Whereas most of the leaves have fallen off the lesser trees, the mighty oaks hold onto theirs, not even surrendering to the strong gusts of autumn wind.  They surround my house like sentinels being both a treat and a curse.  Their leaves display a rainbow of the the fall palate — orange, yellow, red, and rust fringed with crispy browns.  When the sun shines, my house fills with a yellow glow and even when it is overcast the warm colors radiate in making this one of my favorite seasons.  The curses are many though — so slow to lose their leaves, yard work can never be completed until the snow melts in the spring.  Oak leaves are notorious for their long lives – they flit from the mower and are heavy to rake.   When the leaves finally give way and leave the branches bare and expose the green mossy trunks, gloomy days are are sometimes too much to bare. But for now, I will take the treat of the oak and feel cozy and protected in my house as they stand proud and strong outside all my windows watching over me and my family.

It seems as if knitters agree – there is not much not to love about October.  After all it is the official start of the cool weather fiber season.  Of course, non-knitters also love October too — pumpkins, fall leaves, apples, Halloween – oh the fun!  So far, I’ve had an overwhelming response to my contest, but if you haven’t entered, yet, don’t worry – it doesn’t close until the 18th so go ahead and enter away!  Everyone seems to love thinking about the things they love in October (also sometimes known as Socktober and the month that contains National Rhinebeck Day).  I can’t help but wonder what would happen if I repeated this contest in March.  Can anyone think of three things to love about March except that it is one month before April when the spring Sheep and Wool Festivals start to hit?

Hey guess what?  This month is flying by so fast that I haven’t even had time to post about the spinning class that I am taking, AND it is tomorrow!  I have to get ready!!!!  I’m taking Spinning for Socks with Judith MacKenzie-McCuin.  I’m looking forward to the drive over to Rhinebeck – no highways and gorgeous foliage.  I have the audiobook of No Idle Hands to listen to in the car.  There are so many great spinning retreats and festivals this fall but a lot of them book up early and you have to plan way in advance which is not easy for a mom of 3 sporty girls and who sometimes works on weekends.  I feel very lucky to have found a class that I wanted to take that was not sold out and was not on a Saturday!  I can’t wait to go and tell you all about it.  I hope I remember my camera and remember to take photos.  I am not going to be able to go to the actual Sheep and Wool Festival this weekend, however. I have to work on Saturday and will probably just have too much stuff to do on Sunday, but I can’t wait to hear about it from all you you who will be going!

OK, I better get going as I have a very busy day today but I just wanted to let you know about another thing that happens in October that I didn’t know about, and you may not know about either. Apparently, October is the time of year for baby snails!  Look what I found last week when I was cleaning up my solar dyeing bins:

There were hundreds of these tiny, itsy, bitsy snails all in my bin, on the edge of the bin, and on the bricks near our basement door  – I just thought they were little pebbles at first but when they were clinging to the bin, I was like, oh my, what kind of weird thing do we have now.  I was very happy when I looked closer and found they were just baby snails and nothing really yucky.

Here is a close up – they are really very tiny — just a few millimeters in circumference.

And here is the oddball snail. All of the other baby snails were regular snail shape but this one had a tall conical type of shell.  Does anyone know anything about snail genetics?  I’ve probably spent way too much time looking for clues on google but haven’t found anything that fits this situation yet.

Well – enjoy another wonderful October day and don’t forget to enter my contest if you haven’t already done so!

Even though I’m focusing on dyeing, I’m kicking off the fall fiber season with a completed knitting project! Okay, so maybe I technically started in summer, but I definitely finished in fall.

Back to School Cardi
Pattern: Hey Teach from Knitty.com
Yarn: Lion Brand Cotton Ease. A little less than 3 skeins in Cactus.
Needles: Size 8 Addi Turbos
Modifications: I added 2 inches to the length in the stockinette section and I only added buttons to the top lace section.
Thoughts: This was quick knitting until the seaming. There was a lot of finishing! Lace pattern was easy and intuitive. I would make this again if I didn’t have so many other things to make. Actually, I’m thinking of making a smaller size for one of the girls as I have 2 skeins of yarn left. I’ve never used Cotton Ease before but I liked knitting with it. Since I’m always too hot to wear anything wool or even slightly related to wool (including Cotton Fleece) and since 100% cotton is hard on my fingers, I’m hoping that this will wear well and I can use it again. Also, this yarn is very easy on the knitting budget!

Future knitting…

I’ve actually been working on Sock Blankie quite a bit lately. It is just so easy to pick it up and just knit and take it in the car with me when I wait for field hockey to never end. I just ordered Custom Knits by Wendy Bernard of Knit and Tonic and I have my eye on a couple of patterns in there. I’m ready to start swatching!

So moving on to dyeing…

I am very excited to be participating in my first fiber show! On November 1, I will be sharing table space with Llama Farm Girl of Hemlock Haven Llama Farm and Cathy of IBIWISI Alpacas at the 4th Annual Southern Vermont Fiber Event. It is in downtown Brattleboro from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. I have a link to the directions in my sidebar. I’m going to try to continue to stock my Etsy shop while preparing for this show so I’m going to have to start dyeing like a maniac. This isn’t easy with 3 children playing sports and all the fall yard work to do, let me tell you!

So moving on to spinning…

I just finished spinning for my Ravelry Fibery Goodness swap. I’m a bit late but my yarn is just not drying. Darn yarn. Anyway, I better not put a photo up yet, as you never know, my partner may decide to cruise by my blog…

I also have some plans for Hollis (the drum carder that LFG and I share). I hope he is ready for me!

Around the blog…

I’ve been busy updating my Reading page. I’ve also noticed that some of my tags do not work properly so if you want to search for something (like Dark Victory), the best way to do that would be to go to my archive page and type into the search box. Maybe someday I’ll have time to figure out the tag thing. I think it may be because I some of the tags were former categories and they didn’t convert well. Lately, it seems like may pattern has been posting about once a week. I’m going to try a bit harder to step that up a bit, but time seems to be on fast forward lately. It is just crazy, you know??? Anyway, have a great day and thanks for reading!

ETA: Photo credit: Agent B, age 10