Rodent Infestation

This is slightly more than half of the mice I've made for Rhinebeck. David took the 17 I'd managed to stuff previously when he left this afternoon. When I sat down to stuff these 19 tonight, I realized that I had forgotten to pack my tapestry needles for sewing them closed. Because I work in a place where surgeries are performed, though, finding substitute needles was not really a problem. There are a couple of things about suture needles, however, that make them a tad problematic by comparison.

1. Because suture needles are made to go through skin, they generally have much smaller eyes than tapestry needles to minimize drag. And because yarn singles are generally thicker than suture material, this makes threading a wee bit more challenging. Fortunately, I do not yet have problems with presbyopia.

2. Because suture needles are made to go through skin, they are quite sharp and, well, tend to go through skin. At least I managed not to bleed on any of the mice.

So I will have three dozen catnip mice to sell this weekend, which is ten more than I had last year. It's not quite the 50 I had hoped to get made, and not quite enough for me to be able to buy a Hitchhiker, but I may break down and fork over the extra money to buy myself one anyway. I do like my Ashford Traveller a lot, but I'd like something that can travel even more readily. On slow nights at work, I could probably get an awful lot of spinning done. So if you care to help me make this a reality, please buy one of my mice. Your cat and I will thank you.

Road to Rhinebeck

As I've mentioned, David has already left so that he can spend all day tomorrow setting up our booth. I managed to switch around my schedule to have Saturday off, but I couldn't really get out of tonight, so in about 11 hours I will be riding down with my friend Kit and her son, Jesse. They'll be dropping me off on their way to Kit's parents' home a bit further south, and Kit will come back to the festival Saturday while Jesse visits his grandparents.

It turns out that Ted and Lars will be staying in the same hotel as David & myself. I'm very glad Ted is able to make it down and am very much looking forward to meeting him in person. He should be getting into town around the same time I do, so I'm hoping perhaps to be able to meet up for dinner.

Much as I expected, I was not able to get to the DIY kilt at all, so I will not be wearing that. I will, however, be wearing the Utilikilt, thanks to the timely arrival of the belt. The belt is particularly necessary these days, as I've lost 20 pounds since I ordered the kilt and I just don't have quite as much to hold it on my hips now. Not that I'm complaining.

One last thing: Franklin may not be able to make it to Rhinebeck this weekend, but Dolores will be at our booth in all her voluptuous glory. So please do come by and have your picture taken with her, so we can show him how much he's missed.