I really shouldn’t wish it away, since the garden badly needs it, but I had such busy plans for today, and if your bike is your transportation, rain sucks. (It also sucks if you like to photograph your knitwear in the bushes, but I suppose that’s not crushing.) I hate rain so much that I really wonder if I was a cat in a previous life.
The spots on my glasses, the dampness, my hair frizzing, water running down my arms. The way all the kids stay home on rainy days, bored, arguing and inactive. The way the basement leaks. The way it makes the bottoms of your pants wet so later, when you come in and sit cross legged it makes your arse wet, and how if you are accidentally wearing sandals because you hate rain so much that you can’t even acknowledge that it might happen so you just carry on, even though the sky is totally black and yellowish and you know it’s going to pour, but instead of putting on closed toe shoes and sucking it up, you just wear your sandals like it’s not happening at all in your special land of denial and then you get your shoes full of water?
Hate that. I know that there are people who find rain cozy and pretty and look upon it as an opportunity to take baths and make soup and hunker in a bit…I can feel that way about snow sometimes, but rain has never moved me. I do love thunder and lighting, which at least has some sort of interest going for it, but this sort of rain…where the sky just leaks on your plans all day? Hate that.
In any case, since all my errand running is cancelled (except for groceries. I still have to walk out for groceries in the rain) and the girls will be home all day, so there’s no point it trying to work very much, so I may as well do laundry and housework (another big reason to just love rainy days) and maybe finish what I started yesterday…
Which sort of is a reason to give rainy days a little credit.
(Picture taken yesterday before the accursed rain began to fall.)
It’s a beautiful pink/coral/taupe/grey sort of batt from Grafton Fibers, just like the one I used to spin and knit this, and admittedly I didn’t get very far on it at all. This time I’m trying to spin it a little more finely to get a smidge more in the yardage department. I’m using my Joy rather than my Traditional, just because I’m going to Navajo (or “Chain” ply) my singles to keep the colour changes consistent, and for me, that sort of plying needs to happen really, really slowly. If things move too fast I can’t work the chaining thing and the whole enterprise just implodes. I think I have a little more control over speed with the Joy. (That could just be a delusion, time will tell.)
(Crappy picture due to lack of light from the accursed rain.)
My startitis has subsided somewhat. This is probably because I took the edge off and made a considered decision, started a bunch of stuff. That is probably because I AM WEAK in the face of wool…oh, and silk. Damn, that soy silk is pretty too….wait, is that mohair? Maybe a rainy day isn’t so bad.
The farmers NEED the rain.
But I hate when my shoes fill with water. Stay inside, and consider all the wonderful projects…….
You would have hated it up here this summer so far. Our lakes have gone from dangerously low and the bush from extreme fire hazard to borderline flood danger and the fire ain’t gettin’ far now.
The wool batting looks so good I would be tempted to lay it out, felt it and just keep it as a blanket without spinning it. Of course seeing how it plays out and plies up would be pretty darn interesting too.
It looks like it’s about to rain on our 4th of July party…just what I need…now everyone can party inside (I hope they don’t mind moving the yarn so they can sit down–the stash is simply exploding).
Yeah, but my kids are young enough that they’ll stop at a park and run around, even if the benches for mommy to sit on are still damp. Ick.
I’m with the cozy rainy day people. I love a good thuder-y, lightening-y, pouring buckets day. Right now it sound SO good. I have mowed my yard only 1 and a half times in the last 3 weeks. I mowed the front and side today because it’s the 4th and I live close to the fairgrounds and there will be lots of people walking by to see the fireworks. And really, the grass itself didn’t need mowed, it’s just a weed here and there.
Love those socks you showed yesterday!
Rain gives you an excuse to sit inside and pet wool and other fibres all day. 🙂
And living in an apartment, I can’t even hear the lovely sound of rain on the roof.
Rain makes grass grow. Sheep eat grass. Need I say more?
It’s getting ready to rain here in the Boston MA area too. I am in the like the rain group, although I have a dog who is more water phobic than many cats..Rainy days are always good for curling up with a good book, knitting or a good man (or woman) Take your choice, not necessarily in order of preference.
Still it’s Independence Day in the US and this much needed rain will wash away a bunch of BBQs and firework displays. Maybe I will pop in a dvd of Lucy and see if I can figure out how to finish the toes on my first sock. See what you have started!
I’m with you all the way on the rain…but my garden needs it so bad I think I could put up with the spotted glasses, frizzy hair!
Beautiful roving!
That Grafton batt could make an intensely gorgeous shawl (wrote the shawl knitter). And I love the flower in the rain there–my kids, when they were little, didn’t believe me that it can actually rain in summer, and that summer rain is supposed to be warm. Not fog-off-the-ocean cold, but actually warm. Silly Californians.
