Many thanks to (blogless) CAm and my graphics-goddess Jen for all of their amazingly hard work!

I am pleased to present THE C*EYE*BER FIBER WAREHOUSE! Let me know what you think!

 

My dearest friend Fiona,

I am so very touched by the gift that you and Amie sent to Me and Mama-E.

I feel the need to paraphrase the card enclosed in the gift:

Joy,

When I came to live with Amie, someone sent a huge box of new fibers so we could play together. To “pay it forward”, she and I are giving you:

• blue Ashland Bay wool
• natural linen
• beige cotton
• white Suri Alpaca
• Brown QIVIUT

Love,

Fiona

OH, FIONA! I am so incredibly honored to receive such a generous gift. The time we spend together will benefit Mama-E’s spinning skills, and more importantly, her spirit.

Fiona, even though we have not known each other long, we are kindred in spirit. I promise that I will pay this kindness forward many, many times in honor of our friendship and in honor of keeping the craft alive and well.

Much love and friendship!

Namaste,

Wendy Joy

PS:

Mama-E chimes in… this week…. knitters and spinners… in honor of the craft and the teachers…lets “PAY IT FORWARD”. I want you to randomly select someone in your cyber-fiber village and send them some fiber love. Bust a piece of your stash and mail it off to someone with a kind note.

I will…. and you never know…. you might be getting something from me. Leave me a comment when you do….. I want to see the ripples in the water.

Let the kindness commence!

PPS:

Love you Spin Diva!

My latest fortune cookie reads:

” You may have to work hard to make your dream come true”
hmm…… I’m workin on it!

I don’t have time to write the post I would like to about my knitting group last night….

but Laura did a great post on it…. Thanks to all of the new faces and old friends for keeping this tired mama awake and in hysterics…. Laura says she was tired of being the funny one. ( I beg to differ… she is funny… but not funnier than me)

More later…. yarns are flying out the shop…. go git’ yers now!

Follow me….

I am here… in the midst of my work/home/fiber lives and managing the fallout from trading worktime for nursing the cowboy back to health. (He is fine.. just a nasty stomach bug hit him hard for the better portion of last week.)

Whatever time that I have had away from the offspring this week was dedicated to soothing my nerves with spinning/dyeing/knitting.

At the beginning of the week, the day I picked Wendy up (her name is Wendy… like BOB and Wendy… I asked the cowboy what her name should be and WENDY it is.)…

So the day that I picked Wendy up I got some pretty sad news about the person who taught me how to spin. She is ill… very ill…. and it startled me so. I went and sat down with Wendy and tried to work out some of my feelings about this.

As I spun I started to realize how amazing this gift is.

I joke around about my addiction to fiber. I know that I am weak when I see unspun fiber, or that perfect colourway, or the new book that just blows my mind.

For me, this fiber thing has gone way, way deeper and struck a chord on the strings of my soul. I realized, in my ever-present and obsessive brain, that the fiber is a representation of a connection between humanness and art. I realized that every time I take a class or teach a class… I am keeping the gift alive. When I meet with my knitting group, my friends, I know that they are my kind. They share the gift and the passion for fiber that I have. With every stitch, or draft as that may be, we unravel our historys and our lives while ooh-ing and ahh-ing over each other’s current WIP’s. We offer each other that haven where you can just be. The pressures and woes of our lives are suspended for a brief period of time by escaping into the fiber.

I have realized, like the millions that have come before me, I have now taken on her legacy and am responsible for her wellbeing.

The cowboy has crawled up on my lap a couple times this week when I was sneaking in some spare moments with Wendy. He holds the fiber a few inches from Wendy’s oraface and lets it go on to the bobbin. Excitedly he exclaims ” I LIKE it! I LIKE it!” I can’t discourage this behavior. I am hoping he wants to learn to spin. Selfishly, I realize, he is a huge part of my legacy and I want him to cherish this gift as much as I do. I think, by the way he tends to gravitate to every fiber tool I have ( it helps that all of my tools are so cool looking to an almost 3 year-old) he has it.

