My mother came to visit us this past weekend, and of course, brought her three little dogs, Mandie, Dustin, and Tiffanie. We refer to my mother as “Mimi” where Lyssie is involved because Mom always said that she never wanted to be called grandma. (Growing up, and to this day, my brothers and I call my maternal grandparents “Nanie and Papa” instead of grandma and grandpa, so guess the weirdness runs in the family. ) Marcus and I call Mom’s dogs “The Big Dogs” because even though they are the same size as Lyssa, their attitudes are so much tougher than hers (because she is so quiet and timid) that they seem bigger. Ergo, Mimi and the Big Dogs. Sounds like a band name, doesn’t it? And with all the dogs’s howling and noise, they rather sound like one, too.

Alyssa gets so excited to see the Big Dogs, wagging her tail and trying to kiss their faces. It is very cute to watch. But, Lyssie always gets very tired when the Big Dogs are here, mostly because they take over all her pillows and blankets, and she, like the good little Yorkie hostess she is, lets them and just runs upstairs or downstairs to hide. (The Big Dogs have yet to master stairs, so she is usually safe.)

After Mimi and the Big Dogs left on Monday, Lyssie plopped herself firmly down on her favorite pillow (which she hadn’t been able to touch all weekend) and didn’t move for hours. Every time I would even come near her, she would look up with those big brown eyes of hers and say, “Please don’t make me get up. Please. My pillow and I have some serious catching up to do.”

As Marcus says, Lyssie is always very happy to see the Big Dogs, and even happier to see them leave.

Saturday night was the opening reception for the artists at the Fairmount Russell Art Show. I was very excited to be there, and to have just finished knitting my black stole the night before. Nothing like waiting til the last minute, eh?

I pretty happy about where my pieces were hung in the show. Two of them, the ones that didn’t win an award, were hung in the main room so that was pretty cool.

This is “Stepping Stones.” For some reason, it photographed horribly, so I had to do quite a bit of Photo-shopping to get it to look decent. Even, then you can’t really see the cool spiral paperclips on some of the brown squares or the beading in the center block, which is too bad because I spent a lot of time on it!

And this is “Staring at Eternity.” It has a really cool back, too, but obviously I couldn’t get a picture of that. Lots of people loved the wavy edges. I spent a lot of time on the quilting (kind of of square spirals that fit together like puzzle pieces) but it doesn’t show up very well in this picture. I’ll put up some detailed pictures after I get the quilt back.

Several people wondered why “Staring at Eternity” didn’t win anything because it is so striking. The only thing I could come up with is that it isn’t quite as flashy as “Wildflowers.” I received quite a few compliments about all three of my art quilts so that was really nice.

Here I am, wearing my new knitted stole, standing in front of “Wildflowers.”

And how could I forget Marcus? He drove in all the way from the Memorial camping trip at his parents’ farm to go to the opening with me. Mom also came down to go to the opening with us, but I forgot to get a picture of her. Too bad, because she looked really cute. My mentor, Mary Urbas, also came to the opening. Anyway, here is a nice picture of Marcus and me, all dressed up, which doesn’t happen very often anymore. He cleans up good, doesn’t he?

This is a picture of Barbara James, another member of CoCA, and one of the pieces she entered. I just this piece! Just gorgeous! And Barbara’s blouse was beautiful, too. She shibori-dyed it herself.

So, very nice opening. Already Marcus and Mom are telling me to get busy on next year’s entries, preferably award-winners.

Here are some before and after pictures of all the gardening Marcus and I have been doing lately. And yes, the plants are getting watered. Eventually.

Due to limited funds and limited stick-to-it-ness on my part we decided that the smartest thing would be to just do perennial flowers/shrubs, not annuals. So everything but the herbs, tomatoes, Gerber daisies, and the container flowers are perennials.

Before: Marcus ripped out some awful bushes and buttercups (which are already coming back) along the garage and is here digging the new flower bed. Notice the dwarf golden delicious Apple Tree on the right. Marcus is standing right in front of the blueberry bush.

After: From Right to Left: Peonies (red, pink, red), various lilies, balloon flowers, and one little Gerber daisy cuz I loves ‘em. Not Pictured (to the far Left): Four tomato plants and two jalapeno plants.

This is Marcus putting in the bed along the deck. I didn’t get a good “After” picture the other night so I’ll put one in a few days, maybe when the lilies start blooming.

Anyone, we would like to thank my parents so much for this flower bed. They bought all the plants in it for us when we went back home a few weeks ago. So, thanks Mom. Thanks Dad. We really appreciate it.

So, this bed includes: 2 Hydrangeas (1 pink, 1 blue), bee balm, an azalea (mandarin orange, no less) and various lilies, lupine, and delphinium.

Marcus also dug out all the dirt for this bed, too, poor guy. And now, we, who both grew up in the county, have no idea what to do with all the displaced dirt and sod from all our gardening efforts. Back home, you just throw it over in the nearest field, but what do you do with leftover dirt in the city? Mom said it’s currently making a lovely wall in the middle of our yard.

Now, this picture is very, very special. It shows the Gerber daisy and the container garden, both of which I actually planted. Me, the reluctant gardener! I actually gardened! Very big deal for me.

We are really excited about all the landscaping we have done. And I do use the term “we” loosely - Marcus has definitely done most of the work. I pretty much just stand and point. And say, “NOW can I go in?” But it really was worth it to see the backyard transformed.