I love the rain. It gives me a guilt-free reason to spend the whole day in my studio if I want. Opening cupboards and drawers to see what I have to play with that I had forgotten about.
When I lived in Florida it was sunny every single, freaking day so we would have a party when it rained.
I think a variety of it all is nice.
I was reading this, thinking, “But rain is a good time to knit!” and… duh, I was beaten to the punch. Sort of.
It’s ready to rain in CT and as it is our 4th of July Independence Day thing, I think all the fireworks are going to be postponed. Oh well.
If it’s going to rain, I want a huge, thunder and lightning filled RAINY DAY. This drizzly stuff (while good for my garden – I know, I know), just annoys me. I want a storm that takes out the power (I have enough knitting here at work that a power outage would be welcome). Drizzle just gets in the way of a good day.
Bitter irony of ironies. Here in Portland, Oregon today we have a lovely, sunny, cloud-free day. Actually, we will get into the 90s which freaks us all out.
However, because we have so much rain in general but it is temperate, we have mastered the flip flops during spring/summer rain. Those work better than your sandals. I recommend getting a pair today while getting groceries and then you can wear them defiantly home. Something with a little tread so you don’t slip and slide.
I’m packing up and moving and looking longingly at my UFO’s….rain would at least make me feel better about staying indoors, instead of marching in a parade and missing 2 BBQs….OMG! Who are you? How did you do that? It just started!
I feel MUCH better about missing those firecrackers now.
Hmmmm, I guess Navajo plying is not going to happen in these parts for a looooooong time. I have created such a craptastic load of overspun singles that I’ve almost convinced myself that since there is so darned much of it, it must have some useful purpose (I’m imagining a knitted doll with medusa hair).
I agree wholeheartedly that snow is hunkerin’ weather and rain is just disgusting.
I also love the rain so I can stay inside and just knit….
Love the beautiful spinning….
I was going to remind you about the crops that feed us and our sheep, but you have been reminded by others.
Its dry out here about an hour from where you are, a day of lovely rain will create millions of dollars of food. So take the day to enjoy the pleasure of the icky rain.
I good reason to knit.
Tina
Screech is your salvation. It will warm your innards.
Linda’s colors are just magic: there’s a picture of a Grafton Fibers batt I got at NH Sheep and Wool here – and I don’t even spin (yet). Just off to pet it now.
(http://green.typepad.com/kellys_green_gardens_book/2007/05/travelogue.html — can’t tell from the preview if the HTML will work)
Oh, that’s beautiful fiber. Ms. Harlot, since you encouraged me to knit socks (for the first time about a year ago and I’ve probably knit 14 pairs of socks by now) and explore lace (I’m going to a lace workshop in the fall to further explore), your many posts and beautiful pictures about spinning have now nudged me to learn to spin. I have two pretty spindles and some lovely purple and lavender fiber and I’m learning…slowly. I hope someday to be able to make yarn as beautiful as yours.
Incidentally, I’m also quite in love with your scarf pattern. I’m making one now, the sixth one. What the heck did I do before I discovered your blog and books??
OK, HERE’s my primo rain survival apparel tip: instead of trying to keep dry, dress so it doesn’t matter if you get wet–those sport sandals (can be a cheap kind as long as they have good grip) and shorts–then you can laugh at the rain, ride your bike in it all you want (I do!!), and dry off with a towel (or just air-dry) when you get indoors. (And if you have no back fender, change your shorts and undies!)
Somehow it’s very freeing to just go ANYWAY…and a big plastic bag over your backpack or pannier keeps the nice things inside dry as you fly along…
You need a pair of crocs.
I wish my children hated he rain enough to stay inside. Here we get so much of it that going out to play in the wet is no big deal then they track the mud in on the carpet.
Okay, guys, you are now OFFICIALLY making me sick with longing for a good, brisk, COOL rain!
It’s 100 and climbing here in way-too-sunny Northern California and feeling like the forecaster got it right, for a change. 🙁
Just THINKING about fiber ANYTHING makes me sweat…and who wants sweat all over their yarn? Not I!
Steph, go play in the rain and relax. You might actually consider that since you are NOT a sheep you won’t get too heavy and fall over. 🙂
See I like stormy days… when the air is full of electricity and you can feel it. Just rainy days suck – but cold rainy days suck worse – except, I guess, those days are good days to wear handknit socks in a good pair of bright colored goloshes.
