Feels Like Fall

Though we're due to have highs in the upper 80s later in the week, this past weekend felt decidedly fall-like. We had some much-needed rain overnight on Friday, with some lingering sprinkles and a chilly breeze on Saturday morning. And it was in the mid-40s when we got up on Sunday! But the sun came out both days and warmed things up enough.

On Saturday morning, the Mister had to go help a friend with some computer/internet stuff, so Molly (she's said I can now use her full name on the blog!) and I went to the art festival and met up with my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. There was a lot of good stuff to see -- including my high school U.S. history teacher, who retired from teaching a couple of years ago and now makes jewelry! I did find the potter I was looking for and picked up a couple of pieces:

The lighting isn't doing these pieces any justice, but it was the best of several attempts. The one on the left is a spoon rest; I accidentally broke the one we had several months ago, and we'd been making do ever since with some silicone ones the Mister found on Amazon. This sweet one with the goldfinch is so much nicer and coordinates with the mug I already had (it has the same branches and leaves without any birds). The one on the right is a small-ish serving platter, about the right size for a wedge of cheese and some crackers or clusters of grapes or a selection of cookies, for example. I have quite a few large serving platters but very few smaller ones, and I thought this was such a pretty design.

We also found an artist who makes some really gorgeous batik pieces and bought a couple prints:

The photographer was slanted, not the artwork.

Molly loved the one on the left, so we will likely find a frame for it and put it in her room. I picked the one on the right -- definitely click the photo to enlarge it so that you can see that those lines in the top two-thirds of the image are tree trunks!

Much of my crafting time over the weekend was spent at my wheel, and I have two finished bobbins of singles to show for it:

This was a pretty quick spin, one in which I wasn't too concerned about consistency or smoothness (though I did pull out some of the add-ins when they were too bulky or rough). I have no idea what weight of yarn this will ply to or how much I will have, but it doesn't really matter; this is an instance of spinning the yarn that the fiber wanted to be and then finding a suitable pattern to go with it.

I also came into some new yarn this weekend. Now, you all know that I've been trying to work from stash whenever possible, and I've actually bought very little yarn in the past year or so. But I suddenly have a lot of baby gifts to knit, and as Molly has used up nearly all of my solid and semisolid partial skeins and leftovers in the scrappy granny square blanket she's been crocheting, I did have much suitable on hand. Fortuitously, Lisa of Fibernymph Dye Works was running an end-of-summer sale last week, so I ordered three skeins of DK in baby-suitable semisolid shades. The order was placed Wednesday afternoon, it was in the mail by Thursday, and it was delivered Friday evening. Occasionally the USPS does something right!

In addition to knitting for my niece, I have a coworker expecting a baby around the same time, I still haven't knit anything for a cousin who just had a baby this summer (I sent a board book about Andy Warhol because I didn't have anything on hand to knit at the time), and some of our neighbors also recently had a baby. For the sake of simplicity and speed, I expect all will be getting hats, which will also leave me some of these three skeins for future needs.

I expect the big work project to return this week (though apparently it's being cut in length by about half), and I also have Curriculum Night at Molly's school to look forward to on Thursday evening. I'll be continuing to work on the lace baby blanket whenever possible, and with any luck, I'll get to ply those singles in the next couple of days. Have a good start to your week, and see you back here on Wednesday!