Sunrise / Sunset

Jim and I are spending some well deserved R&R time in the Adirondacks at Loonhaven Cottage. We drove up yesterday in lovely sunshiney weather, were greeted by a red bodied dragonfly almost camoufloged on the red dock,

then settled in for reading and snacks and dinner and quiet.  Cole is taking care of the buns and the kitties while Baz came with us.  Baz loves it up here as much as we do.  

This morning we woke up to a glorious sunrise gilding the Tamaracks across the lake.

Then this afternoon we ventured down to Old Forge to the View, which used to be called the Old Forge Arts Center, to view the annual quilt show featuring 84 traditional, wall and art quilts, mostly from NYS but some from elsewhere too.

The quilt on the bed is being raffled off.  I love this display.  In the old center, the raffle quilt was hung in the stairwell but this shows it off way better.

Some of my favorite quilts were:

Seaway Avenue by Clara Pope of Syracuse

1st Place in Bed quilts, Best in Show and the Silver Needle Award

Majestic Mountains by Allison Brown-Cestero from San Antonio, received Honorable Mention in Bed Quilts. Until I actually took its picture I could have sworn this quilt's 12, 3, 6 and 9 o'clock points went outside the frame.

7 Green Quilts by Bethany Krawec of Upeer Jay, NY received 2nd Place in Bed quilts.  This was done as a club and learning experience in parts.  Bethany then decided to place the 6 parts as though they were completed quilts overlapping on a bed creating the 7th quilt.

Dragonfly Windows by Julia Masters Deisinger of North Syracuse.  The photo doesn't come closer to doing this one justice as the dragonflies are 3 dimensional and the piece itself is spectacular.

ADK Pond by Linda Swanekamp of Buffalo was my fav of all the pieces I saw.  It's hand and machine embroidered but neither comes up well in the photo. Got me to remembering my own machine and hand embroidered art quilts and bemoaning the fact that my Pfaff will not do these things for me.  sigh

In a special nature room are live mosses, stuffed birds, photographs and ceramic sculptures depicting many areas and animals of the Adirondacks.

Open House by Mary Yodeer shows a hollowed out tree stump containing mushrooms, a mouse, a toad and a visiting bird with a snake climbing up the outside.

Resting Hare by Mary Philpott is full of texture and color.  She used several glazes and engobes to get the effect.  It seems to be quite accurate anatomically too.

We ended the day with some homemade clam chowder, with Jim going upstairs to watch baseball playoffs, with me reading the latest Andy Carpenter mystery and Basel fast asleep on the rug.

Festival Recap

Doing 2 back-to-back Fiber Festivals takes stamina and energy.  I am happy to report that Jim and I are not only alive but happy campers too.

We picked up T in Ithaca and had a nice uneventful drive to Hemlock, NY.

Here's our booth at the Finger Lakes Fiber Festival at the start of Saturday's show.

And Jim and T spindling away.

Apologies for not getting the name of this young lady who looks so good in the Starflower Beret.

FLFF was fantastic and the weather too.  Major thanks to T as we couldn't have done it without you.

We spent Monday - Thursday trying to fill in on stock.  It was a happy thing to need to do but very long hours each day.

Then on Friday morning we set off for Greenwich and the upper Hudson, finally arriving 5 hours and many road construction delays later.  Those are the Green Mountains in the distance as we come into Schuylerville.

Our booth at the Southern Adirondack Fiber Festival with Aaron as our assistant for the weekend.

On the other side of the black curtain was felting demos both days.

Plus the spinning nuns from St Mary's were back with their cashmere goats.

The weekend was good, friendly and our new location helped a lot.  Major thanks to Aaron and his friend, David, who traveled down from Montreal.  Fun to share time with you both.

Jim decided that we would travel home on the 2 sides of the triangle (Albany to Syracuse, Syracuse to Homer to Ithaca) and leave the hypoteneuse (rt 88) to the road construction.  The mileage may have been longer but the time sure wasn't.  

The clouds, as we drove along the Mohawk River, were delightfully dramatic.

Now to catch up on paperwork, pet Basel a lot, put the shop back to rights and prep for the next show.

And the Fed Ex guy just dropped off our newest yarn.  Stay tuned.

Loaded up

Ready to go!

Finger Lakes Fiber Festival

Hemlock Fairgrounds, Hemlock, NY

Sept 15 & 16, Sat 10 - 5 and Sun 10 - 4

Barn A. Go down past the big white tent and a bit to the right.  We are in Barn A across the aisle from the llamas, next booth in after the quilts.

Southern Adirondack Fiber Festival

Washington County Fairgrounds, Greenwich, NY

September 22 & 23, Saturday & Sunday, 10 -5 each day

Building 21, Booths 24 & 25, left aisle, 3rd booth on the right.

