Kirsti

A year-old tricolor Bernese Mountain Dog puppy looks playfully at the camera with a raccoon dog toy hanging from her mouth.

Thenie is adorable. That is all.

Yesterday, my son and I made the 5 am decision to trek down to Whithorn for the Eden fiber festival. It was cozy, centered more on fiber and spinning than yarn. But even better, Whithorn has amazing history from the Iron age onwards. We will be back. And I managed to take approximately 0 photos.

I already have an appointment to have this painful lump on my finger inspected, but I'm kind of bummed that the logical thing to do is to rest that hand--no fiber arts until at least Monday. 😭

A young Bernese Mountain Dog stands with her head cocked behind a spinning wheel.

Reasons Thenie is barking, #533678: this thing SPINS. In lots of different ways! And Mom is paying attention to it, not me!

A multicoloured bobbin of dark reds, bright teal, rusty orange, and pale teal is mounted on a walnut spinning wheel.

I really like the colours on the new project, especially where they blend into each other. After working with Shetland, this Bluefaced Leicester feels open and loose! I can get it much finer, though, which is something I need to work on with the Shetland.

Last July, I broke a rib (pushing myself up on the couch, which...yeah). Today, I was sitting at my desk when that spot started seriously hurting. It's an arthritis flare, but I've never had one start so suddenly. It's amazing how little you can accomplish when your back is out of commission.

A woman's hand holds for smallish hanks of mottled green Shetland wool plied with a variegated grey, green, and brown wool/alpaca blend.

I finished my Tour de Fleece project a wee bit early, so now I need to decide whether to start something new for the last 4 days or rest on my laurels. Oh, who am I kidding? I'll have something new on the wheel by bedtime tonight. 😆

So if I were to warn you that a cautious but astute shapeshifter who was a bit of a clothes horse had taken an invisibility potion, would I say beware the wary aware wear where werewolf? Asking for a friend. Who is my son. Who is very proud of his joke.

A very small start to a big knitting project featuring stripes of robin's egg blue cashmere and pink alpaca/silk fluff. A hand holds the hem down.

I woke up in a F O U L mood. I tried to interact, but retreated because I was too prickly (thanks, perimenopause!). Instead, I caked alpaca from Eden Cottage Yarns and cashmere from ULA+LIA and started on a shawl from booknits. The softness melted my grump. Texture is everything for my knitting!

A wee embroidered European robin on a black fabric background.

My father just moved into an assisted living situation. My brother said the walls were bare, so I set to work. We've got a complicated relationship, but I guess I still have some compassion left for him.

A shawl with a soft pinkish body and creamy peach lace edging on a headless mannequin against a slate grey background. It is perhaps softer to the touch than it looks, and it seems very squishy.

A better image of the lace on a shawl with a soft pinkish body and creamy peach lace edging on a headless mannequin against a slate grey background. The lace is an alpaca blend that fluffs into the stitches. It is perhaps softer to the touch than it looks, and it seems very squishy.

So I finished a Thing. Hopefully, with the final clue out and folks starting to finish, a potential spoiler is ok. #RomiMystery25

Earlier this week, I was able to use language I've learned as a parent to grant myself a bit of space and grace to recover from sensory overload. It's a small win, but in a world where my chances of a diagnosis are miniscule, learning to support myself is a huge step.

Blue laceweight, single-ply yarn has been spun on a walnut spinning wheel.

Having a pup named Athena reminds me never to show hubris in the fiber arts, but I am cautiously very pleased with how this art batt from Sealy Macwheely is spinning up. She outdid herself with this gorgeous colour!

A romp of otters plays around a stump. One otter has climbed to the top of the stump and has their paws outstretched. Steve is an expressive speaker.

Please try to listen to Steve's speech. He's doing his best.

Hedy, a headless and armless black mannequin, sports a woven scarf in shades of teal and green. The warp is a slightly darker shade of teal.

I made this from yarn I also made from an art batt I bought from Sealy Macwheely in Wales despite attending a weekly knit and natter at her shop in Kirky until she went on maternity leave.

Two pattern pieces for a doll-sized coat face each other. One shows the correct side facing out; the other, the very obviously wrong side.

Lest anyone make the mistake of thinking I'm smart, this is what I cut from my mother's jeans to make a coat for a bunny for my niece. I don't have the fabric to recut it from denim. 🤦🏼‍♀️

Fortunately, I got extra meterage on the fabric I bought for dresses. This bunny will just be extra matchy-matchy.

I've figured out that spinning is a meditative break, so I decided to start playing with the various wheel sizes on Elissa. This is the smaller drive wheel, bigger side of the bobbin. I'm pretty pleased with it. It's just undyed BFL as I'm playing and not working towards anything.

My pretty girl. Fifteen years young and accompanying me to Wales for a yarn festival as a break from the Berner juggernauts. ❤️

Bobbin. App???

Thank you! I'm just learning, so having an entire app of *relatively* consistent yarn is a real achievement. ❤️

Burgundy yarn is tangled in the remains of a tabletop swift, which has come apart into individual pieces.

Well, this was a...start to a shawl called Radical Acceptance (by Romi Hill). The center post of my swift came unscrewed. 🤦🏼‍♀️

A walnut spinning wheel sits in front of a white wall and white shelves. There are floral fabric bins in the lowest cubbies of the shelf.

A spinning wheel bobbin filled to the brim with fairly evenly spun yarn in shades of pink, peach, and purple.

I've been kind of nervous about how open this platform is, but look! I did a thing! This is Elissa, and we are a great match. ❤️

And that's also why I haven't had a lot to say about any of....*gestures* THIS. I do not have the energy.

There's a mountain of catch-up, and it's demoralizing, both from a shame standpoint that things got so bad and decision paralysis about where to start making it better. And on top of it all, my energy levels still aren't where they were last spring, so I can do less but there's more to do.

It's amazing how sometimes, it takes coming out of a slump to see how bad it really was. Was I fighting long COVID? Burnout? Depression? Perimenopause? Scottish winter? I'm not even sure I'll ever know. I do know it's like slowly waking up from a drugged sleep, and there's SO MUCH that slipped.

I'm still coming to terms with the open nature of the Bluesky format, but I'll do my best to be more active. TBH, my life's pretty dull anyway.

That feeling when you get super bright white embroidery floss for a project (B5200, you fellow embroiderers/cross stitchers), then immediately drop it in your coffee.

... Fortunately, it was in a Ziploc that actually did its job.

This girl takes mud and makes it an art form.

(I should note the larger context here, myself: Sif is an amazing Australian Shepherd who defies stereotypes by being steady, patient, kind, slow, and, ummm... Slow. She's the best and I adore her with all my heart, but she does have her...Foibles.)

Long ago, Sif produced a headless rabbit, then barfed the head up later. I was upset.

And that's why Sif feels she is Not Allowed to eat the rabbit-based breakfast I just gave her. She's smart enough to remember she got in trouble, dumb enough that context has no meaning.

Bless. Her. Heart.