I really do love candy, I just finished up a bag of M&M as a matter of fact! (Not a good thing to do, but chocolate was needed.) The very first time my sister ever showed me wool roving I just could not get over how much it looked like cotton candy. I wanted to eat it SO much. I still believe that fiber looks like cotton candy, and last year I even made some Ravelry ads that featured my roving dressed up to look like cotton candy.

The Phat Fiber theme for this month is “Meet me at the Fair” so, of course, I had to do cotton candy:

So what do you think? Real or not?  Okay – that’s the real thing–we went to Dave’s company picnic last night and the girls favorite “activity” there is eating the free cotton candy

My cotton candy is not quite that authentic, but I think it is pretty darn close!

Perhaps it is a little pinker than the real life cotton candy and it doesn’t “melt” nearly as quickly but I think it is cool.  I think the darker pink will make it a bit more fun to spin than the paler real life company picnic cotton candy was much closer to white which is good for food, bad if you are trying to advertise your dyeing.  (I wish I could get a matching photo with the girls pretending to eat the fiber candy, but the weather and our schedules are not cooperating.)  So I’m sending off 30 of these cotton candy samples and then a bunch of “Tilt-a-Whirl” samples.  Before I send them though I need to hunt down a bigger box, as you can see they overflowith from this one:

Here are what the labels look like on the backsides:

Did you notice how I had previously alluded to the weather not cooperating?  Well, it is totally crazy! On this, the last day of July, we have already (before noon) had 2 inches of rain!  This is the month where we have already had over 10 inches of rain!  If June was the cloudiest month ever, this July is certainly the rainiest month ever.  This is just not the best of situations for a solar dyer!  And as I’ve said every month so far this year, next month has GOT to be better!  We are counting on you August!  You are going to have shine!

We may not have liked the cool, wet weather in June, but the ldayilies sure did!  It is a fabulous lily year and the Red Volunteers have outdone themselves!

My mom asked why my lilies look so much better than hers. I told her that it is because really – they are my main flower. I have like a 10 by 10 garden and she must have at least an acre of gardens if you were to put them all together.  I also put composted cow manure on them in the spring.  I think she locked into that.

And even the little Siloam Merle Kents are taking off with a record number of buds.

Ok, I’ll admit, I was orginally just going to post these photos to Facebook, but Facebook didn’t seem to want them tonight, so in my blog they are!  I don’t think my blog would be complete without some July daylily posts though.  I love to go through and see the flowers in previous years and If you would like to check them out here in the are in 2008, 2007, and 2006.  Hummmm… I think what these posts are telling me is that it is time to add a couple of new varieties!  We will need to add a trip to Olallie Daylily Gardens to our Vermont vacation agenda this year.

So, I’ve been a little sparce on the meat of this blog lately so maybe I’ll take a few minutes to fill you in on what’s up in our little corner of Connecticut.  Dave and I bumped into Agent B’s Girl Scout leader on our “date” to Lowe’s the other night and she asked us how our summer is going.  Before I could even stop myself, I said “Fast!”  I said that.  Can you believe it?  I don’t think I have ever said that before. (Well, before we had children, that is.)  It truly does seem to be going by fast though!  I have so much to do and I just can’t keep up with it all.  I’m sure most of that is due to the atrocious weather we had in June.  Pretty much the whole month of June, I just did what I had to do to get by and everything else…. Well,  I just let  everything else wait for  “that sunny day.”  Now that all the days are sunny–they are crammed packed full!

Another thing that is different this year  is that the girls seem to “go off” more by themselves. They are not constantly buzzing around me but sometimes I actually have to go hunt them down when I need them.   They are busy too – Agent B has already been to sleep away camp, Agent K had her first summer job picking strawberries and now she has  just returned from Field Hockey camp at UCONN (her team won the tournament!) and Agent J is just busy painting everything in sight.  I can’t even keep a box around anymore without her wanting to paint it!  They also come to work with me at the library quite a bit because the theme is Be Creative @ our Library and they need a lot of volunteers to help the younger children with their crafts and stuff.

So, when I look ahead to the rest of the summer, it just seems like it will continue to fly by.  We’re going to the beach this Wednesday, then next week K and B have parks and rec field hockey camp.  We then have our fun filled week in Vermont with my sister and her husband. As soon as we return home K is off to camp again for 2 weeks then there is pre-season field hockey and then school starts! That is it!  The end is in sight and there will be fun along the way!  (Okay – we will see what I’m saying by the end of August!)

I’ve also been very busy with dyeing now that the sun is out.  I hope to have more Etsy shop updates in the next 2 weeks, so if you are a customer, keep watching!  I have stuff ready to go, I promise.  I’m also getting ready to start making my samples for the August Phat Fiber box. The theme is Meet Me at the Fair and I’ll bet the  you will never guess that I’m making Cotton Candy!  It should be fun as soon as I get myself organized and started. This weekend for sure.

And FALL KNITTING! I’ve been thinking about fall knitting. I even have my eye on a particular pattern.  Have you seen this one? 

It is Nonpareil by Borroco in a yarn called Blackstone Tweed.  Apparently, the yarn is not in stores yet, but will arrive in fall shipments.  At the yarn shop I visited yesterday, they had a sample ball and it is fairly soft for a tweedy yarn which is probably due to the angora in it.  And no, in case you are wondering, I have not finished my Spring knitting project yet, but I do hope to take some photos soon for a blog post and I also want to take some photos of Sock Blankie because he is growing! Slowly but surely, he is turning into a Sock Blankie big enough to cover a lap.

I’ve managed a little spinning this summer. Nothing like a Tour de Fleece–more like tour of my backyard or something, but spinning none-the-less.

This is Robes of Autumn hand painted bfl silk roving by ArtemisArtemis from New Zealand.  The colors are fun and it is easy to spin.  I’ve actually been spinning this while watching True Blood episodes which I have been Netflixing this summer.  True Blood is a highly addictive show which I must confess will cut this blood blog post short because I must go watch my nightly episode!

Oh, yes, and in case you are wondering–the sun has come out in Connecticut! We have had blue skies and mild weather!  Of course, I always live in fear that the dreary will return, but for now we have sunny dyeing days and cool sleeping nights.  For now.