I’m sure that my better attitude while we put in the last flower bed the other night had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I’d been promised we’d go see Shrek 3 afterwards.

Well, last night Marcus and I finished putting in all the rest of our flowers except the butterfly bush. What a job! And I hardly did anything!

We brought Lyssa (our Yorkie) out with us and, since our backyard is fenced in with a gate, we took her off her leash to let her “run around.” Now, anyone who knows our Lyssa-dog won’t be surprised to find out that not only did she not know what to do off her leash, but that she also high-tailed it up onto the deck the first chance she got since she absolutely hates the grass. Hmm, hates being outside, has no idea what she is supposed to do out there and is continuously begging to go inside - Sound familiar? Marcus says that Lyssie is definitely my dog.

“We go in now? Please? We go in now?”

Here she is after we managed to convince her that Marcus’s camping chair was a perfectly acceptable replacement for her pillow. Not entirely happy, but not “lyss-erable*” as we would say. *Marcus and I replace the sound “iss” in various words to being “lyss,” for example: Miserable - Lysserable

Happiness - HappiLyss

Unhappiness - UnhappiLyss

Mistake - Lysstake

Hysterical - Lyssterical

Sad, isn’t it? My mother says we should never have children.

Did you know that if one’s plants are to be watered, one must actually go outside and water them? That simply repeating, “Must water plants. Must water plants. Must water plants soon” while plying fun new yarn does not actually get the said plants watered?

On the plus side, I have been having lots of fun continuing to create new yarn. This is hand-spun single-ply green Merino (Or, at least I think it’s merino, it is some mystery roving I stole from my mother. Hi, Mom! ) plied with some leftover mystery green fringe-ish yarn (Ironstone, maybe?) that I also “acquired” from my mother. (Love you, Mom!)

Pretty, huh?

Now, some of you may be under the impression that since the components of this lovely yarn came from my mother’s stash, that she might therefore be entitled to their synergistic joining.

Not. A. Chance.

Now, the other person responsible for my latest watering procrastination obsession of creating new yarn is Bob Spencer. Bob Spencer is the husband of one of my mom’s friends, Carol. Bob makes drop-spindles. Bob makes very nice drop-spindles. Bob makes a particularly nice drop-spindle that I like to call a parasol spindle because it is big enough to double as a parasol when not being used for spinning. It is perfect for plying. It’s whorl is 4 3/4″ across (All the better for holding lots and lots of plied yarn, my dear) and 5/8″ thick and the shaft is 12 1/2″ long. I can’t remember what it weighs (and I’ve got yarn on it right now, can you imagine! so I can’t weigh it) but the whorl is made of cedar so it is very, very, very light. Absolutely perfect for plying. Oh, and there are four grooves placed like a compass on the whorl so you never have to worry about your yarn slipping out. If you would like to own your very own Spencer Spindle, Parasol ($25 plus S&H) or regular drop spindle ($15-$20 plus S&H), email Carol and Bob at

bobs @ madbbs.com (take the spaces out, of course).

I think everyone should own a Spencer Spindle. Or two. Or three. Or - well, never mind. I am certainly not going to confess to the whole of cyberspace exactly how many drop-spindles I own.

Anyway, the spindle pictured with the green yarn, as well as yesterday’s pink yarn, is the “Parasol” spindle I’ve been gushing about. Buy one. You won’t regret it and you’ll never want to ply on anything else again.

P.S. I just weighed the “Parasole” spindle, sans yarn, and it weighs 2.1 oz, which is really light for a spindle of that size. Now, you do realize what this means: I am still playing with yarn. I still haven’t showered or got dressed and I STILL HAVEN’T WATERED MY PLANTS!!!!!!

Here is a math question for all you spinners out there: What do you get when you add all together:

• Berroco Lazer FX with Sequins
• Hand-spun single-ply Pink Merino/Silk
• Orange Sulky Blendables quilting thread
  • And a spinner who is procrastinating going out to water her garden?

That’s right! You get a new, beautiful, four-ply novelty yarn!

I used two strands of the pink because it was too thin otherwise and the sequins seemed to take over.

I didn’t include the orange thread at first, but a little bit of it got tangled up whileI was plying the pink with the sequins and I decided I liked the way it added a little extra color and seemed to tone down the pink a little. You can’t really see it in the photo but it is there, I promise.

I won’t end up using all the pink because I have a lot more of it than the sequined stuff. I will still get enough of the resulting yarn to use it in a stole (rectangular shawl). Basically, I just wanted play around with combining some different yarns/threads and seeing what happens.

I have also been playing around making some other novelty yarn. I spun a little tiny bit of brown Bountiful wool roving and then plied it with some Ironstone Eyelash.

Here is a close-up:

Too, too fun! But, I only ended up with approximately 9 yards of it. Oh, well.

I did finally go out and water my plants. Here is a picture of one of the ones I actually planted myself. Very big deal for me since I’ve never really liked gardening. Now if I can just not kill the poor thing …

I entered three of my fiber pieces in the Fairmount Russel Art Show and tonight I received the phone call from them saying that not only had all three of my pieces been accepted, but that “Wildflowers” had won second place in the textile division!!!!

Last year, I recieved an honorable mention for the piece I entered, “Ice and Shadows.” I sold that one last fall but “Wildflowers” is still available for sale.

So I guess next year, I guess I’ll just have to work really, really, hard to get a first place!