Lucky Ewe in Gruene

Of course, one of the most important parts of the Gruene trip was finding the yarn store, The Lucky Ewe. It’s a nice size and has some good yarn, but they also had weaving and spinning equipment, which I always like to see, and a great line of naturally dyed yarn called Wool Tree – I may be going back for that.

The woman minding the store overheard me talking about weaving with my mother and showed me a great new book – Color and Texture in Weaving. I’ve only been able to flip through it so far, but it looks amazing. I haven’t been paying enough attention to weaving for the past few years – I still don’t have a loom so my interest in weaving has been left to smolder, but just looking briefly at the book has restarted my fire.

I also picked up a skein of Malabrigo Sock. You may remember me grousing about a pair of mitts in the fall with a thumb gusset that was making me mental. They were in Mal Sock too, and if I’m honest I wanted an excuse to frog them and draw a line under the whole affair. Getting the new Pink is my excuse. They’re a bit blinding when put together, but they make my brain spark with ideas for colorwork!

I want to reskein the green and wash it, but then I’ll be good to go!

Lucky me.

Wool

Back in the fall, Our Lady Beth of the Comments recommended Wool to me. I cannot even begin to tell you how right she was.

The entire world is the silo. One hundred and forty-four floors stretching deep into the earth – farms, bazaars, schools, generators, and more all spiraling away from the central staircase. The Up Top Cafeteria is special though – its walls are covered with a huge screen showing what the four video cameras capture – the four video cameras Outside. The only other room in the silo with this readout is the Up Top holding cell right next door.

The book begins with Sheriff Holston walking into the jail, getting his deputy, and locking himself in the holding cell. He tells his deputy to get the mayor: he wants to go outside.

Wool has an amazing sense of place. It is very much about the setting and Howey does an incredible job with all of the ins and outs of the silo. It feels real in ways that lots of apocalyptic fiction miss.

There’s a large cast of characters you connect with right away and they’re not people I’ve met before in other books. The chapters about different characters are all written slightly differently, they aren’t in that chapter’s central character’s voice, but they are reflective of the character, and the Holston chapters in particular are absolutely beautiful.

The story goes in places I didn’t expect and doesn’t shy away from horror and darkness. In a story that takes place almost entirely underground, it better go to some dark places.

I loved this book and even though I have been crazy busy I read it in very few days. I put it down and then was immediately sorry I had read it, because now I’ve lost the pleasure of reading it for the first time. And if I wasn’t so busy, and didn’t have more books to read for future Tell Me A Story posts, I would be reading it again right now.

Thanks, Beth. Homerun.

FF Challenge 1 Video 1: Knit Your Life

Hey everyone – the videos for the first challenge have posted on The Fiber Factor website!

Here’s the link to my video, if you’ve ever wanted to know more about me!

And yes, that’s me singing in the background. Please be kind! ;)

I love the videos of the other contestants too – people who watch closely will see that Terri Rosenthal talks about the Loudoun County Courthouse and in my video I say that I grew up in Loudoun County. As it turns out, we’re from the same county and I went to high school with her kids (though I didn’t know them)! Small world, eh?

The other contestants all seem like great people and I can’t wait till next week’s videos post – I want to know what they’re working on!

Gruene as in Green

A few weeks ago my folks were here and that gave me a great excuse to play the tourist. My favorite day was when we went down to Gruene, near New Braunfels and San Antonio. I hadn’t ever been there before, and I wish I had known about it two years ago – it’s now my favorite place in Texas, barring Barton Springs Pool.

There’s an old dance hall right in the middle of town with the water tower behind. They still have dances there and it suddenly occurred to me that Night at the Gruene, my favorite design from Musings from Mercury Hall, was named after this place. Yeah, it only took me . . . a year and a half? to work it out.

Gruene was a company town; Mr. Gruene was a cotton grower and basically everyone worked for him in some capacity. Naturally, almost everything is named for him.

We had lunch at The Grist Mill, which was absolutely wonderful. The food was amazing, but the best part was eating out on the back patio, perched up on the woodsy hill above the river.

I loved all of the white cast iron around this B&B.

My favorite shop was Buck Pottery. It reminded me of my favorite mug, bought at Waterford Fair years ago, and my folks made me a present of a beautiful mug. It’s much larger than my Waterford Fair mug and is perfect for a nice big cup of tea and honey.

One of the reasons I liked it so much might have been because it was overcast, cool, and breezy the day we were there. As you may know, if it were overcast, cool, and breezy in hell I would probably say how charming I found it all.

Gruene has artist fairs quite often, and depending on how I’m fixed for The Fiber Factor this weekend I may run down to check out the April Artist Fair. I’d really like to go, but I have a certain amount of work that MUST be finished beforehand!

 

Waiting Room Socks

I started these back in February and they’ve just been riding around with me in a wee project bag in my purse. They are so named because I had a fair few doctor appointments for a couple of weeks there, but now that’s all over with (I had to have minor surgery, but I’m fine now.)

And even better, the socks are finished!

They’re another pair of Gentlemen’s Fancy Socks from Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush. They are essentially just like the pattern, but now when I make a slipped stitch heel, I slip on the purl side of the work instead of the knit side. It’s much faster.

All of the patterns I’m working on right now need to be done in front of the computer so I can take notes as I knit, which means I need another pair of purse socks. I know I said I was finished with them, but I accidentally cast on a pair of Roadside Attraction socks, in some Jitterbug I have from way back. For those of you playing the home game, that will make four pairs.

But the yarn is orange . . . they’re going to look so great . . .

 

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