Physical Shop will be closed both Fesitval weekends.

Water

 Sunday
8am
Water in faucet went to a trickle while I was starting to rinse the next to the last batch. Checked other faucets and got even less water.  OH NO!

8:30am

Pump is only 2 years old so we looked elsewhere.  

Switch in the basement hole was corroded. 

10:30am 

Jim went to Lowes and got another, 

1pm 

switch installed and still no water.

1:30pm

Pressure tank now not working. 

2:30pm

Jim went to Lowes and got another.  

3:30pm

Tractor wouldn't start so Jim used the dolly to get the tank down 2 levels to the basement.

Tank uses 1inch pipe and we have 0.75

4pm

Jim went to Lowes to get connectors.

6:30pm

Tank is installed but still no water.  Primer works but nothing happens.

Lowes is now closed.

Monday morning

9am

Pulling 125 feet of hosing and electrical lines out of the well. Strung it out down the driveway.

11am

Pump tests OK but still no water.

Noon

Jim went to Lowes and got new electrical line and other just in case parts.

4:30pm

 The casing collapsed on the top of the pump.

Jim went to Lowes and got another,

10pm

 All installed and now we have water.

36 hours without water and now we wait for it all to settle.  

We can drink it today but tonight we need to add clorox because the well was open for so long.

Made in America

Let me start by saying that I have no problems at all with items made in other countries for companies that are based in that country and then sold here. I think everyone who wants to work should have that opportunity.  What I have problems with is American corporations who close American plants, let go the workers and then outsource those jobs overseas for a pittance of what they would pay an American worker, yet sell the items here for the same old price, therefore garnering themselves a hefty profit.

When I find those companies I try to avoid purchasing from them if I can find something just as good or substitutable that is made here or just do without.  That is one reason I do not enter Walmart, but that's a whole 'nother discussion on why a company pays its workers so little that they need food stamps to survive.

I have been using iContact for my newsletters for 4 years now.  Over that time I have called their Help line several times and always gotten great help, even on the weekends.  Recently their website was being funky so I called again.  The answers I received seemed to be rather pat, sort of like she was reading them.  Odd, and then I realized that English was not the woman's first language.  I then asked her where she was and she told me "In the Philippines."  Odd again, as the last guy I spoke with had a southern US accent and I know this company is based in the south.  I wound up calling several times as the answers were really not helpful and so finally asked for a supervisor.  He also told me he was in the Phillippines. I have no problem with those folks having a nice job, but I do with people who are repeating stock answers and not solving my problem.

Then I realized that iContact had OUTSOURCED its Help staff, putting quite a few Americans out of work.  NO NO NO NO. I will not be helping some CEO to buy his second yacht. Immediately I instituted a web search for other reputable newsletter hosts.

I asked a bunch of questions and found ConstantContact who have offices in Boston, MA, Colorado and the UK and have no intention of outsourcing any of their staff.  I spoke with a couple of their people who were ever so helpful in guiding me through removing my extensive email list from iContact and uploading it to ConstantContact.  They also helped me start a new newsletter template, learn their imagery system and were generally quite pleasant and easy to work with.  All this to let you know that tomorrow's and future newsletters will be hosted by this company who I hope to work with for a long time.

Spinning Bunny is also now listed with Americanmadeeverything.com.

Annual Demo at the NYS Fair

There's a tiny old building, called the Wool Center, squeezed between several others at the NYS State Fair. It's really only a couple of rooms with garage doors at either end but has served quite well through the years for all kinds of demos having to do with wool.

My guild, the Black Sheep Handspinners, take on one day each year to demo wheel and spindle spinning in this building.  Jim and I have been doing this for the last 3 years.  The first 2 were so hot we thought about not going again.  Really sticky, muggy, in the 90's, hot is not too wonderful for spinning wool but this year the temps were merely in the 80's and sometimes clouds blocked the blasting sun so it was fun and always interesting talking to folks wandering by.

I got to eat greasy expensive yam fries.  Jim had a humongmous fried haddock sandwich and Deirdre  got some excellent coffee with real cream.  I also indulged in fresh squeezed lemonade and a people watching walk around the area.  Other than that it was 4 hours of spinning with no phone calls or internet to interrupt us, just pleasant folks asking good questions.

That was my view from behind the picket fence.

A weaver answering questions.

Sharon and Sue getting ready for the afternoon shift.

Hard to see but these two stands had bacon everything -- batter fried, dipped in chocolate, etc.

And we couldn't have done it without our faithful Dolly.

Ravellenic Gold!!

Yesterday I received this:

Following the link I came to:

**PODIUM**