So, this week, it is inevitable that I think of my teacher when I am spinning. The spinning has become my prayer for a fellow fiber artist. A prayer if thanks for the craft. Thanks for first unlocking the mysteries of spinning and the history (herstory?) of the fiber arts to me. A prayer for peace and rest and recovery.

If you happen to be at your wheel/spindle/knitting this week and you think about this post or your connection to the fiber arts… maybe you could think about my teacher and send her some positive thoughts/prayers. She sure could use them.

(EDIT: July 18th, 2006 Sadly, Jane passed away on Friday morning. Maybe… thiose spinning/knitting thoughts could be passed on to her family…. beacuse they sure could use them now.)
Thanks friends. I mean that in the most heartfelt of ways. Namaste.

This is my first ever handspun on my JOY.

The fiber is 100% merino top that I dyed. I have been loving the blues lately.

Needless to say, like the good fiber - junkie that I am, I am hooked. Hooked, hooked, hooked!

I even snuck in about 30 minutes of spinning before I started my day.

I think it is so funny… this common fiber addiction we all share. I have been referred to (in reference to the C*EYE*BER Fibers) a crack dealer and a pusher, but really friends…I am an addict just like you.

Many thanks to Amie, Coleen, and CAm for clapping when I got her… I felt like I had just bought a Saturn! Special thanks to Amie for those first lessons at the Mannings and for really encouraging me to find the right wheel. Amie, I have found her and I am in love. *sigh*

I had a couple of dates today…..

Coleen, my cowboy, and I did the express tour of the National Aquarium . Now… you should probably spend more time there than we did… but the cowboy had a NEED to see a few select displays (Nemo… the sharks with the big teeth, the red bird). Coleen was happy to see the rays… and I was glad to be having a better mommy day than most.

We picked up CAm and drove to meet Amie at Jennings… my favorite cafe ( I use that term loosley) in Catonsville. We all enjoyed a nice lunch of chatting while picking up the car the cowboy inevitably could not keep on the table. Well…at least they didn’t mind me groping under their chairs while they ate.

After our repast (oh so fancy!), we headed to Cloverhill so the cowboy could pick out the yarn for the birthday sweater that CAm makes him (every year since before he was born). As I walked in the door… Chris, the owner, said she was there…. who is she???

If you need to reach me…. you will know where to find me…..

A word to the wise….. DO NOT erase your public_html files from your server, OK?

I am trying to play catch up… no wheel (probably a good thing)… I am buried under a mound of dyed un- reskeined fiber and a mound more that is undyed and needs a good dye bath.

I’m here…… I am dyeing (haha)…. and I am in need of a drink.

How are you?

ROVING AND YARN HERE!!!!!

Here we go!
No!
No one…
No one!
No way!
Gonna stop, now; go!

(STOP by Jane’s Addiction)

That is how I feel tonight…. Mama has many, many irons in the proverbial fire. All of them great…. all of them needing energy and attention.

(did I ever mention I have a day job and a family??)

So…HERE WE GO!!

- The SEA Socks Cruise is gaining momentum every day. I am so excited when I check in with Patricia about new developments….. Come sailing with us!

-Only ONE more spot in the Fall Sock Club!!! Come and get it!

- I have a Canadian distributor fpr C*EYE*BER FIBER Sock…. I am so excited. She is getting the site up and running at the moment. I will announce as soon as she goes live with it. There will be an initial 7 colorways that will be available only there… I am so excited.

- I have some roving and new skeins of yarn for sale here.… WARNING…. if no one buys the Ocean Mist by tomorrow I may keep her…. because…..

-MY JOY is due in to the shop tomorrow!!! I am so excited!! I have a wheel… I have a wheel…..

(UPDATE: NO WHEEL…. my LYS called Ashford and they LOST the order… aghhhhhh! Welll… they are 3 day express-ing one… but..now Tuesday is my anticipated date….. BUMMER!)

Now… if man did not need sleep…. I could accomplish all of my goals more efficently!