Right on Stephanie–a day to do housework , fire up Sir washie, clean out drawers, cook a really sumptious dinner, go through the stash and put order in it ,figure out how many UFOs and WIP we REALLY have. Never get a chance to sit and knit on a rainy day because of the aforementioned list, and to top it all off have the whole fanged damily under foot. No wonder we hate rainy days. At least the plants and lawns are happy.
Or you could live in Seattle, where we have all those things you hate about eight or nine months out of the year. And let me tell you – bootcut jeans and Birkenstocks = cold damp clammy wet ankles for months. The solution here, is obviously to spend that time making soup and possibly knitting socks. 😀 There’s a reason Seattle is such a big book city!
I just love taking a skein of self patterning sock yarn from my stash, sit by the window and just knit, and just incase of an electrical storm I always have my hand cranked lantern by my side!
A nice cup of tea always hits the spot.
Got it. Rain is for spinning. Now I can check Toronto’s weather online and bug you on other days of the week.
Like Christine said–sandals are great for rain. They’re certainly better than not-really-waterproof sneakers, which stay wet much longer. (I love my plastic Birkenstocks.)
I think the sandals that you wear are Birkenstocks. I call them “portable puddles.” They are the absolute pits in the rain. I think Birks come in closed-front models, too. Something to consider.
I too am not a lover of rain… I do however love local produce, and rain is a big factor in that. Ah well.
Dear Stephanie,
You have 3 girls at home, bored and inactive and YOU have to go out in the rain for groceries, and do housework. Seems like two birds with one stone to me AND you get more time for spinning.
I know, I know – well I don’t know because I don’t have kids – but I guess it is easier just to do it yourself 😉
I’m not too happy about the rain today. First I had planned to dye some lovely fibre outside, then I planned to sit on the front verandah with a good friend and have a cup of tea. Neither happened. I had to actually do some work and swatch for a sweater I am designing.
It’s pouring here, too, but it’s dry so far in Kittery Point, I think. Which is important, because my kid is at Mel’s farm meeting a 2-day old cria.
So not only am I also in my wet shoes of extreme denial, but I’m jealous of an eight-year-old. I think I’m going to go attack a carton of ice cream and call it an afternoon.
Pretty colour on the batt, there.
Ignore the rain – what is that wonderful fibre going to become, I wonder…The One Row scarf was indeed lovely…I made one myself (though not from my own homespun, sigh.) Pondering in sunny, hot So. California….
😀
Yep – I am one of those crazy Torontonians that despite the forecast and the obvious rain coming down, wore sandals to work today. No coat, no sweater, just an umbrella. My nine year old son looked at me as I was dropping him off at camp today and commented how much better prepared for the elements he was today than me – becuase he wore his Roots sweatshirt and is warm. Why are our kids so darn smart?
I’m a freak. I like when it rains because then I’m actually motivated to do something (or nap, whatever). When it’s sunny, like today, (sorry Steph), I have to lay out in the sun and read, because days like this don’t happen very often in Seattle.
I wear sports sandals every day, even when it’s raining. My thinking is that bare feet dry faster than soggy socks (even wool soggy socks)
I do the stop-start chain plying – I’ve been shown the way that you can do it without stopping (but slower) but I like my way because I only have to think about one thing at once. I don’t have to work the wheel and make the loops at the same time. I like three ply because I rarely get enough twist in the single.
I too learned to spin because of you and now there are people learning because of me – see what you started!
Okay, call me crazy, but does anyone else see a tiny green skull in the centre of those 4 leaves in the first picture in the post?
Or should I check myself into a place with cushiony walls and nice white jackets with the sleeves in the back?
PS – I’m not a fan of the rain either, but it helps when you’re too lazy to water the garden…
What to do on a rainy day? Twitch nervously and try not to panic. Anyone wanting to rain is welcome over here, you know? Got 9 frigging feet of it all over the land!
You know, I’d really been longing for rain, after at least two years of drought in Austin. We’ve had the wettest summer ever and I am heartfelt sick of the rain now. We don’t get those soaking cool rains –we get the sauna-producing HOT rains which make it impossible to even remotely pet wool or sheep or anything else. I mean, I would ADORE to have wet ankles because I’m wearing LONG PANTS. (grumble, grumble)
Hey, Stephanie, I wanted to tell you that if you want your links to open in a new window, all you have to do is add this phrase to the HTML: ” TARGET=”_blank”> That way, you wouldn’t be sending your readers away to buy really expensive spinning wheels in the middle of reading a post, thus bringing them to the brink of divorce. (Hypothetically speaking, of course.)
And yes, I DO own a t-shirt that says, “I do not have ADD–Oh, SHINY!”
