one light beat to give a nice open weave - so that the warp in all its hand dyed wonder would show through clearly.


I have temporarily knotted the ends here before it goes in for a soak to finish it.

I can see great possibilities in blowing through stash yarn at quite a pace.  The only thing is, do I have the energy to maintain a Weavolution account?  I think I might go rummaging in my stash for project 3.

So, it has been a little while since I was in Chicago. That is what happens when you put off blogging!  Some months ago P. made plans to head for Chicago at the beginning of June to see the US Mens Soccer team in a World Cup Qualifier against Honduras.  And since my best friend's husband is also a soccer fanatic, we thought that maybe we could meet in Chicago for a weekend of soccer and yarn!  And as usual we didn't get any pictures of the two of us. 


Chicago Skyline from the river.

P and I drove from Michigan and got to Chicago in time to pick up Jenny and Mr C. from the airport.  After some amazingly brief drives across the city, we were at the MLS stadium watching the Chicago Fire play the Houston Dynamo.  The game was underwelming, but since the tickets were gratis, thanks to Mr. C's amazing professional connections, the seats were fantastic!

Back at the hotel P and Mr. C were checking out some 20ish something guys seated in the lobby.  Once we were in the elevator it all became clear - we were staying in the same hotel as the US men's national team!  From that moment on it became a game to pick out which incredibly fit young men were US soccer players.  It can be fairly difficult to identify some of the players - especially when they aren't in uniform.

On Saturday the guys put on their matching US men's shirts, and we all headed out, again seeing a few soccer players - I believe nods were exchanged.  We spent most of the day walking around Chicago - it was so great to be in a city again!  Jenny and I headed to our first yarn shop of the trip - Loopy Yarns.  I picked up two skeins of Koigu KKPM.  We then headed for the Field Museum to see their Real Pirates exhibit, which was fantastic.  Everywhere we walked (not in the museum, though) we saw Hondurans. Blue and white wigs, blue and white jerseys, blue and white flags.  It was rumored the game would be 60% hondurans, and I think it may have been closer to 70%.  At noon a Honduran fan came up to P and said that he was the first American supporter the Honduran fan had seen all day.  Luckily, soon after lunch we started to see more American supporters.


The largest clump of American supporters in the stadium - dressed in red - largely made up of Sam's Army supporters. As in Uncle.  Here the Honduran Team is warming up on the pitch.

The game was great - the US won after coming back from behind, and we only got a little beer thrown on us from the Honduran fans in the upper decks.  I went quite hoarse trying to make as much noise as possible since the US fans were so outnumbered. Luckily we were in a pocket of Americans and could band together to chant.  P's description of our weekend can be found here. 


Humble Chicago bridge house.  We were seeing multi-million dollar buildings. I loved this humble sage green bridge house.

The next day our party did a cruise-line architectural tour that was just great - a perfectly lazy way to take in all the great buildings of Chicago without having to walk! (Especially since we walked about 8 miles on Saturday!)  After the cruise we checked out of the hotel - at the same time the US men's team was leaving!  Jenny and I rode in the elevator with Frankie Hejduk who is currently on the injured list, but whom I have seen play in Columbus.


Container Garden, Chicago Botanic Gardens

Off to the Chicago Botanic Gardens and Arcadia (for more yarn).  The CBG was so beautiful, I could have spent far more time there than we budgeted for, but oh well, we will go back. 



 A nice surprise was coming out of a canopied part of one of the walks and seeing at a distance an iron bench by Martin Puryear (not the one above) that I was incredibly familiar with, and then on the other side of a hill was the granite version.   When I worked for the gallery in NYC I had the birch one in my office!  Of course, by this time the batteries in my camera were dead, so no pictures in situ.


Waterfall, Chicago Botanic Gardens

So what did I come home with for my stash?


2 Skeins Louet Gems, in Teal and Willow, 1 skein of Lorna's Laces bulky in Huron, (From Arcadia) and my to KPPPM skeins from Loopy Yarns!

For mittens, a hat, and I hang my head in shame....socks.  sigh.

Sunday was a busy day at the Little Yellow House.  Flagstone was moved across the yard, our new compost bin was set up, leaves were taken to the yard waste pile, rocks were dug up and moved, weeding took place, and some junk trees were removed and hauled.  And then I dug up pokeweed.  I am a tired girl.

My green and white garden on the back of the house is filling in beautifully!

New plants are waiting to be planted, and our new composter (the Star Wars robot in the back there) is cooking away!

A few weeks ago we had some very old and spindly yew bushes removed.  Then the stumps were ground out. Then we discovered that the embankment they covered had been planted full of large river rocks. Dang!  Before new landscaping can go in, the rocks would have to come out.


Do you see those holes? DO YOU?!?


Each stone weighed between 10-40lbs.  I dug them up and rolled them into a pile, and P carted them off to another stone pile we have going in the woods.  I am hoping there isn't a second layer under that dirt.  A few stones were reserved and artfully arranged with our lonely sentinel stone in our front yard - to be turned into a small rock garden.  The space above is being planned with a landscape architect.  And P and I will splurge and pay to have someone else do the labor for the planting.

Time to put my feet up!