PippiKneeSocks.com

In the attics of my life
Full of cloudy dreams unreal
Full of tastes no tongue can know
And lights no eye can see
When there was no ear to hear
You sang to me

In the secret space of dreams
Where I dreaming lay amazed
When the secrets all are told
And the petals all unfold
When there was no dream of mine
You dreamed of me

Your rain falls like crazy fingers
Peals of fragile thunder keeping time

Recall the days that still are to come
Some sing blue

Hang your heart on laughing willow
Stray down to the water
Deep Sea of Love

Beneath the sweet calm face of the sea
Swift undertow

Life may be sweeter for this, I don’t know
See how it feels in the end
May Lady Lullaby sing plainly for you
Soft, strong, sweet and true

Cloud hands reaching from a rainbow
Tapping at the window touch your hair

So swift and bright
Strange figures of light
Float in air

Who can stop what must arrive now?
Something new is waiting to be born

Dark as the night
You’re still by my side
Shining side

Gone are the days we stopped to decide
Where we should go
We just ride

Gone are the broken eyes we saw through in dreams
Gone - both dream and lie

Life may be sweeter for this I don’t know
Feels like it might be alright
While Lady Lullaby sings plainly for you
Love still rings true

Midnight on a carousel ride
Reaching for the gold ring down inside

Never could reach
It just slips away but I try

Words by Robert Hunter; music by Jerry Garcia
Copyright Ice Nine Publishing.

~

i should get this posted; we have some wicked storms rolling thru and the power has gone out twice already while trying to get this posted.
happy jerry day!
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

today feels like monday, it is thursday, but still feels like monday. why is that?
maybe it is the rain, who knows.
i’ve been doing alot of blending, not so much spinning. (i have another huge hank on the bobbin, that i’m procrastinating spinning. spinning that much of one colorway on the same bobbin, calls for lots of breaks in between…) i’ve been using the carder so much that my arm is sore. for the past few nights i didn’t realize why my arm was feeling tweaky when i went to bed. then while carding yesterday, i felt the tweaky pain and realized that my carder is too low. not much i can do about that now, so, after today i’m going to take it a bit easier on the carding.
without further ado,(or complaints) the fruits of my labors……..

nightfall of diamonds
i made some for stella for winning my t-shirt contest, and decided since i was at it; i should make a bunch.
i also did these

crazy diamond
basically the same; but with some churro and oodles of recycled silk sari.
the pictures of each don’t come close to justice; it is super dark here, and i think a the white background really subtracted from their beauty. (but, well that was all i had handy at 6:30 this morning.)

today is going to be a day of sock yarns.
i’m going to wok on a sock yarn blend.
then i’m going to dye a bit of superwash sock yarn… then, back to finishing this enormous bobbin that i have working.

last night was the phil and friends show. it was raining buckets, i had no tickets. so i did what any other old lady would do.
i stayed home, and baked.

umm, mixed berry cobbler/crisp. (vegan) i made an apple one too.
sad, i know. i contemplated going all day. tickets were outrageously priced, at $55; and the chances of a random pink haried old lady getting a cheap ticket are slim to none. and the rain factor played a big role. it would have been hella harder for me to find anyone i would know lurking out in the rain. so, there you go. i feel kind of down about it; since my feet have been itchy lately. but, it isn’t like it once was, and can never be.
we pay the teller off in gold, in hopes he will come back, but he can not be bought or sold.

this concludes this rainy day thursday that feels like monday post.
♥

whoever said rice milk was just as good in coffee as half and half,
is a LIAR! lies, lies, LIES!
i can not believe that i was veg*n for 6 years. depriving myself of good yummy dairy.
but good gawd, should i be drinking coffee at this hour?
anyone remember what happened last time i drank coffee later than 6pm?
um, yea…
i just have so.much.stuff.to.do.
coffee seems like the only solution! ha.
all of a sudden it is the first week in july, and i’m not ready for it to be the first week in july.
(for those of you not in the know, more will be revealed on a need to know basis. heh…)
it involves lots and lotser of these

anyway, so yea, why am i blogging on a sunday evening, especially when i’m in the weeds?
i don’t know.. i’m thinking? and it is so nonlinear if i tried to make a list it would consume my whole note book. (that, and i accidentally washed [and DRIED] my orange crayon!~ you should see the dryer! aye!)

yesterday, i did something really unusual, i cleaned. (don’t fall down from the shock.)
my kitchen is drop dead sexy clean. the only thing that would make it even sexier would be if the man would have cleaned it.
i’d take a picture, but it is cluttered again and i splattered dye every which way today. cluttered, but still clean.
also yesterday, i got a lovley package from linda of stoneleafmoon fame.

a lovely bright bubble-gum pink angora batt (YUM!)
and a silk hankie… (hahaha, a hankerin’ ~~ inside joke, there.)
anyway, it will be interesting to see how on earth i spin that hankie up.
thank you linda! you made my week!