Barb
Only good thing about rain on the 4th of July? It keeps the locals from shooting off their illegal backyard fireworks, saving my mini-poodle from a day of shaking and quaking from fright. It isn’t raining hard enough here yet, so we’ll gladly accept your rain clouds also!
Oh my god, Jennifer is right…. I totally see a skull there too! How odd! Creepy plants you got there Harlot.
The rain has finally stopped here in Chicago (it rained through the end of the fireworks last night and then for the rest of the evening that is typically reserved for drinking out and about with friends because the next day is a holiday). Hate that.
Well, the rain has stopped, but it’s still humid. So, I’m going to go sit in a overly-air conditioned theater for a bit with some friends. Maybe if I get there early enough I can get some more rows in on my Rowan Summer Tweed Daylight pattern…..
I think people who like rain probably
1) live in a desert so it’s a treat
2) don’t wear glasses
(And I never thought I’d say this..) Stephanie, you should never come to Britain. It has rained solidly for the last month with frequent thunderstorms. We’re luckier than some (living atop a hill) and we haven’t had any floods. Still I have learned to like rain(‘cos otherwise I would have slit my wrists by now). Wear open-toed sandals and decide not to care.
I like the daisy picture, even in the rain. We’ve had rain every day and night for about 3 weeks around here. It keeps the heat down, at least, but it does seem to mess with my head a bit. Hope you get better weather soon. The roving and spinning looks gorgeous. I’m a little scared to start spinning – another addiction to add to the list! =)
You are wishing the rain away, and I am wishing FOR it.
Living in sunny California means that we get NO rain from June until late September!
Kudos to you for blaming the wet pants = wet arse on the rain… I always blame that same phenomenon on my self, one for being short and two for not remembering to not sit cross-legged.
I second everyone’s opinion that you need more waterproofed sandals (with grip) because I’ve found that feet dry a LOT faster than wet closed toe shoes.
ah-ha, that is why children are climbing the walls and making me crazy!
We’re packing the trailor today to move stepdaughter to Kansas so she can continue her education. No rain here. I had to take a break and check in with you. Wow! What great pictures to find posted! No knitting for me today. I’ll have to live vicariously. Thanks for the beautiful shots of coral 🙂
Let the girls walk for groceries. They are old enough!
Usually rain is not so bad to me, but we have had just too much of it lately. Sitting here waiting for the big storm to roll through now. But like someone else said, at least the illegal fireworks have gone quiet. Thank goodness for small blessings.
Living in Southern California where we’ve now been asked to ‘limit and ration’ our showers…would you mind sending your rain down here? We’d love to ‘borrow’ it for a bit.
Good luck with the kids..mine have all scattered across the country now…makes holidays..rather quiet.
It’s raining here too, but my daughter and husband are away, so it’s just me and the cat happily knitting away!
3 inches in 3 hours. That’s all I’m sayin.
Be glad you’re not in Texas. It has rained every day for weeks. Weeks.
But when are you coming to visit Texas again? I emailed your publisher to try to get you to speak/sign at my shop and they never emailed me back. 🙁
Enjoy your rainy day!
It’s raining here too in Cambridge. I am a fairly new knitter and I have my first homespun sitting on the shelf behind me. It was spun natural and learned to handpaint with it. It is now blue/burgandy/teal and hadn’t decided what it wanted to be until just now when I saw your scarf. It will be the scarf you linked to that you used the yellows and green batt for. I will cast on after I spin some pink and blue wool/mohair. Whatever it is you have I have it too. Must be the rain.
The farmers and your garden need the rain. The devil-squirrel is all cozy in its fleecy little nest. The Appalachian solution to wet shoes is to go barefoot.
The only thing I see you rejoicing in is the help for your garden. I don’t have an image of barefoot Stephanie, although it does go well with Harlot!
Endure and persevere. Just look at your beautiful spinning.
It’s raining here too. And cold because it is winter. Cold and wet. Some days (most days) I just want to crawl under my stash and hibernate till spring.
Or I could join Jennifer in her padded room – I saw the skull too… and thought I was just losing my marbles.
OMG I totally see the skull too!
You’ve been a mom too long — now you’re devising “Can you find the hidden _____ ” pictures for us. For the record, I do NOT want to know what the second picture looks like to people….
