Zig, baby, Zig

My last design idea for fall is all done and photos are up and everything's listed on Etsy. I have to admit I'm outrageously proud of this one:
It was a pain in the neck to work out the math and the construction on this one, but I knew exactly what I wanted and this came out exactly like it was in my head. I'm in love with the yarn I used and the colors and the length and the way the zigzags look next to each other. I'm so pleased.

We took the photos a couple of weeks ago, which meant I again ran into the conundrum of shooting Fall things in what was clearly not even close to Fall weather or scenery. We found this spot right next to Rock Creek, under a stone bridge, and Aaron of course worked his photo magic, and I think everything looks great.

Now I'm working constantly and obsessively on my Winter things. I'm really excited to show those off too.

P.S. I'm about halfway through working up a pattern/tutorial for this scarf, so if you're a crocheter, stay tuned! :)

Belle Isle

I finally got all of my pictures from England edited, resized, edited some more, and uploaded to Flickr. It only took me two months! I put up a LOT of pictures but it was honestly only a quarter of the pictures I took, which is quite an achievement. My pictures are like my babies; no matter how unremarkable they are I want everyone in the whole world to look at them and marvel. So it's pretty hard for me to exclude any.

Here is one of my favorites:
Aaron tried to convince me to cut out all of the "pictures of pretty houses" because he said they had nothing to do with our trip and didn't really tell a story. I told him to shove it, basically, because when I close my eyes and think "England" the image that almost invariably comes to mind is pretty white cottages with thatched roofs and flowers surrounded by impossible shades of green. I was so thrilled to find out that England really looks like that. So there. It's part of MY trip story at least.

England also looks like this:

(muddy, muddy music festival)

And this:

(off Brick Lane, London)

And this:

(Tate Modern, across the Thames)

I wouldn't want to live there maybe, but looking at the pictures sure makes me want to go back there immediately (or maybe when the weather warms up.)

Now I'm off to warm my hands around a hot mug of Earl Grey tea. Pippip. Cheerio.

(rest of pictures can be found here)

To market, to market

On Sunday I had my very first, real-life, honest-to-goodness selling day. I've never done a show or a fair before and I've been working for almost a year and a half making enough things to be able to have a little space in the flea market at Eastern Market. If you live in the DC area you've probably heard of this; it's the name for both a really beautiful neighborhood around Capitol Hill and the "market" itself, which happens every weekend and literally has sellers of everything you could possibly imagine: antiques, furniture, thrifted clothes, books, crafts, jewelry, African and Tibetan art imports, original paintings and photography, fruit and veggies, etc. etc. etc. And on Sunday, there was even this:

I was so insanely proud of my little booth. Aaron worked for hours the night before on that sign, and both of us stayed up way too late making price tags, packing everything up, etc. But it was so much fun.

I'm going to have two more days there: October 26 and November 2. If you live in the DC area, come by and say hi!!

a better Monday

A couple of weeks ago I suddenly realized that my weekends in Fall were almost totally booked, but I hadn't made time for camping in the mountains, which is an autumn must for me. So I ditched work one day and spent Sunday and Monday here:

with these guys:

We saw more deer than I could count:

We also ran into a full-grown black bear in the woods in the dark on the trail back to our tent:
{image unavailable due to I was walking too fast in the opposite direction and forget to take out my camera}

For breakfast we had sausages slow-roasted over charcoal and Graham crackers with apple butter I had bought for a little roadside stand on the way out (and homemade apple cider from the same stand):

(Aaron is so proud of the new camp sporks we bought just for the occasion.)

We hiked, just a teensy bit:

And took our sweet time getting back into the city. We stopped at a diner on the highway that we always see and I've always wanted to try:

(the Double Cheeseburger was good, the milkshake was okay, but Jared tells me the buffalo burger is definitely NOT worth the money.)

It's almost Fall in Shenandoah. Probably next weekend will be breathtaking:

It's not like I'm having a particularly bad Monday right now. It's just that, how can you beat that?