yesterday was a crazyday… we took the kids to see the fireworks. woo! boom!
finchly the younger, love the shiznt.
bells, on the other hand, covered her ears and declared “it’s over, let’s go home” no fewer than 50 times. i should mention that this is the first year she has been able to sit thru the whole thing. (sensory issues.) it was fun, but i don’t know what were worse the ’skeeters or the bats!

another fact of recent history, stella won the t-shirt contest.
her pirze is going to be something that she admired from my page, but they sell out lickety split. some nightfall of diamonds batts
how awesome is stella that she found a stream from that 3 night run amazing stuff folx. and no coincidence, the stella blue from that night is beautiful. melt your face beautiful… in another coincidence, this is was the first contest i ever “held” and it was stella’s first contest ever won!
i love coincidence. they are like road signs… (it is actually how i wound up living here in vt for the past er, 10+ years. that and a bottle of sake and a camp fire. ahh, sake, how i miss ye. and i miss the guys i moved up here with.. but that is another story.)
i digress, since stella found that show, i went and found this my first show.
an amazing show. i wonder if my first show wasn’t so freaking magical, would i have got on the bus and stayed there until very near the end? who knows?

anyway! go listen!

well, i’m being really too chatty for someone who has alot of stuff to be doin!
so, if you see me in any of the usual places, like trilian; eljay, kindly remind me that i have stuff to be doin!

now, i have to go see mr. walker, he has been askin about my whereabouts for over an hour now.
♥

ahhh! brown.

i get a-lot! of compliments on my use of brown. (thank you!)
i also get alot of questions about how i do it. it’s a gift, i was just born this way.
no, seriously, it’s years of trial and error.
the other day amanda asked,
how do you get those gorgeous deep browns? I have lanaset straight
brown, but I can’t seem to get it dark enough. What’s your secret (if
you don’t mind sharing!)
i don’t mind sharing my knowledge on this subject. i do it at least once a month. so, i figured i’d make a post about it; i’m sure others want to know, besides the ones that actually ask… (and thusly, saving me at least 20 minutes per month; i can simply link to this post next time it comes up.) i don’t mind sparing anyone the pains of pounds and pounds of ‘ruined’ roving…

first.. are you using enough dye? some brands and colors you have to use 2 or 3 times the amount to achieve the full color (like some black and reds. and hummm, brown fits there too.) there is a fine line that you can indeed cross, the one that separates ‘full color’ and ‘over saturated’

second.. shop around. i think one of my “most favoritest browns” are made by cushings a bit pricer than most others (roughly $2.50 for 1/3 of an ounce)

third.. know your dye!
is it going to break red? is it going to break green? (not many break green, but sometimes, it happens.)

fourth… don’t be afraid to tweak.
i love tweaking. lemme say that again, cuz i do.. i looove tweaking.
nary does a good color come out of the jar all by it’s self.
a favorite brown ‘recipe’ is: (roughly) 9 parts brown out of the container, a dash of green and one quarter of a dash of black.
black is the great equalizer. a wonderful color tool. (except when it breaks to holy hell when trying to do a flat black… but, maybe i’ll save flat black for another day. talk about a PITA, flat black…. aye.)

i hope this helped amanda!

as for the shirt contest from yesterday, i suppose that little picture wasn’t too fair.

so there you go. and some added commentary that may provide some hints.
boogie said
I know the t-shirt. you attended the concert with Ann but the ticket
stub is lost and there is no recollection of it whatsoever except it’s
awesome.
this is close… i was not actually at this show. i traded SIL a carpenters LP for it. well, actually for a really old jerry shirt. but her x-bf made off with said shirt; and well, a deal is a deal…

neefer said
Chicago 1980.
right decade; and under 5 years off. but to the left of chicago.

mike said
Looks like the kind of Bundle you’d win on a dice roll in Vegas…
getting closer.. to the north and west of vegas.

apparently puppy momma wants a prize anyhow…
so, i’m going to have to make a new contest down the road and rig it make it easy, so she will wind up with a prize.

speaking of prizes… the prize has yet to be determined. why? well, if say boogie wins, and the prize was undyed fibers and a dye kit, well, that would be a bummer for her… and if mike guesses correctly, yarn would be a bummer… so, maybe nips of absolut.. humm, come to think of it, that is a great universal prize. ha.
when will this contest end? humm. not sure. i was going to say august first, but that is too far away. so, july 7?

stella won! congrats stella!

over and out;
happy fry-day!
♥

is it really the size of the boat, or the motion of the ocean?
is it girth or length?
apparently, to some breeds of knitter size counts!
when i first started selling my handspun yarn, i would answer the question ‘why aren’t your hanks bigger?” at least twice a week.
(well, my bobbins can only hold *so much*) to satisfy these requests, i bought myself a bulky spinner. now, i can get an entire dyelot on a bobbin. it has been a kind of mental challenge to try to fill it up.
and finally!! i did. (hey, i’m impressed; i have some girth and length happening here. very satisfying.)

i most likely could have squeezed maybe another ounce on there… maybe.

it is BIG!
458 yards, and one pound.
(ok, i need to say it again, because it is a major feat for me, 458 yards of bulky weight!!!)
and just for scale.. it is the size of a small baby.

i’m sure no one is as impressed as i am, but i don’t expect it. it is my own little milestone, or hurdle. so, it is cool for me.
and if anyone can guess the shirt i’m wearing venue and date(s) gets a prize. (hint: obviously a grateful dead shirt.)