It is winter here and for a change we are having rain. Drought bad, rain good. The dog and I hate, hate, hate the wind. We curl up inside and feel sorry for ourselves as the swingseat roams all over the back patio and the gum trees shed their bark and little branches with gay abandon. Plus, I have a cold and am whiny.
although it would be great if you could include JAPAN on your book tour, dont come to Nagasaki now… we are in the middle of a particularly wet rainy season. The challenges are many, with so many days of rain and high humidity, almost nothing gets a chance to dry…. and in fact, the birkenstocks have grown a nice layer of green mold….my preferred footwear would be the barn boots I bought for helping out in the rice fields….. oh, by the way the rain is great for the fields here , too.
but today, there is a bit of sun in the forcast, so I must get busy hanging out laundry and bedding and shoes and rugs and futons…..
and your umbrella isn’t very big cuz you want to carry it folded in your knitting bag but then you have to use it at the bus stop and it’s wet and you can’t put it in the knitting bag so you leave it on the bus, i hate that but i love dollar store umberellas and i love rainy days. it’s florida if one doesn’t need a brella for the rain one can use it against the sun.
rain was not a cat it was a squirel 🙂
Well, on the bright side you could live on this coast (Vancouver BC) and live with the rain for about 8 months of the year! Amazingly, after our totally crappy spring the sun shines and I am all hot and stinky from gardening all day, good times over here (the raspberry cider is lovely too and well deserved 😉
Ohhhhh, I am green with desire…for your rain! Live in Northern AZ…12th year of a drought…yesterday was 109 and it is hotter today..we have had a heat wave for weeks and weeks…but does that stop me from spinning or knitting? Heck no! Granted I am knitting socks, but knitting! Had someone ask me the other day how I could stand knitting wool socks in this heat…and I told them the amazing properites of wool soaking up moisture (read sweat)…for some reason he did not seem impressed….I just don’t understand it…love your Grafton colorway…Sorry the rain is so depressing for you….really…send it our way!
Please send some rain our way! The storms keep building up and then going around my part of Iowa. This has led to things withering!
Anyway . . . I am anxious to learn how to spin. What do you recommend for an absolute novice in that area? (p.s. I think I’ll have to go with a hand spindle because I can’t afford a wheel and don’t really have the room for one either.) Thanks for any pointers!
Kim in Iowa
I love rain, but then I once farmed and I now live in a forest. In my little micro climate outside of Edmonton we’ve had only 2 inches of rain since the second of May. Not nearly enough. So I still praying for rain.
I won’t pray for it when I visit this blog of course, but that would be because I am currently knitting lace. (I would shout that, but its not polite to shout in someones living room.) Simple lace, and an ancient stitch, but its lacey and fine and I hope it turns out well. I’m not really certain if its brave or stupid, but I’m tossing caution to the wind, and I’m doing it anyway.
You gave me the clue. Your words made me believe my way was just different, and not wrong, and that I could too knit.
It’s been raining for two months straight here. By straight I mean a deluge and a half every day. Normal rainfall in June in Dallas is about 2 inches. This year, we got a foot. I hate rain. I could never live in Seattle. Plus, the lack of sun killed my lovely lovely tomato plants.
Rain sucks.
I am so tired of the rain. Around here it’s been raining almost every day for a long long time and all the lakes and rivers are flooding. With bonus oil spills leaking into our water supply! How fun!
My tomatoes are doing very well though, so that’s something
Naughty Rams. Oh how I adore you.
As for the rain? I dunno, I kind of like it. Quietens things down a bit. Of course, my main transportation isn’t a bike, and I’m not really a sandal kind of girl.
We had thunderstorms and tornadoes here yesterday so cheer up… it could be worse. Since the girls are home… I think they should do all the laundry and housework.
You are the Yin to my Yang. Oh, how I do love rain. I love the way it smells and feels. Plus, there is the joy of jumping in puddles.
Roving is gorgeous…that link back to the one-row scarf brought back memories, great colors there too and a top-notch Harlot pose.
Speaking of weather, your rain, our (NorCal)high heat with breezes, I got to thinking: rain = fire prevention. And, that got me to thinking OMG, what IF a fire really did start down the hill to our back door? (which it could as we back up to park land with idiots in there doing fireworks.) I’m now considering – do I need to have my stash prepared for the dash? It seems so selfish. But, perhaps just pack two Jumobo Hefty Zip Locs and just a couple of projects…?
We need the rain too and just started getting storms this evening. I hate having to go out in the rain. I wish it could be nice during the day while things that need to be done can get done then in the evening it can rain all it wants. Why can’t it be more considerate?
Hope you had many fibery things to comfort you.
We haven’t had rain since September 2006. Wish I could take a little of it off your hands/hair.
Oh, good, I wasn’t the only one who saw a skull. Whew!
Steph, you need sport sandals. I cannot count the way I love my Keens.
If rain bothers you, then that means you are the type of person who lives her life outside a lot of the time. Which means you are a Very Good Person, in my opinion!
