Waiting for the Blizzard

I said I was going to call this post, Blue Balls.  Well, they are.  I've been making them and dipping them in my dye jar, in a double boiler, watching the dye move into the wool, where it dangles from a string, at just the right depth, from a chopstick.   I hold the dye bath at the simmer until the right shade  appears.  It's a good job for someone like me who generally likes to spend a lot of time just standing-there-a-lookin' (from my old favorite folk song about that fine man, Old Dan Tucker).

So far, the blizzard hasn't amounted to much, but it's sure to fall tonight. Meanwhile I'll show you this new store activity:  a paper snowflake cutting station. We have recycled butter paper, and scisssors.  Anyone who comes in can take a pair and start snipping.  So far  some young girls cut flakes, a grandmother, a woman I don't know who was proud of her flake,  and a man who hadn't made a snowflake in years and years.  Elizabeth, my good friend, came in and we cut snowflakes together while we caught up on the news of our lives, occasionally pausing for the reveal of each newer, better, more pointed snowflake.  I call it fun!  Let the clippings fall to the floor.  They look like more snow.   Snow on snow on snow.

Back to Felt

Lately my UPS driver comes up the driveway after dark,  delivering boxes of things I've ordered for the store, to my back porch,  just as I'm cooking supper.  I've been cleaning, crowding things on to shelves in the store.  Now is the time to hang my tin stars up around my porch, before the weather finally changes to cold.  I love to see them twinkling there, and it's almost Christmas again.

I've been weaving scarves and potholders, and felting and dyeing wool.  This little set of trees emerged  last week, and I'm pretty pleased with how comical they look.  Each one with its own attitude, as they wobble on dyed cotton chenille stems,  rooted in a small chunk of birch branch, with a little glitter snow.  My hands are very, very clean.