♥

the rain does funny things to me. i’m convinced. especially after two glorious sunny days, it is like being taken by surprise. (in a bad way.)
and as it normally turns out, i start dyeing things really bright.

big bright orange pile of fiber. blinding in person. (it is pretty dim in here)

and i started spinning this up

pretty sunny…
and i have to play the game in my head… “will i fill it up” (think will it float except i don’t have a grinder girl.)
hummm

hummm, maybe?
about 4 or 5 more ounces to go

i’m going to work on finishing that bobbin up today, and *cough* do some cleaning.
my messy house prevented me from getting good sleep last night.
and when the mess keeps you up at night, it is time to clean. yes. yes, it is.

and now, something to file in the WTF? department.
Every.single.time.the.woman.opens.her.fucking.mouth. LIES.FALL.OUT.
ann, listen to hank. you need to shut the fuck up.
every ‘deadhead’ knows their favorite show. LIES, LIES, LIES. please close your mouth NOW ann. there is enough pollution in the world. need you desecrate the last sacred thing i have left? GO AWAY.

*sheesh*

yippie tuesday.
♥

i’m sad to hear of the passing of vince welnick; former GD keyboardist. he had the most dangerous job in rock n roll.

the first time remember seeing vince play with the boys (*without bruce). was the first show of the EC tour; buffalo, ny. (i had skipped the west coast shows after the spring tour, to do some ‘regrouping’) i took the train up/over from boston. armed with a 60lb+ backpack full of handmade dresses and my bead box. after a long and drunken train ride,(which was totally exciting since i was being served in the bar car, and i was underage…ha. the cheap thrills of youth.) i arrived a day early, it seemed the lot was already in full swing. i met up with my friends and set up camp; and passed out, perhaps? the next day after lot adventures and whatnot; we decided it was time to head into the show. steve miller was opening.(and why on earth did we want to catch that? no.freaking.clue.) someplace between camp and the walk to the venue we puddled.
for some unknown reason; which still perplexes me to this day; we found seats…. at nearly the top of the stadium and sat down to watch steve miller… the only thing i remember about steve miller was him saying ‘this one is for bob and jerry’ and it was take the money and run… and this spurred an interesting chain of events; the people behind us were really trying to freak our shit out… with some of the bizarro crap they were saying .. the kind of shit dick heads say to two obviously tripping out of their skulls young women. (but, that day came back to haunt that dude, as i would bump into him at every venue from there to the jerry tour that summer…. and that freaked him out…)
i digress.. the boys came out and opened with touch.. i remember thinking it sounded a bit odd. but chocked it up to auditory hallucinating with the odd acoustics of sitting at the freaking top of the back of the stadium. (section D) it took me until althea for me to realize that bruce hornsby was not plaing keyboards… these were the days before i was plugged into the well. so i had missed any news of him not taking the job, yada. this set off an unstoppable train of events. (almost a train wreck…) i totally thought bruce hornsby had fallen victim to the ‘keyboard player curse’… and i completely lost my mind. the weirdo’s behind us did not help my crazy theories as they were saying crap like ‘jerry sacrificed bruce to the devil’ and shit like that…. (really messed up; but not nearly as messed up as the time some frat boys tried to light my dreads on fire during D/S at the last boston garden shows. you don’t even want to know what i was going to do in retaliation for that… lets just say that i’m glad i didn’t find anyone with a vial [or two] or i would be suffering the karmic effects of that for eternity.)
anyway, the evening was saved once we made our way home to the hallways. the wheel was particularly amazing to me that night. ( i have since obtained a copy of that show, and it seemed less than stellar; but whatever. i was plugged in and had achieved levitation.

i have to admit, i never warmed up to vince. and i was one of the people who would do other things while ‘long song‘ was being played. i was attached to brent just like my family who reared me on tour were attached to keith and my brothers and sisters who said the grateful dead were over once pigpen died. (unfortunately i was only 9 months old when that happened, so i can not weigh in on that one.)
grief is funny, it has been 10 years since jerry left this realm, and it still is as fresh as it was on 8.9.95. i miss all of those magikal moments i spent with myself and 200,000 of my closest friends and family. those days are gone, and our freedoms are slowly silping past our fingers faster than clutching grains of sand.
my deepest condolences go out to vince’s friends and family. the world lost another bright light; and the universe has a tear in it today.

Any which way you are tempted to roam
It’s a long long long long long long way
Way to go home