Ooh, rain makes me grouchy. Wet dogs. Can’t do the washing. General malaise. And living in an increasingly drought-prone place, and a city full of gardeners, everyone prances around saying ooh, isn’t the rain lovely? Only if I don’t have to go anywhere!
Hi Stephanie,
My husband tells me he watches me calm down after a rain … then become anxious again as each day passes without it raining. I’m not scared of lightening or thunder; I’m scared of global warming and climate change. Today I found a new book, The Spirituality of Gardening by Donna Sinclair. She refers to gardening as ‘stubborn resistance to all who would harm the earth. It is about living in obedience to sun and rain and living in gratitude for this lovely, sacred, vital planet.’
Oh, I love rain!!! I think it must have come from all the years I spent landscaping…wishing and praying for rain every single day of every single summer and never, ever getting any. So now when it rains I just feel really happy and an incredible sense of relief. It’s the relentlessly brutal heat and humidity of the south that really gets me down and makes me grumpy. I need to move to Seattle.
Lovely handspun, by the way 🙂
I just said good bye to my friends on this our Independence Day celebration. It was a perfect day. Sunny and hot. I too hate rain. I wish I could appreciate the good of it, but unless I haven’t seen rain in maybe a month, I just don’t like it. I do like you, though. You make me laugh.
I bought three batts from Linda in May when I was up in Vermont that go from orange to pink to purple to black. Aren’t they fun to spin?
I’m totally with you on the rain thing – I’m a total sunshine girl. Oh – your daisey is almost as beautiful as that batt!
Ha! Here in central Texas, we’ve had our fill of rain, your fill of rain, several small countries fill of rain.
Yet still it comes.
Our lakes are full to bursting, our ground is super-saturated.
The good news is that the drought is over.
Big time.
And it was a very mild 80 degrees F. In July. In Texas.
Rainy days off, however, are very good for knitting. Very.
Now of course, if you started weaving, you could use the singles, without any plying to muddy your colors. Just another option… :>
Syne
I would just like to thank y’all for the spooky skull imagery. I really was trying to give up sleep anyway, given how much knitting I must do before I am followed by the man with the hook on his foot or the empty shoes or whatever. Seriously. Thanks.
–Barb
When we moved to Melbourne my partner kept waiting for the rain to stop before he’d go out and do stuff – like ride his bike to work. I eventually had to point out the sheer futility of such philosophy. In Melbourne it seems to rain, or threaten to, non-stop for 4 months. Either you just get out and do stuff and ignore being damp or you go nuts indoors for a week. My poor lad had grown up with tropical downpours that behaved far more mannerly – like someone turning on and off a tap at about the same time every day.
I always figure if it’s gonna rain, it ought to rain – drizzle doesn’t count. (Though I haven’t minded the reprive from the temperatures and the humidity).
I hate the rain too. At least, on days when I have to drag my 3 kids through it! On a lazy Sunday afternoon, it’s all good 🙂
STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT! I can’t take it any more. Stop with the beautiful fiber and the amazing spinning and the dratted spinning wheels. I will not not not start spinning no matter how you tempt me. I just cannot start another addiction. (sniffle) Please, just have mercy, okay? Don’t force me to delete your blog from my list of soul-food.
Drat it all anyway. (sniffle) (i am so weak) (sniffle) (and shamed by it)
Lovely roving, Steph.
I’m in the I love rain category, although I did enjoy the sun today in Seattle. I had to wait until 7:30 this evening to do any gardening, though, because it was too darn hot. At least I had afternoon time to fix the boo-boo in my sock and get it back on the needles.
Yipes, the sprinkler is still on. Wish it would rain .
Steph, keeping raindrops out of your glasses is a totally valid reason to wear a cowboy hat. We all know how good you look in a cowboy hat.
I am originally from the Southern U.S., with all of its humidity and thunder and lightening and, well, weather. When I moved to central California years ago, someone told us that this area is “boringly beautiful” and we just laughed. After nearly 14 years, I can attest to “boringly beautiful”. From the first part of May until late September, every day is sunny and dry and hot. And I don’t mean this as in “a general rule”…I mean every freakin’ stupid boring day is clear and hot and dry and BORING. Even my sister-in-law, who hates the rain and was so happy about the weather when she moved here three years ago…even she longs for a rainy day now.
Basically, not only am I apparently unsympathetic to your weather woes, I am also down right green with envy.
Also, I am endless thankful for your vanilla sock recipe. (As a side note…)
i hate rainy days, too. i don’t have the same transportation issues (i just like having the sunroof in my minivan open as much as possible), but it’s just annoying. it’s darker (i’m a light junkie) and the boys get out of sorts (they’re 12 & 14, which means they tend to beat on each other, then come whinging to me “mom, he hit me!”), and i have no urge to do anything beyond curling up in my comforter and reading. ugh.
i, on the other hand, have to navajo-ply at top speed, or it ends up underplied. in fact, i go so fast that if i don’t take breaks, my calves start to revolt (picket signs & everything!). i can g o for an hour or so. i just navajo plied my spunky eclectic fiber club roving, and it’s delicious!
I like the rain. Even it it does make my curls go all funky, and my legs get wet, and my socks get soggy, and even if everybody in California does forget how to drive. I still like rain. I once experienced a moment of perfect bliss, sitting with my giganto mug of coffee, and listening to the rain on the roof. Rain is good. Keep on purlin’.
Oh man – don’t move to Portland, then. Except our summers get dry and warm. 90-something today, for instance, means 100+ temps in August. Gack. And places don’t get built with AC automatically installed, except ritzy ones. You want AC, you’ve got to buy it. Wanna trade my convection oven apartment’s heat for your rain? I hate hot, sunny weather, it depresses me and makes me sick and gives me headaches when I go outside. I sleep summers away as much as possible, and only wake up in fall. Gimme lovely cool, wet Oregon mist, drizzle, showers, steady rain, or a downpour blowing sideways any day. Even if I *did* forget my umbrella. And wear glasses. 😉
Oh rain! We need rain! Rain would be so wonderful, so amazing…we need rain!
I’m with you. I hate the rain!!! I don’t like thunderstorms either. The thunder and lightening have scared me since I was a little girl. Trust me, that’s a very long time. I have an idea that I have said over and over again. I know we need the rain. I know it’s been very dry. How about if it rains at night when we’re asleep and is nice during the day? Sorry to all those who have to work nights. I know they won’t like that idea much at all. Since we don’t have a choice, at least it was only one day. It looks sunny in TO this morning.
I hear you about the rain. And thank you for yet another warm fuzzy. My dad used to say he must have been a cat in a previous life, too. For exactly the same reason. Getting wet, other than by his own volition was totally unacceptable.
But, like all the nice pro-rain folks up above have pointed out, the plants need the wet stuff. Even if it makes us feel like we’ll never be dry again. Ooh! Did you say mohair?! 8-D
Ah the topic of rain, and like Stephanie, I really don’t like rain. When we lived in Ulcluelet (West Coast of Vancouver Island) for 7 years…the average rainfall a year was, get this 10 FEET. Yes the rain started to fall somewhere around late September and didn’t let up until May!!! Our solution to this was to move to Calgary where I have appreciated every Big Blue Sky day we’ve had over the past 9 years. And now my husband, 3 children, myself and my knitting needles are moving to Ottawa. I wonder what the average rainfall is in Ottawa???? Cynthia PS I’m looking for a really good car-traveling knitting project to get me through our 3500 km cross crountry (“are we there yet”)trek to Ottawa.
We enjoyed a wonderful 4th of July BBQ. We’re so far out in the boonies fireworks weren’t an issue. I love July 4th like you love Canada day.
I wear Birkies, flip-flops & sandals year round. A little rain is good for the toes. Be brave!
By the way, the roving is to die for! I gotta try this spinning thing.
Well I am happy that it is raining in Pittsburgh today. My grass is dry as a bone. The rains we have had this summer have been hard and quick and don’t do anything for the grass or the flowers. I went to bed to the sound of fireworks and woke up to the sound of thunder.. Love that sound.
Had a vistiter, this week from BC Canada, and managed to turn him onto your blog. Funny because he had just explained the Term thing to me and you wrote about it. He was a semi muggle about the sock thing and all, TILL he got his own hand knit socks.. So I think its funny that a Canadian had to come to Pittsburgh to get hand knit socks. (Now maybe he will bring me wool on his next visit)
I think Canada should make you an official Ambassador You do such a good job of promoting it.
Do you have to go out for groceries in the rain? If you have 3 healthy, unoccupied daughters at home? Just a thought.
Make yourself some nice warm socks for the next time it rains!
It rained here too, but it meant no fools lighting themselves on fire from not knowing how to use fireworks…
In Tulsa, OK – it has rained for some ungodly number of days in a row – DH says it reminds him of Korea’s rainy season. Lots of flooding in Coffeyville, KS and Bartlesville, OK, and other areas in NE Oklahoma. Seriously – a little wet is OK, but floods are bad!
It’s rainy here today – I think the weather definately impacts startitis. Decided today was perfect weather (overcast, drizzly, muggy) for spinning and bathroom cleaning. I think startitis goes away with sunny beautiful weather.
Just went over to see the shawl that Mamacate made . HOLY !!!! Now that would get rid of staritis for sure . It is marvelous and it wouldn’t take you long to make that up Stephanie. Almost as nice as the one you made.
Tell me about it! 18″ in 2 weeks is no fun! And the kicker here? We’re under sever drought conditions. Tell that to my leaky roof.
Having lived in the Seattle area for 30 of my 37 years I don’t really mind the rain. That being said, though, I must admit that I don’t own any open toed shoes. 🙂
Weather Math:
Rain + Rain = Happy Farmer
Happy Farmer x Garden veggies = $$$
Happy Farmer + $$$ = Yarn
Happy Farmer + Yarn = Socks, sometimes others…
Rain + (Happy Farmer – Socks) = The best zen gardening ever.
I’m not wild about the rain either, Steph, especially since it has rained here almost every day for the last month and the flooding in my little town has been scary.
Can anyone send me a source to buy the Grafton batts? I’ve looked online, and checked the sources on the Grafton site, but can’t find them and since N TX isn’t the fiber capital of the world, I don’t have many opps to fiber shop in person!
I like rainy days when I’m working, I work for a tree care service and when it’s rainy, the phones are dead and I get to knit a lot at work. Now mind you, our guys still work in the rain, but don’t tell our customers that.
P.S. Every day I tell your blog to, yes, please remember my personal info, and every day it forgets me…on at least 4 different computers. Do any other commenters have this dilemma?
no rain here in san francisco, but that’s a beautiful batt for a rainy day – subtle rosy colors always seem so magical in cloud-reflected light. Thank you for continuing to inspire us with lovely projects! 🙂
-Nicola
(not so sadly blogless – it means more time for knitting/spinning!)
But T.O. has a watering ban! We need all the rain we can get. My mom has been saving bowls of water in the sink whenever we do the dishes and pouring it out on the flowers. They all smell like bacon. Mmmmmm… Bacon flowers…
I am one of those folks who you don’t understand. I love the rain, mainly because when I was little, rainy days meant staying in with my mother, having grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup, and doing any number of wonderful, indoor things (reading, watching her quilt or sew, playing scrabble against her – normal things for a six year old to be enamored of, right?).
Now, rainy days are the perfect excuse to ignore the world and knit, read, and curl up. 🙂
It’s really nice on rainy days from this angle.
Arrrrgh – I hear you on the rain. It rained nearly the entire month of June here in Dallas, TX and so far, I do believe it has rained every day this month. I know I will yearn for the rain when its 105 in August, but I oh so much want the rain to go far, far away!
Trade you. I’ll take your rainy summer days, and you can have months of endless sunshine, dry hills, and a season more known for its fires than the heat. Really. Fire season. It’s going to be a bad one this year, too, because of the severe rain shortage last winter. Yup. I’d be happy to trade you. I’ll take a walk in the rain, make cocoa, curl up in front of a fire in the fireplace, wear sandals and get my feet wet, and I’ll giggle and coo all day, because I love rain. I love green grasses on the hills. And the lovely, life-giving wet stuff that falls from the sky.
I love rain. Especially when my mom volunteers to take the kids and I can get lots done.
The startitis here has been really really bad here lately. I’ve hidden all my “good” yarn which normally sits in my basket by my chair is hidden in giant ziplock bags behind the chair so I don’t start anything until my mother’s sweater is done. But I got out a skein and wound a ball of the gorgeous mohair I dyed last month…
I’m just petting it… I swear…
I was definitely a cat in a previous life. Can you say “Pleasure Being?” Selfish about comfort without apology, they are. I can feel guilty or not, depending on the circumstances.
Rain? We went camping with Brian’s family (that tells you how much I love this man… I did not camp for 15 years and was very happy, thank you very much).
Um. It rained over 2 inches! Even 1 inch is bad but two? We slept in the car and when the air got so thick we couldn’t breathe, we had to open the windows for a while and let the rain in so that we could get a little oxygen.
At least we got to see his two out-of-state sisters and their men. If they hadn’t been there I would have been all set to just drive home and forget it all!
I did finish a pair of socks while we were camping. At least one thing went well!!!
The crosslegged wet arse thing is the worst bit about the rain.
Have to admit, I am a rain lover – which is really good considering I live on the West Coast.
And you’re right – it is excellent for the garden.
We have had a few days of sun, and since I live on the Pacific West Coast I usually find I am better at getting things done during the rain. Which is good. We get lots. 🙂
LOVELY shots of yummy yarn!
~gyl
Sorry this comment is so late, but I was in Watertown, NY on July 4, and if it makes you feel better, it rained there all day too.
So, instead of moping all day, I tried to teach my kids to knit (6 and almost 3). It didn’t work.